Managing difficult topics

Arbitration report

Managing difficult topics

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By Bri

New case

How do we discuss Werner Goldberg, not your usual Wehrmacht "hero"?

German war effort: Case opened on 22:45, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Has an attempt to prevent historical revisionism become a content battleground? K.e.coffman, one of the involved parties, is the author of the op-ed "World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia" in last month's issue of Signpost.

At 00:26, 25 April 2018 DGG's vote to accept became the fifth vote of nine, constituting a majority of Arbitrators accepting the case. These words of Opabinia regalis, quoted often in recent arbitration reports, are clear and informative: "allegations of subtle POV-pushing in hot-button topic areas is one of those that benefits most from a careful inquiry taking place at a measured pace in a structured environment". Comments from Arbs suggests the matter will be considered as behavior-centric, keeping content at arm's length; and will widen to editing on WWII topics in general, not just Clean Wehrmacht.

By May 11, the arbitrators' votes stood at 9/1/0, indicating consensus to open a case.

In response to multiple requests for status update on the unusually long period of time to open a case, with by one commenter calling the Requests for arbitration department a "ghost town", arbitrator Euryalus said on May 14 "there's a slow-moving discussion on scope happening on the mailing list; I've advanced a point of view and a proposal to outsource the content component of the case and then just look at any underlying conduct issues, but I'm in a small minority as evidenced by my lonely "decline" vote in saying the same thing on the case request page. There are suggestions from several arbs to simply get on with it via a regular case, which also seems like good advice given the passage of time."

Upon opening the case, clerk L235 commented: "The Arbitration Committee has not decided on a specific scope – instead, the Committee has decided to take a broad view of the dispute" (emphasis added).

Since 19 May, arbs have commented on the evidence talkpage.

Does WP:SOCKING trump BLP or vice-versa? Or is there a third way?

New requests

Questionable BLP reverts by blocked editors
Withdrawn by filing party 4 May 2018 diff

Formerly titled "BLP reverts by blocked editors", the central question of the request is whether WP:BLP trumps WP:SOCKING, i.e. can "good reverts by socks" (as stated by Opabinia) be left as-is? Or should they be reverted per policy? The request was voted down by Arbcom 0/6/0, then withdrawn. A workaround was enunciated by Black Kite and endorsed by the committee: "revert it [the sock] and then re-revert to take responsibility for it myself".

I am not being allowed to contribute from genuine sources
Declined as obviously premature 1 May 2018 diff

Brought by an editor who started contributing on 18 March 2018 and received a tban on caste-related articles under the South Asian social groups discretionary sanctions. Declined by clerk.

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24 May 2018 (all comments)

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Good article as always, and thanks for wading through the Arbcom minutiae to highlight the main points. In passing, much as I like the mind-meld idea there have actually been a fair few updates to the "German War Effort" case since 19 May. Further evidence and/or commentary welcome at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German_war_effort/Evidence -- Euryalus (talk) 07:14, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Euryalus, I should have said "no updates from Arbcom members", but before I do is this correct? I looked closely and ignoring an errant click by RickinBaltimore, saw no contribs on Evidence nor Proposed remedies. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Apologies that the following delves into the weird arcana of arbitrator engagement with case pages, and apologies also if I'm passing on things that are already well-known.

Arbs don't usually comment directly on the /Evidence page. It's principally for editors to bring forward the building blocks of the dispute, and to highlight with diffs where they see the issue occurring. Where arbitrators are expected to publicly engage with the evidence is on the /Evidence talkpage here. It's mostly procedural re word limits and transparency issues - rebuttal and in-depth questioning is usually held over to the Workshop. However since the case opened around half the active Committee have commented on different aspects, which is what I was reflecting in my comment above.

Once the /Evidence phase closes, anyone is welcome to propose possible remedies at the /Workshop. It's generally expected that arbitrators will offer views on proposals that get listed there, and its good practice for at least the arbs drafting the case to also post their own proposals for discussion. In some cases the workshop is shamefully under-utilised by the Committee - here, for example. The workshop for this case is technically open, but it won't get properly busy until /Evidence closes.

After the /Workshop closes, the case drafters compile a proposed remedy and post it on the PD page. This is an arbitrator-only space, though community comments are welcome on the associated talk page. There'll be nothing at all here until this phase commences, unless for some reason we decide to close the case by motion ahead of time (won't happen here, just mentioning it as a hypothetical).

That's the long answer, the short one is the current arb engagement is at the /Evidence talkpage, which is where it probably should be at this point. And as always, everyone very welcome to stop by and post evidence in this dispute. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Silly article. Doesn't say what the whole fuss is about. Runs a photo of a German soldier with no indication who he is. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 07:44, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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