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Request for clarification (September 2013)[edit]

Original discussion
The Committee clarified that discretionary sanctions were authorised for articles dealing with transgender issues and for articles dealing with paraphilia classification. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:21, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Sceptre (talk) at 18:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:


Statement by Sceptre[edit]

Remedy 4.1 of Sexology, "Discretionary Sanctions", states that discretionary sanctions may be authorised "for all articles dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification". This is mostly a set theory/syntactical question: does the remedy refer to the intersection of the categories, or the union of the categories? My view of it was the former, but Penwhale believes it applies to the latter. It may be prudent for the Committee to state what its intent was. Sceptre (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Collect[edit]

In sanctions, the word "and" generally refers to the union of the topics mentioned. Collect (talk) 18:30, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Penwhale[edit]

First things first: I have added the names of the 4 editors I notified of the Sexology DS and have notified them of this discussion (as they're directly affected by this request). Now that's out of the way: That wording really is not the best thing in the world. (As Sceptre pointed out, it creates different interpretations.) The thing is that the intersection of the two clauses... In fact, I'm having trouble pointing out the intersection of the clauses, because I believe that such intersection would cover a very limited set of articles that the committee would have named those articles directly in the remedy. - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 22:55, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daira Hopwood[edit]

First, let me state that the category of paraphilias is a rag-bag of things that were at one time considered weird or bad by privileged cisgender psychiatrists blinkered to their own prejudices -- including but not limited to:

  • engaging in common and harmless human sexual behaviours such as masturbation using a dildo or vibrator, or finding it kinky to cross-dress;
  • propensity to commit, or history of committing criminal acts such as rape and sexual abuse of children;
  • having a trans* gender identity.

Of course no reasonable person would consider these to have anything to do with one another.

[Aside: well, okay, maybe there's a somewhat larger than coincidental overlap between the trans* and kink/fetish communities. But for people who are kinky and trans, it's not being trans that is their kink, if you see what I mean ;-)]

See here for links to explanations of how deeply problematic the whole idea is and how it interferes with clear thought about any of the things it refers to, including this strongly argued and well-supported proposal to remove the "severely flawed" category of paraphilias from psychiatric diagnostic manuals.

It is therefore somewhat problematic to have an arbitration case that purports to be covering all of these things that have nothing to do with each other, especially if no-one is sure whether it's supposed to be a union or an intersection.

It's also problematic to add people retrospectively,

  • to a case they have had no input into, would probably have disagreed with the entire premise of, and that is entirely unrelated to the present discussion about WP:AT, WP:BLP, MOS:IDENTITY etc.;
  • especially if it is disproportionately trans* people and allies who are added;
  • and if they are added as a consequence of calling out transphobia in a debate triggered by widespread public criticism of Wikipedia policies that particularly affect trans* people.

--Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 06:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf[edit]

While "paraphilia" might not be the most sensitive term in all situations, it is a term that is used in sexology (read the original case for evidence of this). The arbitration committee are not making a value judgement about anything. Whether it is a useful classification, or whether any particular activity should or should not be classified as a paraphilia are irrelevant.

t may also include: In more expansive language I believe that the scope should be interpreted as applying to: All articles dealing with

  • Issues relating to the topic of transgenderness; and/or
  • Issues relating to transgender people; and/or
  • The classification of activities as paraphilias; and/or
  • the classification of a specific activity as a paraphilia; and/or
  • The classification "paraphilia".

I am not sure whether it also includes

  • Activities classed as paraphilias.
  • Individuals who engage in activities classed as paraphilias

My gut feeling is that the first of these two bullets is probably included but the second is not. Clarification would be welcome. Thryduulf (talk) 09:55, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Semantic musing by NE Ent[edit]

And is inherently semantically ambiguous and requires English speakers to infer meaning from context. For example, the narrator of Rainy Days and Mondays would clearly be sad on a Friday with precipitation or a sunny 23 September 2013, whereas the predicate of If You're Happy and You Know It clearly implies that joyous children lacking self awareness would not be clapping. Suggest using or where intent is union and the both .. and construct where the committee wishes to specify intersection. NE Ent 09:44, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}[edit]

Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]

  • In my opinion, Penwale's construction of the clause is the correct one. Salvio Let's talk about it! 19:03, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Thryduulf: in general, I'd say that articles about individuals who engage in activities classed as paraphilias are usually not covered by the the current wording of the remedy, though I add the usual caveat that discretionary sanctions can be applied on the basis of the contents of the specific edit (which means that, in theory, there may be a case where an edit to the biography of a person who engages in those activities can be sanctioned pursuant to this provision, although, personally, I'd probably prefer invoking WP:BLPBAN). Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:36, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with Penwhale, Collect and Salvio. NW (Talk) 19:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Thryduulf: Yes to all, including the last one if it is a significant point of their notability and/or the point of dispute in an article. As an analogy, a couple months ago, I wrote that the only thing that WP:ARBPIA applies to in the Syrian Civil War article only where the article talks about incursions with the Israelis near the Golan Heights. NW (Talk) 02:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • And I agree with NW. Courcelles 22:30, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If in doubt assume the greater rather than the lesser. And preferably avoid inappropriate behaviour on any article, especially after being warned or advised that such behaviour is unwelcome. The community and ArbCom would tend to support an admin who applied sanctions where the behaviour was clearly inappropriate even if there was some doubt regarding if the article were under DS; but - conversely - there would be some concern if an admin applied sanctions for edits on an article which was clearly under DS but there was some doubt if the user was behaving inappropriately. It's the inappropriate behaviour we wish to eliminate, not the general editing of a topic - and editors should not feel inhibited from editing in a topic area that's under DS. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Sexology[edit]

Original Request here

declined as not in scope --S Philbrick(Talk) 15:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} at 20:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:


Statement by EvergreenFir[edit]

There have been on-and-off discussions on Talk:Radical feminism since April 2014 regarding the acronym "TERF" (which stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminists"). Specifically there is disagreement whether or not the term should be considered a slur and thus not used on talk pages in any other context other than the acronym itself or its use by others vis-a-vis the content of the article. Carolmooredc first posted about it on the RadFem article and on WP:XX in April of this year asking users not to use it. Since then there have been various conversations about it here, here, and here. Most recent discussion (seen in the last two links in the previous sentence) has been around asking the ARBCOM to clarify if this acronym constitutes a slur and would thus be under the purview of the Sexology decision regarding transgender issues.

For clarity, it is my personal view that the acronym does not constitute a slur as it is only viewed as such by those it refers to. It is not the same as other widely recognized slurs such as this and this. I have described my views more clearly in the linked talk page discussions above.

This is my first time at ARBCOM so I apologize if any of this is improperly formatted or otherwise incorrect.

Statement by Tutelary[edit]

Hello. This is also my first arbitration case request so please bare with me if I am not keen on all of the formatting and the rules. But, in my view, this dispute is stemming from the fact that one or two editors feel the need to attribute TERF as a slur. I do not share this view, because it's the exact opposite of a slur. It's an acronym describing a subset of Radical feminism that do not accept trans* folk at all. The reasoning on how this is a slur also baffles me. The fact that some people use it in threatening emails? Well, if we attribute that to being a slur, then we'd also open our doors to everything be a slur, because threatening emails will be threatening regardless of the terminology used. We also don't generally involve ourselves into off wiki disputes. It is of point that it is a useful term to describe the group of radical feminists who don't support trans people. That's all it's being used for on the talk, and that's all it will ever be used for it. It falls incredibly short of being a slur anyways, like Evergreen pointed out the two examples; 'nigger' and 'tranny'. Those terms are made to inflame and insult, this one is made to describe a group and their general POV; like Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. I feel that Arbitration clarification request is the acceptable method for clarification because otherwise it's just 'X says its a slur' and 'Y says that it isn't' and generally gets all muddy and filthy. A clarification would be greatly appreciated. Tutelary (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by olive[edit]

This is a behaviour issue but solutions may be dependent on whether the acronym is a slur. Both can be decided by the community in general. If something makes another editor feel uncomfortable then I do wish that we drop it, a very easy way to avoid hurt and contention. Doing so seems to be the deeper sense of what civility is. Not an arbcom issue.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Statement by TParis[edit]

As I said in the Manning naming dispute Arbcom case, whether something is a slur or not depends on the CONTEXT it is used in - and I'm not sure I can emphasize that enough. We need to quit acting like children on here with no concept of dimension and a two sided construct of language. A word cannot be offensive or nonoffensive. How the word is used can be. That's what matters. Each case must be evaluated on it's individual merits. If someone says "From the TERF perspective, blah blah blah etc etc etc" then that would not be an offensive word. If someone said "The fuck do we care what you think, TERF?" That's offensive. It's simple. CONTEXT!--v/r - TP 22:08, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom case not needed - only clue and maturity are required here.

Statement by SPECIFICO[edit]

The word refers to a well defined, real-world phenomenon, and it is appropriately-sourced. The talk page controversy arose when one editor vowed to go immediately to Arbcom. This seemed to imply a threat of sanctions against editors who did not accede to her insistence that the word was used as a slur and her demand that it be removed from the article. SPECIFICO talk 23:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen any editor use the word to describe or address another editor on WP. We're discussing article content only. Any reference to personal attacks should be supported by a link, otherwise let's not confuse things with red herrings and straw women arguments. SPECIFICO talk 01:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carolmooredc[edit]

Given the Sexology and Bradley Manning arbitrations, I was seeking clarification on what to do about this issue at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests#Not_sure_if_clarification_or_enforcement_issue. (Note: Issue being loose use of it on the web page to refer to specific individuals or groups of radical feminists in an obviously negative fashion, or any potential use against other editors; removing properly sourced information on the term has not been an issue.) Advice there to bring it to ANI seems sensible. I think an intelligent discussion of the WP:RS calling it a slur and a dozen or so examples of how the term is used to insult and threaten women, if shared at WP:ANI, would clarify the issue for the community. However, if it does seem that this issue belongs here, that information can be shared here. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:07, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering what is happening with this clarification. I just saw this revert with the edit summary "Hungerford is a prominent radfem and terf)" and the relevant sentence was "The term is considered a slur by those at whom it is directed, such as Elizabeth Hungerford." Because some arbitrators here seemed to think it only should not be used against editors, perhaps the editor here thought it was OK to use against living persons, including those who have received threats which often use that term. FYI, Hungerford writes about being "gender critical."[11][12] So some real clarification here needed. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, here are other refs calling TERF a slur or an insult (some mention the "gender critical" alternative description):
  • New Yorker “those at whom it is directed consider it a slur.” (This article and term mentioned at the Federalist.com.
  • Village Voice “a label the feminists consider a slur .”
  • American Conservative titles article: "Radical Feminism & The TERF War"
  • National Journal mentions that the female congressional staffer who recently vandalized Wikipedia's Laverne Cox article discussed her dislike of the TERF accusation.
  • Counterpunch: “Make no mistake, this is a slur. TERF is not meant to be explanatory, but insulting.”(2013)[13] and later described it as one of several “epithets”(2014)[14].
  • Bitch magazine describes a feminist who “considers a slur” the term TERF.
  • A few of the many personal sites where women discuss the term as being a slur and insult against feminists and women who don't support every jot and tittle of the transgender ideology: [15], [16], [17], [18].
If I see what I think are abuses of WP:BLP, even if no editors are abused, I can bring the issue to the appropriate forum. It's always an educational discussion. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cla68[edit]

According to this article in the Huffington Post, TERF refers to feminists who are transphobic or otherwise discriminate against trans-gender people. Thus, TERFs could arguably meet the definition of a hate group. So, the use of this term to refer to Wikipedia editors could very-well violate WP:NPA and it could violate WP:BLP to refer to a living person unless very robustly sourced. However, it does appear to be the term used in general for anti-trans feminists and thus can be used in that context in the applicable articles. Cla68 (talk) 00:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neotarf[edit]

After pursuing the meaning of this through the internet for better than an hour, I have come up with this explanation. Some individuals, who Arnold Schwarzenegger might term as "lady-boys", and who have male chromosomes and male genitals, want to use female toilets. Also women's sleeping areas and women's prisons. The reason for this is that they believe gender is social. They say anyone who does not agree with them is trying to deprive them of their rights, and is filled with "hate and exclusion". They loathe women almost as much as they loathe their own bodies, and as a result of believing they have become women, they spend a lot of time on "men's rights" forums trying to enforce strict gender roles and telling women how to act as women. I'm sure I have missed some nuance of this, and that someone will come by and set me straight on some of the detail, but this is definitely a thing. Anyone who resists strict gender roles is deemed a "terf", as in "kill terfs", which according to this New Yorker article, has become a common internet threat.

The two terms mentioned by the OP as being "widely recognized slurs" are no such thing [19][20], but we can certainly add all of these terms to those that do not belong on the talk pages of Wikipedia. That this term was used by an IP, and not a signed-in user, kind of speaks for itself.

@TParis: If someone says "From the TERF perspective, blah blah blah etc etc etc" then that would not be an offensive word. I'm just not buying it that (in a similar construction) it's okay to say "From the faggot perspective..." or "From the slut perspective..." as long as you don't say "Die, faggot" or "Die, slut". I'm just not buying it; this is offensive. At the very least, this is a gross misrepresentation of someone's views.
@Cla68: the Huffington piece cited is not a neutral "article" but a blog opinion piece by Kelsie Brynn Jones, a LGBT activist and movie producer.

Comment by Sceptre[edit]

This is an issue way out of any remit of the community or ArbCom, because it's off-wiki drama spilling in, basically, so we can't really make a decision that doesn't affect how we talk about content. That said, from a personal perspective, I tend to view with suspicion anyone who says the phrase "TERF is a slur", because the people who say that tend to have a demonstrable history of transphobia. For example, one of the people cited in the article, Elizabeth Hungerford, wrote a letter to the UN two years ago stating that legislative protections for trans people are "a violation of the human rights of women. What I've noticed, off-wiki, is that people who say the term is a slur never actually say why it's a slur. The term is more comparable to "Tory" or "liberal" than "nigger" or "tranny". On the question of content: transphobic radical feminism is a fringe view even of radical feminism, and anti-transgender perspectives should be given according weight. Sceptre (talk) 14:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}[edit]

Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]

  • I'll repeat what I wrote on the talk page. This isn't something ArbCom needs to deal with, in my opinion. If the term TERF is being used as a personal attack, then the person using it in that fashion may, depending on the circumstances, be sanctioned, but I have seen nothing proving that the community is not capable of dealing with this issue. Also, as far as I know, that the expression is a slur is not the current consensus. Dave Giuliano Let's talk about it! 20:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This really isn't an ArbCom decision, as it's too close to the "content". The community has the ability to make a decision on whether the term is a slur - and I believe TParis has rather got the point, context is key. If the intent is to use it as a slur, then the user should face consequences. If not and offence is being caused, at most a quiet word might be helpful. If the quiet word doesn't help, grit your teeth and move on, remember offence can only be taken, not given. WormTT(talk) 09:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my view, the crux of the problem is not the fact that an acronym is being used, but the use of characterizations such as "trans-exclusionary" and "radical," which may be problematic individually and doubly so in combination. Is there a way of saying what one wants to say without turning up the heat in this manner? I agree this is not an ArbCom matter in and of itself, but I must say that some of the user conduct that underlay the original Sexology case was among the worst I've seen in my 8 years on Wikipedia, and the whole subject goes to the heart of how many people perceive themselves and their identities—so I'd urge editors in this area to be especially sensitive to one another's feelings and perceptions, especially when this can be done without compromising straightforward communications. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think ArbCom can say "this term is offensive or a personal attack", because what constitutes a PA or incivility is as always a community norm ; my gut feeling is that if the term is contentious, it really shouldn't be used outside of where it is justified (i.e., in the encyclopedic coverage of what sources say on the main page, and in discussion of that content, not contributors, on talk pages.) I think that with the encyclopedia's general guidance on avoiding personal attacks and fostering a collaborative atmosphere using labels is not going to help our aims. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 12:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is not up to the Arbitration Committee to determine whether a specific term is offensive or not (thankfully—that would make for quite a case...) I agree with David that the best approach would be to avoid using contentious terms to refer to other editors, and editors should be cautious when using them in an encyclopedic context. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Broadly agreed with GorillaWarfare. It might be necessary to use terms that would normally be offensive when discussing encyclopedic content, but needlessly inflammatory language should be avoided when referring to other editors. Regardless, we can't make a list of words that it would always or never be appropriate to use; context always matters. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:06, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ArbCom are not subject experts, as my colleagues point out, so we are singularly unqualified to decide this request and I would therefore dismiss it without further action. The community are more than capable of deciding whether a given single phrase is or isn't a personal attack. AGK [•] 09:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Sexology (TParis)[edit]

Original Request here

declined as requiring no action--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by v/r - TP at 19:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive264#Request_warning_to_be_expunged

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by TParis[edit]

  • I would like to know if Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive264#Request_warning_to_be_expunged is a broad enough consensus to meet the threshold listed at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Appeals_and_modifications #2 requiring a consensus at the administrator's noticeboard ("AN") to have the decision by Sandstein to list me as sanctioned with a warning under this case overturned.--v/r - TP 19:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Sandstein: Righteo - I didn't feel comfortable calling a consensus of four editors a consensus that could uncontroversially overrule an Arbcom sanction/warning, even as an enforcement action and not as part of a case, and I wasn't prepared to argue that such a precedent should be set either way.--v/r - TP 20:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Arbcom: Regarding Sandstein's question of where to log violations of WP:AC/DS#Decorum, I am not at all opposed to being listed in a log if one were to be created for it specifically. I only oppose where it is logged currently.--v/r - TP 04:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Arbcom: Hey folks, I've already had an ANI thread stall on me, could we please get a resolution out of this?--v/r - TP 01:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein[edit]

The four editors who commented in that section supported TParis's appeal, which in most Wikipedia discussions would constitute a consensus in favor of their position. But I don't really have any basis on which to form an opinion one way or the other about whether they were uninvolved editors (for whichever meaning of "uninvolved" the Committee may have intended), or whether this relatively limited degree of participation constitutes the "clear and substantial consensus" of uninvolved participants required to sustain an appeal.

On the merits, despite the disagreement of these other editors, I remain of the view that an editor who misbehaves in an AE discussion concerning a topic covered by discretionary sanctions is, themselves, subject to the discretionary sanctions authorized for that topic area, and that the warning at issue (meant as the mildest possible sanction, and not to be confused with a no-longer-loggable alert) was therefore correctly logged.

Moreover, to the extent that the sanction was also in application of WP:AC/DS#Decorum, this case raises the question of whether and where sanctions authorized by that provision should be logged.

While I don't have strong feelings about any of these questions, some clarification with respect to any of them might be helpful for future cases.  Sandstein  19:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Salvio giuliano: I appreciate the feedback. In this case, though, I consider that my action was appropriate to the misconduct at issue. Indeed, a brief block might have been preferable, also in view of the fact that TParis is an administrator, about the conduct of which the community tends to have higher, not lower, expectations. Of course, such appreciations are a question of individual judgment and temperament, and it is therefore to be expected that different people will come to different conclusions. But the mere fact that my appreciation of the situation doesn't match yours doesn't mean that I didn't exercise my best judgment and common sense. If the ArbCom delegates discretionary sanctions authority to individual administrators, it must accept that they will come to conclusions that may differ from those of individual arbitrators in any given case. Otherwise you'd be better off doing the job yourselves.  Sandstein  15:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Newyorkbrad: If the Arbitration Committee concludes that TParis's appeal to AN was successful, or if the Committee itself undoes the warning on appeal, then I certainly accept that. But as I have said, I am of the view that the warning was appropriate. Therefore I don't quite understand what it is that you would like me to do.  Sandstein  13:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by EdJohnston[edit]

Arbcom, please don't create any new procedures or any new logs for decorum warnings. The existing ones are working. TParis has argued that the warning to him was logged in the wrong place, but I disagree. If there was to be a warning at all under WP:AC/DS#Decorum, surely it should be added to the log of whatever Arbcom case the complaint was brought under. In my opinion Arbcom should treat this request from TParis as though it was an arbitration enforcement appeal. On that basis, Arbcom has jurisdiction to grant the request if it wants to (without being worried that it is interfering with the closure of the AN thread he filed). Another way to handle this would have been for TParis to file an arbitration enforcement appeal at WP:AE. If that had been done, I'd probably vote to grant the appeal and remove the logged warning. EdJohnston (talk) 15:50, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Action by NE Ent[edit]

Per WP:IAR and the obvious trend here I've removed the warning on the sexology [21]. NE Ent 16:15, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate[edit]

Sandstein has been brought before ArbCom numerous times over the years for misguided and/or heavy-handed actions in areas subject to discretionary sanctions with this just being the latest incident. I think it would be nice if the Arbs would show some official displeasure with his conduct. At the very least he should be advised or instructed to be more judicious and respectful when carrying out his admin duties in this area. Perhaps you can include it in a motion to grant the appeal by TParis.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 20:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Sexology (TParis): Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]

  • I have reviewed the discussion on the noticeboard, including Sandstein's detailed comments there. On the substance of the request, while I understand Sandstein's technical points, on balance I fully agree with TParis that it is unreasonable and misleading for him to be listed as a DS-warned party under either the Manning decision and/or the Sexology decision. (This obviously doesn't mean I condone calling editors "morons," and I'm glad TParis understands that the term was inappropriate.) I also agree with TParis that the discussion on AN has reached a consensus in his favor on this issue. ¶ As a matter of DS procedure, the appeal-to-AN alternative would ordinarily call for assessment of consensus on the noticeboard itself by an uninvolved administrator, rather than by the Committee. However, due to a lull in the AN discussion it aged off the active AN board and into the archive, and I think it would be excessively wikibureaucratic to insist that the thread be pulled from the archive back onto AN so that an administrator can close it with the obvious result. ¶ With respect to Sandstein's inquiry concerning whether 4 editors is sufficient for consensus, I would say it depends on what is being discussed. If the subject of the discussion were a site-ban, participation by 4 editors would be woefully insufficient. In this instance, though, given the limited nature of the sanction and the fact that everyone who wanted to discuss it had an opportunity to do so, I believe there is sufficient basis for an outcome—particularly when the alternative would not be to declare the appeal unsuccessful, but to reopen the discussion in either the same or a different venue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:25, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that we don't need to create a new logging location; we should just drop the warning that was given, as being unnecessary. I would appreciate if Sandstein would just accept this outcome so we can close this request out, as otherwise, unnecessary additional time will be spent on what everyone seems to agree is a very minor matter. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, I agree with Sandstein that edits to an AE thread are covered by the underlying discretionary sanctions. However, and I find myself repeating this, the administrators manning the AE noticeboard need to use their best judgment and common sense when determing what the most appropriate course of action is in any given case. Here, TParis' use of the word "morons" was inappropriate; redacting the insult was a good idea as was leaving a note on his talk page, urging him to be more civil. What was an overreaction was making it a big deal, by logging the warning on the relevant case page like a discretionary sanction. After all, this was an isolated case of incivility and was not part of a pattern – at least, from my experience. Those who commented during the AN discussion reached the correct conclusion, in my opinion; and, while 4 people is a bit on the low side for these things, I agree with Brad that for the purpose of determining the number of people required to overturn a sanction, its severity should be taken into account (also, those commenting were, if I'm not mistaken, entirely uninvolved, which partly makes up for their small number). So, for all these reasons, I think the warning should be removed from the log. Also, in my personal capacity, I'd like renew my request to Sandstein to please be less heavy-handed in future and to first consider talking to the other editor as a person, instead of reaching immediately for his DS quiver. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • In light of the consensus on AN and that of the arbs who have commented, I have just removed the log entry. Unless one of my colleagues disagrees, I'd say this can be archived now. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:44, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I also don't endorse the "morons" comment, I agree with Salvio and Newyorkbrad. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think Sandstein's warning was within the letter of the proverbial law, I'm not sure it was an ideal course of actions, per those above. Removal from the log would likely be ideal. In this case although a block would also have likely been within the letter, I don't think it would bevery consistent with the general actions taken against users/administrators that use such language, especially because of his willingness to redact. NativeForeigner Talk 06:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought I wrote before, but clearly not. TParis, your comment was inappropriate - especially so in the forum it was written. It's hard enough to enforce arbitration decisions, without having to worry about decorum issues. That said, I don't believe it needed a formal warning and it certainly shouldn't be logged there. I don't see that the warning needed to be "logged" at all - in future, if an admin is being troublesome at AE, take to Arbcom - who can have a quiet word. At any rate, I believe the warning should be removed, and it appears that the community consensus (though of a small number of editors) agrees with that. WormTT(talk) 07:37, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems a strange interpretation, in any event, to call a warning a "sanction". I would therefore eliminate this sanction from the log in question, then close this request. AGK [•] 09:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notifications[edit]

The last two notifications are listed as warnings. I propose we strike through the word "warning" and replace with the word "notified" - since the community has decided that we do notifications not warnings. We should of course also add a note referring to this section. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC).

Hi Rich! Thanks for the thought but it's unnecessary. Last year's major revision of DS said that all warnings issued pre-May 2014 are to be treated as notifications/alerts and expire in May 2015. See the DS continuity provisions. They'll be deleted altogether after that.  Roger Davies talk 19:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Sexology (November 2017)[edit]

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Fæ at 15:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology#Discretionary_sanctions
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • Remove transgender issues, or separate transgender issues from paraphilia, as a discretionary sanction, should the evidence show that sanctions on trans articles are still required.

Statement by Fæ[edit]

The case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology was over four years ago. The committee seems overdue to revisit these topics of discretionary sanctions as they lump various modern, appropriate, and non-controversial LGBT+ articles with topics of "abnormal sexual desires". The template that is being used on recent articles of wide interest like Danica Roem, offensively lumps articles about trans people and trans issues with hebephilia. As I would hope Arbcom is sensitive to the difference between gender and sex, Arbcom's own rulings must make that difference clear, in order to avoid unintended downstream outcomes, like the template text "The Arbitration Committee has authorized uninvolved administrators to impose discretionary sanctions on users who edit pages related to transgender issues and paraphilia classification (e.g. hebephilia), including this article" which makes it seem that Arbcom and the Wikipedia community does not understand there is a difference between transgender and paraphilia topics in terms of controversy.

In the four years since the Sexology case, the Wikimedia project landscape and community understanding of LGBT+ topics has changed a lot. For example we now have a well established Wikimedia LGBT+ user group, who may be approached for suggestions if Arbcom would be helped by an independent user group view, Wikimedia has officially funded diversity events and LGBT+ editathons, Wikipedia policies have head-on tackled respectful treatment of trans related articles and biographies, and the quality and variety of LGBT+ related articles has significantly expanded to the public benefit.

I request that Arbcom formally recommend that the current implementation of the Sexology case (2013) is revised so that LGBT+ related articles are treated with respect and sensitivity, even if discretionary sanctions are in place and a template is needed. Further, and possibly within a longer timeframe, I request that Arbcom now review the evidence for Sexology case section 4.1 " Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification (e.g., hebephilia)" and if the evidence demonstrates that there is no reason to believe the topic of "transgender" is a battleground, to remove the topic of transgender, until a further case with recent evidence of this being a locus of persistent disruption is brought to the committee and a separate ruling may be made.

I confirm I have an interest in the Wikimedia LGBT+ user group as an active participant and at various times have represented LGBT+ interests at Wikimedia conferences, but this does not represent a conflict of interest and neither was I a party or participant in the case. --Fæ (talk) 15:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum WRT evidence - After writing this request, it was only after Newyorkbrad's comment that I realized that the Manning case was relevant. The statement in the Manning case added to the Sexology DS with "For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea/Bradley Manning." As a previous administrator I never enforced a DS, and so not thought to check the Arbcom enforcement log. The log shows that there have been three enforcements of the Sexology DS. All were related to the Chelsea Manning article discussions and the article move, and all are over four years ago. In Wikipedia terms, four years with no enforcement is a very long time, especially when the single locus of disruption requiring enforcement was one article, not transgender or paraphilia articles more generally. There is no evidence apart from opinion, that the Sexology DS have been effective or necessary on any articles apart from Chelsea Manning in the last four years, or that use of the {{controversial}} would not be as effective to minimize disruptive behaviour, as history appears to show for paraphilia articles. --Fæ (talk) 12:24, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing:, yes the template can be improved to be more respectful of LGBT+ articles as you suggest. It's a technical change that would not happen without Arbcom permission as it relies on an exact Arbcom statement.
However it remains sensible, and in my view necessary, for Arbcom to amend the original case wording as that wording reflects statements made during the case that incorrectly conflated sex and gender. Not only should the implementation of sanctions be respectful of LGBT+ people, but Arbcom members would probably agree, that they should be seen correctly to maintain the wording of old but active sanctions, to stay in line with current guidelines and best practice, such as MOS:GENDERID, MOS:GNL or Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines. Most editors contributing to LGBT+ topics, will understand that the current wording in the case is disrespectful for trans people. To avoid confusion, I use "trans" as a shorthand for transgender, non-binary and genderqueer. Hopefully as part of the evidence for this case, Arbcom will take note that the sanction as currently written does apply to all these interrelated queer gender topics but not heterosexuality or bisexuality.
A thoughtful review by Arbcom may take into account how strange it looks to the outside world like there is a fundamental presumption that, without needing any evidence basis or re-assessment, transsexuality and transgender articles must be handled as battlegrounds but not other sexuality or gender articles like lesbian, homosexuality or bisexuality, and oddly many paraphilia articles such as paedophilia, zoophilia or paraphilia have happily managed without this sanction being applied in the years after the original case, finding {{controversial}} sufficient.
Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Newyorkbrad: per suggestion, a minimal change to the template wording is at User:Fæ/sandboxG without implying any change to scope. Splitting the topic would make it easier to amend or withdraw the discretionary sanction on trans related articles, such as all related biographies, when the subject is no longer to be considered a battleground by default. --Fæ (talk) 10:52, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Umimmak: The list you gave is incomplete, probably due to the way the template is being used with varying syntax. [22] This regular expression search provides 26 matches, and even this search may not be every possibility. Double checking may be wise. Checking this list, there are no paraphilia articles using the template. All 26 matches are trans related subjects and of those 11 are biographies for transgender individuals, not all living. --Fæ (talk) 11:53, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: WRT separating the discretionary sanctions into areas. There are two areas. The two are as the wording at User:Fæ/sandboxG proposes, i.e. "transgender" and "paraphilia" articles. A comment by another editor suggested the topic of Sexology should be subject to discretionary sanctions, this was not included in the original authorized discretionary sanction, so Arbcom would have to make a ruling without examining any additional evidence to support the change. This would be a potential source of disruption as it would mean that any article including "science" about any type of sexuality would be subject to discretionary sanctions, for example Sex education, Women's history or Masculinity. I believe this would be a dangerous and unenforceable Arbcom ruling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fæ (talk • contribs) 14:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Callanecc: Thanks for making the suggestion of superseding with the equivalent GamerGate DS. Yes, agree this would be a good way of rescinding the Sexology DS. Reviewing the GamerGate case, the DS are not just equivalent but the way that the "Sanctions available" section is written is more helpful in encouraging administrators to try other remedies in the dispute resolution toolkit before resorting to DS. This can be read as encouraging the use of other templates and improving existing guidelines such as TRANS? to help all users understand how and why trans and non-binary biographies have specific guidelines which reflect publishing best practice. This approach would encourage avoiding automatic application of DS unless there is first some evidence of disruption. As an example, I created A.W. Peet last week, and the non-binary template seems sufficient to inform contributors without appearing threatening; so far there is no disruption, and I'd rather we keep to a presumption that these biographies can be maintained with a light hand and good faith.
As a side note based on the nature of GamerGate, LGBT+ interested users asking for advice or support with off-wiki channels like those created and maintained by the WM-LGBT+ user group are not part of a non-neutral shared agenda. Anyone with doubts is welcome to comment on the goals of the user group, or join those channels and help with positive discussion for the benefit of our projects. --Fæ (talk) 10:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by bluerasberry[edit]

  • Support Like the proposer I am a member of Wiki LGBT+ and I heard about this issue through the discussion list there. I do not know the scope of this problem but I can confirm that in the case of Danica Roem, a biography of a person currently prominent in the news, there is no reason for their talk page to have a notice about sex crimes. Somehow the ArbCom sanctions are having the result that typical biographies are getting a notice of regulation for some link to crime, which was never the intent of the original sanctions. I agree with Fae that amending the sanctions to distinguish LGBT issues from sex related crimes would address the problem. Typical LGBT+ related topics should not be the subject of sanctions, and instead, only the fringe controversial issues addressed by the original sanctions might be. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:27, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other people are sounding out saying that transgender topics should be under sanctions. That is fine with me, so long there are multiple templates, and the transgender template is separate from language about sex crimes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I got a comment in another channel that paraphilias are not sex crimes. This is accurate, but in this case, we are talking about paraphilias which either are sex crimes or otherwise activity with which no normal person wants to be labeled. Use distinct sanctions so that there is no appearance of associating a positive topic unnecessarily with a negative one. There is an old narrative that LGBT+ people are sexual predators against children and the bureaucratic process here has inadvertently made this association. No part of these discretionary sanctions make it necessary to indiscriminately post a notice linking LGBT+ topics and sex crimes on all sorts of LGBT+ themed articles. Just generally for ArbCom, if there is a sanction on a topic, do not add an addendum that sanctions apply "related to [whatever] and paraphilia classification (e.g. hebephilia)", even if some sex thing has some connection to the topic under sanctions as is often the case. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:14, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish[edit]

Alternative solution proposed: A different template. Either a) a general sexology DS template that doesn't get into specifics, or b) separate templates for paraphilias, for LGBTQI issues, and for sexology as a discipline, to forestall any further dispute and offense caused by them all being lumped together. They were correctly lumped in dealing with disruption about them, as having a similar base cause and nature, but they're not properly correlated in any other way.

Oppose the proposed original solution, because the TG-related articles are still subject to a lot of problematic editing, and the DS should remain. This requester's proposal would throw the dispute reduction baby out with the bad template wording bathwater.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  18:10, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To respond to Umimmak: Agreed with your general thrust but want to address two things: "these are all the articles with this tag" – there should be many more of them, namely all the articles in the affected categories. That still doesn't amount to much work and isn't an argument against splitting the templates more topically and applying the correct ones. "[I]t's strange that this tag has not been used on hebephilia or paraphilia despite those being mentioned in the wording; rather it seems to have been used nearly entirely on articles related to trans individuals or trans topics" – Yes, but this should simply be corrected. What's probably happened is that a) someone who cares bothered to do it for some high-profile TG articles, then stopped, b) no one bothered with the rest of the affected articles (in any category) when the case was new, and c) the paraphilia stuff hasn't aroused much controversy lately (though may well do so again, especially since many people disagree that paraphilia is really "a thing"; the DSM definitely changes over time, and the concept "paraphilia" lumps together various unrelated things that have different bio-psychological and social roots), so no one's been inspired to tag those articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  18:29, 12 November 2017 (UTC); copyedited: 16:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Fæ's comment about this having only TG and paraphilia scopes, not sexology in general (in response to my suggestion of a three-way split), I have no objection. I took it at face value that sexology was included, given that it's in the case title.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  16:14, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re: 'Do we want to copyedit for clarity by adding "(but is not limited to)" after "includes,"' – I would advise it. One of the most frequent forms of WP:WIKILAWYER / WP:GAMING behavior I encounter is stubborn pretense that "includes" language, or any series of examples, is exhaustive rather than illustrative. Encounter this near-daily in policy interpretation discussions at RM, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  21:44, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Umimmak's further clarification suggestion. Shut off every gaming/lawyering loophole we can predict, or people will drive wedges into them. The entire reason we have cases like this is wedge-driving to begin with, so don't leave exploitable cracks. This is one of those WP:Writing policy is hard things.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:28, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SarekOfVulcan[edit]

I agree with SMcCandlish's suggestion to split out three DS templates. It seems to me that that would fix the very annoying issue at hand without requiring substantive changes to the original case. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Funcrunch[edit]

I agree that transgender issues should not be lumped in with paraphilia issues in a DS notice. However, I feel strongly that transgender-related articles should remain under discretionary sanctions. I witness disruption on these articles constantly. Therefore I would support a separate DS notice specific to trans issues. Funcrunch (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DHeyward[edit]

As Fae mentioned above, gender and sexual preference are independent. Wouldn't it make sense to separate transgender templates from lesbian/gay/bisexual templates? Would a sexuality template and a gender template fix these issues? --DHeyward (talk) 13:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Umimmak[edit]

I was the editor who initially alerted WikiProject LGBT studies about this issue.

I'm not really convinced by the argument that it would be too much work by as claimed by Callanecc. From what I can tell, these are all the articles with this tag:

  • Bernard Kerik, which is tagged as |topic=pa for reasons unknown to me.

Note that none of these articles are about "paraphilia classification (e.g. hebephilia)"; aside from Kerik, all of these articles are about transgender individuals or topics.

None of the other "areas of conflict" are about such disjoint topics, so this one stands out. And even if you clarify that the topics are "clear it applies to both areas independently", there's no way to prevent it from affecting connotations and building on harmful stereotypes.

Umimmak (talk) 09:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re Callanecc's suggestion to just rewrite it to be entirely about trans topics, I would also hope the tag code would change from pa to something else if this is done to make it less opaque. (I remain neutral as to whether to remove or just rewrite.)
And thanks for catching my list was incomplete, Fæ; the search function still confuses me at times. The point still stands that, as you have pointed out, it's strange that this tag has not been used on hebephilia or paraphilia despite those being mentioned in the wording; rather it seems to have been used nearly entirely on articles related to trans individuals or trans topics.
Umimmak (talk) 12:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re SMcCandlish and Newyorkbrad's suggestions to explicitly clarify "included but not limited to", it might also be worth also explicitly mentioning non-binary or genderqueer individuals (as per how how Fæ grouped them together in their comment above)? Some people have a narrower definition of what it means to be trans and might object to DS being on those pages, but presumably the same sort of disruptive editing Funcrunch says is still very much present would arise on those pages as well? Though right now I see, that, the talk page for Asia Kate Dillon has the "(a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed" DS topic. And perhaps Template:MOS-NB is sufficient for such pages. I don't have a strong opinion but it might be worth discussing? Umimmak (talk) 22:03, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf[edit]

I think the best way forwards here is a two-step process. Step one being to replace the current DS authorisation and associated templates with ones covering the three separate areas which collectively cover the same scope as at present. If any topics fall into multiple areas then they can simply be noted as being covered by all that apply and any sanctions necessary can be applied under whichever is more appropriate to the individual circumstances (there is precedent for this - a few years ago the Operation Flavius article was covered by both The Troubles and Gibraltar DS areas, I placed a sanction under the former as that was most relevant to the specific disruption). If there is any disagreement about which of the three topic areas a given page/category should be in then this should be taken to an appropriate noticeboard or wikiproject talk page, with placing it in multiple categories being an option.

Step two is an optional review of whether the DS topics are still required, and a request to the Committee if removal is desired. This should wait until after the migration is complete and any discussions about categorisation have concluded and should examine the topic areas individually as the answer is not necessarily going to be the same for all of them.

This should eliminate the problems initially noted while not throwing out any babies with bathwater. Thryduulf (talk) 14:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}[edit]

Sexology: Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • @Fæ: If I've understood correctly, the problem is that the notices (TP notices, DS alerts etc) connect transgender and paraphilia in a way that makes it unclear which applies to the specific articles the notices are being used on. Is that right? If so, could we not solve this by just editing {{Ds/topics}} to split the current pa code into two distinct codes, one for transgender issues and one for paraphilia issues? I think this could be done as a clerk actions without a need to modify the underlying sanction. GoldenRing (talk) 16:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology: Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]

  • I'd like to hear from other editors, but unless there are convincing arguments against such a change, I believe we need to amend the earlier sanction as Fæ suggests. I still see vandalism on transgender issues so I'm not convinced that we should remove them entirely from sanctions. Doug Weller talk 16:40, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also awaiting further input, including on (1) whether discretionary sanctions are still needed, and (2) if so, whether the scope should be narrowed and/or the wording modified. Note that historically, the application of discretionary sanctions to transgender issues was initially passed in the Sexology case but was also reaffirmed and clarified in the Manning naming dispute case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps an editor who supports keeping the current scope of sanctions, but splitting or revising the templates, could prepare a specific proposal (i.e. the specific proposed new templates or wording)? If you mock up the proposed templates, feel free to do it on a page in your userspace and post a link on this page. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm convinced by the argument that the current collection of topics shouldn't be handled together in a single notice, but I'm not sure about the best solution yet. I share the impression that there are still a lot of problem edits on trans topics and it may be safer to keep them under DS using a different template. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with OR - splitting the template seems the easiest solution. I've also said before I think we have too many topic areas under DS; but given ongoing vandalism these two areas aren't where I'd start to argue for a reduction. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Opabinia regalis and Euryalus: I'm confused as to the purpose of splitting this into two decisions? Practically, it could create extra work in the future if one or both of these issues becomes contentions again. For example, it means the retagged of articles and that editors will probably need to alerted again (or twice) in the future. In additon, admins already have discretion to issue sanctions in a smaller area than is authorised, and even if the two topic areas are split, admins can still issue sanctions across the two topics. Perhaps a better way forward is just to reword the entry at {{Ds/topics/table}} to make it clear it applies to both areas independently.

    I think people might be reading a bit too much into the two topics being conflated in this remedy. It's not the Committee (then, now or future) making any comment that the issues are equated with each other. Instead, it's the Committee (then) identifying, in the Sexology case, that these two topic areas were/are contentious and that both came up in the same case.

    Having said that, I'm minded to remove these discretionary sanctions completely given that the last time discretionary sanctions have been used was three and a half years ago (and that was reinstating a TBAN which had expired). Before that, in 2013, they were only used in relation to the Manning dispute. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:39, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    • Noting Umimmak's comments that the practicality issue isn't as significant, I'd still be more willing to either remove the discretionary sanctions altogether or change their scope (rather than just split them). Given how they've been used in the past, I'd be looking at removing paraphilia from the remedy and having them apply only to transgender issues. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I thik that's a reasonable approach. DGG ( talk ) 13:55, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology: Motion[edit]

Remedy 4.1 ("Discretionary sanctions") of the Sexology case is amended to read:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to transgender issues, broadly construed. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes (but is not limited to) the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender on articles and other pages.

Any sanctions or other restrictions imposed under the previous wording of this remedy to date shall remain in force unaffected.

For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:54, 15 November 2017 (UTC) In favour of option 2 I proposed below. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Doug Weller talk 06:31, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Thanks Callanecc. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:04, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
NYB's copyedit is fine with me. As for the inclusion of nonbinary, genderqueer, etc., I had that thought when I read the motion, and then thought "No way anybody would be dumb enough to think those topics don't apply and actually pull off making that argument." OK, I'm probably wrong on the dumb part, but here's a diff to point to if anyone tries it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:44, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Opabinia regalis: We could always do "transgender issues, broadly construed" to cover other areas. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That works. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:43, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Ditto Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:03, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Euryalus (talk) 19:26, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  3. With the understanding that we could always revive the broader scope of sanctions by motion if it proves necessary—which I hope it will not be. Do we want to copyedit for clarity by adding "(but is not limited to)" after "includes," or is that already obvious? Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:23, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess it wouldn't hurt. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Comments from arbitrators
@Doug Weller, Opabinia regalis, Casliber, Euryalus, and Newyorkbrad: Just letting you all know that I've made the two changes I noted above. Also, while you're looking (plus Umimmak and Fæ), the discretionary sanctions in the GamerGate case include "any gender-related dispute or controversy" do you think that would adequately cover this area? In other words, should we just rescind the discretionary sanctions in the Sexology case as redundant to the GamerGate sanctions? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:43, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Doh! What was I thinking? I always use GG sanctions for this sort of issue. So yes, rescind the sanctions. Doug Weller talk 12:10, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology: Motion 2[edit]

Remedy 4.1 ("Discretionary sanctions") of the Sexology case is rescinded. Any sanctions or other restrictions imposed under this remedy to date shall remain in force unaffected.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Enacted - Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:39, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. Moving to support this one. With the change in topic area in the first motion, it becomes redundant to "any gender-related dispute or controversy" in the GamerGate discretionary sanctions. Clerks: if and when you enact this, please include a note in the header of the collapse box of the discretionary sanctions in the GamerGate case (which may apply to the topic area). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Hadn't thought of this, but now that you point it out, this is a good solution. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:04, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  3. As my comments above. Doug Weller talk 07:51, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:46, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Equal preference with motion 1. If we go this route, I recommend that we add a cross-reference to the related decision that remains in effect, so that someone doesn't misread this as meaning that there are no DS in effect at all. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:05, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  6. First choice. Agree with NYB re cross-referencing. -- Euryalus (talk) 17:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I suspect we'll be dealing with this again, but OK for now. DGG ( talk ) 06:23, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Comments from arbitrators
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment Request (November 2019)[edit]

Original Discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Jokestress at 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • Lift of topic ban

Statement by Jokestress[edit]

I'd like this topic ban reviewed, please. My many created articles on value-neutral scientific concepts in sexuality have stood the test of time as NPOV helpful contributions. Example: Androphilia and gynephilia has hundreds of readers daily, and the terms remain widely used by ethical researchers despite the failed attempt to get it deleted here. The graphics I created for that article have been used in books. The sexologists who disagree with me [23] had their clinic shut down [24] since I was last editing. They and their like-minded allies still remain active editors here. Wikipedia has not kept up with the advances in the field. A few editors with very rigid medicalized views on sex and gender minorities maintain ownership of this subject area, causing our coverage to lag behind the published literature. It bothers me to see such an important topic become so outdated. I promise to be nice and not get frustrated with anonymous editors even when they deadname me, misgender me, and so on. I realize it just goes with the territory of using your real name. Sexuality was a small part of my edit history, but it is an area where I have extensive knowledge. Hope I did this right! Jokestress (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Re Floq, my point in the example given is that my editing in human sexuality has resulted in more balanced coverage and viewpoint diversity that reflects the published literature, not just in science but in all fields of academic inquiry. I am a longtime editor in the most controversial academic subject areas like race and intelligence. That debate is very similar in that it is sometimes presented as a "scientific debate" when it is in fact a debate ABOUT science. If Wikipedians treated sex science the way we treat race science, the project would be much more reflective of the published literature. Unfortunately, editors with a medicalized POV have a death grip on the entire subject area. If Wikipedia had been around when "science" claimed gay people had a disease, a gay editor would be in my same position. Since I can't give examples of other editor behavior, just take a look at any article about the intersection of sexuality and consent. If anyone wants some specific examples, my email is open on my profile. I'm once again in a position where I can't elaborate or make my case without breaking some rule. Jokestress (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re Thryduulf, my POV (scientific consensus) prevailed in the controversy to which you're referring off-wiki, but the other POV (fringe views on human sexuality) prevails here on Wikipedia. Jokestress (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re Flyer22 and related accounts/IPs, use of the rhetoric "threat to the community" to describe another Wikipedian is the sort of behavior I no longer consider frustrating. I'll ignore it because I want our coverage of human sexuality to reflect the latest published work from all fields of inquiry. Jokestress (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re Crossroads, the standard Rind bio I wrote [25] is a perfect example of how Wikipedia keeps getting worse because of the small group of editors in this subject area. I have written hundreds of similar biographies after finding a red link somewhere. Crossroads' claim that I added "unnecessary things to make its subject look good" is typical of the kind of aspersions these editors make. I'm not even allowed to respond to such accusations without threats of further action. There is no assumption of good faith for anyone who tries to include reliable sourcing with which they don't agree, no matter how scientific or reliable. No merging of the relevant content from the Rind bio after deletion. Not even a redirect. Wikipedia is demonstrably less useful because of this. Crossroads' other example is too complicated to get into here, but it is another example of a scientific and value-neutral term used by experts that distinguishes three phenomena. I made a little Venn diagram on that page to show how experts think about these topics. I know emotions run high on these topics, but the suggestions that I am "pro-" this or that have been oversighted as actionable libel in the past. It's truly outrageous that even in my absence it doesn't stop. Jokestress (talk) 00:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re SMcCandlish, every reliable published source I was trying to get included on Wikipedia in 2013 still represents scientific consensus or notable criticism of that consensus. Most of it is still not here. I've sat by for 7 years hoping Wikipedia would catch up with the published literature on sexuality, but here we are, stuck in the 20th century. It seems pretty clear that things won't change until the Wikipedia community takes a hard look at its complicity in perpetuating outdated views on human sexuality. I'm happy to elaborate if I won't get in some sort of trouble for contravening my "punishment." I keep hoping I won't have to do what I did with hemovanadin to try to wake people up around here. That didn't wake anyone up, either. All I got was a lot of angry messages like the ones below, as if I am the problem. We'll see how this discussion goes. Jokestress (talk) 07:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • re Genericusername57, yes! Exactly! ARBpeople, this comment gets to the heart of what I consider the discriminatory practices of this community. Without specifics, I'll simply say that several editors in human sexuality have stated they have "a personal, possibly monetary [professional], conflict of interest" in the outcome of our sexuality coverage. A professional working to get favorable coverage of their fringe views about a sexual minority gets preferential treatment over a member of that minority, even if that minority member is trying to shape articles to reflect expert consensus and notable dissent. This double standard is discriminatory on its face. I was taken out of the equation in 2013, and the problem has only gotten quantifiably worse since then. There is currently a culture war within sexology and a sea change happening in the professional literature that is not reflected in our coverage (with exceptions). Anyone who tries to address this discrepancy here runs into these editors and their sympathetic proxies. As Oldperson observes, these editors are very good at getting their way through sheer numbers and Wikilawyering. They make collaboration so difficult, and the subject matter is so controversial, that even the most seasoned editors stay away by choice or force, leaving them in near-complete control of one of the most vital topics covered on the project. Jokestress (talk) 16:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • re JzG, the hostility and accusations you note are part of the strategy. Uninvolved editors aren't going to collaborate when they are accused of being "pro-pedophile" or worse by the handful of people who control this subject. I can't believe these people are not straight-up banned for using sex offender rhetoric like "threat to the community" to describe other editors. Nothing has changed in 7 years. Jokestress (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • re Aircorn, my 2013 topic ban is on "human sexuality, including biographies." Since most transgender editors were driven from the project during the Sexology and Manning naming dispute Arbcoms in 2013, there's no one left to monitor policy violations on transgender biographies and so on, like today's deadnaming of a trans woman who died yesterday [26]. I'm asking for my topic ban to be lifted because there's a double standard in how we treat editors based on who they are. I also want Arbcom policy clarified and applied equally to all editors. Jokestress (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • re Katie & Joe, yes, that is the problem. I am unable to edit anything in my area of expertise without being accused of this or that. How can I show diffs with evidence of collaboration if I'm not allowed to collaborate? What is my path to forgiveness? I can't even make suggestions on talk pages that uninvolved editors agree with [27] without running into drama. Was it "illegal" for me to remove policy violations at Nikki Araguz today? [28] Was it illegal for me to improve the sourcing? [29] Nikki was even more "controversial" than I am. No one else was going to do it, though. Anyone who cared was driven away in 2013 by two back-to-back Arbcom cases about systemic bias toward sex and gender minorities on this platform. Jokestress (talk) 07:38, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for considering my request! This has all been quite elucidating. So just to confirm the answer to my earlier question above: I will be sentenced to wiki jail again if I remove transphobic vandalism from a trans activist's biography on the day she dies, the day the article will get the most views it will ever get. Just want to confirm where the community's priorities are here. PS happy Transgender Awareness Week! Jokestress (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Joe Roe: "was the idea to t-ban Jokestress from all biographies?" Sexology is not a large area of my editing. I am a generalist who happens to be a notable expert on sex and gender minorities editing under her real name. I'm also known for attempting to reform Wikipedia and problematic community conduct in relation to its profound biases about sex and gender, as well as its general hostility to women. That puts me in an unusual situation. Of the many biographies on sexologists that I created, there were about half a dozen that were related to an offsite matter that resolved to "my POV" in 2015 (scientific and legislative consensus). I believe those edits over a decade ago were generally fair, but I had acknowledged my COI and not edited any for some time prior to my 2013 "conviction" here. Here's my response from last time to a similar question. [30] As far as trans biographies, I wrote or improved many of those, none of the contents of which have been disputed to my knowledge. I have probably created a thousand biographies all told. It was my understanding that it was not all biographies, but there was additional drama involving the same topics since I was taken out of the equation, leading to additional rules. The Wikimedia Foundation trustee who wrote about my 2017 efforts to reform Wikipedia said that the rules have expanded into an encyclopedia of their own.[31] If you set aside the rhetoric of my detractors and look at the balance of my work, you'll see that the locus of dispute re biographies is quite narrow. Jokestress (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Premeditated Chaos: + @Mkdw: + @AGK: while I am sure the Amanda James article is affected by the same systemic gender bias I try to address here, I believe you mean the talk page for Andrea James. In an interesting coincidence, I was an All-American swimmer who swam the same event (100 back) as Amanda James. That does not need to be in my bio, though, as I am notable for more important things. It's tough being outstanding at everything you do-- at some point it all has to be edited down for saliency. Thank you for generously offering the chance to comment on my circa 2008 WP bio! Jokestress (talk) 12:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Joe Roe: Perhaps it's better to refer people to User:Jokestress, where I can maintain an up-to-date and well-sourced version that editors can use as source material if they wish. I believe that is clearly marked as a user page. I'm not interested in discussing my bio, as I find its quality, timeliness, and focus to be among the problems in need of reform. Retaliatory editing of a notable Wikipedian's bio during disputes is a serious matter for another day. Jokestress (talk) 13:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @GorillaWarfare:: I appreciate your thoughtful comments, as well of those of other Arbpersons. Obviously I am quite capable of productive collaboration and civil discussion on these topics with those holding opposing views, and I agree that a path to lifting of sanctions should always be open. My larger concern here is the discriminatory application of rules. Expert retention rarely (if ever) gets applied to sex and gender minorities in these cases, but WP:ARBSEX is mainly (possibly always) used to sanction sex and gender minorities and their allies. Of course I am not the only one who could improve these topics, but I do find it interesting that in my 7-year absence, the people who tried to balance things a bit have quit or been banned. I know this committee focuses on user conduct, and most of my larger concerns are being addressed at the WMF level, but I ask you to review whether editors on one side get preferential treatment in matters of user conduct when disputes arise on these topics. Jokestress (talk) 23:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq[edit]

Be careful not to violate your interaction ban; there was no need to bring up the AFD created by someone you're banned from talking about. That's a separate sanction. Also, while I'm here, I don't understand how the linked edit demonstrated misgendering; are you objecting to someone refering to you using the singular they? FWIW, I'm not familiar with the details underlying the case, but this request gives off a distinct battleground-ish vibe. I'm fairly confident that is not going to be a successful way to appeal a topic ban imposed for, among other things, previous relentless battleground behavior. Perhaps it isn't too late to self-reflect and change your approach? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jokestress:, you're gaming the system; continuing to edit gender-related talk pages while this appeal of a human sexuality topic ban is going on (per @Aircorn:'s diff [32]), when it is very clear that a majority of people commenting believe that these edits violate that ban (and the few that aren't sure believe the topic ban should be expanded to include it). This is either civil disobedience, or a refusal to get the point. Unless directed not to do so by an Arbitrator, I intend to enforce the existing ArbCom human sexuality topic ban to include gender indentity. Until this ARCA request is resolved one way or the other, the next edit you make to a gender-related article or talk page will result in a 1 week block. This is a violation of an active topic ban, after several clear warnings by several involved AND uninvolved people over the last few days. I'm trying to bend over backwards to allow you to participate in this discussion, so I won't block for that edit, but this is a last warning that you cannot simply ignore an ArbCom topic ban. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
pinging @KrakatoaKatie: and @Worm That Turned: to give them an opportunity to tell me not to block next time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kingofaces43[edit]

Not involved in the subject at all, but I was curious and went back to the FoFs:

I have to agree with Floq that this seems to maintain an air of battleground seen back in those findings of fact. It seems like this editor is too close to the topic, so I'd be wary about removing the topic ban even though it's six years old. Focus on others and inability to address one's own problems after a ban is a good sign the sanction should remain in place. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf (re Sexology)[edit]

I am somewhat familiar with this case, and like Floq and Kingofaces43 I am struck by just how much of a battleground vibe this request gives off. Additionally, one of the findings of fact in this case related to Jokestress' off-wiki behavior: Jokestress is a prominent party to an off-wiki controversy involving human sexuality, in which she has been sharply critical of certain individuals who disagree with her views, and has imported aspects of the controversy into the English Wikipedia to the detriment of the editing environment on sexuality-related articles. I get the distinct impression from this request that they she would do exactly the same again were the topic ban lifted. There is nothing in the case that convinces me they she understood at the time why their her actions were problematic, and I see nothing in this request that convinces me that this has changed.

Accordingly I don't think that lifting the topic ban at this time will be a net positive to the project, and encourage the committee to decline it. Thryduulf (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For reasons I cannot comprehend, Jokestess has accused me (on my talk page) of misgendering and being uncivil by using gender neutral pronouns. Nevertheless I have changed the pronouns I used above to avoid taking focus away from the subject of this request: i.e. Jokestress' behaviour that is incompatible with NPOV articles and a collegiate editing environment. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jokestress: Firstly reread Wikipedia:Righting great wrongs, as I see no evidence you understand it. Secondly, if people are genuinely being inappropriately labelled paedophiles by editors who control the topic area as you allege then that is indeed a bad thing, but stressing that as your reason for wanting to return to the topic area is just further evidence you haven't left the battleground attitude behind. If there is evidence of the bad behaviour you cite then it will be easy for other editors to find and go through the appropriate dispute resolution processes. Thryduulf (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Joe Roe: and others re the topic ban scope. My impression from reading the original case and my memories is that the intention was to ban Jokestress from the biographies of people notable for their connection to sexology and other fields related to human sexuality, which would undoubtedly include people and groups notable for LGB activism. I think that it would be beneficial to extend and clarify that to something like Jokestress is indefinitely banned from the topics of human sexuality and gender, including LGBT+ rights and biographical articles about people notable in these topic areas.. I agree that a person simply being transgender should not mean they automatically come within the topic area, for one thing this could cause if Jokestress edits the article about a person who is transgender but does not make this public, especially if she (Jokestress) does not know they are transgender but another editor does. It might also be worth formally reminding Jokestress and others that discretionary sanctions are authorised for "All edits about, and all pages related to, (a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed" (these originated in the Manning Name Dispute and GamerGate cases, both of which post-date this one). Thryduulf (talk) 09:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note For the edits to Nikki Araguz (a transgender marriage equality campaigner) identified by Aircorn in their section, i have blocked Jokestress for 1 week. Pinging the arbs who have commented so far @Joe Roe, Krakatoa Katie, and Worm That Turned: Thryduulf (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Jokestress: regarding your latest question, read Wikipedia:Banning policy, particularly the WP:BANEX section. The first bullet point there makes it clear that you are allowed to revert " obvious vandalism (such as page content being replaced by obscenities) or obvious violations of the policy about biographies of living persons. The key word is "obvious" – that is, cases in which no reasonable person could disagree." (all emphases in original). If you find yourself doing this I strongly encourage you to mention in your edit summary that you are reverting obvious vandalism/obvious BLP violations. If the vandalism or violation is not obvious or you have any doubts whether it is obvious, and that includes cases where someone unfamiliar with the subject would not recognise it is as problematic, you can report it at WP:AIV or another appropriate venue for someone who is not topic banned to take care of. As with all things, if you abuse this in any way or if you make more than the occasional mistake about what is obvious vandalism/BLP violations then even this limited exception to your ban may be removed. Thryduulf (talk) 10:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arbs: I think it would be worth making an exception to the topic ban to allow Jokestress to comment at Talk:Andrea James, but solely to highlight (perceived) inaccuracies or where updates are required. I do not think we should prevent article subjects from leaving such comments on the talk page of the article about them without evidence they have disrupted that specific page. Thryduulf (talk) 18:41, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Crossroads: The proposed exemption allows only for edit requests for factual inaccuracies and updates, not general changes. Any "haranguing" of editors on that talk page and the exemption can (and would) be withdrawn (maybe a note that this can be done at AE could be included). If it is necessary for it to be withdrawn then that would be very good evidence against any future appeal of the topic ban, so it would be in her interests to behave (although I admit that hasn't stopped her previously). Thryduulf (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Flyer22 Reborn[edit]

I advise everyone to look at this recent ANI thread started by Crossroads, which outlines Jokestress's problematic editing in the areas of human sexuality and gender and how the editor has not changed. Even the above initial post, as noted by two editors before me, shows the same WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Please do not be fooled by several years having passed. As many know, I am one of the most active editors in the pedophilia and child sexual abuse topic areas, if not the most active, and I have helped get a lot of pedophile and child sexual abuse POV-pushers indefinitely blocked. In fact, Alison and I were key in having such editors blocked or alerting WP:ArbCom to these matters, and WP:CHILDPROTECT was created to help combat the issues. Editors such as Herostratus, Legitimus and myself (just a handful of editors) have consistently kept articles, such as Rind et al. controversy, free of POV-pushing from pedophiles, child sexual abusers and others looking to challenge the medicalization of pedophilia or downplay the effects of child sexual abuse. Over the years, some have come back as WP:Socks, and I have dealt with those as well (often with the help of certain CheckUsers, including Alison and Berean Hunter). Jokestress was savvy enough to avoid getting indefinitely blocked for her behavior in these areas, but she did get topic-banned, and for reasons I and others already outlined there. This editor is very much a threat to the community. Jokestress trying to paint this as silencing a transgender person does not cut it. For those of us who were there -- who know how problematic this editor was at pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics, and other topics -- this was never about Jokestress being transgender.

The sexology case clearly concerned transgender issues as well. And human sexuality is a broad topic, which significantly overlaps with gender (including transgender) aspects. We have various articles, including Transvestic fetishism, Gender variance and Childhood gender nonconformity that show this overlap. Childhood gender nonconformity, for example, very much aligns with an eventual gay, lesbian, or bisexual sexual orientation. Prospective studies have shown this. Furthermore, even Jokestress's first suggestion at Talk:Detransition shows overlap between sexuality and the transgender topic. But even if one thinks human sexuality doesn't cover detransition, it's still the case that making a comparison to the ex-gay movement, as Jokestress did at Talk:Detransition, is definitely on the subject of human sexuality, and therefore a topic ban violation. I do not see that, given her views (including on our policies and guidelines) and how she notoriously tries to go about getting those views implemented, this editor should be allowed to edit sexual or gender topics. This is a person who considers all medicalization a bad a thing, and has repeatedly tried to undermine Wikipedia rules such as WP:MEDRS. I especially don't see how anyone (except for pedophiles, child sexual abusers, and related POV-pushers) can be comfortable letting this person edit pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics. The "that was years ago" line of thinking does not hold up, as seen by their off-Wikipedia activity and recent behavior once finally back on Wikipedia. Jokestress has not changed in all of these years. Jokestress has simply behaved the same way off Wikipedia. Coming back to Wikipedia and acting the way she has recently acted, including ignoring two warnings about her editing in these areas, and it taking an ANI thread to get her to acknowledge that she should stop, speaks volumes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And regarding this, this, this and this here and at ANI, WanderingWanda, who I have a tempestuous history with, should not be touching my posts. Nowhere did I call Jokestress a pedophile. The post relates to my experience with pedophile and child sexual abuser POV-pushers, and Jokestress having edited in a similar way -- the same exact thing I stated in the ArbCorm case against her. She was problematic in those areas due to her views on pedophilia and child sexual abuse, indeed challenging the medicalization of pedophilia or downplaying the effects of child sexual abuse, which was reiterated by Crossroads in his ANI thread against her. It is the main reason she was topic-banned from sexuality articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Given recent commentary below, I must state the following: Any claim that our Wikipedia transgender or transgender-related articles are being overran by anti-trans editors is false. There is far more activism going on at these articles than any anti-trans activity. Certain editors want one narrative presented as valid and that's it. If you note an opposing narrative and/or that this opposing narrative should be included and why, they may consider you transphobic/anti-trans. This is despite the fact that transgender people disagree with one another on these matters as well, as seen by this and this source commenting on left-wing transgender YouTuber ContraPoints coming under fire (from those who otherwise supported her) for daring to have different opinions and for daring to include a trans man (Buck Angel) with different opinions in one of her videos. People, both cisgender and transgender, have different views on what it means to be a woman (as recent discussions at Talk:Woman have shown). Disagreeing on that doesn't automatically make one transphobic/anti-trans. It doesn't make one a bad person. And yet we have editors comparing those who disagree to Nazis at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics and Talk:TERF. A transgender person with views that deviate from commonly held views in the transgender community may be labeled transphobic/categorized as suffering from internalized transphobia or as truscum. Even me noting that transgender YouTuber Blaire White has commented on this and linking to this YouTube video where she takes on claims of being a transphobic trans woman/a trans woman suffering from internalized transphobia can lead certain editors to deduce "Flyer is transphobic" (a claim recently rejected by the community). When I mention transgender people like White, it's me acknowledging that transgender people also have diverse views on these topics. It's just that, like White notes, certain voices within the transgender community are louder than others/are more commonly reported on (and more positively) in the media. If other transgender YouTubers or transgender public figures with White's views had Wikipedia articles, I'd mention them as well. The need to note different views on these topics and include those views in our Wikipedia articles if WP:Due is why editors should not be silenced by accusations of being transphobic/anti-trans (unless they truly are transphobic/anti-trans, although this, per what I've noted in this paragraph, can be subjective). This is why Fæ was topic-banned in August. This is why Jokestress editing transgender topics is problematic. Jokestress being transgender doesn't mean that Jokestress editing transgender topics is a good thing. Jokestress is here, like always, to push a narrative. And if anyone disagrees with that narrative, that person is Jokestress's enemy and/or, according to Jokestress, is transphobic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Oldperson[edit]

I am not at all familiar with the Fae and Jokestress situation, and I do not have a cell phone much less a twitter account. I am cognizant of one thing, that the anti trans editors outnumber and are more active than the pro trans or trans neutral editors. And are quite expert at wp:wikispeak and adept at almost undectable WIKILAWYERING. Thus an opportunity to TBAN a trans advocate increases their ability to push their POV. As regards lumping everything under the topic Human Sexuality is misguided. Pedophilia may have been accepted in ancient Greece and Rome, but it has proven o have harmful/damaging psychological and social effects in the modern age. Some ancient cultures engaged in child sacrifice, but we don't today, I sanction a ban on advocates of pedophilia. But pedophilia is not akin to transsexualism or homosexuality except in the propaganda of many on the religious right. And thus oppose the lumping of transgenderism/transsexuality under the broad umbrella of Human Sexualiity, as much as it might appear to make sense. That or topic bans need to be made narrower and more well defined.Oldperson (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I want to carefully word this, as to not cast apserions on other editors,but in truth there is a dearth of voices that can speak for the transgendered on wikipedia, especially when the most vocal like Fae and Jokestress have been banned or blocked from speaking out,leaving only a smattering of pro or neutral editors to offset very vocal and "anti-trans" or trans critical editors to dominate the articles and their talk pages, with well practiced civil POV pushing.Oldperson (talk) 23:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

I have read enough about Jokestress' real-world interactions with others who do not wholeheartedly share her views to be uncomfortable with a simple lifting of this ban.

I do not share the evident alarm and hostility of, say, Crossroads, but I do not think that Jokestress is a comfortable fit for the topic area of gender, and especially transgender, despite her being substantially correct in many cases. Guy (help!) 14:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jokestress: for what it's worth, I do not factor those arguments in at all. My judgment is based solely on what you have written yourself. Guy (help!) 16:51, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Crossroads[edit]

I urge the Committee to instead reaffirm the topic ban, and clarify that it includes transgender topics. Transgender topics were an integral part of the case. The discretionary sanctions, though now rescinded as redundant to the GamerGate discretionary sanctions, were authorized for all pages dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification. [33]

Jokestress was topic banned for good reason, and all the evidence indicates that she has not changed since that time and will immediately resume her old behavior. Indeed, she already has.

I only started editing Wikipedia in 2018, but when looking at the history of her article Bruce Rind, which was successfully deleted at AfD, I found out about her and read the Sexology arbitration case and many of the links therein. I encourage anyone who wants to weigh in to look for themselves. The evidence page from that case contains even more info. [34] From all this, it is clear that Jokestress takes an inappropriate-for-Wikipedia, completely activist approach to sexuality and gender, one that is anti-science, anti-medical (in contradiction to WP:MEDRS), anti-reliable-sources when those sources are ones she does not like (which is often), and frankly, at times is questionable regarding WP:CHILDPROTECT.

Since she mentions she has created sexuality articles, I will point to her article Adult sexual interest in children. This was deleted at AfD for being a POV fork of Pedophilia.

Some statements made by Jokestress about pedophilia
  • Another major issue with how this is presented is the undue weight we give to the term as co-opted by psychology etc. to describe a disease/disorder. Saying "pedophilia is a disorder" is merely reification of the concept and a violation of WP:NPOV. The term paidophilia existed for centuries before being appropriated by Krafft-Ebing to describe a psychopathology. It's only since the moral panics of the 1970s that a whole cottage industry of catching and "curing" this population emerged. [35]
  • "...survey of human adult–child sexual behavior worldwide indicated it has occurred throughout history with varying degrees of acceptability and was much more prevalent in the past...."; "Intuitively it is obvious that the sexual abuse of children inflicts deep psychological harm. But there are also reasons to distrust this intuition. First of all, it could reflect an irrational taboo about the sexuality of children. The idea that children should be sexually innocent is not universal; in fact, it is relatively modern..." [36] Note: this is a quote by Herostratus of a now deleted article written by Jokestress, who never denied having written those words, and who had just recently created the article. [37]
  • Those interested in getting this policy reviewed should do so at Wikipedia_talk:Child_protection and should make no mention of their reasons for involving themselves in this topic, particularly if their sexual interests have any connection with this subject. [38]

After the Sexology case, she left Wikipedia for 6.5 years. During this time, her attitude about the Wikipedia community did not change. She still has the mentality of bending Wikipedia to a certain POV, the hostile us-against-them approach, and her attitude about WP:WINNING, as evidenced by some of her tweets just from the last few months.

Tweets
  • This @CreativeCommons infographic I made ended up in a 2018 @thamesandhudson book by @sally_hines! One of my dim bulb haters tried & failed to get the accompanying article deleted from @Wikipedia. Support my newest #dataviz - The Transphobia Project: [link] [39]
  • Deletionists continue stripping @Wikipedia of helpful disambiguation pages. Now they are even stripping away redirects that might help young visitors. Amazing to watch the site slowly gutted from within like a termite infestation. #wikipedia [40]
  • Now that @Wikipedia drove away #sex & #gender minorities, deletionists & fringe ideologues have free rein to distort coverage. They even want to delete helpful redirects, having already gutted articles, disambiguation pages, & images. I could be banned just for citing this: [image of transfan definition] [41]

Now, her recent behavior. At her return, after some userspace edits, she went straight to the lead of the article Detransition, adding in that Direct, formal research of "detransition" has shown political parallels between the ex-trans movement and the ex-gay movement. Mentioning the ex-gay movement is editing about human sexuality, hence a topic ban violation. The source for this was an activist article in a predatory journal, and she added other activist non-WP:MEDRS sources as well. On the talk page she claimed This is a classic "phenomenon vs. term" political debate. This biased article reifies a transphobic ideology akin to the ex-gay movement. She continued suggesting activist sources on the talk page, [42][43] even though she had been warned about this likely being a topic ban violation. [44][45]

Both here and at the short-lived recent ANI thread [46] she continues unremorseful with the same attitude. She just referred to "Flyer22 and related accounts/IPs", showing the same combativeness and bad faith assumptions.

Jokestress' latest ploy appears to be claiming that she has to be here to correct Wikipedia's supposedly biased treatment of this topic. This is wrong for at least 4 reasons: (1) The comparison with race issues is a false analogy. Race issues are not a "debate about science"; rather, science refutes racist ideology, and as for so-called race science, as the article linked to says, Scientific racism is a pseudoscientific belief. (2) Like other WP:FRINGE theory pushers, Jokestress is claiming Wikipedia's coverage of a topic is unbalanced and needs her to correct it. However, loading it up with her cherry-picked sources is likely to lead to WP:FALSEBALANCE. (3) There is no reason to think our coverage of sexuality and gender is biased so that she is needed to correct it. I speak from experience that these topics have editors with a wide variety of viewpoints already, including many who are openly LGBT, and the consensus building process works as it should. (4) Even if it were true that our articles were unbalanced, Jokestress is not the person to help us correct it. Her hostile approach will drive editors away. And the sources she adds are poor. [47][48] They are all activist, are opinionated partisan media pieces, and/or from a predatory journal.

We know her behavior patterns; they're documented for us in the previous case. If her topic ban is lifted, our gender and sexuality articles will be loaded up with carefully selected opinionated sources in service of an agenda. Anyone who opposes this will experience opposition until they are driven away or worn down. What do we expect? She is an activist, and activists engage in activism. And as for the articles specifically on pedophilia, with the comments from her quoted above, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader what that will end up like.

Her topic ban should stay, and it should be clarified that it does cover transgender topics. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@KrakatoaKatie: To be clear, what is being suggested is not a widening of the topic ban, but rather clarity that it was always meant to be included. Indeed, it is being treated as included already both at ANI and here. Clarity in the topic ban description is needed because this user apparently intends to wikilawyer and edit as close to the edge of her ban as possible. (And in any case, the reasons for her original topic ban apply just as much to transgender topics as to sexuality in the narrow sense.)

I'll briefly address Jokestress' latest comments. Her statement several editors in human sexuality have stated they have "a personal, possibly monetary [professional], conflict of interest" in the outcome of our sexuality coverage. appears to be false; there is no "several" I have ever heard of, and this appears to be a thinly veiled reference just to User:James Cantor, whom she is banned from talking about. Her claims of being indispensible, of most trans editors having been driven away, of a conspiracy of editors having shut down debate, are simply untrue, indeed absurd from my experience in these topics. The issue is not just a lack of evidence of collaboration on her part; it is positive evidence that nothing has changed since last time; that she is actively uninterested in collaborating, but instead in winning, activism, and promotion of fringe views; that she is not sorry for her past behavior; that the same behavior and attitude continues off-wiki; and that it is essentially impossible for her to contribute NPOV content on this topic. As another example of this in particular, check out this enormous "enemies list" style chart on this site [49] titled "academic pathologization of transgender people". -Crossroads- (talk) 06:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thryduulf; and Premeditated Chaos and the other arbitrators: My opinion on the proposed exemption is that she will end up haranguing others on that talk page to get the article changed to her liking. She already has her apparently preferred version lined up here: [50] A big part of the reason for the topic ban is her inability to edit in this topic area, including bios, in cooperation with others (and the record shows this includes talk page discussions). See also the digging up of poor sources on the Detransition talk page: [51] Her own bio will be no different. It can be handled the same as most of our bios: by uninvolved editors in accord with BLP. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GorillaWarfare (and the other arbitrators): It doesn't matter at all how Jokestress edits in other topic areas. That was never the problem, back then or now. She was not topic banned for behavior in those areas. The problem then and now, on and off-wiki, is how she approaches and handles this topic. Her attitude on-wiki is the same as that off-wiki, which has always been consistent. If it continues, as it almost certainly will, then she is fundamentally incompatible with how Wikipedia works in this area, due to COI/NOTSOAPBOX issues (not to mention her views on pedophilia; compare WP:CHILDPROTECT). I see no need to spend precious time relitigating this again in a mere 6 months (or ever, really) without a fundamental change in Jokestress' approach to this topic, which is extremely unlikely due to her deep seated activist focus. She has every right to be an activist in the real world, but this is not what Wikipedia is for. -Crossroads- (talk) 06:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish[edit]

I also ask ArbCom to reaffirm the topic ban, and to clarify that it includes transgender topics, more generally than ArbCom has said this already. While such a clarification that "human sexuality" includes "pages having to do with transgender topics and issues" appeared in the recent-ish Fæ ARCA, that user's restrictions read "human sexuality, broadly construed" and the latter two words are missing from those of Jokestress. This has (quite self-evidently) provided WP:WIKILAWYER wiggling room, and that just needs to be shut down and prevented from happening again the next time someone with a gender-issues axe to grind gets disruptive.

Beyond this, I'll just repeat what I said at Jokestress's user-talk page and the ANI thread: The Detransition edit [52] was a T-ban breach twice over, in being about both transgender and LGB politicized issues, and it severably fell under the WP:AC/DS that pertain to such topics (merged with the GamerGate sanctions).

For an editor T-banned from human sexuality to return to the no. 1 most conflict-generating human sexuality topic on Wikipedia (transgender matters), and head straight for potentially the most controversial subtopic within it (detransitioning), and then draw a comparison (in WP:NOT#FORUM- and WP:SOAPBOX-crossing ways, as a drive-by non sequitur seemingly aimed at controversy not at article improvement) using one of the most controversial subtopics of the LGB subject-space (self-declaration of being formerly homo- or bi-sexual), and to do so in an extra-provocative way by citing a brand new paper (primary source, with no impact and with no review outside the journal's own committee yet, if there really even is one) from predatory-journal outfit Science Publishing Group (a publisher whose entire website is on our URL blacklist), suggesting that detransition and ex-gay are far-right, Bible-thumper "discourses" about the "ungodly") – all supposedly without understanding it's a topic-ban breach or disruptive within an AC/DS subject?

Well, it just beggars disbelief, and was amazingly non-productive. If this had been reported to the correct venue (WP:AE instead of WP:ANI), I think a block would have been issued on the spot. And the sheer hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of a gender-identity tolerance activist using WP as a platform to simultaneously attack two self-identity decisions she doesn't like is just stunning, another example of political correctness turned ass-over-elbows. This hasn't been taking a long break to reflect on mistakes made and how to better integrate into a collaborative editing environment. It's just been stewing and biding one's time for years in hopes that editorial attrition, memory lapses, and forgivingness would enable a resumption of the same WP:GREATWRONGS antics.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS: If it's really true that "[a] few editors with very rigid medicalized views on sex and gender minorities maintain ownership of this subject area, causing our coverage to lag behind the published literature", WP just does not require Jokestress in particular to try to deal with it. We have many thousands of editors, and we have NPOV and NOR noticeboards for a reason. And they seem to better understand the difference between just "published" versus "reliable and secondary".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PPS: I hadn't noticed this until now, but Jokestress continued editing at Talk:Detransition for about two days after the T-ban breach was pointed out, and in a similar politicizing vein: [53], [54], [55]. The gists of these and this edit to the article itself (inserting that predatory-journal, primary-source citation) indicate that Jokestress seems to believe the article is "biased" if it doesn't recast the entire subject in terms of activists' claims about transphobes using cases of detransitioning, and the term itself, as socio-political weapons against transgender rights (which to anyone else probably sounds like maybe a subsection at most). Regardless how one feels about such matters, it's absolutely a string of Jokestress T-ban violations, and clearly an advocacy not neutrality stance. There are probably things we can use from Jokestress's preferred sources, if any of them are non-primary and from reputable publishers, but we don't need Jokestress to find them or tell us how to use them. But that's beside the point, anyway: if a T-ban couldn't apply to some particular edit just because it was decided after the fact that it wasn't entirely and certainly non-constructive, then we wouldn't have T-bans since they'd be utterly unworkable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jokestress: In response to your response: The gist of WP:CIR is that even if you're dead right about some fact in a content dispute (which is quite indeterminate at best in this case), being an intolerable pain in the backside to everyone around you in trying to force WP:THERIGHTVERSION (especially when you have an off-site fiduciary/professional and/or political interest in changing the wording) makes you essentially incompatible with how Wikipedia operates. If your science is so good, you should probably be writing for a different kind of publication, especially since this one is not about WP:WINNING, which is what your ARCA request focuses on. If WP were really lagging behind actual scientific consensus, on a subject covered at least in part by WP:MEDRS, it is not plausible this would not have been noticed except by you. Ergo, the reasonable conclusion is that this consensus has not shifted as far as you believe or would like. This is probably why you are citing primary-source material published this month (actually with a cover date of next month!) in a minor journal from a notoriously unreliable publisher. That's not science, it's politicking in a science costume. Halloween was more than a week ago (early Ministry notwithstanding).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jokestress: Re "I am unable to edit anything in my area of expertise without being accused of this or that" – A very common experience, and why so many of us avoid spending our hobby time here getting deep into topics that relate directly to our professional lives, or which cross our socio-personal doctrine lines. Since for you this topic is both, it's a doubly poor idea to mix your advocacy business with what should be the pleasure of a pastime. Others typically are not as blind to our biases as we are, and insistence on pursuing one here robs others of their pleasure in participating. When one thinks of oneself as something like a personal reliable source who is here to set things straight, one is making a mistake.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
GorillaWarfare: I think your point about notice is valid, but Jokestress should now, obviously, be considered to have been notified. The solution to further WP:SANCTIONGAMING or honest uncertainty/inclarity is to have clerks deliver a notice to people affected by such sanctions that the sanctions regime was merged under GamerGate, and does include gender identity (as ArbCom has clarified numerous times already). Then this should just not come up again. Otherwise, people are apt to re-re-re-litigate this stuff. This is part of why my opening comment suggesting actually clarifying Jokestress's T-ban wording to also include "broadly construed", so that the sanctions (each time something like this comes up) become more and more consistent in wording and scope.

That said, I have to take issue with the idea that we (the community) or you (ArbCom) can evaluate an editor's ability to edit a topic in which they've been long-term disruptive (human sexuality and gender, in this case) by watching how that editor behaves in other topic areas, especially for only six months. We already know for a fact that this editor can bide time for years only to return with the intent to re-engage in the same battleground behavior, is showing signs of "I am the one true topical savior" WP:GREATWRONGS self-importance (the opposite of any sign of growth toward collaborative and neutral editing), and is even exhibiting such a WP:CIR problem that she's asked ArbCom to lift the T-ban specfically so that she can resume that battle. I question the wisdom of offering topical-return hope to this editor, especially given the history of "biding". It seems likely that Jokestress would ride out that six months gnoming and editing trivial, non-controversial topics just to "prove" ability to get along, and then rush right back into the fray as soon as permitted. WP:AGF has to be moderated by the practicality of the WP:DUCK/WP:SPADE and "our policies are not a suicide pact" principles we've derived from WP:Common sense. "I ... believe that it is possible for people who were unable to edit productively in a topic area to become able to" is effectively irrelevant when the editor in question has already demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that it will not happen. Re, "I ... would not support making any topic ban unappealable": No one suggested that, but we have indefinite remedies for a reason, and appealing them every 6 months or so is discouraged, also for good reasons.

PS: I've not looked into DMSBel, but the Barbara (WVS)/Bfpage restriction included "sexuality, broadly construed", which definitely does include gender, per ArbCom's own clarifications in Fæ's and other cases. "Didn't specifically mention gender" and "doesn't cover gender" are nowhere near synonymous, especially after "human sexuality" has already been clarified multiple times to be inclusive of gender identify, and most especially not in a case like this one, in which the "human sexuality" disruption by the editor has involved gender identity the entire time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've now looked into DMSBel. The restriction (dating to 2011, before widespread gender-related disruption, so of questionable relevance to begin with) was "the topic of human sexuality, interpreted broadly", which makes no exception for gender-related topics, and was not intended to. The admin informing DMSBel of this clearly noted: "The ban specifically says that it is to be interpreted broadly; pushing the limit on related topics is not recommended." DMSBel ignored this, and became disruptive in obviously related topics, including abortion, and was subject to further and further restrictions until being banned. So, it's a case study in why gender (and abortion, and so on) are necessarily included in "human sexuality", with very few editors having any doubt about that being obvious. Otherwise, the disruption will just shift over a little, skirting the edge of the ban with a bunch of wikilawyering until that gets shut down again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Last response, unless an Arb asks something, or I get a ping to clarify, or whatever. Jokestress's link to that well-written conference presentation gets right to the heart of the matter, really. Here's perhaps the key passage: "[H]oldouts in religion, law, medicine, and media gladly give platforms and support to anti-transgender views, often while denying us the chance to respond. They misrepresent and vilify us. ... They say our activism has gone 'too far.' But I say we haven’t gone far enough." This is certainly true, as a matter of societal observation and action-planning, but is just waaay off-base when applied to Wikipedia, which is overwhelmingly trans-friendly in both its content and editorial culture. Trans activists get topic-banned from gender and sexuality more frequently than average precisely because they bring "our activism hasn't gone far enough" to Wikipedia and become disruptive. The same thing happens in every "hot" topic area: one side, the one with a great wrong to right out there in the world, advances a PoV on-site at every opportunity until the community's had enough of it. I really do sympathize and empathize with the underlying impetus, as a former professional civil-liberties activist, but you don't find me dwelling on privacy and free speech topics here (or on particular legislators and other politicians, or organizations and agencies with terrible or excellent civ-lib track records, etc.), because I know I would advance a strong viewpoint in them, not a balanced one. I'm even on Jokestress's side off-site, on her central topic. As a VNEA pool league team captain with a transwoman player, I wrote to VNEA's board and administration, twice, to try to get a statement that my player would be permitted to compete in the women's singles championship matches in Vegas, and the organization refused to respond. As far as I know, to this very day (years later), it's simply going to be a matter of showing up and trying to register and hoping other, especially cis, women players don't lodge a series of protests against you. It's not fair, and it needs to change. But it has jack to do with how to edit Wikipedia, including about VNEA and about women in pool. WP:RS, not our own viewpoints and experiences, determine what and how to write about subjects here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Genericusername57[edit]

On User:Jokestress' User page she self-identifies as the activist Andrea James. Ms. James was a vocal critic of a 2018 Atlantic cover article on childhood gender dysphoria which featured several desisters and detransitioners. She said of the issue's editors: this July Atlantic cover story debacle will be a more historically significant journalistic event than nearly anything else in their careers. Everyone involved is going to be held accountable, even if it takes a decade or more.[56] In a blog post response to the article, she wrote:

The "ex-trans" movement, similar to the discredited "ex-gay" movement, can always count on axe-grinding coverage that vastly over-represents their numbers and POV. [...] The "ex-trans" movement is an anomaly, a rounding error, a tragedy to be sure, but ultimately a fringe movement embraced and amplified by bigots. [57]

One of Ms. James' recent ventures was a kickstarter for a data visualisation project she claims will identify transphobia in the media; it received US$23,302 in backing. She explicitly identified the detransition-related Atlantic article as her motivation[58] and used it in fundraising appeals[59]. (Alice Dreger, who has alleged harassment and threats from Ms. James, described the kickstarter as a page to crowdfund her work harassing me and others[60]; the author of the Atlantic piece, Jesse Singal, called it such a massive grift[61]) It appears to me that Ms. James has a personal, possibly monetary, conflict of interest with the topic detransition, and that her article edit adding ex-gay movement and an "'Ex-Trans' Activists Exposed" ref prominently to the lead[62], as well as talk page edits labelling the article biased[63][64], are inappropriate advocacy importing an off-wiki conflict. gnu57 13:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Aircorn[edit]

While this is open and despite being informed that she is violating her topic ban she is still contributing to the talk page at Talk:Detransition.[65] AIRcorn (talk) 17:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And now at Nikki Araguz.[66][67] It doesn't matter if they are good edits or not, being topic banned from a topic means you can't edit that topic. This is especially bad since you were clearly warned by Floquenbeam above[68] and acknowledged it at their talk page.[69] AIRcorn (talk) 21:34, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WanderingWanda[edit]

1. Jokestress's tenure was before my time and I have no strong opinion about her topic ban. I do know that if I was in her position I would've gone about things a bit differently: I wouldn't have broken the ban before asking for it to be lifted, for example, and wouldn't have gone after other editors when making the request.

2. I am taken aback by some of the quotes by Jokestress about child sexual abuse above, and this isn't just an academic but a personal issue for me. I was also, however, concerned by some of Flyer22's statements: I have helped get a lot of pedophile and child sexual abuse POV-pushers indefinitely blocked...Jokestress was savvy enough to avoid to getting indefinitely blocked for her behavior in these areas...This editor is very much a threat to the community...I especially don't see how anyone (except for pedophiles, child sexual abusers, and related POV-pushers) can be comfortable letting this person edit pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics. I understand this is a difficult topic to talk about, but these statements, to me, go beyond just commenting on content, and instead publicly brand editors with a scarlet letter. And they don't just brand Jokestress herself, but any editor who would support lifting her topic ban and giving her a second chance. With that said, I've been told that it was inappropriate for me to attempt to redact Flyer's statements myself. I fully agree and apologize. WanderingWanda (talk) 09:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Literaturegeek[edit]

Jokestress has failed to show she can work sensibly in this topic area. I find it bizarre that an editor specialising in transgender issues could seriously think, even for a minute, that there should be a 100 percent ‘success’ or ‘satisfaction’ ratio of people with gender dysphoria or identity issues who transition, and then conclude and POV push on Wikipedia that the small number of said people changing their mind and detransitioning represents transphobia, etc. This rigid, inflexible and extreme black and white thinking, combined with concerns raised by editors above, suggests that this editor is not WP:COMPETENT to be editing in this area. People do change over time and while it may seem unlikely at this juncture who knows perhaps Jokestress can prove us wrong, in say a year from now, by editing sensibly in other topic areas before appealing this topic ban, at a later date.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:54, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Although I can see a small possibility in the future that Jokestress could find a pathway to return to editing transsexualism articles perhaps in a year from now, which is an area of her expertise, I do think she should be kept away indefinitely from the pedophilia range of articles for reasons highlighted above by other editors.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:43, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology: Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Sexology: Arbitrator views and discussion[edit]

  • I remember this case and not fondly. Before considering any changes to Jokestress' topic ban, I would want to see evidence that she would be willing to work collaboratively in the area. However, that's not the impression I've got from this request, which is very much on the offensive. As such, I am minded to decline this request. WormTT(talk) 10:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding the request to reaffirm the topic ban an add "broadly construed" or some notes about transgender issues, I'll hold off for now to see what other arbitrators think, but since I believe the scope of Jokestress' topic ban was wider than the area that discretionary sanctions were authorised for, and discretionary sanctions were specifically authorised for "paraphilia and transgender issue", I don't see myself objecting. WormTT(talk) 10:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Likewise, I don't see any evidence that there's a yen to collaborate with other editors here. If there is, and I missed it, we need some diffs to show it. As far as widening the topic ban, I need to hear what other arbs think before I weigh in. Katietalk 15:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline to lift the topic ban. @Jokestress: Your original comment reads as an open request to return to the battleground editing that led to the ban in the first place, and whilst I could extend the benefit of the doubt for initially poorly chosen words, you seem to be doubling down on it in subsequent replies. I'm sure you have a lot to contribute, but I don't believe that you're the only editor capable of maintaining NPOV in our coverage of human sexuality. If you want a route back to editing this topic, it's having more faith in your fellow editors and demonstrating a willingness to work with them rather than against.
Reading the original case, it seems clear that trans issues were a significant locus of the dispute, so it's reasonable to conclude that they were intended to be included in the topic ban. I'd therefore support clarifying the ban to something like ...from the topic of human sexuality and gender. I'm not sure how that works with the "including biographies" provision, though. Everyone has a sexuality and a gender, so was the idea to t-ban Jokestress from all biographies? Or just those of people notable for something related to sexuality/gender? If the latter, we should clarify whether the subject simply being trans prevents Jokestress from editing their biography (I'd say it shouldn't). – Joe (talk) 07:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jokestress: To answer your question, I think the usual way to show an ability to work collaboratively is to do so in another topic area. For example, you said you were active in race and intelligence, which is an area always in need of unbiased but moderating voices. As it is, since you haven't edited much since the case, we have little to go on other than your comments here, which as we've said contain a number of red flags regarding your attitude towards other editors. Personally, if you came back in six months after some uncontroversial and collaborative editing elsewhere, I'd be happy to try lifting this topic ban. – Joe (talk) 08:48, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline to remove or reduce the TBAN. It's clear that Jokestress isn't willing to work with other editors rather than against them. I'd support Joe's proposed clarification to the wording. With regards to biographies, I think the TBAN covers the entire biography of anyone whose primary claim to notability concerns their work in the area of sexuality and gender, and/or the portions of a BLP article that deal with a subject's gender and sexuality. So she could update the filmography of an actor who happens to be transgender, but not any content that concerns their gender. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well... that escalated quickly. I had been following this request awaiting further input from the community. There's a very clear consensus the community does not want this, therefore, decline and I support Joe's proposed clarification. Mkdw talk 06:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline the appeal. I am not satisfied with the quality of editing in Jokestress' editing; interpersonal conduct standards are also poor. It is perhaps telling that Jokestress is, at the time of writing this, blocked for a short time. On the amendment request relating to scope of case, Jokestress is currently banned from editing content relating to human sexuality. The committee has repeatedly ruled1 2 that transgender issues are within that scope. With the scope not in doubt, we could only clarify the nature and meaning of a Wikipedia:Topic ban. We should not need to do that every time an editor is topic banned. I endorse Joe Roe, the subject simply being trans prevents Jokestress from editing their biography (I'd say it shouldn't), but the existing language says the same. The language never supported an attempt to ban Jokestress from every biography. AGK ■ 11:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think for now the best path forward is to clarify the topic ban via the proposed motion, and encourage Jokestress to demonstrate her ability to work collaboratively in other topic areas before returning to appeal the ban in no fewer than six months. The confusion about whether the topic ban applies to gender, and particularly Jokestress' choice to clearly violate the the existing topic ban by editing about human sexuality, has led to renewed conflict, so I would rather re-evaluate in a few months when I can review Jokestress' ability to edit productively and within the boundaries of an entirely clear restriction. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't agree with AGK about the past scope clarifications. Those specifically had to do with clarifying topic areas described as "transgender issues" and "gender-related disputes or controversies", not "human sexuality". Furthermore, although we replaced the Sexology discretionary sanction authorization in one of those ARCAs, we did not adjust Jokestress' topic ban scope. I don't think it's fair to say that Jokestress necessarily should have assumed her topic ban extended to gender as well as sexuality when no change was made to her specific topic ban remedy, the clarifications to the Manning and GamerGate cases postdated her restriction, and (to my knowledge) she was not notified of those changes. As for We should not need to do that every time an editor is topic banned, I think if we want editors who are topic banned from human sexuality to assume that they are also restricted from editing gender-related articles as a result of clarifications made after their bans were placed, we need to at least explicitly notify them, if not directly modify their sanctions. This last point may be a bit academic, though–a quick search through the editing restrictions archive confirms Jokestress is the only editor with an ArbCom topic ban from "human sexuality" (though there are two editors, DMSBel and Barbara (WVS)/Bfpage, with community-placed topic bans with scopes that include "human sexuality" but not gender). GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Crossroads: I hear what you're saying, but I a) believe that it is possible for people who were unable to edit productively in a topic area to become able to; and b) would not support making any topic ban unappealable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:06, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology: Motion to amend Jokestress' topic ban[edit]

For this motion there are 8 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Remedy 2.1 of Sexology ("Jokestress topic-banned from human sexuality") is amended to read:

Jokestress (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from the topic of human sexuality and gender, including biographies of people who are primarily notable for their work in these fields.

Enacted --Cameron11598 (Talk) 06:24, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. Proposed. – Joe (talk) 08:37, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. As I said above, I believe that the topic ban on Jokestress should be considered wider than the DS area - so as a nitpick, I see this as a clarification, rather than an amendment. Either way though, I support this motion. WormTT(talk) 09:08, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. AGK ■ 12:50, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Katietalk 13:13, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Have removed the provision about Talk:Andrea James given the discussion below. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Mkdw talk 16:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Per my comments above. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Recuse
Comments
  1. Any thoughts about making a small exception permitting edit requests at Talk:Amanda James per Thryduulf's suggestion? I'd be on board with it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I would support that amendment Premeditated Chaos. Mkdw talk 00:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd support that too WormTT(talk) 08:21, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Added and excepting the submission of comments or edit requests to Talk:Amanda James. Could the clerks make sure that Joe Roe and KrakatoaKatie confirm they are okay with the change? AGK ■ 11:28, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Wordsmithed a bit (it's Andrea James). The only objection I can think of is that Jokestress doesn't seem to have ever actually edited that page, and in that case perhaps she'd prefer not to have her real name included in an ArbCom remedy preemptively. @Jokestress: ? – Joe (talk) 12:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Based on Jokestress' response above I suggest we leave this out. @Premeditated Chaos, Mkdw, Worm That Turned, and AGK: ? – Joe (talk) 13:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, leave it out. Katietalk 14:01, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather there was something in to allow Jokestress to make edits to that talk page - however, I understand the objection of not wanting the official link to the bio in a remedy. I'm happy to leave it out, with the understanding that IAR / Common sense should mean Jokestress should absolutely not be sanctioned for making edits to that talk page. WormTT(talk) 14:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Facepalm Facepalm Thanks for fixing that Joe. I'm fine with leaving it out since Jokestress doesn't want it in, but I agree with WTT about the IAR/common sense enforcement of the TBAN when it comes to good faith edit requests to the subject's own bio. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, the wording could be written in such a way so as to not explicitly name the article. e.g. "Comments or edit requests to any article talk page for which Jokestress is the primary topic are exempt". Mkdw talk 17:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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