Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Arbitration report
Palestine–Israel article 3 case amended
While the Arbitration Committee have been quiet lately and no new cases have been open so far for 2016, we can at least report on decisions made by the committee recently. On 19 March, the committee amended the Palestine–Israel articles 3 case as follows:
Remedy 2 (General Prohibition) is replaced with, "All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab–Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters."
The 500/30 protection sanction has been seen as a controversial form of protection, first being implemented in the GamerGate controversy article. As there has been a slump in activity for the Arbitration Committee, I think that it's best to ask the readers of the report on their take on this sanction: what do you think of the 500/30 protection sanction?
Discuss this story
As I recall, I said at the time that I think the remedy is unnecessarily restrictive and that less draconian remedies should be considered first. My own suggestion was to allow established users to revert IPs without restriction, and correspondingly to block IPs who broke 1RR. If that wasn't enough, you could extend the revert-without-restriction rule to both IPs and to users with less than 500 edits and 30 days' service. In other words, don't immediately give new users in the topic area full editing privileges, but give them an opportunity to demonstrate their ability - something like a probationary licence. You could even arguably extend the "probationary licence" for users still clearly on the learning curve. An approach like that would permit new users to contribute positively to articles under sanction rather than prohibiting them wholesale. My concern is that the existing 500/30 restriction may discourage new contributors from getting involved with Wikipedia. Gatoclass (talk) 07:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like being in a place where I feel I have to criticize ArbCom (I appreciate what an investment that role must be) and, like most of us I think, I rarely question the extent to which they are empowered to impart editing restrictions, but this frankly feels like over-reach. There are significant issues here that impact upon the principle that this is the "encyclopedia anyone can edit". This might technically concern just one topic area, but it's not a small one and I think it's worth remembering that this community has routinely and overwhelmingly rejected proposals to ban non-confirmed editors from participating in building the encyclopedia. I believe that, at the very least, the questions raised by contemplation of a restriction like this are so fundamental to the project's underlying philosophy and so potentially wide-reaching in impact that this feels like a decision that should have been vetted through community consensus. The net has been thrown pretty wide here, and I feel like there are significant open questions as to 1) whether this was advisable, 2) whether it jives with our normal community balancing tests, and 3) whether this move (which in essence page protects, or potentially page protects, thousands of articles) is within the normal mandate we grant to ArbCom. Snow let's rap 06:54, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem draconian. In fact, the Committee admitted so in its final decision: the essence of the 500/30 remedy is captured by the unanimously-passed "At wit's end" principle: In Palestine-Israel articles 3 there were four findings of fact: the first identifies the area of conflict as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the second finds that discretionary sanctions were ineffective at controlling disruption, the third finds that the topic area suffers from persistent sock-puppetry, and the fourth finds that the 1RR remedy has been gamed. The ArbCom must have concluded from these findings that "all reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed", thereby justifying a "seemingly draconian measure". The result is the 500/30 restriction. Whether this remedy is justified depends on whether it is supported by the passing principles, the passing findings of fact, and the evidence presented. 7 arbitrators said yes, 3 arbitrators said no (one of which proposed the remedy). Mz7 (talk) 18:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think this "solution" is dangerous, because it could cause more trouble than it prevents. With GamerGate, the only people on a side are those recruited to it, and they take their chances as they go along. But with Israel and Palestine, there are only so many editors on each side with or near 500/30 status, quite likely recognizable by posting history and even their own user pages. With this new scheme of sanctions there is going to be a strong temptation for editors on one side (possibly including those without 500/30, if they play their cards right) to gang up and give those on the other the Steven Salaita treatment, nipping their editing in the bud before they have a chance to become a problem. A ruling like this might start an out and out Israel-Palestine war on ANI, with editors hunting up any excuse to take people from the other side to task before those on the other side get to them. Things being as they are, I expect that Israel will muster more posters for this war (hasbara or otherwise) and trounce Palestine as badly as they have on the ground; the resulting pro-Israel bias should please a lot of well-placed people, but it is not what I happen to want for Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 00:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]