Requests for amendment

Initiated by William M. Connolley (talk) at 20:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Climate change arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. 5.6) William M. Connolley is topic-banned from Climate change, per Remedy 3.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Amendment 1

• Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested: Wikipedia:ARBCC#William_M._Connolley_topic-banned
• Details of desired modification: Removal / Lifting

Statement by William M. Connolley

The restriction is no longer necessary.

Update: apparently I should consider providing further information, especially in regard to his perception of why the topic ban was applied, and why it's no longer necessary. OK: the second is easiest: at the time of ARBCC, there were multiple wars/fights/messes all over various climate pages. No-one could be bothered to work out exactly who was to blame; the solution was to ban lots of people. Those problems have largely gone (indeed, a look back at the edit histories will see that they had gone before the case closed, as I said at the time), which is a large part of why the remedies are no longer needed. As to the first: well, I read and thought about what was written in the case, in particular William M. Connolley has been uncivil and antagonistic. I think the extensive second para largely about my own talk page now reads pretty oddly, but we don't need to go over that. The general injunction to be more civil has been taken to heart; you can judge me on my behaviour over the past, say, 6 months: that being your timeframe. As to BLPs: I will be more cautious.

Re Collect's stuff: as Boris said, no-one is going to believe that C is uninvolved - as I think you can tell from his mud-flinging: my edits to Ian Morris (historian) were nothing to do with climate; and the word isn't even mentioned on the page. If anyone thinks that was a violation or a "nibbling" at my ban, they should raise it at enforcement. The same is true for Journal of Cosmology.

More substantively, C asserts that he is not arguing post hoc, ergo propter hoc but in fact that is the entire substance of his argument. So the question is, does having me editing CC pages inevitably cause conflict? The answer is clearly no: there have been long stretches of such editing with no problems (back in, oh, 2008 we had more than a year of peace; even in the early CC case my only sanction was later realised to be an error and repealed); the conflicts around CC leading up to ARBCC wasn't caused by my entering the area, but by an influx of "skeptical" editors occasioned by the CRU email excitement. C's entire argument is nothing but his involved opinion that there is a real chance that the serenity would be rather roiled by his return but he offers no evidence for this. His argument that the topic ban should remain in force could be used against all the banned editors, in perpetuity, with equal "logic". In which case, arbcomm would have made the bans permanent. That they didn't, instead effectively setting a 6 month cooling down period (now long past) suggests that they intended the bans to be reconsidered.

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement by uninvolved Collect

It is clear that with WMC being absent there have been few conflicts in the CC arena. While I would not argue "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" the fact that the area is calm and apparently now in good order does not mean that WMC's return would keep that serenity intact. In fact, there is a real chance that the serenity would be rather roiled by his return. I suggest then that the original order remain in force. The "findings" in that case were clear, and I see no reason to suspect that they were made in error. The precise argument made here would apply identically to all those topic-banned, and I see no reason to suspend the topic ban for one and not for all if the only substantive reason given is that there is no problem now. I am unsure that this is a sufficient argument, indeed. During the topic ban, WMC has edited on Journal of Cosmology which [1] does publish articles directly on Climate Change. He has edited on Ian Morris (historian) adding material critical of a person whose book specifically mentions climate change 52 times [2] . In short, WMC has "nibbled at the edges" of his topic ban already. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@SB - I was and am uninvolved in the Climate Change area. My "partisanship" I suppose is shown by my edits on Johann Hari and Chris Hulme I suppose -- in point of fact my only "partisanship" is my belief that BLPs must be maintained under WP:BLP and neither puffed nor demonized. My posts on ArbCom pages have been, to the best of my ability, scrupulous, as the diffs provided quite show. Lastly, I fail to see how attacking me affects the validity of my comments. Cheers, but next time try to stick to the topic at hand. Collect (talk) 15:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@WMC I dislike the smear of "mud flinging." I would have hoped that civility would reign in this procedure, but an apparent lack of civility might induce arbitrators to look at your edits more closely than they might have otherwise. The arbitrators are well able to read the diffs and to determine whether the Journal of Cosmology has run articles on Climate Change and whether Ian Morris's book has 52 mentions of "Climate Change" as a specific term. I have no connection with the Climate Change arbitration other than as a person commenting on an interesting statistical relationship between editors who editted heavily in that area. I doubt that the statistical research I undertook makes me "involved" to any reasonable extent in the matter at hand. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by involved Short Brigade Harvester Boris

While I harbor no illusions regarding the outcome of this appeal, Collect's claim of "uninvolved" status cannot go unchallenged. Even a cursory examination of his edit history shows extensive and partisan involvement. For a more or less random and far from complete sample of diffs of his participation in the original case, see [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] (note this one is an argument with WMC), [15]. Also [16] [17] here he argues with WMC on WMC's talk page, and here he speaks in favor of WMC's topic ban. His statement that the topic area has been "calm and in good order" since WMC's ejection from it is similarly imaginative, but that is another issue for another day. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by involved Count Iblis

The problems in the CC have gone away, mainly due to the articles being put under the General Sanctions Regime and TS, NuclearWarfare, and a few others aggressively patrolling this area without that generating any bickering. But just like a broken leg is only fully cured when you can walk on it again and not when you have put bandage on it, one now needs to allow editors who are able to contribute productively like William editing again. The General Sanctions will still be there, so there is no risk of problems escalating.

What can happen is that William's return may make some hidden problems visible so that these can be dealt with effectively using the General Sanctions system. For the CC area to become fully healthy, this is therefore a necessary step. Then without the old problems, most of the extra energy one gets in this area by allowing William back in will go into productive article work instead of fueling disputes. Count Iblis (talk) 17:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting comments from interested parties. However, my advice to William M. Connolley is to consider providing further information, especially in regard to his perception of why the topic ban was applied, and why it's no longer necessary. PhilKnight (talk) 21:39, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I would echo Phil's request for further explanation; a blanket statement that "the restriction is no longer necessary" is simply not adequate in this regard. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur with Kirill and Phil. Risker (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Recused. SirFozzie (talk) 21:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]