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The purpose of the workshop is for the parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee to post proposed components of the final decisions for review and comment. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions, which are the four types of proposals that can be included in the final decision. The workshop also includes a section (at the page-bottom) for analysis of the /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

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Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

Purpose of Wikipedia

The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, or publishing or promoting original research is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.

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Decorum

Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. In content disputes, editors should comment on the content and not the contributor. Personalising content disputes disrupts the consensus-building process on which Wikipedia depends. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith, is prohibited.

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Controversial Issues

It is both difficult and necessary to provide neutral point of view encyclopedic coverage to controversial issues. For that reason it is even more important than on less controversial issues that editors respect each other and the rules of civility and work collaboratively. This mandate especially applies to editors who have strongly held views on issues.

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Battlegrounds and bad blood

Wikipedia is not a battleground. Consequently, it is a not a venue for the furtherance of grudges and personal disputes. A history of bad blood, poor interactions and heated altercations between users can complicate attempts to reach consensus. Inflammatory accusations perpetuate disputes, poison the well of existing discussions, and disrupt the editing atmosphere.

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Scope of ArbCom Proceedings

The Arbitration Committee does not, as a matter of policy and mission, decide good-faith article content disputes. However, when user conduct makes the resolution of content disputes difficult or impossible, the Arbitration Committee may impose appropriate remedies.

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Proposed findings of fact

Locus of Dispute

This case is about Austrian economics, which is a controversial approach to economics and has resulted in edit warring and personal attacks.

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Discretionary sanctions

Articles about Austrian economics and persons and organizations advocating Austrian economics, broadly defined, are placed under standard Discretionary sanctions.

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There doesn't seem to be any lesser way to deal with this situation. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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MilesMoney

The community ban of User:MilesMoney is reversed.

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The community topic ban of User:MilesMoney from the area of Austrian economics is affirmed and is indefinite. MilesMoney may appeal this topic ban every six months.

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Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

EllenCT's submission

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Much of what EllenCT has written relates to pro-Austrian (or what she sees as pro-Austrian) editors working on economics articles, while this case is about editing of articles about Austrians. Most of the disputes do not even involve economics. I auggest that this evidence be struck out as irrelevant. TFD (talk) 02:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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I comment here because I was apparently mentioned in EllenCT's evidence submission.[1] I find this odd because I don't believe I have ever edited Austrian economics. I have interacted with EllenCT only on other articles in trying to remove edits (usually graphs) that were classic examples of WP:SYNTHESIS that the editor had dropped into a large variety of other articles, ordinarily without consensus, and frequently unrelated to those articles. Not having edited the relevant (Austrian economics) article I don't have further comment on her evidence, except to say I obviously am not part of a "POV railroad cabal" or "whitewashing" "tag-team" on any article (much less one I've not edited or watchlisted). Capitalismojo (talk) 18:04, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'd like to also say that this editor has had, in my opinion, real difficulty listening or perhaps understanding questions of synthesis. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:04, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EllenCT's submission

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I am commenting here because I was also mentioned by EllenCT here [2] and here [3] as evidence of my connection to a group of editors guilty of promulgating Austrian economics in an abusive way. I have never participated in the Austrian economics discussion and I have no understanding of what Austrian economics are. EllenCT's most recent accusations are a form of administrative coatrack that perfectly represent her strategy on other economics oriented articles. However, the fact that EllenCT has felt it appropriate to include me in this arbitration is emblematic of her misunderstanding or misuse of Wikipedia.

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• one of her diffs cited in her evidence of my joining this group of Austrian economics oriented editors [4] is my objection to her adding a graph showing the net tax returns by tax payer education, in the Government spending article with the caption, "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue.". Without a reliable source, I felt the graphs were inappropriate and misleading. I attempted to address this concern with EllenCT on her talk page here User_talk:EllenCT#Edits_to_Government_spending. The dialog speaks for itself, but I'll add that when asked a direct question, EllenCT is evasive and resorts to name calling and arguing I lacked competence.
• In this RFC Talk:Progressive_tax#RFC_on_graph_linking_top_marginal_tax_rates_to_job_growth, EllenCT was pushing for a graph that was not supported by reliable sources. After the RFC concluded against her position, she once again inserted the graph on another article [5] about a month later, ignoring the RFC.

The pattern as I see it that EllenCT draws a conclusion, puts it into an article which is sometimes only tangentially relevant, and when challenged, resorts to name calling or trotting out a list of sources that do not support what she has written.

I have considered bringing her misconduct with the multiple diff to an appropriate forum, but I'm hopeful that she will eventually get the message here without that step.Mattnad (talk) 23:25, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EllenCT's submission

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I'm also commenting because I was mentioned in EllenCT's evidence submission[6][7] along with the discussions for two of the articles referenced. While I'm familiar and have studied the differing schools of economic thought, I haven't participated in the articles or disputes which are the subject of this Austrian economics case, nor do I have them on my watchlist. With regard to the evidence presented by EllenCT, I recommend reviewing the full discussion on the topics: Progressive tax (RFC discussion, Graph discussion), Government spending (full discussion). These are just two articles among many which include the same type of discussion, but you'll see that my disputes with Ellen have primarily been with what I perceive as her soapboxing economic inequality topics into various articles using tendentious editing and repeated insertions of synthesis. I don't say that as a personal attack, but as a description of her behavior, which has been observed by numerous editors. She uses primary sources and then applies her own interpretation to the text. If we disagree with the verifiability or off-topic coatrack, we're personally attacked as incompetent for not seeing the obvious common knowledge or labeled whitewashing libertarian "Randroids".[8][9][10] Even after an RFC and consensus determines her material is SYN, she persists (WP:IDHT) in including it in other articles and disregards opposition as systemic bias and that we should trust her mathematical reasoning. She repeatedly misrepresents the views and statements of sources, as well as wikipedia editors, for example some false statements concerning me ([11][12][13][14][15][16]). The lack of editorial trust for Ellen has us verifying anything pertinent she writes. Many editors are at their end with her behavior and it's my hope that, while I expect not pertinent to this case, reviewing admins will help address the problem.

I'd also ask you to take look at her intro paragraph and see if that lines up with what you know to be policy. For one, most academic literature is primary, not secondary as she states. Our policy reminds us to be careful with primary sources "because it is easy to misuse them", and that she does by adding interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about the material, exactly what WP:RS warns. Also note the extreme interpretation of WP:DUE, which again focuses on her primary sources and her discretion as to what is notable based on population. And then, if included, other views are to be described as diverging from the most accurate and reliable sources - I note that because she's argued that her view is the most recent and reliable based on newly published research, even though research released at the same time disagreed and the scholarly consensus and institutional use was clearly not there. The viewpoint was still fringe (tiny minority view), but in her view, it deserved all the weight and wanted to exclude the widely held methodologies used by the government and industry. I just wanted to point this out, as it's an example of what we're having to debate and the amount of time wasted on an editor that seems WP:NOTHERE. Morphh ^(talk) 22:08, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EllenCT's submission

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I hope that this is the proper way to use this template--just following suit as per the above postings.

At any rate, I'm here because I'm interested in seeing how the sourcing issues play out.

Regarding EllenCT's evidence posting, there are some involved sources she posted, and I am not going to look through all those due to a lack of time as well as the fact that I am not an economist. However, there is an ideological overlap between the topics to which she refers and the Austerians and Libertarians, so I don't think that the matters she has pointed out are unrelated to the topic.

However, in light of the complexity of some of the sources, it would behoove her to be more proactive in demonstrating how they support the assertions she wants to make.

I basically agree with her position on social infrastructure, and have edited the Government spending article to introduce the concept where it was implied but missing and basically obscured in a somewhat jumbled and unwieldy paragraph.

I addressed one of the sources in the thread on her talk page referred to by Mattnad above, and also pointed out that a link to another didn't work. It seems that the source I mentioned on her talk page may offer weak support for some of what she wants to use that graph to say, but it is somewhat unclear, as indicated by Mattnad as well. The statement appended to the graph stated "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue.". It seems that it may be a valid statement, but the support for it in the RS has not been adequately elucidated. If Ellen has the expertise to demonstrate RS support for that statement or something proximal thereto, she should take the time to make the case, and I hope that she intends to do so here. Not being an expert myself, maybe to an expert WP:Common knowledge applies to some extent, maybe she is trying to combine too many sources in a way that straddles WP:SYNTH.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 18:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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