Initiated by —Kww(talk) at 23:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Kww (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• John (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• LesVegas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jayaguru-Shishya (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• A1candidate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Roxy the dog (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Middle 8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification John
• diff of notification LesVegas
• diff of notification Jayaguru-Shishya
• diff of notification A1candidate
• diff of notification QuackGuru
• diff of notification Roxy the dog
• diff of Middle 8 adding self

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• John's talk page
• Talk:Acupuncture

I am bringing this here because any effort for me to resolve it would likely provoke wheel-warring between me and User:John, obviously an undesirable situation. This is also a holdover of our existing pseudoscience arbitrations, in terms of its application to acupuncture.

Acupuncture appears to have been the victim of flooding, wherein multiple studies with ambiguous results are listed in separate subsections in great prominence, all to give the false impression that the effectiveness of acupuncture is under wide and serious study. It's not: acupuncture is generally viewed as a placebo treatment with no scientific foundation. This summarizes it well: several thousand studies have failed to show any consistent application in which acupuncture is beneficial. Traditional Chinese medicine, the foundation of acupuncture, is also recognized as pseudoscience, a classification which has been mightily resisted by pro-Acupuncture editors. A quick read through that last link will demonstrate how unlikely it is for forward progress to be made. Accordingly, our section on the effectiveness of acupuncture should say just that: not shown to be consistently effective for anything and lacking in any theoretical foundation.

There's no doubt that the pro-science editors have not behaved admirably, but they are faced with entrenched editors that are padding the article with any study that presents acupuncture in a favourable light, misrepresenting those studies, lying about discussions that have taken place elsewhere. John's reaction has been to try to deal with this as an NPOV issue, requiring discussion between the editors: clearly fruitless at this point. He has focused his attention on QuackGuru and Roxy the dog, parties that have, at times, acted poorly out of sheer frustration.

My view is diametrically to John's: that it is our role as administrators to actively detect the users that are attempting to block a reflection of scientific consensus in the article, block them as appropriate, and help provide an environment that will allow our scientifically-minded editors to prevail. I would resolve this problem by blocking or topic-banning LesVegas, Jayaguru-Shishya, A1candidate, and, indeed, any and all editors that attempted to portray acupuncture as having medical legitimacy. This is the Martinphi vs. ScienceApologist problem all over again, and dealing with these people as legitimate editors leads to unsatisfactory results.

I bring this here primarily because it is a systemic problem, and a legacy of the inadequacy of the earlier Arbcom decision, which tells the project that we should strive to be in line with scientific consensus, but does not specifically tell adminstrators to deal with editors asymmetrically: blocking and banning those that would undermine that scientific consensus while encouraging those that attempt to support it.

• Cla68 doesn't misunderstand me: being polite about being wrong to the point that you drive other editors to distraction is to win a war by attrition. That subverts consensus, which is, in this class of articles, the scientific consensus. The only way to prevent this is, in such cases, to define "wrong" and enforce it.—Kww(talk) 00:10, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Thryduulf: because they reward patience and numbers, not accuracy. Remember that the professional acupuncturist views having a favourable view of acupuncture in the media as a source of financial gain. Additionally, here the problem is that out of the thousands of studies, there have been the occasional false negatives that portrayed acupuncture as harmful and false positives that portrayed acupuncture as beneficial. Our sanctions don't work well as a protection against cherry-picking.—Kww(talk) 00:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Courcelles: Precisely why I have only discussed, and haven't entered the fray with my tools. John's statement (in the linked diff) that he viewed me as part of the problem and that he did not recognize the distortions being made in the article made it clear to me that we were not going to come to mutual agreement as to the best way to proceed, especially given that I see John as a major part of the problem, in that, despite admirable motives, the effect of his actions is to provide aid and cover to people that intend to damage the encyclopedia.
• Guerillero: Because few would view me as an uninvolved administrator, I'm not capable of logging sanctions in this area. The history of AE has been that it is counterproductive for alternative medicine articles: note John's administration of Ayurveda, which, while reducing the edit thrash, has permitted the steady drift of the article away from clearly representing it as having no scientific basis.

• Guerillero:Precisely the trouble. Without a clear direction from Arbcom that an article about a medical topic should reflect scientific consensus and authorising actions intended to guarantee scientific consensus, acupuncture and other alternative medical articles won't do so. Alternative medicine is popular, despite generally being nonsense.

I certainly hate seeing this aiming for a decline, especially after the opinions by AE admins all say pretty much what I'm saying: AE is intended to address behavioural problems without much regard to their impact on article quality. What I'm saying is that we are approaching the condition with this, and many other alternative medicine articles, where people have learned that persistent and indefatigable politeness allows them to manipulate content, and that discretionary sanctions based on behaviour alone are not the solution.—Kww(talk) 15:28, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Opening statement Since this is my first time to be involved in an Arbcom request, I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do so I'll follow along and try my best. If I make any mistakes, please understand that I am new to this process and do not hesitate to correct me in any way. Overall, I object to attempts to topic ban any editor (especially me!) for simply holding opinions contrary to those of other editors. Behavior, policies and guidelines are what matter. At least, I hope. My interest in the Acupuncture article has been to add my linguistic and cultural expertise in places where I felt it was appropriate, and hope that I can continue this endeavor in the future.

• Thryduulf: I have always, to the best of my ability, operated within MEDRS and RS guidelines and NPOV policy when adding sources to the article. Like A1candidate, I also believe acupuncture doesn't clearly fall into the pseudoscience category, but rather into a bit of a grey area. Afterall, crystal healers are not primary care providers in any state, nor do insurance companies reimburse for that modality. I lived in Asia for several years and acupuncture is well adopted by the mainstream scientific community and governmental health authorities there. The NIH, NHS, WHO and others have also issued positive statements on its outcome. With no clear consensus on research, I believe it is better classified as "questionable science" than "pseudoscience". But even if one disagrees with my stance, I hope we all can agree that no matter the article, when sources meet policy and guideline standards we cannot simply delete or censor them because the outcome happens to be positive. Nor do I believe editors should be banned for posting such sources.

• Courcelles: Perhaps this should have been in my opening statement, but given your inquiry about wheel-warring, I would like to point out that Kww has been heavily involved in content disputes for some time on the Acupuncture article and talk page. I find his "reluctance to wheel war" fairly curious because he has been constantly involved in article content and disputes lately. Given that fact, he should know that wheel warring with John (who has never been involved) would undoubtedly result in trouble for him. His involvement also extends to his refusal (even by his own admission) to punish editors who break rules, and even deviates into rationalizing their bad behavior. I may be off-base here, but it seems to me that Kww might not truly coming here out of reluctance to wheel war, but is likely attempting to control article content and remove editors who stand in his way.

• @ ArbCom: Since nobody has brought this up, I figured I would so that the Arbcom could have as much information as possible to make whatever decision with. Just the other day, an administrator, Rjanag, made an identical edit to one that I made earlier, and that Kww contested both on the article and on talk. Rjanag also made a similar edit] on Traditional Chinese Medicine and has protected the page due to edit warring and is opening up discussion on talk. Rjanag has now opened an RfC for the topic. I find it puzzling why Kww seeks to have myself and two other editors topic banned for making and supporting an edit which a previously uninvolved admin has also made. Rjanag's reasoning mirrors many of the comments that I, Jayaguru-Shishya and A1candidate have brought up, namely reliable source violations. If our edits are so controversial, I question why a very similar edit was supported by another party, an admin, on multiple policy grounds? Doesn't this give any kind of validation to our original issues with the article?

• Opening statement

Greetings! I'd like to stress out that this is my very first encounter with ArbCom, so I am not sure how much in detail one should go with the comments presented here. Anyway, I'd be happy to provide more details if necessary though.

I see Kww bases his argumentation strongly on this division between "pro-acupuncturists" and "pro-science editors". I am pretty surprised that I find myself among these "pro-acupuncturists" that Kww is asking to be banned, since if one looks at the Talk Page, I've been strongly advising all the editors to keep strictly to MEDRS whenever dealing with claims on medical efficiency. I am not an acupuncturist, I have never been to an acupuncturist, and I don't believe that my forestry Finnish town even has an acupuncturist. Kww has made this allegation against me many times earlier, and I have corrected him being wrong every time. I am happy to provide diffs if necessary. If there are some individual edits or behavioural patterns that Kww is frustrated with, is this really the right place to discuss it? This is my first experience with ArbCom so I don't know.

One is free to examine my edit history, I am perfectly comfortable with that. I have 270 Wikipedia articles on my Watchlist, and only three of those fall under the Pseudoscience Discretionary Sanctions. I am not a "pro-acupuncturist", and these three articles express only a very tiny area of my areas of interest in Wikipedia.

* Pseudoscience or not?

First of all, I think it'd clarify this ArbCom case a lot if it just focuses on the discussion of whether acupuncture falls under the label of pseudoscience or not. I am not sure what Kww is trying to accomplish by his apologizes for users Roxy the Dog and QuackGuru. Is he unsatisfied with John's notifications and sanctions on these users? Does he think John's actions have were ungrounded? Does he think that these notifications and sanctions should be nullified? If so, is this the right place to discuss it? I am a first timer here, so sorry if I've have wrong conceptions about some things.

When it comes to the pseudoscience labeling, my argumentation has been as follows: 1) Acupuncture pre-dates what we know as modern science, so it cannot be "pseudoscience" in that sense, 2) whenever making claims on medical efficiency, we should uncompromisingly adhere to MEDRS, and 3) when just simply reporting mere "believes" without a dimension of medical claims, we could ease the requirement to RS. The third one I've actually discussed with user User:Bladesmulti when there was a similar discussion at Ayurveda (I can actually easily concur to Robert McClenon who closed the RfC there: "...it was only pseudo-science to the extent that scientific claims were made, and that its roots were in religion rather than science, and were not pseudo-science because they preceded the concept of modern science")

If any more information is needed, I'd be happy to provide. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 15:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Opening statement:

I regret that this dispute had not been resolved through substantial talk page discussions and I acknowledge my status as an involved party. If this case request is accepted, I'll be willing to offer any information that may aid the community in resolving the dispute.

• Thryduulf:

Enforcing the existing pseudoscience discretionary sanctions at AE may not be the best solution because much of the dispute rests on whether acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in particular should be classified as pseudoscientific in the first place. Based on numerous scientific reviews as well as the consensus statements of medical organizations and the assertions of medical textbooks, I believe there is enough hard scientific evidence to make a strong case against the labelling of acupuncture as a form of pseudoscience. Despite my repeated attempts to engage with Kww and others, a consensus appears to be far from sight. Kww's filing for arbitration clearly demonstrates the polarity of the positions that we have taken in this dispute.

• Roger Davies:

Acupuncture should not be classified as fringe science because

1. The American Heart Association's consensus statement says that acupuncture's mechanism of effect appears to be through sensory mechanoreceptor and nociceptor stimulation induced by "connective tissues being wound around the needle".[1]
2. Britain's National Health Service says that acupuncture is used in the majority of pain clinics and hospices in the UK and it is "based on scientific evidence that shows the treatment can stimulate nerves under the skin and in muscle tissue".[2]
3. Cancer Research UK says that "medical research has shown that acupuncture works by stimulating nerves to release the body’s own natural chemicals." [3]
4. The New England Journal of Medicine says that "some physiological phenomena associated with acupuncture have been identified" [4]
5. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine says that "the emerging acceptance of acupuncture results in part from its widespread availability and use in the United States today, even within the walls of major medical centers where it is used as an ancillary approach to pain management" Chapter e2, Page 5, McGraw-Hill, 2011, ISBN 9780071748902

I am not aware of any WP:MEDRS compliant sources that specifically describes acupuncture as "fringe science" or "pseudoscience".

• A Quest For Knowledge and Robert McClenon:

WP:DRN is unlikely to resolve the dispute because of the dirty tactics used by Kww and others to prevent consensus for the use of medical literature per WP:MEDRS. As a matter of fact, there had been a DRN case regarding the inappropriate classification of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as "largely pseudoscience". [5] However, this was closed by a disinterested volunteer claiming that "Consensus seems to have been reached" without stating clearly what the consensus was. A careful look at the discussion shows that there was in fact no consensus - both sides continued to repeat their arguments.

In addition, there is also an ongoing WP:RFC for Traditional Chinese Medicine [6] regarding the labelling of TCM as "largely pseudoscience" (again). The result of this RFC is unclear, but regardless of what sort of "consensus" it yields, things will not change unless Kww and others first change their behavior. Their refusal to faithfully represent scientific consensus is exemplified by the following behaviorial patterns in talk page discussions:

Making personal attacks and accusations

LesVegas: The use of NCCAM received broad support amongst uninvolved editors at WikiProject Medicine [7]

Kww and others: I have caught you blatantly lying [8]

A1candidate: I don't see any uninvolved editor opposing NCCAM per se [9]

Kww and others: That A1candidate defends it makes him an accomplice [10]

Ignoring an editor's request for explanation

A1candidate: The claim that TCM is pseudoscientific is not supported by scientific literature. If you disagree, show me a review article that says so. [11]

Kww and others: The burden is on you [12]

Misrepresentation of guidelines

A1candidate: Show me an WP:MEDRS compliant source that says TCM is pseudoscientific [13]

Kww and others: Per WP:REDFLAG no such source is needed [14]

(Note: WP:REDFLAG asserts the opposite of what User:Tgeorgescu claims. As an administrator, Kww failed take action against User:Tgeorgescu for his misrepresention of Wikipedia's policies)

There's one way the Committee could help to resolve this dispute: Ensure that Kww and others provide a reliable source per WP:MEDRS before claiming that TCM or acupuncture is pseudoscientific. If Kww and others repeatedly ignore WP:VERIFY, all efforts to resolve the dispute through WP:DRN and WP:RFC would inevitably be futile, as past attempts have clearly demonstrated.

• JzG:

1. Please refrain from making such accusations. I am neither a practitioner, consumer, nor advocate of acupuncture. I only support the scientific study of the subject.

2. Purinergic signalling is not a WP:COATRACK. It is an interesting topic of scientific study and a recognized field of medicine. Sicne the late 2000s, medical researchers studying purinergic signalling have discovered how it was related to traditional medicine and I covered that area of study per WP:MEDRS and WP:NPOV. According to Trends in Molecular Medicine, "these antinociceptive effects of acupuncture were entirely dependent on A1R activation". [15]. More information can be found on Talk:Purinergic_signalling. Our acupuncture article fails to state this important finding.

3. Contrary to JzG's misleading claims, the source used to support the statement that "The anti-nociceptive effect of acupuncture is mediated by the adenosine A1 receptor" is a review article (according to PubMed) and therefore an excellent WP:MEDRS source.

4. I base my assessment of Ullman on the quality of his arguments, not on his reputation

I am neither a practitioner, consumer, nor advocate of acupuncture. I only support the scientific study of the subject. JzG should stop making these baseless accusations.

• John Carter:

The Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy (ISBN 0-8160-3351-X) is an unreliable source that fails WP:MEDRS. It is neither a widely recognised medical textbook nor a scientific review article and its reliability has been seriously questioned by the skeptic community [16]. Please refrain from using this source in all medical articles.

Jayaguru-Shishya was informed of the discretionary sanctions in early April of 2014. Jayaguru-Shishya is making a lot of counterproductive edits and most of his edits are just reverts from beginning to end at the Acupuncture page. His first edits to both acu and TCM are reverts. I previously tried to resolve some of the issues with Jayaguru-Shishya. See User_talk:Jayaguru-Shishya/Archive_1#Please_stop_making_counterproductive_edits_at_the_acupuncture_page. See User_talk:Kww#Editor_has_no_learning_curve_and_is_unintentionally_being_destructive. Jayaguru-Shishya has a pattern of reverting as soon as he recognizes there is a dispute with the wording at the Acupuncture page.

After I reverted the OR from the acupuncture page added by an IP the OR was restored by Jayaguru-Shishya. The word "many" was OR.[17] Is Jayaguru-Shishya restoring the OR intentionally or unintentionally? At this point I think it is irrelevant.

The reverting by Jayaguru-Shishya has bubbled over to the Traditional Chinese medicine page again. Jayaguru-Shishya deleted text from the body of the Traditional Chinese medicine page back in June 2014. He deleted this: an editorial in Nature said that while this is simply because TCM is largely pseudoscience without a rational mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments, advocates have argued that it is because research had missed some key features of TCM, such as the subtle interrelationships between ingredients. Now in January 2015 he removed similar text from the body and now also the lede.[18][19] There was a previous successful DR where the consensus was to keep the wording "pseudoscience" in the lede and the body. See Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_92#Traditional_Chinese_medicine. QuackGuru (talk) 03:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as though this request is going to fall by the wayside, which is a shame, as there is a need to deal with the genuine issues highlighted by kww. The issue isn't confined to those articles named here, but endemic in most pseudoscience and fringe related topics across the project. Mainstream editors are being out-polited by true believers. Some old polite hands are named and taking part here, plus a newbie who has the technique down to a T.

The problem is partly caused by a lack of understanding of the science involved. As an example in the case of Acu, this causes editors to confuse the fact that pricking somebody with a needle hurts, is genuine evidence for medical efficiency that some editors claim. Also interesting in a recent RfC close debacle at Ayurveda is that if it is ancient, it cannot be pseudoscience. "Flat Earth Theory" is ancient, and believe it or not, pseudoscientific. WP:CIR people.

The debacle at Ayurveda that has driven away so many good editors (including myself - but I don't include myself in the 'good editors' category) will happen again and again unless admins give support to those supporting policy. Badly concieved and enforced unilateral sanctions don't work. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 10:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kww is wrong -- spectacularly so -- that acupuncture isn't under wide and serious study. Ironically the first source he cites demonstrates this, cf. its long list of recent research. In fact, that source is one of a pair of invited pro/con editorials (here's the pro). If acupuncture were really not taken seriously, a mainstream journal like Anesthesia & Analgesia wouldn't have given the pro view equal time.

A perusal of Pubmed and Cochrane reviews also shows that acu is taken seriously and shows some evidence of efficacy (see here and here), as does the fact that it's used at numerous academic centers including some of the best (Harvard, Stanford etc.). Yes, for most conditions acupuncture has been shown not to work, but certainly for pain and nausea there is mainstream debate, cf. Cochrane. All these results are the fruit of recent, "wide and serious study".

In fact, the single best MEDRS there is -- Vickers et. al. (2012) [20] -- concludes that acupuncture "is more than a placebo" and a reasonable referral option. This meta-analysis uses individualized patient data (IPD), which is the most rigorous approach, the "gold standard", a way to find information other good reviews have missed [21]. It was accepted by other sources, e.g. the well-respected Medscape [22]. It was criticized by the usual alt-med critics, e.g. [23][24]. The latter weigh, but not much compared to Vickers: they are not even peer-reviewed journal articles. They are at best on the lowest rungs of MEDRS while Vickers is at the very top. Vickers' IPD meta-analysis should be in the lede, yet it remains barely mentioned owing to POV-pushing from anti-acu editors. (See also an effort to dismiss Vickers as a MEDRS, which was not favorably received.)

If acupuncture were as fringe as skeptics say, we wouldn't be seeing positive conclusions in top-quality MEDRS's and indignant objections in blogs. It would be the other way around (as e.g. for homeopathy).

Additionally, there is serious objection to the "pseudoscience" label; see here.

What we should do is have one or more RfC/A's. The article needs more eyes, or perhaps some of the more aggressive anti-acu editors ought to be topic-banned. Following Kww's advice would only worsen WP's single worst problem, the shrinking (and demographically narrow) editorial pool. It would also reflect a painfully embarrassing misreading of the literature. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 10:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would not necessarily consider myself an uninvolved administrator with this article, but neither am I all that involved in practice. I do hope that I have the bona fides to simply declare (without having to provide much evidence) that I have never been seen as one to be particularly sympathetic to pseudoscientific and other non-mainstream (or significant minority) points of view.

With that said, having read the talk page oldid that Kww links to,[25] I am afraid I do not view things from his perspective. For example, Kww portrays A1candidate as someone who is "attempting to block a reflection of scientific consensus in the article" because they are attempting to "portray acupuncture as having medical legitimacy". That simply makes no sense to me; I read the talk page as indicating that A1candidate is not nearly convinced (by sources linked to and provided on that talk page) that acupuncture has significant medical benefits but that it does have some valid mechanism of action. Accordingly, it would make no sense to call it pseudoscientific, just like it would not make any sense to call yoga or meditation psuedoscientific (even though they are important components of Ayurveda).

Do I see some editors who should be banned on Talk:Acupuncture? Yes. But I don't think an ArbCom case will be the best venue for that. I think what is seriously needed is a set of reports to be filed at WP:AE with actual enforcement of the "Decorum" provisions of WP:AC/DS. I see that as working far more effectively than a full case. NW (Talk) 23:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles, Roger Davies, GorillaWarfare, Thryduulf, and DeltaQuad: I think it would be a lot simpler if the log were maintained at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. That page also serves as the log for Fringe Science, Chiropractic medicine and Homeopathy. It would confuse the issue to now have two separate logs for highly related pages. NW (Talk) 22:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Roger Davies: So where do I log chiropractic topic bans? There is clear evidence that it helps some people, and it is definitely CAM. But do we continue to do it in Pseudoscience, or should we now be logging it in Acupuncture? What happens when someone tries to push some nonsense about Faith healing, Crystal energy, Transcendental Meditation or Ayurveda? Psuedoscience or Acupuncture? Will the sanction be dismissed if they haven't been warned under the proper case name or topic? What if I sanction someone and I am not aware that they were previously sanctioned for the same edit(s) on a different case log?

The list can go on and on. Renaming the case or even creating a central log of discretionary sanctions would be fine with me, but CAM and Fringe Science are too tightly linked for it to be a good idea to try to separate the two logs like this. NW (Talk) 04:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: I think this is pretty far from being a content decision. If anything it's going to be the opposite – I'm now probably going to get complaints when I block at Crystal energy under Psuedoscience rather than as an AE action under Acupuncture. (I say "I", but it's likely to be someone who actually still does a significant amount of work on this site...) Haven't you just kicked the can down the road to the AE admins to make the content decision on which case these all belong under? (see also Timotheus Canens' statement, which I works 100% for me) NW (Talk) 20:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Courcelles: I would have no problem with that. NW (Talk) 21:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also, User:EdJohnston just floated on my talk page the idea of creating a centralized log. Still not sure what I think about that, but it's one idea. NW (Talk) 21:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

KWW's statement is very illustrative of what is wrong with the alternative medicine topic area in Wikipedia. Although he admits that the behavior of WP's established "pro-science" editors can be problematic, he proposes that only the "pro-acupuncture" editors be topic banned, presumably because the established WP editors, even though they are behaving badly, need to stay around because they are supporting the "good" POV. For some reason, suggesting to Wikipedia's "pro-science" advocates and their admin enablers, that all relevant information (such as these "ambiguous studies" that KWW refers to) be allowed into these articles so the reader can read everything and make up their own mind as to the veracity of the claims is met with ridicule, insult, rejection, and/or indifference. If I understand correctly, because KWW doesn't want to get into a wheel war with John, he's asking for you, the Committee, to formally support and establish the official House POV on alternative medicine as the one supported by KWW and the editors who edit in the ways that his group approves of. KWW can correct me if I'm wrong. Cla68 (talk) 00:03, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like acupuncture will now follow the same pattern as the other alternative medicine articles: (1) newbies will arrive and try to NPOV the tone of the article and add sources, including academic studies, that make the article less negative towards the topic, (2) they will be reverted, insulted, and dismissed by the article's regulars, several of whose names are listed above but have decided not to stick their necks out by making statements here, then (3) KWW and other admins dedicated to preserving the house POV will use some pretense to topic ban or ban those newbie editors under the Pseudoscience Discretionary Sanctions. Keep it up, WP. Cla68 (talk) 00:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, to make it easy for us, several long-time editors, including two admins, on this page have declared that they don't care what the RS say, they personally consider acupuncture to be a pseudoscience and "scientifically discredited" and therefore it is correct and just to ban any other editor who feels differently. So, WP admins, these guys have made it easy for you to figure out who to ban from the pseudoscience and alternative medicine topic areas for openly declaring that the NPOV policy doesn't apply to them. HJMitchell, NuclearWarfare, et al, let's get busy, ok? Cla68 (talk) 13:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, here's a good example of the type of behavior involved with the alternative medicine topic area and involving several editors who have commented here on this request. The behavior of the regulars at the Homeopathy article was commented upon in a pejorative manner in the Huffington Post. Those regulars, with no apparent sense of irony (or the COI guideline), then all piled-in to vote not to include mention of that commentary in the article. You really cannot make this stuff up. Cla68 (talk) 13:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom, why are you voting to put discretionary sanctions on acupuncture? KWW didn't present any actual evidence of wrongdoing by the editors he doesn't like. He just basically said, "There are some very polite editors attempting to add content to the acupuncture articles that I and other editors with a different POV find objectionable. Could you please classify it as a pseudoscience so I can ban them using those discretionary sanctions?" You're still deciding to give him what he wants by placing DS on the topic, even though they're name differently in order to sidestep the label issue. Anyone want to take any bets on how long it takes for several of the editors who have commented here to get their topic bans? Cla68 (talk) 00:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, just wondering, but could anyone post evidence of any established editor being topic banned or banned for POV-pushing the white-male, Western science POV related to medicine, alternative medicine, or pseudoscience? The only one I know if is ScienceApologist, and that was for clearly socking. However, the number of newbies blocked for supposedly supporting "fringe science" probably numbers in the hundreds, if not thousands. I would really like to hear HJMitchell's, NuclearWarfare's, MastCell's, or JzG's explanations as to why this is so or appropriate for a crowdsourcing project like this one. Is the purpose of en.wp to push western philosophy over all others? Serious question. Cla68 (talk) 13:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would caution the committee against making any rulings on content, which seems to be what this request is ultimately asking (banning only editors on a particular side of this dispute which would swing the article towards a particular POV). On a side note, I don't really know much about acupuncture but I looked it up at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services[26] which states "Results from a number of studies suggest that acupuncture may help ease types of pain that are often chronic such as low-back pain, neck pain, and osteoarthritis/knee pain. It also may help reduce the frequency of tension headaches and prevent migraine headaches. Therefore, acupuncture appears to be a reasonable option for people with chronic pain to consider." It does not describe it as "pseudoscience" so Kww may be mistaken that there's a scientific consensus that acupuncture is pseudoscience. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:19, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@ArbCom: Our article on acupuncture contains the word "pseudoscience" seven times. Even if acupuncture is not a pseudoscience, as long as editors and/or sources are making this connection, this should be covered under the pseudoscience sanctions, at least the parts that pertain to it being a pseudoscience. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Kww: It's not within ArbCom's remit to make decisions on article content. Have you tried the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@A1candidate: If Kww has engaged in sanctionable misconduct, you can file a Request for Enforcement (RfE) at WP:AE. I have every confidence in the AE admins to sort through this mess. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@John Carter: I am genuinely curious as to why you say that whether acupuncture is pseudoscience is a "definite "yes.". My only prior knowledge of acupuncture is what I see in the movies and on TV. But when I looked it up at:

• The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services[27]
• The Mayo Clinic[28]
• The National Cancer Institute[29]
• The American Heart Association[30]
• Encyclopedia Britannica[31] (which theoretically should produce an article roughly similar to ours)

Not a single one of the sources I looked up describes acupuncture as pseudoscience. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:13, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Cla68: I'm not sure it's accurate to call this a "Western science POV". As I pointed out above, when I looked it up, not a single source I found described acupuncture as pseudoscience. And these are all highly respected, highly reliable Western sources. As best as I can figure out, the POV that acupuncture is a pseudoscience is a WP:FRINGE (or perhaps a minority) POV. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One reason that WP:AE might not be workable is that it could lead to anomalous results if uninvolved admins are polarized. In theory, both John and Kww could rationally consider themselves uninvolved, and would consider different editors as ignoring WP:MEDRS. Certainly, other uninvolved editors (and admins) could easily interpret WP:MEDRS differently, leading to, as Kww points out above, wheel wars. I do not consider myself uninvolved. Perhaps a motion clarifying how the pseudoscience decision relates to this article might avoid problems, even if it might lead to the WP:WRONGVERSION. I generally agree with Kww; the uncivil behavior by the scientists (in general) follows the (polite) WP:IDHT from the acupuncturists in regard pseudoscience. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As one of the admins working at WP:AE, I've been asked by Thryduulf on my talk page to offer an opinion about whether the "acupuncture" topic is part of the "pseudoscience" topic area for which discretionary sanctions are authorized. As far as I can tell, the question of whether acupuncture is a pseudoscience is a matter of contention between proponents of acupuncture and others, but there are, at least, reliable sources that discuss its alleged status as a pseudoscience or fringe science. As such, acupuncture is at least a topic "relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted", and consequently subject to discretionary sanctions. However, like arbitration generally, AE cannot resolve content disputes (such as whether some piece of content is neutral or not). It can only address conduct problems, such as edit-warring or persistent tendentious editing.  Sandstein  14:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please make a motion clarifying whether or not AltMed topics are subject to discretionary sanctions under the pseudoscience decision. You obviously aren't saying they are pseudoscience, just saying that you want those remedies applied there because its the same problem needing the same solution. That's the one simple thing you can do to help resolve this (any many other similar) issue(s). Take away the potential objection that will surely be made by any tendentious editors brought to AE. Jehochman ^Talk 14:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Cla68: the Huffington Post? You know that rag takes submissions from anybody. What point are you trying to make with that? We've all seen this story before. Sensible editors eventually lose their cool after relentless POV pushing by tendentious editors. The cure is to topic ban the tendentious. Jehochman ^Talk 13:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This case request, like the one about Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, is a request for the ArbCom to accept a case about a topic that already falls within an area of existing ArbCom discretionary sanctions. I asked what the filing party expected the ArbCom to do that the administrators at Arbitration Enforcement could not do. I didn't get an answer that I understood. More importantly, the arbitrators didn't get an answer that they understood. To the extent that I did understand the answer, it insulted the Arbitration Enforcement administrators by implying that they couldn't get it right. At least this time, the filing party does say what he wants the ArbCom to do. He wants the ArbCom to topic-ban certain pro-acupuncture editors. He doesn't say why he thinks that AE can't deal with those editors. The implication is that different admins will have different standards of how much tolerance there is for reasoning that is partly pseudo-scientific. My own observation is that, although the rules for discretionary sanctions allow any uninvolved administrator to impose topic-bans, topic-bans are in fact only imposed after discussion between several respected administrators with different standards, so that AE is a good substitute for new arbitration by multiple respected arbitrators with different standards. I ask the filing party to explain why arbitration enforcement will not be effective. I trust that if there is no plausible answer, the arbitrators will decline the case. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am mostly uninvolved. My only real involvement was to close an RFC on a different traditional Asian healing philosophy, Ayurveda, asking whether Ayurveda was pseudo-science. I concluded that there was consensus that it was only pseudo-science to the extent that scientific claims were made, and that its roots were in religion rather than science, and were not pseudo-science because they preceded the concept of modern science. That issue was resolved using a dispute resolution procedure without arbitration or arbitration enforcement. This issue may require arbitration enforcement, but why does it require new arbitration? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC) Is Acupuncture Pseudoscience?[reply]

The appropriate way to determine whether acupuncture or any other area of inquiry is pseudoscience and subject to discretionary sanctions is a Request for Comments. If the purpose of this request for arbitration is a determination as to whether acupuncture is pseudoscience and so subject to discretionary sanctions, an RFC is sufficient. If the objective is to topic-ban certain editors, then why can't arbitration enforcement be used rather than new arbitration? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This dispute appears to involve not only Acupuncture, but also Traditional Chinese medicine#Acupuncture and moxibustion, Acupuncture point#Scientific research, List of acupuncture points#Locations and basis, Meridian (Chinese medicine)#Scientific view of traditional Chinese meridian theory, Qi#Scientific view, and possibly Electroacupuncture.

I am concerned about the claim that one side of the content dispute in question is in general staying within the rules while the other side is not. If true, arbcom could be in the position of taking sides in the content dispute simply by sanctioning those who are misbehaving and not sanctioning those who are not. One could argue that this is the price you pay for not following Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines, but one could also argue that the end result would violate WP:NPOV.

If this arbitration request is denied, I think it should be made clear whether it is denied and the topic is subject to arbitration enforcement and/or discretionary sanctions under the pseudoscience case or whether it is denied and not subject to arbitration enforcement and/or discretionary sanctions -- implying that behavioral problems should be brought up at WP:ANI and content disputes should be handled by WP:RfC or brought up at WP:DRN. Otherwise there will no doubt be a clarification request asking that very question. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2015 (UTC) Edited 17:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, the motion below is a good solution. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since Thryduulf asked my opinion on whether this could be handled through the existing discretionary sanctions so I'll offer a few thoughts. I offer no opinion on whether the case should be accepted, but these thoughts might inform the decision:

• Discretionary sanctions work well over relatively broad topic areas, usually influenced by real-world disputes that are being re-fought on Wikipedia, where a large number of editors line up on sides and where POV pushing, edit-warring, and other misconduct are rife. In order for discretionary sanctions to be effective, they need to widely known-about and understood, and violations of the standards of conduct need to be reported to admins. So to contrast two examples, they work well in the Israel-Palestine topic area (which, even seven years after the case, still accounts for about 50% of the workload at AE) because all the established editors there are familiar with the standards expected and there is no lack of zeal in reporting; the effectiveness of the BLP discretionary sanctions (and their predecessor, BLP special enforcement) is more open to question, possibly because of a lack of awareness, the less clear boundaries, or just because admins enjoy widespread community support for BLP enforcement and don't need to invoke the discretionary sanctions.
• Acupuncture falls within the discretionary sanctions on psuedoscience; whether it is pseudoscience is a matter of (fierce) debate, but it is clearly related to the topic area. Even if it weren't, the dispute over whether acupuncture is pseudoscience would clearly fall under the remit of the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions.
• While I have no opinion on acupuncture itself, the problem here seems to be that the article and its talk page are dominated by editors on both sides who have extremely strong opinions. One side happens to have the support of a lot of established editors and the odd adminsitrator, but that doesn't make that side right or the other side wrong per se. I haven't looked into the matter deeply enough to comment on whether there are serious conduct issues beyond heated debate in a content dispute. An ArbCom-mandated RfC, widely advertised and perhaps with suffrage requirements (to prevent brand-new SPAs from muddying the waters) and perhaps without the participation of the parties to the current dispute, might be able to put the issue of how acupuncture should be covered to bed?

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:14, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I will say this: the conduct Kww describes is not the sort of conduct that discretionary sanctions can deal with. Persistently advocating for the inclusion of content that any reasonable editor would know had no place in an encyclopaedia article would be disruptive and could be grounds for discretionary sanctions, as would obstructing discussion to the point that it makes consensus impossible to find, but this would require diffs and careful explanation at AE, but discretionary sanctions work best for obvious misconduct. Merely suggesting, in good faith, additions or removals that meet with the displeasure of the dominant group of editors on the article is not disruptive and would not constitute grounds for sanctions. And for the record, a pseudoscience article being dominated by extreme sceptics would be as problematic as if it wee dominated by avid proponents, just as it would be problematic for an article related to Israel-Palestine or India-Pakistan or Eastern Europe to be dominated by nationalist zealots from one side or the other. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:47, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No objection to the proposed motion. Roger's suggestion of a centralised DS log is an excellent one. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:50, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• @Black Kite: FYI, your complaint will disappear into the ether on this page because it's not set up to evaluate the conduct of a particular editor. WP:AE, on the other hand, is set up for exactly that purpose, and Cla is clearly aware of the DS in this area as he has commented on the AE request concerning JzG. If your complaint here is accurate, please do bring it to AE with diffs and it will be evaluated. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:57, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have not been involved in this case, however I have uploaded several hundred relevant images relating to acupuncture and traditional medicine as part of my work with Wellcome Images (the majority being 18th century or earlier artefacts with a handful of 20th century exceptions) and wish to see them more widely reused and articles expanded. However this case pans out, either here or elsewhere, I recommend that a distinction is retained between alternative Medicine and its current perception and trade, and the history of medicine which may include branches such as acupuncture, if necessary by encouraging article splits.

It would be sad day to find potential knowledgeable contributors put off editing and illustrating historical articles for fear of stepping into long running dramas or complex restrictions. --Fæ (talk) 16:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Without any regards to the merits of either side, I'm failing to see why the RfC route hasn't been followed more vigorously. Since Kww appears to want solid judgements on what can and can't be included in the article, which indeed doesn't really fall inside ArbCom's remit, why not have a large-scale RfC on the topic, with different questions for each contended bit? I don't really see any evidence that most of these editors are being unconstructive; opposing changes by having a different viewpoint is not on its own a problematic thing, which some users seem to be implying, and if they do so politely, then that's what they're supposed to do. I do personally think that if an article is too heavily biased towards the scientific side of things, even as someone who would take that side, then it violates NPOV and this is a problem (I lack the subject knowledge to decide if the article is too unbalanced or not right now, however.) Acupuncture, after all, has not been widely decreed as being quack by the scientific community; indeed, it seems to be in a very grey area. I also agree with the statement that the discretionary sanctions for pseudoscience apply here, since the debate is related to that topic. Finally, I find Cla68's comment, particularly with regard to good-faith newbies, to be fairly accurate of what seems likely to happen if the articles aren't made a little more balanced. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:15, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To my eyes, there are basically two issues, closely related, here. One is the broad question as to whether acupuncture in general qualifies as a pseudoscience. The answer there is, so far as I can tell, a definite "yes." It is one of the longer articles in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles, so I think that certainly establishes that answer. There is perhaps another question as to whether some specific procedures practiced within a field which is rather clearly pseudoscientific are themselves necessarily inherently pseudoscientific. This is a harder issue to determine. Acupuncture has been around for many centuries, and like any other procedure of that type, I guess even including exorcism, the practice of the discipline as it is done today will include some aspects which can be shown to be to an extent demonstrably effective in some cases. Trial-and-error practice for centuries or millenia will make that true to virtually all archaic practices to some degree or another. That latter topic is however irrelevant to whether this topic is covered by the existing sanctions, which I think it clearly and unequivocally is. If there were issues of specific behavior of specific individuals which might extend beyond the field of pseudoscience, then there might be basis for a case, but in this particular case I don't see anything which can't be handled at AE or ARCA. John Carter (talk) 16:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@A Quest For Knowledge: I would have thought it obvious that if something is prominently included in an encyclopedia on the topic itself, it qualifies as being within the scope of that topic. Speaking as someone who personally would prefer we not use the word "pseudoscience" too much in our articles, because of the comparative ambiguity and recentness of the term, I have to acknowledge that it certainly qualifies for inclusion in related lists and categories based on it being prominently included in one of the recent reference works specifically on the topic, as I indicated above. And that would, seemingly, mean that it also would reasonably fall within the range of the existing sanctions on the topic. John Carter (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Arbs: Just noting that at Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles "Alternative medicine" is itself listed as being one of the longer articles in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, so presumably that topic area would in general fall within the existing discretionary sanctions anyway. I dunno how to define "complementary medicine," and don't see anything like that listed, but it looks to me like a lot of the stuff that I might think might be included there, like fad diets, Ayurvedic medicine, and others are specifically included as well. It might actually be easier for someone, probably not me, to go around at tag the relevant articles and maybe work up the relevant project banner to specifically indicate that all the articles tagged with the Pseudoscience project banner pretty much by definition fall under the discretionary sanctions? John Carter (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that the acupuncture article, like many articles on Wikipedia, is skewed toward a particular point of view. That view is established as the standard NPOV view, and then attempts are made to ban editors who don't agree with that view. Cla68 makes a good point, referring to this as Wikipedia's House POV. Elements of the article seem extreme. Is it appropriate to quote a blogger, for example, referring to acupuncture as "quackademic medicine" and "woo"? And this sentence, which is in the article twice and cites an editorial, is simply given as a statement of fact: "TCM is largely pseudoscience, with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments." This sentence in the first paragraph of the lead is stated as fact: "The TCM theory and practice are not based upon scientific knowledge." But the source is QuackWatch, which is self-published and has a clear agenda. In my mind, it remains an open question whether acupuncture is pseudoscience, given that there are various points of view, given that scores of leading US medical centers offer it, given that even a conservative publication such as the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that it may be an acceptable treatment for low back pain, given the large number of randomized-controlled trials and the extensive ongoing research into the theory and practice. TimidGuy (talk) 18:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I might add that I think there may be a behavioral problem here, and not necessarily on the part of those with an interest in acupuncture. Using questionable sources, such as a blog and QuackWatch, is bad enough, but even worse is the fact that editors attempted to edit war a statement into the WP:FRINGE guideline that these sites are reliable sources.[32][33][34][35] TimidGuy (talk) 20:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good decline in progress. This is not a request to determine if acupuncture falls under pseudoscience discretionary sanctions -- it's a request to change policy by declaring something called "scientific consensus" to be a trump card admins can pull out to dictate content, based on a Western view of the world; while an important view, it's certainly not the only one, and Wikipedia policy should be to balance the viewpoints depending on their prominence in reliable sources. Per WP:MEDICAL, we don't have a responsibility to publish THE TRUTH, only to reflect sources. It's disrespectful of other cultures not to include their viewpoints. No evidence has been applied there's a serious disagreement as to whether an admin can impose DS on an editor per pseudoscience (i.e. there's no link to disputed AE or AN threads follow such an imposition.) NE Ent 02:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom 2015: Please learn to vote so the clerks and your fellow committee members can keep the count accurate. First of, what is "procedurally accept"? Per the AC Guide, a simple Accept or Decline will do. ('Accept, or accept not, there is no "procedural" decline' Yoda). The fact that some of ya'll are willing to change your mind is a great sign of deliberation and collaborativeness, but striking a bold Decline makes it hard to read, so please unbold your declines. Finally, placing your vote at the beginning of your statement just makes this easier. As the saying goes, KISS -- Keep it Simple, Sahib. NE Ent 00:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The scientific status of acupuncture is, of course, not our business (it is unusual amongst alternative treatments in that it still receives some mainstream scientific coverage, due to the inherent difficulties of blinding patients as to whether needles are actually inserted; the existence of qi and meridians is refuted, the question of whether needling itself has any objective effect is still open). It's also very much not a matter for ArbCom, in that the sources establishing this to be fringe science are robust and thus there is no question of demarcation or applicability of prior arbitrations.

User conduct, however, probably is. The majority of those involved in this dispute are devoted to advocacy (I discount Cla68, who is simply making trouble, in my view). Several users acknowledge that they are practitioners or otherwise vested in acupuncture. This has led to some problems such as Purinergic signalling (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a WP:COATRACK created by an acupuncture advocate (A1candidate) in order to promote the "fact that, as he wrote, "The anti-nociceptive effect of acupuncture is mediated by the adenosine A1 receptor" supported by a source which is not a WP:MEDRS (it discusses patent law, [36]). Similar edits were made on Acupuncture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) representing a tentative conclusion along the lines of "may be caused by" as a factual statement "is caused by". You may also wish to review A1candidate's advocacy of including the opinions of Dana Ullman at talk:Homeopathy (see [37]) - this is indicative of a credulous approach, to say the least.

I believe that users like A1candidate are sincere, but there is a disparity of motivation in that the proponents of scientifically refuted ideas have a disproportionate need to get their views reflected as "fact" on Wikipedia and the Wikipedia editors who try to maintain WP:NPOV tend not to be anything like so vested in any single subject. Homeopathy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) are all examples of this. So the issue is a generic one, in that we have only limited patience to deal with those who want to keep demanding until they get what they want. These cases usually end up here, and usually end up with ArbCom telling the advocates to accept the presentation of the scientific consensus view or take a hike. And along the way, lots of people lose their temper. If you can find a solution to this I'd be very happy. Guy (Help!) 12:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Collect: It's a nice idea, but we'd be legislating a new classification that doesn't exist in the real world. There are issues of branding, e.g. "traditional Chinese medicine", which is actually pretty much a creation of Mao, cobbled together from a loose collection of folkways, and there are issues of nomenclature and demarcation, but the actual position is this, as far as I can tell:

1. Many "traditional" / folk practices are based largely on superstition. Their more honest advocates do not attempt to claim otherwise.
2. Pseudoscience is a very specific term covering activities that give the appearance of science, but fail in some critical area pertaining to the scientific method. Tests that use the language and styles of science but begin with a statement like "homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of medicine based on the use of substances which cause in a healthy person the symptoms experienced by a person suffering form a disease" are pseudoscientific, because none of those statements is true apart from the age. There are debates to be had over the difference between pseudoscience and pathological se, but in this we can follow the sources.
3. The vast majority of the alternatives to medicine under discussion, are supported primarily on grounds that are entirely fallacious. Appeals to tradition, nature, mystery and authority are endemic. We rightly accord such views less weight than those based on good science.
4. The abuse of "evidence based medicine" by proponents of refuted therapies, is rife. Ioannidis shows that for a null treatment, biases and other confounders will result in a small net positive evidence base. Advocates of refuted therapies point to this small net positive evidence base and assert that it overrides the absence of plausible mechanism. They take the small net positive evidence base and use that to advance speculative mechanisms by which it "works", and then use these as evidence that the weak positive base shows real effect.

So the question is whether Wikipedia wants to fall for the current rebranding and become an "integrative encyclopaedia", adding fiction to fact in order to document the universe "holistically". Remember, alternative medicine, by definition, either hasn't been proven to work, or has been proven not to work. We are dealing with a situation precisely analogous to creationism here. Alternative medicine is like Young-Earth Creationism, "integrative" medicine is like theistic evolution and other forms of old-earth / old universe creationism. Science is not in the business of proving a negative, it's in the business of testing claims. The claims of virtually all of the supplement, complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM) industry are generally permitted only because of industry lobbying or "grandfather" clauses. None of them, pretty uch without exception, would be approved today if they were introduced as a new treatment (see also: Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans, an example of how cranks get round that). We are dealing here with religions, not with science. Guy (Help!) 00:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I find myself in agreement with parts of most statements above (Fae and others) - the real problem, as I see it, is the strong position that anything not precisely backed by empirical medical science is considered pseudoscience and the fact that many such practices were historically and traditionally used as medicine in many places, thus earning a legitimate place in any articles dealing with "historical and traditional medicine". The current dichotomy of pseudoscience is quite recent, with empirical studies of efficacy of many treatments only dating to the last half century. I suggest that a motion be made suggesting a community discussion on whether a new category of (say) "Historical and traditional medical practices" be established to contain such "alternative medicine" topics as ought to be so labelled, and this category be distinguished from "pseudoscience" which is primarily aimed at topics which at the time the practice originated were so regarded as pseudoscience. This would not come close to emptying the pseudoscience category, but would make clear that the topics are "historical and traditional" in nature, rather than deliberate affronts to empirical science. Collect (talk) 13:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed motion creates significant additional complexity for AE because it sets up two separate DS topic areas with significant overlap, for little benefit.

• Because these are separate topic areas, separate alerts are required. This means that editors editing in the sizable intersection of these areas will likely end up getting two {{alert}} templates at the same time rather than just one; if we consider one alert template unwelcoming, two would be more than twice as bad.
• Because a significant number of editors have been alerted for PS/FS but not CAM, AE will still have to sort out if something is inside the PS/FS topic area or "just" CAM, which is little better than the status quo.
• Splitting the log into two separate pages causes problems with tracking, as NuclearWarfare observed.

The only arguable benefit is that the committee might avoid the appearance of making a content decision, but there is no content decision even if the committee authorized DS for a single, expanded topic area. The committee extended the original pseudoscience discretionary sanctions to cover fringe science so that AE doesn't have to work out whether something is pseudoscience or merely fringe. I don't see anyone arguing that that amounted to a content decision labeling all fringe science as pseudoscience. Moreover, given the second point above, this merely kicks the can down the road to AE admins.

The committee should authorize DS for the single topic area of "pseudoscience, fringe science, and complementary and alterative medicine". If it desires, it can rename the Pseudoscience case, or move the DS remedy and logs under a new case name. But having two significantly overlapping DS topic areas interacts very poorly with the design of the alert system. T. Canens (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As an incidental issue, anyone who thinks Cla68 is not here simply to cause problems (as alleged above) might want to read Talk:Homeopathy#edit_request, where a user is trying to include a source which is not only a blog, but a blog by a known Homeoopathy POV-pusher who has been described as completely unreliable by a court. Cla68 thinks his opinion should be included in the article. Black Kite (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I previously edited the acupuncture article but walked away because it is too toxic and simply, no fun.

I pretty much echo what JzG wrote above but want to focus it a bit.

Arbcom deals with behavior and not content.

The behavior issues at play are some of the thorniest around, namely WP:ADVOCACY. - to put it in policy terms, patterns of editing that violate WP:NOTADVOCATE. This is very hard as you all know b/c you can never be uncivil or edit war but be a rank advocate, and just keep flying in WP.

On the one hand we have dedicated advocates for acu and other alt medicine approaches (they are well identified above and several profess their advocacy). They have been more present and more strident lately and I am not surprised to see this Arbcom request. On the other hand we have the group I will define as "quack fighters" who perform an invaluable service to WP in cleaning up quackery and pseudoscience when it is added to WP. They are advocates for evidence-based medicine which is inline with PSCI; Wikipedia would be a wasteland of bad content but for their work. As mentioned their advocacy aligns (generally) with the WP:PSCI policy but I have to say that sometimes their perspective goes too far and becomes advocacy for the EBM movement even in the realm of conventional medicine. But that is another matter.

What has happened at the Acupuncture article is rock meeting hard place. It is ugly.

If Arbcom takes this on, it should be on the basis of patterns of behavior that violate WP:NOTADVOCATE around alternative medicine, in light of WP:PSCI. It should expand on the previous PSCI decision by dealing specifically with WP:NOTADVOCATE and perhaps also explicitly with the broader field of "alternative medicine". Acupuncture is just a sliver of alt med and can serve as the useful anvil on which to work things out but the decision should read on TCM, Ayurveda, Energy medicine etc etc. Very, very hard. Good luck. Jytdog (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

• I'm awaiting more statements before opining one way or the other on this, but I would like to see comments from those wanting a case addressing why enforcing the existing pseudoscience discretionary sanctions at AE would not work. Thryduulf (talk) 00:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm leaning decline now. I take the point that it is not agreed whether acupuncture is pseudoscience, but the discretionary sanctions actually apply to "Pseudoscience and Fringe science" because (at least in part) there was a similar discussion about whether cold fusion is or is not pseudoscientific, and I don't see that there is a dispute that acupuncture is one of these. I have opined in the past (but not as an arbitrator at that point) that if there are reliable sources calling something pesudoscience or pseudoscientific (regardless of whether other sources agree) then these discretionary apply, without that implying anything about whether it is or is not pseudoscientifc for article content purposes. Together with my colleagues comments below, it is now clear that the Committee regard the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions as applying to acupuncture. If a formal motion is necessary we could do that, but I'm not sure it's necessary.
    All that said, I'd like to see the opinion of one or more uninvolved experienced AE admins for their opinion of whether they think AE would be able to handle this. Absent their strong opinion that it would be ineffective at resolving the dispute though I anticipate declining. Thryduulf (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline a full case. I see though that there is a legitimate uncertainty about whether this is covered by the pseudoscience and fringe science discretionary sanctions or not and that is something that we the committee can clarify. Given that there appears to be no objections to applying DS to the topic, only debate about whether they already are, there seem to be two useful ways forward - either officially stating that (as I suggested before my term as an arbitrator) any topic where there are reliable sources that describe it as pseudoscience or fringe science are covered by those discretionary sanctions (without passing judgement on whether they are or not) and noting that this explicitly includes accupuncture; or passing a motion ammending the "pseudoscience and fringe science" discretionary sanctions to "pseudoscience, fringe science and complementary and alternative medicine". Thryduulf (talk) 13:12, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @KWW: It is not the job of either arbcom or AE to rule on article content issues, beyond stressing that NPOV is non-negotiable. What NPOV means in terms of the balance of each individual article is something for the editors of that article to determine by consensus. If editors are unable to come to a consensus due to behavioural issues then that is what the discretionary sanctions can help with. If editors are unable to come to a consensus for other reasons then you need to get other input as described at WP:CONTENTDISPUTE. Thryduulf (talk) 16:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • procedurally accept so that we can pass a motion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Awaiting statements, I'd especially like to hear from John. I do not, looking at he request, get why Kww's statement "any effort for me to resolve it would likely provoke wheel-warring between me and User:John" is true. Surely two experienced admins don't enter a situation expecting it to end in wheel warring? Courcelles 01:07, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• @Roger Davies: I don't think we need to decide that question at all, actually. DS are authorised for "all pages relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted." I'd contend that anything there is a reasonable debate as to its status as pseudoscience or fringe science would be covered, without expecting admins (or us) to sort through the actual label applicable; that there is a debate is enough to hit the broadly interpreted clause. If there is agreement on this, and if a motion is seen as desirable, I:m happy to pass one, but I'm not seeing the need for a full case here. Courcelles 17:27, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Decline It's fairly clear there are steps before arbitration that still should be tried. Courcelles 17:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Procedural accept as I think a carefully crafted motion can be useful here. Courcelles 10:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• @Kww: why haven't you taken this to AE? --Guerillero | My Talk 01:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • That sounds like you are coming here instead of AE because you think that we are going to come up with the outcome you want. Further, if you think that AE will think that you are involved than you most likely are and should not be in the equation for wheel warring. Decline and refer to AE --Guerillero | My Talk 01:59, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will let the motion go by --Guerillero | My Talk 01:25, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline, agreed with Guerillero. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:35, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I suppose the million-dollar is whether acupuncture is fringe science or not. I really don't know the answer to that but I do note that it is widely available as a state-provided therapy in the UK and France. If it is fringe science, it's covered by DS but if it isn't, it isn't.  Roger Davies ^talk 14:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Courcelles: That's true enough though some of these alternative medicines articles end up as neverending feuds between sceptics and enthusiasts, and I'd hate AE to have to make a long list of which bits are covered and which bits aren't. If it's messy, these things always come back to us, which much wasted effort in the meantime,  Roger Davies ^talk 17:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Procedural accept to pave the way for a motion,  Roger Davies ^talk 09:49, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Homeopathy is considered fringe but is still available through the UK's National Health Service. The list of such treatments includes acupuncture, aromatherapy, chiropractic, homeopathy, massage, osteopathy and clinical hypnotherapy.[38] So it can be fringe science and still be provided by a state health service. Dougweller (talk) 11:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC) It's been suggested that I point out that the availability of homeopathy in the NHS has been steadily decreasing and the NHS web page discussing it says it is considered to be based on "scientifically implausible principles" and no batter than placebo treatment.[39]. Dougweller (talk) 11:59, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline The issue is not whether acupuncture (and indeed, homeopathy, aromatherapy, iridology etc.) is a pseudoscience or not, but whether it falls under the heading of pages relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted, as per the Pseudoscience DS ruling. Any reasonable broad interpretation of "relating to pseudoscience and fringe science" would include TCM and acupuncture, since both have been extensively discussed in this light; it doesn't actually matter whether they genuinely are fringe sciences. This therefore falls within the purview of the existing discretionary sanctions. It is therefore unncessary for the Committee to provide an additional ruling specifically for this article. Yunshui ^雲_水 14:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline. Agree with @Yunshui and Thryduulf:, and others. @Roger Davies: I don't think it matters whether it is fringe science; its still related to the subject area, and debate as to whether it is or isn't is most certainly under DS. LFaraone 15:03, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• 'Decline' It's clearly a subject "relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted". I understand the concern but don't think that at this time it's an issue for the Committee. Dougweller (talk) 16:58, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Procedural accept Dougweller (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline per Courcelles. Reconsidering one aspect. -- Euryalus (talk) 14:07, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Decline per Courcelles and DGG. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:32, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Decline I too do not see this as an insoluble dispute, rather as one where arb com is asked to determine where the NPOV actually lies--in fact, where it might even seem we are asked to determine that the NPOVis in a particular requested direction. We should be very reluctant to do this. DGG ( talk ) 06:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Procedural accept to allow for a motion. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Procedural accept (if that's the right method to go for a motion instead of a case). -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. As proposer. On reflection, I think this gets completely around the question of whether or not CAM is or is not PS/FS. Courcelles 22:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   @NuclearWarfare: One of the reasons for a new log is to explicitly indicate there is not a content ruling being done here. I'd prefer to stay as far away from anything that could be interpreted as such, which using the same log would do. Courcelles 23:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2. Per Courcelles,  Roger Davies ^talk 22:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
4. I would urge that discretionary sanctions and other forms of dispute resolution are given a genuine chance to succeed before any filing at ARCA. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   @Cla68: The existence of discretionary sanctions does not give anyone the right to ban anyone else from a topic area because they do not like them or anything else a specious as that. Uninvolved administrators will quickly WP:BOOMERANG any attempts to misuse the sanctions in this manner. Thryduulf (talk) 00:40, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

5. This is a better alternative than making what I feel would be a content decision. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:42, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

   I have no objection to it being listed under the previous case for simplified logging as HJ Mitchell pinged and Seraphimblade noted below. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6. This deals with the immediate problem of behavior, without going into whether our role is to decide what specifically constitutes PS/FS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)

   This is already under the previous psudoscience DS but meh. This should cut down on drama --Guerillero | My Talk 01:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

7. I fail to see the purpose of splitting the logs rather than just logging any such under the pseudoscience case, but I'm not worried about it enough to oppose. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
   • There's a strong argument for having a single centralised log for all DS sanctions, arranged chronologically. It will make sanctions easier to find and make it much easier to pick up people hopping across state borders (as it were). But I don't think the tail should be wagging the dog on this,  Roger Davies ^talk 08:48, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
8. Per Seraphimblade. Yunshui ^雲_水 07:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support, although I agree with Roger's point about one centralised log. Dougweller (talk) 10:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Abstain

• Per NuclearWarfare, I am starting to worry that we are setting up a Kobayashi Maru for our AE admins and that by solving this one problem, we are creating 25 more. Is there stomach for extending our current Psudoscience DS to this topic area explicitly? --Guerillero | My Talk 17:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Labelling acupuncture as a pseudoscience unacceptably enters the Committee into the content dispute. But I agree with T Canens and a few others above, that two separate logs is one too many. Prefer Timotheus' suggestion of expanding the pseudoscience name to include complementary and alternative medicines and logging them together. -- Euryalus (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• @NuclearWarfare: @Timotheus Canens: and pretty much everyone else. Okay, point taken. I'll float an idea, and am willing to be told I'm crazy. What if we renamed the Pseudoscience case to something like "Scientific editing" or "Scientific debates" and also made the DS there for all edits "relating to pseudoscience, fringe science, and Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)" That would seem to avoid labeling CAM as pseudoscience, which I still think it would do if we do not rename the underlying case. Courcelles 21:30, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • A centralised log does away with most of these intricacies because the log itself isn't tied to a case (and the baggage that comes with it). The topic listing then becomes just that, cross-headings.  Roger Davies ^talk 21:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm wondering more about the issuance of alerts than the actual logging of sanctions, though, now that warnings/alerts don't have to actually be logged. Courcelles 22:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • The only purpose of an alert is to let someone know that DS apply, broadly construed, to the area they're editing in. If they continue editing within, broadly, the same area of conflict, it doesn't much matter which alert they get providing their conduct is covered by the standard DS prohibitions. The transition to standard DS has greatly reduced the need to tie DS to specific cases and i fact there is nothing to prevent rolling all these DS into, as you suggest, a broader heading (ie Science controversies or whatever) without the need to rename any cases. We were only tied to specific case when the DS varied considerably from case to case and we used the case name to identify the set of DS which applied.  Roger Davies ^talk 22:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • The simplest solution for alerts for closely related areas is to simply combine the alert - letting people know that DS is enabled for the areas of "Pseudoscience, fringe Science and complementary and alternative medicine" with links to the two decisions. With a central log it doesn't matter which edit their area falls into. Thryduulf (talk) 11:57, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • I suppose the question here is probably to identify the specific issue we're trying to address. If an area is closely related, any overlap is covered by "broadly construed" anyway and using the edit filter on a user talk page lists all their alerts. If the net is cast too wide we get false positives. For instance, incivility in Acupuncture doesn't really establish a pattern if it's compared with POV-pushing in Cold Fusion. Apart from which, we already get overlaps and AE isn't paralysed by them. An obvious example being BLP vio within say the India-Pakistan area of conflict. That could be covered by the community BLP provisions, the DS BLP ones, and the ARBPIA ones. I can also envisage situations where edits on the scientific aspects of Climate change could attract potential sanctions either under both Climate change DS and the Pseudoscience ones. A similar theoretical clash could arise between the GenderGap DS and Sexology DS. The answer is probably to tweak the DS procedure to say that an alert in one area is sufficient to apply sanctions in another separate but closely related topic provided the nature of the edits are similar.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:52, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • That does make sense, and it has been pointed out to me separately that templates would need (probably minor) redesign to link to two decisions. To avoid any wikilawyering it might be worth putting a sentence into the alerts reflecting your comment. Thryduulf (talk) 15:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @NuclearWarfare:. I raised a centralised log here twelve hours ago. It needs a bit of fine-tuning but I'm glad you support the principle.  Roger Davies ^talk 22:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Initiated by Martin Hogbin (talk) at 18:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Martin Hogbin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• FDCWint (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• FF-UK (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• John (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sagaciousphil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Daicaregos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification FDCWint
• diff of notification FF-UK
• diff of notification Adam Cuerden
• diff of notification John
• diff of notification SagaciousPhil
• diff of notification Daicaregos

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Long and fruitless discusssion on talk pages.Talk:James_Clerk_Maxwell#Nationality and most of WP:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom

This case concerns the infobox nationalities given in a number of biographies of people from the British Isles. Affected articles include James Clerk Maxwell (The only biography in which I have been involved), Humphry Davy and others.

Please note that this is not about descriptive terms used about a subject. There has been no argument about the first line of the James Clerk Maxwell article for example, 'James Clerk Maxwell...was a Scottish mathematical physicist'.

One group if editors would like to put the name of the constituent country of the UK to which the subject is most closely related (for example 'Scottish'), the other would like to put the de jure nationality of 'British'.

The problem is that the editors who are using Wikipedia to promote the concept of nationalities of constituent countries of independent nations such as 'Scottish', and 'Cornish' have, over a period of several years, driven away dissenting editors using improper tactics. This is an insidious corruption of the purpose of Wikipedia.

Recent tactics have included:

Claiming a long-standing consensus where none exists for using the consitituent country and the nationality[40], [41], [42], [43] [44]

The consensus is claimed to be in one of the following places.

Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom The essay is a distillation of the outcome of previous discussions which can found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality

On examination ofthe relevant talk pages no consensus is found.

Incivility [45] [46],

[47],

Pressing for topic bans for anyone who persistently disagrees

GoodDay_-_topic_ban_request This editor got a 2-year! topic ban just for disagreeing with them.

Proposed_topic_ban_of_Martin_Hogbin

Accusing editors who disagree of anything that they can think of

Trolling [48] See also edit comment.

Sock puppetry and other things. [49], [50]

Imperialism [51]

Racism [52]

Attempts at 'eliminating any assertion of Scottish identity', [53] and [54]

'Cultural blindness', [55]

Being a, 'nationalist POV-pusher',[56]

Refusal to even consider any form of neutral compromise

As the argument over British/Scottish could not be resolved, I proposed the simple NPOV compromise solution that we do not show any nationality at all in the infobox.

This was dismissed out of hand by the editors who insisted that me must have a 'Nationality' field in the infobox and that it must be 'Scottish'. See the section here

I even suggested that we remove the 'Citizenship' field (which everyone agrees should be 'British') just because it displays the word 'British'.

Attempting to prevent the matter being brought to the attention of Arbcom

[57]

Attempted 'Outing'

[58]

Martin Hogbin points out that I have accused him of Sock Puppetry - given that the input and behaviour of the wandering anon IP participating in this discussion has been to either support MH's position, or to add comments into his talk page in support, I actually stand by this. Without a clear understanding of who this anonymous IP is, or represents, I don't see how this can be proven or not.

As Adam says, this is a content dispute - whilst Martin portrays this as being unable to reach an agreement or consensus, the truth is that he has simply tried one after another version of removing "Scottish" from the page in content. His 'compromise' which he described as NPOV, is that the entry be removed altogether - so, in essence, it can say "British" or nothing at all. As a Scottish person who does not consider himself British, I find this deeply offensive; although I am perfectly aware that there are many Scots who do not feel this way. National identity within the UK is a highly contentious issue. The disputed essay in it's current form makes helpful suggestions for a Wikipedian to navigate this, and tries to provide some pointers; in contrast, simply asserting that UK government publications say 'British', therefore, that is the one true version of facts (as Martin has done repeatedly throughout this dispute) is an overtly offensive position to those of us who are Scottish, not British.

Just to be clear that this is not a fringe issue - the 2011 Census showed that only a very small minority of people in the UK consider themselves as "British only". In Scotland, 62% of people chose Scottish as their sole identity with 8% choosing British only and a further 18% ticking both. [59]

Martin's proposed solution imposes a national identity on a population where the vast majority people do not agree with this label. FDCWint (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a content dispute - and one that Martin is on the minority side of, but wants Arbcom to force his side to win. He has so far (This might be slightly out of order):

• Tried to sway people to his views on Talk:James Clerk Maxwell, failed.
• Tried to convince people at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Policy_on_nationality_statements, failed. Also failed an RFC there.
• Tried to change Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom to reflect his opinions, was reverted: [60] revert; [61] revert
• Tried to change said essay on its talk page. failed to get consensus

Part II:

• Tried to get a "compromise" solution, that would still forbid showing Scottish nationality, but without replacing it with "British":
  • Failed to get support at Talk:James_Clerk_Maxwell#We_must_remove_all_references_to_nationality
  • Failed to get support at Wikipedia_talk:Nationality_of_people_from_the_United_Kingdom#Straw_poll_on_two_compromise_solutions.

Quite simply, he's been forumshopping for weeks now, and has been struck down everywhere he went. What he wants is completely out of scope of Arbcom, but I think he does need topic banned. There's no other person opening threads on this subject except him at the moment; he is the cause of 100% of the problem.

I'm not surprised he went to Arbcom with this, but this is completely out of Arbcom's remit. The problematic behaviour here is him jumping into the hornet's nest that is UK nationalities, and then refusing to drop the stick when everyone told him it was a bad idea.

It's probably worth saying that his claimed attacks are taken quite a bit out of context. For example, it was stated his excessive forumshopping was troll-like. The nationalist claim was in response to him claiming the only reason to support Scottish was that you were a separatist. "Racist" was used in the phrase ""Given "British" is read as "English" by a majority of people, it's downright misleading. And, intentionally or not, racist." - Choosing one word - and removing the context that gives it a much milder, nuanced meaning - and then using that to attack people is not acting in good faith.

I agree with Adam. I was involved in this as an editor, and I apologise for any minor incivility I exhibited in any of the month of discussions. As Adam has said, Martin and an IP wanted to overturn a long-standing and hard-won consensus. He has been a bit relentless and has forum-shopped hard, and it worries me if he truly doesn't see how inflammatory it can be to try so forcefully and single-handedly to argue a nationalistic point in the way he has done here. --John (talk) 19:39, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to the content, the only time we don't use "British" as the nationality is when a more specific term is needed; this is mostly restricted to sports people. The reason that English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish is used on sports articles is because, in a lot of places, the countries compete separately, so using British would be nonsensical. For other articles, calling them English/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish would be equivalent to calling someone a Texan, or a Californian, rather than an American. In fact, it's a tad dafter, since US states have more freedom of government than most of the parts of the UK. Regardless of this, ArbCom is not a place where you have content disputes settled, and I personally don't see why on earth you've rushed to ArbCom; ArbCom is a last resort, and this seems far more like a first resort to me, with no real attempt at a wider community discussion. Equally, I find citing the topic ban of GoodDay to be a tad daft; that user agreed themselves, voluntarily, to the topic ban. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is, as Adam Cuerden notes above a content dispute, with Martin Hogbin in the minority position. The simple facts of the matter are that 'nationality' within the UK is a complex topic, and not one which can be solved by pseudo-legalistic assertions that 'all UK subjects have British nationality' [62] and that any other definition (notably self-definition) is therefore incorrect. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a court of law, and has no business whatsoever imposing a particular definition of nationality on the subjects of its articles, just for the convenience of infobox-obsessives and people who have difficulty dealing with messy realities. If such messy realities make filling in infoboxes difficult and contentious, I would have to suggest that the problem lies in the obsession that some contributors have with infoboxes in the first place - and an rapidly coming around to the position that it might be best to abolish them entirely for biographies. Meanwhile, since that is clearly outside ArbCom's scope, I would suggest that Martin Hogbin be told to accept what appears to be a consensus over this matter, and to stop wasting peoples' time with endlessly-rehashed arguments that clearly aren't going to win anyone over. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and as such needs to reflect reality - a reality where nationality in the UK context is fluid, contextual, and not amenable to rulemongering for mere convenience. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:44, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

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

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)