Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander/Proposed decision

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Request for clarification of topic ban

This case is now closed; if you wish, you can comment on it on Arbcom's noticeboard. Thanks. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 19:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

I am admittedly a relative newbie to the RFARB process. I have read a number of ARBCOM cases but I confess that I am unclear on the detailed nuances of a topic ban. In the workshop proceedings, there was discussion of allowing Noleander to make Talk Page edits concerning article text and to create draft articles in his own userspace which could then be moved into article mainspace by another editor in a "review, mentor and concur" process.

I find no mention of these ideas in the proposed decision and I'm hoping that these actions are permitted by the fact that they are not explicitly prohibited by the proposed decision.

In short, is a topic ban only a ban on edits to the text in article mainspace or does it extend to article Talk Pages and the creation of draft articles in userspace which are then moved into article mainspace by another editor?

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 17:09, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Richard, my understanding is that "in any namespace" means all kinds of pages, including talk pages, user pages, and everything else. In other words, no edits of this sort, anywhere. Of course, I'm not an Arb, so please correct me if I'm wrong! Perhaps the Committee would find it useful to provide the community with an explanation of their reasoning for this component of their decision. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I was reading too fast and missed those critical three words. If your interpretation is correct (and I suspect it is), then I am truly dismayed by the stringency of this sanction. This means that Noleander is even prohibited from discussing these topics on his own User talk page? If I asked for his help, he would be required to respond to me via email? I really think the Workshop established that Noleander had been civil in his interactions throughout Wikipedia and I think the broadness of this ban is unwarranted and deprives the project of his valuable contributions. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:25, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{Ec}Noleander is topic-banned from making any edit in any namespace.[1] What might prove to be interesting is how easy it might be to accidentally violate the ban. For example, is Charlie Sheen a Jew? Maybe he is;[2] maybe he isn't.[3] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Richard, I'm not really comfortable putting myself in the position of discussing this just among the ~~two~~ three of us, so I'd welcome any comment from the Arbs. As I see it, some of us have made that argument, the Arbs listened, and they were not convinced by it, perhaps (but I'm just guessing) because of the possibility of disagreements arising over edits in other spaces and the perceived attractiveness of a clear dividing line. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quest, I suspect that's where "broadly but reasonably" comes in. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that this is all speculation in the direction of "wikilawyering" about the boundaries of the ban. It shoudl be possible to expect some use of commonsense. If Noleander edits the article on Charlie Sheen adding material about his supposed jewishness or mentions that he loves dreidls or post a picture of him outside of a synagogue than that would be n violation of the ban. If he provides sourced edits about Charlie Sheens appearances in two and a half men that doesn't mention or suggest any connection to Jewishness or judaism then that is not part of the ban. He can make edits that are not related to jewishness or judaism in any namespace. The ban affects the edits - not the articles. (It should go without saying that any edit in the article on e.g. antisemitism is related to judaism)·Maunus·ƛ· 18:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maunus, Quest's comment about Charlie Sheen may be wikilawyering. My position on the topic ban isn't wikilawyering. I had hoped to collaborate with Noleander to make encyclopedic articles out the text that was salvageable from his failed article on Jews and money. The sanction would preclude that collaboration from happening on any namespaces including my own User Talk Page or on Noleander's Talk Page. I think that makes the sanction overly broad. IWBNI the sanction could provide an exception for Noleander's Talk Page and for the User Talk Pages of those users who invite Noleander to discuss potential Wikipedia edits. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it should be fairly obvious that even if the topicban had not covered user space it woud not be a reccommendable idea to turn yourself into a meatpuppet of a topicbanned editor. I think you are fully capable of writing those articles without Noleanders assistance, otherwise I am sure that there are a lot of other editors who took an interest in the ArbCom case who will be willing to help you.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maunus, thanks for the vote of confidence. I agree that I can write the articles without Noleander's help. FWIW, there's a difference between discussing things with a banned editor and being his meatpuppet. If you scan my edits over the last week, I think it will be clear that I am not Noleander's meatpuppet. That's not what I was asking for. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 22:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudo-Richard, I'm surprised you think some of Economic History of the Jews salvagable. Do you have access to a copy of the article? Further, I'm strongly against the far-reaching exceptions you suggest. A topic ban shouldn't be as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. That would tend make this arbitration and the remedies now passing pretty much a waste of time. Bishonen | talk 21:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Bishonen, I do have access to the version of the article at the time that it was nominated for deletion and I have been using the text of that article as a resource. I do think there is quite a bit of the article that is salvageable and I intend to salvage those parts with or without Noleander's assistance. (If you look on his Talk Page, he has declined to participate in any such efforts.) May I draw your attention to History of investment banking in the United States which is an article that I created this weekend using part of the original text of Economic History of the Jews. Now, I confess that the reason this article is so far away from Noleander's original topic is that any attempt to get much closer to the original topic presents various issues that will take some careful and deliberate thought to resolve. Thus, I am still working on User:Pseudo-Richard/Jews and banking and User:Pseudo-Richard/Role of Jews in the development of capitalism. I maintain that one of Noleander's "sins" was stringing all this stuff together in a way that suggested an antisemitic POV. Putting in a section on Jewish attitudes towards money was really not a good idea even that topic and the comparison with Christian views is also encyclopedic. Suggesting that Jews preferred to finance wars was another bad idea. However, if you pull the pieces of Noleander's original article apart, you will find lots that is encyclopedic. I don't think we need to discuss my planned effort further on this page. If you wish, I am happy to continue this discussion on my Talk Page. I also plan to post to Talk:Judaism and Talk:Antisemitism so as to get input from interested editors regarding the various issues that should be addressed before posting my draft articles to article mainspace. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 22:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once the topic ban has been put in place, my own experience suggests that there is nothing salvagable in the original article Jews and money. It would essentially be disrupting wikipedia to prove a point by attempting to write an article based on Noleander's early draft. Although I'm not interested in editing an article on the Economic history of the Jewish people in article space, I have effectively prepared a rough approximation of a draft of half such an article, just by summarising the first half of the article in the Encyclopedia Judaica (see evidence). Other users can do exactly the same. The best idea is to forget Noleander's attempts and start from scratch, without any reference to Noleander or communication with him. The best sources are easy to identify and their content just has to be summarised. Mathsci (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right about here, you can hear the sound of me dope-slapping myself. The discussion above illustrates pretty vividly why the Arbs correctly were unconvinced by my argument that allowing edits in spaces other than article space would work out OK. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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