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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daniel (talk | contribs) at 03:23, 9 December 2008 ("Daniel, if you're around and no one else is, you can open it, and then hand it off to someone else tomorrow."). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Case Opened on 03:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided when the Committee was initially requested to Arbitrate this page (at Requests for arbitration), and serve as opening statements; as such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but this page should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification, and report violations of remedies at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Involved parties

Statement by Evertype

This dispute has been a festering boil on the neck of the Misplaced Pages for four years now. A hornet's nest of passive-aggressivity, good faith, bad faith, veiled hatred, not-so-veiled hatred, honest attempts at compromise, wilful stonewalling, filibustering, backing and forthing, to-ing and fro-ing, and endless bickering. The frustration level of everyone involved is high, so high that a number of editors—good editors—have threatened to withdraw from editing these articles, and some have retired already. Over the past few weeks, the word "arbitration" has come up again and again. I have made so bold as to file this request for arbitration. I trust that it is in order.

Status quo:

  • Ireland - an article chiefly about the island and the nation of people who live on it, but to which has accreted much information duplicating material in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland articles. Many but not all editors believe that this name should be preferred for the State.
  • Republic of Ireland - an article about the State which occupies 83% of the island. Republic of Ireland is an official "description" of the State, but the State's name as defined in its Constitution is Ireland. It is certainly the best-known name of the country world-wide. Many but not all editors have consistently opposed the name Republic of Ireland for this article. It appears to me that most of the more vociferous editors who favour the retention of Republic of Ireland for the name of this article reside in Northern Ireland. (That may not be an accurate assessment on my part. In any case this name has been controversial for a long time, with repeated requests to move from that name to other names.)
  • Ireland (disambiguation) - a dab page containing references to (to use the current nomenclature) Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, a number of historical political formations, and the usual other dabs.

A number of proposed re-arrangements have been made. One which was implemented a few days ago (though reversed today) was this:

Attempts at discussion and consensus lead inevitably to a lack of consensus. Whenever consensus rears its head, others come in saying there is no consensus. My own proposal for compromise was based on negotiation strategy: agree to what you can, even if it's not your preference. Compromise!

The above was 497 words; we are asked to write 500. For the love of Ireland, so that we can work to improve the articles instead of arguing about their names, I ask the Arbitration Committee to agree to hear this case and give us a solution. I have listed below a good selection of those who have been on both sides of the debate. Thank you for your consideration.

In response to the statement by SirFozzie
I do not believe that this is a content issue. It is true that the content of the articles may be affected by the outcome, but it is the fact that the titles of the articles are disputed (and have been for at least four years) that is the problem. Because of that dispute, it is unclear what content should go into which article. Once this issue is settled, the editors will edit accordingly. Asking us to go off and try to agree for another four years is no good for the Misplaced Pages. Some of us have tried very hard to compromise. Little compromise has been on offer from those who oppose us. The Ireland pages get huge numbers of hits each day from people all over the world. The dispute damages the Misplaced Pages. -- Evertype·✆ 22:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by Tariqabjotu
You were second in the list in error. I put the admins before the users, and ordered them alphabetically. But I forgot to order the admins alphabetically. You are now third. -- Evertype·✆ 01:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by JodyB
This isn't a dispute about a misbehaving admin or user. It is community-wide. I named 2 admins and 11 users as "involved"; I could have named a score or more of other involved people. The other forms of dispute resolution cannot, I think apply to this morass. Yes, every attempt has been made to deal with the problems via the task force, and then via Requests to Move. Note please what Waggers says below: just as we had achieved some consensus, a concerted effort to overturn that was made by those who prefer the status quo: mostly by simply gainsaying with unsupported Oppose votes. It seems clear that the community cannot solve this problem on its own. We need clear-headed guidance. I am heartened by the statements of Kirill and Newyorkbrad and FloNight below. That—and nothing else—has given me hope that there could be a resolution to this endless debate. -- Evertype·✆ 12:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by Scolaire
I've just had a user leave a message on my Talk page. He wants to "win" this battle. So do folks on "the other" side, it seems to me. Basically the question is wholly rooted in the ambiguousness of the name Ireland. There are essentially two camps, as far as I can see.
  • A. There are those who want Ireland to be the article about the state; these typically object to Republic of Ireland being the name of the article about the state. Ireland (state) is a way of responding to both of these.
  • B. There are those who want Ireland to be the article about the island and nation; these leads to an "overuse" of Republic of Ireland (Republic of Ireland Act notwithstanding) which is tendentious in that many people object (and are not likely to stop objecting) to this overusage. Ireland (island) is a way of responding to both of these.
  • If the two responses above are given then the next response would be to use Ireland for the disambiguation page. Compare Georgia, Georgia (country) and Georgia (US state) (no analogy is perfect). I cite again the very sensible words of Una Smith: "An ambiguous title such as Ireland should be a disambiguation page, because it is Ireland that will accumulate incoming links needing disambiguation and the task of disambiguating them is made vastly more difficult if Ireland also has "correct" incoming links that refer to one topic by that name." (See this and this.)
Scolaire's remark that opinions are split 50/50 is probably correct, depending on who stacks the deck when. (Heh.) Seriously, however, the reason I have asked for Arbitration is that mediation does not provide an end. The views about what "Ireland" means are irreconcilable and will remain so for people on both sides of the ideological divide. A compromise where Ireland is the disambiguation page which satisfies neither group A nor group B, and which disappoints both equally (with pages re-named and locked?), is to my mind the only way forward. And the only way to get that is to have a decision by Arbitration. (A different result could arise from the Arbitration process. I for my part am prepared to accept whatever the decision and result is. I understand that this is a Request for Arbitration.) -- Evertype·✆ 19:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the resignation statement by Matt Lewis
This user has resigned from the[REDACTED] because of this issue, and with respect to Scolaire, I must say that the loss of this editor is an example of how this dispute damages the Misplaced Pages—that is not something I am dispassionate about. He was an active and astute editor, in fairness, respected by many on both "sides" of this issue. He lives in Britain, not in Ireland. He worked very hard to try to help the community come to consensus, but the recent moves by Tariqabjotu and Deacon_of_Pndapetzim caused him to choose to resign from activity on the Misplaced Pages. See Matt's retirement statement. I contend that the resignation of a talented editor on grounds of this dispute harms the Misplaced Pages—because the loss of a talented editor for these grounds is outrageously insane—and that, again, this particular problem requires Arbitration. -- Evertype·✆ 23:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Snowded

I fully endorse the comments by Evertype. There is no way that any agreement will be reached by the editors involved. Old disputes within Ireland are being fought out on these pages, often after they have been resolved in real life. Several of the editors involved are under editing restrictions on other articles connected with Ireland. If this is not subject to some objective arbitration then it will keep coming back again, and again and again. --Snowded TALK 21:02, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Waggers

Firstly, an apology in advance - I have just become a father again and so am somewhat busy off-wiki, so I apologise if my responses are slow and for my lack of knowledge of events over the last few days of this ongoing mess. Evertype's summary is a fair and balanced one and I join Snowded in fully endorsing it. I feel I should add a few words about the task force and my own involvement in this sorry tale.

I've been aware, but not involved in, this ongoing situation for quite some time. When User:Matt Lewis set up a task force for interested editors to discuss the usage of the term "Ireland", both within article texts and of course in article titles, I saw this as a very positive step - a central point of discussion, where previously it had taken place on a variety of pages across several namespaces, and a blank sheet of paper with which to start. I had no preferences regarding the article names, but simply decided to keep an eye on procedings - partly out of interest and partly as an admin duty.

The post by User:Ddstretch was one that made perfect sense, as it basically called all editors to follow existing guidelines unless there was a really good reason to ignore all rules. Although much discussion took place after his post, no such reason was forthcoming. The task force then conducted a series of polls, with the outcome in each case reaching broad agreement with DDstretch's original proposal - that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. This broad agreement encompassed editors who had previously and consistently been on oppoisite sides of arguments around the infamous Troubles case, the British Isles naming dispute, etc., so this was enormously encouraging - especially since the initiation of the task force, and notification of these latest discussions and polls, had been clearly signalled on the relevant article talk pages.

I then initiated polls on the article talk pages themselves, to rubber-stamp the agreement that had been accomplished. What happened next is there for all to see - I am utterly baffled that editors who proclaim to feel so strongly about these issues failed to get involved in the task force discussions and to shape the debate until the very last hurdle - the amount of time and effort their behaviour has wasted is immense, and there's still no apparent reason why WP:D should not be implemented in this case other than shear weight of votes (we're a meritocracy not a democracy so that's not a reason as far as I'm concerned). I therefore commend Evertype for making this request as this issue really does need a once-and-for-all ruling that's made to stick and puts and end to the enormous quantities of wasted effort that could be put to better use, and only a body like ArbCom have the authority to do that. waggers (talk) 21:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Mooretwin

Personally, I think the Task Force is the place to resolve this. I think that compromise is possible and that compromise involves any change in the name of the Republic of Ireland article being accompanied by an agreed policy that recognises that Republic of Ireland is a perfectly legitimate and sensible term to use in the text of the many articles where there is a risk of ambiguity. Regarding the Ireland article, I agree with Deacon of Pndapetzim that Ireland should be treated like Korea, China, etc., since the primary meaning of Ireland is for the island and historical social/political entity and not the current state which occupies only part of Ireland. I've no objection to radical changes to the text of that article.

As for whether arbitration will help, I simply don't know. If editors are willing to make what I think is the obvious compromise noted above, there should be no need. Mooretwin (talk) 23:27, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by HighKing

Evertype sums up well but I'd like to add that a lot of the confusion and controversy also stems from the fact that the term "Republic of Ireland" is the legal and proper term for the state of Ireland within the UK. But only within the UK - it is British law. Everywhere else on the planet uses the correct name - Ireland. Plus all the major institutions from EU, NATO, World Bank, Olympic Committee, etc, uses the correct name - Ireland. Mooretwins comments above are flat wrong - this is not the "English Misplaced Pages", it is the "English-language Misplaced Pages". This Arbcom case is very necessary. Notwithstanding Rockpocket's comments above, it's also a fact that many admins are involved and are not neutral. The reversals in particular have been performed by an involved admin editor, Deacon of Pndapetzim who opposed changes in the past. Arbcom must take this case, and settle this issue once and for all. Over 4 years of edit warring - every other route has been tried. I do not recommend a ruling like "The Troubles" since this dispute mainly centres around creating a binding resolution on terminology, not POV or content factuality. --HighKing (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental statement
Not sure how these things work, hopefully I can add a comment? I see some editors looking to revert to what they call "status quo" and RM requests. I note the use of the term "status quo". It's important that Arbs reading this should be aware that the "status quo" has not got a consensus, and that's the reason we're here in the first place. There are a number of tactics that the "status quo" brigade use to ensure that no suggested change will take place. What is very clear is that there is a consensus to change, but no way to enact a change, therefore the controverisal "status quo" remains... --HighKing (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ddstretch

I became unwillingly involved in this via other disputes dealt with previously by Arbcom—in particular, the use of "British Isles" disputes. This dispute was drawn to my attention, and, reading it, I appreciated why many administrators had not opted to be involved. However, I considered it useful to try to suggest relying solely on a particular strict interpretation of wikipedia's policies about disambiguation to resolve the matter as a compromise, as this would allow editors to avoid the unhelpful nature of the exchanges when accusations about motives, political agenda, and so on, tended to, or completely swamped the discussion. Waggers then took my "Statement and (semi-)formal proposal by DDstretch" found here and made an initial formal proposal.

I have kept out of much of the discussion except (as far as I recall) to counter erroneous interpretations of solutions that have been previously adopted on[REDACTED] and faulty assumptions about wikilinking following the disambiguation solution I suggested.

My view is that any closure of the various polls was bound to be controversial, because the drama accompanying many entrenched positions seems to have become the major driving factor behind the matter, leaving the core[REDACTED] principles rather in the background (this is despite people calling upon them to justify one or other of their preferred solutions). I have stayed out of the discussions about the validity or otherwise of the page moves and their reversal, as the accusations of bias and being involved I thought might follow would only tend to further inflame this desperately poor situation. I agree with previous comments that any administrator who gets involved and who has not already been accused, quickly becomes seen as biased, partial, pursuing their own agenda (even when that agenda is said to be "hidden" and not known even by that administrator). In fact, the whole area is mired in behaviour that runs counter to WP:NPA in spirit if not in fact. The disruption brought about by this dispute cannot easily be contained, and it infects or potentially will infect other areas.

Some involvement by a greater authority here is urgently needed I suggest, if only to de-personalize the attacks that seem to be directed at anyone who tries to suggest resolutions of any kind. Arbcom may think the job is very difficult, perhaps even too difficult, and individual members may be loathe to agree to get involved, but I suggest that part of their job on Arbcom is to take on difficult disputes, such as this, and that trying to provide a more senior context of authority within which new approaches, or old approaches with more authority, can be explored would seem to be exactly what the bulk of wikpedia editors would expect them to be doing.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental Statement
I would just like to add an endorsement of Rockpocket's additional notice concerning examples of the style of interchanges: the examples are just a sample, and I was contemplating doing something similar. I still could—different examples would be able to be used if I did.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Djegan

I do not support the belief that an arbcom is neccessary.

The issue is controversial, but repeated polls have not resulted in a change and there is little an arbcom can accomplish apart from yet more forum shopping.

This is a content issue and therefore outside the limits of arbcom. Djegan (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Una Smith

At heart this is a content dispute but as often happens tangential issues of user conduct have emerged. I think no one is served by commingling these issues with the content dispute, and I have no interest in the user conduct issues, so I will speak only to the content dispute. I have a longstanding interest in disambiguation pages. I was asked by Matt Lewis to comment on the current requested move of Ireland and other pages. The history there is messy, to say the least. I am dismayed by the extent to which this content dispute spills over into Misplaced Pages article infrastructure. An example is the contentious (and unnecessary) use of a map on Ireland (disambiguation). The heart of the content dispute seems to be whether the political entity known as both Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can occupy the Misplaced Pages article title Ireland, or whether that article title should be occupied by the island known as Ireland, or by a disambiguation page. I think this dispute has gone on so long in part because it has been cast in terms of win/lose, rather than resolution, with "consensus" being defined as majority rule or a ruling by a higher power. I think it is a mistake to handle this content dispute via arbitration rather than mediation. --Una Smith (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Scolaire

I favour treating this as a user conduct issue—not one requiring severe sanctions but perhaps deciding fitness-to-contribute per SirFozzie, Rockpocket and PalestineRemembered. For a start, I very much regret the language in which this this request is couched. A request for arbitration should begin with a dispassionate statement of the case. "This dispute has been a festering boil on the neck of the Misplaced Pages..." hardly qualifies! The requester is one of a very small number of editors who have progressively turned up the temperature over the last few months, depite him saying to me only a few days ago, "In the Real World there isn't so much discussion about these issues.". If there is not much discussion in the RW, what was the need for the battle royal of recent weeks, and the constant assertion that Misplaced Pages is at "breaking point" or a "supercooled liquid situation"? As far as the name issue itself is concerned, my views are set out in detail here (note: I am not from Northern Ireland and I am not known as a unionist sympathiser). I have consistently called for all parties to put down their arguments in a logical and unemotional way, and I and others have pointed out that repeated polling of the same thing is not helpful but divisive, yet I and anybody else who disagrees with the requester have been constantly and angrily accused of having nothing to offer, of refusal to compromise, and of filibustering. I don't personally believe that any party has behaved badly, but the inflaming of passions caused by this culture of crisis is disruptive, and may need to be dealt with as a conduct issue. Scolaire (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental statement

Any suggestion that this is primarily an "ethnic" issue is well wide of the mark. The lobby for change is an unlikely coalition of "British POV", "Irish POV" and "Misplaced Pages policy POV" who want the same change but for radically different reasons; likewise the supporters of the status quo include an equal mix of "British", "Irish" and "NI unionist" POV who believe the current names are the best and most unambiguous. A tally of any of the RMs of the last few months (which incidentally all ended about 50:50) will show this to be so. Scolaire (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. MickMacNee (talk) 19:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by user:angusmclellan

I have included myself as a party to the case. Pace Daniel, I do not see any link between this matter and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine#Mentorship, but if I'm wrong just let me know and I'll happily resign.

The closer indicated here that he was unwilling to remedy himself the very large number of broken links his moves had created. "You can't be asking me to fix the thousands of links ...". But I was. And anyone closing a CfD or IfD or AfD would be expected to tidy the links up, either on their own or by getting a bot to do it. Pointing all of the tens of thousands of links from a top-500-viewed page to a disambiguation page is a mistake. Mistakes happen. Refusing to do anything when told what's wrong and how to fix it is something else.

The arbitration committee doesn't do content disputes. An poorly executed move for which there was no consensus save one of the proposals of a self-appointed committee is not egregious, and neither is reversing it, so there's no admin conduct to consider either. RfC? Mediation? No sign of those. And what Flo's diffs show I have no idea. Rockpocket's are, on the whole, much more interesting. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (7/2/2/0)

  • Recuse. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject. We don't make content decisions. If there are behavioural issues preventing a consensus being reached, then those could potentially be addressed if evidence were presented about them. --bainer (talk) 22:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
    • The special procedures that ultimately led to the development of a policy on naming highways articles were developed by members of the community, not the Committee. The Committee in Highways merely encouraged the community to formulate a policy. In the absence of any evidence of behavioural problems disrupting other efforts to develop a policy or reach a consensus (if there are any then someone please say so), there's no basis for us to get involved. --bainer (talk) 11:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. We can help create a stable editing environment here, if nothing else; I think it's certainly within our remit to move the process towards a binding resolution even if we do not make any direct content rulings (compare Highways 1 and the subsequent community decision, etc.). Kirill 00:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept substantially per Kirill. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. If the current ways of settling the conflict have not worked, then we need to try something different. The workshop page may be very useful in this case to work out a useful resolution. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. -- fayssal - wiki up 15:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject, per Bainer. There is no reason to bring this to a user conduct forum when consensus is more appropriate. James F. (talk) 19:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't want to prematurely single anyone out, but there might be some mild user issues that are interfering with reaching consensus. Even though we might not give strong sanctions, the chronic nature of the situation leads me to think we need to help. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Recuse. --jpgordon 05:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. While we cannot rule on content directly, I think that we can help get decisions made and nailed down and minimize disruptive behavior. Misplaced Pages has a problem that too many things can never be changed from the status quo even if the status quo is purely arbitary and in fact makes fewer people happy than the alternatives. The arbcom can help change this. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 00:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. We can cover content, but seek strenuously not to do so. That said, I don't think we actually need to go there anyhow. This case has a lot in common with other "naming disputes" we and the community have dealt with (WP:SRNC, Gdansk, etc). We're all here to help with a stable collaborative editing environment, and this dispute needs that help. As an early insight, this is my impression what will likely come of this case, so that if they don't want to wait a month or so, the users involved can get going early:
    1. Disruptive, non-collaborative, or tendentious behavior (if present) will have to end. Endless dispute, and non-collaborative conduct, is inimical to wiki editing. Both sides will need to finally decide to listen to the calm voices in the debate and work together, and disruption (if present) won't be helpful. Uninvolved admins may be useful to help this along if there are conduct issues impeding progress.
    2. A formal, and possibly multi-stage collaborative consensus-seeking exercise will probably be required, and may be the only way to resolve this. If it can be accomplished on other difficult entrenched and nationalistic naming disputes it can be done here, if there is the will. (For which, see #1).
    3. The hope will be to move on and sort it out, finally (see #2) not to argue over the past. (If any users in particular are sources for heavy duty disruption, then action may be needed.) Those editors (if any) who cannot manage this, will probably return to this page, and more serious and direct remedies.
    That's a fairly common result of past "naming disputes". Voting to accept, and advising the parties to start on reviewing past major consensus-seeking exercises on other topics now, and getting going on something similar, because that's likely where you'll end up in 1 - 2 months anyway and evidence of trying will stand well at Arbitration. FT2  18:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision (none yet)

All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.

Principles

Findings of fact

Remedies

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

Enforcement

Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions

Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.

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