Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transgender healthcare and people/Proposed decision: Difference between revisions

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Arbitrators active on this case

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Active:

1. Cabayi (talk · contribs)
2. CaptainEek (talk · contribs)
3. Daniel (talk · contribs)
4. Elli (talk · contribs)
5. HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs)
6. Liz (talk · contribs)
7. Primefac (talk · contribs)
8. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs)
9. Sdrqaz (talk · contribs)
10. Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs)
11. ToBeFree (talk · contribs)
12. Worm That Turned (talk · contribs)

Inactive:

1. KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs)

Recused:

1. Aoidh (talk · contribs)
2. Z1720 (talk · contribs)

Hello, everyone. The proposed decision will be late, probably by a couple of days. The drafters are working carefully and around the clock to get this out as soon as possible. Sorry for the additional stress that this delay will cause.

Yours, Sdrqaz (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We are still working on this. I understand people’s disappointment because I am disappointed and frustrated too that it has taken so long. I am very sorry. Even with the number of parties, we should have managed the case better and communicated better and the delay is our responsibility. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:31, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an update: we continue to work on drafting the case. We are very sorry about the delays. We’ve been trying to be more comprehensive regarding how we lay out evidence, and this has added a significant amount of work given the large amount of evidence to consider here. The decision will be ready within another week or two. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:47, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The drafters tried something new with this case, which has increased the usual workload. In order to help the drafters across the finish line, I have been deputized as an additional drafter. I spent most of today working on the PD and it should be done within the week; it will need to go through a full committee private review first, but we usually try to keep that to a few days max. The Committee appreciates the community’s continued patience. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap’n!}⚓ 04:33, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the posting of the proposed final decission: note there is an extra “Proposed final decision” heading. isaacl (talk) 04:07, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by HouseBlaster, thanks. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 04:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek: Maybe substantive thoughts later on the three 3s, but for now, just a question: What makes 3.1 and 3.3 mutually exclusive? Obviously 3.2 would supersede either, but those two don’t seem to contradict. — Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 04:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm I see what you mean, I guess we could pass both, although I don’t see it as very likely CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap’n!}⚓ 04:22, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Guerillero in re your 3.x comment, can’t we already do that? If not, I’m in trouble. — Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 11:41, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I’m misunderstanding something, as currently written all three variations of 3.X appear to exclude allowing commentary from uninvolved administrators, unless the “users invited by uninvolved administrators” line is interpreted to include admins inviting themselves. Is this intentional or an oversight? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 04:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarified by CaptainEek, thanks. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 05:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First, let me say thank you to the drafters (including the additional one) for their time on this matter, which I cannot imagine was any fun at all.

I only have a couple comments – none about the remedies since I trust the arbitrators to make the right decision on those, and as someone involved in the topic area (and who was named as a party originally) I do not feel it’s my place to second guess the arbitrators on the remedies.

My first comment is on Principle 6 (Partisanship). TLDR: I think this is a bit too strong so as to make it wholly unreasonable. Editors have their own biases and opinions – which this principle identifies at the start. But then it says that editors are expected to do things – even when the results would paint their personal beliefs in a poor light or conflict with them outright. I do not think this is valid. No editor should feel forced to do anything they would personally disagree with. It’s entirely reasonable to expect that editors will not disrupt processes to advance their personal viewpoints when they cannot do so in line with policy. But to say that editors are expected to actively make assessments/etc. when they’re not in line with their personal views… that to me is a slippery slope.

I do not think that this was the intent of this principle – so I’d suggest a rewording of that portion to something like All editors have opinions—this is expected and welcome. However, all editors are expected to keep their comments in any discussion to those they can make in an impassionate, neutral manner complying with relevant policies, procedures, and behavioral guidelines. If an editor cannot keep their comments to such an impassionate, neutral manner, then that editor should avoid commenting in a discussion altogether. I think this makes it clear that an editor is not required to participate in any given discussion – and furthermore, it makes it clear that an editor should strongly consider not participating in a discussion at all if there is a risk they cannot do so neutrally. I do appreciate that this is maybe a bit too far in this direction, though, because it doesn’t address the fact that if an editor only chooses to participate in some discussions, it can potentially be problematic on its own… but I don’t know how to word it to clarify that no editor should feel they have to participate in any given discussion… but that they should also be mindful of the overall “side” of discussions they do participate in.

The remainder (identifying the behaviors commonly displayed by editors who are letting their personal views impact their contribution) reads fine to me, including explicitly defining this as battleground behavior. Potentially, however, a reference to WP:RGW would be good here – since this is, by definition, trying to use (and ultimately abusing) Wikipedia to right what they perceive as a great wrong in the world. I think this is especially prudent in this case, since both sides have accused each other of trying to RGW, and at least some people (per my reading of the FoFs, assuming they pass) on each side have clearly engaged in it.

My second comment is related to Principle 7. My comment here is only to say that the wording is great IMO – specifically the final sentence that calls out that editors should avoid trying to engage in convincing specific others. I would perhaps suggest a final sentence (after the current, not removing anything) that expands on the idea that “while discussion among editors who are actively trying to understand each others’ views is permitted and encouraged, there is a fine line between such a threaded discussion between editors that are actively considering changing their view, versus a discussion where they are simply beating a dead horse and neither is bringing any new argument/idea/example/discussion i.e. bludgeoning”. I have zero idea how to word this addition well, though.

My final comment is related to Principle 11. I think a change of the final sentence to say such as avoiding undue prominence anywhere – but especially in the lead section would be a good idea. As the evidence in this case has (in my opinion) shown, while there is a slight problem with people trying to shoehorn things into articles at all, the much larger (imo) problem is people trying to shoehorn certain views into lead sections – or alternatively, to exclude certain views from the lead section (even if they accept them later in the article). The lead section is, by its very nature, the most contentious part of any article. So it is understandable that editors will want to try and force things into the lead section of an article – because it’s what readers see first, and it’s what a non-insignificant minority (if not majority) of readers read then leave and don’t bother reading the rest of the article.

While unrelated to this case, and I know this isn’t in evidence (so sorry if I’m violating something by bringing it up here), Donald Trump is a good example of this in my opinion. Over the past decade or so (since he first got into politics in the US), there have been arguments on the lead of that article – should we include this controversy in the lead, how should we word this thing in the lead, etc. And those arguments, while sometimes relating to content elsewhere in the article, are usually 95% or more about the lead specifically. Luckily the ArbCom actions related to American Politics have made sure that those discussions (at least the ones I’ve seen) have been reasonable and stayed on topic. But I think it would be a good idea to call out specifically that lead sections are very, very important in terms of weighting.

Again, thank all the arbitrators for your work on this. Having read through the proposed decision, I do not have any problems with the findings of fact or proposed remedies. I think that this is a very well thought out evaluation of the evidence. And while this is maybe a bit soapboxy, I hope everyone who reads this (whether involved in this case, as arbitrators or parties, or not) knows that I have seen where I have gone wrong in this topic area (unintentionally, but still) and intend to take all of this to heart in my own editing.

So, to end my comments here (I don’t intend to reply/comment further unless an arbitrator specifically asks me something or there is a change/addition that I have a new comment on), if I could buy all the arbitrators a proverbial drink (alcoholic or not), I would. But in lieu of that, all arbitrators (especially the drafters), please accept whatever barnstar from me that you think fits my appreciation here – you deserve something for dealing with all of this as well as you have.

Regards, berch -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’d like to reply to Loki very quickly. I see Loki’s point about my proposed wording on principle 6 – and I agree with it. I don’t know how best to reword it to make it clear that a user, who has not previously commented on a particular discussion, doesn’t have an obligation to do so – but that if they choose to comment on any topic, they need to do so in a neutral manner. In other words, I agree with Loki’s criticism of my specific proposed rewording of principle 6 – but I still think a rewording is necessary to make clear that nobody is obligated to join a discussion they haven’t yet been a part of just to try to be “neutral”. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:00, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to first of all thank the drafters for posting this. I broadly agree with Berchanhimez that it seems mostly good, especially considering I also can’t imagine it was easy to draft. (In fact if there’s anything I disagree with him on it’s that I think Principal 6 is okay as is: while I see his point, I think that it would be very hard to engage in a discussion in a topic area without at least implicitly evaluating the sources, and I agree with the drafters that doing that in a non-neutral manner is disruptive).

I do have a few quibbles though:

First, I’d like to suggest that if transgender topics or transgender healthcare is such a particularly controversial topic that all the remedies in this case have bespoke topic bans targeting out a subset of GENSEX, that suggests that you may want to carve out transgender topics from GENSEX in general, and make it its own separate contentious topic. One of the main things having a contentious topic does is suggest a scope for topic bans, and it seems the drafters agree that GENSEX here is too broad a scope.

But second (and IMO more importantly because this finding of fact appears to significantly rely on my evidence) I am confused by the finding of fact and proposed remedies against Aaron Liu. In my experience he’s been one of the least partisan and most civil editors in this whole topic area. Despite being the one who produced those charts I’d be the first to say that a raw number of comments is not necessarily evidence of misbehavior all by itself (and did say something along those lines during the workshop).

Specifically, I did not experience his comments at the Telegraph close review as bludgeoning despite him opening that close review against an RFC I’d started and one where I supported the original close. And if you look at his comments on the top three discussions by number of his comments on transgender health care misinformation, it at least seems very obvious to me that almost all of his comments there are genuinely dedicated towards improving the article and very few if any are simply contradicting another editor. Loki (talk) 05:46, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Originally, there was no FoF for Aaron, but he was used as an example in the abuse of close review section. That led to him being given his own section, and accordingly, his own remedies. I agree that his conduct was not particularly bad and that I do not intend to vote for a topic ban. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap’n!}⚓ 05:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Was that an earlier draft? The current abuse of close review section has no examples.

Or do you mean he was originally used as an example in that section and then the text about him was broken out into a separate section? Loki (talk) 05:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LokiTheLiar Yes, the latter. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap’n!}⚓ 06:08, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron I would be fine with that but it’s not mainly my objection. I thought the original wording was OK. Loki (talk) 15:17, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The word wiktionary:impassionate has two opposite meanings: Filled with passion; impassioned and Lacking passion; dispassionate. Perhaps dispassionate instead? Leijurv (talk) 06:09, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

done 🙂 theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 14:16, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Remedies 3.2 and 3.3

I think the changes discussed in remedy 3.2 are long overdue and should be the default. Too many times in AE filings I’ve seen third parties chime in arguing for lesser or greater sanctions depending on whether the report is about an ideological ally or adversary. Where third parties do participate, it should be limited to posting evidence or responding to them being named. TarnishedPath^talk 08:47, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GOOD PD. On-point, addressing the dispute directly. Worth the wait. FOARP (talk) 09:58, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Princ 6 In my opinion, this is just a detailed way of stating the standard “not a battleground” principle.
• Rems 3.x If any of these pass, I urge the committee to give AE admins the ability to topic ban or partial block users from AE as an AE action as a way of enforcing the restriction.
• Rem 3.2 This could be helpful in other high-conflict CTs, such as Israel-Palestine, where a good portion of non-admin comments are from individuals with strong opinions on the underlying subject
• Rem 3.3 By the time there is disruption in a thread and we have a rough consensus to impose the restriction it has already gone off the rails. I urge the committee to either lower the bar for it applying or reject this proposal.

— Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 11:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, I would like to thank the admins for their time spent on this challenging case.

It isn’t clear to me what Principle 11 is trying to achieve, and whether it is encouraging or critical of some of the use/abuse of WP:FRINGE we have seen over the last year. I can see editors citing it, as currently worded, to advance either viewpoint.

As creator of WP:MEDRS, I’m disappointed that the importance of this venerable guideline on the topic of “transgender healthcare” has not been emphasised in any proposed principle. While arbcom doesn’t decide content disputes, editors who flagrantly ignore or clearly are only selectively enforcing our content guidelines in order to support one PoV are engaging in problematic behaviour.

As you might imagine, I’d be for a principle that “Editors who think the media editor of The National is a more important voice to push into our medical articles than the editor of The BMJ, or who think polemics in Mother Jones let editors dismiss six systematic reviews in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, or who believe an unqualified Californian blogger is a finer source on medical practice than the multidisciplinary team of expert healthcare professionals appointed by NHS Scotland, should be swiftly shown the door.” It’s a principle that has served us well on pretty much all other medical topics (and anti-science controversies and consipracy theories in general). Indeed, it is a principle that those very editors would cite if the media editor of The National wasn’t in fact favourable to their cause, if the magazine was instead The Spectator or if the blogger was a MAGA enthusiast. This selective use of our content guideline and policies to advance a PoV is a well established indicator of problematic editing, but doesn’t appear to have been considered here. To some extent, I blame myself for not participating in the evidence phase, where many such examples could have been given, but at that point I was still planning to sit this out.

Which brings me to the FoF about me. As noted I voluntarily resigned from this topic back in May. I feel that should be regarded as a clear acceptance that my behaviour in this area fell short, and that I had recognised the need to walk away from this, as you note, one-against-many situation. I was not originally a party to this case, only added when an arb prompted why I wasn’t if I had been mentioned. I had asked the arbs to be removed from the case and they refused. Therefore “His behavior continued in this case” should not be regarded as Colin not being trusted to keep his word wrt avoiding the topic, or that I will “continue” to be a problem on this topic unless sanctions imposed. As the case progressed, it appeared to me that my lack of participation would be viewed detrimentally, as clearly spelled out by the arbcom guidelines. Turns out that was the wrong decision. Maybe the workshop phase should be restricted to admins. It seems to serve no useful purpose otherwise.

As an editor of 20 years, I don’t believe I have ever given any indication that my word is not to be trusted. Nor do I believe for a moment that should I slip and end up commenting/editing on some trans healthcare topic, that there would not be an immediate and decisive noticeboard response citing that retiral. Defence of MEDRS with regard to the Cass Review is clearly a hill I died on and I accept that and would appeal to the arbs to accept my topic resignation in May as sufficient.

I am very surprised to see “transgender topics” even being proposed as a topic ban. — Colin°^Talk 11:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In re the 3.x remedies) I’m very much partial towards 3.2 as the default. There’s quite a few past AE threads where the thread simply became an unreadable morass because it turned into the Wikipedia equivalent of a basebrawl, where partisans from the filer’s and the subject’s sides converged on the thread and turned it into an avalanche of accusations with minimal evidence. And while there are thankfully few such threads nowadays (less due to PIA5 and more due to AE admins being considerably more liberal with sanctions for this; this was a trend before then) this is the sort of thing that is more likely to crop up not just in GS related threads, but in the other ethnopolitical hellhole CTOPs (SA, AP, EE).

In re close challenges) My POV is one comment, 250 words max. I understand the desire to allow the person to defend their position from new arguments against it, but unless their argument about why the close is bad is materially different from a combination of the position they took in the initial formal discussion and “closing admin screwed up because X, Y, Z”, we can presume that allowing their arguments in the formal discussion to speak for themselves is sufficient to explain their position. Therefore, all that would remain is challenging/defending the close at that point, and anything left over can then be used to clarify/defend their position if necessary.

In re JonJ937 and SWO’C) I presume the lack of remedies against both of these stems from both the SPI and their deciding to pull a “you can’t block me I quit” in the wake of being indef topic-banned; this wouldn’t be the first time ArbCom has punted on a party simply because any further sanctions would be irrelevant. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 14:48, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some basic comments, because frankly I’m not an AE regular, so it has less of an effect personally, but I am somewhat interested in how this turns out. I think 3.3 but modified would honestly be the best decision for the Committee to go with here, with it perhaps being able to be unilaterally imposed by a single administrator, but subject to a quick review by participating administrators after the fact. I know that’s not necessarily one of the proposals, but it seems like requiring an original rough consensus before imposing it would open the flood-gates too much. On the other hand, 3.2 and 3.1 are somewhat a bit much, regardless of the topic area. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go down the path of restricting participation without reason. The opinions of admins are not generally any better than the average joe’s, and it’s troubling to start implementing a restriction system automatically. Make it easy to do so on individual threads, sure, but automatically seems a bit of a stretch. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 16:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed principle 11

As an editor who edits considerably in controversial medical topics with both “legitimate scientific disagreement” (PANDAS with respect to the newer hypothesis, PANS) and “pseudo-scientific or non-scientific viewpoints” (Morgellons relative to delusional parasitosis, and MMR vaccine and autism), I am confused by what the new Proposed Principle 11, Treatment of scientific topics with multiple perspectives is attempting. My editing experience in these sample content areas is that a) “pseudo-scientific or non-scientific viewpoints” (even when public policy or advocacy is involved) have typically been addressed in secondary review sources compliant with WP:MEDRS; b) the definitions section of the MEDRS guideline outlines well how “each sort of source must be used appropriately in such an article”; and c) recognizing that we can’t use dated primary sources to override recent secondary reviews usually deals with advocacy editing.

I don’t know what this Proposed principle intends that isn’t already covered by MEDRS. Principle 11 seems to be attempting to define or re-state MEDRS, while never referring directly to a guideline that has long enjoyed strong community consensus, along with an avoidance of acknowledging the centrality of MEDRS in this dispute (where the strongest sanctions should be reserved for those openly breaching MEDRS). Seeming to re-state (re-interpret?) the MEDRS guideline, while never referring to it, seems to open the possibility for usurpation of community consensus in establishing guidelines.

If the intent of Principle 11 is only to make sure leads don’t give UNDUE weight that breaches MEDRS, can that be stated more simply? (Unsurprisingly) I share Colin’s concern that “the importance of this venerable guideline on the topic of ‘transgender healthcare’ has not been emphasised in any proposed principle”, and suggest that can be remedied by reworking Principle 11 to incorporate community consensus around MEDRS. Can this principle be tightened to refer explicitly to MEDRS, rather than seeming to try to restate what it already encompasses? Else I don’t know how the Committee intends for this Principle to be applied going forward in other content areas, with particular concern for fringe or pseudoscientific or controversial topics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sdrqaz has now added that this principle was “spliced from Abortion and Longevity” (thank you). The locus of the 2011 Abortion disagreement was mainly cultural, and I don’t see that application of MEDRS was central in that case. The content disagreement at the 2011 Longevity case seemed to be mostly about one source, and I don’t see MEDRS generally invoked there either. The locus of this dispute frequently directly involved MEDRS. Does this “splice” best reflect the relevance of MEDRS to this case (and I’m still unsure how this “splice” is to be used going forward, except as a reminder to respect due weight in leads). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, drafters. For lack of a better word, the set of proposed principles is awesome!

(Though I agree that #11 should more clearly refer to Fringe and MedRS, I think I see its point, as 1. bringing up the Due that is cited in later conduct finding of facts 2. delineating between MedRS and social reactions to medical information, a theme that has come up several times in this topic area’s discussions.)

I think my finding of fact is entirely reasonable. In the Pathologization RfC earlier this year, I persisted with an unproductive reply chain despite warnings from others. Overall, what’s been said around this case, the previous Arb principle text on bludgeoning, and something I don’t recall a few months back has served as a wake-up call on what this de facto guideline actually means.

Based on CaptainEek’s responses, I do want to say though that I don’t think my commenting levels are reflective of any pattern regarding close reviews or any specific subject area. I had an extremely poor conception of bludgeoning in 2024 (even worse than earlier this year), and tended to engage in every discussion with quite a bit of participants somewhat voluminously.

In re proposed remedies 3.x: 3.3 is definitely needed and 3.2 overkill. I’m ambivalent on 3.1: The other remedies against certain voices might bring the flame down enough already, but if as I suspect these voices are just a symptom of the intensity of popular opinions at large on the topic, and it will be just a few years before GenSex AEs again regularly sees the flame wars of a few months back, 3.1 would be worth it. Not sure if that’s the case, though. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:11, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with EggRoll97 that of the 3.1/3.2/3.3 options 3.3 is the one that should be gone with. In some cases, it may be necessary to restrict participation to reduce disruption and increase the ability of arbs to deal with the issues, but it should be another tool in the toolkit for when it is necessary, not imposed overall; going with one of the others will create the appearance for some, even if entirely unintended, of AE becoming a star chamber, and we don’t need to feed the nabobs. – The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:42, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]