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Article Rescue Squadron

Initiated by The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} at 22:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)~

Involved parties

• The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Purplebackpack89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• IRWolfie- (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Milowent (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Colonel Warden (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dream Focus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• CallawayRox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Article Rescue Squadron
• Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Rescue list (2nd nomination)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

The Article Rescue Squadron has been a matter of contention in the community for some time due to allegations of canvassing. A dispute over the Article Rescue Squadron was brought before the Committee several years back and one of the ARS members involved was sanctioned. I became involved in the ARS dispute when an article I nominated for deletion was tagged for rescue by ARS member User:Northamerica1000 and I raised my concerns at ANI after failed attempts to resolve the matter with Northamerica. The rescue template was deleted as a result of that discussion. Northamerica created the current rescue list and an article I nominated for deletion was listed for rescue by Northamerica. This time the ANI discussions and deletion discussions initiated were all closed rapidly, preventing widespread discussion. I was subsequently banned in an AN discussion from raising further issues with the ARS, except to file an RfC (this was later modified to allow for measures such as arbitration). The RfC was closed with a consensus that the ARS was used for canvassing, though not frequently, that the project was biased in favor of inclusion, and that there was specifically a problem with a small group of members.

Several months later I nominated an article for deletion that was listed for rescue. I looked at the list and saw the Pizza cheese article (state at time of nomination) listed there by Northamerica and voted in the discussion to redirect to Pizza. The keep side of the debate saw almost exclusive participation by the ARS, while numerous uninvolved editors voted for a redirect or merge. User:Milowent became combative, accusing editors voting redirect of "general ignorance" and referring to me and User:Purplebackpack89 as "pizza cheese jihadists" during the discussion. It was closed as keep, but was then listed at DRV where it was overturned to no consensus. The DRV was listed by Northamerica. Purple and User:IRWolfie- both objected to this, with Wolfie suggesting a new RfC. The DRV listing also prompted considerable discussion on the ARS talk page. Northamerica complained about "freedom of information", Milowent talked about "censorship by Cheese Jihadists", and User:Colonel Warden defended the idea of listing DRVs to get ARS members involved in the discussion. Wolfie made some effort to draft the RfC, but he ultimately didn't have time to work on it and so it was deleted. Disputes between Purple and ARS editors were heated during this time with Dream accusing Purple of harassment at ANI because of comments made about the ARS.

Nearly two months later, Purple nominated the notification template for deletion, confusing it with the list page itself. He went to ANI to object to comments made by Dream and User:CallawayRox during the TfD. Wolfie nominated the list page for deletion a week later, citing many issues with the ARS such as Warden's listings and Dream's user page. During this discussion one of the participants was found to be a sock of User:Okip and that and several other accounts were blocked indefinitely with considerable discussion of the matter at AN, with some ARS members objecting to the indefinite block such as Dream Focus and Warden. There have been other confirmed and suspected instances of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry involving major contributors to the ARS. After four days of significant discussion the MfD on the list was closed as "no consensus" with the suggestion of initiating a wider community process. On Wolfie's page, Purple suggested having multiple RfC/Us on several of the ARS members. However, I believe further community discussions will be skewed by the heavy representation of ARS members as in the past and I think any situation where one can argue for two or more RfC/Us is a situation better suited for arbitration.

I think the most desirable outcome of a case would be a binding community discussion on reforming the ARS and having the project's activities subject to discretionary sanctions.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Given that my initial statement is already longer than 500 words I will try to limit my responses, but the point Beeblebrox raises about no active dispute is one of the main things I left unaddressed. As this is a long and intractable situation there are lulls, but I do not believe we should wait until the next flare-up to sort out the issue. It is because it has proven so intractable that the matter experiences such lulls.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Beeblebrox

I'm going to go ahead and call myself "involved" on this one. During the RFC last year I called for users to try and reform the ARS by joining it and trying to change the tone and focus of the group from just trying to "win" at AFD to actually improving articles. A lot of people seemed to agree but very few of them actually did so. It has not been easy to try and affect such a change there, there are still those who hold up the various blocked and banned users of the projects past as martyrs to the cause in their "grand struggle against hordes of deletionists." They never seem to notice that these users resorted to dirty tricks and lying again and again, taking and "ends justify the means" approach, seemingly unaware that the main end was that the ARS' reputation just sinks further and further into the muck every time they get caught. I feel like some progress has been made and that, as always, it is only a small minority of ARS members that still seem to retain the battlefield mentality that so marred this project in the past, but they are still a significant and very vocal minority.

That being said, I don't know what it is expected that ArbCom can do here. There is no way they can force ARS members to change their attitude, and as far as I know there is no current, urgent issue in need of the type of "back breaking" actions that ArbCom is for. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• I would also note that if there is any chance of this being accepted as a case that User:FeydHuxtable should probably be considered involved as well and should be informed of this proceeding. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by {Party 3}

Statement by {Party 4}

Statement by {Party 5}

Statement by {Party 6}

Statement by {Party 7}

Statement by {Party 8}

Clerk notes

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

Article Rescue Squadron: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/1/1>-Article_Rescue_Squadron-2013-01-31T22:15:00.000Z">

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

• Recuse. I commented in, and closed, DRV discussions way too often (including one that's cited in TDA's statement), and we are far from understaffed right now. T. Canens (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2013 (UTC)"> ">
• Awaiting statements. To be most useful, at least to me, statements should focus on whether the activities of the Article Rescue Squadron are creating actual problems for the encyclopedia and the community, and if so what might be done about that. Everyone should bear in mind that in any arbitration decision, we are not going to endorse the goals or the values of either the "inclusionists" or the "deletionists." Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Sexology

Initiated by — Mark Arsten (talk) at 03:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Mark Arsten (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Jokestress (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• James Cantor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Flyer22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• WLU (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Herostratus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• KimvdLinde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sceptre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Legitimus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Jokestress
• James Cantor
• WLU
• Flyer22
• Herostratus
• KimvdLinde
• Legitimus

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Requests for arbitration: James Cantor at The Man Who Would Be Queen and related pages
• Talk:Hebephilia
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/HebephiliaIncident
  • Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-01 Lynn Conway (background information)

• Attempts to resolve issues including both Jokestress and Cantor

• ANI Please ban Jokestress from editing the article about Simon LeVay
• ANI COI edits by user:Jokestress putting WP at potential legal risk
• ANI BATTLEGROUND, WP:COI behavior
• ANI Andrea James
• NPOVN Users editing my biography during disputes

• Attempts to resolve issues with Jokestress (unrelated to Cantor)

• Requests for medication/Rejected/40#Homosexual transsexual
• ANI Jokestress re homosexual transsexual etc.
• ANI User:WhatamIdoing
• ANI Crusade
• COIN Jokestress
• COIN Homosexual transsexual
• RSN Guidance on pseudodymous authors
• Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-11-25
• ANI The faith and constructiveness of an editors edits in one subject are: Jokestress re homosexual transsexual etc.

Statement by Mark Arsten

This dispute largely revolves around our articles on paraphilias, particularly those that relate to transgenderism. James Cantor (talk · contribs) and Jokestress (talk · contribs) have been actively editing this area for some time, and they have often come into conflict with each other. Each has faced charges of POV pushing in our sexology articles. They each contend that the other is promoting biased information about scientists and unscientific information about sexology. They have been in conflict on many articles' talk pages and in Afds. Examples include here, here, here, and here. Both editors are open about their identities (James Cantor and Andrea James), and they have each been involved in high-profile off-wiki controversies in the field of sexology.

This case request was sparked by a dispute in our article on hebephilia. It led to an ANI thread, visible here. My involvement with this began when I closed an Afd in which they debated each other. I was concerned with the intensity of the interactions between them, and when I saw an ANI thread, I got involved and opined in favor of an interaction ban. During the course of the discussion, I became very concerned about Jokestress' use of Misplaced Pages to attack researchers she disagrees with. Recent examples are here and here. Several commentators who participated in the thread felt that Cantor was giving undue weight to his own work and the work of his colleges in several of our articles. He claims that this criticism is political in nature. While some felt that Jokestress was countering Cantor's bias, others saw her edits as POV pushing.

These claims are difficult to verify without understanding of an obscure subject area. There was fairly strong support at ANI for an interaction ban between Cantor and Jokestress, and most people who participated agreed that either James Cantor or Jokestress (or both) should be topic banned from paraphilias or sexology, but there was no consensus reached about the proposed bans. Subsequently, a number of the participants agreed that this could only be solved through arbitration--and I agree with them. At this point, I think it is safe to say that it is nearly impossible to improve articles on paraphilias due to the intensity of the dispute, so I ask the Arbitration committee to accept this request. I've included Flyer22, WLU, Herostratus, and KimvdLinde as parties because they were all involved in the dispute on the talk page of Hebephilia and in the ANI thread.

Edit: Added Legitimus (talk · contribs) per request on my talk page.

I admit I screwed up the name when I filed this. It does have a much broader scope than Hebephilia.

Statement by Sceptre

I'm adding myself as an involved party due to my involvement in the ANI thread, but I think this is the meaty case that ArbCom was designed for. As I've said on several times over the past week, there are many facets of this dispute, including questions about importing a (now-ten-year-long) dispute onto the encyclopedia, the promotion of fringe theories on-and-off-wiki, professional conduct on-and-off-wiki, when expert editing becomes COI-editing (and vice-versa, when outsider editing may compromise neutrality), and even encyclopedic treatment of a maligned minority, especially when said maligning comes from otherwise reliable sources. Of course, the committee's remit is limited, but I still think it's in everyone's interest for it to be taken up here rather than at AN/I where battle lines seem to be pre-drawn. Sceptre 03:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I echo Thryduulf to a point regarding naming, but I think "paraphilias" is a little too restricted to the dispute. There are issues with gender identity disorders (i.e. alternative taxonomy and typology of transgenderism) as well as sexual identity disorders (i.e. paraphilias) in the dispute. Sceptre 05:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: Hans Adler: I don't think it's wise or helpful to this dispute to obliquely compare the actions of Jokestress to the actions of pedophiles. The NYT article, and indeed the Dreger paper, only really tell Bailey's side of the story in the off-wiki dispute. While, were I in her place, I would not have taken some of the actions that she did, it is important to actually properly know the context of what she did before jumping to such a conclusion. Sceptre 14:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by KimvdLinde

Due to my work, I have easy access to many scientific articles, while my professional background provides me with an above average understanding of the literature and research methods. I am not sure when I came first in contact with James Cantor, but after the first encounter, I stated checking contributions of him to Misplaced Pages and quickly learned that it would be best if all of his edits would be checked by a competent expert in the field, because it became my impression that many of those edits are biased. Those edits are not in the category of obviously wrong, but in a more general category of the form of clever wording that will pass by the average reader and thus the average Misplaced Pages editor for that matter. I will provide one example here. Penile plethysmograph is a tool used to determine what stimuli arouses people, and is used as a measure that is independent of self-reports. The key in this kind of studies is effects that can be observed at the individual level versus effects that can be observed at the group level. In May 2008, James Cantor, editing as Marion The Librarian, inserted this claim: It has been shown to distinguish pedophilic men from nonpedophilic men. To a lay person, this reads as that you can take an individual, measure his response to pedophilic porno, and with certainty determine whether this person is a pedophile or not. This is not consistent with the results presented in the sources, which shows that you can assign a majority can be assigned to the proper category. This is a statement about a group, but also implies that not all of the individuals could be assigned to the proper group. In fact, the sensitivity to distinguish between pedophiles and non-pedophiles was between 29% and 62% depending on the specific subgroup. So, in September 2010, about 2.5 years after the misrepresentation was inserted, I changed the wording to reflect that . A scholar like James knows this difference. The fact that he added it as if it was a guaranteed distinction, instead of a 'they observed a measurable difference between groups', is an obvious indication of biased editing. I assume it does not come as a surprise that two of the three articles that were cited to support the misrepresented claim came from his own institute.

Since that first discovery, I have kind of kept a eye on his editing, because I think in due time, it will be a hell of a story to tell about how a single editor could slip in so many edits that are massaging the truth. It becomes even more interesting to see how too many editors will accept too easy what he writes as true, and even help consolidating it. Depending on the outcome, this ArbCom case could easily be the next chapter in that saga, because dispute resolution at Misplaced Pages is unfortunately limited to behavioral issues, and the ArbCom unfortunately at times has to leave the content issues in place or becasue of its narrow scope even will allow those to continue to be added. -- Kim van der Linde 04:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that it would be wise if the ArbCom would limit the case to the on-wiki problem. The off-wiki debacle hasn't been resolved in a satisfactory way, with people at both sides claiming they are right. Various editors here have already added links to stories that 'explain' the issue, but those stories are often as biased as the next. I think it would be wise to add an explicit limitation to this case once it gets opened. If not, it can be expected to add a shitload of additional drama to the case. In the end, there are two issues to be dealt with. 1) The on-wiki interactions between Andrea and James. 2) COI. Once these two are removed, this area will be pretty decently editable. -- Kim van der Linde 01:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment to Silktork: I do not think this can be handled with a motion, because the issues at the surface might seem clear, when you start digging deeper, a totally different picture arises. At the surface, it looks like that Jokestress is a major problem, but what I see is a typical case (James) of a WP:SPA with a clear WP:COI pushing a specific WP:POV who has mastered to stay WP:CIVIL and knows how to write things to get his distortions by the bulk of the editors. They keep doing this till an opposing party makes an error (brusk, incivility, 3RR, etc), and use that to get the person banned from the pages. Superficially, it looks like Jokestress is the major issue, under the surface, it is the other way around. -- Kim van der Linde 13:37, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

I've become involved with this only since it hit AN/I the other day. After reading the initial evidence there and in linked discussions my view was that this was not ripe for Arbcom (yet) and that we (the community) should at least try to solve it first. To that end I proposed a topic ban for Jokestress and a mutual interaction ban between her and James Cantor . This proposal gained widespread but not consensus support. I didn't and still don't think this would be a final solution, merely removing the most disruptive elements so that the finer problems could be dealt with.

By yesterday evening (I'm on GMT) my view had evolved somewhat, and I posted my dinosaur and dogs analogy of the situation,. Mark Asten is following the implicit recommendation of the most recent commenters in choosing the latter option I gave by effectively saying that yes, we the community could do something here (topic and interaction bans) but we don't think that this would fix the problem.

Personally, I think the community could solve this still but it would be a long, multi-stage process of progressively sorting out each layer before moving on to the next. The feeling I've been increasingly getting from AN/I is that the community doesn't have the patience to do this, nor the faith in it's ability to see it through without needing arbcom down the line anyway, so I would recommend accepting the case.

There would seem to me to be three strands that need looking at:

• COI issues regarding several editors but most notably Jokestress and James Cantor.
• Behaviour around the significant content dispute - arbcom needs to examine what the barriers are to the community solving it.
• Interaction between editors, including the Jokestress-James Cantor interactions and the allegations contained in the AN/I thread regarding Jokestress' chilling effects on other editors' willingness to participate, especially regarding alleged WP:OUTING issues. Thryduulf (talk) 04:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Kim makes a good point above about the case name - Hebephilia was just the last flash point before AN/I - "Paraphilias" would be closer to the actual scope. Thryduulf (talk) 04:38, 30 January 2013 (UTC) now sorted. Thryduulf (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

re SilkTork: If you just issue motions along the lines of the remedies proposed at AN/I then you run the very serious risk of not solving the actual problem. My intention in removing Jokestress completely and her interactions with James Cantor was not to provide a final solution, but to create the breathing room necessary to work out what the deeper problems are and what can be done to remedy them - fully anticipating that that might require arbcom. Given that we're here now I don't see the benefit in the two stage process and another going through another formal request down the line.

re SilkTork (2): My view is that interaction between Jokestress and James Cantor is never productive, and the Jokestress' contributions and behaviour to the topic area are not a net positive. The questions that need answering are:

• Is James Cantor editing according to the COI guidelines, and if not what remedies should result from this?
• Is James Cantor's behaviour and interaction with users other than Jokestress problematic? If so, what remedies should result?
• Does Jokestress' behaviour mean that she should be banned from Misplaced Pages? If so permanently or not? If she is not permanently banned, what restrictions should be placed on her regards this topic area and/or behaviour?
• Are there any others users whose actions are problematic? My feeling is that although Jokestress/James Cantor is the headline disruption, there is more going on here than that. See my above-linked comment about dinosaurs and dogs - do any of the dogs need sanction?

Rather than motions, I think the topic and interaction bans would work better as temporary injunctions. Thryduulf (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

re Kim: I think you may have a point re James Cantor (although I'm not sure he's quite as bad as you paint him), but I can't Jokestress as anything other than a problem. This is despite my generally agreeing with her POV re hebephilia - her methods have done serious harm to her cause as it's very much easier to see the calm and rational party (James Cantor) as being more neutral than the person raving and foaming at the mouth. Thryduulf (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Skinwalker

This is an extension of a dispute that has been festering in the "real world" for many years. This dispute has at times included serious allegations of harassment by aggrieved parties. This article gives some background. Skinwalker (talk) 10:50, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by MrADHD

I have only had very recent exposure to this dispute and these individuals. I read in late December 2012 an article on Psychology Today site about the proposed novel diagnosis of hebephilia being rejected by the American Psychiatric Association - a group of psychologists, James Cantor I believe included were among those involved in trying to get it added to the DSM-5 diagnostic codes. Our hebephilia article did not have any mention of hebephilia failing to gain a foothold in the DSM-V so I added some content which James Cantor quickly removed. Whether his revert was justified is debatable but I was struck by how he claimed BLP issues when there were none seemingly to get around COI editing restrictions. I tried to resolve the issue on the talk page with James Cantor with limited success. James Cantor then edited in descriptive terms on his professional opponents which reduced the credibility of their views such as labeling them in article text as 'kink advocate' and 'defense psychologist'. I then became aware of hostile interactions from user Jokestress, primarily focused on James Cantor - I learnt later that there has been a long running dispute where a colleague of James Cantor apparently used pictures of trans-sexual children as objects of sexual ridicule during a controversial sexology conference - Jokestress then took from a website pictures of the researcher's children in retaliation and put terrible sexual comments about them 'to prove a point'. Of course this is totally unacceptable off-wiki conduct and two severe wrongs don't make a right. From this drama it appears User:James Cantor created a deception account called User:MarionTheLibrarian where he would edit articles relating to Jokestress (real name Andrea James) as well as other COI topics. At some point Jokestress realised that MarionTheLibrarian was in fact James Cantor (a well known sexologist) 'undercover' and then from what I can tell a full scale conflict broke out here on wikipedia (a conflict that had been raging off-wiki for some time). James Cantor tends to conduct this dispute using stealth civil battle tactics whereas Jokestress tends to use overt battle tactics - attacking everyone who is perceived to be allied to James Cantor. James Cantor seems to civily use half-truths in his battle with Jokestress - for example correctly pointing out the wholy unacceptable misuse of pictures of his colleague's children by Jokestress, but then failing to say to wikipedia editors that his colleague started this by initially misusing pictures of children as objects of sexual ridicule). From a civility point of view and the lashing out at numerous people (e.g. the respected NPOV editor WLU), Jokestress seems to be causing the most problems at this moment in time but given the complex background I don't think it is possible for the community to figure it out. Really the conduct of both of these people is shocking; also these two individuals are also high profile people, each having their own wikipedia pages which makes this all the more stunning.--MrADHD | T@1k? 12:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• NOTE: Arbitrators may want to note that apparently Jokestress will not be available until the 5th of February to add her thoughts.--MrADHD | T@1k? 12:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Legitimus

I would say all of these other users summed it up nicely and between all of them you probably get the picture. As for my take on things, I admit I do tend to side with James Cantor most of the time. I have no off-wiki association with him or any of his colleagues, nor do I necessarily agree with all his group's published works. But when the chips are down, he is both a qualified professional and one of very few scientists involved in this dispute to have done actual primary research. A great deal of the professional works being stacked against his group's work are little more than editorializing. Some of these individuals, such as Franklin, appear to have personal stakes in discrediting this research, given her history of defending criminals for money. As for me, I don't care one way or the other if hebephilia is a mental disorder, so long as it's acknowledged that there are people out there who specifically target this population for victimization.

As for Jokestress, yes she seems very bright and writes very nicely, but she is not a professional in any kind of mental health discipline and has far less defensible biases. We previously interacted on the pedophilia article, and her remarks in these sections gave me a very uneasy feeling. Read them for yourself and make your own judgment; for what it's worth, I've heard most of them before. But sometimes it's not so much the biases as it's how she goes about expressing them. The shear ferocity and incivility I've witnessed makes me want to keep my interaction with her to a minimum, even if it means staying away from articles she set's her crosshairs on. During the discussion about hebephilia, she accused myself and others of hiding behind anonymous usernames and made several actions that appeared to be attempts to "out" us.

This included trying to send me e-mails, or at least claiming she did which I don't doubt was some kind of ploy to bait me into replying, thus revealing my personal e-mail address to her. Her large volume of experience with wikipedia also means she knows how to use the system to her advantage, like any skilled lawyer knows how to use the courts. That kind of behavior right there freaks me out, and makes me not want to ever post anywhere she's part of the thread. I can confidently say Cantor has never insulted me nor has ever made me fearful that he would take action against me if I disagreed with him.Legitimus (talk) 20:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by James Cantor

I very much endorse Mark Arsten’s summary.

In 2003, Andrea James began a campaign of harassment against J. Michael Bailey, anyone she thought associated with him, and anyone who ever spoke positively about him, including multiple other activists and figures in the trans community. Her off-wiki attacks became so notable as to be reported by the NYTimes . Since 2003, she has created off-wiki attack sites against them, joined WP, and although a widely productive editor in general, began manipulating sexology pages to reflect her POV. (Indeed, the NYTimes mentions the WP conflict, already that notable, a year before I ever made any WP edit). Although I had the greatest access to RSs by which to reveal the POV pushing, Jokestress' bullying of any editor not agreeing with her particular brand of politics has made it impossible for anyone (even other openly trans wikipedians who do not share Jokestress' view) to edit Sexology pages, including pages I have never edited at all.

Following extended conversation at AN/I, interested and uninvolved editors recommended (in addition to an interaction ban) a topic ban for Jokestress (16), Cantor (2), or both (2). (I appreciate discussion is not voting, but at least one other editor found this list a helpful guideline.) As discussion continued, however, some felt that no meaningful ruling could be made/enforced by a single admin, and the present request was filed by one of the uninvolved editors.

• NOTE: Regarding time, several folks have told me that ArbCom cases can be lengthy. I will be away Feb 21-Mar 3. (As well as for some other scattered absences in March and in April. I am happy to list them, if that is appropriate.)

— James Cantor (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments re MrADHD

• I appreciate that this is not the time/place to contest claims made by other parties, but MrADHD's accusation is incorrect, as fact-checking shows: I started on WP in May 2008, using a regular (anonymous) account for two months, then began editing under my own name in July 2008, immediately linked the accounts), and never made any "stealth" edit in the >4 years since. As I say, this is not the time/place for such a discussion, and I am happy to revert this if appropriate, but I did not think the reversal of the timeline should be left untagged either.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• MrADHD can certainly say what he presented were facts, but what he presented was actually a set of assertions with no diffs or evidence. I presented the diffs/evidence showing he was incorrect. He responded with new/different assertions. Although the appropriate thing for me will again be to present the diffs/evidence showing he is again incorrect, but, as I already noted, my purpose here was merely to flag the claims until we can discuss them properly. So, unless specifically requested, I will hold the diffs/evidence until then.

— James Cantor (talk) 22:04, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments re Sceptre

• Sceptre is AfD’ing one of the disputed articles (gynandromorphophilia) while we’re still waiting on Arbitration for the whole dispute. I really don't think that’s going to help things any.

Diff of Sceptre’s nomination:

Diff of frank CANVASS (Sceptre elected to notify only Jokestress of the nom):

— James Cantor (talk) 16:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by WLU

I think that both James Cantor and Jokestress are problematic on sex and gender-related pages. However, James Cantor is a recognized expert who has acknowledged his COI regarding sources and agreed not to edit (I have acted as an intermediary on some articles, reviewing sources and incorporating as appropriate, turning down when not). Jokestress is an experienced editor who also has a COI (being a male-to-female transsexual and having a history of activism that is both aggressive and unpalatable; Skinwalker linked a NYT article above, I would urge the arbitrators to read this far more detailed and lengthy article). However, she edits and tags articles quite freely with no apparent appreciation for how her POV and dislike of CAMH staff may bias her contributions. In addition, some of her actions on-wiki such as this one and this one show a troubling concern with real-life identities - troubling because of her real-life activism and the effects it had on J. Michael Bailey. Anyone aware of that history may find such efforts to determine, or allude to real-life identifies having a chilling effect - a concern I and Herostratus agree on. Jokestress also seems to not assume good faith of other editors, or at least not me; note the discussion here where an inarguably minor edit pointing to an inarguably reliable source resulted in a lengthy BLPN and accusations I made these minor and unproblematic changes out of spite. But perhaps I'm tilting at windmills.

An interaction ban and a modified topic ban would seem to address this (Jokestress being restricted from editing sex and gender articles, James Cantor restricted to editing only talk pages of the same articles) but that's a decision for the arbitrators. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 23:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Hans Adler

Based on the New York Times article and the peer-reviewed paper on one of the involved editors, in connection with some of the diffs above, I think one aspect of this case is too big to be handled by Arbcom.

There exists an entire class of people, related to the topic of this case by mere accident, who are not allowed to edit due to the risks both to editors and to Misplaced Pages's reputation. This person should be treated similarly. By the operators of this site rather than a bunch of users who were elected by other users but can only relieve the Wikimedia Foundation of its legal duties up to a point. In this case, the right thing to do is to notify the Foundation in a way which they have to take seriously, and to make its legal department take responsibility. No volunteer should have to deal with such a person, and that includes the members of Arbcom. Hans Adler 12:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by little green rosetta

As an activist, it is no surprise that Jokestress/James is outspoken against her philosophical opponents off-wiki. It should also be no surprise that sometimes activists take aggressive action, as such as James has been alleged to have committed. Several editors have mentioned the NYT article in connection with James. To be fair, James feels this action is sauce for the goose. As I am uninvolved with this outside of ANI, I am unfamiliar with other off-site action by James, but I've been lead to believe they do exist. Several editors have also expressed concerns that Jokestress has attempted to ferret out their real life identities. The natural conclusion is that they are concerned about real-life repercussions because James has demonstrated that she is perfectly capable of taking action. This clearly contributes to a "chilling effect" as described by Thryduulf. The question for the community (and now Arbcom) is do those actions prejudice her from editing in this topic area because of this possible effect which is not conducive to a collegial atmosphere?

Cantor clearly has a COI, of which he has openly acknowledged. He has made what appears to be a good faith effort to be transparent, as demonstrated by the pledge on his user page, and his many reasonably sounding explanations. Some editors appear to question his sincerity insofar to accuse of him of being a civil POV pusher. I've not the experience to sift through the evidence to ascertain whether Cantor's behavior is problematic with respect to this COI/POV, but I hope Arbcom investigates this in able to make a determination because the community has clearly been unable too.

Statement by EdJohnston

I'm uninvolved in this dispute. This is a reply to SilkTork's idea that the case might be disposed of by motion. Since by now there is a huge documentary record, this might work. My suggestion is that the arbitrators could agree to focus on four previous discussions as evidence:

• Requests for arbitration:James Cantor at The Man Who Would Be Queen and related pages
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/HebephiliaIncident
• Talk:Hebephilia
• Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-01 Lynn Conway

Let's assume that the arbitrators could agree to such a limitation on evidence. Then in terms of remedies, they could see if it could be narrowed to four options:

1. No action
2. Sanction on Jokestress
3. Sanction on James Cantor
4. Both

If these options exhaust the realistic possibilities for near-term action, then the pain of a full case might be avoided. A motion might be considered instead. It is disappointing to have a long case which consumes a lot of resources and annoys most of the participants, but produces a result that could easily have been foreseen given what was known at the time of the original RFAR. EdJohnston (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Flyer22

Like others, I recognize the issues with James Cantor's editing. I also acknowledge that I am not the most neutral person to comment about Jokestress. The problems between the two of us, which also made her a problem for some others, started with the creation and deletion of the Adult sexual interest in children article. She wanted an article that covers all adult sexual interest in children, including non-pedophilic interest (such as child sexual abusers who are not pedophiles; yes, those exist, which the Pedophilia and Child sexual abuse articles already address); to this end, she also wanted the article to cover what she considers normal adult sexual interest in children. When she did not get her way with that article, she tried to turn the Pedophilia article into that article, disregarding WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Refer to this discussion where we talk about it again. In that discussion, which she repeats her POV of "normal adult sexual interest in children," I also mentioned how, when we get pro-pedophilia editors and/or editors who advocate adult-child sexual relationships (with prepubescent children or with any minor under the age of consent), she sometimes supports them, such as User:Cataconia, and that "ll with regard to article is stalk out its talk page and take the time to violate WP:TALK to complain about the editors disagrees with, especially if a chance to criticize James Cantor, any time fit, all while trying to make complaints relevant to whatever topic responding to." Here are diff-links showing that behavior, including support of Cataconia:. I mentioned that she should have been banned from that talk page a long time ago or should have banned herself from it because her posts there are unproductive and continuously combative. I noted that Misplaced Pages is not a battleground and that her taunting, combative rants and/or spiels do not belong there. The kinds of views Jokestress accuses us of constantly shutting down at the Pedophilia article and related articles are expressed by the WP:CHILD PROTECT policy.

I and others stress that Jokestress has a clear non-medicalization POV, in which, for example, she treats all paraphilias as a normal variation of human sexuality. She has made plenty of comments about rejecting medicalization of sexuality, often times acting inappropriately toward James Cantor while she's at it; see, for example, her comments in this discussion (which has subsections) at the List of paraphilias article. This toxic environment that results when Jokestress interacts with Cantor and/or others she dislike/hates, such as me, needs to stop. Flyer22 (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Note: I significantly reduced the size of my above comment, per the 500-word limit. Flyer22 (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse As I could probably have a conflict of interest regarding one of the involved parties.— ΛΧΣ 15:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Sexology: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <5/0/1/3>-Sexology-2013-01-30T07:09:00.000Z">

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

• Awaiting more statements. Courcelles 07:09, 30 January 2013 (UTC)"> ">

• Accept Courcelles 07:08, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think it's especially surprising that the community is having trouble solving the dispute on their own: having two parties in conflict come to Misplaced Pages to rehash a dispute over the substance behind articles connected to their conflict is something the project has very little defense against (I can remember a few other salient examples of an off-wiki dispute being replayed here that caused widespread disruption for years before they could be controlled).

  I'll wait until the two primary parties give their statement before voting on this case formally, but I'm probably going to accept this case now, before it degenerates into a wider melee. — Coren  13:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Waiting for more statements, before making my decision, but, at first glance, there appear to be issues which ArbCom should examine and, for that reason, I am inclined to say we should accept the case. Also, if we end up accepting it, I believe it should be held in abeyance, to allow all parties to fully participate. Salvio 13:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• As above, waiting to hear more statements; and I'd like to look a bit more into what the community have done so far, and the difficulties the community have encountered in finding a solution. SilkTork 14:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm still thinking about this. People are indicating that interaction bans and topic bans appear to be the solution, but that the community feel that would be unenforceable without ArbCom. Is there enough evidence here for motions? If we can deal with this matter by motion, I would prefer that to a long drawn out case that ends up coming to the same conclusion, but in the meantime creates a lot of drama on and off-Wiki. The content side of matters we can't deal with, but the conduct we can. SilkTork 10:51, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Is this case to be about anything more than the conduct of James Cantor and Jokestress? We can't deal with the off-Wiki stuff that people link to, and we can't deal with the content. All we can look at is if the conduct of editors is disrupting the project. We can spend two months arguing over the finer details, and getting some unwanted press attention into the bargain, to end up with a decision to somehow stop the disruption. If we have evidence now that two users are disruptive when they encounter each other, and they are disruptive when editing articles on a certain topic, then we can find the same workable solution today as in a very weary and unpleasant two months time. Is the question here about if these two users are being disruptive, or is the question about how to deal with that disruption? If it is clear they are disruptive, and nobody disputes that, then we don't need a case, we can just go to motions to agree on a solution. SilkTork 17:13, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it's worth including Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-01 Lynn Conway as background material. SilkTork 17:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

While it is flattering that people think the Committee can discover hidden truths, or that the members are smarter than the average bear, the reality is that we are just a bunch of fellow Misplaced Pages users who have been voted in from a very, very small selection of volunteers putting themselves forward. We have no special knowledge or skills above the average Wikipedian. All the Committee can do well is make binding decisions. Sometimes those decisions are good, sometimes they are bad, mostly they are just what could be agreed upon and looked OK at the time. I think it is clear that there is enough disruption occurring between James Cantor and Jokestress that an interaction ban is justified. The editing by both James Cantor and Jokestress of sexology articles draws attention and causes concern. James Cantor has offered for some time and continues to offer a mutual topic ban. This appears fairly straightforward: two users are being disruptive when editing certain articles and when dealing with each other. The community and even one of the two main parties feel that a mutual interaction and topic ban would be appropriate. We can decide that now by motion. So, we try an interaction and topic ban for both of them, apply discretionary sanctions to the topic area, and see if that reduces the disruption. If it doesn't then we can come back and look deeper at other solutions. If it does work, then we can look at appeals to lesson the sanctions, and see how that goes. SilkTork 22:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• Accept - however hold opening the case until the return of Jokestress. Risker (talk) 15:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC) Recuse. Risker (talk) 03:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
• Accept and hold pending the return of all parties, if that's necessary. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 15:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Accept with same conditions. NW (Talk) 02:29, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
• Accept. T. Canens (talk) 03:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I would not deal with this by motion. The complexity requires a full case. T. Canens (talk) 22:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
• Accept. The off-wiki dimension to this dispute makes me skeptical that this is the sort of thing we should remand to the community. AGK 09:26, 31 January 2013 (UTC)