Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive989

Like Softlavender noted, this type of lawyering is exactly why we include "broadly construed" in topic bans.

talk

) 20:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't think "broadly construed" should be given carte blanche to freely interpret whatever that can be remotely connected; broadly within reason, not openly and creatively. Alex Shih (talk) 23:15, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Swarm stated above, "I think a ban from 'medicine, broadly construed' would inherently encompass 'veterinary medicine', according to common sense." Emphasis mine. Again, we state "broadly construed" to keep this type of thing from happening. It's why the ones who are topic-banned are advised to ask if they are unsure. There have been a number of cases of topic-banned editors trying to test the waters and find a loophole in their topic ban. All that stated, as long as "veterinary medicine" is not interpreted by Barbara to mean she can go into the human-dominated medical or anatomy articles and edit the "Other animals" sections or create non-human animal anatomy articles, both of which would put her back in my orbit, I don't have a big issue with giving her some rope to see how she does with veterinary medicine articles. If she is allowed to create non-human animal anatomy articles, then that should be clarified. But I obviously would be worried about her using that freedom to create something like a non-human animal vagina article, when she knows I'm against it (at this point in time) and it would give her somewhat of an excuse to edit the "Other animals" section of the Vagina article or other anatomy articles I'm involved with. After what I stated here about such a thing, and she's seen what I stated, I would view it as her trying to provoke a response out of me if she were to go through with editing in a way that is likely to involve me. Yes, the interaction ban is one-way, but if I want to explain why I reverted, all that will happen (unless others weigh in) is me posting about it on the article's talk page without the other party weighing in.

talk

) 06:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

If it was the intent of the ANI discussion which resulted in the sanction to have a ban which was as all-encompassing as that, then they would have levied a much broader sanction against her, rather then a topic ban from specific topics, "broadly construed", or they might even have considered a site ban. It seems that you're inclined to interpret the sanction as being intended to be an extremely broad one which was, for some reason, only narrowly defined. I do not believe that such a radical re-interpretation of a sanction falls within the leeway provided to administrators. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• No. It seems obvious to me that the original problems and original scope had nothing to do with veterinary medicine. Paul August ☎ 20:07, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

• No - From my understanding the topicban was purely for human health (etc) and doesn't seem to have been intended for vet medicine, They're not disruptive in that area so seems stupid topicbanning them from that area. –Davey2010^Talk 20:54, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• No. Miniapolis 22:23, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• No. Let's give Barbara a chance to work in areas in which she might contribute productively. Writing about animals requires a bit of a different skill set from writing about human health. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• No -Nothwithstanding the problems which resulted in the topic ban -- which I do recall -- "medicine" means "human medicine" and does not include "veterinary medicine" and, in any case, including the article under discussion in "veterinary medicine" is a stretch in and of itself. If Barbara_(WVS) edits within veterinary medicine, and her contributions are problematic in that subject area, an additional topic ban can be levied, but the current ban most certainly does not include that subject, no matter how broadly it is construed. (On the other hand, Violence against women is certainly within the scope of the "sexuality" part of the ban.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:56, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• No When people talk about "health care" and "health insurance" and "medical coverage", they're not talking about dog health or veterinary insurance or medical coverage for pets. EEng 23:38, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
• Neutral but the question is Irrelevant - In view of Barbara's inability to discuss her edits and inability to accept consensus as consensus, I favor an ultra-broad interpretation. I do not consider Barbara to be an editor who makes positive content contributions. However,the article in question isn't about either medicine or veterinary medicine. It is bacteriology. The article isn't about the iguana. The article is about a species of bacterium that may be commensal to or parasitic on the iguana. Every documented species of bacterium (and of any other kingdom of life) should be in Wikipedia if verifiable. The discussion here is off the point. The article isn't about a liazard. It's about a bacterium. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

  Commensal – I learned a new word today. EEng 02:29, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

User:EEng - If you have an iguana in a terrarium in your house, it is a commensal. It benefits from you feeding it, and it does you no benefit and no harm. Commensalism is one of the nine types of biological relationships based on benefit/harm, although one of them, which is no interaction, is usually ignored. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad you cleared the bit up about the terrarium, because the second sense of commensal is eating at the same table, and though I love my iguana I really don't want him eating at the same table. EEng 00:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

talk

) 06:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Flyer: According to SilkTork's comment below, it was Barbara (WVS) herself who added the VM Project tag when she created the talk page, here. I believe she was incorrect in doing this, but it does indicate that she, at least, thought the article was relevant to veterinary medicine. That does not change my mind that a topic ban from "medicine", even "broadly construed" means "human medicine" and does not include medicine for animals. As for the shortcomings of Barbara (WVS)'s editing, I cannot argue against it, but feel that if she edits in the field of veterinary medicine as she did in the field of human medicine, many eyes will be on her, and a further topic ban, or even a site ban, would not be long in coming. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

But, Beyond My Ken, it is not uncommon for us to include bacteria topics within the scope of medicine. The

talk

) 09:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure, the entire field of bacteriology has an obvious connection to health, because many bacteria impact human (or animal) health, but that doesn't speak to the impact of any specific bacterium, such as the one in the article in question. There are scads of bacteria which do not present health concerns, either positive or negative. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• "Broadly construed" would indicate all health and all medicine. If veterinary and/or animal health is not included in the TBan, then the TBan wording should be altered to indicate either specifically "human health and medicine", or the words "broadly construed" should be dropped or changed to "narrowly construed". There's a reason we use the terminology "broadly construed", and it should not be used lightly or as a matter of course, and it should mean what it means. Softlavender (talk) 04:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
• No with caveats. I endorse the comments by
  Flyer22 Reborn would be a big mistake at this time. Please be cautious and please be impeccable with your referencing. Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it
  05:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you,

talk

) 06:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

You are welcome,

Flyer22 Reborn. I always take your concerns seriously because I believe that you have earned our concern. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it

07:51, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• No with a but I think the original ban discussion dropped the ball on this one, and we should perhaps be asking the question whether bans from broad topic-areas are being imposed too lightly based solely on localized disruption in a narrower, related area. It's a bit late/redundant to be endorsing the unblock at this point, but I am wondering if, when the original ban discussion was shallow enough that it did, in effect, ban her from veterinary topics (it is a branch of medicine) when we now have overwhelming consensus that it shouldn't have done so, and Barbara has now suffered a block that she shouldn't have, based on a ban that was ill-considered in its earlier incarnation. I am uncertain regarding whether simply clarifying the wording will adequately address this, and don't think simply unbanning is in order (that would only provide incentive to other users to push the boundaries of their bans so they can be subject to unjust blocks and be unbanned as a result), but I'm wondering if at this point we should maybe have a discussion about forbidding bans from broad topic areas when disruption is localized to a specific, identifiable sub-topic. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:31, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
• Neither. We should keep the topic ban as is. Most anatomy and physiology articles contain parts relevant to animals, so I am doubtful that this proposal will actually help clarify things - I think the problem here was the application of the topic ban, not the topic ban itself. I do not think the block given was warranted. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

  Question, if you don't mind, as I don't really understand. This discussion is to try to determine what the topic ban currently covers, and you appear to be saying that it neither covers veterinary medicine nor doesn't cover veterinary medicine? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

  I think what Tom (LT) is saying is that no matter how much we clarify a topic ban, there will always been rooms for discussion (which is the argument for "broadly construed" by several editors above). The actual application of the "broadly construed" topic bans will depend on the discretion of the administrator, which was clearly misinterpreted in this case judging by the emerging consensus. Looking back, this looks to be a problem with "broadly construed" on broad topics, so I do maintain that another clarification would be helpful. Alex Shih (talk) 09:51, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Not misinterpreted. Interpreted differently. Above, the closing admin said he has no opinion on whether the ban should extend to veterinary medicine. And SilkTork, the admin who proposed the ban, clearly felt that it should extend to veterinary medicine.

talk

) 10:19, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• Ah yes, it makes sense as "Don't clarify the wording of the ban either way". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Looks like User:SilkTork's got a sudden case of ANI flu. Huh. I've often wondered why the Centers for Disease Control doesn't look into the etiology of that. EEng 17:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. A significant part of the reason Barbara was topic banned is that she did not understand the health and medicine topic fully, and misread or misunderstood her sources. She could not be trusted to edit in these areas without making errors. While mistakes in the bulk of our articles is understandable and reasonably harmless, mistakes in the areas of health and medicine can be damaging. I would not want to see Barbara entering into editing veterinary medicine articles and inserting errors which lead to readers self-treating their animals and causing them harm. Veterinary medicine is a subset of medicine so is included in the topic ban by default. It covers the same sorts of anatomy, medicines and treatments. SilkTork (talk) 17:50, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• As has been noted by several people, the article in question really isn't included in the subject area of veterinary medicine at all, so while your argument -- which has also been made by others here -- concerning the scope of "medicine" broadly construed, is certainly a valid one (although I disagree with it), it still doesn't, in my opinion, pertain to that article you blocked Barbara (WVS) for. That makes it an overreach of the "broadly construed" concept. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Let me give you my thinking here as to why I blocked, and what I feel my mistakes were. I was alerted to Barbara having created the article, and having looked at the article and that Barbara put it into the Category:Veterinary medicine stubs cat, which is a subcat of Category:Medicine, and also tagged it on the talkpage as under the scope of WikiProject Veterinary medicine which sees itself as related to WikiProject Medicine, I felt that she had broken the terms of her Topic Ban as she was editing in a medicine area, and that if she was uncertain if editing in this area was allowed that she should have clarified that before editing. She had tested the boundaries of her Topic Ban previously by editing first rather than clarifying, and had been warned that if she did it again a block was likely. I looked into her editing history, and didn't see her seeking clarification, so issued the block. I am concerned that people feel this was an inappropriate block, and feel that my mistake was in not fully explaining that thinking, and linking to her warning, so that others looking into it could see my reasoning and the earlier warning I gave. I then compounded that error by being offline for the last two days so was unable to answer questions and explain my thinking in a timely manner, which allowed the incident to develop as it has. This has been in relation to personal circumstances, not health related, but family. I apologise to everyone concerned with this incident that I have been unable to answer questions until now. There are other family matters that I have to focus on in the next few days, but I will log in at least once a day to answer any questions or give further clarification as requested. I have previously always responded promptly to queries, and feel rather bad that this incident has happened at a time when I was unavailable to respond. SilkTork (talk) 00:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation, which certainly makes your thinking very clear. It was good to find out the Barbara (WVS) herself put the article into the category of veterinary medicine, and that she tagged it for the VM project. In these actions, I think she was totally wrong (as in, mistaken about the scope of the article), but I can see where her actions in doing so would lead you to consider the articles to be within the "broadly construed" scope of her topic ban, as it certainly would look very much like she was gaming the edges of her sanction. That makes the block much more understandable to me. I still think that the article is not in scope, and that "medicine" conventionally means "human medicine" and not "veterinary medicine"; perhaps the lesson here is for sanctions in this and related areas to be very explicity about what they cover and are not intended to cover. In any case, given past incidents of editors gaming the edges of similar sanctions, your actions are clarified by your statement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

But, Beyond My Ken (like I stated above), it is not uncommon for us to include bacteria topics within the scope of medicine. The

talk

) 09:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, there are how many types of bacteria on Earth?, and not all of them present health problems to humans or animals. Those which do, and for which the health issues are part of their articles, cen reasonably be considered as within the penumbra of "health (broadly construed)". Those for which there is no evidence of health concerns -- probably the majority of them -- should not. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• No per above. L293D (☎ • ✎) 00:43, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. To me, it's clear that "health and medical topics ... broadly construed" includes veterinary medicine. But even if others disagree, I hope Wikipedians will focus on the spirit, and not the letter, of the topic ban. The ban is because Barbara has difficulty accurately summarising technical sources, so she introduces errors that could have harmful real-world consequences. The concerns that led to the ban apply to veterinary medicine. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 02:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• No. The ordinary meaning of "health and medicine" is human health and medicine. I understand that the reason for the ban also dealt with human medicine, and the prior discussion never contemplated that bacteria affecting non-human animals would be covered. Neutrality^talk 02:50, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• No "Health and medicine" within the context of the original TBAN clearly refers to humans, to try an twist it to include verterinary medicine is an abuse of process, IMHO. In any case, the edit that triggered the block wasn't even about verterinary medicine. It was one about a bactieria, an article that is within the biology field, an edit that does not even mention the subject of the health of the animal concerned. IOW, even calling it a vetinary health issue is a stretch in this case. Lets stop trying too bash the square peg into the round hole here. - Nick Thorne ^talk 06:27, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I can see that consensus is that people feel the wording does not include animals. However, it's worth pointing out that I was the one who worded the ban, and I did intend it to include animals. I became aware of the problems with Barbara's editing when waiting to review Vagina for Good Article. Like others not familiar with Wikipedia anatomy articles, I thought this would only deal with the human vagina, and raised that as an issue during the GA review. However, it is standard to include discussion of both animal and human in such articles, unless specified otherwise - such as Penis and Human penis. Barbara did insert material on animals into that article, as here: [15] (that edit was later removed as unhelpful), so when looking to Topic Ban her we were not differentiating between human and animal, but were only concerned with her poor understanding, in general, of health, medicine and anatomy. Our (my) mistake was in not clarifying that in the original wording, and this was possibly because we were all too close to it that we couldn't see that people might not be aware that both animal and human are included. As this has now run so far that it is clear that people feel the ban wording does not make it clear that animals are included, I will propose new wording to the Topic Ban to make it clear that animals are covered. SilkTork (talk) 07:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

It is also worth pointing out, SilkTork, that your intention in wording the ban is not definitive, it is the intention of those !voting on it that defines it. As for "it is standard to include discussion of both animal and human in such articles", then I'm seeing suggestions from several people here that "broadly construed" should cover such mixed cases even if the ban means "human medicine" etc. if you want to propose new wording for the ban to include veterinary topics, I think you would need to wait and see if the consensus really does support your contention that the ban already does cover them. If this discussion concludes that it does, then such a change of wording will should probably be the result here. And if the consensus is that it does not, then you will have to propose an extension of the ban to cover veterinary topics. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Just one more comment, because I think you are totally missing the point here. You say "...it is clear that people feel the ban wording does not make it clear that animals are included..." But that is the wording that people !voted on, so if the !vote was made on wording that the consensus decides does not include animals (regardless of your intention, which is not what people !voted on), then animals are not included! It's not that people don't understand that animals are included, they really are not included. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:27, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

talk

) 09:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, I beg to differ. This is a slippery slope argument. The article in question does not discuss any health issue whatsoever, only the bare fact that the bacteria is found on a certasin animal. Yet you wish to conflate that with some unidentified and unstated vetinary health issue which itself is arguably not even within the bounds of the TBAN. There are any number of bacteria living on the surface of your eyeball right now that are having no effect on your health. The mere presence of a bacteria is not health related, unless some other factor intervenes. Given that no such factor is stated in the article and Barbara has not made mention of any, continuiing to try and make the facts of Barbara's edit fit the within the boundaries of her TBAN by stretching the context of those edits beyond recognition raises question of the impartiality of those doing thee stretching. Given your past history with the editor I hardly think you can claim to be uninvolved. I am no fan of Barbara's editing in the medical/health article and although I didn't comment on the discussion to impose the TBAN, I supported it at the time. What I find very unappealing however, is the attempt to re-write history to make the TBAN include something that was nowhere included in the discussion that lead to its imposition. If you wish to extend the boundaries of their TBAN then fine, show us the evidence, supported with diffs, that this is nescessary, otherwise it is just hounding the editor. - Nick Thorne ^talk

10:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

talk

) 11:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn well, at least you recognise your own bias. Please understand that I am not saying that I am in favour of Barbara editing any science related article, given their editing history, but what I am concerned about is that sanctions imposed here need to say what they mean and only mean what they say. It is anything but clear that the TBAN included animals, when it could easily have said so if that was intended. For my money, it would have been better if the TBAN was on any science related article since all science articles depend on correct use and interpretation of reliable sources, but it did not. Perhaps that is a lesson for future instances like this. Now, if we wish to extend the TBAN, we need to show, with diffs, why this is necessary lest it becomes punitive. In no sane universe can Barbara's edit on the bacteria be considered problematic except for the supposed TBAN violation which is highly questionable. It most certainly cannot be used as evidence that the TBAN needs to be extended. If the editor begins to behave in the same manner as before in these general biology article, or any other science related article, then, sure, have at it. We are not there yet. Sometimes we just have to live with the consequences of poorly thought out previous decisions. - Nick Thorne ^talk

12:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

User:Boing! said Zebedee. Some good points. I will wait until the end of this discussion before looking into the need to reword the Topic Ban.

And, yes, you're right, it is the group intention then and now which counts. I just wish to make clear that I did not intend it to mean that animals were not included.

I've looked through and noted that some of those involved have commented here and indicated that they did not feel the TB excluded animals (SilkTork, Swarm, Flyer, SarekOfVulcan, and Tom), some have no opinions either way (Sandstein and Robert McClenon), and some feel that animals were not included (Davey2010, Cullen, and Clayoquot). It seems that the intention to either include or exclude animals was not clear and explicit at the time. As such, it is fair to say that you are right, my assertions that animals were included is simply my opinion, but it also follows that assertions that animals were not included is also just an opinion. It is appropriate, as such, whichever way this ivote concludes, to see if there is consensus on should the TB include or exclude animals. And the reality will be, if the consensus is that animals are not included, that Barbara's edits in the area of veterinary medicine (if she decides to pursue that) would need to be monitored. SilkTork (talk) 11:52, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The article isn't about animals. Bacteria are not animals. (Neither are they plants. They are bacteria.) Lizards are animals, but the article isn't about lizards. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• No If veterinary medicine was intended to be part of the TB it should have been spelled out. From the wording that was !voted on, is clear that in that context "broadly construed" refers to human medicine, broadly construed.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:20, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• No. This particular bacteria has absolutely nothing to do with human health. And of course such topic ban does not prevents anyone from editing pages about bacteria in general or even such as Escherichia coli which is relevant to human health. If it were a specific edit that relates Escherichia coli to human health, that would be a topic ban violation. My very best wishes (talk) 03:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
• No. We should allow Wikipedia to be improved. Articles about about animals, veterinary topics, non-human animal anatomy, non-human animal sexuality, and bacteria (excluding anything that lives on a human) should be permitted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
• No, unless someone can bring significant evidence for arguing that she's been disruptive with non-humans as well. Clearly the original intent was human, not extending to all organisms. You might as well argue that her ban from sexuality topics means that she could be sanctioned for editing an article about flowers, because a plant's flowers are its sexual organs. Barring evidence of botany disruption, such an argument would be ludicrous. Nyttend (talk) 12:21, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal for close

After a suggestion from SilkTork on my talk page, I intend to evaluate the consensus and close this review of the current topic ban scope in approximately 24 hours, unless there's any significant development before then. That will [probably] result in a [provisional] clarification of the currently perceived meaning of the ban's scope. [and anyone will then be free to propose any changes to that scope if they wish (and the indications suggest that such a proposal will be made). The whole process is perhaps a bit drawn out, but it's clearly something that is dividing people who have a significant commitment to the relevant topic areas, and it's surely better to spend a few days now so that people know exactly where they're working.] Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:16, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Be sure to include food and dining in the topic ban, because they're related to medicine and health, and basketball, because it's a form of exercise and that's related to human health, and travel, because people sometimes travel for their health, and insurance because of the health insurance aspect, and Donald Trump because he makes people want to throw up. EEng 00:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Boing! said Zebedee, I'm concerned about this. The point of this discussion is to decide what the topic ban meant. If other people want to open a new topic-ban discussion, that's an entirely separate issue that shouldn't be confused with this one. The consensus on the matter at hand seems clear. The longer this is dragged out, the harder it is for the person at the centre of it. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:22, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, any further proposal which might be made by anyone else after the clarification would be a separate issue. I've struck the relevant part of my comment. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 04:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the proposal is ready to be closed - couldan uninvolved admin (preferably) do the honors? Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I've kept myself uninvolved on the content of the ban itself (remaining neutral on it) and have only acted in an admin/procedural role, specifically so that I could do the close. SilkTork is happy with me closing it, and I intend to do so later today. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:58, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Close rationale/consensus

• There's a strong consensus here that when used alone, the word "medical" should be construed as referring to human medical topics, and so the scope of the topic ban on
  WP:IBAN
  )."
• Several editors have raised the potential problem of editing human-dominated medical or anatomy articles, and editing only non-human (eg "Other animals") portions, and none has contested that concern. However, the original wording of the ban said "medical articles", and the subsequent amendment was clearly meant to broaden the scope and not narrow it, and so I read the ban as still covering articles which cover human health and medical topics, including anatomy and sexuality, even if editing non-human sections.
• One further concern was to clarify whether Barbara is allowed to create non-human animal anatomy articles. As the consensus is that the ban does not extend to non-human animal topics, then there is no restriction on editing or creating non-human animal anatomy articles.

That's my reading of the consensus, and I will now close the sections above. I'll leave closing of the entire ANI section to someone else. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:06, 4 August 2018 (UTC)