Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Indian military history

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WP:ARBIMH
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Target dates: Opened 22 May 2025 • Evidence closes 8 June 2025 • Workshop closes 15 June 2025 • Proposed decision to be posted by 22 June 2025

Scope: Military history and related caste issues on the Indian subcontinent.

Case clerks: HouseBlaster (Talk) & SilverLocust (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & ScottishFinnishRadish (Talk) & Elli (Talk)

This case is currently open, so no changes may be made to this page, and unauthorised edits may be reverted.
If you wish to submit evidence in this case, go to the evidence page. Proposals for the final decision may be made at the workshop.

Case opened on 00:28, 22 May 2025 (UTC)


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Case information

Involved parties

Prior dispute resolution

Preliminary statements

Preliminary statements given in the case request stage may be found at /Preliminary statements.

Preliminary decision

Clerk notes

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter

  • Having first hand experience with repeated reports on matters too complicated to handle at AE , and with a consensus of admins referring, I see this as our responsibility. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:18, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Indian military history and related caste issues sounds good to me. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:47, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ivanvector, do you think that a full on IPA case has any possibility of not getting mired down in every conflict, especially if there is bleed-over into ARBPIA. Although WP:ARBPIAIPA and WP:ARBIPAPIA would make the PIA/IPA confusion even confusinger, I don't know if that would make it possible to have any decent outcome. I'm not totally opposed, but I think smaller bites are easier to chew, swallow, and digest, and I'd rather see 2-4 narrower cases than one grand megacase. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:56, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am considering recusal; I am a top contributor on Sambhaji, as I tried to help improve the page when the issue first arose. I'll recuse if folks think I should. Otherwise, I have made only limited edits to the military side of IPA, Battle of Ichogil Bund is the only one that comes to mind. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! 18:02, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate the various folks who weighed in on whether I should recuse, no one suggested I ought, and so I will be active on this. We should accept a case here based on Indian military history, although my preference would be pre-Raj, lest this become an India-Pakistan issue. I believe we should be happy to accept cases when AE refers them; I have repeatedly tried to send the signal to AE that we will take what they give us and that they should give us things if they are unable to resolve them. The AE admins are the forces on the ground and they have the sense of where the real issues and pressure points are. Procedurally speaking, in the past we've opened cases from ARCA via motion, although I'm not seeing why we couldn't net-four a case from here? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! 18:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly inclined to accept as a full case, to consider largely public but also some private evidence, with the scope proposed being Indian military history and related issues. Daniel (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support hearing a case on this; not sure on what exact scope is best. Also strongly encourage Eek not to recuse; having Arbs with more of an understanding of the details/context here will be very helpful. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:28, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accepting a full case seems (regrettably) to be the way forward. I also echo Elli's request that Eek not recuse. Cabayi (talk) 06:52, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also in support of accepting a case. - Aoidh (talk) 07:08, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Extorc: It wouldn't be the first time that an issue temporarily died down when ArbCom starts looking into the matter. There is also the private evidence aspect User:Daniel mentioned, which also needs to be examined. The question for me isn't if a case is needed, but that the exact scope should be. - Aoidh (talk) 23:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We have three drafters who are currently working on looking through the AE threads and private evidence to determine the named parties for the case as well as establishing criteria for adding new parties during the evidence phase in the event that evidence is provided to warrant such inclusion. - Aoidh (talk) 21:02, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just as a matter of housekeeping, are we planning on focusing strictly on Indian military history, or will this be WP:ARBIPA2? Primefac (talk) 11:46, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am supportive of Indian military history only (and not IPA2) as per my comment above, and am aligned with V93's comment here. Name "Indian military history", scope 'Indian military history and related caste issues'. Daniel (talk) 02:18, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support full case, with scope as named by Daniel above (Indian military history and related caste issues) or something similar. I do not think this needs to be a full ARBIPA2, but not against expanding the scope (or opening an ARBIPA2 case later) if that's where the evidence leads. Z1720 (talk) 02:22, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds like we need a full case. Support per Daniel. WormTT(talk) 09:40, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I started reading this with the inclination to open a case but I'm reminded of ARBPIA5: lots of people saying "something must be done", admins saying "we can't cope". ArbCom caved there and opened a case with a huge scope. After a few months, we issued some topic bans which were largely foregone conclusions and that was that. No systemic changes. No site bans. Nothing else. Of course, where we have a core group of editors making a topic area unmanageable, clearing out the "regulars" can be a useful thing to do, if only to give AE admins some temporary respite. But we don't need a months-long case with its attendant procedures and thousands of words of evidence to issue a handful of topic bans—the contentious topics procedure was created precisely to allow for disruption to be addressed quicker and with less bureaucracy. So my question is, why can't this be handled at AE? I believe the admins who tell me that AE is struggling, having been an AE admin myself, so is there something ArbCom can do to help in that respect? Or, to approach it from a different angle: what could ArbCom do here that AE isn't empowered to do or can't reach a conclusion on? What outcome are people looking for other than identifying a few troublemakers and banning them? As with Israel-Palestine, the Wikipedia conflicts are a microcosm of real-world politics and will ebb and flow with trends that are outside of anyone's control. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Final decision (none yet)

All tallies are based on the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.

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Findings of fact

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Enforcement

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In accordance with the procedure for the standard appeals and modifications provision adopted 3 May 2014, this provision did not require a vote.

Enforcement log

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