Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Arbitration cases
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There have been a number of Arbitration cases heard in the topic area covered by the Fringe theories guideline. Arbitration Committee rulings constitute the final step in the dispute resolution process. Most such cases have dealt with limited disruption from a small number of editors, but in a few cases the committee has interpreted policy concerning an entire topic or subtopic. These latter are outlined below.
Pseudoscience
This case is the source for the original wording of
subst:Ds/alert}}, to be issued by an uninvolved administrator and logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist#Log of notifications. Any sanctions applied for continued disruption should be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Log of blocks and bans
.
In 2012, a motion extended the discretionary sanctions to "
standard discretionary sanctions
.
Paranormal
This case emphasizes that Wikipedia should include subjects generally regarded as non-existent by the scientific community when there is significant coverage by other independent sources. Per
WP:REDFLAG, exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and ideas should not be misleadingly characterized as generally accepted. Editing under a conflict of interest and off-wiki campaigning are treated. The role of categorization
is also discussed, concluding that if there is a significant sourced viewpoint that a topic is pseudoscience, it is an aid to the reader to so categorize it.
Fringe science
This case covers
WP:TRUTH
exception for disruptive behavior. This case also emphasizes that a topic ban means "entirely prohibited from editing articles within the topic".
Sub-topics
- WP:ASF, the topic area was put under probation. Sanctions to be logged Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming#Documentation_of_bans.
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education: Waldorf education, Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and related articles have been subject to conflict-of-interest editing, inadequate sourcing, and over-reliance on material self-published by the Anthroposophy movement.
- Conflict of Interestguideline is especially important in controversial areas.
- prominence, and fairly weight the authority accorded each view in the relevant scholarly community. Discretionary sanctions may be applied across the topic area (broadly construed) after formal warning; Log of notifications, Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions.
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not part of an ideological struggle. Neutral point of view is better presented by summarizing quality independent sources than trying to balance polarized sources against each other. The subtopic is subject to article probation.
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy: Advocacy, unseemly conduct, and inappropriate sourcing are to be avoided. The topic area (broadly construed) is subject to discretionary sanctions. Novel approaches are encouraged to further the creation of high-quality content while minimizing disruption.
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion: Views should be represented according to their prominence in the relevant scholarly community; polarized sources should be replaced with higher quality independent sources rather than "balanced" with equally polarized sources. Edit warring is not part of the consensus-building process. Advocacy and other unseemly conduct interfere with building comprehensive neutral articles.
- Single purpose accountsand IP addresses registered to an organization editing that organization's article or related issues may be subject to additional scrutiny. Church of Scientology IP addresses are subject to immediate blocking, as with open proxies, and SPAs with a clear agenda may be blocked for up to one year. The topic area (broadly construed) is placed under discretionary sanctions.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental_Meditation_movement From Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental_Meditation_movement#Editors_reminded, those who can't edit a particular article or topic neutrally are encouraged to voluntarily step away and edit other articles. The topic area is under discretionary sanctions.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Longevity Longevity is on discretionary sanctions, broadly construed. In this case, membership of a fringe group about a topic area, did not necessarily equate to a conflict of interest with respect to the fringe topic area.