Requests for clarification and amendment

Initiated by Red Slash at 04:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Macedonia 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 29

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Red Slash (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Macedonia_2#Disputed_article_movement.2Frenaming_injunction_extension
• Allow move requests to take place which would propose for Republic of Macedonia to move to Macedonia and for the disambiguation page to be moved to Macedonia (disambiguation).

Statement by User:Red Slash

It's been over four years since the case was decided, and I think the country article has primary topic with regard to the name "Macedonia". If I think that Cheddar cheese has primary topic for "cheddar" I can file a move request, but I feel unsure if I can do that for Macedonia since there was this case that seems to have prohibited move requests. But the reasoning seems to not be as pressing. This is not a request for some grand rescoping of the decision; simply a request that we let the community revisit a decision from four years ago made under some duress as to the primary topic of "Macedonia".

Statement by Fut.Perf.

In answer to SilkTork's question "Have there been any discussions since the case closed?": the solutions brought about by the Arbcom-imposed RfC process (WP:NCMAC) have been remarkably successful and stable. Very few serious disagreements have occurred ever since then at least among experienced and established editors (occassional expressions of unhappiness from pro-"FYROM" driveby editors notwithstanding). Even many of the Greek editors who would have been most vocally against it at the time of the conflict have been helping to uphold the consensus against driveby revert-warriors. For ease of reference, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia/main articles is the main RfC page regarding the main Republic of Macedonia article, which Red Slash wishes to review now. If you look over it, you will see that the decision was taken on the basis of quite a large amount of carefully assembled data and quite a lot of well-informed independent input. This is in striking contrast to all earlier, less formal attempts at a solution, which basically had all ended up being shouted down and bogged down by POV stonewalling. The decision on this particular point was based on a slight majority of votes, with the alternative (country article at plain "Macedonia") also receiving substantial support and solid arguments. On the whole, after four years, I don't think the Arbcom decision should be taken as abrogating the general principle that "consensus can change", but if a new discussion is to be initiated we should make sure that it will again be done under close surveillance of clueful and neutral administrators to avoid a relapse into the kind of POV-warring we used to see regularly before 2009. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:40, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, by the way, I think we all forgot to mention that the original Macedonia 2 decision actually contains quite explicit language answering Red Slash's proposal. Here it is:

"... Since consensus and policy can change, these binding decisions may be reviewed at appropriate times by that same administrator(s), or other uninvolved administrators. If the community is unable to find an administrator, or group of administrators, to address the situation, it may request that the Arbitration Committee appoint one. WP:GAME-ing a situation to head towards stalemate resolution will be highly frowned upon."

Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Taivo

As another participant in ARBMAC2, I heartily concur with Future Perfect's appraisal. And I also have been pleasantly surprised at how stable the solution has become, with opponents during the process becoming current allies to protect the consensus compromise against the "drive-by" editors pushing a nationalist agenda. --Taivo (talk) 16:40, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• The wording is: "No Macedonia-related article, as defined in #All related articles under 1RR, shall be moved/renamed until after the community comes to a solution for the naming dispute. If any unauthorized move does occur, any uninvolved administrator may expeditiously revert it." My interpretation of that is that no move should take place until a community discussion, such as move request discussion, has taken place. So I don't see that it is forbidding such a discussion. The case was initiated because there were contentious page moves without having gone through the page move request procedure. I would say that a community move request would play a significant part in "a solution for the naming dispute". Have there been any discussions since the case closed? Worth having a look to see if there have been; if not, then I see no reason to object to a move request discussion. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, what I am saying is that I don't see a need for amendment, as the remedy already encourages community discussion. In deciding on any future community discussions, it is always wise to refer to previous discussions on the same issue. Fut.Perf. has indicated there has been some discussion on this issue, so best practice would be to consider that discussion before deciding to initiate a new discussion. Also to be borne in mind is the current stability; however, it is not in the Committee's authority to impose content decisions, nor to prevent the community discussing them. It is well within the community's power to restrict any user who makes disruptive move requests; though worth pointing out that a user making a well reasoned move request supported by reliable sources should not be regarded as disruptive, unless they are making repeated requests on the same article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• As has been pointed out, there was an extensive and supervised naming discussion after the case closed. This is similar to what happened in the Ireland naming case. In both cases, the discussion seems to to have brought some stability to the topic area. From a personal point of view, the intent of the moratoria on name discussions was not just stability for stability's sake, but to reduce the distraction of such discussions so that editors could continue to work on improving the content of the article (the bit after the title that people actually read to learn about the topic area). Could anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the topic area give some idea of whether the articles themselves have improved much in these four years or not? In general, I would hope that people would place more of a priority on improving article content than on arguing over the name of the articles, but that may be too optimistic. To answer the question posed, I'm not seeing any need for amendment here. Carcharoth (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with my colleagues (and Fut. Perf.) here. The remedy does not prohibit re-opening orderly discussion seeking consensus about possible moves. There really is not need for us to amend,  Roger Davies ^talk 13:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with my colleagues that amendment is not necessary. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I also concur; the remedy does not stand in the way of orderly discussion, therefore no amendment is needed. Courcelles 21:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]