Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

"WP:ARC" redirects here. For a guide on talk page archiving, see H:ARC.

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings

• recent changes
• purge this page
• view or discuss this template

Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Ongoing problems surrounding Yasuke		16 September 2024	0/0/0

[edit]

Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	10 Oct 2024	24 Oct 2024

[edit]

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	Motion	(orig. case)	17 August 2024
Arbitration enforcement referral: Nableezy, et al	none	(orig. case)	7 November 2024
Clarification request: Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee	none	none	7 November 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Ongoing problems surrounding Yasuke

Initiated by Yvan Part (talk) at 11:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposed parties

• Yvan Part (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• BrocadeRiverPoems (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Gitz6666 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Rotary Engine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Symphony Regalia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tinynanorobots (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification BrocadeRiverPoems
• diff of notification Gitz6666
• diff of notification J2UDY7r00CRjH
• diff of notification Rotary Engine
• diff of notification Symphony Regalia
• diff of notification Tinynanorobots

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• RSN:Are news sources reliable for articles on history? (ongoing)
• RSN:Reliability of Thomas Lockley
• RSN:Reliability of The Japan Times?
• RfC 1
• RfC 2 (ongoing)
• Extreme talk page growth. (it went from one tp archive in 17 years to 6 in the last 5 months by my count)
• ANI:Possible False Accusation
• ANI:Talk: Yasuke has on-going issues
• ANI:Talk:Yasuke is a complete dumpster fire
• ANI:Blatant trolling by User:12.75.41.40
• ANI:User:Nocomputersintexas harassment and aspersions
• ANI:Disruptive gaming of autoconfirmed status followed by attempt to edit semi-protected page
• ANI:User: Hopefull Innformer

Statement by Yvan Part

Normal consensus building around the article Yasuke has completely broken down and the talkpage has become rife with endless debates about rules interpretations, bludgeoning and extreme entrenchment.
One example is a discussion around the replacement of one tertiary source which has led to a still going talkpage discussion (over 14000 words and over a month old) and the ongoing RSN mentioned earlier which itself seems to be leading nowhere due to general vagueness.
The ongoing RfC has been massively bludgeoned (over 30000 words in two weeks) leading to very few uninvolved editors participating. My own comment on it after it had been open for only a week was already very critical about the bludgeoning.
All of this leads to frequent ANI visits, either for obvious vandals, harassers and povpushers which are frequently attracted to the topic and led to the page being protected four times in the last five months ([1][2][3][4]) as well as three times for its talkpage ([1][2][3]) or between editors who have participated to discussions for a while and have apparently reached their boiling point against another. An assessment that the topic has problems is shared by uninvolved long time editors in offhand comments here, here and here and that additional remedies might be required.
Some of the problems spill over into connected articles such as Thomas Lockley, List of foreign-born samurai in Japan and Samurai which see some petty vandalism, pov pushing and edit warring though to a much lesser degree than Yasuke.

I also believe my complaint against Symphony Regalia in the most recent ANI section was not properly evaluated (reasoning provided here) but decided not to pursue further at ANI after making the decision to come to ArbCom.

Statement by BrocadeRiverPoems

I am commenting only to state that I wish to have no part in this. I do not wish to participate in editing the Yasuke article, or having anything to do with any of the ancillary elements of it going forward. As I am presently on a break and will be around infrequently, I wish to have nothing to do with whatever is discussed or decided here, and am providing whatever notification might be necessary from me to the effect of stating I will not be keeping up to date with this. After the ANI discussion, I concluded it would be better for me to simply WP:DISENGAGE from all things Yasuke, and I believe other editors more experienced than I held the same sentiment that it would be better for me to leave such contentious topics alone.--Brocade River Poems (She/They) 11:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Gitz6666

The problem with the article, as I see it, is that many editors (often IPs and newly created accounts) do not accept the outcome of the recent RfC, which concluded that Yasuke should be described as a "samurai". This has led to:

1. Frequent attempts to remove the word "samurai" from the article, especially from the lead section.
2. Long and tedious discussions on the talk page. Since there are no sources denying Yasuke's samurai status or addressing the issue in depth, most discussions revolve around the critical analysis of 16th- and 17th-century Japanese and Portuguese sources (e.g., here, here and in multiple threads). These discussions seem to be over now, but they went on for a long time despite various attempts to explain that this kind of source evaluation borders on original research. Secondly, the discussions concern whether to remove certain news sources (CNN, TIME, Smithsonian magazine) that refer to Yasuke as a samurai. Some editors consider these sources to be of lesser quality and want to remove them, even though they are not contradicted by academic sources (see second part of this discussion and the thread at RSN).
3. A new RfC opened by an inexperienced user notewithstanding the lack of significant new sources. Some editors active on the article, who are interested in debating Yasuke's samurai status, supported this new RfC, resulting in another significant waste of time.

I have no opinion on what actions ArbCom might take to address these issues, but in the ongoing RfC, I proposed a one-year moratorium on new RfCs regarding the same topic [1]. If there were a consensus on this, I believe it would be very helpful. I expect that editors from the gamer community and neto-uyo will soon lose interest in the topic. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Statement by J2UDY7r00CRjH

I hesitate to agree to moratorium to the discussion of Yasuke because 1. the current dispute about the new sources has not been resolved and more importantly 2. if more sources come out the moratorium will be used to not include them. For background, the entire reason for the discussion is about whether to include specific points mentioned by mainly two sources. One source is a historian, Yuichi Goza, who according to his research page specializes in studying samurai [2], who said we should be cautious in saying Yasuke was a samurai because the evidence for it is only from one version of a manuscript not found in other copies. The other source is Thomas Lockley who said 'there is debate as to whether Yasuke truly became a "samurai," but it is believed that, at least for his lifetime, he was undoubtedly appointed as a vassal of Nobunaga.' Both these sources came out after the closing of the previous RfC. (One was published before but not yet translated.) To be clear, I am a proponent of adding the view that some historians believe there is not enough information to conclude whether or not Yasuke was a samurai to the article. The opposing view says that there are not enough sources to warrant their inclusion. Note that the majority of academic sources just say he served Nobunaga or was his retainer and do not discuss whether he was a samurai, and almost every source says there is little information about Yasuke in general. (see Talk:Yasuke/Archive 5 and search for "scholarly sources which mention Yasuke" for a list) To elaborate more on my point about more sources potentially coming out, just last week, a historian mainly of Chinese history wrote that "In the end, due to the absolute lack of historical materials, it is impossible to determine whether Yasuke was a samurai or not."(source in Japanese) One might argue that we shouldn't use that source because the author is not an expert in Japanese history specifically, but in general it seems likely to me that more reliable sources will write about this topic in the future. Lastly, the whole idea of making every change through an RfC is flawed because it requires uninvolved editors to read all the sources as a prerequisite, and in some cases to know the timeline of these sources.

I am not sure what steps arbitration could take to resolve this dispute. Hopefully this background is helpful to someone who reads it. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 15:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Pinguinn

I have not edited in this area but I am familiar with the nature of the dispute and why it is so contentious. This all started with Yasuke's inclusion in Assassin's Creed Shadows and his portrayal as a samurai in that game. Ultimately it all stems from online disputes about diversity in video games that have bled onto Wikipedia, in a manner similar to what prompted the GamerGate case. Sweet Baby Inc. has been another page caught up in this "culture war".

The GamerGate case authorized discretionary sanctions for pages related to GamerGate or gender related controversies, which were later replaced by GENSEX CT sanctions. Yasuke and related pages have not been eligible for any CT because despite dealing with similar issues related to a similar dispute, they do not relate to gender or sexuality. In my opinion some kind of CT designation for Yasuke or a wider area such as "culture war issues in video games" is needed. It could potentially solve the problems in this area without a full case. Pinguinn 🐧 18:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Ongoing problems surrounding Yasuke: Clerk notes

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

Ongoing problems surrounding Yasuke: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)