Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan

This sanction has a kind of crazy broad scope. The three other ECR topic areas, and the one rescinded ECR, all refer to conflict-related sub-topic areas. This is the only one that covers an entire region, conflict-related and not. That's basically unworkable as written. Now, in practice ECPs have only been issued under this ECR for pages that are about conflicts, with the sole exception of Diauehi, so one might say that this is a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The issue is, though, that not all aspects of an ECR are enforced by admins, and this creates ambiguity. For instance, on two occasions I've been asked to assess a potential violation of a user's partial TBAN within the AA area, and had to conclude it was ambiguous because the potentially problematic edit reverted a non-EC user—even though I don't think the user was actually trying to enforce the ECR.

So I'd like to propose an amendment at AN, but first I thought I'd run it by the admins who've actually been enforcing this restriction. So, @HJ Mitchell, Daniel Case, Rosguill, Courcelles, Callanecc, Abecedare, Firefangledfeathers, and El C, what would y'all think of an amendment along these lines:

• Conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly construed, are placed under an extendedconfirmed restriction.
• In the rest of the Armenia–Azerbaijan topic area, the community endorses administrators making liberal use of extendedconfirmed protection as an arbitration enforcement action.

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 17:49, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

That wouldn’t change how admins choose to protect pages — no admin is going through categories applying this protection everywhere it could be used, after all. For admins this would basically formalize what we’re doing, “if you see disruption from IPs or new accounts in AA areas, apply ECP and log.” The proposal would only change the carte blanche for reversion across the entire region of articles. Consideration needs to be given to how logging some here and some in the AE Log is a bit of a mess, though. Courcelles (talk) 18:02, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

The proposal would only change the carte blanche for reversion across the entire region of articles Right, that's essentially my goal here: Formalize current admin practice while closing a loophole that essentially allows edit-warring on articles on entirely apolitical aspects of Armenian and Azerbaijani life. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Wiki project Azerbaijan has tagged roughly 10,000 articles. WP Armenia about 7k. And there’s what, 50 pages logged here? I honestly wonder if we need this at all, or simply your 2nd paragraph could be passes as a sentiment of the community statement, transfer everything logged into the AE log, and send problems to RFPP to deal with as that sense of the community instructs. Courcelles (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would suggest rewording to content related to the history, politics, or national identity of Armenia or Azerbaijan. As it is, we get a lot of misunderstanding of the sanction, with new editors believing it affects only material that concerns Armenia AND Azerbaijan AND related ethnic conflicts all at once, rather than each of those topics separately broadly construed. This rewrite would both narrow the scope a bit so that truly uncontroversial topics are not affected, and makes it harder to misunderstand. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:25, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

There's also the elephant in the room which is that the Armenia part of this sanction also implicates a lot of Turkish history and material, and we see a lot of disruption in the area from Turkish nationalists in particular (which then overlaps into WP:ARBKURDS territory...) _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:27, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I do think the scope is too broad and that narrowing would match current admin practice. I would prefer "conflicts that include Armenia or Azerbaijan", as the scope should include Armenian genocide topics; alternatively, we might just mention the genocide explicitly. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:26, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Rosguill and Firefangledfeathers: How about ... political, ethnic, and military conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both—broadly construed and explicitly including the Armenian genocide ? I think this would include Rosguill's national identity idea; I think history might bring us back to an overbreadth situation, though. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:39, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I like it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:42, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would stand by "history" as my preferred wording: a significant aspect of this conflict is dueling historiographical claims to custodianship of the land, based on the existence of various different states in the Caucasus and whose historical character is contested, such as Caucasian Albania. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:13, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think historical aspects like that are reasonably covered by the "broadly construed". I'd say even something like pomegranate, despite being neither historical nor directly conflict-related, might be covered if we get another flareup of nationalist fruit fighting. I think we're better of with subjects like that covered by "broadly construed" than by mentioning some additional over-broad subject categories. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:16, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I agree, Azeri pomegranate is OP, and that's coming from someone who had a pomegranate tree in their backyard back in the old country. El_C 01:36, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

POV-pusher! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I also support narrowing the scope, with my preference being Tamzin's formulation above (... political, ethnic, and military conflicts [etc.]). It ecompasses the historical as well as the contemporaneous, with the crux—the ethno-national component—emphasized. El_C 00:45, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think Tamzin's political, ethnic, and military conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both—broadly construed and explicitly including the Armenian genocide is a good way to go here. Remembering (as Tamzin points out) that this is covered by AE contentious topics anyway so all this community ECP is doing it making automatic and indefinite what admins can do in response to disrupion. Given that it should only apply where it is actually necessary as a preemptive measure. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:59, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Having protected either Talk:Armenian genocide or Armenian genocide at some point in the last few months (can’t remember which), under this topic, I agree with wording that explicitly includes that, as well as making it clear that the scope of articles possibly included is not limited to those on the modern conflict, with the “and” between the two (as I have always understood its scope to be). Daniel Case (talk) 02:31, 20 August 2023 (UTC)Reply