Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 134

Archive 130

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Archive 132

Archive 133

Archive 134

Clarification request: Indian military history

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by The Bushranger at 00:12, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Indian military history arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• The Bushranger (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Statement by The Bushranger

This regards the South Asian social groups portion of the IMH case (aka WP:CT/SA). Specifically it relates to the former WP:GSCASTE, which, absorbed into SASG, explicitly includes "political parties" in the defitintion of social groups that fall under WP:ECR. Recently at RFPP, it was stated that as elections involve political parties, they fall under the GSCASTE/SASG mandatory ECR. I can see the logic (per "broadly construed"), while at the same time seeing it as a variation of WP:NOTINHERITED, so I figured I'd come here and ask: are elections in the CT/SA defined area considered to fall uinder SASG for the purpose of extended confirmed restrictions? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:12, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Rosguill

I can understand the reasoning of why election articles in India are not typically fraught in the same way that caste groups are, but I would urge arbs to consider amending the scope so that it’s actually comprehensible to new editors. It’s honestly a bit ridiculous to expect editors to internalize the meaning of “broadly construed” but then assert that elections are not in the domain of political parties, despite essentially exclusively concerning the activities of parties. My vague recollection is that the inclusion of “political parties” in the definition of GSCASTE was due to repeated disputes over the characterization of RSS (and maybe also Tamil nationalist groups?). I can’t say that I’ve noticed nearly as much disruption recently in that vein, with most SA disruption being instead in the area of caste descriptions, wars, and Kashmir. If it’s true that political party related disruption is no longer a pressing issue, I think it would be much more reasonable for ARBCOM to amend CT/SA language to no longer highlight political parties, or to craft wording that specifies the parts of political parties that tend to be contentious (ie classification of their political orientation, esp the inclusion of nationalist/fascist/etc or not), rather than asserting that political parties are ECR but their primary activity somehow isn’t. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:16, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Along the lines of Primefac’s comment, I would suggest dropping political parties from GCASTE. If there’s ever disruption, they’re still part of SA so protection can be liberally applied, but we don’t need to preemptively declare them to be ECR. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:10, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

Coming into this as a complete outsider, I wonder if slightly expanding Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Historical elections to cover things other than the results would be a better fit than the South Asian topic? (The answer could well be "no" of course). Thryduulf (talk) 02:24, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde

I second Rosguill's request to strike the wording about political parties. My understanding is that their inclusion in the original scope of GSCASTE was a consequence of some political parties having an explicit or implicit caste association in the Indian subcontinent. However, the areas in which caste intrudes into politics is already covered by the "broadly construed" language. And although the history and activity of political parties is a matter of considerable contention, they not a frequent subject of non-EC disruption because the set of pages is small, and largely already EC-protected. Conversely, election pages are an area of surprising harmony, possibly because of their purely factual nature, and the frequency of elections in India mean there is a large number of non-EC accounts working on such pages. I don't think we should be prohibiting this activity, and I don't think we should be in the habit of making rules we intend to be enforced selectively. The application of ECR to social groups and military history is sufficient.

Arguably this should be a separate request on my part, but this is a reasonable opportunity for ARBCOM to clarify whether "social groups" covers religion. My understanding is that the "social groups" wording is used to encompass the many uses of the word caste and related concepts, including the Jāti/Varna distinction, and the OBC/SC/ST designations used by the Indian government. I don't believe it was originally intended to cover religious groups, but perhaps I'm wrong. Religious conflict is of course a major flashpoint within CT/SA, and I'm personally genuinely undecided if religious groups also need to be covered by ECR. But the difference in scope would be enormous, and I think it is worth ArbCom making it official one way or another. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Indian military history: Clerk notes

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

Indian military history: Arbitrator views and discussion

• That's the kind of thing I'd let ride unless it was becoming disruptive. ECR was applied in this topic because of the disruption, so with broadly construed cases it's acceptable to invoke it, but let it slide if there's not disruption. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
• I agree with SFR. "Broadly construed" is a useful device for capturing disruption not confined to a small number of articles, but shouldn't be a bureaucratic burden. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:11, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
• Agree with Harry and SFR. Daniel (talk) 20:37, 28 November 2025 (UTC)
• Per others; elections shouldn't necessarily be included. I would be fine with rewording the topic area designation to clarify this, but not seeing a pressing need either. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
• My recollection of the GS/CASTE wording is similar to that of Rosguill, in that it was the parties themselves that were the issue (similar to related controversies over the castes); the vandalism at the article in question does not necessarily seem to be about the parties themselves and more about CRYSTAL predictions/complaints about the election results, so protection under CTOP (in my opinion) is not fully valid (though the protection in and of itself is perfectly fine). Could an election article require protection under this CTOP? Very likely, per the arguments already stated here, but I do not think we should make a blanket statement that all election articles are automatically under the "broadly construed" umbrella. I am not sure how best we could clarify that wording without getting too verbose, but potentially something like "political party characterisation" or similar? Primefac (talk) 14:52, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
• "Elections"? Election campaigns are political, definitely in scope. Election results are factual and per other comments, it would be officious to apply restrictions. Efforts to contest results (think Jan 6) are once again political and in scope. 2¢. Cabayi (talk) 11:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
• I also agree with SFR on this, and with Cabayi's description. - Aoidh (talk) 02:45, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
• Pretty clear consensus here; I'll point out as a parting comment that our definition does not include "broadly construed", and that GSCASTE's original definition (although we dropped this in the supersession vote) was limited to "pages related to", not content. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:15, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.