Is there an "official" place to have side discussions that are related to the topics on the ARCA page? In the current discussion here [1] regarding word limits there has two areas of discussion. The first is what the rules currently are (seems like a clear consensus). The second is more like how we might address a potential issue and if they really are issues etc. The second topic is one which might benefit from a more forum like discussion where back and forth dialog may take people over the word limits. Is there a place where that type of discussion could take place? Note: I'm a participant in the discussion and at the word limit. I'm not asking for an extension, rather if there is a "sidebar" place where such discussion might be allowed. Springee (talk) 14:15, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here works, or WT:ACN maybe? This talk page has twice as many watchers, so here is probably better. Or maybe WT:Arbitration, but this page still has twice as many watchers. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:58, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you only providing an option for that specific request for clarification? Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to designate an official place for sidebar discussion in general, as I feel it would work against the current clarification and amendment procedure. isaacl (talk) 17:11, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that a more forum like discussion where back and forth dialog may take people over the word limits is not a positive thing. That's precisely why we have the word limits - because some people really want to do this, in places where it's not actually appropriate or helpful to the people who are trying to work through the issue at hand. @Springee, if you need more words to respond to something another editor has said and you're up against the word limit, clerks/admins will usually grant them to you. If your request is declined that's probably a sign that you're too deep in and haven't realized you're not actually moving the discussion forward anymore. -- asilvering (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry @Springee, that came out way more like a specific rebuke against you than I intended. I do think you, specifically, have gone past the point where more words will really help, but I meant my comment more generally. CTOP discussions, especially at somewhere like AE/ARCA, can obviously be a really stressful experience for the editors involved, and even people who aren't ordinarily given to bludgeoning discussions can easily fall into the trap of feeling like they need to respond to everything, either to defend themselves or to correct the record. But I can say from the perspective of an admin who tries to respond to those discussions at AE etc, those extended responses rarely help me at all (and, honestly, more often end up as a way for the participants to stick their feet in their mouths). The word limits really do help us all, imo. -- asilvering (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

asilvering, I'm not looking for further clarification regarding the specific question. Rather, I was thinking that this topic had both a part about "what the rules mean" - I think we are all clear on this - and if/how it might make sense to modify things in the future/in other word limit cases. That is an area where I felt some editors were going and where it might make sense to allow for a more free form discussion. Kind of like a close this ARCA and open a free discussion somewhat like a VP-policy type discusison. When editors are just arguing word limits make sense. If editors are verbally exploring ideas (which felt like the tone of a number of the comments yesterday and today) then a more forum like discussion could be helpful. That is why I was asking. Springee (talk) 20:31, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking very generally, if a proposal comes out of an Arbitration-related discussion and there is a desire to advance that proposal further, then yes, I see no reason with using one of the Pumps or this talk page to discuss about it; ArbCom does occasionally change its procedures and policies based on community feedback. I do agree with asilvering though in that we want discussions on a particular ARC/ARCA to stay focused. Primefac (talk) 13:11, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With the original discussion closed where might be a good place to discuss what (if any) would be the appropriate way to grant word extensions in cases like this. In this case I mean a case where the word restriction is based on an ARBCOM restriction applied to a topic area vs a restriction applied to a whole noticeboard? While it wasn't an issue in the recently closed discussion, what if someone wants additional words at a RfC at Talk:Israel? Can that be granted by an uninvolved admin? If people feel this is a question better raised at VP, I'm happy to have this thread closed out and raise the question there with pings to those involved. Springee (talk) 15:35, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Will someone link from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5 or its talk page to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 5? (Though this was kind of a general question.) It seems like it would be easier to follow the rules if one didn't have to go hunting to find updates. -- Beland (talk) 20:08, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions page, under the § ARBPIA5 topic bans §§ Community discussion (uninvolved editors only) subsection, there are multiple instances of the first-level list type being changed from * to :, and blank lines between list items that are part of the same list. Both of these cause screen readers to make extra list end/start announcements. Can a clerk make the appropriate changes to avoid changing the list type unnecessarily? isaacl (talk) 22:57, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this edit. Note in the case of the first removed blank line in the diff, the subsequent list item changed the list type from * to :, to provide the appearance of a paragraph break within the bulleted list item. This effect can be achieved using {{pb}}, without generating extra list end/start announcements (see User:Isaacl/On wikitext list markup § New paragraph within a list item for more details). isaacl (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also note this edit started with the * list type and then switched to the : list type, generating extra list end/start announcements. isaacl (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Isaacl: Should be done now. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:20, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edit. Note, though, by replacing this sequence:

* first paragraph
: second paragraph

with this:

* first paragraph
*:second paragraph

an extra nested list level has been added. If the {{pb}} template were used instead, it would avoid adding the extra nested list (and thus an extra list start/end announcement), while (mostly) preserving the original appearance. (There is slightly more vertical whitespace between the two paragraphs when using the {{pb}} template.) isaacl (talk) 06:06, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've switched it to {{pb}}. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 17:28, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this edit! Note the first instance I mentioned, where the second paragraph starts with "In addition to the above violations...", is still present. I appreciate the effort to avoid extra screen reader announcements, thus improving the user experience. isaacl (talk) 17:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 18:15, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I greatly appreciate your update to improve accessibility! I apologize for not noticing earlier that the same issue also appears with this sequence of edits in another section of the page. Thanks! isaacl (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My comment on the case page was removed by Asilvering. I am not up to the latest policy on LLMs. What policy did I violate? And what gives Asilvering the right to remove my comment?

I take responsibility for my comment, not ChatGPT. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:10, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to comment. But ChatGPT-generated evidence is not welcome. -- asilvering (talk) 18:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Asilvering: Why? What policy does it violate? If I understand you correctly, if I just commented that "none of these diffs are NPOV violations", with no supporting evidence, that would be a perfectly cromulent comment? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:41, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm telling you, as an arb, that we have no interest in whatever ChatGPT has to say about this. If we wanted ChatGPT's opinion, we can ask it ourselves. -- asilvering (talk) 18:48, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have misunderstood what I did.

Here's the bottom line. I wrote my comment, and gave my judgement that there was no NPOV violation -- there's no AI involved. As supporting evidence, I linked to a ChatGPT transcript. That's all. I could have linked to some external webpage or some Wikipedia article.

People are free to read it or not read it. But why remove it?

Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:54, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Again: you're welcome to comment, but we have no interest whatsoever in whatever ChatGPT has to say about this. -- asilvering (talk) 18:58, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I reviewed the diffs myself and found that they weren't NPOV violations. I don't need the "yes machine" to agree with me. I'd bet 100 quatloos that you could word a prompt that would give you the opposite answer anyways. I agree with the removal, and take a very dim view of LLM submissions. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:59, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Asilvering and CaptainEek: I have thousands of edits in the ARBPIA area. It's amazing that position you two are taking is that I'm allowed to give my naked judgement that there's no NPOV violation in the diffs. But if I attach a ChatGPT transcript actually trying to give some evidence for my judgement, that is a bridge too far. You two have also failed to name a single policy that I have supposedly violated. I see that Wikipedia policies still a game of Calvinball. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:04, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingsindian if you tell me it's NPOV, that's you making a judgement, and we can consider you as a person and your expertise and reputation in weighing that comment. Now, if you provide no reasoning, I'm not going to give your comment very much weight. But if you use an LLM, you are relying on its expertise and reputation: which is zero. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:27, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've said several times. The judgement is mine, based on years editing the topic. I did not rely on the ChatGPT transcript to form the judgement; I can see it at a glance. The ChatGPT transcript is supporting evidence, for people who may have less experience than me.

You can, personally, disregard the evidence or not. Does not matter. But to remove it entirely, you're imposing your own judgement on me and everyone else. How do you know, for instance, that every Arb will take the same view that you did? And how do you know, for instance, that some other non-arb might not look at my commment, end up doing some more research and come up with a deeper comment?.

Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingsindian, your last 20 edits go back to 2018. If you make one more post in this thread, fully 50% of your participation in the last seven years will be right here, arguing for the rights of all to read your ChatGPT transcript. Perhaps you're unaware of the community's opinion on LLMs. It's not good. This is not a hill to die on. -- asilvering (talk) 19:38, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the question about policy, the committee has essentially exclusive authority to control its spaces (barring your usual anti-vandalism stuff and where we have devolved power to adjust things, such as clerks making clerical amendments to templates and admins at AE). If we say we're not interested in hearing from an LLM, we can remove the comment, warn the poster, block the poster, etc. etc. (LLMs are naturally not the only concern this power extends to, despite our usual choice not to do anything with content we would really rather not hear or see.)

You may appeal the decision to remove the comment to the full committee, or you may repost it without attempting to use LLM to support your comment. That choice is yours. Izno (talk) 19:39, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]