Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests
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Request name | Motions | Case | Posted |
---|---|---|---|
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) | Motion | none | 26 July 2024 |
Amendment request: German war effort | Motion | (orig. case) | 31 August 2024 |
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) | none | none | 17 August 2024 |
No arbitrator motions are currently open.
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Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)
Initiated by Selfstudier at 13:43, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
- Case or decision affected
- Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict
- Clauses to which an amendment is requested
- List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
- Selfstudier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
- Barkeep49 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Information about amendment request
- Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area of conflict"
- Change userspace to talkspace
Statement by Selfstudier
To match WP:ECR (Idk if it is worth changing both to link to namespace 1).
@Barkeep49: @Zero0000: The discussion here refers (at the bottom)
@Zero0000: Not only. See Barkeep49 statement at the relevant AE complaint (still open) However, I will note that the contradiction between the "topic area" as defined and what areas ECR do not allow for is present. And so in a different scenario I would say this user shouldn't have to eat a block that could then be escalated if there are future transgressions. However, given that there was other conduct leading to a topic ban that factor doesn't seem to apply here.
To be clear, my opinion is that ECR, being later, should take precedence but that's just me.Selfstudier (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
And now, the same technicality being referred to by another editor. Selfstudier (talk) 10:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
@Zero0000: I am only "proposing" that this "technicality" which has not been identified by myself, be fixed up, I'm just initiating the paperwork, to the extent anyone thinks that it is required. What I want is that it not be available as a defense by non EC editors, currently two of them mentioning it, and I suspect more inbound if left unresolved. If there is another way to clean it up, I'm all ears. And @Doug Weller: has now raised the question indirectly as well https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard&curid=21090546&diff=1237149351&oldid=1236465052#Why_does_ARPBIA_allow_userspace_as_an_exception? Selfstudier (talk) 12:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
@Sir Kenneth Kho: Many thanks for clarifying my inept proposal. For me, though, ECR should function like a tban, "any edits that relate to the Arab-Israeli conflict (broadly construed) anywhere on Wikipedia" Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
@Guerillero: Depends what you mean by edge case, if you mean that it isn't usually a problem, sure. However recently, I don't know quite how to put it, there has been a sort of assault on ECR, which you could, at a pinch, just call wikilawyering. See for example, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Emdosis and the comment by an admin there, "I wouldn't immediately understand "userspace" to apply to another user's talk page in this case – seems more like wikilawyering than anything else to say that this edit falls outside of the CT regime. We can drag this to ARCA if we have to, but just agreeing that the filer made a vexatious argument is easier." (I won't name them, since they don't want to be here, methinks). Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Barkeep49
There is a small mismatch between the area of scope and ECR and perhaps arbcom wants to fix that. Perhaps it doesn't. I'm not sure why I am involved in this case. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:58, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Zero0000
Can we have this request actually explained, please?
I don't see any contradiction between "userspace" in "area of conflict" and "talkspace" at ECR. They serve different purposes.
One place says that the "area of conflict" does not extend to userspace (which implies that it does extend to talkspace). ECR indicates that talkspace has some differences in restrictions compared to article space. Both these make sense and can be true at the same time. We definitely do not want the "area of conflict" to exclude talkspace, because then the ECR restrictions on talkspace would not apply to it.
Or maybe I missed the point entirely. Zerotalk 15:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
- To editor Selfstudier: So a messy argument on some user's talk page is what counts as an explanation?
As I see it, Definition of the "area of conflict" defines which pages and edits are subject to editing restrictions in ARBPIA, and WP:ARBECR says what those restrictions are. I don't see any contradiction there, and it seems to me that changing "userspace" to "talkspace" in the former would remove article talk pages from the area of conflict and disable all the restrictions there. Zerotalk 02:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
To editor Selfstudier: The contradiction you claim to exist actually does not exist. Let's start at ECR:
- "
The Committee may apply the "extended confirmed restriction" to specified topic areas.
" So now, we ask, what is the "topic area" in the case of ARBPIA? That sentence has a footnote: - "
The current topic areas under this restriction are listed as having the "extended confirmed restriction" in the table of active Arbitration Committee sanctions.
" So we click on that link and find a big table. ARBPIA is near the end. It says: - "
The entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted; edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace.
" (my emphasis) So in fact ECR agrees with WP:Contentious_topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area_of_conflict" that edits in userspace are not in the ARBPIA "topic area". Where is the contradiction?
I'll also repeat (please answer): You seem to be proposing that "edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace" at WP:Contentious_topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area_of_conflict" be changed to "edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of talkspace". Why does that make any sense? You want to remove talkspace from the topic area?? Zerotalk 11:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
To editor Selfstudier: If arbcom wish to undo the exclusion of userspace from the ARBPIA topic area, that's their decision, but your proposal does much more than that. Zerotalk 12:25, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
If a change to the status of userspace is to be considered, I suggest that arbcom consider all CT topics and not just ARBPIA. Personally I don't understand why an editor should be forbidden from mentioning the topic in their own user space (unless they are actively disruptive there). For example, an editor who is approaching 500 edits may develop some text in their sandbox for insertion into articles once EC is achieved — isn't that perfectly reasonable? An editor who abuses this allowance (say, by excessive pings) can be dealt with easily. Zerotalk 04:37, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sean.hoyland
Maybe this revert I did a couple of days ago is a useful test. Is the revert valid or invalid under the remedies? Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sir Kenneth Kho
This amendment request came to my attention after @Doug Weller: pointed it to me, I believe I can provide some clarity for the arbitrators.
I think there is an error in the request as pointed out by @Zero0000: the intended request is likely "remove exception of userspace" instead of "change userspace to talkspace" in WP:PIA, and the opposing side would be "add exception of userspace" to WP:ECR.
The answer would depend on whether arbitrators intended WP:ECR A(1) to overrule or uphold WP:PIA 4(B), if there is an answer, we are done.
If arbitrators did not consider it at all, the strongest argument for the initiating side would be WP:BROADLY, as the broadest possible thing would be no exception to userspace.
I'm arguing in favor of the opposing side, the strongest argument would be WP:UOWN, as userspace is traditionally given broad latitude too, it seems that WP:ECR and WP:UOWN should have their own jurisdiction, and on the balance WP:ECR should not be excessively broad.
@Selfstudier: nicely pointed to WP:TBAN in support of the initiating side, but it is worth noting that WP:TBAN is intended to "forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive", while WP:GS is intended to "improve the editing atmosphere of an article or topic area", which applies here as WP:GS specifically includes "Extended confirmed restriction". Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 16:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
- @L235 I think Remedy 9 repeal is possibly long overdue, it was written in 2015, and it only reminds the obvious that admins can use indefinite blocks, which is true even outside CTOP. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Callanecc
My understanding is that"
- #1 in the 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' applies CTOP, ECR and 1RR to all articles broadly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
- #2 in the 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' applies CTOP, ECR and 1RR applies to all other pages except userpages and user talk pages if 'General sanctions upon related content' applies.
- 'General sanctions upon related content' requires that before CTOP, ECR and 1RR are applied to any page other than an article the enforcement templates have been added to that page which is "only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools" and that this can never happen on userpages or user talk pages.
Unless thought through extensively, there is a potential contradiction between what is defined as related content:
- The 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' decision says that related content is edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace (that is, not articles).
- 'General sanctions upon related content' says it applies to related content but then redefines this is (i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict) which I suspect is intended to mean things defined above as 'related content' (not what is actually says which is pages not covered at all in the definition).
There is also the potential that any restiction (e.g. topic ban or 0RR) imposed under contentious topics cannot apply in userspace or could an editor be restricted for an edit on a userpage or user talk page.
To avoid the confusion and contradiction created I suggest that:
- "with the exception of userspace" is removed from the definition
- "(i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict)" is replaced with "(see [[#Definition of the "area of conflict"]])".
- Then either:
- A decision is added to the index explicitly allowing CTOP restrictions to apply to edits made in relation to related content anywhere on Wikipedia to close the loophole currently exempting userspace completely. This would mean, however, that to be covered user talk pages would need to have the enforcement templates on them.
- OR
- An exemption is added so that the requirements of "General sanctions upon related content" are not applied to editor restrictions imposed under CTOP. This would be the closest to the current intent where editors could be restricted from related content based on and applying to all of their editing in the topic area regardless of whether pages have the enforcement templates on them or not.
Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Aoidh: See discussion here regarding the exemption for userspace. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- Premeditated Chaos might remember more about the discussion and thinking behind this and my statement in general too. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Statement by PMC
Callanecc, I'm afraid I don't recall in any greater depth than my comments at the workshop, sorry. The userspace exception was suggested by Huldra and Zero0000, who made some comments re: user talk pages that on review, look like reasonable concerns; whether or not they're still applicable I can't say. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Doug Weller
I think it would be easy to make it clear when mentioning talk space we meant user talk space and are not forbidding edit requests when the specific sanction allows them. Surely we don't want non-extended-confirmed-editors to be able add material to their own userspace they cannot added elsewhere. The purpose as I understand it of the 500 edits and 30 days is to enable them to learn our policies and guidelines and hopefully how to work constructively with others. I also think we don't want non-ecr users to use their talk space or the talk space of others to discuss the topic. Doug Weller talk 12:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I would rather not name this but recently rsn into another editor with the same issue, but others convinced him he was wrong, although apparently he was right. Doug Weller talk 18:06, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Red-tailed hawk (Definition)
Is there a reason the proposed motion uses "broadly interpreted" instead of the standard "broadly construed"? Is there a difference in meaning we are supposed to infer, or are they one and the same for purposes of this motion? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:26, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Implementation notes
Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by an automatic check at 03:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Motion name | Support | Oppose | Abstain | Passing | Support needed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Motion: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) | 0 | 1 | 0 | ![]() |
5 | |
Motion: Repealing primary articles/related content distinction | 1 | 1 | 0 | ![]() |
4 |
- Notes
Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Arbitrator views and discussion
- At the moment, "userspace" (including user pages, user talk pages and subpages, "all of these pages") is (only) related content to the ARBPIA area as described at Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict § General sanctions upon related content. This leads to the following result, which is confusing to me:
- WP:ARBPIA's extended-confirmed restriction does not apply to:
- Edit requests in namespace 1 ("Talk"); RMs are not edit requests
- Any edits in namespace 2 ("User") or 3 ("User talk").
- All other contentious topics' extended-confirmed restriction does not apply to:
- Edit requests in namespace 1 ("Talk"); RMs are not edit requests
- WP:ARBPIA's extended-confirmed restriction does not apply to:
- I just wanted to note that I am aware of and am watching this discussion, but I would like to look more into the reasoning/history behind the current wording before commenting further. - Aoidh (talk) 02:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see any contradiction between what WP:ECR says and what WP:CT/A-I describes; the CT page describes what is and is not under the ECR restriction in a way that is entirely compatible with the wording of ECR. ECR covers the area of conflict, and userspace is not in area of conflict. However it can be as "technically correct" as possible, but if it's confusing or seemingly incompatible to reasonable editors (which seems to be the case) then it's not doing it's purpose and needs to be rewritten or amended for clarity. If we're going to be imposing these atypical rules for this topic area then they need to be accessible and easily understood. - Aoidh (talk) 18:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Is this a real problem or an edge case? --Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:52, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- I think one issue with this is that the "primary articles" and "related content" distinction has proven to be less useful with time. When the case was first decided, the extended confirmed restriction had not been established. (In fact, the ARBPIA 500/30 restriction is what eventually led to the adoption of WP:ARBECR.) Now, WP:ARBECR points A, B, and C establish the proper enforcement actions to be taken, without need for any reference to "primary articles" and "related content" — a distinction that few if any other cases maintain. I would therefore support a motion defining the "area of conflict" to simply be "the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted", and making conforming edits to the rest of the case. (We can keep the templates, but the definitions of primary articles and related content will no longer be necessary in defining the scope of the restrictions.) Doing so would resolve this request and simplify the language going forward. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Red-tailed hawk: I would assume the two terms should be viewed identically. Further thoughts forthcoming — currently discussing among ourselves. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Motion: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)
For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" shall be defined as the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted.
- For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
- Support
- Oppose
- While this would solve the confusion brought by the wording, it also further erodes the ways in which an editor can edit, despite there being no compelling evidence in this discussion of intractable disruption warranting this change. - Aoidh (talk) 07:03, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- Arbitrator discussion
- I hope this matches L235's idea; I'm open to them changing the motion text if I missed something. It's a simple and clear solution, and simplifying confusing conditions that have actually caused confusion is good to me. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm worried this motion fails to resolve what happens to Remedies 6-8, which rely on the distinction between primary articles and related content. See below for one alternative. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm worried this motion fails to resolve what happens to Remedies 6-8, which rely on the distinction between primary articles and related content. See below for one alternative. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Motion: Repealing primary articles/related content distinction
Remedy 4 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case ("Definition of the 'area of conflict'") is amended to read as follows: For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" is the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted.
Remedy 5 is amended by appending the following text: The {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} editnotice and the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} talk page notice should be used on pages within the area of conflict. When only parts of a page fall within the area of conflict, if there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator.
Remedy 6, Remedy 7, and Remedy 8 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case are repealed.
- For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
- Support
- Oppose
- Per my reasoning above. - Aoidh (talk) 07:05, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- Arbitrator discussion
- Posting for discussion, per internal disucssion with ToBeFree. The issue with the previous motion is that Remedy 6-8 rely on the "primary articles" and "related content" distinction, and establish some special rules that are not found in the rest of the CTOP/ARBECR world. This motion would retain some of the guidance on the templates but broadly eliminate the formal differences in enforcement rules. One other option is to bring some of the rules from ARBPIA into the broader arbitration enforcement procedures. I think there is some merit in that idea — currently, all WP:CTOP says about scoping is one sentence (
Unless otherwise specified, contentious topics are broadly construed; this contentious topics procedure applies to all pages broadly related to a topic, as well as parts of other pages that are related to the topic.
) and one footnote (This procedure applies to edits and pages in all namespaces. When considering whether edits fall within the scope of a contentious topic, administrators should be guided by the principles outlined in the topic ban policy.
). If it would be useful to import some language from Remedy 6-8, that could be on the table. But there may not be much appetite for doing so, in which case we can just adopt the motion as drafted here. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)- I do like this motion as is already! Thanks for creating it; I hadn't noticed the need for adjusting the other remedies as well. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:38, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Aoidh: I would consider that if we want to exempt userspace from WP:ARBECR, the more appropriate way to do so would be by amending the text at WP:ARBECR. I think there's a strong interest in standardization, so I would rather have separate up-or-down votes on those two things, and then it would seem logical for you to support both of those motions. Curious for your thoughts. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:22, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think there's merit to the primary article distinction. This is a sprawling topic area; not on the scale of some contentious topics, but still broad. And there's a difference between the core set of articles that document the conflict and other articles that are not necessarily about the conflict but the related disputes spill over. Ideally, editors should be able to work on articles about the culture and history of the region without big scary ArbCom notices, at least until there are problems. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Amendment request: German war effort
Motion enacted. SilverLocust 💬 00:10, 31 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Initiated by Cinderella157 at 03:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Cinderella157I simply ask the I have learnt to discern that some things are difficult to substantiate and are therefore better left unsaid. I am not a project coordinator and have no foreseeable aspirations to become one. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC) ToBeFree, the absence of K.e.coffman is news to me. Cinderella157 (talk) 21:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC) Responding to SdrqazThe sanction was imposed as a remedy for personal attacks against a particular editor. ArbCom determined that I could not substantiate particular allegations and that in consequence, these rose to being personal attacks. If I was inclined, I might have continued to make such attacks against the editor of record in areas unrelated to the Tban or despite the Tban. I have not. I submit, that ArbCom's determination that the editor of record had not engaged in misconduct was sufficient remedy to prevent further similar allegations/personal attacks. As noted, I have been actively editing in several contentious topic areas, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Indo-Pakistani wars - areas known to foster editor misconduct an personal attacks. I have become more discerning in how I deal with perceived misconduct or whether I deal with it at all. Where I have had occasion to raise issues of conduct, I have been more discerning and circumspect as to how and where such matters are dealt with. My conduct in doing so has not been seen by the community as being personal attacks or otherwise inappropriate - certainly not rising to the level necessitating sanction. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC) Comment by NewyorkbradAs some of the arbitrators have noted below, it is the ArbCom rather than the broader community that would consider whether to terminate or modify one of ArbCom's own remedies. Given that Cinderella157 filed his appeal request on this particular page, it is likely that he was aware of this fact, and that his use of the term "community" either was simply inartful, or perhaps was meant as a suggestion that non-arb community members might wish to comment on his request. In any event, if he wasn't already aware of the proper procedure, he is now. What would be needed next is some explanation of why Cinderella157 believes the sanction no longer serves a reasonable purpose. Simply saying so without a word of explanation will certainly not succeed. In making his case, I suggest he should also bear in mind that when the German war effort case was decided six years ago, none of the current arbitrators were on the Committee. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by EuryalusI was on the Committee during this case and this sanction has been bothering me somewhat. Some points:
Apologies if all this seems like a relitigation of the actual case. Fwiw I'm not an editor of WWII history and have never interacted with Cinderella157 or anyone else from this case in any other topic. I also don't doubt the sincerity of the editor who originally lodged this case, or their multiyear commitment to improving Wikipedia's coverage of this topic. Their evidence against some others, for example LargelyRecyclable was impeccable and justified the ban that we imposed. The reason for posting the above re Cinderella157 is simply that this topic ban has stuck in my mind over several years as a sanction that probably didn't need to be made. So long as they didn't seem to care, neither did I. But now they've asked for it to be lifted it seemed reasonable to take a minute to support that request. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sir Kenneth KhoI would support waiting for Coffman's statement for two weeks, but the reason is simply to provide all sides fair opportunity to be heard. However, if there must be an answer as to whether the "timing of the appeal has anything to do with Coffman's absence", it can't be anything other than a resounding no per WP:AGF. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 16:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by K.e.coffmanI do not object to the T-ban being lifted with the conditions outlined in the motion. Perhaps Cinderella157 has indeed matured in their interactions. For background, I had limited contact with Cinderella157 prior to the Arbitration case, except for a few instances where they attacked me out of the blue: [2], or joined in LargelyRecyclable's arguments with me: Talk:World War II reenactment#Recent edit. It was Cinderella157's behavior during and after the case that was more of a concern. As the case was concluding, Cinderella157 attempted to re-litigate the entire case on the PD's talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort/Proposed decision#Conduct of KEC -- in 11 subsections, all about my behavior. From there, they linked to a separate, 9-000 word document, with more diffs & links: User:Cinderella157/GWE evidence suppliment. That seemed overly obsessive and concerned me greatly at the time. After the case, the issues included edit-warring against me at the same Waffen-SS reenactment page: 19 June 2019, 20 June 2019, 1 July 2019, and refusal to listen to advice from AE admins: [3]; Cinderella157's response: [4]. They also ignored a prior warning from another admin, Bishonen, pertaining to the topic area: March 2019. Cinderella157 has demonstrated some poor conduct regarding their T-ban after it was instituted, but not as far as I know after 2019. I hope that's a good sign for the future. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2024 (UTC) German war effort: Clerk notes
German war effort: Arbitrator views and discussion
Motion: Cinderella157's topic ban suspendedRemedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") is suspended for a period of six months. During the period of suspension, this topic ban may be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator, as an arbitration enforcement action, should Cinderella157 (talk · contribs) fail to adhere to any normal editorial process or expectations in the topic area. Appeal of such a reinstatement would follow the normal arbitration enforcement appeals process. After six months from the date this motion is enacted, if the topic ban has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the topic ban will automatically lapse. Enacted - SilverLocust 💬 23:53, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
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Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)
Initiated by Red-tailed hawk at 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Case or decision affected
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles and related AE thread.
- Clauses to which an amendment is requested
- Pursuant to WP:CTOP#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee, a recent Arbitration Enforcement thread has closed with instructions to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision.
- Lists of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
- Involved AE participants
- Levivich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (AE initiator)
- האופה (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Bluethricecreamman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- ABHammad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Selfstudier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- fiveby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Sean.hoyland (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Iskandar323 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Dan Murphy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Nableezy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- BilledMammal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Zero0000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread
- PeleYoetz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- TarnishedPath (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Nishidani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- DMH223344 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- M.Bitton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Referring administrators
- Red-tailed hawk (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (referral initiator)
- ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Barkeep49 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Levivich
- האופה
- Bluethricecreamman
- ABHammad
- Selfstudier
- fiveby
- IOHANNVSVERVS
- Sean.hoyland
- Iskandar323
- Dan Murphy
- Nableezy
- BilledMammal
- Zero0000
- ScottishFinnishRadish
- Barkeep49
- Theleekycauldron
- PeleYoetz
- TarnishedPath
- Nishidani
- DMH223344
- M.Bitton
- Information about amendment request
- Pursuant to WP:CTOP#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee, a recent Arbitration Enforcement thread has closed with instructions to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision.
- Throughout the discussion among administrators at AE, several sources of disruption were identified:
- Long-term slow-motion edit warring by a number of individuals within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
- Long-term tag-team edit warring by several groups of individuals with the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
- The widespread nature of edit warring, battleground mentality, and POV pushing within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
- The ineffectiveness of previous warnings within the topic area to stop the disruption.
- The inability of the tools available at AE to adequately handle disruption that involves a large number of parties over long periods of time.
- Several suggestions were floated by administrators during the discussion, including the issuance of warnings to multiple individuals, the imposition of 0RR restrictions on either select individuals, or 0RR restrictions on large numbers of individuals coupled with select IBANs, TBANs, individual anti-bludgeoning restrictions, and topic-wide restrictions on the length of posts people make in discussions within this topic area. However, because the discussion broadly turned into a set of complex and multi-party complaints regarding behavior of multiple editors over long periods of time, a consensus was reached among administrators to refer the broader dispute to the arbitration committee.
- — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Red-tailed hawk (AE referral)
Note: The arbitration amendment template limits how many individual I can initially add, so I will shortly be adding the rest of the admin and non-admin participants to the list above in their own section.
Additionally, as I can't find any prior examples of referrals by looking through the archive, I have tried to do my best here in light of the fact that this is a referral rather than a standard amendment request/appeal. Arbitrators should not hesitate to let me know if I have formatted this in an unexpected way.
— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich: As should be more obvious now, it's everyone who contributed to the AE discussion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich: There's currently a discussion over at WT:Arbitration/Requests#Template for referrals from AE around that topic. For completeness's sake, I included everyone in this one. Going forward, there might be some norm/convention, but I figured that it was better to incorporate everyone rather than potentially leave someone relevant out. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I do acknowledge that I left out several individuals whose behavior was directly mentioned, and I will fix that issue now. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Zero0000: Please see my comment above, and my exchange with Levivich for an explanation as to why you are listed under the category of "Involved AE participants". — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 11:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich: There's currently a discussion over at WT:Arbitration/Requests#Template for referrals from AE around that topic. For completeness's sake, I included everyone in this one. Going forward, there might be some norm/convention, but I figured that it was better to incorporate everyone rather than potentially leave someone relevant out. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @L235: Thank you for your comment. I think that a full case/case-like structure would be best, as that is the sort of thing that would allow for clear examination of the complex multi-party disputes that AE is not quite able to handle well. In my view, I don't think the topic-wide "please be brief in discussions" provision will be enough, as it isn't going to remedy the long-term edit warring/tag teaming, nor the civility issues that have driven away good faith editors from the topic area. In the event that a full case is opened, I agree that it is most appropriate to only have the individuals whose behavior is under examination to be considered as parties. But, before that list is finalized, we might want to have some space for the community to identify that sort of behavior—perhaps the section for statements in this thread? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I believe that it might be useful for some anti-bludgeoning sanction to incorporated into the discretionary sanctions available for administrators to dole out, but if so, I think it should look like one that the community has previously endorsed in a DS area. One such sanction is that which was imposed on NewImpartial, of
no more than two comments per discussion per day, except replies (of reasonable length) to questions or very brief clarifications of their own comments
. - I would hesitate to apply a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words topic-wide in a blanket fashion; I feel like this sort of thing would serve as a trap to good-faith newcomers who are verbose, and we needn't WP:BITE good-faith editors who are entering the topic more than already occurs. That being said, making it available as a discretionary sanction that could be applied by an admin would not cause the same issue with more or less auto-biting good-faith editors new to the area, and might be reasonable. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- I have read through the analysis by BilledMammal (talk · contribs) regarding the bludgeoning. I would point to WP:ARBBLUDGEON's
Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion
as pointing at two things: overly repeating oneself in replies to others, and simply dominating by pure volume. The criteria used for the database search can be seen as a (flawed, but useful) proxy for the latter. The former requires contextual analysis as to whether or not someone is simply posting the same point a bazillion times in response to different people; showing diffs in the same discussion where someone is repeating the same point over and over (and over) again across a multitude of comments would provide better evidence towards that point than the analysis currently does. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC) - @Z1720: With respect to
If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue
, my reading of Wikipedia:Contentious topics#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee's relevant part (i.e. A consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard may refer an arbitration enforcement request to the Arbitration Committee for final decision through a request for amendment; emphasis mine) is that I had to submit it here rather than as a case request. If this is to change going forward, the instructions should probably be tweaked to clarify this. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:44, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Levivich
Looking at the list of parties, those who have been sanctioned in this topic area have not been disruptive since their sanction, AFAIK. Most of the list have never been sanctioned. If there are concerns regarding anyone's behavior in the topic area, a filing at AE, ANI, ANEW, or some other noticeboard, should happen first, before an arbcom case. An arbcom case should only happen when (1) there are editors who want to present evidence to arbcom, and (2) community options have first been tried and failed (unless there's private evidence involved). Because these criteria are not met, the case request should be declined.
Limiting everyone in the topic area to 500-1000 words is a terrible idea. This topic area has more sources (see here or here for an idea of how many academic books have been published just in the last five years), and more sources that contradict each other, than almost any other topic area. Discussions about sources can't happen in 500-1000 words; the very notion is ridiculous. More to the point, any kind of topic-wide restriction would be a horrible, counterproductive overreach. The vast, vast majority of editors are doing nothing wrong.
Removing appeals to the community is not something arbcom can do, as that would require a change to WP:BANPOL, which arbcom cannot do.
I don't think the AEs I filed are particularly "complex" or "multi-party". I think they're straightforward, and each one can be judged on its merits without considering the actions of other parties. Of the 5 I filed, 1 ended in sanctions, 2 in warnings, no problems with those. The PeleYoetz one is still open and they just made their first comment there recently. I don't see any reason admins can't review that as with any other filing. If arbs want to review that filing instead of admins, seems like overkill, but OK. האופה hasn't edited since I filed the AE 8 days ago, so while arbs could review it, I see it as moot, and I don't think reviewing it would be a good use of anyone's time at this point.
There is nothing for arbcom to do here. People who are concerned about disruption in the topic area should raise it at one of the community noticeboards. A sprawling, unfocused case with lots of parties, is a terrible idea, as has been proven multiple times by past arbcoms, and this is especially true in the absence of any showing that the community is unable to handle this. The only thing worse would be a topic-wide sanction; please don't do that, I fear it would trigger a "constitutional crisis" and waste more editor time. Levivich (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Just a heads up: if a case is opened, I will ask arbcom to name as parties and review the conduct of all the editors, admins and non-admins alike, who, on this page, are casting WP:ASPERSIONS. Those of you who have done so may want to either strike your comments or add some diffs to support your allegations, before arbcom gets around to asking who the parties should be. Levivich (talk) 16:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Re: BilledMammal's comment that 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets ... The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with.
26 replies were to confirmed sock puppets, and I rather strongly disagree that it's trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with, though of course I value my own time more than others value my time. :-P Levivich (talk) 01:47, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
The way my report against HaOfa "sprawled" is because the first admin comment made the "other people do it, too" argument and listed a bunch of other editors, and it went downhill from there, as those editors predictably defended themselves and the discussion focused on their conduct rather than HaOfa's (despite my attempts to refocus it). I agree with TBF that an AE referral means Arbcom should review my report against HaOfa -- meaning, look at my conduct and HaOfa's conduct -- and complaints about other editors should be brought separately, with diffs not aspersions, and a showing that some other conduct dispute resolution was first tried. Because even if Arbcom does open a case, who will the parties be, and how will Arbcom decide? It requires someone presenting some evidence... in other words, an WP:ARC. Only HaOfa and I are relevant to this AE, and with HaOfa not editing since the filing, I don't think it's necessary or a good use of Arbcom's time to look at HaOfa's conduct. Levivich (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49:
If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here.
I think the "first admin comment" link above disproves this. Look at who replied and who didn't before that first comment was made. It wasn'tthe replies that actually happened split the focus
, it was the first admin comment. Levivich (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by האופה
Statement by Bluethricecreamman
- There seems to be constant RFCs and threads about the reliability of sourcing in this area. I know the current arbitration request is about long term edit warring, but there is also long-term campaigns in talk spaces to remove usage of certain sourcing. See the downgrading of the ADL, the current RFC in WP:RSN about Al Jazeera, etc. The downgrading of the ADL, in particular, caused significant media coverage for barely much difference in the status quo of average Wikipedian (from my understanding, we already had significant warnings about using ADL with attribution only when speaking about Israel Palestine, the change in status quo hardly meant much more than a media circus). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- In terms of reversion, the reversion limits are harder to understand in CTOP space, especially for more contentious arguments. A clarification of what the "base" article text is and what the contentious edit that is being reverted is would be useful. In my case on Genocide of indigenous peoples, there are still questions of how to apply WP:NOCONSENSUS vs WP:ONUS when a contentious edit (which probably should be removed by WP:ONUS) had been placed in text for long while (and therefore should remain by WP:NOCONSENSUS). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Additional clarification on whether coordinated tag-team editwarring (i.e. WP:CANVASSED) or incidental tag-team editwarring should be treated similarly would be useful Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Going off of the suggestion from ScottishFR, for the limit of 500-1000 words, some of these RFC discussions go long. Instead of absolute limits that could unfairly limit discussion among the most passionate editors of the topic, would it be possible to go with proportional limits (no more than 500 words or 10% of comments, whichever is greater?), or limits per week (500 words per week?) In addition, I have questions if such a limit would apply to single RFC threads, or to the whole topic at once. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think categorizing and various ontologies is also problematic and hard to determine, as is expected. See the issue with whether Israel is just accused of being an apartheid state, or also a Talk:Herrenvolk_democracy#Inclusion_of_Israel_in_imagebox. Allegations of just genocide or Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples. There are POV-fork type issues, but this is one of those topics where every time there is a question of how to categorize the conflict, it opens up the same exact battle lines of arguments in a million pages, even if they cover completely different aspects that may involve Israel/Palestine as one example. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- TLDR; battleground fractures into dozens of talk pages that aren't necessarily pov-forks, same arguments pushed everywhere in each RFC. Better guidelines on how to be more succinct with RFCs on this topic, and how to discuss WP:ARBPIA topics on pages that aren't necessarily centered on ARBPIA would be wonderful too. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding Number57's assessment,
A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage).
this seems disingenuous to suggest this, especially given the WP:NOTAVOTE rule. There are RFCs where arguments on either side are heavily favored by numbers before an admin/uninvolved closer throws away votes that have reasoning that is logically rebutted. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:56, 20 August 2024 (UTC)- I will also say the 30/500 restriction as a "worsening" of situation seems silly. I am not quite sure about the logical reasoning behind that assertion, though some other biased publications have attempted to use that to suggest that wikipedia "censors" certain viewpoints? [5][6][7] Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- It sounds like a few of folks are leaning towards massive topic bans against all participants... Regardless of how unlikely such a proposal is, I hate the idea of "cleaning the slate" and such a broad strokes approach is likely to cause more problems than it would theoretically solve:
- * There is benefits to having folks with bias on here, especially the most heaviest editors, doing major work. Bias is inherent to humanity and pretending otherwise is just an excuse to press the red ban button without considering consequences (or especially because they hate the current bias of Wikipedia compared to their preferred bias). The way to deal with bias is using the principles we have, rules we can apply even handedly, WP:WIKIVOICE to correctly attribute which side says what, etc.
- Many topic areas have specialized folks who do important work (see Pareto rule). Seeing a list of highly motivated folks in this topic area is not a sign necessarily they are always hogging the attention, so much as they provide much of the energy to keep Wikipedia up to doate.
- The precedent of massive topic bans without careful assessment of the reasoning why leads to dangerous precedents for other future content disputes.
- The precedent of retroactive punishments for areas of conflict is a dangerous precedent
- I am not sure the same cabal of pro-Palestine/pro-Israeli editors is necessarily "crowding" out other editors? There are folks who loudly complain about exiting ARBPIA areas, especially on this section, but that isn't quite the same as actual stats to back that up. I'm actually fairly new-ish to this topic area, and admins have been kind enough to help shepherd, provide useful guidance, and prevent my early exit (voluntary or involuntary).
- * There is benefits to having folks with bias on here, especially the most heaviest editors, doing major work. Bias is inherent to humanity and pretending otherwise is just an excuse to press the red ban button without considering consequences (or especially because they hate the current bias of Wikipedia compared to their preferred bias). The way to deal with bias is using the principles we have, rules we can apply even handedly, WP:WIKIVOICE to correctly attribute which side says what, etc.
- I think pressing a mass TBAN on this topic area would be somewhat equivalent to doing WP:TNT on large sections of the editor community who specialize on here... Unless it is certain that all of the project is absolutely unsalvageable or ARBIPA is somehow all a failure, I ask arbitrators to avoid granting such a power. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Sean.hoyland thanks for the numbers, they are really informative! I will say, it is fairly obvious a giant influx of editors to the topic area happened recently as a result of the conflict (myself included), though obviously the analysis of such a large dataset to confirm or deny toxicity by a core group would go beyond just numbers. I think the pure mass of folks in the topic area is just a lot harder to govern around and regulate, especially with the contentiousness of the topic area. And as the conflict spreads beyond obviously ARBPIA pages to tangentially related pages, the regulations get murkier. I think if PIA5 does happen, a key issue is just how to govern and regulate en masse, as well as on the individual editor/cabal level, and how to handle PIA content on pages that aren't just pure PIA (see the Herrenvolk_democracy talk page RFC for an example)? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by ABHammad
I think we have arrived at a point where editing in this area is not just a battleground environment but an ex-territory of the project. I recognize that I, too, took part in this in the past, not out of desire but because I felt I had no choice when I saw the consistent POV pushing and disregard for policies and consensus. There’s probably a reason why Wikipedia is now maybe the only mainstream source to use terms such as Gaza genocide and Israeli apartheid (read the lead) with its own voice. Many disputed changes like this have been introduced through edit warring (check Zionism, now defined as looking for the “colonization of land outside Europe”), in spite of substantial opposition. The current situation both scares away potential great editors and destroys our credibility and neutrality.
The feeling is that a bunch of 5-10 experienced editors have taken dominance over the area. Much of their edit histories show a focus on promoting one side's POV and discarding the other. Although some problematic editing occurs on both sides, it should be noted that the extent of POV editing on articles about one side is only a fraction of what occurs on articles about the other. This situation is perpetuated as new good-faith editors trying to balance the content often face aggressive behavior such as strong CTOP messages from Selfstudier followed by inquiries how did they find this and that article, "previous accounts" questions from Nableezy, accusations of "gaming the system to achieve EC status" from Iskandar323 on noticeboards, and as we seen in the last month, unverified tag-teaming allegations from Levivich. Those who survive all of the above then find their user talk pages filled with allegations, insults and other kinds of personal attacks and aspersions. Even five edits in this topic area can provoke such reactions. WP:ONUS and WP:CONSENSUS are ignored - they are applied only to others. RfCs, AfDs, and RMs are manipulated through mass bludgeoning. They blame others for edit warring - but this is exactly what they are doing. Based on my experience with these editors over several months, I am afraid it would be naive to think that simply limiting word count in discussions would solve the problem. Looking over their logs, many of these editors already have a long history of warnings and short-term topic bans, so something else must be done this time. ABHammad (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- Much of what I was discussing is unfolding as we speak. Take a look at this discussion in an article recently created by an EC editor who appears to be an expert in security studies. Iskandar323 opens a technical move without any prior discussion [8], Selfstudier casts aspersions on other editors who joined the discussion and disagreed with them [9], Nableezy asks the opening editor on their page if it's their first account [10], and Sean Hoyland accused the creator of being a sock [11], just two days after blaming another editor for being a sock solely based on some shared topics of interest with a blocked editor who had 72,000(!) edits [12]. I can only guess how this editor feels right now and how long they will stay with us. ABHammad (talk) 08:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Selfstudier
1.There is another relevant recent related AE thread
, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani. Many of the editors here, including myself and several of the uninvolved administrators, were participants and the case revolved around behavior (and content) at the Zionism article and this same subject matter is a part of the current case, 6 Levivich diffs refer (in the last two statements).Selfstudier (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
2.This one as well (PeleYoetz). Editors named here continue to respond there. Although procedurally a separate AE case, it was filed contemporaneously with and is part and parcel of the related AE thread
. Selfstudier (talk) 12:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
3.In the interim, avoiding this sort of thing or this would be as well. Selfstudier (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
4.Several editors suggest that editors are scared off by a toxic environment. this example for the Zionism article (Sean.hoyland), shows the contrary, an influx of new editors in recent times. Difficult to be certain without more data but my sense is that the pattern will hold up for other articles as well. It is of course possible that both things are true. Selfstudier (talk) 09:34, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Theleekycauldron:
it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began.
I'm not saying that, I'm saying that there has been an influx of new editors regardless of the temperature.Selfstudier (talk) 10:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
5.@Nishidani: Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment
+1, I would indeed like to see the data. Selfstudier (talk) 10:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
6: Apart from myself, and given the number of times they are mentioned, I think we should specify just which editors are the regulars
. Just so we know. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
7: @Barkeep49: The difficulty is that following "referral", based on a case that was not even resolved, 4 editors were designated for investigation with no apparent basis or other case specified as reasons for such an investigation. If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now, suggesting that the only basis for said designation is the content of the replies (of editors and admins) in said case, which lacks a certain logic afaics. Which is not to say definitively that there should not be a case, just that it should have proper antecedents and not merely come about ad hoc.Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by fiveby
I don't think the referral of this particular case and the inclusion of the first two items listed as identified disruption dealing with edit warring necessarily means that AE can't deal with such or didn't in this instance. Just because the experiment blew up the lab does not mean it was a bad thing to try. Seemed like a reasonable request and a result of you need more evidence to demonstrate tag team editing seems reasonable, which everyone could have and maybe should have accepted and walked away from. fiveby(zero) 17:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by IOHANNVSVERVS
Statement by Sean.hoyland
I tend to agree with Ravpapa's assessment that we have probably "exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area". I have no idea what that would look like.
I would like to know the answer to the following question
- Why would a person on a righteous mission hand over control of which rules they have to follow to people hostile to their cause when they can simply use disposable accounts and pick and choose which rules to follow without having to concern themselves with the consequences of non-compliance?
Answers like "It's against the rules", "It's dishonest", "It's hypocritical", "They will be discovered and blocked" are wrong answers. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Regarding a perceived "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide, I'm not sure this tells you anything very useful. There is already training material teaching people how to resemble a multi-topic interested Wikipedian. This is good advice because there is utility in diluting POV edits, edit war participation etc. A few strategic edit warring edits in a sea of multi-topic edits will likely be treated differently than a few strategic edit warring edits by an account that resembles an SPA, even though they are the same. It may also devalue article intersection evidence between accounts and reduce the chance of a checkuser being approved. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
A plea for humility
This is for all the people making sweeping statements.
- It might be better to assign low credence, by default, to the accuracy of assessments of the state of the 'topic area', a complex system with thousands of moving parts.
- This is a small part of the structure you are talking about. What is the likelihood that sweeping statements are accurate?
- Here are some numbers and some questions.
- I don't know what the 'topic area' is exactly, but thousands of article talk pages have one of the various topic area related templates informing people about the special rules. So, we can look at those and pretend it's the 'topic area' or thereabouts.
- This table lists the number of different editors and the number of revisions for talk pages in this 'topic area' for the last ten years or so. The number of revisions provides an upper limit on the number of editor interactions on talk pages. Obviously, the actual number of interactions will be much less, but at least there are some numbers rather than stories and feelings.
- Questions:
- How many of these talk page interactions are consistent with the sweeping negative assessments of the state of the topic area and how many are not?
- How many comply with policy and guidelines and how many do not?
- How many are hostile, toxic, combative, tendentiousness, condescending, bludgeoning, hypocritical, bullying, glaringly dishonest etc. and how many are not?
year | actor_count | talk_revisions | |
---|---|---|---|
0 | 2013 | 2096 | 17754 |
1 | 2014 | 2483 | 23773 |
2 | 2015 | 2167 | 23195 |
3 | 2016 | 1848 | 18541 |
4 | 2017 | 2091 | 21463 |
5 | 2018 | 2184 | 23643 |
6 | 2019 | 1907 | 15812 |
7 | 2020 | 2110 | 14908 |
8 | 2021 | 2755 | 21711 |
9 | 2022 | 2464 | 19716 |
10 | 2023 | 6778 | 52636 |
11 | 2024 | 6287 | 59678 |
Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:02, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Being realistic/know your limits
It's quite difficult to reconcile calls to topic ban long term experienced users with things we know about the topic area. We know quite a lot. For example, we know the following things.
- It isn't possible to topic ban or block a person and prevent them from editing in the topic area. Why? Because it isn't possible to enforce the WP:SOCK policy in PIA. It's largely unenforceable for a variety of practical, wiki-cultural and technical reasons. We all know this. There have always been plenty of accounts evading topic bans and blocks in PIA and there is apparently very little that can be done about it. They are part of the community of editors in PIA, like it or not.
- Topic bans don't solve problems. They split the PIA community into 2 classes, editors who comply with WP:SOCK and editors who do not and therefore cannot be sanctioned effectively. Maybe a currently topic banned user in this discussion could talk openly about this reality. Their input could be very valuable.
- If every editor currently active in the topic area were topic banned today, the topic area would be rapidly recolonized, probably within a matter of days or weeks. The pioneers would be more likely to come from subpopulations that do not think the prohibition against "systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" applies to them. We know this because we have lots of data about how new highly motivated biased editors cross (or tunnel through) the EC barrier and what they do when they get into the topic area.
Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
The Kip, regarding socks,
- Unfortunately, I think the statement "it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI" (my bolding) is just not true. That's what the data shows, and we have a lot of data, at least for people who advocate for Israel, less so for people who advocate for Palestine (although they are also present). If you ask questions like...
- "How many sock accounts are currently active in the topic area, or outside the area (to gain EC or access to wiki-mail for canvassing)"
- "How has the number of sock accounts varied over time?"
- "How many revisions to articles, talk pages, RfCs, RSN etc. are by sock accounts?"
...what are the answers? Nobody knows, but we know from the data that they are a constant presence, make thousands of edits, participate in many discussions and have a significant impact on the dynamics of the topic area (including the things often referred to as 'heat' and 'temperature' - slightly misleading terms because those are measurable quantities in the real world that are unreliable subjective guesses here).
I think there's a bit of a failure to factor in the significance of socks. The existence of an effectively unsanctionable class changes many things in important ways (this is true in other systems too). There are asymmetries in the payoffs and penalties for socks vs non-socks in the wiki-game. There are asymmetries in the costs of preparing and processing an SPI report vs creating a disposable account, which is a virtually frictionless process. These asymmetries, and there are many, seem to be very significant features of the topic area. Using disposable accounts appears to be a better strategy for the righteous advocate and it's not obvious how to change that.
Certainly, it's a problem that could be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI, but that would probably require significant changes to current norms about checkuser usage and evidence. What I would like to see, just out of interest, are experiments e.g. split the topic area up into article subsets, have different rule sets for the subsets, see what happens. Have a closely guarded set of articles with all of the existing rules, any new remedies, any new entry barriers, checkusers for every editor active there etc., the strictest possible enforcement environment. Have another set that could be a land for the oppressed and mistreated ban evading victims of WP:SOCK, for the disposable account fan, for people to edit war and advocate to their hearts content and stick a disclaimer on the articles for readers. Things like that would be interesting and possibly informative.
Are statements of the form "it's toxic disaster zone" true statements or just stories? It's not what I observe. It seems to have improved in some ways. What I have observed over time is what seems to be a gradual transition from things like edit warring as a solution, to talking and the use of tools like RFCs etc. But the topic area is so large and complex with so many individual actors, and so many events, that it is difficult to make reliable general statements about it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:27, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Meme check #1 TLDR -> some data.
How true are statements about editors being scared away from the topic area by a toxic environment created by entrenched editors etc.?
It's true that there are instances that can be selected out of the large number of comments on talk pages and elsewhere to tell this story. Sometimes they will be sincere statements and other times they will be insincere manipulative statements by ban evading socks playing the victim in the hopes of getting perceived opponents blocked.
One way to see whether editors being scared away could be to
- Look for changes in the number of unique editors in the topic area over time
- Compare the topic area to the rest of Wikipedia
If the claim is true, you might expect to see a couple of things
- The number of unique editors reducing over time
- A proportionally lower number of unique editors in the topic area than in Wikipedia in general.
I've tried to have a look at this using 3 datasets, two approximations of the 'topic area' and a set of randomly selected Wikipedia articles.
- PIA topic area - template presence (3734 articles). Articles with one of the ARBPIA/contentious topics templates on their talk pages.
- PIA topic area - project membership (3019 articles). Articles that are members of both Wikiproject Israel and Palestine. This is the approach BilledMammal uses, so thanks for that. Neither of these methods capture every article that a person would say is in the topic area, they are both different subsets of a larger set, but it's a start.
- Random sample (15000 articles).
- The top plot shows the unique editor count over time for the 3 datasets.
- The bottom plot shows the same results scaled by article count. This result might suggest that the topic area is more attractive to editors than Wikipedia in general. Didn't really expect that.
Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Zero0000, removing topic area articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards doesn't seem to make much difference. I guess many editors might be flowing upstream from the new post-Oct 7 extensions to the topic area to update pre-Oct 7 articles. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:29, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Meme check #2 TLDR -> more data
Many opinions about the topic area talk of a set of editors ('experienced editors', 'the regulars', 'battleground editors', 'the culprits', 'entrenched editors' etc.) who have worked together to some effect.
Can we see this effect?
- One place to look might be in the relationship between account age and revisions to see who's doing the editing.
- Is it mostly these older accounts, or newer accounts, or something more complicated?
- Is some kind of evidence of article ownership visible?
I've tried to look at this by...
- Selecting 35 fairly prominent articles
- Producing histograms showing the number of revisions vs account age in days at the time the edit was made for each article and talk page.
- To keep things visually simple the bin size for account age is 365 days.
- 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles are marked along with the average account age.
Here are the results. The distributions vary but younger accounts appear to dominate in the topic area in terms of revision counts, at least based on this small sample. It would be interesting to see what this distribution looks like for the entire topic area. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
I would like to commend BilledMammal for their evidence-based approach. This way, people can discuss methodology and evidence rather than assert things about the state of PIA. Now, I was a bit disappointed to only score 89% for the percentage edits in the topic area because it is supposed to 100%, or thereabouts as it says on my user page, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. But regarding methodology, the including "all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area" will inevitably miss a lot. Perhaps it is unavoidable to some extent. It misses the contributions of AndresHerutJaim's socks for example (the cause of a previous ArbCom case about canvassing). By my count, their socks made 1927 revisions spread over 159 accounts since 2022 to articles and talk pages within the topic area (using the same definition of the topic area as BilledMammal). If you choose revisions since 2020 it's 3703, and since 2018 it's 6504, and I'm not sure any of the accounts would cross the 50% in topic area threshold. And that's just the identified accounts for one sock edit source. We have no idea what the success rate is for sock identification. And somewhat dishearteningly I can see several more (what I regard as) possible socks in the activity statistics. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Iskandar323
Statement by Dan Murphy
The "dispute" as defined here is "accounts on Wikipedia disagree about various things." In my case I have recently disagreed with a number of accounts about the history of Zionism. On the one hand, early zionists and historians of zionism describe it as a colonial project of settlement. On the other hand, some wikipedia accounts really don't want the article here to describe it as such. Many of those accounts have turned out to be sockpuppets of previous accounts long banned from this area. I'd be shocked if the Peleyoetz account named in this report isn't one, too [13]. The abuse of sockpuppets is a powerful advantage at Wikipedia, and wooden enforcement of teh rulz about conduct, ignorant of content and context, a powerful disincentive to being honest and straightforward.
No matter. This unfocused, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks request, is a bad idea.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Nableezy
My view is that if this is to be an arbitration case that it should be pretty wide, and not just the four editors Barkeep named. The tendentious editing, including obvious examples of canvassing and off-wiki coordination, in this topic area stretches well beyond those four names, and I don’t think looking at four editors in a vacuum in this, or any other topic where the temperature in the real world is beyond mildly warm, is all that productive. I’m well aware of the committees past rulings on standards of behavior, but I for one am unable to understand how anybody can think a topic like this, where the real world conflict it is covering contains accusations of ongoing crimes against humanity up to and including rape as a weapon of war, mass indiscriminate killings, and genocide is going to remain calm cool and collected. nableezy - 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- It seems highly likely that this is going to be accepted as a full case, but I do want to push back on some of the claims being bandied about here. There is this misconception that there are "pro-Israel" editors vs "pro-Palestinian" editors, and that is both not true and has never been true. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a similar argument, where one "side" was claimed to be the pro-Palestinian side, and the other the pro-Israel side. But that, like most of these disputes, was not true. One side was indeed pushing an identifiably nationalistic narrative identified with one "side" in the geopolitical conflict, the other was not. The two "sides" here have never been symmetrical here. As far as BilledMammal's highly subjective understanding of bludgeoning, he lists me as having bludgeoned Talk:Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing#MEMRI quote, but a, that isnt a formal discussion, and b. that is a back and forth with a handful of users. That isnt bludgeoning by any reasonable definition. They also somehow neglected to add Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gaza Health Ministry qualifier, where BM has some 73 comments there. I dont think that subpage is accurate either in its definition or its counting, and Id caution that evidence by editors who are highly involved not simply be accepted as accurate.
Also, regarding AirshipJungleman29 reading of my initial comment, I dont mean to say that civility does not matter, of course it does. But I also think people need to keep in mind that human beings are emotional creatures and that this is a topic that anybody who is involved in the real world is going to have moments where those emotions overtake their willingness to pretend that everybody here is editing in the best of faith and we're all one big happy community. And beyond that, as far as I am aware civility on Wikipedia has never meant not swearing. And I personally find insulting my intelligence through making specious arguments to be much more uncivil than a "bullshit" said in exasperation. But I was not saying WP:CIV should not count in this topic area, Im just saying if somebody is being realistic about how editing between people who are involved in a conflict in which accusations of rape and genocide are happening in the real world they should understand it is not always going to be roses and butterflies. nableezy - 16:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- I dont want to get too caught up in what I think are opinions of people uninformed on both the actual editing in this topic area as well as being generally uninformed on what the sources actually support in this topic area. Ill just restate that this is not "pro-Israel" vs "pro-Palestinian" POV pushing, it is editors who edit according to the best available sources and editors who edit on emotion and time-wasting tactics. And those things should not be treated as though they are opposing camps. Those editing according to our content policies against those editing contrary to them is not a POV-pushing battle. Number 57's complaints about this, as somebody who is informed on how editing goes here, have to my ears always rang hollow. Consensus was against their position on things like including language on the illegality of Israeli settlements in their articles, and so he has openly called those who supported including such a thing, including me, POV pushers. Im sorry he feels that way, Ive never really been aware of what I could do to ameliorate that impression of his, but Ill just state I disagree with the premise of his claim that
there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV
. Since I know he means me, Ill just state that I do not edit Wikipedia to push a POV. I edit Wikipedia to try to make it so that article in this topic area are based on the balance of the best sources available. And if somebody does not like what the sources actually say about this topic, thats their problem, not mine. Im aware of my reputation on certain websites, but in my entire time here my purpose has always been to bring the best sources I can find to an article and to base the content I write and the arguments I make on those sources. nableezy - 23:09, 20 August 2024 (UTC)- Thats what I meant Number 57, you objected to the consensus developed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues/Archive. Legality of Israeli settlements about including that information in each article. And since then, you have repeatedly called myself and others POV-pushers for reasons I have not yet figured out. And you have, again, that entire time played up that a couple of pro-Israel users opposed your RFA. I dont know what is disingenuous about my statement, I didnt even say anything about you besides that you have repeatedly called me a POV pusher since then. nableezy - 23:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Thebiguglyalien that was a well advertised and well attended RFC a baker's dozen years ago. What level of consensus it was really has no bearing on anything at this point. nableezy - 23:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- I could collapse this section and point to Rosguill's instead. nableezy - 16:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Is it really acceptable for an admin to be saying on this board your atrocious behaviour to an editor? And to have the gall to say others are making things toxic? nableezy - 16:55, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
This page is considerably more "toxic" than nearly any talk page in this topic area. Any number of people are making winking references to editors and claiming some misbehavior with absolutely zero evidence besides their vibes. Not to mention the way over the top comments by one admin. I cant say I would be looking forward to a case, as to be blunt with you all ArbCom historically has focused on the surface issues of these topics and not the actual root causes, but either open a case or dont. That or aggressively clerk some of these statements. That is if we want "decorum" to apply here too. nableezy - 17:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
I am largely in agreement with ToBeFree here. If this is a referral of the AE thread then the committee should rule on that AE thread if that seems worthwhile. If a full case is warranted then it should be at WP:ARC, where somebody like me can present evidence on tendentious and disruptive editing in this topic area outside of the AE request being referred here. The person who was brought to AE has not made a single response to any of this, but somehow we have a number of users rising up to demand topic bans be given out like candy on Halloween. I think there are any number of things that the committee can do in this topic area, hell should do in this topic area. I dont really see how many of them are at all related to what was referred to them here. nableezy - 14:32, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by BilledMammal
There are a significant number of issues in this topic area that it is likely only ARBCOM can address, including:
- POV pushing
- Including both editors switching their stance to conform to their POV (for example, supporting using massacre as a descriptive term only when Israelis were targeted, or only when Palestinians were targeted) and editors misrepresenting sources.
- Stealth canvassing
- Incivility
- Occasional lapses are forgivable, but it has become common for editors to ignore the fourth pillar. This drives editors away from the topic area, worsening issues with POV pushing and stealth canvassing.
- The only way the topic area can be fixed is by fixing this.
- Bludgeoning
- See ARBPIA discussion statistics for an assessment of the extent of the problem. For technical reasons, it is currently limited to discussions on article talk pages and at RSN.
- In response to the comment by SashiRolls, only three listings (out of 109) were significantly impacted by sock puppets:
- 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
- 15 replies out of 45 by Selfstudier at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
- 12 replies out of 34 by Selfstudier at Talk:2024 Nuseirat rescue operation#Requested move 9 June 2024 were to sock puppets
- The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with. Added 01:28, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- In response to the comment by SashiRolls, only three listings (out of 109) were significantly impacted by sock puppets:
- See ARBPIA discussion statistics for an assessment of the extent of the problem. For technical reasons, it is currently limited to discussions on article talk pages and at RSN.
BilledMammal (talk) 09:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding ScottishFinnishRadish's word limit proposal, I don't think that will have the desired result. Editors are often required to review a wide array of sources, such as when attempting to determining if a viewpoint is in the majority or what the WP:COMMONNAME is, and a word limit will impede this. This will in turn worsen one of the other issues in the topic area, POV pushing.
- Instead, I think a comment limit - perhaps ten comments per discussion - will be more effective at preventing the back-and-forth and repetition of points that causes discussions to expand unproductively. BilledMammal (talk) 13:12, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: My aim was to review a representative sample of discussions in the topic space, rather than providing a sample biased towards discussions that I was aware of. To do this, I limited the discussions to two clearly defined areas; talk pages in both the Israel and Palestine Wikiprojects, and RSN.
- This does mean I missed at least one discussion that I am aware of where I was too enthusiastic, but it also means I missed discussions where you were too enthusiastic - it balances out.
- I am also aware, and prominently state in the analysis, that it is only an approximation - while most examples listed will be bludgeoning, exceptions will exist, including possibly the discussion you mention.
- Finally, as I said on the analysis page, I am willing to rerun it with different configurations, including an expanded list of discussions. I am also working to implement the recommendations on the talk page, to make the data more accurate and useful. BilledMammal (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: There is a lot of POVPUSHING at RSN, but from what I've seen the issue is more common - and more effective - in the opposite direction from what you've seen.
- For example, looking at two of the discussions you've listed:
- At the ADL RFC an editor argued that it was unreliable due to "severe bias"
- At the Al Jazeera RFC the same editor argued that bias wasn't sufficient reason to change it's status from "generally reliable"
- Considering that policy doesn't provide any support for considering a source unreliable on grounds of bias, I find this example particularly problematic. BilledMammal (talk) 10:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Nishidani: I don’t consider the distinction relevant, because there is no basis in policy to consider sources unreliable due to bias, regardless of the level of bias. Tolerating editors making the assessment that source A is more biased than source B, and thus A is unreliable while B is not, is to tolerate POV pushing. BilledMammal (talk) 23:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Nishidani: The purpose of RSN is to determine the reliability of sources, not the level of bias. There is no basis in policy to consider biased sources unreliable, and that means that editors attempting to argue that "source they don’t like" is more biased and thus less reliable than "source they like" are POV pushing.
- Alone, not enough to warrant action - but it is another piece of evidence that adds to evidence like only supporting the use of "massacre" when the victims are from the side they support. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Nishidani: I don’t consider the distinction relevant, because there is no basis in policy to consider sources unreliable due to bias, regardless of the level of bias. Tolerating editors making the assessment that source A is more biased than source B, and thus A is unreliable while B is not, is to tolerate POV pushing. BilledMammal (talk) 23:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Black Kite: I've attempted to address your request to identify
Sub-5000-edit accounts which are basically SPAs on the PIA area, some of which will inevitably be socks but even if they're not are equally disruptive
with ARBPIA activity statistics. - I've included all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area. Sub-5000-edit accounts are marked with *; sock puppets and masters are marked with bold.
- @Aoidh: What sort of information would be helpful in determining a scope? In addition, will parties be decided at this stage, or will parties be able to be added during the evidence phase? BilledMammal (talk) 12:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Zero0000
I object to being listed here. I did nothing that should cause it, but RTH refused to remove me. But now that I'm here, I'll say that I don't see any suggestions so far that would make an improvement to the I/P area. Here are some points:
- If any restrictions are imposed on the area, they should apply to everyone and not to some arbitrary list like this one. One of the notable things about the I/P area in the past several months is the remarkable number of new and revived accounts that have joined in, mostly on one side of the equation and many with scant knowledge of the subject. Quite a lot of the disputes arise because of them, not because of the people likely to comment at AE.
- Imposing a limit on contributions that consists of a word limit or edit limit will cause delight to the tag teams, who will take full advantage of their combined greater limit.
- Some types of discussion such as a negotiation between two editors should not have a limit at all. Also, in general there is no way to define "a discussion" except in the case of formal discussions like RfCs. The main points of dispute are brought up repeatedly and don't have clear boundaries. This means that a limit on "discussions" will just produce a lot of arguments over whether something was part of the same discussion or part of a different discussion.
- Bludgeoning does not mean making a lot of edits. Replying to everyone who makes a contrary comment is bludgeoning, but repeatedly bringing new reliable sources is called good editing.
- There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it. All of this is exactly as it should be. Zerotalk 11:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Here is something that will improve the atmosphere of formal discussions (RMs, RfCs, AfDs, etc): Require everyone to stick to their own statement, regardless of how many times they add to it (like at AE). This will eliminate 90% of bludgeoning right away. For RfCs: one statement in the !votes section and one statement in the Discussion section. Zerotalk 09:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Red-tailed hawk: Yes, I already saw your feeble excuse. For the information of others, my sole contribution to the AE case was to ask a participant for clarification, without stating any opinion or being mentioned by anyone else. You think this makes me an "involved AE participant" but I think it shows poor judgement on your part. Zerotalk 04:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- To editor Sean.hoyland: It's great to see someone present actual evidence. The number of distinct editors in I/P has remained essentially the same for the past 8 years until it suddenly jumped up at the start of the present war. I wonder, is there a simple way to show the same data without the articles specifically related to the war? Removing articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards might be a good approximation. Don't spend time on it unless it is easy. Zerotalk 01:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- To editor CaptainEek: I don't think ArbCom has an obligation to resolve the AE case. The fact is that there is nothing about it which AE could not handle perfectly well by itself. What you should do is send it back to AE (taking the cue from the practice of appellant courts sending cases back to the referring lower court). Meanwhile, no case has been made for PIA5. We have seen wild assertions without evidence, that's all, and it would be a mistake to take them at face value. Considering that there is a shooting war going on right now, ARBPIA is actually in better shape than one would expect. I've been editing in ARBPIA for over 22 years and for most of that time it was in worse shape than now. Zerotalk 04:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by ScottishFinnishRadish
There is a broad array of disruptive editing, POV pushing, long term edit wars, bludgeoning, incivility, and it all basically comes down to WP:BATTLEGROUND. I've done my best to take care of all of the obvious cases that won't have to set aside a dozen hours of time to deal with, but much of the behavior is by editors with numerous prior warnings and sanctions but that topic banning, interaction banning, and blocking is not a simple matter. Most AE reports in the topic area involve behavior that is widespread among many parties, and picking out a single party for sanctioning and allowing other editors to continue the behavior isn't how enforcement should be working.
If Arbcom does wish to avoid a full case or "punt", as Barkeep puts it, there are a couple actions they can take to help out in the interim.
- As a sanction across the topic area, or added to the standard set of CTOP enforcement mechanisms available to administrators on a per editor or per discussion sanction, a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words. This should be done immediately, even if a case is accepted.
- Any appeals of sanctions by editors previously warned or sanctioned in ARBPIA should be handled by Arbcom to take pressure off individual administrators. Arbcom discussions have clerks to handle word limits, aspersions, and other disruptive editing. Arbcom can simply vote on if the sanction was a reasonable exercise of administrator discretion. This would hopefully cut down significantly on 0.3 tomats discussions at appeals, and put those decisions in the hands of the people the community elected to make them. (Hat tip to Red-tailed hawk, who came up with this.)
As for a party list, anyone who has made, been the subject of, or commented at any ARBPIA AE report since October 2023. The problem is widespread, and I think that is probably the most efficient way to generate a party list. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Levivich, that part of BANPOL is just quoting Arbitration procedure, it can be changed by Arbcom. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- ToBeFree, the tldr is the original complaint was more or less about tag team edit warring, looking into it I saw that it was, in my view, broadly similar to much of the behavior widespread in the topic area, and wasn't terribly interested in making one-off sanctions. It's incredibly widespread, as well as other disruptive behavior, and AE isn't the place to address topic-wide issues. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Barkeep49
Re:L25: I didn't support moving this here because I was looking for an ArbCom only remedy as I felt we had whatever options we wanted on the table per the Contentious topic procedures A rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") may impose any restriction from the standard set and any other reasonable measures that are necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project.
(emphasis added) I supported coming here because I think AE is ill-suited to a multi-party sprawling request like this. I actually think האופה is the least important party here in most ways and if the thread had stayed constrained to them a rough consensus would have been found. Instead, the discussion ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors. For me the editors whose conduct needs examining would be BilledMammal, Iskandar323, Nableezy, and Selfstudier and I think ArbCom should review, and hopefully endorse, the work SFR has been doing as an uninvolved administrator given the concerns at least one of the parties (Nableezy) has raised about that work. Additionally, I think Levivich has been promoting, in this and some other recent AE reports, claims of misconduct based on tagteaming/edit warring that I personally don't find convincing (even if the same conduct does show other misconduct I do find convincing, namely a battleground mentality) but which ArbCom is better positioned to examine both because it can do so comprehensively, rather than in a series of one-off AE requests, and because of the authority ArbCom has to interpret existing policy and guidelines, [and] recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct
. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I guess I should add one thing. If this ArbCom can't do the review of editor conduct well, and given that this is the committee with the biggest issues with activity among arbs of any 15-member arbcom in at least a decade it may decide it doesn't have the capacity to do this well, I'd suggest it find a way to "punt" that decision, instead focusing on whether or not it agrees with Levivich's interpetation of tag-teaming/edit warring. I say this based on comments members of the 2019 committee (a 13-member committee which is the only one to have a bigger activity problem than this committee) have made around their inability to give PIA4 and Antisemitism the full attention they deserved. In the latter case this then blew up into a much bigger case (WP:HJP). Barkeep49 (talk) 20:09, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Z1720 your "magical incantation" comment confuses me. Where did SFR say it was confusing how to refer? I've raised the issue that the mechanics of referring need work, but I don't think AE admins need to be told to bold vote something in order to find consensus to refer. All 4 uninvolved admins - with 4 uninvolved admins being a lot of admins these days - agreed to refer, and all 4 were (as best as I can tell) clear about what each other thought as opinions evolved, so it's not like it was a puzzle what was happening to the uninvolved admins and since other commenters gave feedback on whether or not to refer I don't think it was a puzzle to anyone else either. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Z1720 so you're saying the answer I gave is incorrect? If so mark me as surprised but glad for your clarification. I will eagerly await to see if a rough consensus of other arbitrators agree with you and presuming they do adjust my actions accordingly. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Z1720 thanks for that clarification. I want to understand this second parth. Am I correct that you're saying that if the 4 uninvolved administrators had all bolded
refer to Arbcom
no further action would have been needed as ArbCom (arbs/clerks) would do the rest of the steps? If so that is definitely easier than the answer I gave (close with a rough consensus to refer by an uninvolved admin, uninvolved admin files a case request here, and notifies all interested editors) and so I will happily take advantage of it going forward. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2024 (UTC)- @Z1720 does what I wrote above accurately summarize your thinking? I want to make sure to know whether to adjust my actions for any future potential referrals. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Z1720. Sounds like your reading is the same as what I had previously thought. So then I'm still confused about what your initial comment was suggesting - there was never any confusion (that I could see) among the uninvolved admins about what the rough consensus was at a given moment (even if I was asking for some time for a bit to see if we could avoid this referral). Barkeep49 (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Z1720 does what I wrote above accurately summarize your thinking? I want to make sure to know whether to adjust my actions for any future potential referrals. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Z1720 thanks for that clarification. I want to understand this second parth. Am I correct that you're saying that if the 4 uninvolved administrators had all bolded
- @Z1720 so you're saying the answer I gave is incorrect? If so mark me as surprised but glad for your clarification. I will eagerly await to see if a rough consensus of other arbitrators agree with you and presuming they do adjust my actions accordingly. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding Levivich's statement: even beyond what SFR pointed out (BANPOL is quoting Arbitration Procedures), I think Levivich operates under a fundamental misconception about AE. Levivich seems to view AE as a community forum, where as I feel it is, as the name of Arbitration Enforcment suggests an Arbitration Committee forum. Further, the sanctions being handed out are being done under Arbitration Committee authority, not community authority. As such under the Arbitration and Consensus policies, the Committee can do what it feels best including mandating that all appeals in this topic area are heard by it rather than AE. As to the substance of the SFR's suggestions, I'm not sure the committee wants to hear all appeals, but if it thinks SFR's idea is a good one I would suggest it limit itself to either or both of: appeals of recent sanctions (<3 or <6 months) and appeals stemming from an AE report (regardless of whether it is actioned by an inidivudal administrator or a rough consensus). I think giving uninvolved administrators the ability to use the tools available in Iranian politics to moderate discussions (not just RfCs) may or may not work, but would feel like something that could potentially be productive to stem issues without doing a full case and thus is perhaps worth trying. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- FWIW, I agree with the observations made by both Trypto and Nableezy that the "sides" here don't neatly align on pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian. Beyond the nuances they both have offered, I have seen a definite "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide (for instance SFR has pointed out that Levivich's definition of tag-teaming could apply to some of former group but is only being applied against the latter group). This complexity is why I repeat my concern about ArbCom accepting a case unless it feels it truly has the capacity/ability to do it just because a lot of people (me included) are saying the status quo isn't working. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:27, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- ToBeFree: I think the fact that the thread sprawled in the way it did despite the absence of האופה is exactly why the referral is here. There became so many other editors conduct to consider - not just in tag teaming but in the AE thread itself - that it became beyond what AE can handle well in its format. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- 1) I want to make sure that ArbCom is aware of the highly related AN thread about RTH's INVOLVEMENT in this topic area. 2) To the extent that Levivich's version of what happened at AE is true, I don't think that argues against a case; it supports the idea that thetopic area needs to be examined, not just having a single complaint against a now inactive editor resolved. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- One more note: if ArbCom does decide to just adjudicate the AE report for האופה it should also adjudicate Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#PeleYoetz which was closed as moot after this ARCA referral. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Selfstudier: I agree that
If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now
is true. If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2024 (UTC)- @Levivich I absolutely think you should be able to present evidence about admin conduct in this topic area. Knowing the concerns you and some others had is why I included SFR in my list of potential parties. And I think it's reasonable to say something like "after that initial post by SFR there was no choice but for a lot of other people to reply which is why that thread sprawled and PeleYoetz" didn't. But I stand by my agreeing with Selfstudier that
If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now
. Selfstudier and I draw different conclusions about that statement we agree on and the Arbs can decide which conclusion they agree with as it's ultimately up to them. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich I absolutely think you should be able to present evidence about admin conduct in this topic area. Knowing the concerns you and some others had is why I included SFR in my list of potential parties. And I think it's reasonable to say something like "after that initial post by SFR there was no choice but for a lot of other people to reply which is why that thread sprawled and PeleYoetz" didn't. But I stand by my agreeing with Selfstudier that
Statement by Theleekycauldron
@L235: I agree with Barkeep that this should be a full case. But Red-tailed hawk is right on his list of parties – this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve. Not because of a lack of authority, but because of the complexity of the case combined with the standard unblockables problem. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: i think it's pretty clear looking at the chart that the number of new editors spiked because of the war (given that it spiked last october). i don't think you can claim from that chart alone what the impact of the regulars has been; it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:58, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by PeleYoetz
Statement by TarnishedPath
I understand that the list of participants is everyone who was involved in a particular AE discussion or who was mentioned in that discussion. My editing in the topic area is limited, with a limited number of articles on my watchlist. I don't intend on following this closely. If my participation is desired at any point please ping me, presuming the case goes ahead. TarnishedPathtalk 22:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Nishidani
I object to being hauled into this artificial mess (caused by an innovation in reading that defines all reverts as identical behaviourally irrespective of contexts, so if I revert an unfactual or unsourced piece of WP:OR, I immediately am, like the abusive, often new, editor, engaged in a revert war and, if the abusive editor persists, anyone else who restores the accurate text is tagteaming with me. Crazy). I have been repeatedly reported over the last year, and invariably the cases were dismissed. They were frivolous, but ‘there is no smoke without fire’ psychological atmosphere created by this repetitive questioning of my policy-adherence and good faith, indeed, precisely because AE rejected these piddling reports, the claim emerges that editors like me are ‘untouchable’ (Occam's razor. When a theory fails, those convinced of it invent another theory (Untouchables here) to account for why it was not accepted, etc.). The result here is a series of intemperate variations of a boilerplate meme chanted about the I/P area, which I have heard for a dozen years used of individual editors but now used of a group, first targeted by several off-wiki sites and now pushed as a reality which slipped past our monitoring for 20 years. And it is just an unsubstantiated opinion, esp. from editors I’ve almost never seen here, and, surprisingly seems to be getting some traction.
- theleekycauldron this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve
- Tryptofish the editing environment disturbingly toxic, . . it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject.' (See this note)
- AirshipJungleman29:a large number of experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to.
- Swatjester;The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute
- Number 57: there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV . . for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions
- The Kip: This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE . . - I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs.
- Zanahary: It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy.
- Domeditrix there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. , , , editors here incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, , , enable(s) Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits. . topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics . . I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND
- Thebiguglyalien the entrenched editors . . . their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on . . This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this. . .
- xDanielx: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers.
- berchanhimez:I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.
Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment (The IP area is notorious for the huge academic industry of explanation that has grown up around it, and unless you read this material, and put aside using newspaper current events sourcing as the default RS, you are not going to grasp anything there for encyclopedic ends. Who would be so stupid, if their intention was to 'create a toxic battleground', spend decades reading hundreds of books and scholarly articles, when they could simply do what hundreds of SPA and socks do, rack up 500 edits and then, without losing time opening a book, and if caught out, sock, resock, and resock again, in order to sock the 'regular' editors with their opinions, and try to provoke them so they may garner evidence for destroying them at AE?). There is no evidence here, none, as far as I can see, but no doubt some will think, ‘ah, but they’ll find the missing proof for these claims when Arbcom gets to work’. And why should it work on such an outburst of unproven grievances? As I noted on my page, there is a very simple test to find evidence for this hypothesis of a conspiracy (against Israel, that is the tacit innuendo in those complaints above)/bullishly dominating control over IP articles by a 'pro-Palestinian' faction that has putatively consolidated itself as the power to reckon with in the area. Use your wiki tools and elicit confirmation of this bias by examining the list of 100 new IP articles created since 7 October (SFR's starting point). Of the hundreds of editors active over them, show that a handful of the 'regulars' has bludgeoned, intimated, harassed, been uncivil across the board, and secured their 'pro-Pal POV'. If you can't then, all we have here is the appearance of blathering highly personalized grudges. Nishidani (talk) 10:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- Billed Mammal. Re this set of diffs, They are not valid evidence for what you claim for a very simple linguistic reason. 'Severe bias' and 'bias' are not interchangeable, the adjectival qualifier makes all the difference. All newspapers have bias, like humans. 'Severe bias' in a newspaper/organization is what makes it unacceptable, as distinct from others.Nishidani (talk) 13:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @User:BilledMammal. I'm sorry, but language and grammar are merciless in these things (and the fact that such niceties are missed so often is one reason reading ANI/AE discussions is, certainly for me, so painful -I was in part permabanned because one admin could not understand irony, though everyone else saw the amicable comedy of my, to him alone, 'aggressively' 'uncivil'/abusive remark). You are simply wrong. If you have played lawn bowls, then grasping whether the ball you are drawing has a wide or narrow bias is fundamental to mastering the art. The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. I guess now, having told you you are flat-out wrong, I have now produced a diff that can be cited in just one more WP:CIVIL suit to be filed against me in the future:):(Nishidani (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- And Huldra thanks indeed for that link I'd never seen this data before, because I don't know how to consult files that log stuff on wiki.Nishidani (talk) 01:49, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Swatjester. Surely you shouldn't take exception to a somewhat playful implication you were a 'cat'. Your presence is very rare in the IP area and your remarks about sealioning and 'the usual suspects' (people like myself) might give the impression of a detached view by an experienced admin. Not quite true. You admitted 17 years ago that you used your admin tools to unblock an Israeli editor for a 3R infraction because, offline he contacted you and convinced you he was justified in breaking the rule. You didn't even check to see if his wild offline claims (presumably about me) were correct. ([14],[15], [16] [17], [18]). When I read your first post here I remembered that contretemps. I never reported it as a misuse of admin tools, and I never hold grudges. But I do remember things, and took your generalization as coming from someone 'involved' in the topic area. Nishidani (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Swatjester re my putative 'atrocious behavior within this topic area'. You don't have to believe me when I say I don't hold grudges. But I have by all accounts a good memory. If someone out of the blue, whom I haven't seen around for 17 years, implies that I am one of the 'usual suspects', a sealioning bludgeoner, then recalling the earlier episode where they abused their admin tools and damaged my bona fides is more than fair. I was a newbie at that time (that shows in my remarks there), and was almost driven off by the arbitrary punitive measures made against me. I don't hold grudges because I made no formal complaint, which might have damaged you, and I have almost never had recourse, on principle, to making ANI/AE reports to settle disputes by getting someone who disagrees with me banned, a practice that is of chronic here, one used against me with unusual frequency. I exercise care in the words I use. 'atrocious' per Merriam-Webster means 'extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel: barbaric.' You're entitled to that view of me as someone displaying exceptional brutality and cruelty on wikipedia. But you should quietly ask yourself, because I don't report insults, how that squares with the content evidence of my creation of 1,000 plus articles as varied as Kaifeng Jews, Gadubanud, Joseph's Tomb and Irvin Leigh Matus.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Swatjester That incident occurred 17 years ago, when I was new to wikipedia, and, faced with an inexplicable administrative punishment (technically) I made the inferences one can see. I wouldn't do that now. What you don't deny is the gravamen of those two incidents (a) you used your administrative tools to unblock a sanctioned Israeli user after he talked to you privately (invisibly, without even examining the relevant pages where he broke 3R to verify his narrative) and (b) denied my own unblock request when, given the circumstances, you should have stayed out of this and left the decision to any other admin who was uninvolved. I gave all the relevant links, to allow editors to draw their own conclusions. Archaeologists of wiki disputes can judge for themselves. Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @User:Sean.hoyland. Thanks Sean. That is precisely the kind of empirical data we desperately need to as a work basis to get out of the suggestive/insinuating/subjective gossip mode often prevailing on wiki when it deliberates on core issues like this.Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- @User:CaptainEek. You write:
The world's mostmost intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem.
- It is not an intractable problem on wikipedia, despite incessant rumour-mongering. It is, an enduring premise of mine, politically intractable, but not descriptively so, taking in both an Israel (semi-)official POV and the scholarship, to the end of achieving NPOV. To the contrary. We can draw on one of the richest WP:RS highbar resource bases existing, for the simple reason that:-
The Israel-Palestine issue has a strong claim to be the most closely studied conflict on earth. 'Voluminous' does not even begin to capture the sheer quantity of the material about it'.(Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-241-00443-2 p.8 )
- A very large number of positions assumed to be contentious here are not so in that scholarly literature, where a large consensus on the historical realities exists. These however are relentlessly challenged by editors who don't care much for the ivory tower, but care deeply about a country to which they feel a profound emotional attachment (again, understandably, but love of country is not coterminous with love of any one particular government and/or its worldviews). To respin the disputes that arise as an irremediable clash between nationalist POVs is nonsense, but that is the temptation here. And, if this goes to ARBPIA5, the outcome is predictable. There will be two parties identified (regulars and nationalists/socks), and a number from each will be sanctioned, for wikipedia must not give the impression, particularly under the pressures over the last year, of siding with one 'side' or t'other. And why have we got to this? Because an innonative reading, impeccably 'behaviouralist' now takes all reverts, regardless of the rationales, to be on the same footing, and any series of reverts by different editors, regardless of the talk page or the RS literature (the contexts), as evidence of mutual tag-teaming. of course, there will also be a further tightening of the screws on 'behaviour', since everything else is considered a 'content issue' where it is presumed there are a variety of POVs that are, in any case, not up to admins to read up on or make judgments about. Nishidani (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- And yes, seconding Zero, I really would like to see a minimum of evidence that the place has deteriorated to the point of requiring executive re-examination. What evidence we have is that there has been a massive investment of editors, a great many new, creating and working hundreds of articles since Oct.7. Personal experience is risible as evidence, but it was hell for the first decade of my working here, and I don't think growing senility accounts for my impression that over the last several years much of that heat has been significantly lowered, thanks to ARBPIA3. The only change I have witnessed is the sharp rise in newly registered accounts that behave oddly - my list has over a score, since Oct.7. That issue was what Levivich tried to address, and his reports somehow got transformed into assertions that they weren't the problem, the 'regulars' were, all based on hearsay circulating for at least a decade, hearsay drummed up by new off-wiki attack sites with a clear nationalist brief to go for wiki's IP jugular.Nishidani (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- @User:Sean.hoyland. Thanks Sean. That is precisely the kind of empirical data we desperately need to as a work basis to get out of the suggestive/insinuating/subjective gossip mode often prevailing on wiki when it deliberates on core issues like this.Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Swatjester That incident occurred 17 years ago, when I was new to wikipedia, and, faced with an inexplicable administrative punishment (technically) I made the inferences one can see. I wouldn't do that now. What you don't deny is the gravamen of those two incidents (a) you used your administrative tools to unblock a sanctioned Israeli user after he talked to you privately (invisibly, without even examining the relevant pages where he broke 3R to verify his narrative) and (b) denied my own unblock request when, given the circumstances, you should have stayed out of this and left the decision to any other admin who was uninvolved. I gave all the relevant links, to allow editors to draw their own conclusions. Archaeologists of wiki disputes can judge for themselves. Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Swatjester re my putative 'atrocious behavior within this topic area'. You don't have to believe me when I say I don't hold grudges. But I have by all accounts a good memory. If someone out of the blue, whom I haven't seen around for 17 years, implies that I am one of the 'usual suspects', a sealioning bludgeoner, then recalling the earlier episode where they abused their admin tools and damaged my bona fides is more than fair. I was a newbie at that time (that shows in my remarks there), and was almost driven off by the arbitrary punitive measures made against me. I don't hold grudges because I made no formal complaint, which might have damaged you, and I have almost never had recourse, on principle, to making ANI/AE reports to settle disputes by getting someone who disagrees with me banned, a practice that is of chronic here, one used against me with unusual frequency. I exercise care in the words I use. 'atrocious' per Merriam-Webster means 'extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel: barbaric.' You're entitled to that view of me as someone displaying exceptional brutality and cruelty on wikipedia. But you should quietly ask yourself, because I don't report insults, how that squares with the content evidence of my creation of 1,000 plus articles as varied as Kaifeng Jews, Gadubanud, Joseph's Tomb and Irvin Leigh Matus.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Swatjester. Surely you shouldn't take exception to a somewhat playful implication you were a 'cat'. Your presence is very rare in the IP area and your remarks about sealioning and 'the usual suspects' (people like myself) might give the impression of a detached view by an experienced admin. Not quite true. You admitted 17 years ago that you used your admin tools to unblock an Israeli editor for a 3R infraction because, offline he contacted you and convinced you he was justified in breaking the rule. You didn't even check to see if his wild offline claims (presumably about me) were correct. ([14],[15], [16] [17], [18]). When I read your first post here I remembered that contretemps. I never reported it as a misuse of admin tools, and I never hold grudges. But I do remember things, and took your generalization as coming from someone 'involved' in the topic area. Nishidani (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- And Huldra thanks indeed for that link I'd never seen this data before, because I don't know how to consult files that log stuff on wiki.Nishidani (talk) 01:49, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @User:BilledMammal. I'm sorry, but language and grammar are merciless in these things (and the fact that such niceties are missed so often is one reason reading ANI/AE discussions is, certainly for me, so painful -I was in part permabanned because one admin could not understand irony, though everyone else saw the amicable comedy of my, to him alone, 'aggressively' 'uncivil'/abusive remark). You are simply wrong. If you have played lawn bowls, then grasping whether the ball you are drawing has a wide or narrow bias is fundamental to mastering the art. The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. I guess now, having told you you are flat-out wrong, I have now produced a diff that can be cited in just one more WP:CIVIL suit to be filed against me in the future:):(Nishidani (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep. Just out of curiosity, if Arbcom opens a case, who are the editors whose behaviour is to be examined. The list given by Red-tailed hawk, or is it larger? I say that because there is a massive imbalance in the people singled out, according to the usual perceptions of the IP area's POV-stand-off.Nishidani (talk) 21:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by DMH223344
Can someone explain to me what this is all about? Specifically, how is this AE related to the previously closed one? And what am I being asked to do here?
Statement by M.Bitton
Statement by Buidhe
I really don't want to be involved in this business, but while there is a lot of suboptimal behavior in this topic area, it amazes me some of what can be described as an "edit war" or sanctionable conduct. If these standards were enforced across the board to all editors regardless of their content contributions and all topic areas, I'm quite convinced that there would not be much of an encyclopedia. I realize that Arbcom tries to clinically separate content and conduct, but IMO one should not lose sight of the goal of the entire project. And while productive, good faith editors can be driven away from contributing due to battleground behavior and general nastiness, it's also true that they can be driven away by excessive rules and (the fear of) overzealous ban-hammers. I do believe that editors who actually work on creating an encyclopedia should be distinguished from people who just show up to revert or argue on talk pages. (t · c) buidhe 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Vanamonde
I saw several reports at AE that mentioned tag-teaming as a concern. I did not find anything actionable in the ones I investigated, but I agree with BK49 above that AE is less well-placed to investigate a sprawling multi-party dispute where the behavior of multiple editors may be of concern, than the behavior of a single editor. So I believe ARBCOM should look into this. In doing so, however, I encourage ARBCOM not to narrowly constrain which editors' behavior will be considered. AE is able to deal with the behavior of single editors. What ARBCOM needs to look at is whether the outcome of editors working together is actionably disruptive where any individual's actions in isolation may not be. I also encourage ARBCOM not to take a narrow view of what constitutes conduct. Mis-representing a source is, in my view, just as bad - and possibly worse for Wikipedia's long-term credibility - than any civility issue. It shouldn't be ignored just because it is easier to police language, though I am in no way suggesting that the expectations for collegial language be ignored. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- If this weren't very clear from my statement above, I don't think this ought to be handled by motion. The issues here aren't simple; they need to be disentangled with care. If civility and edit-warring were the only problems, we wouldn't need ARBCOM. We need an evidence phase, and for ARBCOM to dig into whether editors are editing within all the PAGs, not just the ones easy to assess. I also think it would be a mistake for ARBCOM to handle all the appeals. We shouldn't be spending the limited resource that is ARBCOM's time on appeals that aren't complicated. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I fully endorse what Zero has to say about academic sourcing, but I disagree with the conclusion. There are editors here who are engaging constructively, and editors who aren't: and to determine who is in which category ARBCOM really needs to examine the content and the sourcing editors are discussing. There are previous cases - WP:ARBIRP and WP:ARBGWE come to mind - where ARBCOM needed to do something similar. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:52, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Tryptofish
I generally avoid editing in this topic area, and my involvement in it has been fairly minimal. But the one instance when I did get involved with it ([19]), led me to find the editing environment disturbingly toxic, and not due to some simple problem with a small number of easily identified editors. Rather, it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject. That strikes me as something that AE is poorly equipped to deal with. And it fits exactly with the concept that ArbCom should accept cases where the community has tried, but been unsuccessful, to resolve. So I recommend that ArbCom accept this case, and do so with a large number of named parties. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- (Added after some other editors have kindly said that they agree with me; I don't know if they will agree with what follows.) ArbCom should know that the problems with "the usual suspects" that cannot be handled by AE generally do not fall along the expected POV fault-lines of Israeli versus Palestinian POVs, or antisemitism or Islamophobia. (I'm sure there are POV pushers like that, but they can be handled at AE.) If anything, there's a divide between different lines of Jewish thought, with the most problematic editors favoring WP:RS-compliant scholarly work by largely-Jewish academics, but doing so with a massive-scale disregard for the ArbCom principle of WP:BRIE, and some other editors (sometimes more crudely) finding such source material to be contrary to popular political opinion. In my experience, getting caught in the middle of that can be quite unpleasant. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- About what ToBeFree said, I suspect that the information that would be made available to ArbCom via the case request page would look incredibly similar to what you already have here, so it would just be a bureaucratic waste of time to start over from scratch. And as for any aspersions that everyone should just be removed from the topic area, that's what the Evidence phase of a case is supposed to correct. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- Adding to that: Although numerous editors are asking where the evidence is, for starting a full case with multiple parties, the correct answer is that evidence will be presented, and critically evaluated for whether it is valid or not, on the Evidence page of the case. ArbCom should make it clear that being listed as a named party is not a predetermination of guilt, something that perhaps will be more important here than in many other cases. You have multiple AE admins telling you that a full case with multiple parties is needed, and they have given you a reasonable list of potential parties (including admins who are well-positioned to give useful evidence). This is not the time to get stuck on quasi-legalistic procedural details. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by AirshipJungleman29
I echo the comments of Tryptofish, Vanamonde93 and SFR. The topic area features a large number of experienced editors who have, whether consciously or not, decided to ignore CTOP protocols. This not only has the effect of turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to. Editors of all sides appear to have an unspoken agreement that civility shouldn't really matter when discussing such controversial subject matter (e.g. nableezy's statement above). This is unacceptable. I strongly endorse implementing the actions outlined by SFR as immediate remedies. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani, while I don't particularly appreciate being snidely labelled a pro-Israel complainer, I do appreciate an immediate example of "experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be". So—on balance, notwithstanding its intention—I thank you for your statement! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Aquillion
I do urge ArbCom to particularly investigate the accusations of misrepresenting sources (an extremely serious one that takes time and effort to get to the bottom of) and of people taking inconsistent policy positions (a key component mentioned in WP:CIVILPOV, which is rarely enforced) as well as the battleground / aspersion / WP:AGF issues mentioned above. The edit-warring is important and is easy to see (hence why so many cases focus on it), but if that was enough to resolve this then we wouldn't be at ArbCom. The root cause is battleground mentalities and civil POV-pushing; misrepresenting sources and taking inconsistent policy positions point much more directly to that problem. (And, of course, I also urge people to present evidence to those things in the evidence phase, if it gets to that point, because ArbCom needs that - my past experience with cases like these is that both editors and ArbCom tend to focus on the "easy" aspects of WP:CIVIL and WP:EW, ignoring the underlying causes or more complex aspects.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I also want to second Loki's statement below that much of the problem is drive-by new editors or SPAs with few edits elsewhere - a lot of the other comments here have basically said "this is all about a few bad editors"; I don't think that's correct. In topic areas like this, where the disputes here reflect serious real-world divides, new / inexperienced users and blatant new SPAs are going to constantly flow into the topic area and require experienced editors who are willing to take the time and effort to keep an eye on a vast number of pages in order to maintain some semblance of balance or even just basic compliance with policy. We aren't going to solve the underlying A/I conflict on Wikipedia; the topic area is always going to be fraught. And the simple fact is that distinguishing between an experienced editor who eg. frequently reverts in a particular way because they're doing the necessary gruntwork of dealing with an endless tide of SPAs trying to blatantly add a particular bias an article, and an experienced editor who is performing WP:CIVILPOV-pushing themselves while WP:BITE-ing innocent new editors, is often not obvious. Part of the reason an ArbCom case is needed is because the community and AE aren't equipped for that; but this also means it's important to approach the case with an eye towards the drive-by / SPA problem, at least as context for the behavior of parties to the case, and not just "who are the bad people we can make go away in order to solve this." --Aquillion (talk) 18:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Swatjester
Tryptofish's experience here echoes mine. The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute, in contrast to the uninvolved parties saying, essentially: "It's you: you're the problem." I think that's rather telling. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 18:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Huldra: While my user page has remained remarkably free of vandalism I have received death threats and threats to my family, specifically targeting me as a Jew, through Wikipedia that were so bad that WMF Legal had to be involved at one point. I'm not the cat you're looking for; please keep me out of your metaphors, thanks. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 03:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Huldra: I appreciate the words written in support. With regard to the question of whether I think the "not so Israeli" side receives more threats than the Israeli side -- I don't know. I'm not sure how I *could* know as I wouldn't be privy to threats received in private much like you weren't privy to the ones I received. I'm also not sure why it matters -- neither side should be receiving death threats, but nobody "wins" by being more oppressed. As to my lack of having been targeted for on-wiki vandalism by one side or the other, as Nishidani pointed out, my "presence is very rare in the IP area" so not only would I have less visibility over other people receiving threats, logically I'm not going to be the target of abuse from that area either. And, I was considerably less active in editing from 2012 until 2023, which certainly bears on why my User Talk was not subjected to those kinds of attacks. Thus I believe I'm just not a good fit for your metaphor. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 23:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Nishidani: thank you for bringing up an example that I did not remember from nearly two decades ago of your atrocious behavior within this topic area, in which you became so infuriated that I denied an unblock request from you, that you went on a rant about how my military service in Iraq (miscategorizing me as a Marine, as well as not realizing I'd been out of the military for over a year at that point) categorically disqualified from participating in the Israel topic area; made the same argument about a British military admin; and then proceeded to imply that we were tag-team coordinating while admitting that you had no evidence whatsoever to make that aspersion and that it was unlikely to be true anyway, before accusing me of "partisan" and "political" motivations, while repeatedly threatening to quit the project if you didn't get your way. Are you *really* sure this is the example you want to bring up? You're making my point about "It's you: you're the problem" quite well for me. But sure, you never hold grudges... except for the one you've apparently held for 17 years. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 16:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Number 57
I edit around the edge of this topic area, focussing on Israeli politics and civil society, and have had the misfortune over the years to have ended up in disputes with editors pushing both anti-Israel and pro-Israel POV on articles where our paths corss. I very much welcome the suggestion that long-term tag-teaming, POV pushing and the ineffectiveness of current tools to stop this should be looked at. From my nearly 20 years' experience, the main issue has always been that there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV – anyone can look at their contribution histories and see that their contributions are primarily adding things that make their side look good/the other look bad and deleting information to the contrary; in discussions such as RMs, RfCs or AfDs, their stances are easily predicted based on their editing history. A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage). Number 57 19:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Re LokiTheLiar's comment below that "a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users", I would say that is only partially correct. These users tend to be the worst in terms of edit warring and other more flagrant violations of Wikipedia rules. However, IMO the real issue here is the fact that the topic area is dominated by a relatively small number of long-term editors who rarely break rules such as 3RR etc, but (as said above) are purely here to push their POV and support other members of their group in doing so. They have been allowed to do this for years – the question is whether the community sees this as perfectly fine, or whether it wants to do something about it (which IO think can only be achieved by a mass handout of topic bans). Number 57 19:21, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- A response to Bluethricecreamman's comments: NOTAVOTE (an essay, not a rule) is not really relevant; closes against the majority of views expressed only tend to occur when there is a clear right/wrong (e.g. alignment with a certain policy or guideline). In this topic area, most things are arguable, and therefore the number of attendees do swing discussion outcomes – while this isn't an issue as a one-off, when it is many discussions over many years, it is a problem.
- Re my views on 30/500 – my concern is that it is a deterrent to new editors entering the topic sphere, which is one of the issues preventing an equalisation in the number of POV pushers on each side (as I've said above, I would rather they were all topic banned, but if Wikipedia is going to tolerate POV pushers in contentious topic areas, at least allow them to contribute in roughly equal numbers). I've been here nearly 20 years and the dominant personalities in this topic sphere have barely changed in the last ten. Number 57 20:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- And re Nableezy's comment about me – disingenuous at best. For context, what I objected to was including the same paragraph of text about the legal status of Israeli settlements in the introduction of every single article on a settlement – my view was that everyone knows they are illegal and simply saying it is an Israeli settlement makes that clear. And for those who have been here long enough to remember, my RfA was disrupted by canvassing by pro-Israel editors who considered me to be a problem because I was doing things like removing articles on settlements from "in Israel" categories. Number 57 23:23, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- Nableezy, I had been calling people in the topic area POV pushers for years before the discussion you reference and my issues with you also started well before then as well. While I have been accused of bias, it has come from both sides, and that gives me reassurance that I must be doing something right. I was once even accused of being a friend of Nishidani, which I'm not sure either of us would agree is the case. Number 57 00:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- For Huldra's information, unfortunately I have had numerous people wishing me death and other unpleasant things both on and off-wiki – most recently in June an IP left numerous edit summaries on articles saying I should be tortured, stabbed, beheaded, raped or "bullied to suicide". Number 57 00:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Huldra, I don't think it's appropriate to get into an argument about who has suffered the most abuse, particularly using a single metric like talkpage redactions – the fact is that no-one should receive any level of abuse for editing Wikipedia. And also worth noting that I have also been impacted as a result of removing "in Israel" from Israeli settlements (when I removed them all from "in Israel" categories back in 2007). Number 57 23:57, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- For Huldra's information, unfortunately I have had numerous people wishing me death and other unpleasant things both on and off-wiki – most recently in June an IP left numerous edit summaries on articles saying I should be tortured, stabbed, beheaded, raped or "bullied to suicide". Number 57 00:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Nableezy, I had been calling people in the topic area POV pushers for years before the discussion you reference and my issues with you also started well before then as well. While I have been accused of bias, it has come from both sides, and that gives me reassurance that I must be doing something right. I was once even accused of being a friend of Nishidani, which I'm not sure either of us would agree is the case. Number 57 00:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- And re Nableezy's comment about me – disingenuous at best. For context, what I objected to was including the same paragraph of text about the legal status of Israeli settlements in the introduction of every single article on a settlement – my view was that everyone knows they are illegal and simply saying it is an Israeli settlement makes that clear. And for those who have been here long enough to remember, my RfA was disrupted by canvassing by pro-Israel editors who considered me to be a problem because I was doing things like removing articles on settlements from "in Israel" categories. Number 57 23:23, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by The Kip
Not to sound repetitive, but I'll echo the comments of Tryptofish, AirshipJungleman29, and Swatjester. I dabbled in editing within the topic area some months back, but quickly opted to mostly stay away - since December or so, my related editing has only been in the Current Events portal/ITNC and various admin/arbitration noticeboards. This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE - they wholly disregard WP policies and prior warnings/sanctions, as most ARBPIA sanctions for experienced editors have effectively amounted to slaps on the wrist. I'd also like to specifically emphasize the point made by Swatjester of I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute
, as from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.
In short, I strongly endorse both an Arbcom case and SFR's suggested remedies. I will openly disclose that I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs, as I don't think starting from scratch could make things any worse than they currently are - that said, I understand that's a rather draconian/heavy-handed solution. The Kip (contribs) 22:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- With regards to the core group/"usual suspects" claim, I'd also like to link this chart gathered by @Thebiguglyalien: some months ago for a different arb case. Some of the more active users noted on that chart are now TBANned, but it still serves as a solid chunk of data for the mass-scale POV-warring in the area. The Kip (contribs) 22:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'd also like to say I politely disagree with Tryptofish's assessment of the main area of conflict; while that is a dispute in the area, and as they say, a particularly nasty one, I think the main issue is indeed the Israeli vs Palestinian POV-warring. While AE could in theory deal with that, in practice it's been reluctant to for one reason or another - many of the experienced editors in question often straddle a line of problematic behavior that AE has seemed unwilling to definitively bring down the hammer on (hence my WP:UNBLOCKABLE concerns mentioned above), and that Arbcom may be more open to conclusively dealing with. As a result of AE's apparent higher threshold needed for experienced editors, things like civil POV-pushing, bludgeoning, weaponization of process, less "blatant" incivility, and so on are difficult to definitively sanction - you have to badly cross multiple lines to receive anything more than a logged warning that is almost always disregarded by the receiver in the long run.
- That's not even to mention the specific reasons why this case was primarily brought here (in my understanding), that being AE is mainly intended to be an A reporting B case forum. When the issue at hand is tag-teaming, multi-party edit warring, multi-party incivility, etc, AE's not too well-equipped to deal with a case where A and B want to report C, D, and E, except A and B have also been engaging in the reported behavior themselves, and F probably was too but wasn't brought to the case until later due to a variety of reasons. The Kip (contribs) 00:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar the problem is those new-ish users are fairly easily dealt with via AE, if they haven't already violated ECR. On the contrary, AE has shown itself to be reluctant to heavily sanction any heavily-experienced, long-term editors - see how some of those named in this case pretty much receive only logged warnings and/or minor things such as revert restrictions for substantial incivility, abuse of AE process, edit-warring, etc that would've gotten a newer user swiftly blocked. The Kip (contribs) 18:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- After further reading of comments here from multiple users on either side of the POV-war they either deny exists or insist it's mainly/only the other side that's toxic, I'd like to reiterate:
from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.
- WP:RGW, WP:BRIE, et al. This complete lack of introspection/acknowledgement that "hey, maybe I'm part of the problem too" is exactly why many in the area, if not all its experienced users, deserve sanctions. The Kip (contribs) 18:43, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
I also want to make something very clear, just so my position on the area doesn't get grouped in by one side with the other side of editors here and at large (which may already be happening):
- Are there more pro-Palestinian problematic experienced editors in the area than pro-Israeli ones? Yeah, I kinda feel like that's an objective fact at this point - as berchanhimez or the aforementioned Swatjester have stated, just look at the number of experienced editors showing up to insist they're not the problem, everyone else is/"
there is no war in Ba Sing Se
"/their behavior is justified/etc. - Does that mean that the many problematic pro-Israeli experienced editors are any less of a contributor to the toxicity, policy violations, et al in this area, or that they deserve any lesser sanctions? Not at all (case in point) - I support coming down on them as hard as I do the former group, including more than a few editors in this very discussion whom I won't name. Hell, from the linked motion, part of the reasons one side is smaller in the first place is because many of the problematic users from that side already got themselves TBANned.
Some previous and later commenters seem to think that my idea of "nuking the topic area" means only mass-TBANning the problematic people from the aforementioned side with more editors (see there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine
yet again), thereby artificially enforcing "neutrality" by simply evening the numbers. That is not my view - mine is that all of the problematic editors be banned, POV be damned. The Kip (contribs) 23:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Also, with all due respect to @Sean.hoyland: - WP:SOCK will always be a problem in the area, nuke or not, but it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI and sockpuppeteers having an almost comical tendency to accidentally out themselves. We shouldn't just put up with how much of a mess things currently are because there's the potential that it could get worse, and anyways, I disagree that the hypothetical "it could get really bad" is worse than the current reality of "it's a toxic disaster zone." The Kip (contribs) 23:25, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Zanahary
It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy, and an apparent policy of assuming bad faith from anyone whom you believe you’ve sussed out to disagree with you go totally unpunished and be downright normalized—and it’s mostly coming from a handful of dominant editors. Something’s gotta give, and if that’s a rain of topic bans, then so be it. I see a few names listed that I believe do little more here than worsen the project. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Ravpapa
Once an active editor in this topic area, I have for the last few years assiduously eschewed any involvement. But I would like, nonetheless to add this comment:
I think we are all looking at the wrong thing. We are discussing editor behavior, but we should be looking at the quality of the articles in the topic area. And, I think we can all agree, the articles are abysmal. They are bloated with polemics, they magnify ephemeral new items into international crises that change the course of history, they are often so full or quotes and counterquotes that they are practically unintelligible.
Will massive topic bans make the articles better? I doubt it. With the Middle East conflict, we have exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by SashiRolls
ArbCom should be aware that the table BilledMammal has offered as evidence above (Bludgeoning statistics) is deeply flawed. Efforts to encourage him to include a disclaimer noting that his "methodology" does not control for the presence of bludgeoning sockpuppets in discussions (for example) were rebuffed. As a single example, Kentucky Rain24 made about 48 comments on Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? enticing several editors into responding.
Prior to my comments on the talk page there was no methodology section. Now, BM has added some clarifications, but as a quick roll-over of that link shows, he is controlling what page visitors are aware of.
I very rarely edit in this topic area and only looked into this table due to past experience with Billed Mammal and Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) working in concert here. This is also why I learned that 18% of BilledMammal's edits to mainspace have been reverted, which might be worth looking into. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 11:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just for the record... after further research I have been able to determine that it was the decision to set the cutoff at 20 comments rather than at 18 which kept Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) from appearing on BilledMammal's list. That said, and as others have already said on the talk page (or when it is was brought to ANI as an attack page), showing that people engaged in discussion, provided RS, debunked silly arguments, responded to sockpuppet provocation, etc. does not show that people "bludgeoned" anything. As the explanatory essay says: Participating fully isn't a bad thing. If there were any utility to a page which simply counts the number of times someone's signature appears on a page, I would ask him to rerun the data based on 18 comments in 4 discussions so that NoCal100 would appear in his list. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 02:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Domedtrix
I am relatively new to this topic area on Wikipedia, though I have read around the topic offline over a number of years.
I would like to echo the points of many editors above, that there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. @BilledMammal illustrated this excellently here, though that is not to say the same behavious doesn't occur across more than the two editors singled out in that diff. Though I have seen tendentious editing multiple times, I am very reticent to call it out, in part because such accusations add more fuel to the fire.
What makes this topic particularly tricky to deal with, however, is not that editors in this space are typically new to the site (although as I know from editing in the WP:FOOTBALL space, any current event will draw large crowds), as is often the case when we see these types of issues. Instead, editors here are often incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, and thus how to make a contentious change stick. This enables Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits, though I accept I am far below the median in this discussion by this metric. This, in combination with a format for resolving disputes that often seems to favour the most mobilised side, despite WP:VOTE expressly stating this shouldn't be a factor, has resulted in a topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics across Wikipedia. In my view, this amounts to an abuse of Wikipedia's voice for political ends.
The consensus process has broken down because too many experienced editors seem to have no interest in finding any consensus. I agree with @Zanahary that Badgering and Wikilawyering particularly scares off many that would like to approach the topic, so we're left with the same faces over and over again, and also the same problems. It is very rare in these interminable discussions that I see people give an iota. There is no end in sight, because it seems the desired state of the articles in the topic area from one (or each) 'side' of this conflict will likely not be content until 'perfection' is achieved.
We have been too slow to act here. It has been public knowledge for some time that Discord servers are being used to WP:CANVAS people with specific viewpoints. As this is done off-site, it is hard to know the scale of the impact, but that should not prevent the implementation of measures to guard against this risk.
The more I read in this topic area, the more disheartened I become by the state of our collective actions as editors, and the more I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND, and it's hard to imagine whatever fills this void being worse than what is already here. As @Ravpapa stated, it's not like we're protecting much of value here - this process has resulted in articles of fairly poor quality, a result of incessent pointscoring within articles. --Domeditrix (talk) 11:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Number 57:
A response to Bluethricecreamman's comments: NOTAVOTE (an essay, not a rule) is not really relevant; closes against the majority of views expressed only tend to occur when there is a clear right/wrong (e.g. alignment with a certain policy or guideline). In this topic area, most things are arguable, and therefore the number of attendees do swing discussion outcomes – while this isn't an issue as a one-off, when it is many discussions over many years, it is a problem.
- History repeats itself. A contentious move is confirmed by @Amakuru:. The rationale? "
from a rough count, I see around 22 !votes endorsing the closure and 15 saying to overturn. I also don't see any kind of slam-dunk argument in the overturn !votes
". This is a repeating problem and is only leading to parties that are able to mobilise more effectively getting changes made. I'm not saying policy is being purposefully gamed here, but if it was, this is one way it might look. Tagging @Joe Roe: here as it would be rude not to, given I've mentioned one of their closes. For full disclosure, I opposed the original close. Domeditrix (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by LokiTheLiar
As an occasional participant in this topic area, I'd like to second Zero's suggestion that mass topic bans are not likely to be useful because a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users. ArbCom already got a taste of this earlier this year when it banned a bunch of pro-Israel meatpuppets.
Speaking of which, I'd also like to encourage ArbCom that, when it looks at editor behavior, to actually look at the behavior of every individual involved and not assume "both sides are at fault" without evidence. Loki (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- I would also like to say that my assessment of the behavior of established editors is notably less negative than many other people here. I basically agree with nableezy: it's inherently a contentious topic area and so disagreements are common and will always be common. It's also unsurprising that many editors take editorial lines that lean towards one side or the other of the conflict: editors aren't required to have no POV, only articles are. None of this is that surprising to me for editing in a contentious topic area and I don't think that any of this per se is a problem.
- I do think it's a problem when editors edit war, or cross the bounds of civility, or bludgeon discussions, or bring your opponents to drama boards to try to get them removed from the topic area, or try to push a POV over what reliable sources support. And definitely some of that has been happening here, and I encourage ArbCom to look at the behavior of individual editors in this topic area. But I don't think this stuff coming from established editors is a systemic issue over and above the inherent fact that the Israel/Palestine conflict just is a contentious topic. It's fine to not want to edit in a contentious topic area but I don't think that a topic area being intimidating to edit in is by itself an issue. Loki (talk) 19:54, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Thebiguglyalien
Given the pushback from regulars in this area, I'll add one more voice from someone who's only edited at the edge of the topic area and have felt dissuaded from contributing further. I can't say it better than Swatjester: "'It's you: you're the problem'". Whatever excuses the entrenched editors might have, their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on, but we have to pretend we don't so as not to be accused of casting aspersions. I see an Arbcom case as the only way to turn this years-old "open secret" into something actionable.
The habit of always !voting in a way that benefits the same nation is a problem, and it becomes obvious when someone uses one reasoning to come to one conclusion but then uses the opposite reasoning when it's the other side up for discussion. This is commonly answered with the contradictory ideas that "they're the POV pushers, our side is just correct" and that "users are allowed to have their own POV", with the latter suggesting that it's okay to let POV dictate editing and !voting instead of following policies and sources. Call it battleground, tag-teaming, CPUSH, whatever you like, but in my opinion it should be a major focus when considering whether the editors in this area are here to build a neutral encyclopedia.
Contrary to what other statements here are arguing, I believe there are legitimate issues about editors who are only here to edit PIA. This is a strong indicator of WP:ACTIVIST/WP:SPA/WP:NOTHERE style editing, even when they have high edit counts or several years of experience. This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this.
- I like ScottishFinnishRaddish's suggestion that everyone who participated in an ARBPIA AE discussion since last October be considered involved.
- I agree with Ravpapa's points about low article quality, but these issues plague most current events articles (another area that could use cleanup, but it's not analogous to PIA).
- BilledMammal's list does produce some of the most active editors, and while there's plausibly a strong correlation, it doesn't prove bludgeoning on its own.
- Not only do I agree with The Kip and Zanahary that a significant number of topic bans should be on the table, but such bans are the bare minimum of what's necessary. At this point, topic bans aren't a drastic last resort. They're the first step of a slow, painful remedy.
Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
In response to the link provided by Nableezy: a reminder that WikiProjects cannot enforce their local consensus on articles. Conclusions reached by a WikiProject are recognized as essays. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by xDanielx
Number 57's point gets at the heart of the issue: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers
. This often leads to situations where there's an apparent consensus which goes against (the natural or customary interpretation of) our content policies. The result is passionate edit warring, with one side righteously enforcing consensus, and the other righteously enforcing content policies.
The Zionism edit war covered at AE is one example - there's an apparent consensus to state in wikivoice, in the first sentence, that Zionism is colonization. It's frankly very hard to see how such an unequivocal statement could comply with NPOV, given the long list of scholars who take issue with the characterization. But it's difficult to enforce policies against a majority, and four editors have been brought to AE for attempts to do, with another threatened.
Another example is Gaza genocide. If that isn't a WP:POVNAME, I don't know what is. Some editors argued that titles do not imply statements, effectively saying that POV names do not exist. Such arguments tend to be invoked selectively. The move received significant press ([20], [21], [22], [23], etc), damaging Wikipedia's credibility.
I don't think word count limits would help. A bright-line rule against bludgeoning might help avoid lengthy discussions filled with redundancies, but that isn't the core issue. Enforcing behavioral policies more rigorously might help attract a few more neutral editors. The real solution would be to warn or sanction editors who repeatedly promote unreasonable or inconsistent interpretations of content policies, but of course that's difficult since such policy matters aren't black and white. — xDanielx T/C\R 01:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Suggestion for Radical Change by Ravpapa
So long as we remain in the realm of editor behavioral change, we will get nowhere. What is required is structural change. In this topic area, we need to abandon the open consensual editing model that has been at the heart of Wikipedia since its inception. Here is what I propose that we do:
We recruit a committee of five to ten senior editors, who have never edited in the topic area, who have no identifiable bias, and who are equally unacceptable to both sides. Only members of this committee will be allowed to edit in the topic area.
The committee will be charged with reviewing the entire corpus of Middle East articles, and making any editorial and structural changes that they see fit, including:
- deleting duplicate articles about the same topic, or merging articles closely related.
- drastically trimming down articles of marginal importance that have become bloated with polemics.
- rewriting main articles to present conflicting views in a concise and intelligible way.
The committee should look not only at individual articles, but at the corpus in its entirety, thinking creatively about the best way to present information. I give examples and suggest such structural changes in my essay User:Ravpapa/The Politicization of Wikipedia, which I wrote 15 years ago but is just as relevant today as then.
The committee will have the power to delete, merge and rename articles by consensus within their own group, without having to go through the regular article deletion. merge or rename processes. Anyone can, of course, comment on the talk page and make suggestions. But only the committee can actually edit. This proposal preserves the heart of the consensual editing model (though not strictly open), but eliminates the possibility for contentious editing.
It is a huge task. I am not volunteering. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Black Kite
A PIA5 case has the possibility to go completely FUBAR if it attempts to litigate the entirety of the topic area and regular editors in those areas. This is a stupidly contentious topic and I suspect if we looked at the complete records of every regular editor a well-meaning member of ArbCom could probably go all Portals on us and find a spurious reason to ban them. No, my idea would be to concentrate on the three areas which appear to causing the most issues at the moment.
- Sub-5000-edit accounts which are basically SPAs on the PIA area, some of which will inevitably be socks but even if they're not are equally disruptive
- Those attempting to weaponise AE by bringing multiple threads against ideological enemies
- Those holding up progress by causing endless circular arguments on talk pages (I'm not going to say "bludgeoning" because people may look at BilledMammal's subpage which IMO has a wildly flawed methodology for assessing this). A lot of these people are, again, new-ish accounts.
Also, per Rosguill below. That particular shambles of an RfC is quite revealing. Black Kite (talk) 14:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Rosguill
Based on my vantage point of having only really participated in I/P topics by way of RSN and AE discussions, I am perplexed by various assertions made in this clarification request. Reading through discussions like the recent ADL RfC, the recent Al-Jazeera RfC, a recent discussion of +972 a recent discussion of general Israeli sources, there is a consistent group of editors that repeatedly accuse a list of sources they have deemed to be "anti-Israel" while also defending-ad-bludgeon advocacy sources like the ADL and categorically defining Israeli news media as reliable. These discussions do not display the converse: there is no bloc of editors that rejects Israeli sources out of hand while categorically insisting that pro-Palestinian sources are reliable (for further evidence, see the recent Electronic Intifada RfC). We do occasionally see editors pop up who reject Israeli sources out of hand on talk pages (usually alongside US and potentially even European sources), but I don't see anyone named in this report that exhibits this behavior. Such editors are shown the door. signed, Rosguill talk 14:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Huldra
- PROBLEM: the cat-herding admins cannot manage herding all the cats
- Solution: slaughter all the cats
- Problem solved
- alternative solution: better cat-herders, or better cat-herding rules, are apparently not on the table, Huldra (talk) 18:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- And then we have cat-herders who likes to play as a cat, at times,
- As for Number 57 view: "the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage" As an editor who has been "credited" by off-wiki web-sites and blogs with bringing about this rule, I can say: "credit where credit is due", namely with the more unhinged of Israels' supporters. It was their incessant rape- and murder- threats which brought about this policy. AFAIK, Number 57 has never been threatened with murder for editing wiki, or seeing his loved ones being raped (And I am happy -and relieved- he hasn't!), but I wish he would try to imagine how he would have felt.
- As for Number 57 view: "is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV I could also easily name such a group – but it would prabably be a totally different group from the one (I guess) Number 57 has in mind,
- I agree fully with Zero0000's asseccment: "There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it", I have met people with PhDs in the I/P-area, who knows far, far less about the history of the area, than some of my fellow wiki-editors.
- As for Guerillero' wish for better cat-herding rules; I was thinking of something like: scratch another cat's face: 1 month's automatic topic-ban. Of course "scratch another cat's face" has to be minutely defined ;/, I didn' think I scratched a cat's face here, but that cat apparently disagreed! Huldra (talk) 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Also, some cats have been more attacked than most, [24], [25],[26],[27], while others have manged to get by with hardly a single scratch; [28] [29] (and no: that isn't because our editing is that bad: some of the very worst abuse I have suffered was after I removed that the Western Wall was "In Israel" (It isn't, according to the International community.) Huldra (talk) 22:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Not to mention that some cats are the subject of off-wiki harassment and outing-attempts, while others are not. I cannot recall in all my years here that there has been a single attack-page aimed at the pro-Israeli editors, while there have been at least half a dozen attacking those editor not deemed pro-Israeli enough. And outing: apparently you will "help the state of Israel" if you make public my RN. Gosh, this cat had no idea that she was that important! Oh well, on the internet nobody knows you're a ......dog, Huldra (talk) 23:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- User:Number 57 and User:Swatjester say they have received death treaths, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, and I am very sorry they have done so, BUT: Do you deny that the threats against "the-not-so-pro-Israli"-editors is far greater than against the "pro-israeli" editors? After all, your talk-pages are blissfully clean of Wikipedia:RD2 and Wikipedia:RD3, after nearly 20 years each for both of you.
- To re-iterate: some of the worst abuse I have recieved is over removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967. This should have been totally uncontroversial, but apparently isn't. Likewise, I sometimes have to undo edits which place Arab cities in Israel in "Palestine"[30] others do so rutinely as well, [31][32]. All of these edits should have been uncontroversial. But I know that when I do the former (ie.removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967) I can expect a tsunami of insults and threats, while when I do the latter (ie: placing Arab cities in Israel), I have *never* recieved any such reaction. Why this difference, I wonder?cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Arkon
Seeing many comments that should be saved for the Arb case over the last few days. Is there some threshold that needs to be passed before this case is opened? Arkon (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Shushugah
- Enforcement in this area has been largely ineffective. The net result is a hostile/toxic environment. Remaining editors face a dilemma to either disengage (probably the healthier option) or furiously engage (also bringing the worst side of all parties involved). This does not mean someone who furiously engages is necessarily disruptive. We should be careful not to draw a false equivalence between the two. Especially when one side focuses on policy based arguments, namely summarizing inclusively pro Israeli and Palestinian sources while other sides are pushing for singular/nationalist narratives.
- Cases are brought to ArbCom or ANI after obvious escalations, however what we need is stronger focus on preventive measures over enforcement after the fact.
- On a practical note, reducing the ability of individual editors to dominate a conversation by instituting either a limit on word count or percentage, would allow more voices to sustainably opine with succint policy based arguments without having to compete for eyeball attention and save clerks more time when closing a discussion. More clerks would be motivated to join in too potentially.
- The other thing that remains unacceptable is the presentation by some editors in this ArbCom request and general discussions as POV pushing by two sides, when the reality is it is POV pushing versus critically summarizing the state of different reliable sources. Having a much stricter enforcement of WP:SOAPBOX would clean up discussions.
- These remedies would be easier to resolve than the (possible) allegations of tag-teaming and or gamification of Wikipedia which will continue to be contested and or repeatedly brought here ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- [@CaptainEek] On one hand, if this becomes PIA5, more people would have given commented (if they wished) and existing editors might have presented evidence differently. On the other hand, a lot of time is wasted going in circular questions about the correct forum, when many of the issues raised are the same. If it is possible to refactor/raise a prepared PIA5 instead of starting from scratch, I would support a separate venue. Everyone should have a fair chance to bring input, but for most editors (myself included) ARCA is incredibly confusing and bureaucratic. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by berchanhimez
I haven't wanted to comment here because I feel that others are saying what I would have to say. But I feel it needs to be stressed that some editors are continuing to blatantly ignore policies and guidelines even in this request which concerns such behaviors. To quote The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation.
This flat out contradicts the applicable PAG pages of WP:BIASED and WP:NPOV § Bias in sources. However, Nishidani is correct that a wide bias can lead to deprecation
- I am unsure if this has actually happened (and if it has whether it's happened in the Israel-Palestine subject area), but it only takes a quick look through contentious topics on RSN to see that editors are engaging in civil POV pushing (and sometimes uncivil) through attempting to deprecate sources that have a bias towards opinions they disagree with. This is but one example of the experienced editors blatantly admitting to ignoring PAGs when they disagree with the inevitable outcome of them.
This gets at the root cause of the issues in this (and likely other) contentious topics. Those editors with experience have "practice" in using PAGs in discussions - which is great as discussions should be based on how to apply our PAGs to specific disputes. However, their experience also means they are good at abusing PAGs to further their point of view and ensure Wikipedia reflects what they think is "right". To be clear, I am not denying that contentious topics are likely to have more sockpuppetry or newer editors in the topic areas than a "tame" subject would. That does not, however, justify cherrypicking PAGs that support one side, and ignoring arguments to the contrary - and it especially does not justify bludgeoning discussions so that the closer has no choice but to find those arguments "stronger" simply because people either tire out of refuting the claims, tire out of pointing out the failures of the arguments made, or are threatened with administrative action by those who know they can be quick to take complaints to friends who are administrators or boards like AE without threat to themselves no matter what they did to fan the flames. Funnily enough, when one of these editors has their conduct called out, the others tend to show up and bludgeon that discussion - through deflecting focus on to the editor making the report or those supporting it, through calling into questions the motives of editors who are simply trying to remove bad behavior from the topic area, and ultimately through derailing any chance that the behavior is addressed. That is why this is back at ArbCom after what, 4 prior cases? And of course, many of the problematic experienced editors have already shown up to this request to bludgeon here with chants of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" over, and over, and over again to try and deflect from and/or justify their own behavior.
A contentious topic does not need to have more heat than light in any discussion. I support this case being opened with a wide reaching list of parties - to the point that I would not feel it unreasonable for people like myself, whose editing in the area is limited to participation in a small number of discussions with a small number of comments. However, the root cause of these problems isn't the sockpuppetry (where it occurs), it isn't those who ask others to respond to their PAG based arguments, it isn't even bludgeoning or incivility by "one side". The problem is that experienced editors here (as elsewhere on the internet) tend to gravitate towards the same side, and via strength in numbers can continue to make systemic bias worse, silence opposition/alternative points of view, and ultimately control the topic area. One need only look at the significant number of experienced editors who are not a part of the "in group" who've commented here that they avoid this topic area because they have no hope of participating constructively against the other experienced editors - whether they're working in coordination or simply independently being disruptive. As such, I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.
There are more than enough editors who, if those whose only response to disagreement is to turn up the heat are removed, would be willing to contribute in the topic area to keep the encyclopedia running. The result of this case will determine whether I myself will feel like my contributions are welcomed in the topic area and that I won't have to spend time fighting bludgeoning from another side with no hopes of having my points ever refuted.
Statement by Amakuru
I don't have a huge amount to say about the general question here, although I do gravitate towards Buidhe's point of view above... while this is clearly a hugely emotive and contentious topic area for many and of course there are numerous disputes, my from-a-distance perspective is that conduct is actually a lot better than you might expect. While many editors fall into one of two "camps", the WP principles of compromise, respecting others and objective analysis still seem to be present in many debates. I'd urge ArbCom to be extremely cautious about imposing too many editing restrictions or topic bans in this area, on either side of the debate, I think that would lead to less good coverage of the subject rather than more.
Anyway, I'm primarily commenting here because I was mentioned above by Domeditrix, seemingly criticising my close of the move review for the Gaza genocide article. I'd like to know what I was supposed to do differently in that instance? Perhaps it could have instead been a "no consensus" close, but the effect of endorsing the RM close would have been the same. It's been long-established that consensus building on Wikipedia takes place by viewing comments through the lens of policy, but equally closers almost always find consensus for the majority vote if there isn't a lot to choose between the strength of arguments. Bluntly, there isn't an objective policy that says Gaza genocide is a disallowed title, the closer of the original RM found consensus for that title, and many seasoned editors agreed. If Domeditrix and others think we should be evaluating discussions in a fundamentally different way from how we've historically done so, for example by not counting votes at all, then they need to run that by the community and get some sort of procedural update in place so we know exactly how to assess these things. — Amakuru (talk) 10:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Doug Weller
I'm not here to comment on the case but to draw attention to a blog by a probably banned editor concerning this case and attacking a number of the editors here, specifically Number 57, Nableezy, Nishidani, Huldra, Black Kite, Sean.hoyland and Rosguill.[33] It also says "Only a technique called "semi-protection" (prohibiting people not logged in from editing) can stop crazy people from coming onto user pages and threatening editors. Huldra's Wikipedia user pages are not semi-protected." Doug Weller talk 14:54, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by {other-editor}
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 amendment request or provide additional information.
Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Arbitrator views and discussion
- Thank you to the AE admins for submitting this referral. As a procedural note I would suggest that we limit the parties to this request to האופה and other users whose behavior is under consideration here (perhaps the editors listed under "Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread", though even that list may be too long). @האופה: It would be quite helpful to have your perspective here. I would also appreciate hearing further from the uninvolved admins as to what you'd like ArbCom to do — I see two buckets of possibilities: (1) Hold a full case or case-like structure to resolve the complex multiparty questions here, and/or (2) Remedies that only ArbCom can impose (e.g.
Maybe even everyone is limited to 500-1000 words in any ARBPIA discussion.
as ScottishFinnishRadish suggests). Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:39, 17 August 2024 (UTC) - After reading the AE thread and the above statements, I think ArbCom will need to take some sort of action. I agree with L235 that I would like admins, both those involved in the AE and those that were not, to comment on whether it should be a full case or, if we are to resolve by motion, describe what ArbCom should enact to help admin find solutions to editor conduct issues. In response to how to refer a case to AE: instead of a magical incantation suggested by SFR, an admin can use a bolded vote at the beginning of a statement (something like "Refer to ArbCom", in bold) or as was done here, an uninvolved admin can determine that action as the consensus of the admin conversation. Z1720 (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: A bold vote isn't necessary, but it is an option. Since the question came up at AE here (in a humourous context that I chuckled at), and referrals to ArbCom from AE have not been common, I wanted to make sure there was clarification. Z1720 (talk) 15:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: Your answer was "correct" because it gave one path to refer an AE case to ArbCom/ARCA. My comment above was to highlight a second path to get the same result. Z1720 (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support accepting this as a full case. Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: Sorry that I did not answer your question sooner, as the ping was lost on my end. As the instructions are written, the admin that closes the AE discussion determines the consensus of admin who commented on the case. If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue. Bolded !votes sometimes help the closing admin determine the consensus. I would not rely on the clerks to open cases at ARCA because I am not sure how closely the clerk team is monitoring AE. Z1720 (talk) 18:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Red-tailed hawk: You are correct: since the request is coming from AE, it would go through ARCA, not a case request. Z1720 (talk) 15:21, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: Sorry that I did not answer your question sooner, as the ping was lost on my end. As the instructions are written, the admin that closes the AE discussion determines the consensus of admin who commented on the case. If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue. Bolded !votes sometimes help the closing admin determine the consensus. I would not rely on the clerks to open cases at ARCA because I am not sure how closely the clerk team is monitoring AE. Z1720 (talk) 18:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support accepting this as a full case. Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: Your answer was "correct" because it gave one path to refer an AE case to ArbCom/ARCA. My comment above was to highlight a second path to get the same result. Z1720 (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Barkeep49: A bold vote isn't necessary, but it is an option. Since the question came up at AE here (in a humourous context that I chuckled at), and referrals to ArbCom from AE have not been common, I wanted to make sure there was clarification. Z1720 (talk) 15:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that action from ArbCom is necessary, and having reviewed everything over the past couple of days, looks like it may need to be a full case based on the complexity of the issue. - Aoidh (talk) 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- This isn't much of an update, but I don't want to give the impression that this matter isn't being considered. I've been following the statements here and I am convinced a case is needed. At the latest, once the Historical elections Proposed decision is posted I intend to make this issue my primary focus as much as possible. I agree with User:Black Kite that the scope is important, though I'm not committed to any particular scope just yet. - Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal: To your first question, while I have a good idea of what these issues are based on the statements and preliminary examinations of some of the articles/talk pages, evidence that certain issues are substantially more common and disruptive than others would be helpful in determining the scope. To the second question, I'd like to see parties decided on case creation, with parties added in the evidence phase only with compelling reason to do so. - Aoidh (talk) 20:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- This isn't much of an update, but I don't want to give the impression that this matter isn't being considered. I've been following the statements here and I am convinced a case is needed. At the latest, once the Historical elections Proposed decision is posted I intend to make this issue my primary focus as much as possible. I agree with User:Black Kite that the scope is important, though I'm not committed to any particular scope just yet. - Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- I was hoping when I first joined ArbCom that we would not need to hold WP:PIA5, but it is starting to sound inevitable. Primefac (talk) 12:35, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- We probably need to hold PIA5. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:08, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Huldra: I invented ECP, so I am 100% with rule changes to make the cat herding easier -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 06:48, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- There has been an enforcement request against האופה / HaOfa, 2024-08-11, 20:50 UTC. The reported user has not edited since. During their absence, the report became a discussion about general behavior of multiple users in the area, then expectably too much to handle at AE, and now we're here with multiple arbitrators indicating an interest in opening a case. What I personally don't entirely get is how all this happened without a single statement from the single reported editor, and why ArbCom's task in this situation isn't to evaluate only האופה's conduct and close the original AE report with or without a sanction against האופה. If we aren't able to evaluate a single party's conduct, we aren't able to hear a case either. And if we are, a case can be requested at WP:ARC, with a list of desired parties, evidence of disruptive behavior of each, evidence of prior dispute resolution attempts about each, and without a general unenforceable aspersion-casting "we need to remove everyone from the topic area". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- I find SFR's proposals to be exciting ideas and suggest that at a minimum we propose them as structural reforms in the area, and pronto. I think there's an immediate problem that needs to be solved: this AE report. Resolving it is our necessary goal. I'm not opposed to holding a case here, and think that we probably should given that AE has done exactly what we told them they could and should do: refer cases to us. As much as I'm remiss to hold PIA5, it seems increasingly unavoidable. The world's most intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem. Should this AE become PIA5 though? That's where I'm undecided and would be interested in more feedback on whether we can resolve the narrow origins of this AE report without also having to make it PIA5. It may benefit us to consider PIA5 independent of this AE request. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
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KlayCax
KlayCax (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from post-1992 United States politics, broadly construed. KlayCax is also warned that their conduct in the area of infoboxes has fallen short of community expectations. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning KlayCax
KlayCax has started several different discussions and made actual edits pushing for third-party candidates (especially RFKJR) to be added to the infobox. The July 21st discussion was started while discussions on the matter were already ongoing ([34][35]). They’ve continuously been trying to add Kennedy to the infobox, even though the matter has already been resolved [36][37]. The addition of Cornell West went against the ballot access and polling criteria spelled out in the consensus for state infoboxes. We shouldn’t have to have a discussion with KlayCax every month explaining that there’s no consensus for adding Kennedy at this stage. Prcc27 (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning KlayCaxStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by KlayCaxResponse to Prcc27's initial AE: To summarize:
Finally, many editors in mid-July stated that the issue needed to be revisited. The other aspects are clearly taken out of context and not rules violations. KlayCax (talk) 07:46, 28 July 2024 (UTC) Response to Prcc27's reply: The RFC was this. 1.) I explained my reasoning at the time. Both Jill Stein and Cornell West have polled at or above 5% in Michigan. There was never a consensus on whether 5% should be an average or individual polls (since RFK has been the only one to get both it's not been approached at all outside of our conversations) and the matter was left to editor's discretion. 2.) At the time, local newspapers wrongly reported West's ballot access statement as a fact in their own voice, as West had stated that he had been certified w/ ballot access at the time. (The newspapers in question were of course considered WP: RS and I was working off of that.) In terms of Jill Stein, she has ballot access in Michigan as a member of the Green Party. 3.) Per WP: ONUS it was not reinstated. KlayCax (talk) 21:48, 28 July 2024 (UTC) Response to third Prcc27: Not true. On May 13th, "ballot access" was seen by many editors as having "had enough petitions" (as clearly visible), it was reverted, a talk page discussion ensured, and it was not reinstated by me per WP: ONUS. KlayCax (talk) 23:53, 29 July 2024 (UTC) Response to Muboshgu: Muboshgu's claims that I was violating WP: NPOV in the J.D. Vance and Kamala Harris articles. In response to this: I was not pushing any kind or sort of "left-wing" point of view in the J.D. Vance article — you seem to be arguing that I'm both violating WP: NPOV by promoting a disproportionate left (on Vance article) AND right-wing perspective (on Kamala article), and with all due respect: that doesn't make sense — by noting that he has been influenced by the Dark Enlightenment movement, a fact and description that he has also claimed and has been widely reported. It certainly does look like vandalism when it's not trimmed but removed from the article entirely. The entire notion that it is POV-pushing seems to be based on the claim that "his opinions on X or Y are unpopular so they shouldn't be in the article". That is of course not what WP: NPOV means. WP: NPOV is about reflecting the opinion of reliable sources. Not "doesn't improve or diminish their standing in the eyes of the median voter". Reliable sources have mentioned J.D. Vance's ties to the "dissent/edgy online right." It certainly does deserve mention on Wikipedia and reactionary thought is by no means too "obscure" a concept or too difficult to understand for readers. At the time, there was already a Wikilinks for readers who want more detail. I reached out on talk - as you noted - and a majority wanted it kept. Many American conservatives do use Marxism as an insult against those who hold left-wing economic positions. This is however clearly not what my edits were. Donald J. Harris is considered an economist in the post-Keynesian and Marxian schools of thought. His primary influences are Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx, is labeled a post-Keynesian and Marxian economist by multiple sources, and it's not POV-pushing to mention it, nor You left out that I also added at the same time a statement that, which undercuts the idea that Donald J. Harris influenced Kamala to any significant extent. (Donald J. Harris and Kamala Harris are notoriously not close and differ widely on politics.) The difference of the edit can be seen here showing that it was added in at the same time the diffs cited by him were. Are Marxists fans of the Democratic Party? No, of course not. All of this, again, is just differing editorial perspectives that led to discussion. KlayCax (talk) 21:16, 28 July 2024 (UTC) Response to SashiRolls: Edits in question.
Sourcing in question.
Final concluding notes: I'm requesting that the closing admin go through every edit cited before coming to a AE decision. I'm happy to explain any edit that is seem as problematic if need be through private (email) or public response (here). I do not believe that there was a violation of Wikipedia rules within the differences cited. Many of the individuals commenting have made personal attacks, false WP:SOCKPUPPET accusations, and similar things against me over the past year, but per WP: CIVILITY/WP: AGF guidelines I've been hesitant about mentioning this until now, as not sure what I can write on this outside of vague references. I've reached the max word limit (~at 1500 albeit going slightly over) to respond to every claim but it should be clear by the above that the claims are baseless and throwing the kitchen sink. KlayCax (talk) 09:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC) Final concluding notes: Part II Expected the above to be my final message but the updated August 9, 2024 "incident" is once again highly deceptive, @Red-tailed sock:. Prcc27 unilaterally changed the infobox box inclusion criteria and then retroactively punished me for the supposed "violation". If you notice: the original "consensus" that he linked was one poll with 5% ballot access. He then wanted to modify it so it was a "consistent polling criteria" of 3 polls above 5% with a 5%+ average. I found that permissible and even logical. (Despite it not being the original agreed upon criteria.) Now, he reports me retroactively for violating a "criteria" that was not specified or outlined or notified, saying that only those with Harris as a candidate are valid, saying Willing to respond to any seemingly problematic edits if a closer has a question. For now: I feel like I explained all of the cited edits and I'm completely burnt out of this conversation. KlayCax (talk) 07:05, 10 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Qutlook
Statement by David A
Statement by Left guide
Statement by MuboshguKlayCax has made disruptive POV edits at the 2024 US presidential election page as discussed. They have also been disruptive on other articles related to the election, including JD Vance, edit warring over some obscure political views. See Talk:JD Vance#Should there be a summary of Vance's ideology in the lead? for discussion they started after they were reverted. Also they made accusations of vandalism when a user removed information that should have been removed, and "apparent accident deletion/vandalism from WP: SPA. (?)". They also tried to add to Donald J. Harris and Kamala Harris that Donald Harris was involved in Marxism, which fails verification and is a significant POV term used by the right wing in today's US political situation.[41][42] See Talk:Kamala Harris#Removal of Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris from the lead for more of that discussion. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Statement by GreatCaesarsGhost
Statement by Super Goku VThere seems to be some confusion about the RfC that was mentioned due to how it was linked to, so to clear that up it is my understanding that the referenced RfC is "RFC: What should the criteria of inclusion be for the infobox? (Question 1)" --Super Goku V (talk) 03:22, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Response to Left guide: Yes, that seems to be from this archived talk page discussion. Qutlook said at the time, Response to Qutlook: Gotcha. I will note above that the archived talk page discussion is still relevant to this discussion. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:13, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Response to KlayCax:
Response to Prcc27: I understand the criteria at 2024 United States presidential election having Kennedy listed in the infobox, but I guess not for the other states. This is the discussion you are referring to, correct? If so, can you clarify what you meant by Statement by SashiRollsI agree that the problem is not related to the topic area. I'm not sure I would agree that KlayCax is entirely harmless after having had to spend a lot of time cleaning up after them. KCx is known for edit summaries which hide the nature of their edits:
KCx also seems to have trouble identifying reliable sources, beyond the Deccan Herald example cited above.
Finally, KCx has a habit of creating RfC & RM that are snow-closed against the position they were promoting: Cf. here and here and insists on long discussions about RfCs past they disagree with (see the context of the 26 February 2024 diff above). I grant some of these diffs are a bit dated, but a pattern is clearly visible over the past year...-- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by XavierGreenThe RFC stated that any candidate who "generally has 5% in poll aggregators" and ballot access to 270 electoral college votes should be included. Myself and other editors have shown proof that he has met the RFC consensus. There are a number of editors who are vociferously commenting on the talk page making arguments that are directly contrary to the RFC.XavierGreen (talk) 21:16, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Dan MurphyI don't think the xaviergreen account should be making contributions in the uninvolved administrators area.Dan Murphy (talk) 01:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Scorpions1325I do not have much experience with this editor. I only just now found out that they were referred to this venue. My only substantial interactions with this editor came in the history of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization last year. I don't quite remember everything that happened, but I noticed that they insisted on adding WP:OR and unsourced content to the lede of the article. They also had no respect for WP:MEDRS. From what I have observed, this editor is disruptive in many of the areas they edit in, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Scorpions1325 (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC) Result concerning KlayCax
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O.maximov
O.maximov (talk · contribs) is warned against inserting content without appropriate sources in support in contravention of policies on no original research and verifiability. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning O.maximov
On Aug 3, O.maximov reinstated one of ABHammad's edits. (ABHammad received a 0RR restriction at Jul 31 20:52, see #ABHammad.)
Other similar issues:
My first complaint was at ABHammad's talk page (O.maximov was pinged): User talk:ABHammad#Enough already. My second complaint was at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani in July, which I notified O.maximov about on their user talk page. My third complaint was at #ABHammad (O.maximov was pinged). Aside from the tag-team edit warring, the edit summaries are not accurate, and the edits push a pro-Israeli POV. Levivich (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
No previous sanctions AFAIK, but multiple user talk page threads: User talk:O.maximov#March 2024, User talk:O.maximov#May 2024, User talk:O.maximov#WP:1RR at 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, User talk:O.maximov#June 2024, User talk:O.maximov#prior accounts, User talk:O.maximov#Editing against a clear consensus
Re Vanamonde93's question about talk page edits:
Something else I noticed today. I initially skipped over these diffs because of the innocuous edit summaries, but on further look, at Israel lobby in the United Kingdom on Aug 1, O.max basically rewrote it to turn it into a conspiracy theory -- as in, the existence of an Israel lobby in the UK is a conspiracy theory: 1, 2, 3; there are more edits, but those three are indicative. Search the article (any revision) for "conspiracy" and note that the sources do not even come close to supporting this notion. It's a complete misrepresentation of sources and some of the most blatant POV-pushing I've seen, even in the context of the blatant POV-pushing I've been complaining about lately. Levivich (talk) 16:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning O.maximovStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by O.maximovLevivich, I respect different thinking. You must respect that I think differently. If your purpose is for me to say that Palestinians fled or were expelled then there is no problem. I have no problem saying this and other stuff. It is a problem that you post on my page just a link and expect me to press the link. It is a problem that first thing I get from Nableezy is that he asked me if I have prior accounts. The answer is no. I don't know why you behave like this. You have a problem with a person, you speak to the person. I invite you to my talk page to discuss things. I saw Levivich posted stuff on 1RR. Bro, you are a senior editor. You know it's not 1RR. I also did my best to kindly explain to Unbandito who posted it why it's not a 1RR violation. All the warnings you posted are really unrelated. Nableezy asks me if I have another account. I told him - no. Here someone says I edited against consensus, I say - look at the page! You see many people are saying different things! You posted a message I got because I was not writing encyclopedically on Economics, I understood and improved my writing. But Levivich, why don't you post on my talk page and explain? Nableezy can you explain which edit I did is against consensus and which consensus (You posted discussions)? I have no problem talking, look at all my talking in Israel and in other articles. I have no problem to talk. If you wish to collaborate as I do, you should treat others with respect, and this does not help to improve the temperature. O.maximov (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by NableezyWe had a previous consensus on this material and edit warring without a new one should result in sanctions for disruptive editing. Full stop. nableezy - 19:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sean.hoylandCheckusers should be run on O.maximov and ABHammad. Regarding "It is a problem that first thing I get from Nableezy is that he asked me if I have prior accounts. The answer is no." From a purely technical perspective the question seems reasonable to me. When I look at the proximity of the O.maximov account to other accounts using a variety of different techniques, I would like to understand why the closest matches are to blocked accounts with a single master, here and here, for example. Perhaps these are false positives, but if they are not, this AE report is a waste of time and sanctions will have no impact. Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:53, 6 August 2024 (UTC) Regarding "I find the calls for CU as unconvincing...". A reason to conduct a CU is that the amount of work required to process the AE report, and the effectiveness of potential sanctions are dependent on the result of a CU. It's about efficiency and the optimal ordering of actions. If an account is found to be a disposable sockpuppet account, there is no need to spend time evaluating their editing or imposing sanctions. Assuming good faith is not the optimal approach in all cases. Other approaches can have more utility. I would argue, like FortunateSons, that it should be standard practice for AE reports once the report has been accepted as worth spending time on. The potential costs associated certain actions, like edit warring, are different for socks and non-socks. So, the likelihoods of the behavior are different. Willingness to edit war is itself an indictor that an account may be a sock because the cost of sanctions to them are zero. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by ABHammadThis is the second time this month I have seen Levivich doing what seems like a weaponization of this noticeboard against editors who do not share their point of view based on their politics (and they are unsuprisingly joined by others). Previously, they accused me and other editors of tag teaming—a very serious allegation—without providing substantial evidence. While I received a 0RR sanction (rightfully), their tag teaming allegations were dismissed. Going over the new allegations, I don't see anything close to a sanctionable violation of anything. It's all content disputes that can and should be solved through discussions. But, I don't see any attempt by Levivich to do so, nor did they even try to discuss the issues with O.maximov personally. And the above claims about 'previous consensus on this material' are clearly false (if anything is happening on ARBPIA right now is forced controversial changes that take place without any attempt to achieve consensus). I think it might be time to consider sanctions of the WP:Boomerang sort. ABHammad (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by FortunateSonsI think the suggestion of a CU is reasonable, and really should be standard practice in any topic area as a contentious as this one once there is reasonable suspicion. Having said that, I’m not seeing conduct that goes beyond the ‘standard’ biased editing, with decent talk page engagement and no “horrible” conduct. While I’m not inherently opposed to banning for such conduct, a ban for that might catch some of our more experienced editors too, and despite some people’s well-reasoned objections, I don’t think banning most frequent contributors and starting fresh is likely to do us any good. As such, biased editors (and this seems to be closer to bias than ‘true’ partisanship) are the unavoidable norm. Regarding the filer, while I wouldn’t say that we are at a boomerang yet, they should be mindful about weaponising AE; considering the past talk page discussion, a sockpuppet investigation would have been the more productive avenue for this. FortunateSons (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by fivebyLevivich, take a look at the "Politics" section for the version prior. It has Tam Dalyell's "cabal of Jewish advisers", Jenny Tonge's "financial grips", and Chris Davies' "enjoyed wallowing in her own filth" to start. I don't think you can claim that the article is merely concerned with the existence of an Israel lobby. O.max did not write that section, "the existence of an Israel lobby in the UK is a conspiracy theory" is your framing and near as i can tell not his, and if not limited to 'existence' or UK there are a number of sources which will use the words "conspiracy theory". Vanamonde93, ScottishFinnishRadish what exactly is so extremely concerning about this diff, or the other two—no doubt bad edits to a bad article—which call for a TBAN for those alone? fiveby(zero) 07:42, 7 August 2024 (UTC) fiveby(zero) 07:42, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by xDanielxThe accusations of whitewashing, dogwhistles, or Nakba denial based on Result concerning O.maximov
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3E1I5S8B9RF7
3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk · contribs) is warned against violating WP:NOTFORUM in their talk page comments. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning 3E1I5S8B9RF7
WP:NOTFORUM/WP:BLP/WP:NOR, Round 1, at Talk:Gaza genocide: "If dead, would Mohammed Deif be a victim of genocide?" I collapsed and archived that thread. Round 2: "Should Hamas fighters be included in the genocide death count?" I also collapsed and archived that thread, posted a template warning and alert on the user talk page, and started a new thread about the same general topic (what is the genocide death toll according to RS), with sources, without the FORUM/BLP/NOR violations. Round 3, in the thread I started: 1, 2; the second one is after the CTOP awareness alert. Across all 3 rounds, they brought exactly one source (in Round 2), and that source does not contain the words "Deif" or "genocide". Otherwise, no sources. 11 out of 12 of their most-recent (Aug 3-7) contribs are the above FORUM/BLP/NOR violations. In sum, 3E1 is persistently using this article talk page to discuss whether certain individuals/groups are innocent enough to be considered victims of genocide, without any real engagement with RS. This violates our FORUM/BLP/NOR policies. Note that there has recently been an increase in press coverage of this article (see the press template at the top of the article talk page for links), and with it an increase in disruption, and the talk page is currently ECP'd as a result. Levivich (talk) 18:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
@SFR/Van: Yes, it's the only one after the ARBPIA alert. There were previous alerts in other topic areas (see their UTP); I don't know if that counts as awareness under the new rules or not. I don't see this as "the first after a CTOP alert" so much as "the 11th in a row this week." The CTOP awareness alert is the reason this is at AE instead of ANI, but otherwise it's not terribly relevant in my view. CTOP awareness is a prerequisite for CTOP sanctions, but I don't think any CTOP sanctions are necessarily merited here. This doesn't rise to the level of a TBAN or anything that serious in my view; though disruptive, it's limited to one article, and I think this is the first complaint against an established editor. While they're not listening to me, they'll probably listen to admins. Levivich (talk) 15:38, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning 3E1I5S8B9RF7Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by 3E1I5S8B9RF7My comments weren't a forum, they were relevant questions to the controversial decision in the article to include all Hamas militants, regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries, as victims of genocide, regardless if they fell as armed fighters in a battle. I can understand if this was narrowed down to only civilian fatalities, but the current article warrants a detailed explanation. I just wanted to hear a rational explanation if this can be accepted and hear other users' thoughts. My "inconvenient" question still stands unanswered; can terrorists be considered victims of genocide?--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 15:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by SelfstudierI get that the reported editor has a beef with the article, having also initiated MR on it. That's not a license to forum the talk page, repeatedly refusing to take the hint. Think this editor should maybe stay away from the page for a while. Selfstudier (talk) 18:57, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
.@3E1I5S8B9RF7: See here. The simplest answer to your (and BM) pointy question. If the killings are because of who they are, rather than because of what they did, then they may be victims. That question will be answered in due course by the court. Selfstudier (talk) 11:36, 9 August 2024 (UTC) @BilledMammal: The difference being that both Buidhe and myself are providing sources aimed at improving the article. Your attempting to hat them is as well rather tedious, I must say. Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
This is just a lost cause.Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2024 (UTC) @ScottishFinnishRadish: I am at a bit of a loss to understand the thinking here, this is just straight up soapboxing, including while we are still at the boards, I don't really understand why other editors are even bothering to reply to it.Selfstudier (talk) 13:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by xDanielxThis isn't WP:NOTFORUM territory at all, since 3E1I5S8B9RF7 was raising concerns about content in an effort to improve it. Levivich closing the discussions as such seems inappropriate. It's also not WP:OR to question whether sources are being interpreted or summarized correctly. One doesn't need new sources to question the application of the current ones. While WP:BLP applies to all namespaces, in practice its sourcing requirements are not enforced to the letter outside of article space. Levivich's view is that the casualty figure is properly sourced (edit: or rather that proper sources exist and can be added), but this isn't entirely clear. BilledMammal argued that it itself involves OR, since the available sources don't explicitly give a casualty figure for Gaza genocide. Giving a casualty figure for the war, and then a separate statement that a genocide is occurring, is not the same thing; one can believe that a genocide is occurring without sharing the view that combatant deaths are part of that genocide. This seems like a normal content dispute, with no legitimate policy-based reason for closing the discussions or bringing it to AE. — xDanielx T/C\R 14:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sean.hoyland"This isn't WP:NOTFORUM territory at all"...patently false and not helpful at all in my view. Rewarding easily avoided WP:TALKNO violations is counterproductive in PIA and has a cost. Editors who try to convince people that they have figured out how Wikipedia should count victims of an alleged genocide based on a personal decision procedure that makes sense to them should not be taken seriously. It's bordering on a competence issue. Buried inside 3E1I5S8B9RF7's unhelpful musings and irrelevant personal opinions there is a simple and reasonable point about statistics that could easily have been expressed by "pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies", the key word there being policies. No need to start fires to get attention. I fully support Levivich's entirely sensible actions. I'm sure 3E1I5S8B9RF7 is a perfectly decent editor, but no one needs to hear about how they think victim counting should work. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by BilledMammalIt feels a little unfair to focus on 3E1I5S8B9RF7 when this is a problem on both sides. The editors advocating that we count every casualty as a victim of genocide are doing the same thing that 3E1I5S8B9RF7 is, by trying to convince people that they have figured out how Wikipedia should count victims of an alleged genocide based on a personal decision procedure that makes sense to them - the sources presented in support of that claim don't say that X many people are victims, only that X many people have died in the war. BilledMammal (talk) 22:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by BuidheI posted evidence that the assumption that genocide victims are innocent and targeted for no reason apart from ethnic hatred is a misconception not found in international law. Also, that the attempted elimination of Hamas is described as part of the genocide by reliable sources. I agree with selfstudier that this is different from arguing the opposite based not on any reliable sources but only from personal opinions / misconceptions. (t · c) buidhe 19:46, 10 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning 3E1I5S8B9RF7
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Bluethricecreamman
Everyone should stop edit warring, long term and otherwise. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Bluethricecreamman
Violating WP:1RR and edit warring at Genocide of indigenous peoples by repeatedly reinstating the same disputed content:
They refused to self-revert, saying that because they self-reverted 13:21, 6 August 2024 they were free to re-implement the edit. However, my understanding is that self-reverting, particularly when done only after the self-revert is requested, doesn't permit editors to ignore the most recent revert when re-implementing the edit and doing so comes across as WP:GAMING. It is relevant that an RfC was held on including this content, which closed as "no consensus". As the content was only in the article for six weeks, insufficient to establish it as the status quo, this means it should be excluded until a consensus is found to include it and editors should not be reinstating it even when done without edit warring or 1RR violations.
Discussion concerning BluethricecreammanStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by Bluethricecreamman
Statement by ABHammadI also noticed these problematic diffs, which seem to be part of a broader recent trend where disputed content is repeatedly inserted through edit warring in ARBPIA, despite being reverted multiple times. When asked to stop and wait for consensus, there are editors who reintroduce the disputed content anyway and insist that discussions should focus on whether the new content should be removed, rather than if it should be added in the first place. In some cases, they claim consensus exists, even when reverts indicate otherwise. Here are a few examples for these re-adds,leading to controversial content now appearing in the article:
This seems why this may be part of the reason why Wikipedia is not pereceived as trustworthy anymore by some outside media when it comes to ARBPIA. ABHammad (talk) 08:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Left guide@Bluethricecreamman: No, that noticeboard is only for normal edit-warring subject to 3RR in non-contentious topics. For edit-warring in designated contentious topics with stricter revert rules, this is the appropriate venue. Left guide (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2024 (UTC) All else being equal, WP:ONUS policy clause stipulates that disputed material stays out of an article unless and until there is a consensus for its inclusion:Left guide (talk) 20:19, 9 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Selfstudier@BilledMammal: 6 weeks? Where's that from? (also see Wikipedia_talk:Consensus#WP:NOCONSENSUS where myself and others aren't in agreement with your rather simplistic take on this matter). As for who started it, that would have been yourself on 5 August, a month and a half (!) after the RFc closure on 25 June? Selfstudier (talk) 19:22, 9 August 2024 (UTC) Result concerning Bluethricecreamman
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PeleYoetz
Moot, as a companion thread was referred to the Arbitration Committee. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:55, 24 August 2024 (UTC) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning PeleYoetz
New three-month old account, same old edit wars.
Outside of the editors I've reported to AE, in this topic area, right now, I don't believe you will find other examples of what this report shows: two editors, "Editor A" and "Editor B", where Editor B:
We can even drop #6, I still don't think there's another example outside of what I've posted at AE lately. @Vanamonde93: Would it change your mind if, instead of three times, it was six times? Here are three more examples: A, B; A, B; A, B. As a bonus, here's a seventh example, this time the order is reversed: B, A. This is not normal editing; this isn't something other editors do. But if we allow this to happen, if we say this is an OK thing to do, then others will start doing it, too. Levivich (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning PeleYoetzStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by PeleYoetzHello everyone, I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. Most of my Wikipedia activity is focused on tourism and food-related topics. I've only made a few edits regarding the conflict, and since then, I've felt increasingly targeted. It began with Selfstudier questioning on my talk page how I found the UNRWA page, a topic that made headlines in my home country of Israel the same day (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APeleYoetz&diff=1239101772&oldid=1236281410). Then came this report by Levivich, which I still don't fully understand, and now I've received a strange question from Nableezy on my talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APeleYoetz&diff=1240399865&oldid=1239832259). I’m getting the impression that my contributions on the conflict are simply unwelcome. If I've made any mistakes or violated Wikipedia policies, I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know. I've read through many pages before editing, and I hope I haven't done anything wrong. Thank you. PeleYoetz (talk) 10:26, 18 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by SelfstudierUntil recently I had no real involvement with this editor other than giving an awareness notice in July. Just to add to Levivich diffs: At Majdal Shams, First of two edits (inconsequential second edit a minute after that) to the article, nothing on talk page, arrives 2 minutes after האופה (aka HaOfa) edit and changes the SD from Town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights -> Druze town in the northern Golan Heights, an obvious POV edit. At Masada myth, shows up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Masada myth same day as nominated by HaOfa, no prior article edits or at talk page. Agrees with HaOfa. Same pattern at Israeli allegations against UNRWA, no prior involvement and then consecutive reverts, HaOfa then PeleYoetz. It is doubtful that this pattern is coincidental. PeleYoetz role appears to be as back up for HaOfa, to support their actions.
Statement by Sean.hoylandI wish PeleYoetz had decided to say nothing rather than write about being targeted, having strange questions and being unwelcome. Now I need to ask whether it matters that an editor with ~1050 edits spread over ~380 different pages has 175 pages in common with topic banned and blocked editor User:Gilabrand?
Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning PeleYoetz
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האופה
There is a consensus among uninvolved administrators to refer this whole thread to the whole Arbitration Committee. I will file the request for amendment shortly. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:32, 17 August 2024 (UTC) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning האופה
Maybe presenting the diffs in a different way will make a difference. This and the other recent reports show HaOfa not just edit warring (my definition: repeating edits without consensus) but edit warring to remove from Wikipedia statements saying that:
At some articles, they edit war claiming (edit summaries diff'd/quoted in hatted section above) "ONUS", "FORCIBLY introduced", "start an RFC", "the rfc has just started, wait for it to conclude"; at the same time at another article, they repeatedly reinstate a bold change during an RFC. They incorrectly claimed "last stable version" while reinstating recent bold changes. They made changes with the edit summary "no consensus" while reinstating changes that had no consensus. Sometimes they did this at articles where they never edited or discussed before or since, like at multiple articles to reinstate a user-generated map with an unreliable source that failed verification. In short: months of repeating their own and others' edits across multiple articles, violating WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:EW, with incorrect and contradictory edit summaries. We don't need a panel of a dozen arbs for this. Reviewing admins can look at these diffs and say (1) yes/no do they violate V, NPOV, NOR, EW, or other policies, and (2) if so, what should be done if anything to prevent future violations. It's hard to answer the second question without hearing from the person being reported. The person being reported doesn't have a reason to say anything until the first question is answered. If admins answer the first question as yes, there's no need to go to arbcom or anywhere else; see what HaOfa has to say about it. If the admins say no, then there's no need to go anywhere else, just close the report saying so. If admins disagree about whether it's yes or no, then it might be worth seeking additional input at another venue (although the decision of which venue should be left up to the editor(s) who intend to volunteer the time to present evidence). As for the conduct of other editors, I strongly agree with Nableezy's comment that FWIW, from my perspective, AE has worked better than I expected so far, and I don't see why it shouldn't continue to work for this report or any other similar report. Levivich (talk) 01:43, 15 August 2024 (UTC) Edited Levivich (talk) 04:16, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning האופהStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by האופהStatement by BluethricecreammanSee also participation in this edit war [78] (same one as the case involving me above) Bluethricecreamman (talk) 00:38, 12 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by ABHammadTime to get upfront? This is the latest of multiple reports by the same editor, where unsubstantiated claims are being expressed repeatedly in what may feel like a constant threat to potentially scare off editors with different views. A substantial amount of the diffs presented are valid attempts to restore the last consensus versions in the face of constant additions of disputed content through edit warring regardless of consensus and in violation of WP:ONUS. Although it is best to assume goodfaith, this is certainly becoming cumbersome and perhaps even humiliating for these editors. We may need to consider a potential WP:BOOMERANG in this case. ABHammad (talk) 13:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Selfstudier@ScottishFinnishRadish: What's that "warned for aspersions" about, please? Selfstudier (talk) 15:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
@ScottishFinnishRadish: That's a pretty fair misrepresentation of what has occurred at the UNRWA allegations article, the first diff is me doing what was agreed to in talk page discussions that have been taking place over a long period of time, it wasn't a revert and no-one was objecting to it until Haofa/PeleYoetz showed up together out of the blue to revert it.Selfstudier (talk) 15:35, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
If we are going to do this properly, let's look at this editor interaction thing, I threw myself and Iskandar into it for 1 January to date (this year, not 2022), What's to see? Well, the first noticeable thing is that a large majority of the results are talk pages. And RSN. So let's leave those alone and pick out an article instead, the first one we come to is South Africa's genocide case against Israel, that's a controversial one, so let's have a look a the detailed timeline for that. Oh wait, I made 109 edits but Iskandar only made 2, should we discard it or take a closer look at the 2? Let's see, what about Zionism article, 9 edits by Iskandar and 4 by me. There you go, I put it out there for anyone that wants to build their case against me. You could try it with others besides Iskandar, Nableezy, etcetera. I'll wait. Selfstudier (talk) 13:27, 13 August 2024 (UTC) @ScottishFinnishRadish: If tag teaming is demonstrated, it should be sanctioned. One more time, waiting for anyone that wishes to bring a case against me for tag teaming using your diffs or any others. Selfstudier (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC) I think it is difficult in certain cases to entirely separate content issues from behavior, however desirable that might be in theory. There is certainly a continuity of both subject matter and editors between the two cases here (one case, really) and the Nishidani case, for example. Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC) @ScottishFinnishRadish: The content review, the link for "On the apartheid edit..." is wrong, I think? Selfstudier (talk) 18:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC) @BilledMammal: That it? Selfstudier (talk) 10:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC) @ScottishFinnishRadish: Levivich and myself did discuss such a filing during the Nishidani case but it never quite got off the ground. Not sure we're quite there with this either, part of the problem is that a case ostensibly about tag teaming has, somewhat unnecessarily imo, turned into another sort of case by osmosis or something. Not hearing from the editors in question doesn't help. If the party line is that tag teaming is too difficult to pin down, let's just say that and then we know. But let's not pretend that we're sending this case (or two cases) to Arbcom. If we did want a generalized Arbcom case, this wouldn't be it in my view.Selfstudier (talk) 11:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by fivebySFR, edits which restore the "various causes" language following IOHANNVSVERVS' comments here probably deserve a more critical view. fiveby(zero) 16:26, 12 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by IOHANNVSVERVSI can add this quite balatant POV-push edit [79] where HaOfa unilaterally removed the Israel Defense Forces from the infobox of Sabra and Shatila massacre. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Sean.hoylandThe Zionism article has been targeted by numerous people using deception via sockpuppetry. Examples include
So we know a) the article is being targeted by sockpuppets, b) socks edit war and c) the costs of sanctions for disposable accounts is precisely zero. Any decisions based on the notion of balance, sides/bothsidesism etc. should presumably take this into account because "sides" can't include accounts that are not allowed to edit at all. This is another reason why accounts reported (and commenting) at AE should have checkusers run on them, to avoid arriving at a false balance. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Iskandar323With regards to the examples pulled up below regarding aligned edits by myself and Self, isn't the issue raised above by Levivich more about actual slow-motion edit warring, not just joint appearances on talk pages? I'm not saying that editors don't naturally overlap on watched pages, but there's quite a significant material difference between edit wars on page and contributions on talk. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:15, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Dan MurphyLast stable version, last stable version, last stable version. No consensus, no consensus, no consensus. These folks need better material. And saying a thing does not make it so. (Point being, the constant repetition of stock phrases - ones clearly at odds with the facts, in my opinion - by fly by reverting account is telling you something) Dan Murphy (talk) 21:46, 13 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Nableezy
Barkeep49 I had no intention of engaging in this request at all until an edit of mine was raised without my being notified. I only engaged at all because another editor was courteous enough to ping me to draw my attention to it. But Ill collapse this entire section and we can all get back to pretending that all reverts are the same and anybody reverting anything is edit-warring and/or battlegrounding. I wish the admins here would have learned something from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani, where an admin was focused on "Civility concerns, Battleground concerns" and less so on the obvious bad-faith editing in which throw-away accounts are used to edit in direct opposition of what is supposedly the core policy of this place, one that is non-negotiable. But that lesson does not appear to have taken hold. Ah well, take whatever action you think necessary. And I mean that, Ive long thought you were one of the more judicious and considered admins here, so if you feel my presence on this project is a detriment then you should remove me from it. nableezy - 22:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I’d request this go to arbcom so we can examine all editors conduct here, especially if we are going to be ignoring the actual POV pushing and tendentious editing occurring in this topic area. nableezy - 16:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by BilledMammalSince Selfstudier requested it, I reviewed some of their and Iskandar323's edits from the past month, and found the following tag teaming/mild edit warring, as defined above:
They have also engaged in POV pushing. This is most obvious in "massacre" RM's since the start of the war, where different standards are applied to attacks against Palestinians and attacks against Israelis.
Iskandar323 in particular makes their POV pushing very clear. For example, at at Attack on Holit they said we should follow the sources, and that the arguments for massacre See also this discussion, where they say we should counter systematic bias in reliable sources in relation to the use of massacre. Selfstudier has done similar, although it isn't as blatant; at Nir Oz attack they said that we should only call an event a massacre when (I would also like to commend Vice regent for their position in these discussions; they have frequently participated in them and have consistently taken a neutral line.) BilledMammal (talk) 06:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Zero0000To editor BilledMammal:, where did Iskandar323 support "massacre" at Al-Tabaeen school attack? Zerotalk 08:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning האופה
ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Lima Bean Farmer
Lima Bean Farmer's topic ban on post-1992 American politics is successfully appealed, with a note that there will be little patience for any resumption of disruption. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:13, 30 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
Statement by Lima Bean FarmerI am looking to appeal a topic ban on post-1992 American politics. These case would be more open and shut if there weren’t a more recent edit to this ban. The original ban was over 3 years ago for post-1932 American politics but was changed to post-1992 American politics over a year ago. I would like to edit in this section a bit more freely, and I have not faced any sanctions or other administrative action since then. I have made large structural edits to pages such as List of productions impacted by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and List of convicted war criminals, demonstrating my ability to work with other editors to come to consensus while also using reliable sources when and where appropriate. In summary, since my last appeal, I have demonstrated more frequent Wikipedia editing that follows guidelines, helps productive editing, and understanding consensus for the past year. Having knowledge in the topic of post-1992 politics, having this topic ban lifted would allow me greater freedom for productive editing. Thank you for your decision in advance! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 04:50, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Dreamy JazzBased on a quick look from their contributions and what others have said at WP:ARCA, it seems that Lima Bean Farmer has been editing constructively elsewhere. However, the text of this appeal does not directly address the reasons why the indefinite topic ban was placed. I would, personally, like to see some acknowledgement of what led up to the topic ban and a commitment to not repeat the mistakes of the past. For example, in their last appeal they said
Statement by (involved editor 1)Statement by (involved editor 2)Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Lima Bean FarmerStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by (uninvolved editor 1)Statement by (uninvolved editor 2)Result of the appeal by Lima Bean Farmer
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Lemabeta
Lemabeta is indefinitely topic-banned from the history of the Caucasus and its cultural heritage, broadly construed. signed, Rosguill talk 15:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Lemabeta
Lemabeta has been pushing heavy Georgian POV in Armenia-Georgia articles, while downplaying Armenia/Armenians, WP:OR changes of sourced material / adding WP:OR doubt to sources, disregard of sources, or removal of sourced material. I think it’s time AE reviews Lemabeta’s behavior; I’ve tried to talk with them but to no avail, usually they revert and restore their original problematic edits, or push new POV.
Discussion concerning LemabetaStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by Lemabeta1)Cyril Toumanoff work is cited in the source, while Cyril himself never says that the Tumanishvili house was an Armenian house, but rather he says that the origins of Tumanishvili house go back to Mamikonians who Cyril considers to have originated in Georgia specifically in Zaneti region, he in his work mentions that the root of the last name Mamikonian - Mamik comes from the Georgian language theory which is also accepted by the famous Armenian historian - Nicholas Adontz, they both connected the roots of Mamikonians and therefore roots of Tumanishvili to Georgian - Lazs .[1] [2] Which was deleted by the individual reporting me. 2-3-4)The Pro-Armenian POV pushing is visible from the 2nd reference link he inserted---> [91] as you can see the he wrote that the "The Albano-Armenian theory is mostly accepted today, Adarnase being the first independent sovereign of Hereti, which was most likely an Armenian territory beforehand and followed the Monophysitism of Albanians and Armenians instead of the Christian Orthodoxy of the Bagrationis" meanwhile adding a source of Brosset, Marie-Félicité who lived in 19th century, by what standards is this considered as a "modern historians" - plural. Moreover, theory of Brosset is denounced today as he wasn't aware of the medieval works of historians attributing Adarnase of Hereti to Chosroid dynasty of Caucasus, which i inserted in the newer changes, which was completely deleted by the individual reporting me.therefore theory that isn't accepted by most, shouldn't be in the leading. While Heretian Georgians are still presentHeretians or Ingiloys descendants of a legendary Heros, he keeps changing the Kingdom of Hereti ethnic affiliation to "South Caucasian" to a broader term than Georgian is. Meanwhile in modern historiography Kingdom of Hereti is considered as a Georgian monarchy 5) reference which he inserted [92] --- Since when is NPOV wording of a sentence considered as Armenophobia? But he wants to make it look like Armenian and Alan were the only reason of success of Kingdom of Georgia. 6)-7) Now let's talk about the deletion of sourced material by the individual reporting me. [93] Whole sourced etymology section was removed, because it didn't fit the pro-Armenian narrative he's pushing. Moreover, on Chechili geographical indication is registered in Georgia, protecting the origins of Chechili, which i wrote according to the articles such as Champagne. Chechili origins and GI are protected in more than 30 countries. 8)Melikishvili-Melikov was never known as-Melikyan.Melikov was a russified form of Melikishvili after it was written by Heraclius II as part of Georgian nobility in treaty of Georgievsk[3] 9)Wikipedia:No personal attacks violation by him "So you have nothing else to do but to edit war again after posting a ridiculous WP:OR rant on a clear scholar"[94] also violations are seen here by using offensive language[95]
Moreover, in the talk page [[97]] he had a problem over Kingdom of Hereti being refered to as a Georgian kingdom, thats where the problem lies, thats why he was writing King as "South Caucasian" and Kingdom as "South Caucasian" kingdom. If you want to topic ban me, do it. But my honor in front of god is clean and you can not change that--Lemabeta (talk) 07:58, 19 August 2024 (UTC) References
Statement by Spinney HillIt is possible that this cheese is traditionally made in both Armenia and Georgia or that each country claims to be the origin. Something similar may be the case with Gruyere, which is certainly made in Switzerland and France although this is not quite reflected in the wp article on that cheese. See the following source Larousse gastronomique p534 English edition published by Hamlyn (London) 1988 translated from the 1984 French edition.ISBN 0 600 32390 0 More on this source later. .I do not have the sources OUP or the Tbilisi equivalent relied on by the two editors so I cannot comment. I have not seen any other articles on Armenian or Georgian subjects they may have clashed on. The online sources are inconclusive. At an early stage in the argument I put in a piece based on a British Government source showing that Britain recognised a kind of chechill was made in Georgia. I also found a general source which showed it was "a European and Central Asian cheese" suggesting it was made anywhere and everywhere from the west of Ireland an Portugal to Mongolia. I put a sentence in mentioning this but I am considering withdrawing this as it does not seem accurate. I am a cheese lover but I have never seen or tasted it in UK where I live nor any of the other western or central European countries I have been to (even Greece) The only other sources my Google search revealed were cheese selling sites which revealed the cheese was also made in US, Turkey (I think), Bulgaria.and South Africa! I have searched my copy of Larousse gastronomique-see above. The article on cheese does not mention chechil, nor does it mention Georgia or Armenia. Chechill does not have its own article as do many cheeses such as Gruyere, Stilton and Gorgonzola, nor do Armenia or Georgia. I also searched Russia as this is a 1984 book and both countries were part of the USSR . Here it says Georgia was home to a hard cheese called tuchouri.. No cheese is mentioned for Armenia. The only other "Russian" cheese mentioned is Sovietski which has its own article and which presumably is either no longer made or has been renamed.. I think both parties have shown intemperate, but both have made some valid points and surely a compromise article should be arrived at showing that the cheese is made in both countries. I am not sure if an origin can be stated with accuracy. Spinney Hill (talk) 14:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC) I think Tbillisi University is quite capable of having an independent unbiased publishing arm. It is no longer part of the USSR or even Russia.Spinney Hill (talk) 14:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning Lemabeta
Vanezi Astghik, you're at about 670 words. Please trim to 500, and consider whether you'd like to save some words for future replies. Lemabeta, you're right at the limit; do not respond further. Both of you can request an extension, but I wouldn't recommend it at this time. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:06, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
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Bajaria - 2
Blocked by me for one week for ECR violations. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Second request concerning Bajaria
See the case still on this page above, but linked here for convenience. They received a two-day block after multiple warnings, and it subsequently took them three days to go right back to editing in the area:
Copied from above:
As mentioned in the first case, Bajaria was given the CTOP notice on 4 August, given the ARBPIA welcome template and an additional warning by myself on 10 August, was aware and responded to the case above, and was blocked for the ECR violations. That they went right back to them, and that they were overly confrontational/didn't seem to acknowledge the repeated warnings that they aren't allowed to be editing in the ARBPIA area at the initial report, makes me wonder if CIR may come into play. Again, this really is a shame, because from their contribs it seems they could be legitimately productive if they properly worked towards XC status - they just don't seem to get that ECR is a hard-line rule. The Kip (contribs) 21:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning BajariaStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by BajariaStatement by (username)Result concerning Bajaria
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Peckedagain
Peckedagain is indefinitely topic banned from gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them, broadly construed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Peckedagain
The editor appears to be a WP:SPA that joined several months ago, coinciding with the UK's release of the Cass Review, which has been hailed by anti-trans organizations and the user has continuously tried to push anti-trans content in multiple articles since joining. They will often make far ranging changes without actual consensus that had to have been reverted by multiple users. At this point with the latest swath of bad edits that I've linked above that occurred over just the last few days, which were the final straw of why I'm now bringing this to AE (there would be many more that could be pulled up). I don't think this editor is making useful contributions to the GENSEX CTOP area, as they require countless reversions and corrections, so I'm requesting a Topic ban to stop the unconstructive editing of the user. (On a side note, while this user has been particularly egregious, ever since the UKs release of the Cass Review, there has been a considerable uptick of anti-trans POV pushing happening on various articles, with some editors pushing these views often WP:TAGTEAMing on it, so as someone recently mentioned at ANI, there may very well be a time for a new ArbCom case to help curtail this anti-trans POV pushing that is becoming very WP:TENDENTIOUS.)
Discussion concerning PeckedagainStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by Peckedagainedited 21 Aug - after Radalic's point 12 & 14
Re the points:
In reply to "user's edits have mostly been unhelpful" by CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath: please see [this example] of constructive work, that took some time
Statement by DanielRigalI have not been following this closely but I saw the diff of the big revert, checked the history, and yeah, it looks like several days of edit warring in an attempt to add POV and remove other material from the Puberty blocker article by a (more-or-less) SPA. The big diff is 12.2KB but only ~8.5KB went into Precocious puberty so plenty of material would have disappeared had it not been reverted. Furthermore, moving it all into Precocious puberty doesn't make sense, as some of the material that was moved relates to the blockers in general and is not all specific to precocious puberty. The whole point of having a separate article about the blockers is to cover the medications in detail and leave Precocious puberty to focus on the condition itself, covering the blockers briefly, maybe with a little overlapping content but not too much. I feel that moving so much material about puberty blockers out of the article about puberty blockers has the effect of creating a void of factual medical information in that article, a void that can then be filled up with even more coverage of the trans related political "controversies" instead. That is not what we want in a medical article! I had a quick look at Peckedagain's other edits. This was their very first edit which seems surprisingly advanced for a first edit. Maybe they edited anonymously before but clearly they had prior experience. Only a very small proportion of their edits are on topics other than transgender issues. Most of the edits I looked at showed signs tendentious editing to some degree. I think it is fair to call them an SPA. I believe that a topic ban is justified. --DanielRigal (talk) 02:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMathI haven't been following this too closely however I recently interacted with the user at Talk:Puberty blocker. I'm not super familiar with the whole arbitration process on Wikipedia so please mistake any knowledge gaps here. Based on my interactions with the user it seems that they have very fixed beliefs on the topic of transgender healthcare and those views seem to be getting in the way of them making constructive edits. Several users have taken the time to explain to them why some of their edits have been unhelpful and despite this, they continue to make similar edits. I think a topic ban is appropriate here as the user's edits have mostly been unhelpful and they don't seem very open to changing how they contribute. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC) The purpose of my statement was not to say that you have not made any quality contributions to Wikipedia; my point was that if we were to look at all of your contributions to Wikipedia and weigh them as being either helpful or unhelpful, the majority of your contributions would fall under the unhelpful category. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 01:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC) I didn't plan on updating my statement but I think this diff really shows the user's real intentions here and their clear lack of a neutral POV. I do see that an admin has weighed in on the topic but it doesn't seem like a conclusion has been reached yet. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by Licks-rocksSince I've been mentioned here twice now, I'll inform the court that I have seen this. Not much to add, besides that I concur this is a CIR issue and that I have advised Pecked on their talkpage to edit in other areas of the wiki to build some experience. There's definitely some IDHT-symptoms here as well. [99] --Licks-rocks (talk) 23:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (LunaHasArrived)I wasn't going to comment here because I thought everything I would say has been said but I think this users reaction to being bought to ae has increased their more problematic editing. As well as this one particular pov pushing diff #[100] caught my attention and was the main reason to comment. I really think the diff speaks for itself. I truly think pecked can be a productive editor and they have been praised for good editing previously. LunaHasArrived (talk) 21:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by NosferattusPeckedagain's edit history shows a pattern of POV-pushing on issues related to transgender health care. Their editing on this topic is not in line with the guidelines at Wikipedia:Contentious topics, particularly adherence to WP:NPOV, so a topic ban may be in order. Nosferattus (talk) 01:42, 21 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning Peckedagain
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Johnrpenner
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Johnrpenner
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Tgeorgescu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Johnrpenner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- WP:ARBPS
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- [101] 21 August 2024—violates WP:PSCI by immunizing Anthroposophy from falsification through performing WP:OR (seeks to reject the label of pseudoscience through attempting to make it look like a category mistake—but not according to any WP:RS)
- a lot of previous edits at the same article, 21 August 2024, see e.g. [102], having the edit summary
cutting like a knife between physics and metaphysics
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on [103] 2 May 2024 (see the system log linked to above).
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- Wikipedia is a collaborative environment—up to a point. We don't seek to "collaborate" with those who breach our WP:RULES with impunity. More to the point: Johnrpenner is violating WP:RULES such as WP:PSCI and WP:OR. If he thinks I'm wrong, he should WP:CITE mainstream WP:RS to that extent. Merely giving us his own opinion won't do. Again: his assertion that the label of pseudoscience is a category mistake, is solely based upon his own opinion. He did not WP:CITE anything to that extent. Even if his POV were the unvarnished truth, he still does not have WP:RS to that extent.
- @Theleekycauldron: Until May 2024, I had no idea that Penner is a Wikipedia editor. In respect to what you say: I would accept a restriction of 1RR and a limit of 500 words per topic. Also, you have to consider that these Anthroposophists overtly stated they want me banned from Anthroposophy, so, while they knew they stand no chance in respect to their own edits, they were merely flamebaiting. Anthroposophists are generally speaking highly educated people, so if they behave as too dumb for their credentials, it is a token they are merely acting a show. Playing dumb and employing vicious libel (flamebait) is justified, according to them, since they are defending the public image of Anthroposophy. I mean: for a university-educated
Lead Technical Writer
it would be easy-peasy to understand they're breaching website policy. And if I lambasted them for failing to do so, my criticism was genuine and to the point. What do they stand to lose, here at Wikipedia? A bunch of disposable accounts. Since both Johnrpenner and the previous Anthroposophist at WP:AE are extremely fond of performing WP:OR—I don't think that's just a coincidence. When multiple accounts misunderstand Wikipedia in the same way, we may suspect they're WP:MEAT. - @Ealdgyth: It was not intended as mockery. I don't think he is unintelligent, and if he appears as unintelligent, that's for flamebaiting purposes (just to make me angry).
- Full disclosure: there was an off-wiki hounding campaign against me, see [104], [105], and Talk:Anthroposophy#Evidence—which I now came to see as flamebaiting. Its objectives are overtly stated: recruit other editors against me and get me banned from Wikipedia. So, I see my opponents at these articles as an organized campaign, starting with October 2023, or even earlier. The only damage I did to Wikipedia is extensively bickering about being hounded. It is rather unusual for Wikipedia that a cult organizes off-wiki to take action against a specific editor.
- If I get banned from Anthroposophy, the "Fortress Steiner" (here) will regain its upper hand. Anti-fringe editors will be reluctant to intervene, since they lack a deep understanding of the topic. So I will have to get unbanned as the only person able to restore order. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:40, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- [106] 21 August 2024
Discussion concerning Johnrpenner
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Johnrpenner
after making additions to the 'Anthroposophy' article — user tgeorgescu deleted / reverted my edits, and so i took it on to the talk page, asking him: instead of just deleting a whole bunch of stuff, why not engage in something more constructive? he did not engage in a friendly fashion, and quickly shut me down, and launched this Arbitration request against me.
if i were writing an article on the phenomenolgy of colour — i would expect to see criticism and debate — but i would also expect to see some effort in improving the article — doing what wikipedia does — helping provide some sense of the topic, which covers a neutral and informed point of view.
user tgeorgescu has expended considerable effort solely directed towards attacking and finding sources discrediting Anthroposophy (hundreds upon hundreds of edits.. almost as if it were some sort of personal vendetta). if one sees only efforts directed at this — then i might also question how neutral things are — when i dont see as much effort towards contributing anything that might help provide insight on the given topic.
tgeorgescu claims category error — and my claim is that anthroposophy is no more scientific than the subject of philosophy. in my edits — i did not dispute or remove his claims, and took care to preserve his references/links and to make it clear that anthroposophy is not scientific.
i believe i was following the wiki principle as stated in WP:RNPOV — as follows:
WP:RNPOV § Neutrality: In the case of beliefs and practices, Wikipedia content should not only encompass what motivates individuals who hold these beliefs and practices but also account for how such beliefs and practices developed. Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from religion's sacred texts as primary sources and modern archaeological, historical, and scientific works as secondary and tertiary sources.
in short — this issue could have been more constructively solved with some friendly edits aimed at improving the article, and making a subject more understandable — for example:
i) what are the epistemogical differences which distinguish anthroposophy from critical idealism?
ii) from whom did steiner get the idea — the article mentioned 'German Idealism', but neglected to mention Goethe.
iii) the article talks about 'perception of the spiritual world' — but it fails to mention the key role Anthroposophists place on Intuition in this regard.
these would all be useful things to know if i was a reader and unfamiliar with the subject.
instead, tgeorgescu has undertaken to report me to arbitration — i find it disingenous to spend such an inordinate amount of time logging in such an amount of effort cataloguing all criticisms against Anthroposophy — without making any efforts towards providing the reader with a better comprehension of what is being criticized — the criticisms and critics tgeorgescu has referenced only makes a case for condemning Anthroposophists — and deleting or reverting edits which disagree with him — and ultimately weaponizing the wiki process — which i find is generally quite fair, and i expect someone might be able to follow up and arbitrate his disproportionate critical activity, and attacks against users like myself which are trying to make honest contributions (as i have helped improve numerous other wiki articles, and believe in the wiki process).
i have no complaint against a good critical review of contributions to wikipedia - good editors, good referencing, and the good will to work together instead of shutting people down is what makes wikipedia great and useful. please, lets work together, and find a way to make better articles. peace out. Johnrpenner (talk) 03:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by fiveby
tgeorgescu could use some help at Talk:Anthroposophy in trying to nip problems in the bud before they escalate. See this this FTN thread from November of last year (maybe just read Hob Gadling's comment at the end of the collapsed "Extended content") All that effort expended when it turns out an editor was just using phony citations for content. When he raises issues at FTN i at least often feel behind the curve with an unfamiliar topic, and tgeorgescu usually seems to be going it alone on the talk page. I don't know if AE can do anything to help and maybe the answer here is just to remember to watchlist the articles and pay more attention. fiveby(zero) 06:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by KoA
I want to echo's fiveby's sentiment above, and I would caution admins to be mindful to check out what they link at FTN. I’ve been noticing that problem at the noticeboards and tgeorgescu’s frustration too often handling a lot of fringe stuff and now apparently becoming a target off-wiki for it.
theleekycauldron, I am concerned about your comments here at this time in the AE and making them in the uninvolved admin section. I reviewed the talk page[107], and the only recent dispute was from this interaction at Talk:Anthroposophy#Violation_of_WP:PSCI. However, I couldn't verify any of your claims made without diffs there such as bludgeoning talk pages, going on long-winded "own the crazies" rants, insulting other editors
, so that was a serious red flag when I instead saw tgeorgescu making very short replies and largely behaving properly at the time. The only little knock against them was that they should have stopped interacting before the I have already reported you at WP:AE. . .
comment, but even those comments are relatively chill compared to your characterization. If there are recent diffs prior to when you commented, those are absolutely needed, because when I see a mismatch like that in depiction, that looks a lot more like battleground pursuit on your part that we'd typically see of involved editors behaving poorly. If anything, it looks like tgeorgescu's talk page use had actually vastly improved and it wasn't until you started needling tgeorgescu with your initial comment that they got off the rails here at AE. At least as I've tried to review this report with an even hand, you created more heat than light.
However tgeorgescu, I do have some advice after seeing your comments on talk pages over the years. Remember to center yourself on the ideas of WP:NOTFORUM/WP:FOC more often on article talk pages. I have seen you give in-depth answers at times when not needed or just posting on the talk page not clearly tied to any edit.[108] Sometimes I've seen you come back for an "and another thing" comment when the conversation was just likely to die. I saw that before your warning theleekycauldron mentions, and it looks like you've been vastly improving in what I've reviewed so far. That said, be careful about personalizing comments about editors or how comments might appear to be a battleground mentality. That too creates more heat than light like I just cautioned theleekycauldron. When I look at the AE after their comment, you brought up that you felt like you were being trolled by Johnrpenner at the article with comments like so if they behave as too dumb for their credentials
. Even if you feel like that, don't take the WP:BAIT. You honestly were fine from what I can see initially until your interactions with theleekycauldron here. It wasn't until that moment I was seeing AE comments with a bit too much bite towards editors, so it didn't appear anything WP:PREVENTATIVE was needed on your part to that point. KoA (talk) 15:58, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- ScottishFinnishRadish, I'm right at the word limit, so I'll leave it at this just to say the issue I saw was that when you look at recent edits before this AE (most stuff mentioned here is pretty stale or minor), it really did look like tgeorgescu was improving significantly in the last few months (especially the very last talk section at the page before AE) compared to the period of their warning or when I even told them to chill out on the treatises awhile back. Whatever threads the needle between "you've made some good improvements in mainspace/talk" and "you've still got scaling back to do" will be helpful here for a grounded approach. KoA (talk) 20:23, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Johnrpenner
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Looks like tgeorgescu is exhibiting the exact same behavior that landed them a logged warning for battleground behavior and incivility nine months ago. that's a shame, because they seem to solidly be in the right that Johnrpenner is only here to push a pseudoscientific POV. If Tgeorgescu doesn't agree to stop bludgeoning talk pages, going on long-winded "own the crazies" rants, insulting other editors, and generally behaving as if yelling at people about how wrong and stupid they are is the best way to make them go away, the pseudoscience topic area will lose a valuable editor. perhaps a topic ban from Anthroposophy is in order, since the last row took place there as well. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 08:22, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support topic banning Johnrpenner from Anthroposophy, broadly construed. Also support restricting tgeorgescu within ARBPS, broadly construed, such that they may not write more than 500 words across discussions related to this topic area (not 500 words per thread) in a calendar month; and placing them under 1RR. They are reminded to seek out admins before engaging in disruptive behavior in their attempts to combat disruptive behavior. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:52, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- @KoA: I'm taking my cues from this thread. Some of it was from before Johnrpenner was a wikipedian (although this isn't), but I don't think it'd be ridiculous to say that it's relevant to the onwiki portion of this spat. I'm also considering the sum of other threads they've started since the SamwiseGSix AE thread. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 04:37, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- Tgeorgescu - first, "A more nuanced view of how I see Anthroposophy:" has no bearing on how you should be editing. Your personal views are no more useful than the personal views of Johnrpenner or any other editors. In fact, you state later in this very filing that "Merely giving us his own opinion won't do" so putting your views here isn't helpful to the admins looking into your filing. Further, with "Malcontents should not blame me for what full professors write" you are continuing to describe other editors (I think? It's hard to tell if you're referring to other editors or merely folks who subscribe to Anthroposophy, but either way it's a sign of battleground behavior) as "malcontents". You were warned for this last November. Here's another unhelpful comment "I mean: for a university-educated Lead Technical Writer it would be easy-peasy to understand they're breaching website policy." ... you're clearly mocking the editor who you filed this against. Really, this battleground approach needs to stop.
- Okay, so to the edit that is given as the basis for this filing: this edit, I see a description of the subject sourced to a pile of what appear to be independent reliable sources (at a quick glance) that is being replaced with stuff sourced to Steiner's own works. Also, I see that "Though proponents claim to present their ideas in a manner that is verifiable by rational discourse and say that they seek precision and clarity comparable to that obtained by scientists investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termed pseudoscientific by experts in epistemology and debunkers of pseudoscience." this sentence (which is sourced to the pile of independent sources) is replaced with "Anthroposophy does not belong to the study of the physical sciences, any more than Plato's Metaphysics should be considered Physics — doing so would be pseudoscientific" while still sourcing it to the same pile of reliable sources. This is source mis-representation unless each of those sources actually supports this new text (I'll go on a limb here and say it likely doesn't). On the griping hand, though, Johnrpenner isn't exactly a prolific editor - his edit count is around 1700, but they are widely spread out and mostly appear to relate to Goethe. While they are not editing well, I'm not sure they've had a chance to learn that wikipedia isn't a philosphical debating place. They need to learn to edit well with others, but either a topic ban from the narrow topic of Anthroposophy or a warning about their editing there would probably be fine. Ealdgyth (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Topic ban for Johnrpenner sounds good. I don't necessarily disagree about a word limit for Tgeorgescu, but I'm not sure it's going to work or be easy to enforce. Call me agnostic on it. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:02, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- A topic ban for Johnrpenner from Anthroposophy is reasonable, and some sort of anti-bludgeon/anti-thousands of words restriction on Tgeorgescu wouldn't be amiss either. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:27, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- KoA, just as an example of a
long-winded "own the crazies" rants
see User:Tgeorgescu#My quarrel with anthroposophists, or Talk:Anthroposophy#Category. I'd be interested in scaling back that type of engagement with the topic. I don't know if a word limit per month or discussion would be helpful, but even some advice or a warning might help. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:03, 26 August 2024 (UTC) - So the topic ban has consensus. How do we want to move forward with Tgeorgescu? Another warning, or something with a bit more oomph? I like the gist of Theleekycauldron's idea, but I don't know how we'd ever track it.
- On a broader note, this issue comes up a lot where a milder sanction might be able to end disruptive behavior, but we end up warning a few times instead, and eventually we hit a tipping point and we end up with a more severe sanction. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:00, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- KoA, just as an example of a
- Johnrpenner has been an editor since 2005 but is not yet experienced, having under 1800 edits. Their first edits (example from April 2005) concerned Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. The current edits are not appropriate and I support a topic ban from articles related to Rudolf Steiner, or just Anthroposophy if others support that. I have spent time advising tgeorgescu that they should cut back on excessive commentary but in checking a couple of recent discussions, I could not see a problem. We need editors like tgeorgescu who are able and willing to keep articles based on reliable sources so my only suggestion in that area is that I would be happy to investigate if anyone wants to draw my attention to a future discussion where a participant might be overdoing it. I agree that ScottishFinnishRadish's links just above ("own the crazies") show excessive enthusiasm: tgeorgescu should stick to verifiable facts related to current editing proposals. Johnuniq (talk) 04:36, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
TenPoundHammer
By consensus of uninvolved administrators, TenPoundHammer (talk · contribs) is reminded, as presently topic banned from deletion discussions, broadly construed, to not make comments on noticeboards or elsewhere on Wikipedia that suggest editors take an article to AfD. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning TenPoundHammer
Discussion concerning TenPoundHammerStatements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by TenPoundHammerI can see how my statements are my topic ban. It's why I backed off with the Jonathan Prince discussion. I know it's not the first time I brought something to BLPN with an implication that it be AFD'd, either. I agree that my topic-ban from XFD and BLAR is justifiable, and I'm trying to work within the limits of it, but I can see how taking something to BLPN and saying "anyone wanna AFD this" is dubious. Would verbiage on BLPN akin to "here's what I found or didn't find; what do you think should be done with this page?" be more acceptable? I am considering drafting up an appeal to be submitted in due time and a game plan to tackle my history of XFD problems, although I'm not sure how something like this is going to weigh on it. I think opening this discussion in this manner is way overboard, especially since I did catch myself and realize that what I was doing was dubious before I went any further. I move that this be closed as I feel this entire discussion is a massive overreaction and it seems I'm not alone in thinking so, as Barkeep49 and ScottishFinnishRadish pointed out. Statement by Nil EinneI have no clear opinion on whether TenPoundHammer's editing is a violation but FWIW this isn't the first time they've brought articles to BLPN either directly mentioning AFD or deletion as a possibility [111] (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Kristan Cunningham) & [112] (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive360#Rossi Morreale) or where they didn't but did suggest the article did not meet GNG [113] (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive360#Myrlin Hermes). In all of those other 3, at least one editor has seen enough of a problem that the article was deleted after AFD (in 2 cases) or BLARed (in 1 case). But while recognising unsourced BLPs are a problem, I've never been convinced of the wisdom of TenPoundHammer doing this in light of their topic ban. And IMO, at a minimum if it continues, TenPoundHammer really should disclose their topic ban when opening these threads so anyone reading the thread is aware of the circumstances. However I've never spoken to them about my concerns as I wasn't that active for most of it, and even now I'm trying to limit my activity. It looks like no one else has spoken to them either. Nil Einne (talk) 08:20, 26 August 2024 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning TenPoundHammer
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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Toa Nidhiki05
Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
- Appealing user
- Toa Nidhiki05 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Toa Nidhiki05 14:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- Sanction being appealed
- Topic ban from BLPs related to post-1992 American politics, broadly construed, imposed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive327#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Toa Nidhiki05 and logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/2022#American politics 2
- Administrator imposing the sanction
- Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Guerillero (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Statement by Toa Nidhiki05
Since my topic ban was scaled back to only include BLPs, I've engaged in a lot of productive discussion and editing within the AMPol 2 topic area. Probably the biggest achievement has been consensus at Republican Party (United States) and Democratic Party (United States) on political positions - ending a dispute that has been ongoing for over a decade - but I've also engaged in routine maintenance and vandalism removal across the topic a. Lifting the restriction on BLPs would allow me to do the same in the entire scope of AMPol 2, including handling the sorts of routine vandalism that occurs on political BLPs. I think my pattern of behavior and achievements in the seven months or so since the ban has shown my general commitment to productive behavior and conduct within the topic area. Toa Nidhiki05 14:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
- To respond quickly to starship.paint: from my recollection, that first bit was in a fairly contentious period where frequent edits were being made, and discussion on the talk page was ongoing. The day of those edits the discussion was this (Proposal: "Big tent" for both parties), and edits I made there were in response to talk page discussion on the matter - specifically, in response to comments byCarlp941 and BootsED. The tl:dr of the broader dispute at hand was that a consensus had been reached to add content to the main page, but the consensus didn't actually follow specific reliable sources. After further research and discussion, this consensus was modified pursuant to reliable sources. During the interim period here, the page was fairly tumultuous on both mainspace and talkspace. If there was a technical 1RR violation there, I apologize, although the full context of talk page discussions is important here.
- As to ongoing reverts - many of these are responding to vandalism or source hijacking maintenance. Unfortunately, political party pages are frequently subject to drive-by edits from users or IPs, specifically in the "ideology" or "faction" section of said pages. The most common mode of operation is to delete reliably sourced content or add content (without adjusting current reliable sources - creating the misconception existing sources support it). These drive-by editors generally do not explain their edit, nor do they stay behind to discuss. As it stands, we have strong consensus on the page for specific wordings in these sections, hashed out either through discussion or RfCs. Other reverts in this thread are generally in response to specific issues with sourcing or the addition of incorrect information/removal of correct information. I could provide context for each one if you absolutely desired - most of them were hashed out on the talk page. But broadly I would just categorize this as maintenance of a page that receives a lot of edits. Toa Nidhiki05 17:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- To respond succinctly, starship.paint:
- The first one you listed ([116]) is two things: unexplained removal of reliably sourced content with a talk page consensus (removing center-right - very sloppy at that, as they didn't remove the citations), and also source hijacking (adding that only the "the populist faction" of the party receives support from specific groups).
- The second one ([117]) kind of relates to question on whether party platforms in and of themselves are the most reliable source for what parties support. As far as I know this dispute has not actually been resolved, but the other editor in question here, JohnAdams1800, noted the specific dispute in the second edit ended with an impasse on amiable terms. I'd consider this broadly a low-level dispute, personally. Toa Nidhiki05 02:45, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- So for those specifically starship.paint:
- For June 24, the sources don't actually back up the claims. Putting aside how poorly worded "it has been argued" is (who is arguing this?), the sources cited don't actually mention neoconservatism or populism at all. Just try searching either - you won't find it. There might be merit to talking about factional divides, but those added sources don't back up the claim, which means the content can't be added.
- For July 31, that was part of the low-level neoliberalism dispute JohnAdams1800 mentioned (see: this talk page discussion). Several editors objected to identifying the party as having a core ideology of protectionism. The discussion kind of stalled out and is probably worth looking more closely into. On the face of it that content you mention could be noteworthy and I might have been too reckless in reverting the whole thing, but it's also not an especially important bit of information (USMCA was a fairly major trade deal, and the Biden admin isn't really noteworthy to what the GOP views trade as). Toa Nidhiki05 13:30, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- To respond succinctly, starship.paint:
Statement by Vanamonde93
Statement by Guerillero
Statement by starship.paint
I thought I should support if Toa has not been involved in much controversy. Toa's talk page archives does have one controversy, a violation of 1RR on 19 June (another controversy is present but I think it was minor and resolved). 1RR: 01:34 / 21:35 / 21:35 again Since then, Toa has carried out a high number of reverts at the same article. 24 June / 25 June / 2 July / 3 July / 15 July / 21 July / 22 July / 24 July / 29 July / 31 July / 11 August / 15 August / 19 August / 20 August / I am not saying these reverts are bad, but perhaps we can get Toa's comments on the above (1RR and the volume of reverts). starship.paint (RUN) 15:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- Right, I skimmed through the "Proposal: "Big tent" for both parties" discussion and your reverts above. On the surface, based on the arguments brought forth and the sources brought forth, it seems that Toa's editing is within the bounds of reasonableness. But, perhaps Toa can offer more explanation for these three diffs in particular, as they seem to be separate from the issues in the other diffs: 24 July / 29 July / 31 July. starship.paint (RUN) 02:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Toa, for the 24 June diff, I was actually interested on the part that you did not respond about. You removed
However, it has been argued that the preference of urban voters, college graduates and high-income earners continues to favor non-populist Republicans from the neoconservative establishment
Reference 1 and Reference 2. For the 31 July diff, you, in part, removedAs of 2024, the last free trade agreement enacted was the USMCA in 2020, which replaced NAFTA while maintaining most of its provisions. No other free trade agreements have been enacted during the Trump or Biden administrations
Reference starship.paint (RUN) 03:15, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Toa, for the 24 June diff, I was actually interested on the part that you did not respond about. You removed
Statement by JohnAdams1800
I'm commenting about this appeal, but don't know the full details about this dispute. I agree with User talk:Toa Nidhiki05 that our edit dispute was a low-level dispute, specifically regarding support for neoliberalism by the Republican Party over time. We have both made thousands of edits, and occasional edit conflicts are bound to arise. The pages about political parties and politicians are among the most contentious pages, with edit conflicts much more frequent. Users often try to impose their own views when editing. I personally don't edit most BLPs of politicians. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 02:55, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by BootsED
I want to speak out in support of Toa Nidhiki05. I am surprised that there is a ban on Toa's contribution to post-1992 United States politics in place, as I found the work he did on the Republican Party page to be very well done and reasoned. I found his comments during a debate on the "factions" of the party helpful, constructive, and showing out-of-the-box thinking that greatly helped us better understand the problem at hand. I even left a positive note of thanks on his talk page.
In regards to the revert violation, my understanding is that it occurred near the end of the 24-hour period and was an honest mistake. Toa really took to improving the factions and political position section of the article and if my memory serves me correctly, there was a lot of back and forth from editors during this time, some of whom were confused or mistaken about what was discussed as the discussion on the topic at hand had gotten disorganized on the talk page and spread out over multiple sections.
While a lot of editors simply used their own personal opinion or low-quality references, Toa stuck to finding and providing higher-quality journal articles that helped ground the debate. Looking back at Toa's original ban, I think I understand how editing on Wikipedia can make people very frustrated, especially when some individuals are quite clearly either trolling or mistaken. I think that understanding intent is an important aspect to consider when punishing editors, and while obviously one should always strive to maintain proper decorum, I think that Toa's heart and intent on Wikipedia is in the right place and deserving of this appeal. BootsED (talk) 23:51, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (involved editor 1)
Statement by (involved editor 2)
Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Toa Nidhiki05
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Statement by (uninvolved editor 1)
Statement by (uninvolved editor 2)
Result of the appeal by Toa Nidhiki05
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
Silvertide goldwaves
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Silvertide goldwaves
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Number 57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 01:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Silvertide goldwaves (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4
Silvertide goldwaves made a large number of Israel-Palestine conflict edits prior to meeting the 30/500 requirement. While this was potentially an inadvertent breach, there were several other issues with the editing, much of which was highly partisan, and also contained misleading edit summaries like this.
Although they have now passed the 30/500 threshold, their edits continue to be problematic. When some of their edits were reverted (by another editor who does not meet the 30/500 requirement), they reinstated them with disparaging edit summaries like this.
I noticed some of their pre 30/500 edits today and undid them on the basis that they were ARBPIA violations. They then reinstated the edits with the same disparaging edit summary as mentioned above. I followed this up with a notice on their talkpage and re-reverted a couple of their edits that I felt were of concern (and on the basis that the initial revert was exempt from ARBPIA4 on the basis that it was enforcing the extended confirmed restriction).
Despite now being aware of the 1RR restriction, they reverted for a second time with another disparaging edit summary. They have since followed me to football-related articles that I have recently edited and deleted entire sections (e.g. here and here).
While this initially looked like an ARBPIA sanction might be required, their most recent behaviour makes it look like it might be a WP:NOTHERE case.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- here
Discussion concerning Silvertide goldwaves
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Silvertide goldwaves
"I noticed some of their pre 30/500 edits" which ones? Be specific. What is "problematic"? Be specific. Do not waste anyone's time by dancing around the heart of the matter - your allergy to inconvenient yet reliable, even academic sources - by operating in vagaries.
"Following" you or me is A-OK on Wikipedia, and unsourced information on Wikipedia should be removed. That I see pages you edit, that have unsourced information (potentially fiction), necessitates their removal.
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Silvertide goldwaves
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.