Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Workshop

Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Target dates: Opened 30 November 2024 • Evidence closes 21 December 2024 • Workshop closes 28 December 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 11 January 2025

Scope: The interaction of named parties in the WP:PIA topic area and examination of the WP:AE process that led to two referrals to WP:ARCA

Case clerks: HouseBlaster (Talk) & SilverLocust (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & HJ Mitchell (Talk) & CaptainEek (Talk)

Purpose of the workshop

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Expected standards of behavior

• You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
• Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
• Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
• Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

AE cases

1) A case involving contentious topic restrictions under the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic should be of the form A reports B and admins investigate/adjudicate. No third parties, except possibly other admins. Selfstudier (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC) [Amended, attempt to specify which AE cases but feel free to tinker Selfstudier (talk) 14:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC) ]

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To prevent Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Preliminary statements#Statement by Barkeep49 "the discussion ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors"

To prevent Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence#WP:BATTLEGROUND "editors show up to take pot shots at each other whenever an opportunity presents itself."

To prevent Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Preliminary statements#Statement by ScottishFinnishRadish "we still can't adequately investigate large and sprawling issues at AE", "there are very few admins doing any sort of AE work" and "many of those doing that work are doing so intermittently". Etcetera. Selfstudier (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is something I've thought about quite a bit. It's a difficult biscuit to bake, though, since the community should have some measure of input and sometimes there are good points brought up. For a while it was bad enough that I floated the idea of topic banning people from AE that had shown up at more than half of the ARBPIA reports in the past six months. In a recent case I also suggested handing out 90 day topic bans to anyone casting aspersions at an AE report. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess I'll say this here, rather than in a separate "Analysis of evidence" section (not really about the proposed motion). I think the kinds of patterns of conduct that SFR presents at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence#WP:BATTLEGROUND (mentioned just above) and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence#Involved editors shut down good faith formal discussions and edit war over it matches very well with what I, too, observed in my more limited experience, and seems to me to be exactly the kind of things where Arbs should be paying close attention for this case. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Question for clarification: perhaps this is self-explanatory and I'm just missing something but which AE's, in particular? All AE's? ARBPIA 5-only ones (meaning starting from the conclusion of this case)? All ARBPIA (meaning, starting as soon as the motion passes)? Could we specify that a bit more clearly in the motion please? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 01:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by Levivich

Proposed principles

Ignorance of sources can be disruptive

1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to summarize reliable sources. Although there are many ways in which an editor can improve an article without having read any sources (e.g., copyediting, formatting), in order to meaningfully contribute to the summarizing of sources, an editor must read at least some of the sources. Making talk page arguments that an article is not accurately or neutrally summarizing sources, without citing or meaningfully engaging with any sources, is disruptive. If an editor believes an article is not correctly summarizing sources, the first step is to read the sources.

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I don't know exactly how best to word this idea, but it ought to be a principle enunciated by arbcom: if one wants to participate in the summarizing of sources, one must read the sources. I'm reminded of something that Zero said at ARCA, that too often editors arrive at articles armed with nothing more than their opinion and maybe a news article. Too often editors challenge basic aspects of I/P (e.g. whether Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine, whether Zionism involved colonization) without citing anything that backs up their doubts, and clearly without having read any of the sources cited (or any sources not cited). Wikipedia is at a phase where many of its main articles, particularly in CTOP areas like I/P, are fairly well-developed. Prior editors put a lot of work into reading and summarizing the sources. New editors who want to improve such articles need to "do the reading if they want to engage in clas discussion." Levivich (talk) 18:01, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

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Of course it is far better to make oneself familiar with the source material, than not to do so. But to accuse someone of being ignorant when you disagree with them, instead of simply explaining one's position based on the source material, is more disruptive. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:31, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

There's a difference between saying "ignorance of sources can be disruptive" and accusing someone of being ignorant. Editors familiar with the sources trying to explain a position based on the source material when the person they're explaining it to isn't familiar with those sources is an ongoing source of disruption in the area. Editors who have never edited in the area but who have been whipped up by media/social media come in sometimes daily armed with an opinion but no knowledge of sources in the topic and have to receive those same explanations again. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's exhausting simply to watch. But if we're concerned about semantics, perhaps "lack of familiarity"? Valereee (talk) 12:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Ignorance of prior talk page discussions can be disruptive

1) Before raising an issue for discussion on an article talk page, editors should review the talk page archives and familiarize themselves with previous discussions about the same issue, in order to avoid wasting editor time with unnecessary repetition. For example, if an editor wants to raise a specific sentence in an article for discussion, the editor should search for that sentence in the talk page archives, and read any prior discussions about that sentence, before starting a new discussion about the sentence.

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It can be, it can also be disruptive when a new editor shows up with something maybe new to say and 4 people tell him to read the old discussions, been discussed before, and keep talking about what a waste of time it is. Andre🚐 04:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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In my experience the appearance of many multiple editors inexperienced in the topic is highly disruptive, and I often advise them to read at minimum all current discussions in order to get themselves up to speed and avoid being disruptive. I've seldom seen new editors show up with something new to say. This has been an ongoing issue at Talk:Zionism since the article started getting attention in media/social media from mid-September. There are new sections opened sometimes daily about content that is actively being discussed there by editors who've never edited in the topic and clearly didn't bother to read anything on the talk page before opening a new section. Valereee (talk) 11:55, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Being right is everything

1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia. What is more important than anything else is that Wikipedia provide accurate information to its billions of readers, and, conversely, that it not be used to spread misinformation or disinformation. If every editor followed every Wikipedia rule to the letter, but the result was an encyclopedia filled with misinformation, then Wikipedia would be a failure. All of Wikipedia's policies and other rules are in service of this singular goal: an accurate encyclopedia. That is why WP:IAR is one of the most important policies on Wikipedia: if a rule gets in the way of creating an accurate encyclopedia, editors should ignore that rule.

Comment by Arbitrators:

In my view, Levivich's comment signifiantly overstates things. Correct, being right is everything in the sense that it's the goal of the system we're building. But Wikipedia is a collaboration between many tens of thousands of people, and systems like Wikipedia only work to the extent that they have rules and processes that successfully facilitate collaboration among them. Collaborating between a few people is easy (or at least much easier); what we do on this project is a damn miracle.

This proposed principle posits an unacceptable and inaccurate dichotomy between following the rules and having "an encyclopedia filled with misinformation". Rules that produce an encyclopedia filled with misinformation are not fit for purpose, and the correct response is to change them, not to flout them in individual circumstances. Judicious, careful, occasional reliance on IAR is fine, but (a) using IAR creates negative side effects and (b) not everyone has the ability (confidence, capital, competence, correctness) to successfully IAR, and so if we ever find ourselves relying on IAR to avert "an encyclopedia filled with misinformation", then we're doing it wrong. This is what "being right isn't enough" means, and I don't think this proposed principle is a fit response to it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

If this principle was valid, every activist in the topic area would point to it as a blank check to do whatever they want because something is anti-Jewish/anti-Muslim/anti-Druze/anti-Israel/anti-Palestine "misinformation or disinformation" on the project and they were only trying to correct it. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 09:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Information can be accurate (especially taken in isolation) and and still be presented in a biased and problematic way. Thinking that you are right also does not excuse problematic behavior. I assume most editors think that they are right and that what they are saying is accurate, that alone does not warrant disregarding core policies, engaging in sockpuppetry, or taking part in inappropriate off-wiki collaboration, for example. - Aoidh (talk) 11:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• With Levivs clarification, I think I understand his point much better. But I thinking the framing got our hackles up :) Perhaps a different title would make us more willing to implement it, like "the end goal is accuracy" or "we value accuracy and disdain misinformation. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Arbcom got it wrong with the "being right isn't enough" principle from the smallcats case. Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced encyclopedia. It is not a virtual society where we make rules and follow rules and then judge each other for how well we follow the rules. Rules about edit warring, civility, etc., all of it is secondary to the primary goal of accurately summarizing reliable sources. What does this mean in practice? When there is an edit war, and one side of the edit war is a bunch of socks pushing propaganda, we should not treat that side of the edit war in the same way as we treat the other side of the edit war. If two editors are uncivil to each other, but one of them is POV-pushing and the other one is pushing NPOV, we should not treat the two editors as the same. Source misrepresentation needs to be treated as one of the worst possible offenses on Wikipedia--far worse than pressing the "undo" button too many times. But too often, as we've seen in the AE cases that preceded this arbcom case, we act as if "a revert is a revert," and it doesn't matter whether the revert is made to restore truth, or restore a lie. This is a mistake. If we forget about the importance of accuracy, we've lost the plot. Levivich (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@arbs: Please do not confuse accurate content with "thinking that you are right", those are two totally different and unrelated things. For those who ask "how do you know when content is right?", we have policies like V and NPOV that answer that question. For those of you having trouble understanding what I'm saying, "being right" == policy-compliant content, i.e. content that complies with V, NPOV, BLP, etc etc. That is the most important thing -- everything else is secondary. Levivich (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It's manifestly not everything, per Arbcom precedent. If being right was everything, wouldn't that make it ok to sock and be incivil as long as the factual content was correct? Being accurate is important, but people make mistakes and there are also differences of opinion that are being miscategorized as factual errors. It's also possible to be factually correct and have an inappropriate tone or style. Andre🚐 04:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I do think this touches on something important about the topic area. The system is not really designed for a world where there are large asymmetries between accounts that change the cost/benefit of a given action. The cost of edit warring or pushing propaganda for a ban evading actor is zero, or at most, the cost of acquiring extendedconfirmed rights for the next account. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It isn't everything, but it's not nothing either. And the WP:BRIE principle has transformed into "it doesn't matter if you are right at all" and that is just as negative as treating being right as everything. When a group is edit-warring to shift the article away from the balance of sources, to push minority POVs as fact, to violate our core content policies but they do so politely, the result is generally nothing done in response until it becomes a "multi-party edit war" (even if it ends up being one sockmaster and four accounts edit-warring against five other editors). The aversion to deal with the root causes of these disputes because they are more difficult to deal with than say counting four letter words or number of reverts is the thing that makes editing in "contentious topics" so difficult. nableezy - 18:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Kevin put it very well, but I'm sufficiently troubled by this doubling down, instead of recognizing mistakes and taking responsibility for them, that I want to add a few things. Saying that "being right isn't enough" is not an endorsement of getting it wrong. Wikipedia gets it right by the use of crowdsourcing, which on its face is a terrible idea, but empirically is an idea that has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Editors who do things the right way, by taking the time to read and understand sources, and by taking the time to read and understand policies and guidelines, should have the self-confidence to treat other editors with a basic level of decency. If the other editor doesn't understand the source, explain it to them civilly. Don't insult them gratuitously. And don't act entitled. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Fully agreed. People believing that being Right excuses their bad behaviour is already a problem in contentious topics; let's not encourage it. Even if this were a good idea, having ArbCom decide who is Right without ruling on content (which per policy they do not do) seems as though it will be a nightmare at best. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I 100% believe that VERACITY is one of the fundamental pillars of Wikipedia. I also believe that factional editing to advance a POV is contrary to a couple of the fundamental pillars of Wikipedia also — Neutrality and Collegiality. I'm more worried about the trend of turning current events pages into a competitive sporting event that I am about anyone deliberately spreading misinformation. Both sides have been guilty of atrocities in the middle east. That is not the question. The question is whether the policy of NOTBATTLEGROUND is going to be followed or not. It seems an easy decision. Carrite (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

If this principle passes, the result--across all major disputes, not just PIA--is that several users will use this to justify non-cooperative behavior. In fact, the "Being right isn't enough" principle is designed precisely to prevent this justification. And "not enough" explicitly means that it's a good thing but not a global justification. Animal lover |666| 09:42, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

In disputed topic areas there's also the question of how to ascertain who is right - there may very well not be one most-right answer. Simonm223 (talk) 15:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Cites/quotes and word limits

1) WP:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Word limits (discretionary) and WP:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Word limits (1,000 words) are both modified to add as a new second sentence to each: Source citations and quotations do not count toward the word limit.

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A note for myself so that I come back to this later. I think Levivich and co have nicely identified the value of this exception. One question: do you mean source quotations? Or just quotations in general? Like if I quoted you in a reply. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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Re: Eek: I hadn't thought about quotations in general, but that's a good point -- we want editors to be able to quote Wikipedia articles, for example (e.g. when discussing a proposed change), and quoting other editors' comments can be helpful to aid discussion as well; I don't see a reason not to include those. So maybe the sentence should be Citations and quotations (whether from sources, Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia discussions, or elsewhere) do not count toward the word limit.? Levivich (talk) 17:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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When 1RR is applied, it applies to all related pages

2) The consensus at WP:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 126#Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 4 is rescinded. When 1RR is applied to a topic area or article, it applies to all pages relating to that topic area or article, broadly construed, including without limitation mainspace articles, article talk pages, and project-space discussions relating to the article/topic, broadly construed.

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I'm wondering if the choice to make ARB1RR different was by design, or accident? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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This came up at AE: WP:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive342#IntrepidContributor. If arbcom doesn't enact this remedy, then as an alternative it should create an "WP:ARB1RR" that informs editors that ARB1RR differs from regular WP:1RR in that ARB1RR only applies to mainspace and not other namespaces. The current language at WP:1RR says it applies to all pages. (But this would be an inferior choice to just rescinding that ARCA and making "ARB1RR" work the same way as regular 1RR and 3RR and the rest of the WP:EW policy: edit warring is edit warring, and is disruptive, regardless of which namespace it happens in.) Levivich (talk) 16:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Chess

Proposed principles

No longer necessary due to Ivana's ban

Reaffirming previous cases 1) The Arbitration Committee reaffirms the principles in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: While some, perhaps even most, of the principles from those cases may be relevant here, I suspect that some aren't. In addition, the case should be understandable for new users with no need to read other cases. Animal lover |666| 17:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC) That's fair. The reason why I included it is because they both serve as precedents showing that canvassing is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:16, 9 December 2024 (UTC) POV-pushing 2) Editing articles to advance a specific point of view contravenes one of Wikipedia's core principles---that articles have a neutral point of view. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: Groups of editors 3) Coordinating other editors to violate Wikipedia's policies is in and of itself a violation of Wikipedia's policies. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: Canvassing 4) Notifying other editors of discussions is unacceptable when it is done with the intention that it will influence a discussion in a particular way. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: Off-wiki coordination 5) Off-wiki coordination is not inherently wrong. However, it is unacceptable when it results in a negative impact on the encyclopedia itself. Additionally, because off-wiki coordination is not transparent to other editors, conduct that may be tolerated or acceptable on-wiki may become unacceptable off-wiki. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others:

Personal attacks

6) Wikipedia:No personal attacks forbids abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religious or political beliefs, disability, ethnicity, nationality, etc. directed against another editor or a group of editors. (emphasis added)

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Contextual reliability

7) Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Context_matters says that The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

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Proposing based on @Simonm223:'s evidence. I'd appreciate suggestions of contexts in which a generally reliable source should not be used to support claims in articles. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I like this. Simonm223 (talk) 21:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Onus

8) A source being generally reliable does not mean the claims made by that source must be included in articles. The burden of proof is on the editor seeking to add content that the content will improve the article.

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This is covered by V, WP:ONUS. Selfstudier (talk) 11:43, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Proposing based on @Simonm223:'s evidence. This clarifies that a claim being made in a reliable source does not mean it should be included in the article. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

While it's not likely tp end my quixotic war on GREL this also looks good. Simonm223 (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

No longer necessary due to Ivana's ban

Tech for Palestine 1) After the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war, a group known as Tech for Palestine (T4P) started a task force with the goal of adding pro-Palestinian views to Wikipedia articles Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: Should the date link to 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel? Animal lover |666| 17:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC) I linked it to the Israel-Hamas war, so as not to imply it was part of the attack. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC) issue moot, see arb.com announcement, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC) @Huldra: You're right, so I'm collapsing. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:37, 12 December 2024 (UTC) Ivana's membership in T4P 2a) Ivana was a member of Tech for Palestine. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: issue moot, see arb.com announcement, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC) Ivana's membership in T4P 2b) Ivana took a leadership role in Tech for Palestine, training other editors. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: issue moot, see arb.com announcement, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC) Violation of WP:BATTLEGROUND by T4P 3) Tech for Palestine provided training videos describing Wikipedia as a battleground, and explaining that members of Tech for Palestine would promote pro-Palestinian narratives. This violates Wikipedia's policies on neutral points of view. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: issue moot, see arb.com announcement, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC) Knowing that Tech for Palestine was improper 4) A member of Tech for Palestine's server with knowledge of Wikipedia's neutral point of view policies would know that Tech for Palestine's goal was to violate those policies. Comment by Arbitrators: Comment by parties: Comment by others: issue moot, see arb.com announcement, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The term "Zionist"

5) Zionism is "religious or political belief" as defined by Wikipedia policies on personal attacks.

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So the Israelis explicitly working to make Wikipedia more "Zionist" are making a NPA-violation against...themselves??? Huldra (talk) 21:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Huldra: Someone "explicitly working to make Wikipedia more 'Zionist'" is generally considered to be WP:POVPUSHing. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chess: I mentioned that sentence, as that was a quotation from one member participating in a course for wikipedia editors, organised by the Yesha Council -there is a video of it. So that would be a NPA-violation? (besides WP:POVPUSH) Huldra (talk) 23:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Huldra: If an editor wishes to describe themselves as "explicitly working to make Wikipedia more 'Zionist'", that would not be a violation of WP:no personal attacks. Generally, an editor admitting to violating Wikipedia policies is not considered to have engaged in personal attacks.

If an editor accuses another editor of "explicitly working to make Wikipedia more 'Zionist'" on an article talk page, that is currently a violation of WP:NPA. Article talk pages are for commenting on content, not editor conduct. However, accusing another editor of "explicitly working to make Wikipedia more 'Zionist'" might be appropriate at WP:AE or an Arbitration case. If you want to provide evidence of editors that are editing on behalf of the Yesha Council, you're welcome to do so here.

What I'm currently proposing is that editors shouldn't be allowed to make derogatory comments against "Zionists" on article talk pages. For example, if an editor commented at a requested move that there are "Israelis explicitly working to make Wikipedia more 'Zionist'", that would clearly be sanctionable conduct. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

We could just as well making calling an editor "Republican", or "Democrat", or "Christian", or "Muslim", or "Feminist" a bannable offence, Huldra (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Huldra: It's not about the words themselves, but the context in which they are used. Yes absolutely, calling someone a "Republican" or "Christian" (or "[insert political view here]" or "[insert religion here]") as a basis to discredit their edits and/or opinions on Wikipedia would be a violation of WP:NPA and if egregious or persistent enough, would (or should) be bannable. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 00:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I mean I'd honestly like it if I didn't have someone argue I am incapable of neutral editing for being a socialist at least once a month. Simonm223 (talk) 01:04, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that this behavior is widespread and not only directed toward editors with a perceived Zionist bias. Simonm223 (talk) 01:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Using "Zionist" (or black or Muslim or Republican) as an insult is a personal attack both on the target of the intended insult and on every Zionist (or black or Muslim or Republican) in the world. Using these words descriptvely is generally not an attack. Animal lover |666| 19:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Derogatory usage of the term Zionist

6) Complaining about or making derogatory references to "Zionists" is a personal attack, even if these comments are not directed at a specific editor.

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What when people define themselves as "Zionst": are they making a personal attack against themselves??? Huldra (talk) 21:45, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

No. The personal attack is when one attacks a political belief on article talk pages. For instance, using the term rabid Palestinians would be unacceptable, but an editor self-describing themselves as a Palestinian would be acceptable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

i think a distinction should be made between certain terminologies. if an editor calls another a Zio that would probs be harassment… but describing someone as zionist or pro zionism is not inherently an attack. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

also is there significant history of other editors calling editors zionists as derogatory on wikipedia? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bluethricecreamman: This is in reference to Eladkarmel, who presented several diffs of editors attacking Zionism or Zionists on article talk pages. The term rabid zionists stuck out to me as an example of a term that isn't a direct attack on another editor, but is still something that is inappropriate for Wikipedia. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd say the context there is rather important as the phrase "rabid Zionist" was used to describe an ideological extremist who called for Israel to kill all Palestinian males over 13.

While I wouldn't use that language myself as I agree it's unnecessary & unproductive commentary for a Wikipedia discussion, I don't think it's quite the same as your proposed hypothetical of "rabid Palestinians". A more apt comparison would probably be a term like "rabid Islamist" or "rabid communist". _{(Not really an important point, nor a refutation of your intended message, but one I thought worth saying nonetheless).} Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 00:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bluethricecreamman: WP:NPA currently reads that using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing, is also forbidden. Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions. So, calling another editor a Zionist, Zio, or pro-Zionist are all explicitly against policy. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

As I mentioned above this policy is routinely flouted. I am frequently accused of implicit bias on the basis of my democratic socialist infobox. Heavens knows what they'd be saying if there was instead an infobox for anarcho-communist Marx / Nietzsche weirdos. Simonm223 (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Simonm223: That's also clearly against policy if brought up on article talk pages. If you'd like to present evidence of that happening, you're welcome to do so. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:10, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Generally not happening at Israel/Palestine articles being fair. This is far more of a problem in the AP2 area. Simonm223 (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Which is my point. "You can't be neutral because of your ideology" is probably the most frequented uttered personal attack on this website, with the possible exception of various forms of "you're stupid" and it's not enforced. Anywhere. Simonm223 (talk) 01:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Which is to say that while I strongly support enforcement against ideologically motivated personal attacks I think the scope is too narrow if we single out just Zionism. Simonm223 (talk) 01:17, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

agreed. We could just go with NPA and that nobody should insult anyone. this proposed provision is mostly a way to argue that folks who support zionism in particular are a protected class of editors on wikipedia, when wikipedia is built on the principle that all folks are biased and we should debate the article and the material, not the editors. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:30, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

This is because editors do not recognize that insulting groups of "Zionists" is not allowed under our current policies. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:22, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

If this was a systemic problem where most of the participant here were doing it, sure. Insults range the gambit and hit both sides though, and focusing on one insult of "rabid zionist" to indirectly score a point instead of the whole range of abuse all participants in the space deal with is not productive. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 00:26, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

And, I mean, just today I've had to explain, for at least the third time this month, that it isn't an NPOV violation to cite sociologists and political scientist at Right-wing Populism because a pair of editors believe those two whole academic disciplines are too far-left to be usable under WP:NPOV Simonm223 (talk) 01:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

1.) Basically agree with @Chess, such a scenario would be a breach of policy in that instance. But the mere fact that other people sometimes get away with violating policy is not a defense to breaking policy yourself or supporting policy not be enforced.

2.) Also, as outlined by WP:PA, the prohibition against ad hominems does not preclude questioning an editor about possible conflicts of interest when applicable, and that is true for democratic socialist/communists as well as Zionism. So it's just important to distinguish the two. Just10A (talk) 01:22, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

... I don't understand why identifying as a Zionist or as a Democratic Socialist/Communist would count as a COI? we all have biases. folks who claim no political leanings generally seem to have some of the most biases. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:24, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

It does not represent a COI except in the case where edits are being made to the page of a political group of which said communist or zionist is a member.

IE: an editor who is a member of Likud editing the page on Likud has a COI. Some random guy from New York whose Twitter handle is "LikudFan69" editing the page on Likud does not have a COI. Simonm223 (talk) 19:50, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

What would you call anyone calling "killing of all Palestinian males over 13"? Huldra (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok, nobody wanted to answer that question, so I have another question: what would you call anyone who called for the "killing of all Jewish males over 13"?

If it was a Muslim doing that, would you react if someone called them a "rabid Muslim"? Ditto for Palestinian: would you react if someone called such a person for a "rabid Palestinian"? Seriously: think about it. Huldra (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Huldra: An editor calling for the killing of males of a certain ethnic group over a certain age would be blockable based on our existing civility policy. Insulting said editor on an article talk page would not be the appropriate response.

If an external group or person is calling for that, using the term "rabid Palestinian", "rabid Muslim", or "rabid Zionist" in an onwiki discussion about article content would still not be appropriate. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:13, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chess: no wiki-editor ever called for the killing of males of a certain ethnic group over a certain age; the question is how wiki-editors characterise it. If anyone called such a person (=calling for the "killing of all Jewish males over 13") for a "rabid Palestinian" or a "rabid Muslim"; should we then demand that nobody called another editor "Muslim" or "Palestinian"? This is similar to what you are demanding. Huldra (talk) 22:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Huldra: I don't understand the purpose of your analogy. Do you want the ability to say "Zionists are bad" or "Zionism is wrong" on article talk pages? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:01, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

If there is in fact a Wikipedia editor advocating to slaughter every Palestinian male over 13 and they are not blocked I would very much like to see diffs of this in evidence. Simonm223 (talk) 21:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposals by Andre🚐

Proposed principles

WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:RS, WP:BIASEDSOURCES, WP:SOURCEGOODFAITH,

1) Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Biased or opinionated sources, Wikipedia:Tendentious editing#Disputing the reliability of apparently good sources: There is nothing wrong with questioning the reliability of sources to a point, and there is nothing wrong with having a high standard for sources, but the standards for sources should be applied evenly without accidental cherrypicking by accepting some sources but not others of equal quality, prominence, or of similar credentials. Per WP:NPOV a cross section of minority POVs should be assembled when selecting sources. Sources should not be wholesale considered unreliable on account of bias, but attributed and balanced. If the standard is, for example, academic work by experts in a specific area, and that would exclude some sources but not others, that standard should be evenly applied to similar types of sources on both ends of the polarization spectrum for those issues.

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Is it possible to break out "bias is not a reason in itself for a source to be unreliable" as a principle? It's in the editnotice at RSN, but I regularly see people comment with something other than WP:GREL based solely on bias. Discussions would be much better if closers were given more authority to ignore "source 'x' is biased therefore it's not reliable". Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:02, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree Andre🚐 03:10, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand this as it relates to the case, if we are saying that the reliable sources guideline is insufficient, shouldn't that be discussed there? Or if it is that there is evidence of tendentious editing, then to which evidence does it refer? Selfstudier (talk) 14:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• Frankly this is something that continues to be a major impediment in this article space. Material published by universites is erroneously called unreliable or self-published because of POV while the same people often try to argue that local newspapers are unimpeachable. We do need to reinforce that WP:BESTSOURCES should be adhered to. Simonm223 (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  I considered listing BESTSOURCES in this proposed principle and maybe it should be, or as a separate one. For example, I have seen Nadia Abu El Haj used on a page about genetics despite being a sociologist, while a reputable historian Gil Troy is considered not reliable enough. I have seen extensive usage of unreliable sources such as Anadolu Agency and Daily Sabah which I have removed where I find them, while The Jerusalem Post and Jewish Chronicle are proposed for downgrading. Andre🚐 20:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Frankly I think this set of articles would be in much better state if we didn't use any news orgs at all in it. And I don't just mean the pro-Israel ones here. They've mostly become a source of dueling POVs. And meanwhile the Israel / Palestine conflict has attracted significant and sustained academic interest. Simonm223 (talk) 21:11, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  So far my evidence above has to do with academics; not all academics are equally widely cited or reputable, and we have to consider whether they are being cited or reviewed approvingly, and their prominence in the field, but we shouldn't consider sources unreliable due to their politics alone. IMHO, news agencies are generally acceptable sources for the basic facts of an event, and we should systematically cull out the ones which cannot even be trusted for that because they're blatant counterfactual propaganda or have failed enough fact checks. There's a primary source issue with breaking news reporting that isn't a reason to downgrade news agencies, but treat them with caution and some distance. I have long maintained that Fox News, Washington Examiner, and New York Post shouldn't be used for facts about anything controversial, but Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Daily News are reliable. There are also left-wing sources considered unreliable like The Canary, Raw Story and Occupy Democrats. These things can change, as the Jewish Chronicle was recently limited based on perceived ownership issues. Similarly, Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post are generally reliable while there are other pro-Israel sources that probably aren't so reliable. I have also maintained that state-run propaganda media like RT is not reliable. Al Mayadeen was downgraded for these reasons. Sources with biases like Al Jazeera should be used with caution when their bias comes into play, and I believe there's a double standard issue if JPost and Times of Israel are considered less reliable than Al Jazeera (active discussions currently open). I believe the RSP/RSN system works reasonably well if you keep in mind that it's not categorical and it depends on the context, and a rule of thumb is not a rigid formula, but simply a guideline that may be deviated from when one has a good reason or consensus that there's an exception that should be brought to bear. Andre🚐 21:28, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  I've suggested barring WP:GREL as a standard here may be one way to help. If we simply reassert that reliability is contextual we can cut down on pointless battlegrounds as various camps try to knock out sources that oppose their side and defend sources that support it. "General reliability" was always a mistake as a concept. In the context of this conflict discussions of general reliability are effectively being weaponized. WP:GREL is not policy. So, as it's causing unneeded fronts in this edit-war why do we keep using it? Simonm223 (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't agree with that at all. Andre🚐 20:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Simonm223: I agree with the principle that reliability is context dependent and that source discussions are being weaponized. However, I believe the best way of achieving that is a better definition of what "generally reliable" means in the topic area. Generally reliable, in my view, means there's no source-specific considerations in which that source might be unreliable. Even a generally reliable source is only contextually reliable.

  As an example, contentious claims should be supported by generally reliable sources of different perspectives. If a claim about Palestinian death tolls is only cited to Israeli newspapers, that would be one of the contexts that could be an exception to the generally reliable rule. It might be appropriate to demand additional sources in that scenario. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  Yes. NPOV means looking to make sure minority views are included if not fringe, and summarizing disputes, not taking sides in disputes. It's not for editors to determine through original research or opinions that something like a definition of antisemitism or a view on antisemitism or the Arabs' fate in 1948 makes something fringe. Things are fringe if other reliable sources describe them engaging in conspiracy theories, fabrications or failed fact checks, or other issues like non-correction corrections that render them fringe. Not if they have different views on the historical narrative or different historiographies. Andre🚐 01:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• To elaborate a bit more on this proposal, which if accepted in principle should be split into more separate things as Chess says, I fundamentally see a lack of balance on the part of some of the parties. They will accept sources on one side of the spectrum like Nadia Abu El-Haj, Nur Masalha, etc., and believe that the left-leaning New Historians Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe are actually as far right as the spectrum will allow, and they consider Efraim Karsh or Martin Gilbert to be unreliable because they are Zionists or right-leaning. Being a Zionist or right-leaning doesn't make someone unreliable. I will accept Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said as useful and influential sources, but they definitely have a POV. Similarly, a source like Gil Troy isn't unreliable for being a Zionist. We need to write articles in such a way that we throw a bone to all of these other POVs so long as they are reliable enough for facts, have a reputation for good work etc. Even Dershowitz - Dershowitz is an advocate and controversial, but nobody throws away Dershowitz altogether and claims he is a total snake oil salesman. They just disagree with his more strident positions. But Wikipedia has a rule for what to do in those cases: WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Andre🚐 21:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

  I'll comment on a few of the people you brought up, but for any that I don't mention, just consider me as having nothing to say on them.

  I'd consider Efraim Karsh generally unreliable, not because of his political leaning or Zionist beliefs, but because his analyses of history always seem to be put through a nationalist lens. He holds fringe views like the idea that Palestinians left willingly/the expulsion was self-inflicted & his close relations with organizations like Middle East Forum, where he agreed with Lawrence of Arabia's description of Arabs, saying “They were a limited, narrow-minded people, whose inert intellect lay fallow in incurious resignation".

  I know we've already discussed Gil Troy before, but again, he's not an expert in Zionism or the Middle East, he's an American presidential historian with strong opinions. Same principle goes for Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer & a professor of U.S. constitutional law & American criminal law. I don't care if they're pro or anti Israel, but I can't see why we'd cite either of them for anything relating to the topic area other then their personal opinions.

  _{(Not important in relation to reliability: Despite Benny Morris's belief that he is "left-leaning", I don't see how that could be true with his stated desire for Israel to nuke Iran & his denial of the Armenian genocide - I also can't see how Ilan Pappe could be considered politically comparable to Morris)} Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 01:33, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  But the point is that Nadia Abu El-Haj is a sociologist, not a geneticist, but we cite her for race and genetics on Zionism. Alam is an economist, and not a Middle East specialist at all. You've articulated a reason about Karsh that still comes down to bias, which is not the same as reliability, and while I agree Troy is not a mideast specialist, he's written a book on Zionism that has been cited by specialists.P.S. It's true that Morris' views have evolved over time on certain issues but for most of his career he was a leader of the left-wing New Historians, the wing that Pappe is also part of. Andre🚐 01:46, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  To be specific, Nadia Abu El-Haj is an anthropologist (a rather broad field of study), which relates to human behavior, culture, society, & race. She also seems to work in the field of genetic anthropology, so I think her work can be considered due for Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism (weight is a different story).

  I agree that Mohammad Shahid Alam shouldn't be cited as an expert on Zionism, but I'd like to point out that @Levivich wasn't against their exclusion either, stating in relation to Chaim Gans' inclusion (A philosopher & professor of law) "In the end, I'm fine with either/both being included or excluded, but I do think we should have objective criteria that applies to the whole list." Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 02:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  As you can see, Levivich despite their apparent willingness to accept my objection in that message, still didn't remove Alam, including them on the list in their later message: [1] despite Dershowitz not being added, quoting Alam again in their survey of the "best sources" [2] and a much later message to me on my talk [3] I'd rethink the suggestion that "Alam OK, Dershowitz not OK" is some kind of problem. Gans was also removed from the list. Andre🚐 02:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  No one directly responded to their proposal to include or exclude both of them, so I assume the status quo was kept for a time as both being included.

  Later however, they proposed the removal of several sources, with Gans being excluded & Alam staying. You then replied that you "agree with removing Masalha, Black, Gans, for the reason you stated." but didn't comment on Alam's inclusion. As such, Alam looks to've been left as still being treated as a reliable source for the subject.

  Dershowitz was only briefly brought up in that discussion where their inclusion was rejected.

  Looking at it as a whole, it seems the main issue was one of miscommunication over the span of an overly long discussion. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 03:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't agree with your interpretation of what happened in that discussion and the subsequent discussions. I never withdrew my objection to Alam. I agreed with removing Masalha, Black and Gans, but then I objected to removing Sachar, Brenner, and Amar-Dahl. I also lobbied for including Laqueur and Shapira. The fact that nobody responded to my message wasn't agreement and not a fair adjudication of the discussion. Andre🚐 03:36, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  I did not mean to imply it was a valid conclusion to the discussion, only that it was my understanding of how we got here. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 04:03, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  Right, but you're defending the double standard for sources and putting words in someone else's mouth. The point I'm illustrating with these principles and evidence is that Alam, a non-expert with a clear axe to grind with his book, is not a best source on Zionism and is just as polarizing as Dershowitz or other advocacy authors on the Israeli side. I wouldn't even compare him to Karsh because Karsh is a tenured and prolific historian with tons of citations. There's a blind spot here if we aren't using the objective criteria that applies to the whole list at all here, since Alam is not an expert, not a historian, a persuasive, even polemical writer. Andre🚐 04:20, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  On the topic of El Haj, with all respect, I don't think @AndreJustAndre understands anthropology or how it factors into the criticism of things like genetic genealogical projects. This isn't the same as an opinionated person operating outside of their area of specialty. El Haj writes a lot of criticism of genetic research. It's within her area of expertise. Simonm223 (talk) 21:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  The cite to her on the Zionism page which was restored by Levivich and defended by Selfstudier et al., basically hangs a genetic conclusion on her anthropological/sociological i.e. soft/social science work, the dubious claim that there is no way genetically to detect markers of Jewish ethnic groups or that there is something mysterious about the origin of Ashkenazi Jews (arguably, a nod to the discredited Khazar theory), which is directly contradicted by Ostrer, a geneticist, and other hard science work, a false parity being created here. While Falk is also a geneticist, he died in 2019 and his work is outdated. See Xue 2017, Norwich study, Erfurt study, Ostrer 2020, Balter 2010 (old, but a good review versus primary study), as discussed on the talk page and added to the article in a very recent discussion. Andre🚐 21:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  I's sorry but calling anthropology "soft science" is pejorative to the discipline. Simonm223 (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Anthropologist isn't a "hard science," it's a "social science" or "human science." That's not necessarily pejorative, anthropologists mostly admit it.[4][5][6][7][8][9] It doesn't mean anthropology is all biased or equivalent to the humanities. There are quantitative and rigorous methods in social psychology, but that doesn't mean that those people should be interpreting things like allele frequency or single nucleotide polymorphisms unless they have the training and experience in biology and genetics. Andre🚐 20:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  What Nadia Abu El-Haj is being cited for though doesn't consist of her "interpreting things like allele frequency or single nucleotide polymorphisms", it's her argument that "the whole enterprise of using genetics to confirm a narrative of origins [is] problematic."

  It's a question of ethics, objectivity, intent, & potential political impact.

  The reason there's controversy regarding using genetics to determine race is because it's a social construct, inherently flexible in nature.

  Her comment, "[t]he Ashkenazi Jew is the most dubious Jew, the Jew whose historical and genealogical roots in ancient Palestine are most difficult to see and perhaps thus to believe—in practice, although clearly not by definition." isn't her questioning their Jewishness, it's her saying that, physically & socially, among Jews, they were the "least other" as they could sometimes still pass for Europeans.

  To use myself as an example, I'm Ashkenazi, but most people wouldn't immediately recognize me as such, just seeing me as "white". If you put me in a group of Mizrahi & Sephardic Jews, I'd stick out like a sore thumb.

  I hope I'm conveying this properly. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:14, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think we're getting a little offtopic from an Arbcom workshop and maybe we should take the remainder of this up on an article talk page or a user talk page, but here are some thoughts on your points. This isn't about skin color at all, it's about DNA. You can have the phenotypes for darker or lighter skin and still be mostly Jewish, or Xhosa, Zulu, Bantu, or whatever you are. This could be from albinism, natural variation, environmental factors (e.g. appear pretty European, but can get pretty olive if spend enough time in the sun) or just that those genes were dominant as inherited from that side of one's ancestry. Few people are 100% anything. Since you volunteer that you are Ashkenazi, have you ever taken a DNA test? Chances are, if both of your parents are Ashkenazi, it won't say 100% Ashkenazi, but something in the 90s range. That could be because there's a lot of Sephardic in the Ashkenazi past, or Eastern European, or something else. In my case, DNA tests sometimes classify 1-2% of my DNA as Italian and/or Greek.

  At any rate, this is all newer stuff and archaic claims that there's no "Jewish gene" are missing the point. There are indeed SNPs that occur at a higher rate among certain populations, such as Tay-Sachs-related ones (which came up in the dispute as a MEDRS issue), this applies to other groups also like Cajuns French-Canadians or whatever group that has had a bit of isolation enough to pass mutations within an endogamous group. On the Zionism page, El Haj's being cited for "biological self-definition" ... evidence will one day be found, even though so far proof for the claim has "remained forever elusive". Frankly, it's not accurate and an outdated claim that ignores recent research as I've explained already. This is directly contrary to Ostrer, the geneticist here, whom she critiques in her work. I don't mind including El-Haj as an attributed critic. However, removing the attribution to her, contrary to WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, and also removed the balancing material that I added, creates an NPOV issue. Andre🚐 21:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC) [cont'd [10]]

WP:CIVILITY, WP:AGF

2) These are core policies and even more important in controversial areas.

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WP:ASPERSIONS

3) Accusations require specific evidence responsive to the policy or guideline or issue. Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks is disruptive.

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Proposals by User:-sche

Proposed remedies

Default title format for articles about events in places

1) Articles about events in places (in this topic area) will be named — or if created under another name, moved to — "[Place] event of [date]" until consensus is reached for another title.

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Proposing this, and hoping other people may wordsmith it or otherwise improve it, with the basic idea that if there is a e.g. P/I-related attack / defense / rescue / massacre at Foobarville this month, the article about it will be "Foobarville event of 2024" (or "...December 2024", "...7 December 2024", depending on how many events must be disambiguated) until there is consensus for a better title, as a remedy to the issue ScottishFinnishRadish identified, that "Articles are created as quickly as possible [because] consensus is needed to change the title once the article is created" i.e. people rush to create articles with POV titles to entrench those titles. (I regard the stupidness of "X event of Y" names as a feature, nagging people to agree on a better/real title and not just leave the placeholder in place indefinitely.) This could be applied only to articles created after the case closes, or to any articles for which there's never been a consensus on what to title them that were created since the start of the current conflict. -sche (talk) 03:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

There is no way to check if you're right that the stupidness of your suggested names will be helpful, or if in fact it will be harmful. What I suspect will happen, though, is that users not familiar with ARBPIA will be too quick to RM these without enough thought about the correct name, and consider anyone who they think is screwing up a possible consensus to be a problem. This will just add more heat to what is possibly the most heated content area on Wikipedia. Animal lover |666| 07:15, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposals by Huldra

Due to the perennial "high temperature" in the IP area, arb.com should impose additional "Decorum Rules" for the area: 1) {It is strictly forbidden to call other editors contributions for: "rubbish", "idiotic", "bullshit", or any similar words. This is especially true if the other editors contributions actually is rubbish, idiotic, or bullshit}

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My thinking is from RL: you can tell a genius/clever person that they said/did something stupid, but you should never, ever say that to a stupid person. Huldra (talk) 23:42, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a principle that should be limited to IP and is already unacceptable in my mind. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Not limited to, but I think it would be good if arb.com explicitly signalled that in such a contentious area like the IP, any behaviour which "raise the temperature" will absolutely not be tolerated, Huldra (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The moment you make a rule in one area, you signal that this specific behavior is permitted elsewhere. There may be a less strict version of the rule elsewhere provided this version is specified explicitly (for example, a 1RR rule in some areas doesn't contradict a 3RR rule elsewhere), but this less strict version must actually be specified. Animal lover |666| 14:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposals by Tryptofish

Proposed principles

Dispute resolution

1) If a dispute becomes protracted or the subject of extensive or heated discussion, the views and comments of uninvolved contributors should be sought. Insulating a content dispute for long periods can lead to the disputants become entrenched, and so unresolvable questions of content should be referred at the first opportunity to the community at large—whether in a Request for Comment, Requested Move, or other suitable mechanism for inviting comment from a new perspective.

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Modified from Canadian politics (I changed 3O to RM). I don't intend to create a full set of proposals, but I'm suggesting four principles that I think ArbCom can start from, and go from there. My evidence attempts to show how an RM led to a consensus that improved the pagename, but was hampered by hostility of some editors to having experienced editors who were previously uninvolved offer "fresh eyes". Not socks, but good-faith experienced editors. The community depends on "fresh eyes" to solve difficult content disputes. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Personalising disputes

2) In content disputes, editors must always comment on the content and not the contributor. Personalising content disputes disrupts the consensus-building process on which Wikipedia depends.

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Yes, this is a pernicious problem and highly disheartening as it occurred quite often in that discussion. I have a fairly thick skin I like to think but this has a real chilling effect on good faith contributions and it persists despite attempts to deal with it. Andre🚐 23:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

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Verbatim from Iranian politics. This is a big part of what went wrong in discussions surrounding the RM. One can quote from a source, to make a point about content. There's no need to falsely accuse others of not having read the source. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Being right isn't enough

3) Violations of Wikipedia's behavioral expectations are not excused on the grounds that the editor who violated those expectations has the correct position on an underlying substantive dispute or the interpretation of policies and guidelines within those disputes. Those expectations apply universally to all editors, and violations of those expectations are harmful to the functioning of the project, irrespective of the merits of an underlying substantive dispute.

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Yes, absolutely. Andre🚐 23:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

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Verbatim from SmallCat. If there's any principle that I think needs to be in this decision, it's this one. I have no doubt that the editors I presented evidence about have carefully studied the sources, and are sincere in their beliefs. That's not enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Enough is enough

4) When the community's extensive and reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may, as a last resort, be compelled to adopt robust measures to prevent further damage to the encyclopedia, disruption to the editing environment and to the community.

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Verbatim from GamerGate. (Yes, I know proposed principles 3 and 4 both include "enough", and can be combined in humorous ways.) Let's face it, this is the fifth ArbCom case in this topic area. It won't be enough to pass the motions from the case request period. We don't need a sixth case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposals by Guerillero

Proposed principles

Purpose of Wikipedia

1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda or furtherance of outside conflicts is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.

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From PIA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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National and territorial disputes

2) Several of Wikipedia's most bitter disputes have revolved around national or ethnic conflicts such as rival national claims to disputed territories or areas. Editors working on articles on these topics may frequently have strong viewpoints, often originating in their own national or other backgrounds. Such editors may be the most knowledgeable people interested in creating Wikipedia content about the area or the dispute, and are permitted and encouraged to contribute if they can do so consistent with Wikipedia's fundamental policies. However, conduct that furthers a preexisting dispute on Wikipedia should receive special attention from the community, up to and including sanctions. It is perfectly possible to present a balanced, accurate, and verifiable encyclopedia article about contentious issues or preexisting disputes.

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From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Role of the Arbitration Committee

3) he role of the committee is to act as a final binding decision-maker for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. Content areas the committee has previously ruled on are sometimes designated as contentious topics or subject to ongoing special restrictions. As necessary, the Committee may revisit previous decisions and associated enforcement systems in order to review their effectiveness or necessity.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee

4) The Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction over conduct on the English Wikipedia and retains jurisdiction over all matters previously heard, including associated enforcement processes. While the Arbitration Committee may take notice of behavior outside of the English Wikipedia, we cannot restrict behavior which occurs outside of the English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Recidivism

5) Editors sanctioned for disruptive behavior are expected to improve their behavior, should they continue to participate in the project. Sanctioned editors should be afforded assistance and reasonable time to improve (especially if they demonstrate the ability to engage positively with the community), but if their conduct does not improve they may be subject to increasingly severe sanctions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Standards of editor behavior

6) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Additionally, editors should presume that other editors, including those who disagree with them, are acting in good faith toward the betterment of the project, at least until strong evidence emerges to the contrary. Even when an editor becomes convinced that another editor is not acting in good faith, and has a reasonable basis for that belief, the editor should attempt to remedy the problem without resorting to inappropriate conduct of their own.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Being right isn't enough

7) Violations of Wikipedia's behavioral expectations are not excused on the grounds that the editor who violated those expectations has the correct position on an underlying substantive dispute or the interpretation of policies and guidelines within those disputes. Those expectations apply universally to all editors, and violations of those expectations are harmful to the functioning of the project, irrespective of the merits of an underlying substantive dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From Smallcats --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Single purpose accounts

8) Single purpose accounts are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda and, in particular, should take care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral, which could strongly suggest that their editing is incompatible with the goals of this project.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From PIA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Edit warring

9) Edit warring is disruptive and tends to inflame content disputes rather than resolve them. Users who engage in multiple reverts of the same content but are careful not to breach the three revert rule are still edit warring.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Tendentious editing

9) Users who disrupt the editing of articles by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing may be banned from editing these articles. In extreme cases, they may be banned from the site.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Arbitration Enforcement

10) Arbitration enforcement (AE) is the noticeboard, set up by the Arbitration Committee and staffed by administrators, for editors to report suspected breaches of arbitration decisions. When enforcing arbitration decisions, administrators act as delegates of the Arbitration Committee and, in that role, they review the facts and, if necessary, take action.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Arbitration Enforcement-imposed sanctions

11) In enforcing arbitration decisions, administrators should seek to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment within contentious topics. Administrators are expected to use their experience and judgment to balance (1) the need to assume good faith, to avoid biting genuine newcomers, and to allow responsible contributors maximum editing freedom with (2) the need to keep edit-warring, battleground conduct, and disruptive behavior to a minimum.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From AA3 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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At wit's end

12) In cases where all reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may be forced to adopt seemingly draconian measures as a last resort for preventing further damage to the encyclopedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From PIA4 --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Locus of the dispute

1) This case relates to behavioral issues occurring around articles relating to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This area has been the subject of four previous arbitration cases, the Palestine-Israel articles, West Bank - Judea and Samaria case, Palestine-Israel articles 3, and Palestine-Israel articles 4.

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2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Alaexis

3.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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AndreJustAndre

4.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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BilledMammal

5.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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IOHANNVSVERVS

6.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Iskandar323

7.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Ïvana

8.1) On 9 December 2024, Ïvana was banned from the English Wikipedia by the Arbitration Committee for off-wiki misconduct relating to the topic area.

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Levivich

8.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Makeandtoss

9.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Nableezy

10.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Nishidani

11.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Selfstudier

12.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Snowstormfigorion

13.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Zero0000

14.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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IOHANNVSVERVS

6.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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האופה

15.1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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placeholder

16) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Breaking news moratorium

1) Within the area of conflict, all newly created articles covering events that have transpired within the previous <number> months are prohibited unless there is a strong consensus of the title and scope at <location> after at least 72 hours of discussion. Administrators may enforce this remedy through deletions, blocks, and page protections.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Working on a FoF, but after reviewing SFR's evidence the mad dash to cover breaking news is a problem within the topic area. This could be a way of slowing things down. No idea if it is even actionable or a good idea. I am open to suggestions as to where to host the discussions. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:05, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support for those articles where a Template:Current would normally be applied. NPOV noticeboard for discussion, presented as a draft RM? Selfstudier (talk) 10:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Source prohibition

2) Within the area of conflict, articles from non-scholarly newspapers, periodicals, news outlets, opinion outlets, and the like are prohibited to be used as sources unless they are more than 12 months old. Articles, white papers, press releases, reports, comments, or any other type of work from organizations and outlets self-described as engaged in advocacy of a point of view or political advocacy are prohibited from being used as sources within the area of conflict.

Comment by Arbitrators:

A dead tree rule and a buffer against advocacy groups might also work to slow down the problems SFR raised. This is a nuclear option, but it could work. I would like comments on how to make this more clear. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland: By state agencies to you mean organs of any nation-state or just those in the levant? Both sound interesting to me. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:45, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

"the descriptor eliminates virtually all sources for any article for 12 months" yes, that is the point. Let history be written before trying to write an encyclopedia article about it. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 16:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This would probably be reported as "Wikipedia bans human rights groups". Are state agencies advocacy groups? They are certainly involved in political advocacy in the conflict. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of organs directly connected to the belligerents, like ministries, defense departments etc., but clarity of thought is not necessarily present for me today it seems. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose, the descriptor eliminates virtually all sources for any article for 12 months (would sources less than 12 months old included in existing articles need to be removed?). Not opposed in principle to an attempt to restrict sourcing in some way, for example RSN "green" only, no press releases, only expert opinions and so on but would need to be carefully workshopped and not done in haste.Selfstudier (talk) 11:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Prohibiting Wikipedia from covering current events is a complete non-starter. You'll start a riot if you try -- imagine the headlines: "Wikipedia's arbitration committee censors war crimes", etc. But for non-current events, which is most of PIA, WP:APLRS is a great place to start. Levivich (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Should separate news/opinion/periodicals from advocacy organizations. Two different issues, bad for different reasons. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really involved much in the topic area but I think this is a very bad idea. If this passes, we would be completely unable to cover most current events in the area. Our articles on Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar wouldn't even be able to mention that they died! I agree with Selfstudier that the idea is good in principle, but needs to be thought out a bit more. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Good! Wikipedia should not be "covering" current events. We're not a news service. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that we can't cover recent events, but even if we accept that premise, under this restriction we could not say that Yahya Sinwar is dead because all of the news sources are too recent. I also think that this is arguably a type of content ruling, which is outside of ArbCom's remit. If we are going to implement this, it should have community consensus. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:58, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Ooooh, how about three or six months instead of twelve, but you can only use sources about the event written after the three or six month window. That helps with the NOTNEWS, the rush to get the article placed at a certain POV, and helps to ensure WP:SUSTAINED. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:15, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Proposals by User:Carrite

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is Not a Battleground

1) "What Wikipedia is Not" is site policy, including NOTBATTLEGROUND: "Wikipedia is not a place to hold grudges or import personal conflicts, nor is it the place to carry on ideological battles or nurture prejudice, hatred, or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions is in direct conflict of Wikipedia's policies and goals, as well as Wikipedia's founding principles. * * *

"In large disputes, resist the urge to turn Wikipedia into a battleground between factions. Assume good faith that every editor and group is here to improve Wikipedia—especially if they hold a point of view with which you disagree. Work with whomever you like, but do not organize a faction that disrupts (or aims to disrupt) Wikipedia's fundamental decision-making process, which is based on building a consensus. Editors in large disputes should work in good faith to find broad principles of agreement between different viewpoints."

EVERYTHING in this case should flow from this. Civil or uncivil, POV faction-fighters need to be rolled out the door. Carrite (talk) 22:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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Proposals by Barkeep49

Proposed findings of fact (Barkeep49)

Limitations of Arbitration Enforcement

1) Arbitration Enforcement struggles to handle reports involving the examination of conduct of more than two editors (Barkeep49 evidence and analysis)

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There is evidence of other limitations of AE that should probably be incoporated into an actual decision, but using this as the FoF to support the thing I'm actually floating below. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed remedies (Barkeep49)

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Arbitration enforcement recommendation

1) Uninvolved administrators are encouraged to limit discussion of AE reports to the conduct of 1 or 2 editors. Where this is not possible, they are encouraged to split a report into multiple reports, refer a report to another enforcement venue (e.g. SPI), or to refer cases to the Arbitration Committee.

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AE is an ArbCom venue so ArbCom can tell AE admins how they'd like things handled. This seems like reasonable guidance while still allowing AE admins discrestion (it's not absolute and they are presented with multiple options on how to handle it). Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Mini-cases

2) Following a referral from the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard, the Arbitration Committee may decide by four net votes to either handle the referral itself or to establish a mini-case. A mini-case will be structured as follows, unless the Arbitration Committee votes otherwise:

• 3 (ALT: 5) uninvolved administrators will be appointed to serve as a panel. This panel may include arbitrators and/or referring AE administrators.
• The panel decides on a list of parties based on the AE referral. (ALT: The Arbitration Committee decides on a list of parties when voting to open a mini-case.)
• A mini-case is opened. Normal arbcom procedures regarding decorum and notification will be followed. Panel members will be considered drafters under arbcom procedures.
• In a mini-case there will be 1 week for evidence and analysis of evidence. There will be no workshop.
• The panel will then have 1 week to write a proposed decision.
• A proposed decision will consist of finding of facts and remedy sections (no principles needed).
• Remedies must comply with contentious topics procedures equivalent to those of the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.
• FoF and Remedies which receive a majority of the panel pass (ALT: FoF and Remedies which received a consensus of the panel pass)
• The mini-case is closed one week after posting. This may be shortened or extended by a majority of panel members.
• The Arbitration Committee may replace or substitute a panel member at any time.

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This may be a terrible idea (it only occurred to me about 30 minutes ago) but I felt it worth offering in the spirit of out of the box ideas. Obviously there are a lot of specific parts here that can be ajusted, but I wanted to get something out for reaction. The core idea is "AE structure doesn't work, so what could". This is intended to be a structure that is known to be capable of handling multi-party disputes while being lighterweight than a full case. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Genocide of indigenous peoples edit war

SFR's evidence re Genocide of indigenous peoples edit war involves 15 editors, only 3 of whom are currently parties to this case, and only 1 party made more than one revert:

Added	Removed
Mar 31: Qhairun	Magnolia677
Mar 31: Te og kaker
Mar 31 - May 23: stable (~2 months, >40 article edits during this period)
	May 23: האופה
May 23: Ivanvector	ABHammad
May 24: RFC #1 started
May 27: Dylanvt	O.maximov
May 27: M.Bitton	האופה
May 27: Dylanvt
May 27 - Jun 3: full protected
Jun 21: RFC #1 closed as no consensus
	Jun 23: ABHammad
Jun 23: M.Bitton	ABHammad
Jun 23: Skitash	האופה
Jun 24: Bluethricecreamman
Jun 24 - Aug 5: stable (~1.5 months, >50 article edits during this period)
	Aug 5: BilledMammal
Aug 5: Selfstudier	Moxy
Aug 5: Bluethricecreamman	CapnJackSp
Aug 6: RFC #2 started
Aug 6: M.Bitton	האופה
Aug 7: Bluethricecreamman
Sep 25: RFC #2 closed as consensus to include
# of editors who added: 8	# of editors who removed: 7
# of editors who are parties to this case: 1 (Selfstudier)	# of editors who are parties to this case: 2 (האופה, BilledMammal)
Editors on the list more than once: 3 (Dylanvt 2x, M.Bitton 3x, Bluethricecreamman 3x)	Editors on the list more than once: 2 (האופה (4x), ABHammad 3x)

There were two periods of stability: Mar 31-May 23 (>40 edits), broken by האופה, and Jun 24 - Aug 5 (>50 edits), broken by BilledMammal. See evidence page for diffs. Levivich (talk) 17:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I am a party. I apologize for responding in the "others" threaded discussion below. I forgot to post my messages in the "parties" area. I'm not moving them now to not disrupt the threaded discussion that exists below, but if a clerk or arb wants to move them, or wants me to, or anyone else wants to, that's fine by me. Andre🚐 01:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by others:

There's a pattern here of editors, even very experienced ones, using reverts as their first (sometimes only) tool in dispute resolution, and needing to be forced into discussion:

• The May 23-27 edit warring involved 6 editors, of whom only one (myself) made any effort to discuss the changes rather than edit-war. The other five continued edit warring until the page was protected, and only then participated in the RFC.
• The Jun 23-24 edit warring, also set off by ABHammad, involved 3 of the same editors plus 2 newcomers (one of the earlier 6 had been blocked as an Icewhiz sock), and again did not stop until the page was protected again (this is missing from the chart). This time two (out of five) made it to the talk page prior to protection to participate in a discussion which had already been going for some time.
• On Aug 5 the edit war was needlessly started again by BilledMammal, who prior to removing the section had never before edited the article nor its talk page, and then only did so to demand that somebody else start a discussion. Selfstudier did, to their credit, and that second RFC seems to have resolved the issue.

We know that these kinds of disagreements aren't solved by reverting, they're only solved by discussion, but we still needed to fully protect this page more than once for discussion to move along, and several of the editors involved got into new edit wars over the same content repeatedly over the four-or-so months that this debate was ongoing. I'm responding to the ping in the chart above and haven't been following the case to know what it is we're exploring, but this is what I see as the problem here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that two more of the accounts in the table above have now been identified as Icewhiz socks (making 3 total), but I'm not going to redo my analysis. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

8/12 removals were by now-blocked socks. Like most edit wars in this topic area, this one was mostly socks on one side vs. mostly random editors (not "regulars") on the other side. Levivich (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about that. Selfstudier, M. Bitton and Skitash are regulars, Bluethricecreamman and Dylanvt have thousands of edits in the topic area so if they aren't regulars, they're at least experienced editors. Andre🚐 21:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Good faith editors v. socks, is the point. Levivich (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that based on the findings of SPI, the sock farm was on the one side of this. However, we don't have any reason to believe that Moxy, BilledMammal and Magnolia677 aren't good faith regulars (BilledMammal is a party, so if you have evidence of his bad faith you could present it), and while I don't recognize CapnJackSp, he appears to have a clean history and hasn't even been made aware of ARBPIA CT, therefore would qualify as a "random editor." Ivanvector points out that the sock farm was on one side of this, as we might expect since part of the reason to have a sock presumably is to use it in the same dispute, right? However, I don't see in evidence that "most edit wars" in the topic area are like this one, you could present evidence to that effect, or I suppose we could add more edit wars to the analysis to see if it's true. Andre🚐 21:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The only edits I can find from CapnJackSp relating to the topic from around that time was their participation regarding "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential" & their working with BilledMammal to file an RFC against Al Jazeera. As such, I'm assuming they found the article because someone they were collaborating with at the time was editing there. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

No, it would be out of scope for this case. But I list dozens of examples of such edit wars at the Icewhiz SPI, e.g. the Zionism edit war over "colonization," the Israel edit war over "various causes," the Palestinians edit war over "indigenous" and "native" ... all of those are just socks on one side, good faith users on the other (this Genocide of indigenous peoples edit war is also at that SPI).

Besides the edit wars, there are also the talk page discussions: Talk:Palestinian suicide attacks#Requested move 21 August 2024: almost all opposers are now blocked socks (except 3); Talk:1982 Lebanon War#Lede: just socks on one side; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Masada myth: almost all socks voting delete; Talk:Israeli apartheid#Tags: almost all socks on one side; Talk:Samir Kuntar#Large scale revert: 3 socks v. 2 good-faith editors.

We could go on like this, but none of this is in-scope for this case, because this case isn't about the problem of socking in the topic area. Levivich (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The problem of socking should definitely be addressed too. I don't think the answer is "edit war because some of the others are probably socks", "ignore civility because some of the others are probably socks," or "abandon AGF because some of the others are probably socks." What would be helpful is actual ways to further reduce the impact of sockpuppets on the topic and discussions. I've been stewing on this, but there aren't a lot of good answers. Moratoriums after RFCs/RMs, automatically triggered RFCs when an edit war begins? I feel like that might have a positive effect on establishing consensus and locking content for a while. That should reduce the burden of multiple discussions opened over and over on the same points. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

How many of the editors in the topic area have turned out to be socks in general? Especially when a dispute or RFC shows up? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Article titles/RMs/Massacres

Talk:Tel al-Sultan attack#Requested move 3 November 2024 An ongoing "live" example.

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 111#When can titles contain "massacre"? Recent NPOVN discussion.

User:BilledMammal/ARBPIA RM statistics Multiple discussions in Preliminaries. Selfstudier (talk) 13:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

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Evidence presented by FOARP

The evidence shows a pattern of editors repeatedly favoring or disfavoring the use of the word "massacre" in RM discussions. An important but unanswered question is why those editors did so. There is nothing in policy against editors tending to agree or disagree with one another. Nor is there anything in policy that is automatically against editors holding consistently to a particular opinion about that word. Before ArbCom can conclude that there is coordination and/or POV-pushing going on, it is important to know whether or not these RM !votes were made in a contentious or disruptive manner, and whether or not the views expressed in these !votes spilled over into anything like edit-warring or battleground-y talk page comments. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

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FOARP writes but then in Nuseirat/Tel al-Sultan they abandon that "weight"/"naming" standard and !vote based on statements by officials and the fact that the "M" word is being used by sources at all. They're facially civil, but still POV pushing, engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour in order to "score points". FOARP neglects to mention that my Nuseirat !vote is for a bolded aka not for the article title nor that I have not as yet !voted in Tel al-Sultan RM, therefore making a battleground accusation without evidence. Idk what score points means here. Also see my post above #Article titles/RMs/Massacres. Selfstudier (talk) 19:25, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Massacre table

Massacre? Page Victim BilledMammal Iskandar Ïvana Nableezy Selfstudier Iohannvsvervs Makeandtoss CONSENSUS Netiv HaAsara [11] I — N — — — — — Y Nahal Oz [12] I — N — — — — — N Nirim [13] I — N — — N — — N Nir Yitzhak [14] I — N — — — — — N Holit [15] I — N — N N — — N Kissufim [16] I — N — — — — — N Nir Oz [17] I N N — N N — — N Engineer's Building [18] P N Y — Y — — — N Nuseirat refugee camp [19] P — — — — Y — — Y Al-Tabaeen school [20] P — Y Y — Y — Y N 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation [21] P N — Y — Y — Y Y Tel al-Sultan [22] P — — Y — Y Y Y — Total "yes" 0 2 3 1 4 1 3 3 Total "no" 3 7 0 2 3 0 0 8 Total yes/no for I 0 yes / 1 no 0/7 0/0 0/2 0/3 0/0 0/0 1/6 Total yes/no for P 0/2 2/0 3/0 1/0 4/0 1/0 3/0 2/2 Match rate 66% (2/3) 66% (6/9) 50% (1/2) 66% (2/3) 83% (5/6) — 50% (1/2) Source: FOARP's evidence Key: "Victim" = who was the target of the massacre/attack (Israelis or Palestinians) Y = "massacre" in the title (which may be a support or oppose vote depending on whether the proposed move was to or from "massacre") N = "massacre" not in the title Match rate = same as AFD: how often the editor's !vote matched the outcome

Just because an editor votes in favor of "massacre" for some articles and against "massacre" for other articles doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of problem because some events are described as "massacres" by reliable sources, and other events are not. For example, Selfstudier voted 4x in favor of "massacre" and 3x against "massacre" but matched consensus 6 out of 7 times -- that's not bias, hypocrisy, or any kind of problem, that's accurately reading sources and almost always matching consensus. Similarly, Iskandar's match rate is 6/9. For the others, it doesn't tell us much if an editor is 1/2 or 2/3. We would expect any editors voting in any RMs to have match rates like 1/2 or 2/3 for such small sample sizes. I don't think this evidence shows any kind of problem with how these editors voted in these RMs. Levivich (talk) 04:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The point I'm making here is the grounds on which they were !voting shifted 180 degrees depending on whether the subject was "I" or "P", and it clearly didn't matter to some of the parties what the PAGs said about what the page-title should be - they decided what the title would be based on "I" versus "P" and then drafted the argument from there. Where the PAGs favoured their pre-determined conclusion, they went with the PAGs, where they didn't , they went with arguments of exactly type that they had previously disparaged.

POVWARRIOR behaviour is still disruptive, even when it is facially-civil, because it creates a battleground situation on Wikipedia, drives inconsistency, harms NPOV, and is ultimately the behaviour of editors who are WP:NOTHERE, but instead seek to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. There are editors on here who apparently like to play a POV game where the points are scored by getting the "best" article names for their "side" and the "worst" ones for the other "side". We do not have to provide a platform for the players of such games indefinitely.

It is incredulous to simply say "people don't have to like a word or dislike a word" as if that was all they were doing. It is also naïve to essentially say "people being inconsistent is nothing wrong" when it's very clear that this wasn't just random forgetfulness or inconsistency, but one that always leaned towards "their" "side".

For reference I hadn't even read the preliminary statements page when I decided to post this, and to say the least I had no knowledge that BM had decided to make a big thing out of it - it's just something I've seen closing RMs. I could have done the same on page moves between "airstrike" and "attack", which are also a locus of POVWARRIOR behaviour. FOARP (talk) 13:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

When an editor references past discussions that resulted in a consensus and attempts to follow that same argument that is not inconsistent. That is attempting to have consistency. When the finding of consensus was based on arguments on victim count for one group, my arguing that this same argument should stand regardless of the ethnicity of the victims is somehow transformed into POV pushing rather than countering the bias in language that is pervasive in this topic? That’s absurd. Treating these discussions as though they occur in a vacuum and acting as if past findings of consensus shouldn’t play any role in future arguments is an attempt at enforcing that systemic bias, not countering it. nableezy - 15:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Where the PAGs favoured their pre-determined conclusion, they went with the PAGs, where they didn't , they went with arguments of exactly type that they had previously disparaged. Evidence of that sort of conduct would very likely be useful, but it would require evidence that is clearer than what has been presented so far. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: What happens in practice is most editors don't !vote at all if their current interpretation of PAGs disfavours their predetermined conclusion. This also drives inconsistency despite not being punishable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I see that some of that has in fact been added; I should have checked the Evidence page again before posting, sorry. Anyway, more of that would be important. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Eladkarmel

"Another case" was in fact, a sockpuppet, so was Galamore & OdNahlawi.

This case by Makeandtoss does not read as an attempt to block them, but is instead a "Clarification request" in regards to what can be considered a potential CoI.

מתיאל was blocked for "WP:NOTAFORUM/WP:SOAP, offensive language, and continuing to argue personal views rather than sourced material after being warned"

Dovidroth was topic-banned for canvassing.

I also don't see how Owenglyndur currently being blocked for violating copyright policy is relevant to this case.

Correlation does not imply causation. These editors were reprimanded or blocked for breaking policy & their nationality and/or political opinions were not a factor.

I will close this by noting that the comments categorized as "aggressive remarks" don't refer to Israelis. While there may be a considerable overlap between Zionists & Israelis, they are by no means one-and-the-same & should not be considered interchangeable terms. One's nationality does not determine their ideology & assuming otherwise contradicts their right to individuality. Furthermore, their is a difference between criticizing Israel the country, Israel the people as a whole, & Israel's settler community in specific. Whether the listed remarks properly convey that difference is up to interpretation, but I'd like this to be taken into consideration when reading them nonetheless. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 17:03, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

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Many reputable organizations such as universities are coming to consider pejorative usage of "Zionist" as targeting an element of a protected class[23][24] and while Wikipedia is not a legal system, and does not ensure any kind of free speech or civil rights, we do have policy which roundly condemns targeting contributors based on anything about them personally which includes their identity or beliefs. Without commenting specifically on Eladkarmel's evidence as a whole, although I do think it should be evaluated closely, I agree with Chess that personal comments based on being a Zionist should not be allowed any more than any other personal comments that are already not allowed. Andre🚐 22:48, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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Zionism is the belief that Israel should exist as a national homeland for the Jewish people. It's a proxy term for Israelis that believe in an Israeli nationality. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a very narrow perspective of a nuanced issue. Just like every nation, not every citizen of a country is a nationalist & not every Zionist is Israeli.

To say "It's a proxy term for Israelis that believe in an Israeli nationality" is prejudging others' intent rather then actually engaging in what they're saying. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 01:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Butterscotch Beluga: Using the term "Zionist" as an insult should be unacceptable onwiki. Likewise for complaining about "Zionists" on article talk pages. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:24, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

POV forks

There are multiple sets of evidence about the repeated creation of POV forks, and problems at subsequent deletion or merge discussions. I would think it would be helpful to highlight where individual editors did things that got in the way of reaching consensus at the deletion etc. discussions. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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Evidence presented by Chess

This isn't an article and we don't necessarily have to follow WP:RS, and also obviously private evidence cannot be disclosed, but it would be good to have an indicator of the degree of confidence we should have in these reports in Jewish Insider, Piratewires, and the algemiener.com. I think it would also be good to briefly call out specific sections of these articles that we should pay attention to. The reports are being used about one party at present but contain information about other parties that potentially might be entered in to evidence. For examples the Piratewires report seems to say that some of the parties are effectively WP:SPAs, that they tag-team, that the issue extends beyond PIA into Iranian affairs. They also contain information that may not be relevant to this discussion. FOARP (talk) 09:02, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

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• Anyone can see that there is a Discord icon at the bottom of [25] that links to [26]. Anyone can click on that link and then join the discord. Back over the summer this was reported on several sources and at the time, out of curiosity I did join the discord and I can say that at least according to my testimony, yes, the general information seems to be accurate that there was a discord channel operating during which some offsite canvassing was happening, and I believe more-or-less as much has been admitted by the participants and corroborated by the evidence provided by Chess and BilledMammal and the restored-deleted pages. Andre🚐 21:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

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There are many additional editors who were part of this offsite influence campaign. Ivana is the only one who has been publicly identified as such by several news articles, which is why I'm asking that she either be explicitly vindicated or admonished by ArbCom. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:44, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• I'm a bit concerned that this specific instance of off-site collaboration is being highlighted when I think everybody knows that off-site collaboration is rife on both sides of the aisle here. For instance there's plenty of documentary evidence, including videos, of pro-Israeli groups doing in-person workshops on how to coordinate edits on the topic. And, frankly, not hiding at all. But instead we're going to focus all our attention on leaked discord logs published in a source as obviously unreliable as PirateWires? With, what, one editor who seems to have any confirmed involvement? Simonm223 (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  You're welcome to post evidence of pro-Israeli groups and their influence campaigns. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Chess - two comments 1) since Ivana is now indef'd, is this moot? 2) Are there other parties in your evidence that should be discussed? FOARP (talk) 14:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

  @FOARP: There's no more parties that should be discussed based on the publicly posted evidence. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by ScottishFinnishRadish

One point of my evidence is to demonstrate that the issues plaguing the topic area (battleground editing, edit warring, casting aspersions, personal commentary) are widespread to the point of being the standard behavior. Editors without much social capital, mostly new editors, are blocked and topic banned for behavior that established editors slide on. When we consistently allow behavior that gets new editors sanctioned from established editors we're setting the scene for a feedback loop where established editors continue to fall below the expectations set at WP:CTOP, other editors see that this is the behavioral standard in the topic, and the whole topic becomes worse for it. Established editors argue at length with other established editors, trading barbs and aspersions, and edit warring. New editors end up topic banned, sanctioned with 0RR, or blocked for following the standard of behavior set by those with enough social capital to avoid sanctions or make it too time consuming to sanction. This has also caused other established editors to avoid the topic area. Until everyone is held to the actual CTOP standard, you must edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and: adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia; comply with all applicable policies and guidelines; follow editorial and behavioural best practice; comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict; and refrain from gaming the system, it will remain the same as it is now. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

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I broadly agree with Tryptofish's analysis of this evidence below. Andre🚐 21:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If (some heavy lifting here), we (more heavy lifting) consistently allow behavior that gets new editors sanctioned from established editors is the problem, then isn't the solution not to do that? Selfstudier (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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This is borne out in the Genocide of Indigenous peoples edit war tabulated by Levivich above. The accounts involved in that edit war (discounting the Icewhiz sock) have an average account age of 8 years 7 months, and average edit count of 32,913 (as of when I started typing this edit). These aren't new editors: the youngest is more than a year old, and the average editor is a Senior Editor II (the 12th step of the Wikipedia:Service awards). Five have been here longer than a decade. These are editors who should be setting examples, and, well, they are, but bad ones. We've been sanctioning new editors very consistently for a very long time; we need to start shifting the burden of proper conduct in the direction of the more experienced editors. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:00, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Based on my more limited experiences in this topic area, what SFR says here hits the nail on the head. This is exactly what I hope ArbCom will be able to focus on. When I got involved in editing one page in the topic area, I was anything but a new editor. But I found that some (not all!) of the established editors treated any input from someone who wasn't part of the "in group" as worthy of contempt. As long as that happens, it's incredibly difficult for the community to provide "fresh eyes" to solve problems. I really don't think the core problem underlying this case is about pro/anti-Israel or pro/anti-Palestine POV pushing. This is a problem of conduct by specific editors, and I hope that I will be able to provide evidence about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

My current strategy for the area is based around making explicit statements of principles that editors can focus their arguments towards. I think we need to be much more proactive in creating principles of acceptable behaviour, and we should do so in collaborative venues that don't require blocks. To be specific on the RM issue, the fact we allow editors to argue that an event is or is not a massacre based on their own personal threshold of violence is part of the reason those RMs are so contentious. Likewise, at WP:RSN, I'm trying to prevent the argument that a source's definition of antisemitism is a reason to declare it as unreliable. Those arguments almost never end in consensus because they are proxies for one's stance on the underlying conflict.

I believe more specific guidelines will force editors to abide by a higher standard of conduct. Those guidelines can be established through consensus if they are broadly applicable and do not benefit a specific party to the conflict. However, we need a process for adding those guidelines to the area. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this piece of evidence is most important and very much damning. Importantly, it involves more people than the parties to this case. Something must be done here, I am not sure what exactly. This has always been absolutely the worst subject area to edit. Why? I guess some people have very strong political views and struggle to enforce them at all costs. This is my reading of the Evidence. My very best wishes (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The evidence is pretty off-putting (to put it diplomatically), however, these articles are not in any way typical, they are among the most contested articles in the whole IP area. And there has been lots of off-wiki writing about them, eg:

• Wikipedia Editors Add “Gaza Genocide” to “List of Genocides” Article, by Aaron Bandler, November 3, 2024, Jewish Journal (archive)
• Wikipedia Editors Add Article Titled 'Gaza Genocide' to 'List of Genocides' Page, Rachel Fink, November 7, 2024, Haaretz (archive)

The chance is that the off-wiki writing has generated lots of traffic (and editors) to the articles, editors with strong opinions (but not so much knowledge). (As we have seen in another wiki-article given much off-wiki attention: Zionism) Huldra (talk) 23:45, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Established editors should be held to a higher standard, since they should know the rules. However, they are generally considered "more valuable" to the community, which tolerates more from them than from newcomers. This is a central problem here, it was the central issue regarding Fram, and is probably plaguing other toxic areas of Wikipedia. We need a solutionto this issue which doesn't require intervention on the part of ArbCom or the Founation. Animal lover |666| 20:10, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Why does knowing the rules mean you should be held to a higher standard? Why does not knowing the rules mean you should be held to a lower standard? Everyone should be held to the same standard--and learning/knowing/following the rules is part of that standard that everyone should be held. Levivich (talk) 23:12, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Because we believe in prevention, not punishment. As a result, ignorance of the rules serves as a limited justification for not following them, as having indications given to you of what the rules are, and links to get more details, are likely to reduce violations. Animal lover |666| 16:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

There was an RfC about it. I was not there, but would vote "do not include". This is an unusual list because it lists the historical events in the reverse chronological order, so that the "Gaza genocide" appears on the top. I assume that was not intentional. The selection criteria are also not entirely clear. But this is something probably to be decided by community, rather than Arbcom. I agree this is biased, but the bias comes form mainstream external sources, even such as CNN, BBC, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 16:10, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence submitted by Tryptofish

I want to provide a more detailed commentary on my own evidence. Looking at this case broadly, there are problems with newish accounts and socks, and problems with determined and persistent socks. My evidence isn't about that, and I'm not commenting on that. I'm focusing on experienced editors who might be making it more difficult for the ongoing disputes to be solved, and more difficult for WP:AE to deal with that. What I say here also fits closely with Crossroads' evidence and with ScottishFinnishRadish's evidence and analysis, just above.

First, it's important for ArbCom to understand that, for experienced editors, this really isn't about pro-/anti-Israel POV-pushing, no matter what narratives have emerged (see the "What this is not" section of my evidence). I think that Nishidani and Levivich, and probably other named parties, are sincerely trying to be NPOV, and are very careful to read and attend to high quality sources.

Instead, there seems to be a persistent problem with discussions becoming hostile to experienced editors coming in, without previous involvement, with fresh eyes. I saw mention of an AfD on an editor's talk page, and I was sincerely concerned about the pagename Zionism, race and genetics (cf Race and intelligence), and that's how I got involved. I can very much understand how involved editors can get exasperated with persistent socks, but it shouldn't be that hard to see when good-faith editors show up, who are clearly not socks. There was no need to snarl at me and other editors who were looking for a better pagename. There was no need to complain that I hadn't read the sources, when I was correcting close paraphrasing from those sources, and so had obviously looked at them. And if you really think about it, the RM was not about sources. Sources could support the original pagename, and sources could support the proposed new pagename, and there's no source that says "no, you can't rename this". There were reasonable, good-faith, reasons to rename the page. Even the editor who created the page under its original name was friendly to discussing a move (although he opposed the specific proposal that actually got consensus). So how does the community solve such content disputes? By holding discussions like RfCs or RMs, that bring in fresh eyes. But it felt like editors who were not already part of an in-group were dismissed as if we were socks or trolls.

And I suspect that underlies, at least in part, how the more disruptive new accounts or socks are able to throw AE discussions off-track, by pointing to such battlegrounds, as a way of complicating what should be straightforward AE complaints. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

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I agree with the 2nd part, not the first part. I would say it can both be true that editors aren't being neutral and balanced or have blind spots leading to unintentional cherrypicking, and also what you said about their behavior. Andre🚐 23:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I concur (with the below message by Tryptofish). I've been regularly met with hostile and aggressive replies accusing me of lack of expertise, knowledge, or not having "done the homework." '[22:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC)] Sorry I keep forgetting to put this in the "parties" area. Andre🚐 01:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

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I see a pattern emerging of Levivich accusing opponents (or outside views) of not reading the articles (or sources cited therein) of which they comment on as a way to discredit them[Tryptofish evidence + Crossroads evidence]. Both examples were replied to harshly and did absolutely nothing to positively contribute to those discussions. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 16:58, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

So one instance per year (Tryp's evidence is in 2023, Crossroads is in 2024) constitutes a pattern? And in both cases, the editors I was talking to hadn't read the sources. That's a serious problem. I stand by it: arguing that an article isn't properly summarizing the sources, while not having read the sources, is disruptive. That Zionism, race, and genetics argument from last year was ridiculous, with editors claiming that combining those three topics was SYNTH, when there was a plethora of academic works talking about the intersection of those three things. Similarly, show me an example of Crossroads either citing a source or specifically discussing a source at Zionism, as opposed to saying things like "if the sources say..." without ever looking to see if the sources say (and ignoring citations and quotes from the sources that directly answer whether "the sources say..."). Levivich (talk) 17:51, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I want to reply to Levivich's comment. If this is something that I encountered in 2023 and Crossroads encountered in 2024, then this might well be a pattern. In my evidence, I provided three diffs of Levivich's comments about this. The first was directed at Andre, and was in a discussion that was not so much about the pagename, as about including issues about Palestinians on the page. (That's about the same content where I provided diffs in my evidence about me adding content that was copied within Wikipedia, for those following the details.) Levivich makes a point in that diff, that I can agree with, that Levivich had presented a quote from a source about Palestinians, that Andre was, perhaps, not adequately recognizing. But Levivich's rudeness to Andre and personalization of the dispute was disproportionate to anything that Andre said to Levivich there. The second diff in my evidence was Levivich's !vote in the RM that got consensus. Since he opposed a pagename that I had originally opposed, I see it as being – in part – directed at me. And Levivich compares those of us who supported the RM to students who didn't do the assigned reading. That's personalizing the discussion, no two ways about it. Levivich argues that the source material supports the old pagename, and contradicts the new name that got consensus. I analyze that claim in my analysis above. And I have another diff in my evidence, that shows me disagreeing with Andre in that same RM about whether there was SYNTH, something Levivich ignores in his !vote comment. The third diff in my evidence was directed at North8000, who previously was completely uninvolved in the dispute, and who had come to the discussion from the RM listing (and who of course is not a sock). If you look at that exchange in context, North asked some perfectly reasonable questions, and was met with inappropriate hostility. That's exactly what I've been talking about, about obstacles to resolving disputes by getting "fresh eyes". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of Barkeep49's evidence

I started compiling my evidence with a few hypotheses, basically all of which I think have failed to stand up to scrutiny. My hypothesis was that we would see the most challenging reports sit open longer than normal (indicating a problem) and/or have abnormal amounts of words (become too unwieldily to close) and/or have an unusual number of admins (not enough admins and/or "too many cooks in the kitchen") and/or have disproportionate participation by parties (which could have been either a response - they were drawn to the hard reports - or a cause - their participation cause reports to become hard). We can also see that PIA cases at AE don't look statistically different from reports in other topica reas (even when removing them from the totals).

So why did some PIA cases get referred but not other cases with some similar characteristics both with-in and outside of the topic area? My best explanation is that AE works well when the conduct of one editor is being considered, it can handle when the conduct of one person being reported and the filer are both considered, but that AE's effectivness is greatly diminished if the conduct of more than 2 editors needs to be considered at the same time. This is what unites the cases referred (PeleYoetz/האופה which were the first referral and the two Nableezys which were the second referral) and the other cases in PIA (IntrepidContributor, Makeandtoss and M.Bitton, and Galamore which were not referred but which were open an unusually long time (they were 3 of the 5 longest cases to resolve at AE in 2024 across all topic areas). In fact at 2 of those I think what allowed them to ultimately be resolved was to focus on a smaller set - essentially 1 or 2 specific editors and then "everyone else involved" as a single entity. And all of this combines with the fact that while PIA cases may not be statistically different on the whole, they represented a huge plurality of total cases - 47% of all 2024 AE cases. This makes it hard for the limited number of AE admins. Sometimes through extraordinary effort (often by a single admin as at IntrepidContributor wth SFR) it is possible to wrangle consensus for a close. However, the repeat "player" element is a contributing factor to the times when AE ultimately referred. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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I think Butterscotch Beluga makes a good point. The system would work a lot better if we discontinued the use of BOOMERANGs and instead focused on the validity of the filing and the target in the filing, and force BOOMERANGs to be re-filed as a "retaliatory" filing, perhaps made pro forma by a presiding admin to consider that evidence separately. Then the original case could be closed more swiftly if it lacks merit, and it would also discourage the action of allies of the subject of the filing attacking the filer, which is more disruptive and prejudicial than it is elucidatory or probitive in my view. Andre🚐 23:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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Barkeep49, that's very interesting (at least to me), thanks, and it matches the impression that I got when I tried to go through your tables. So it sounds to me like the problems tend to arise with the filing of the cases, first, because there are so many of them, and second, because filings have not focused on one editor at a time. Would it be useful for AE admins to refuse to consider cases that are not about one editor at a time – that is, to require that two separate threads be opened, one for each editor? And are there any patterns about who files AE requests in the PIA area? Are there particular editors, or particular categories of editors, who tend to file the more troublesome cases? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Kinda of. For the most part AE reports are filed against a single individual and only rarely does someone try to file against multiple people. However, cases can "sprawl" during the discussion (ex: Editor A led to Editor B and Editor C reports Editor B but the conduct of Editor A becomes an important element to the AE report). I would put that as the primary issue here. This problem is then exacerbated by the combination of limited AE admin, the total number of PIA cases and the fact that there are a limited number of AE "regulars" in this topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems many of the longer cases were drawn out by sidetracking accusations. As such, it might be a good idea to remind editors to stay on topic when participating in an AE report, focusing on the legitimacy of the report at hand rather then shifting to potential whataboutery.

This could be further enforced by encouraging admins to collapse statements seen as off-topic/not directly related to the report. Hopefully, this would reduce argumentation between editors at AE & would limit the amount of noise that admins have to wade through. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 23:28, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps worth exploring whether a disproportionate number of PIA cases at AE (vs. non-PIA cases at AE) involve demands for WP:BOOMERANG sanctions that end up increasing the number of editors within scope? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 00:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• One thing that seems worth highlighting: The case that specifically led to this referral was originally focused on one editor, האופה, who was an IceWhiz sock. It seems reasonable to say that that case ought to have focused laser-tight on them and discovered that fact; but ABHammad, another IceWhiz sock, redirected it into a WP:BOOMERANG. Now that we know they were both socks, Icewhiz's motivation for doing this is obvious - with one of his socks under the microscope it was likely that they were going to get caught soon; they wanted to take an enemy down with them and perhaps deflect attention. Variations on this dynamic are going to come up again and again. Obviously this doesn't mean that there weren't other people worth looking at - Icewhiz wouldn't have been able to pull that off if it weren't for the fact that plenty of reasonable editors agreed there were larger issues in the topic that needed to be examined - but to prevent clouding of the water like that, perhaps it would be worth adding a rule that AE cases in the PIA topic area must be focused on a single person named in the title and cannot produce sanctions for anyone except the sole target in the initial filing, fullstop (perhaps with an exception for two-way interaction bans involving the target, which could not otherwise be placed.) This would specifically prohibit direct WP:BOOMERANG results; a separate AE request would have to be opened if someone believes a boomerang is necessary. This might slow things down a bit, but it would also simplify them and would make it harder to derail the original AE request with NOTTHEM arguments - back-and-forth BOOMERANG accusations can make a report almost impossible to untangle; separating them out into two requests would resolve this and might lead to more AE participation by admins. Participants would be generally discouraged from focusing on anyone but the target - context can be added if it explains their action, but ultimately every comment must focus exclusively on the person being examined. --Aquillion (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think what I'm about to say undermines your analysis, how one specific report went wrong, but I think you get a few headline facts wrong. I think it's more fair to say that a different report - PeleYoetz, also a sock - led to the the initial referral. And I actually wonder if not for the second referrals - the two involving Nableezy - I question if we'd had a case so arguably that was what specifically led to this case. I also think we're about to reclassify some of the socks currently attributed to Icewhiz into their own sock family simply because we know they're a sock, we know they're likely LTAs, but I think the evidence that they are Icewhiz as opposed to one of our other known LTAs or even some new LTA is weaker. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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