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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by PalestineRemembered (talk | contribs) at 14:56, 3 August 2007 (→‎Statement by marginally involved [[User:PalestineRemembered]]). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 10 Oct 2024 24 Oct 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Historical elections 13 Sep 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) Motion (orig. case) 26 July 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) Motion (orig. case) 17 August 2024
Clarification request: Conduct in deletion-related editing none (orig. case) 8 September 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/How-to

Current requests

Allegations of apartheid

Initiated by Ideogram at 06:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[1] [2] [3]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ideogram

These editors all argue that the article Allegations of Israeli apartheid should be deleted. They have now decided as a group that if they can't get that deleted, they will create as many "Allegations of X apartheid" articles as they can and defend them by pointing at the Israeli article. User:Urthogie alone created the Brazilian, Chinese, and French articles. User:Jayjg created the Saudi Arabian article and has swamped the deletion debates with old battles. The same crowd, all tied up in the Israeli fracas and never showing any interest in any of these countries before, is bloc-voting on all of the AfD's.

I leave it up to ArbCom to decide whether this WP:POINT disruption is to be allowed.

--Ideogram 06:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

reply to Jayjg: creating one dozen articles modeled on an article you have argued should be deleted and generating massive deletion debates, with constant references to your Israeli issue and your "centralized discussion" is WP:POINT disruption. You want it to be a content issue because you want to talk about whether any "Allegations" articles should be allowed at all. I want it to be a behavior issue because I want you to stop creating disruptive deletion debates and trying to drag uninvolved editors into your fight. --Ideogram 06:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More: Jayjg makes many misinterpretations of my statements. Since none of them are important, I will not clutter the debate with clarification here, except to note that he doesn't understand what I'm saying and I can supply details on request. --Ideogram 07:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have counted and found no less than sixteen editors voting Keep on the Chinese AFD who have never shown an interest in China before but have been involved in the Israeli mess. It seems to me this kind of invasion by like-minded editors is what the anti-canvassing rule is intended to prevent, although I do not claim there was any explicit canvassing here.

I welcome Cerejota's thoughtful contribution below. I wish to say that it is indeed possible for me to AGF of a sort, as I do not believe the people involved are consciously choosing to act as meatpuppets, however I think it is well-known that human beings are subject to self-delusion and self-rationalization. In any case, it is not possible for us to read minds here: I believe it should be decided whether this kind of behavior is acceptable. --Ideogram 14:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

reply to Briangotts: I included you because a quick glance showed you created Allegations of tourist apartheid in Cuba, although closer examination reveals that was over a year ago and therefore not part of this series, and I also have not seen you participate in the Allegations of Israeli apartheid mess. I apologize, and will remove you from the Involved parties list. While I am here, however, I want to mention I am disturbed by your meaningless vote on the Chinese AFD which does not address any issues. --Ideogram 15:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC) Re: side note: I already answered your statement by apologizing and removing you from the involved parties list. A careful look at my contributions will show I have never interacted with any of you three (or even the sixteen referred to above) before. There is no need to speculate on my motives; I have explained and will continue to explain them in excruciating detail. --Ideogram 15:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jayjg is now removing my comments with hysterical allegations, although all the removed comments are factual. Note, for instance, the large number of these editors (nine) who have voted Keep on the Cuban article. I continue to maintain that removal of other people's comments should not be allowed on Wikipedia, and I ask the ArbCom for help in this. --Ideogram 15:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And he is removing other comments as well. Is this kind of behavior really acceptable on Wikipedia? --Ideogram 15:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jayjg loves to label statements he dislikes "false". Well, his repeated claim that I am trying to win a "content dispute" is false. He is already losing the China AFD, and if that was all I wanted, I wouldn't be here. I have described the behavior I want a ruling on, I have explained that my inclusion of Briangotts was an error and thus removing him was not "random", Jayjg repeatedly displays an inability to read what I write. --Ideogram 17:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Briangotts would like to address my statement of the issue here, and the statements of others agreeing with it, instead of trying to discredit me personally. --Ideogram 17:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since I have removed Briangotts from the list of Involved parties, and my initial error in including him is the only thing he wants to talk about, his statement is irrelevant to this case. I suggest it be removed. --Ideogram 20:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Jayjg

User:Ideogram forgot to mention Allegations of Jordanian apartheid (created by User:Chesdovi, now deleted), Allegations of Puerto Rican apartheid (created by User:Bleh999, eventually re-directed, then oddly deleted), and Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid (created by User:Theo F, now moved to another title). Nor did he mention the Islamic or the Jordanian AfDs; perhaps because I never commented on them. It baffles me that he would claim I created "one dozen articles"; I did create one of these articles, 4 months ago, and it didn't seem to cause any "disruption" until a couple of days ago, when someone put it up for AfD (it was subsequently speedy kept). Anyway, no "group decisions" have been made to do anything, commenting on AfDs (and even voting Keep) is not WP:POINT, nor is editing articles; User:Ideogram seems to be adding and then deleting people to/from this "group" almost at random[4]. In addition, an AfD is not an attempt at "dispute resolution". I am a little concerned about Ideogram's recent actions surrounding the "China" AfD, but his actions have not yet risen to the level that require ArbCom intervention. Also, this case appears to be a poorly thought out attempt to get the ArbCom to decide content disputes (and AfDs) in Ideogram's favor; unacceptable, but again, not something worthy of an ArbCom case. Regarding User:MastCell's and ChrisO's comments about User:Sefringle, Sefringle is not part of any "group" or "bloc", and he did not create or edit any of the articles in question, so his statements regarding them are, at best, a red herring. Finally, as is typical, there has been a lot of "piling-on" going on here, as other people opposed to the article(s) try to see if they can get their way via this AfD, and people with grudges in general try to piggy-back onto this, using it to even old scores; disappointing, but unsurprising, and in my view not something that should be encouraged or rewarded. Jayjg (talk) 06:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Cerejota

I think treating all of these articles as a collective entity for purposes of editing and AfD is incorrect and unproductive.

I do agree with Ideogram that editors are voting keep/merge in AfDs but in the discussions frequently raise that if X article is invalid for Y reasons, then the Israeli article is invalid for the same reason Y, and that they are voting keep/merge until the same standard is applied to the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article. A number of these editors are editors who had never edited or shown interest in the given country being edited, but certainly are active on WikiProject Israel and/or articles on Judaism/Israel. This can be seen in the AfDs.

Whatever the motivations of the editors involved in creating these articles, I take the view that they should be evaluated by their content, and not as a collective entity. Some are of rather high quality, others are not. Some have been deleted or merged, others have not. This shows the community is developing a consensus around this topic that is consonant with my POV that each article should be evaluated on its merits, and that while there is a topical connection, each article is a world upon itself. I think ArbCom should clarify this matter for the community, and encourage admins and crats to ignore comments that allude to other pages in AfDs. It sounds like a quid pro quo attempt to gather support to delete Allegations of Israeli apartheid, not based on its merit, but on the offended national sensitivities of a group of editors.

This is not the first time involved and uninvolved editors have raised the possibility of a WP:POINT meatpuppet effort, and ArbCom should look into this allegation seriously, and rule on this. If there is evidence and there indeed is an effort to WP:POINT, ArbCom should defend wikipedia and wikipedians. If there isn't evidence and these are empty accusations, then it must defend the accused editors from the smear.

Thanks!--Cerejota 13:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:NicDumZ

I came here today to denounce the fact that considering all the Allegations of X articles together hijack the editing process on the other articles. Understand me, I may say I have no interests in the future of AoIA, I'm only working on the AoFA article ; when trying to reach a consensus, (about renaming it/moving it into an other article/expanding its content to treat a wider suburban French problem, well... trying to work on this locked article), all I get, when not bad faith, are answers like this one : [5]. A comparison involving the AoIA.

The centralized discussion about the Allegations of X articles is striking to me : From the outside, it seems that all the discussions are eventually about the fate of the AoIA article. Some may say more about this strange phenomenon, for example drawing conclusions on why all these articles were created. I'm not going to step into these hazardous allegations.

There is indeed a widespread problem involving the Israeli article. What ought to be done overthere, I don't know. But allowing the deadlocked debates on this particular article to expand to other content-independant articles, especially through Allegations of apartheid, this should not happen.

NicDumZ ~ 15:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Briangotts

I don't know how I got lumped into this baseless and frivolous attack. I never said that Allegations of Israeli Apartheid should be deleted, to my recollection; in fact, I was the one who moved it to that name. None of the diffs provided appear to be edits of mine. I can only assume that I have been included because I generally oppose efforts to insert anti-Israeli POV and OR into articles; this should shed a very disturbing light on this particular request for arbitration. I also never said that all of the various Allegations of X Apartheid articles should be deleted or kept. I judge these articles on an individual basis. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC) As a side note, while I've had cordial relations with Jay on-wiki, I have never heard of or communicated with any of the others. It looks like Ideogram lumped together a bunch of editors he doesn't like in an outrageous display of bad faith. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ideogram compounds his abuse, while ostensibly in the process of apologizing for adding me to this arbitration, by accusing me of a "meaningless vote" which "disturbed him." I reiterate that I find his conduct in this matter offensive and contrary to the principles of WP. Disagreement with a user's vote is not a proper motive for dragging them into an ArbCom proceeding; nor is being "disturbed" by them (as I am disturbed by Ideogram's conduct). His accusations that I fail to assume good faith ring hollow when it was he who haled me before ArbCom; he is now apparently also "disturbed" my my defense of myself and my conduct. --Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is starting to get a little silly but since Ideogram keeps addressing me in his section I feel I should respond here (thought it would probably be easier to follow if I responded directly in his section; not sure what etiquette is on that). The reason I don't respond substantively to his charges is because I don't appear to be involved in any meaningful way with them, therefore I will leave it to others to respond as their consciences dictate (and they appear to be holding their own). The only charge Ideogram appears to have leveled against me is that I voted on an AFD in a manner that disagreed with him, and I don't intend to apologize to that. What he chooses to view as my attempts to "discredit" him are my reasoned responses to his bringing me into this RfAR, which I view as an entirely baseless personal attack. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 20:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by marginally involved User:MastCell

There is a problem here, and I think ArbCom is the best venue to handle it. The issue is not one of content, nor of which articles should be kept or deleted, but one of behavior and disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point.

Allegations of Israeli apartheid has been nominated for deletion 6 times, but has not been deleted. A number of other "Allegations of apartheid in..." articles have since been created and expanded, in many cases by editors who had argued for the deletion of the Israeli article as a POV fork. User:Sefringle, who has repeatedly argued for deletion of the Israeli article as a POV fork (and even nominated it once himself), has said that: "You clearly don't understand why we created other apartheid articles... Since these articles cannot be balanced on their own, the only way to balance them is to create similar articles about other countries, thus making the attack page have less effect since country X isn't the only one being alleged of being an apartheid state." Jayjg is correct in his earlier response: I don't know who Sefringle is, or what he means by "we". Maybe he's using the royal "we". But regardless, at least one editor is creating articles in protest because he disagrees with an AfD outcome.

Those articles, in turn nominated for deletion, have provoked intensely bitter discussion, accusations, and disruption. A full-blown edit-war is currently in progress at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Chinese apartheid, for example.Perhaps a bit over-dramatic. Well-meaning AfD commenters who object to "Allegations of apartheid in XXX" are generally admonished that, instead of commenting on the article at hand, they should be advocating "systemic solutions". In context, I take this to mean that the articles and AfD's for "Allegations of apartheid in XXX" are being used to try to drum up support to delete Allegations of Israeli apartheid. That's kind of the definition of disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point, valid though that point may be; worse, these other articles and AfD's are being turned into a battleground over which editors with strong POV's on both sides are waging a scorched-earth campaign.

Wikipedia is not a battleground. On an issue as contentious as Israeli-Palestinian relations, we may never escape some level of combativeness. Still, what is going here needs to stop: articles and deletion debates are being used to fight an unrelated battle. Note that I think ArbCom would need to examine a much wider range of parties than those listed by Ideogram above; any solution, to be useful, would need to be applied universally and not to "one side", and there's poor conduct enough to go around. I urge ArbCom to look again at this situation and the behavior of the involved parties, because it's intensely disruptive and divisive and, given the complexity and size of the dispute and the stature of involved editors and admins, I think ArbCom is the only authority with a reasonable chance to effect a meaningful solution. MastCell Talk 17:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Nagle

I haven't been involved in the new articles mentioned above, but I've had editing conflicts in recent months with Jayjg (talk · contribs) regarding Hasbara, Separation program (Israel), the old Israeli Apartheid article, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, and a few others.

We are now in the midst of several edit wars which are disrupting multiple articles. Some form of action is required to solve the problem.

Jayjg has a history of arbitrations in this area:

  • Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/HistoryBuffEr and Jayjg (January 2005) Remedies: For the period of editing restrictions neither HistoryBuffEr nor Jayjg may remove any adequately referenced information from any article which relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Doing so may result in a 24-hour block imposed by any administrator. In the case of Jayjg, unblocking himself will be severely dealt with. ... For the period of editing restrictions edits by either HistoryBuffEr or Jayjg which are not referenced may be removed by any user. In the event the reference given does not support an edit made by either of them it may be removed after notification to them and an explanation made on the talk page of the article. ... For the period of editing restrictions, edits by HistoryBuffEr and Jayjg which violate them may be removed by any user. Repeat violations may be sanctioned by an adminstrator by a short ban (up to one day for intial violations, up to a week for repeat violations).
  • Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid (September 2006) Remedies: All involved administrators are admonished not use their administrative tools without prior discussion and consensus, and to avoid using them so as to continue an editing dispute. Humus sapiens, ChrisO, Kim van der Linde, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg are reminded to use mediation and other dispute resolution procedures sooner when conflicts occur.

It seems to be necessary to take corrective action about once a year to keep this editor on track. --John Nagle 18:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ChrisO

I'm not surprised to see that this matter has resulted in a request for arbitration. Although it involves content issues, the present conflict fundamentally centres on user conduct. I'll try to offer a reasonably neutral summary of events for the benefit of the ArbCom. Apologies in advance for the length, but I hope this summary will avert repetition by other contributors and provide enough detail to help the arbitrators to decide whether they want to take on this case.

This is a sequel to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid, which took place a year ago concerning the article now called Allegations of Israeli apartheid (AoIa for short). The conflict has its roots in a disagreement between the current editors of that article (I am not one of them, for the record) over the notability of AoIa. Despite the Commitee's earlier ruling, the editors of AoIa have failed to resolve their dispute. Instead, they have been responsible for starting a multi-article flame war involving hundreds of editors, dozens of articles and deletion reviews and a great deal of bitterness on all sides.

In concluding that earlier arbitration, the Committee directed that "Discussion of global issues which concern use of "apartheid" and all polls shall be at Wikipedia:Central discussions/Apartheid with subsidiary dialog on the talk page of affected articles". The global issues were discussed intensively on that page between June 2006 and November 2006 without a resolution being found. From mid-November 2006 to March 2007, discussions became sporadic, with no discussion at all between March and July 2007. Intensive discussions resumed in mid-July 2007 but still seem to be deadlocked.

During this period, AoIa was unsuccessfully nominated for deletion on five separate occasions (25 July 2006 - speedy keep, 8 August 2006 - no consensus, 30 March 2007 - keep, 19 April 2007 - no consensus, 26 June 2007 - speedy keep).

In March/April 2007, while AoIa was going through its fourth AfD, Urthogie and Jayjg, two Middle East-focused editors who have been heavily involved in editing and discussing AoIa and oppose its existence, began creating and developing a series of "Allegations of [country] apartheid" articles. A second tranche of similar articles was created by Urthogie and three other users following the failure of the sixth AfD of AoIa. The articles created by Urthogie were as follows:

The following articles were created by three Middle East-focused editors with a history of prior involvement in the AoIa dispute:

Two further articles were created by Theo F, a France-focused editor, and Bleh999, who seems to focus mainly on generic military-related articles:

The creation of these articles has sparked a wide-ranging controversy that has lasted for several months. It has resulted in numerous highly contentious deletion debates involving (at the last count) more than 250 individual editors. A notable feature of these debates has been the involvement of a bloc of around 15 Middle East-focused editors who have consistently voted to delete AoIA but keep or merge all the other "Allegations of apartheid" articles. This has significantly affected the dynamics of AfD discussions on these articles, as there seems to be no equivalent or consistent anti-"Allegations of apartheid" voting bloc. Opposition to the apartheid articles has come mainly from a disparate group of editors who are involved in articles related to the country discussed in each individual article, but who are not focused on Middle Eastern articles.

The motives of the editors involved in creating and voting en bloc to keep "Allegations of apartheid" articles (other than AoIa, which they almost all want to delete) have been highly controversial. Sefringle, who is one of the editors in this bloc and the initiator of the 26 June AfD on AoIa, has stated that "You clearly don't understand why we created other apartheid articles. All allegations of apartheid articles are meant to antagonize people of that culture; the Israel one included. They are all POV forks. Their existance on wikipedia is proof that WP:NPOV does not apply to article titles or afd's. Since these articles cannot be balanced on their own, the only way to balance them is to create similar articles about other countries, thus making the attack page have less effect since country X isn't the only one being alleged of being an apartheid state. There is nothing encyclopediac about accusing somebody or some culture/country/religion of apartheid. It is all an attempt to push a POV." [6]

Opponents of the apartheid articles have asserted that they have been deliberately created as part of a systematic effort to either force the deletion of AoIa through a bulk deletion of all "allegations of apartheid" articles, regardless of individual merit (per comments left by anti-AoIa editors in many AfDs, e.g. [7], [8]), or to provide "balance" by creating multiple POV forks to "neutralise" AoIa (per Sefringle's statement quoted above).

I strongly recommend that the Committee should take this case to determine whether, as many editors have alleged, there have been wilful and systemic policy violations in the creation and development of these "allegations of apartheid" articles and the subsequent deletion debates. I also recommend that, if the Committee takes this case, there should be an immediate injunction on the creation or deletion of any further "allegations of apartheid" articles (except for those currently at AfD) in order to prevent the dispute spreading any further. Finally, I recommend that the Committee should consider whether Israel-related articles should be put under article probation (similar to the measure taken in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kosovo) in order to prevent disputes like this getting out of hand in future. -- ChrisO 18:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by marginally involved User:Jossi

I would argue that many articles named "Allegations of XXX apartheid" are POV magnets, and it is not surprising that when these are brought the AfDs process, the POV magnet intensifies. Bringing this issue in front of the ArbCom is not a solution. Rather, editors should look at the content of these articles, titles of these articles (that in my opinion are not neutral), and assess if it would not be better to incorporate any useful content of these obvious WP:POVFORKS, into other articles in which it can remain stable alongside competing viewpoints. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that there are many possibilities that have not been explored by editors, such as summarizing these articles into Allegations of apartheid and redirecting the "Allegations of XXX apartheid" for specific countries, which may be violating system-wide NPOV. Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere, I doubt that these issues can be explored as there is not much good-will around to do that. Nevertheless, I still believe that ArbCom involvement is unnecessary. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In response to User:Poppypetty comment below, and me being one that commented "keep all or delete all", I would like to clarify that the comment is valid: there is no reason whatsoever to single-out one specific country in these allegations, when there are allegations about other countries as well. For example, I did not know that there are so many countries in the world against which these type of allegations are leveled. The subject is encyclopedic, but needs to be reflected correctly in Wikipedia. My proposal remains to re-direct to Allegations of apartheid and summarize all article about specific countries there. In that manner, we have proper NPOV rather than WP:POVFORKs. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Targeman

I was heavily involved in only one of the listed Afds, the one about "allegations of apartheid in France". As a newcomer at the time, and not knowing any of the users involved and totally unaware of the underlying conflict, I judged the article on its merits. Being familiar with France, I was astounded at how how misleading the title was and how the article put words into the mouth of its sources. At first, I dismissed it as another college essay written at 3 a.m. by a student desperately short of solid sources. My dissection of every single one of those sources at the AfD was met by deafening silence. However, once I realized the article was written by editors who had no knowledge whatsoever about France, I began to wonder. A quick research showed beyond doubt that the same editors penned several similar articles on countries they did not know, and yet insisted upon dealing with complex social issues in those countries. That plus the unwillingness of the said editors to address specific problems with their article made it impossible for me to continue assuming good faith. --Targeman 19:39, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by marginally involved User:PalestineRemembered

I unreservedly withdraw the accusation I made here earlier against Jayjg over a deception I thought he'd practised on me/us. (See Jayjg's page - my mistake is partly understandable). I trust he will unreservedly withdraw any outstanding allegations he's made against me. PalestineRemembered 14:56, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by marginally involved Poppypetty

I am very marginally involved but as a French wikipedia contributor and sysop, I have a strong opinion on it. I just have a few remarks on these users. It is clear in my opinion that a group of pro-Israel users have created a whole bunch of "articles" following failed RfDs for Allegations of Israeli apartheid. This is a clear violation of WP:POINT. Then, if you look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Chinese apartheid and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of French apartheid, you have a good number of votes "keep or delete them all". This shows that there are many users whose only goal with these articles is to obtain the Israeli articles deletion. These behaviors are clearly unbearable on wikipedia. I am also wondering why all articles related to anglo-saxon topic (American, Australian and Northern Ireland apartheid) have been deleted when the other ones are kept, but I guess this isn't the matter of the ArbCom. I can really see this debate heating up on this wikipedia as well as other wikipedias. I think it would be a good decision by the ArbCom to judge them right now. Poppypetty 22:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't understand why the first two arbitrators to express their opinions refuse to see that there is a very clear WP:POINT violation by creating the whole serie of articles just to get the Israeli article deleted. This is a behavioral problem and the ArbCom is relevant for that kind of issues. Poppypetty 08:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Leifern

Since I will undoubtedly eventually be named as one of this alleged cabal bloc of editors with some hidden agenda, let me weigh in with the following points:

  • The discussions on the various "allegations of apartheid" articles are indeed getting tedious and repetitive, but they have some relevance to how Wikipedia deals with a number of issues. I think they need to run their course
  • In the meantime the biggest damage is that editors who could be productive in other areas are sidetracked by this. (As an editorial aside, it is a bit curious that some editors are hell-bent on deleting articles entirely on the basis of how they perceive the motivation of those who have written them).
  • Accusations against one party or another are sure to be met by counteraccusations, and I'd venture that the Arbcom could spend any amount of time working it all out and still not find any strong evidence of bad behavior beyond what you'd see in dozens of content disputes throughout Wikipedia
  • In short, I would encourage the Arbcom to simply dismiss this petition, admonish the parties to behave, and let it all run its course. I think we're close to fatigue, anyway, and this will lead to a cooling-off period. --Leifern 23:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by greg park avenue

Kończ Waść, wstydu oszczędź - a very known line in Polish from the Deluge - a Henryk Sienkiewicz' novel, and it means literally this: Get this job done, Mister, don't make me suffer my shame no more - said by someone named Kmicic (one time Polish noble and adventurer), after he lost the duel in the sun (sabres) to someone named Pan Wołodyjowski - another novel by the same author. I think this line applies here. In Wikijive it means - "speedy delete" or get another POV. greg park avenue 00:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 6SJ7

As has been noted, the facts referred to by Ideogram represent a content dispute. It is a somewhat complex content dispute, and it is certainly a "mess", but it is still a content dispute. If Wikipedia had a process for "content arbitration", this would would probably be a prime candidate, as the preferred methods of consensus, discussion, mediation etc. have not done the job to date -- but that process does not exist.

What does exist are numerous AfD's filed by several editors, despite attempts by myself and others to discuss this whole subject as a unified whole, on the centralized discussion page, without the distraction of nominations flying every-which-way. (I notice that the article regarding Saudi Arabia, having survived its AfD, now has a merge tag, so I guess the nominations never end.) I suppose that if the nominations had all resulted in "delete", this arb request would never have been filed, but instead we have some keeps, some deletes, and at least one merge, and now a DRV for one of the deletes, because the AfD was closed in a really improper manner. So the usual Wikipedia process is doing what it is supposed to do when some people want an article deleted.

As I just hinted, there have been some "conduct issues" associated with the recent part of this whole mess, but they are not part of this case at present. If this case is accepted, it can all come out then. The same is true for the inaccurate and misleading statements in some of the comments above, and I have to single out ChrisO's statement here, because what is introduced as a "reasonably neutral" summary turns out to be anything but. Again, it's not necessary to go point by point now -- if the case is accepted, it will all come out in the evidence. 6SJ7 01:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zocky

On one hand, we have allegations in books and opinion pieces by Nobel peace laureates, a former American president, etc., comparing institutionalized treatment of Palestinians (defined by ethnicity, or as some would say, race) by Israel to the practices of South Africa before 1992. On the other, we have (probably correct) allegations of religious discrimination in Saudi Arabia, and more or less random usage of the word "apartheid" as a generic word for "racial discrimination" for non-institutionalized racism in places like Brazil, USA and China. We should probably have articles about all of those things, but the case for treating them all as the same kind of thing is extremely thin. Insisting on giving them all the same kind of title clearly has more to do with wikilawyering than any encyclopedic concerns.

I believe that most of the participants are well informed about theses issues, and therefore I find it hard to believe that all of them are doing their best to give priority to the interests of the encyclopedia. Especially worrying is the statement quoted above, where Sefringle bluntly informs us that the purpose is to create similar articles about other countries, thus making the attack page have less effect since country X isn't the only one being alleged of being an apartheid state.

If this is a correct description of the wishes of the whole "group", it's worrying for two reasons: One is the preparedness to engage in disruption over several pages and waste large amounts of everybody's time to counter perceived damage made by an article. While this is enough to raise many an eyebrow, I find myself astonished by the fact that this user(s?) believes that reporting well known, highly publicized opinions of globally known politicians constitutes an attack page.

I'm not sure what ArbCom can do about this, other than slap some wrists. But I do wish that these editors would stop pushing this, for the sake of not damaging the standing of their political cause, if not for the sake of reducing the overall quantity of drama. Zocky | picture popups 04:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Any articles that are kept need to drop the "allegations" part from the title. Calling an article Israeli apartheid or Brazilian apartheid makes the existence of apartheid in those two countries no more automatically true than calling an article aromatherapy or radiesthesia makes those valid scientific disciplines.

Statement by Lothar of the Hill People

Simon, the user misbehavior is violating WP:POINT. CJCurrie uncovered a clear example of this which he's posted on the "Centralized Apartheid" discussion page:

Readers might be interested to view the page as it was originally created by User:Jayjg, on 6 April 2007: [10]. It was quite obviously a quote-farm, and unsuitable for the project.
Now, please consider the status of Sex segregation on 22 March 2007, with particular reference to the heading "Saudi Arabia": [11]. Consider also the current status of Sex segregation in Islam (a title that may be somewhat problematic, though I'll leave that aside for the moment). A stunning coincidence, as I think you'll agree.
Given that "Saudi apartheid" was created with material cut-and-pasted from other Wikipedia entries, perhaps it won't be too unreasonable to suggest that the content should be re-merged into the relevant entries.

The creation of a series of articles, some of which are so poor they have been quickly deleted by Wikipedia, and all given the dubious title "Allegations of..." is a clear WP:POINT violation and it's being used to give various individuals an "all or nothing" argument ie either delete all the "allegations of" articles (including the Allegations of Israeli apartheid bugaboo) or they all stay. Urthogie, Jayjg and others creating articles in the hopes that they will be DELETED (ie deleted simultaneously with all other Allegations of... articles) is acting in bad faith and a violation of WP:POINT. In debates on deleting the apartheid articles he repeatedly bring up Allegations of Israeli apartheid. For instance:

Targeman, there seems no good reason to "take off line" only one "Allegations of apartheid..." article; perhaps all of them should be taken "off line" at the same time. Jayjg (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC) "[12]
By the way, why don't you bring up Allegations of Israeli apartheid in this regard?[13]
Either the accusation of "apartheid" is meaningful, in which case they're related, or the accusation is a mere rhetorical device, in which case the articles should all be deleted,?[14]

From what I can see the ongoing creation of these articles is disruptive to Wikipeida and editors have been unable to resolve the conflict at the "Centralized discussion" which seems to stretch back several years. With the level of disruption, and the systematic patter of WP:POINT violations, someone in authority needs to step in and sort it out and at the very least put an end to the disruption and POINT violations. If editors don't like the Israeli apartheid article they should deal with it directly rather than disrupt Wikipedia with a series of clones in hopes of rallying opposition against all of the articles including (of course) the one they don't like.

Statement by Humus sapiens

  • The ALLORNOTHING accusation fails because weak articles (such as Allegations of Jordanian apartheid) were deleted - and rightly so.
  • The POINT accusation fails because WP has series all over the place. Was it a POINT to follow Anglophobia with Francophobia, Indophobia, Sinophobia, Russophobia, etc? I don't think so.
  • Conspiracy theories and personal attacks theoretically should fail, but unfortunately in practice we don't see much enforcement of that.

Of my colleagues I am asking for consistency: if an argument works in one case, it should work in others as well. I'd love to see the problems raised in Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Apartheid and related pages comprehensively resolved, but I don't think it is realistic to ask ArbCom do it for us. ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Mackan79

I believe the issues are largely behavioral, and that ArbCom should take the case. Essentially, a pattern of clear WP:POINT violations by primarily two users, followed by an insistence that these violations be ignored in the name of civility, has escalated into serious stress and disruption across diverse areas of Wikipedia. Despite numerous efforts to resolve this, these discussions have been stunted by the same WP:POINT violations, and their use in negotiating over the original. Extensive discussion shows little promise of resolution, and probably a need for intervention, if only to acknowledge the serious policy violations, deal with them, and put things back on track. Some evidence on behavioral issues include:

Although much of the evidence has now been deleted, the fact that the articles created by Urthogie are a WP:POINT violation is beyond dispute. Exhibit A would have to be Allegations of Australian Apartheid, created by Urthogie on the same day as the Allegations of Apartheid template, and literally beginning, "Some go so far as to allege that there is racial apartheid in Australia." I only recall this because I mentioned it to him at the time.[15] Unfortunately, the deletion of some of the worst articles also deletes much of the related evidence, but remaining comments include those throughout these discussions such as here and here. I'll note: Urthogie states that the articles have been created not to get AoIa deleted, but rather to show the absurdity of political rhetoric.[16][17] While perhaps slightly more understandable, the aim is equally pointish and ultimately disruptive in terms of Wikipedia policy.

Jayjg's defense throughout has been that he only created one of the articles, but his editing and commentary have been central. In regard to WP:POINT, first see his vote in the last AfD for AoIa,[18] compared to his vote now on Allegations of French Apartheid.[19] Specific actions then include repeatedly trying to enlist outside editors for deleting AoIa,[20][21][22] demanding "systemic" solutions from editors not familiar with Israel/Palestine articles [23] [24][25], and arguing for the deletion of all related articles despite his votes and arguments to keep. [26][27][28]. This was followed by a continuing refusal to discuss with anyone who mentioned WP:POINT,[29][30] while still accusing other editors of WP:POINT violations himself.[31] Substantive editing issues included edits obscuring original synthesis by combining entirely unrelated claims as if they are responding to each other [32] [33], a pattern seen throughout the articles.

In sum, we have a number of highly problematic actions which have contributed to a large disruption across Wikipedia, and which continued efforts have not been able to resolve. I might note particularly Jay's edit here, in which he combines the incivility, attempt to enlist editors, acknowledgment that he opposes the entire set of articles, and states that editors "seem to be coming around to a more reasonable approach." ArbCom can't decide content, but I think this goes well beyond that; it's really no different from an editor vehemently opposed to Allegations of state terrorism by the United States going and creating an poorly sourced "series" on that. However we feel about this type of article, I'd think we should establish that this is not the right approach. Mackan79 13:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)

  • Decline. Things are unquestionably a mess here, but I don't see how the ArbCom could help. There are no specific instances of user misbehaviour to deal with. We could put everything in this area under probation, but that would have no effect on the creation/deletion of the pages, which seems to be the core issue. - SimonP 19:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. I agree with SimonP that it's a mess, but it's a mess that ArbCom can't untangle. For my part, I would think that any article entitled "Allegation of X" has forfeited its claim to neutrality from the outset, and that any content therein could be discussed more usefully in an article which has a wider contextual foundation. Mackensen (talk) 00:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Food Irradiation

Initiated by RayosMcQueen at 01:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

all parties have been made aware through the [articles main talk page], [mediation page that was created in preparation of the failed mediation attempt], and the involved users individual talk pages.

RayosMcQueen (filer); MonstretM; MrArt; Dieter E; GermanPina; Arved Deecke; Jonathan Stray. Daniel→♦ 07:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

The article went into edit protection, was discussed heavily as a result and mediation was attempted through the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal

Statement by RayosMcQueen

Introduction

Many prominent health and scientific organizations have agreed that food irradiation is an effective tool for enhancing food safety. Trade groups, such as the American Meat Institute, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, and the National Food Processors Association, also support irradiation. In addition, nearly 40 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, and Russia, have approved food irradiation for certain types of food. Following are some of the major scientific and health-related organizations that consider food irradiation to be safe:

• U.S. government agencies
• Food and Drug Administration
• Department of Agriculture
• Public Health Service
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
U.S. scientific and health-related organizations
• American Dietetic Association
• American Medical Association
• American Veterinary Medical Association
• Council for Agricultural Science and Technology
• Institute of Food Technologists
• National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
International scientific and health-related organizations
• Food and Agriculture Organization
• International Atomic Energy Agency
• World Health Organization
• Codex Alimentarius Commission
• Scientific Committee of the European Union

However, several consumer groups, such as Food and Water Watch and Public Citizen, strongly oppose food irradiation. Among other things, they believe that FDA has not sufficiently proven that irradiation can safely be used on food and that more long-term research on the effects of consuming irradiated food is needed.[(0)]

Need for arbitration

MonstretM started editing the article on the 21st of June this year. His edits were perceived to be disruptive by a group of people:

  • In his initial edit he/she edited a large portion of the article tendentiously [(1)]
  • This initial edit was followed by several tendentious edits[(2)][(3)] [(4)][(5)] [(6)]that I perceived to be in violation of WP:Undue weight and Neutrality and Verifiability
  • Misrepresented content of studies in order to claim health issues associated with food irradiation. [(7)][(8)][(9)][(10)]
  • Revert warred against the consensus of multiple other editors, undid and reverted 5 times within 2 hours and 10 minutes on 7/11. [(11)] [(12)][(13)] [(14)] [(15)]
  • Requested edit protection on 7/11 19:52 [(16)] and asked for edit protection to be lifted on 7/16 4:52 without having reached consensus on any of the disputed items. [(17)]
  • Maintains that international and national organizations like the IAEA, FDA, WHO and others maintain "agendas" or are otherwise corrupt and should not be considered reliable sources. [(18)] [(19)] [(20)]
  • While accusing several other users of conflict of interest editing [(21)] did not disclose that he/she was editing from a server of foodandwaterwatch.org [(22)] one of the most outspoken advocacy groups opposing of food irradiation [(23)]
  • Maintained an unfriendly tone with continued WP:NPA [(24)] and WP:Skills[(25)] related issues.
  • Asked for mediation through the Mediation Cabal on 7/17 [(26)] and then unilaterally abandoned mediation citing uncooperative behavior of all other parties [(27)] He/she later went on to accuse the moderator Jonathan Stray of lack of experience, bias and procedural weakness. [(28)]

I ask that the arbitration committee hear this case, determine necessary courses of action and place the article on probation to prevent future disruptive editing. RayosMcQueen 01:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dieter E

The dispute raised is on issues of science; however opponents for food irradiation do not follow the rules of science: A few scientific studies, mostly decades back, are referenced and interpreted without giving the full picture of sound science, that is the wealth of publications that became available since this first publication appeared. In many cases later-on the contrary to what was stated in the first publication had been proven; however opponents often ignore sound science. This is the method obviously used by MonstretM. Hence, the case cannot be resolved without deciding whether such unfounded statements are acceptable for wikipedia. Allowing for such false statements would mislead the visitors of wikipedia and spread false information, half-truth and insinuations, including the allegation that non-opponents to food irradiation have a vested interest or are even paid by the nuclear industry. Dieter E 12:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Arved Deecke

I feel we clearly have an issue with WP:Undue Weight here with MonstretM trying to pass the minority view as established science. While I understand that the arbitration committee will not deal with issues of content I agree with the previous assessments that behavioural issues are making it impossible to offer the Wikipedia user a balanced view on the topic. Post-arbitration probation would be my suggested course of action as well. Arved Deecke 13:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to clarify that I am indeed the founder and director of a Mexico based food irradiation company and would certainly refrain from commenting on this case or from future edits to the article if the arbitration committee perceives my profession to present a conflict of interest detrimental to the quality of either the article or its arbitration. Arved Deecke 04:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by former mediator JonathanStray

Hello. I volunteered to be the Mediation Cabal mediator for Food Irradiation on 17 July. From reading the talk page before I became involved, and from what happened during the course of the mediation attempt, I believe RayosMcQueen's chronology of the dispute given in his statement to be generally correct.

I have expanded upon the aborted mediation attempt in detail in this section of my talk page, and included what I hope to be considerable documentation and evidence. Here, I will state only my conclusion.

Fundamentally, I believe the mediation attempt failed because MonstretM did not have respect for the mediation process itself. Indeed, he never deeply entered the central discussion over evidence proper during mediation, preferring instead to repeatedly imply or assert that the other editors were biased, to protest over the language used in discussion (the language used in discussion, not the article itself), and to claim that the mediation process itself was unfair. Now of course I am not a perfect mediator, but I did make several attempts to specifically address his concerns, and I believe that overall I acted very caferfully to make sure that the article would be properly NPOV. Similarly there is no such thing as a perfect editor. However, the other editors showed a willingness to work with me to understand Wikipedia's NPOV policy and refine the mediation process generally.

In short, I do not believe that MonstretM was truly working with us to craft a solid article -- an article which would have in all likelihood included his viewpoint as a minority POV. Rather, I feel that I have reason to assume a lack of good faith on his part. In one respect, he and I do agree: I do not believe that even formal mediation will be successful in this environment. Therefore I ask the arbitration committee to review this case. --Jonathan Stray 22:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GermanPina

I agree with the proposed arbitration and want to express my interest in participating in it, in order to clarify this contribution and provide concrete and true statements on this topic that has been gaining more interest for the public. Such statements should be based in conclusions of recent published and arbitrated scientific papers using approved doses by national and international standards for food irradiation. GermanPina 05:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by minimally-involved SchuminWeb

I've mostly been observing, and only minimally become involved myself. I believe that MonstretM has acted in good faith, and I've found that many of the allegations come from inexperience on the part of the editor (WP:BITE). I don't see any wrongdoing, and it seems as if a number of the editors are trying to throw the book at MonstretM. I was also very concerned that the mediator in the Mediation Cabal case was a new user, who had only made eight edits prior to joining the case, and of those, only two were in the article namespace, with the balance in the talk namespace. That made me uneasy due to the mediator's relative inexperience with the workings of Wikipedia. SchuminWeb (Talk) 14:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved rocksanddirt

I've only come across this controversy today, and after reading the statements above and looking at the "person in the wrong"'s contribution list, this is a meaningless arbitration request. MonstretM has not edited anything since July 25 with this edit [34]. It would appear that the person advocating the minority opinion has left the project. I would recommend that each and every other regular editor of this article edit with the intent of including MonstreM's concerns. A strong pro-irradiation article does no one any good, include and fully discuss the problems and limitations of the science, don't be afraid of other points of view. --Rocksanddirt 21:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrArt

I am disappointed that this came to Arbitration. What started as a straightforward content dispute has degenerated into personal attacks. I'm not going to equivocate here, most of the attacks were by MonstretM:

  • again you are attempting to mislead the discussion [35]
  • might be symptomatic of your fundamental lack of research skill same edit
  • unless the other parties agree to stop their repeated false accusations and misrepresentations of the facts [36]

MonstretM's initial contributions focused on the article text [37] and were helpful, but by the time the issue came to informal mediation, all of his/her contributions [38] [39] [40] [41] consisted of lecturing the rest of the editors on NPOV, with no attempt to discuss the article itself.

If rocksanddirt is correct and MonstretM has ceased editing, then I suggest we drop the RfA and get an administrator to unlock the article post-haste. However MonstretM has left things dangling for up to six days in the past (Special:Contributions/MonstretM) so his/her reappearance would not surprise me. - MrArt 08:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/1/0/0)

NE2

Initiated by —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) at 03:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Imdanumber1

Problems have persisted with User:NE2, the latter of which are violations of disrupting WP to illustrate a point, incivility and breaching consensus. He needs to learn to be civil and follow consensus at all times, and he should know that he shouldn't invoke policies and guidelines into doing things he thinks are right, invoking WP:IAR at the wrong time. As he is a member of WP:USRD and WP:NYCPT, he has ideas that tend to be fantastic, but if people disagree, he will forum shop on people's talk pages (people that he knows very well) or the village pump and persuade them to agree with his opinions.

He is well known for having good ideas, but if a group of editors decide what's best for the encyclopedia, it will remain that way. The latter of many decisions made usually have one editor disagreeing, him. He is very bureaucratic, according to the details given above.

Note that two RFCs have been filed on the topic in question. Obviously the user doesn't show sighs of changing, and if one takes a look in his contributions, they'll see the issue that's being discussed. This type of behavior is unhealthy for him and other users involved with him.

Also, please note that the reason I have picked the above as involved parties is because they have been drawn in to edit wars and are the ones who put together the RFCs. I will provide some examples as brief and concise as possible:

  1. an example of edit warring by NE2
  2. the archived SR 1002 FAC
  3. A heated discussion where NE2 failed to go along with consensus after something that had engaged in a prior RFC, nine months of fighting, users leaving, ArbCom, massive move wars, and plain crap
  4. SR 1002 disruption
  5. forum shopping on W.marsh's talk, episode 1
  6. forum shopping on W.marsh's talk, episode 2
  7. [46] forum shopping just so that he can get his way
  8. [47] doing something where consensus was not reached
  9. [48] misunderstanding the fair use criteria and rationale
  10. [49] Conditional delete vote - an effort was made to adopt the multiple user parameter
  11. DAB issue he brought up, which was turned down, but eventually moved article names as [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:47th%E2%80%9350th_Streets%E2%80%93Rockefeller_Center_%28IND_Sixth_Avenue_Line%29&diff=126342832&oldid=100797993 such, removing necessary disambiguation that the WP:NYCPT project always conformed to]

Statement by passingly involved user Viridae

Suggest you reject this RfArb as wildly premature. The last RfC which I became involved in seemed to be primarily an objection to NE2's removal of fair use images from situations where fair use did not allow them to be used. As far as I can ascertain (and the RfC was greatly lacking in terms of any evidence to review) his supposed POINT violations were nothing more than attempting to follow our strict fair use policies. In terms of civility, there was nothing at all given in the RfC that indicated he was being incivil. Basically the last RfC was woefully inadequate in terms of any evidence of really disputable behaviour. My suggestion would be to withdraw this, and have a good go at an RfC in which you actually provide some strong evidence of behaviour under dispute or drop it entirely if you can't provide that evidence. ViridaeTalk 03:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that there are two RFCs. The first one focuses on his incivility and POINT violations and that is where all the proof can be found. Hope that helps. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 03:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by NE2

Yes, I was not told, but I found it anyway. This might be a case of "accept to look at the behavior of filer", but it's probably too early for that. --NE2 03:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do NOT change the subject, NE2. We are discussing your attitude. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 04:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note from outsider: ArbCom looks at all parties involved. And this place is not a place for threaded discussion. —Kurykh 04:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by O

I have to agree that this is going way too far. Other dispute resolution steps have not been taken yet, so this is clearly premature. (→O - RLY?) 14:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by W.marsh

I don't know, maybe ArbCom really should accept to look at the behavior of all parties here. The way this case was filed (NE2 is still not listed as a party, and was never notified) was pretty nasty. NE2 seems to attract a lot of controversy, and I'm not sure it's all his fault... he marches to the beat of a different drummer apparently and other road article editors seem to get easily bothered by him. Given my communications with NE2 he seems genuinely confused by the reaction he gets and perhaps even upset by it. I know I'd be frustrated if people filed RFCs on me at the drop of a hat and tried to sneak in an Arbitration case against me without me knowing about it. --W.marsh 13:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by passively involved Master_son

See my comment here. I really don't agree with this - Yes I endorsed the second RFC, but I now realize what's now going on and regret that. This request should not have happened yet. master sonT - C 23:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Note to filing party: It appears that you have not listed NE2 as an involved party or notified him of the case. I assume this was inadvertent, so please go ahead and add him. Also, please explain your reasons for listing the other users as involved parties. If their main involvement was as commenters on NE2's RfC, as the notifications you put on their talkpages suggest, then the arbitrators may conclude that is not a sufficient basis for making them parties to an arbitration case. Newyorkbrad 03:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/4/0/0)

Spoiler Warning

Initiated by Ken Arromdee at 16:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Link to current spoiler talk page as of now. [54]. The archives contain a *lot* of discussion, including longer presentations by others of the problems with current anti-spoiler activity. Discussion has been going on for months with no result. Moreover, a RFC was tried and closed with no useful result. [55]. The policy has had a disputed tag several times, but it keeps getting removed. A request for AWB revocation was also tried but cancelled. [56] This is a new version of a previous RFA [57]; it was closed with the most common reason being that mediation was required first. The mediation is now over [58] (talk) [59], closed with the note that mediation cannot handle editor conduct issues and arbitration is more appropriate.

Statement by Ken Arromdee

This RFA deals with the spoiler warning "policy", which has been pushed through while bypassing the need for consensus. Several users have removed over 45000 of them. The fact that people don't revert the 45000 changes is then used to claim the policy has "consensus" [60] -- yet any attempt at reversion is quickly stopped.

Deleting 45000 warnings is inappropriate for several reasons:

  • The blatant circular reasoning: "if there was opposition to this policy, people would be restoring spoiler warnings", when the policy is being used to prevent people from restoring warnings in the first place.
    • Related: warnings have been deleted with comments like "(rm per WP:SPOILER (redundant with section title))", which implies that they were deleted using to a settled guideline. Most users won't check the guideline talk page to see if it's really settled, and certainly won't figure out that their failure to oppose it is used to justify the guideline.
  • The accusations of edit warring. If restoring warnings is edit-warring, it makes no sense to claim that the policy has consensus because the warnings are not restored.
  • The huge logistical difference between adding and deleting warnings. Deleting them is easy; use the "what links here" feature. Moreover, opponents have used AWB, and Tony has now announced he'll use a bot to tell him when spoiler warnings are added. [61] Proponents have a harder task because deleted warnings are harder to find, must be added one by one (you can't mass-add like you can mass-delete), and they have no access to AWB or bots. Under these circumstances, it's absurd to claim that because the warnings stay removed, there is consensus.
  • Part of the controversy is over editing the spoiler warning template itself. The current template [62] doesn't include the words "spoiler" or "warning". This discourages users from restoring spoiler warnings by making them vague and almost useless.

The users listed above are three who have participated in the spoiler page discussion and whose edit histories show a substantial number of removals of spoiler warnings, plus Tony Sidaway, who is the most prominent public supporter of the claim that the 45000 removals have consensus because they have not been reverted. There may be others, but I intend to establish whether this is proper behavior for any user. I don't have the technical skills to determine the full set of users responsible for all 45000 removals.

The spoiler talk page has degenerated into opponents arguing over whether almost all or almost almost all of the 45000 warnings are inappropriate; the removal itself is treated as a fait accompli and those who disagree with it are mostly ignored. This is another unreasonable form of "consensus": consensus-by-exhaustion where people get tired of talking to a brick wall for months.

As this guideline enforcement has been done on a Wikipedia-wide scale, it has gone far beyond content disputes on any individual article. Policies not followed include the AWB policy ("Do not do anything controversial with it"), WP:POINT, and particularly WP:Consensus. Note that this RFA case isn't about whether the spoiler guideline itself is good; it's about whether the activity of deleting 45000 warnings and enforcing a disputed policy is appropriate, and about establishing consensus in questionable ways.

I can't believe the things people are already saying.
"What has changed since the previous rejection?" Uhh, the previous rejection said to try mediation and mediation sent it back to arbitration?
"The Arbitration Committee does not handle content issues and could make no ruling on the spoiler policy itself." I've clearly stated that this isn't about the policy, but about user actions in determining consensus and enforcing the policy. I'm not trying to argue whether the policy is good.
"The Committee has no remit to investigate alleged IRC conspiracies." Huh? I didn't even *mention* IRC conspiracies (or conspiracies of any sort).
"At this point, I don't know what the spoiler proponents want." Well, how about a determination that the removal is inappropriate. We can decide on remedies after that; there are things which can be done even without restoring all 45000, but I'm already at the word limit.
Ken Arromdee 21:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Phil Sandifer

Ken has not demonstrated any actual dispute on the pages where the spoiler tags have been removed. In practice, since the spoiler tags have never gained consensus on more than a handful of articles, and the removal of them has, in the vast majority of cases, been uncontroversial when that removal has been done by hand. A look at the discussion on the policy page shows that this is a matter of sour grapes - those who were opposed to the change in consensus regarding spoiler tags have simply become more bitter, more incivil, and more ludicrous in their arguments (with highlights like "What about people in your generation from Asia or Africa? The Halo series has sold about 12 million copies... one for every 550 people.")

The only purpose of this RFAr is an increasingly desperate attempt to forum shop - one whose desperation is clearly shown by the inclusion of people who have been totally unvinvolved with the mass removal of spoiler tags such as myself. I urge the committee to reject this dispute with predjudice. Phil Sandifer 17:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tony Sidaway

A number of comments on this arbitration by separate individuals seem to me to indicate a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term "consensus". Specifically, discussions on talk pages are subject to selection bias and thus do not always reflect community consensus. On the other hand, a pragmatic test such as performing an action in stages and measuring the response can and does produce a very clear picture of consensus. This is the essence of our guideline Be bold.

The only new element in this complaint seems to relate to my use of a bot to locate home-made spoiler warnings. I have placed a description of the bot and its use in this affair at User:Tony Sidaway/spoiler bot.

The use of home-made spoiler warnings used to be within the guideline, but the current guideline deprecates their use in favor of a single uniform template.

  • Spoiler guideline at the time of writing this. Note the instruction: "Do not improvise such warnings in plain text." This is a significant change from earlier versions of the guideline.

I have used the bot for seven days without encountering any problems on article talk pages or my own user talk page. There are negative comments by two editors on the guideline talk page [63], but I find them impossible to take seriously. Apparently I'm "more hell-bent on the issue than the pro-spoiler people." Thank you. And I'm "using it to delete spoiler tags." Well yes, it detects home-made spoiler warnings and enables me to remove them if I think they're unmerited. This is one of the reasons why I spent all those nights learning to be a programming guru: it gets the job done with less effort.

A Mediation Cabal case related to this dispute ended inconclusively:

Ken's previous complaint was made at a time when the spoiler guideline was tagged as "disputed". The controversy seems to have died down, some good compromises have been made in the wording, and the guideline is no longer marked as disputed in any way.

Whilst two arbitrators (Fred Bauder and Paul August) have previously expressed concern about the original use of AWB to perform mass edits to remove spoiler tags, this has not been done since early June. As far as I am aware, there is currently no ongoing editing of that type. --Tony Sidaway 18:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Marc Shepherd

I have added myself as an involved party. I don't know if that's considered acceptable, but I boldly did it anyway. I was not involved with editing the 45,000 disputed articles, but I have been active on the talk page of WP:SPOILER, and I strongly support the way the spoiler dispute was ultimately resolved (i.e., with the warnings being deleted from most pages).

At this point, I don't know what the spoiler proponents want. The 45,000 edits are already made, and no decision by the ArbCom can automatically "undo" them. I know what the proponents are against (to wit, a set of edits that have already been made, and that cannot easily be reversed), but I don't know what they are for. Marc Shepherd 18:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Amarkov

The locus of the dispute here is not really the spoiler warning policy. The problem that people have is one side enforcing their interpretation of it by mass removals, and then claiming that failure to revert the edits means that their interpretation has consensus. This is invalid logic for a couple reasons, including that it's much harder to find the spot where a spoiler warning should be and add it than it is to just remove one, and that the vast majority of articles aren't really seen except by occasional editors who have no interest in trying to fight "established practice". So arbitration should really focus on the means here, and not the ends. -Amarkov moo! 18:42, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Briangotts (talk · contribs)

I have authored or worked on a number of articles with spoiler warnings, including "The Man who Came Early", Fitzpatrick's War, Ruled Britannia. Per Amarkov's comments, I can attest that spoilers were removed from these articles, despite my protests, and that I was informed these changes were being made in accordance with policy. I have now restored the spoiler warnings on those 3 pages, so that's 3 out of 45,000 at least that are being disputed. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved AMIB

I urge Arbcom acceptance of this story to examine both policy-making process and use of bots to implement disputed edits. While I don't like spoiler tags, the way this has been conducted has crushed any possibility for dispute, because disputes at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler are mostly blown off, the edits are automated and appear to be following an undisputed policy (unless you go to Wikipedia:Spoiler's talk page) so nobody knows that there's anything to dispute, and the use of bots backed up with swift reverts and accusations of edit warring means that people are chased away from even trying to dispute it.

The process seems to be...

  1. Remove the spoiler tags by bot.
  2. Declare the spoiler rules accepted because there aren't any spoiler tags left.
  3. When someone replaces a spoiler tag, they're reverted.
  4. When someone asks why on article talk, they're told it's because the spoiler rules are policy. If they press, they're outnumbered by the group of users who oppose all spoiler tags, while that particular user is the only one arguing for a spoiler tag on that particular page.
  5. When someone asks why on the spoiler rules talk, they're told it's because nobody argued on the vast majority of article talks.

Opposition is stymied unfairly because they're chased away from centralized discussion because they aren't taking their argument up on individual pages, but there's no hope of accomplishing fair centralized discussion on an article page about a systemic issue. This is ridiculously bureaucratic, and requires that someone be watching in three different places while edit warring to make any sort of protest.

This was done entirely in the wrong way, and whenever the methods are questioned, the answer is inevitably "Well, we got rid of spoiler tags, didn't we?" The end doesn't justify these means. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Farix

This arbitration request appears to be a last ditch effort to undo the changes to the spoiler guideline and Template:Spoiler along with the removals of the spoiler templates from thousands of articles that has taken place since May 2007. Ken Arromdee states that because the removal of many spoiler warnings were made without approval is a violation of WP:Consensus. However, he ignores the part where if an edit is not reverted, a new consensus has been established. Instead, he wants the new consensus to be declared VOID by the arbitration committee. He, and others, has made the claim that the mass removals of the spoiler templates was a violation of WP:POINT, which has been repeatedly rejected by other administrators. The claim that the AWB was abused in order to establish a new consensus has also been rejected. Wikipedia encourages editors to be bold in their edits so long as they aren't reckless. Ken Arromdee, and others, have yet to prove that the mass removals of the spoiler template was a reckless action. --Farix (Talk) 19:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Addend: Kaypoh makes the comment below that the new guideline has resulted in edit wars across Wikipedia. However, the only case of an edit war over a spoiler warning that I know of was on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just after its released and that was mostly precipitated by anonymous, first time, or single purpose editors who were not aware of the changes in the guideline or where not familiar with Wikipedia's standards as an encyclopedia—which is also true for most additions of a spoiler warning on other articles. --Farix (Talk) 13:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response to AGK: Unless you can cite specific policies that were violated by specific actions, I don't think ArbCom will be interested. Your assertion that, "some policy had to have been violated," is just too vague. --Farix (Talk) 22:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Ghirla

Since the problem has not gone away, I'm inclined to think it merits a hearing. Our policy concerning spoiler warnings is immaterial to this case. It is hard not to subscribe to Amarkov's assessment of the situation. I hope that the ArbCom will review the behaviour of all participants and will hand out a ruling on the propriety of deleting 40,000 warnings without having on-wiki consensus. --Ghirla-трёп- 19:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nydas

It has been claimed that the removal of spoiler tags was backed up by consensus. This is wrong. Their removal was a textbook example of how to enforce something in the face of consensus. Mass edits were made by a tiny number of people, backed up by threats against anyone who tried to undo them on a large scale. The discussion was essentially ignored, apart from declarations that 'there is no significant resistance'.

As it stands now, spoiler tags have to be personally approved by a tiny number of editors, around six of them. It's the most strictly enforced policy that Wikipedia has ever seen. The guideline doesn't make this clear. It encourages users to waste their time arguing for spoiler tag use, when the decision is entirely dependent on the whims of a few people. This violates the spirit of WP:OWN, and also raises NPOV concerns.

Whilst this is not the place for debates about the guideline, Phil Sandifer's characterisation of my argument as 'but people in Africa don't know it' is a strawman. The full discussion can be seen at Wikipedia Talk:Spoiler#What's wrong with this picture?.--Nydas(Talk) 19:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Girolamo Savonarola

While I have not been involved specifically with the tag edits themselves, I have as of late become active on the policy discussion page. I will not recapitulate arguments because I feel that I've already clearly made them there. However, I hope and expect that those deciding this case will also look at the full archives - extensive as they may be - to get a sense of the long-term context of the issues, the strength of the arguments made on each side, and implications as manifested on an encyclopedia. This is a contentious policy regardless of what side "wins", and most definitely needs higher review, if not for a decision than for a clarification of the best way to achieve one. Thank you, Girolamo Savonarola 20:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by David Gerard

What the what? This is silly querulousness. What has changed since the previous rejection?

Notes: My edits weren't made by an unsupervised bot, Tony's "bot" only does searching. The AWB maintainers were already asked to consider this "controversial" use of AWB and told the requesters to go argue elsewhere - thus Ken is making an assertion already discarded in the place for such assertions. The "edit warring" has primarily been on the part of spoiler advocates, quite a few of whom have been blocked for 3RR. Ken has been riding the spoiler hobbyhorse in all possible venues, notably recently on wikien-l, where several posters were telling him they really didn't want to hear it any more and particularly not in unrelated threads.

This is an ex-horse. - David Gerard 20:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kizor

Elaborate argument will be coming when I wake up, but for now, let me insist that this is not a question of what should be done to the spoiler tags. The question is of the method, which AMIB rightly describes as "crushing any possibility for dispute." A wikipedia-wide change was implemented on the basis of what at that time bore the tag of a proposed guideline. Editing tools caused a massive imbalance of power: those working by hand could no more oppose the AWB juggernaut than a child can tackle a grizzly bear.

That guideline was justified by the silent majority because of a lack of "significant opposition", significant here being denied entirely by one party. (Tony Sidaway noted that 166 reversions in one day is trivial.) The method of implementing a massive change without consensus, then justifying it by the other side's inability or unwillingness to force its stand similarily, is dangerous, not just here but in and to all of Wikipedia, and I urge ArbCom to treat it with all seriousness. In comparison to this issue, spoiler tags can go hang.

Policy is NOT determined by who is the more aggressive!

What has changed since the previous RfAr is that that one was deferred at least in part until then-current mediation ended. It now has - with the recommendation to go for arbitration! --Kizor 00:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC), messed with at 08:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Kaypoh

There are user conduct issues. Number one, people are trying to force a "consensus" (others above me have already said how). Number two, that people who add the spoiler tags back are accused of edit warring. ArbCom rejected this a few months back. If ArbCom rejects this again, the fighting and so-called "edit warring" will continue. And a few months later, this will go back to ArbCom. So what should ArbCom do? --Kaypoh 04:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kusma

There does not seem to be much to add to my last statement, except that the new spoiler guideline is working pretty well; in cases like the new Harry Potter book, the newest trend seems to be to use {{current fiction}} and not to consider spoiler questions when structuring articles. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler has become pretty slow and repetitive, and most people seem to have accepted the change of consensus that happened. For the question whether WP:POINT was violated, I would like to link to my statement here: concentrating on the worst instances of a template while leaving many not-too-bad uses alone is not covered by that guideline. Kusma (talk) 07:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved AGK

This issue has been on the cards for a while now, and I'm beginning to think it deserves an attempt by the ArbCom to try and resolve it. I'm also of the opinion that it's suitable for the ArbCom: it does, in the end, boil down to conduct issues - was the deletion of thousands of spoiler warnings without properly established consensus appropiate? Anthøny 20:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved user The Storm Surfer

I would like to join the others who urge the Arbitration Committee to consider this case. I find the currently stated reasons for rejecting it confusing. This is not a content issue; it is about the behaviour of editors (which naturally includes the addition and deletion of some content; what more important things do editors do?). This is not about the spoiler policy either, it is about the behaviour of editors while they were creating/enforcing/arguing that policy. Any IRC conspiracies are indeed beside the point, and anything said on IRC is, I think, completely irrelevant to what is going on here. The only policy question we are asking ArbCom to decide is whether the actions of these editors are in line with or against core Wikipedia policies. Without some sort of official statement, those who believe they are justifiable and those who believe they are not will continue to believe as they do. This can only lead to further trouble if similar actions are taken in the future. Say this is unacceptable or say this is acceptable; either statement will be better for the future of the encyclopedia than silence. — The Storm Surfer 23:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/5/0/0)

First Vision

Initiated by 74s181 at 01:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by 74s181

  • The complaint is about John Foxe. Other parties were listed as part of the RFM, and may have useful comments.
  • There have been multiple attempts to explain WP:NPOV policies to John Foxe. He wants what he wants and reverts any edit that he doesn't agree with.
  • He believes that the 'Mormon' editors are ganging up on him to push 'Mormon' POV.
  • He rejects WP:NPOV policies.
  • A recent comment from John Foxe can be found near the end of Talk:First_Vision#Breaking_the_collaborative_truce
I'm the only holdout; I'm also the only non-Mormon. My gut feeling is that the whole mediation business is a Trojan Horse. I'm especially suspicious of the Request for Mediation because the "Issues to be mediated" are references to Wikipedia rules and not sentences in English like most of the issues in other mediation cases. I'm not even sure the issues are specific enough to be accepted for mediation. Frankly, Les, every time you start citing Wikipedia rules, I tune them out as Mormon smokescreen.--John Foxe 23:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Further note - John Foxe is always very careful to maintain his Eddie Haskell appearance. The comments to his edits will say things like 'remove POV', 'restore deleted material', 'stylistic tweak', when in fact the edit is something totally different, sometimes exactly the opposite of the description. Also, comments on the talk page like "And my past experience at Wikipedia has been that men of good will, regardless of personal belief, can find a way of reaching neutral wording," are examples of this, his 'will' has been anything but 'good'. I mention these things because if you only take a quick look at the edit history you won't get the full picture. I did a full analysis of what John Foxe said vs what he actually did, see the later part of Talk:First_Vision#Reverts_after_good_faith_edits.

Occasionally John Foxe reveals his true intent. The first time I saw this was the The Churchillian Defense. He is also sometimes more honest in his comment when he reverts as in:

17:18, 9 July 2007 John Foxe (Talk | contribs) (71,559 bytes) (I prefer the earlier version)

More recently, after I submitted a 3RR report, John Foxe responded with the statement:

I will not be bullied, gentlemen. Truth is more important to me than my reputation at Wikipedia...

But then he shifted back to Eddie Haskell mode with:

Nevertheless, I more than welcome another attempt to reach NPOV for this article... --John Foxe 17:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Another example. user:Visorstuff responded to my 3RR report and protected the page. After protection expired, John Foxe started again with the same behavior. Visorstuff asked him to seek consensus here, then warned John Foxe that he would protect the page again if necessary (it was, and he did). John Foxe responded this way:

I'll be glad to discuss any material in the article new or old. But if you'd like to protect the page again, I support that action as well.--John Foxe 15:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This sounds very cooperative, but as we actually began to discuss the changes:

I just don't want any mention of "critics" and "believers" in the text...--John Foxe 20:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
In my view almost any solution is better than introducing the views of critics and believers. Especially if it's a solution that makes the article shorter... --John Foxe 23:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
There's no reason to mention non-believers or believers here.--John Foxe 20:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
There's no need to mention a "contradiction" at all.--John Foxe 20:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I think differences in the accounts can be mentioned without using the term "contradiction." Again, I'm dead set against having the text say, "Critics say..., but Mormons believe." ...--John Foxe 20:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

My biggest concern with John Foxe is that he is eiher unable or unwilling to understand and edit in accordance with WP:NPOV. 74s181 12:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Robert Horning

I want to start out here by noting that I appreciate the fact that John Foxe does represent a POV that is different from many of the others who are working on this particular article, and that he is not alone or unique in holding this particular POV (as can be the case for some users on Wikipedia). This particular article, First Vision, is about a fundamental religious experience that is the foundation of a substantial religious movement, perhaps even the genesis of a whole different religion... depending on your POV and how you define these concepts.

As one of the original editors who raised NPOV concerns about the edits by Mr. Foxe and the general tone of this article, I have not been very comfortable with how this basic idea has been presented on Wikipedia. Foxe here is claiming "truth", but whose truth? This is a description of religious beliefs and is a matter of faith, but what is presented in this article is not a description of these beliefs but rather a systematic approach to discredit the faith's founder and quoting information from original sources out of context.

The repeated abuse of the revert tool is also something that is very troublesome to me. I don't necessarily object to a blatant reversion of obvious vandalism, but that has not been the case here by Mr. Foxe. He appears to recognize the 3-revert rule, but pushes right to the limits of Wikipedia acceptability by the letter of the rule. I haven't seen more than a couple reverts in a 24 hour period of time, but instead waits the requisite 24 hour "cooling off period" and does the revert at the next possible opportunity. In other words, this is turning into a more protracted revert and edit war than something immediate and intense. There have been dozens of reverts by Mr. Fox extending over many months of editing, with only a couple of those to remove content added by blatant vandals. In all other cases it has been to cull content that does not fit his POV.

The other huge issue I'm raising here is that this revert/edit war has as a casualty of denying the ability for new Wikipedia users to make any sort of meaningful contribution to the article. When I've added even very minor changes, such as cleaning up spelling or adding links to other Wikimedia projects (of particular note was an attempt to add a link to Wikisource for original documents related to this article), I've had my edits removed out of hand simply because of the perception that I and others participating with this disagreement are acting in bad faith. As it stands at the moment, I do not feel that I can make any meaningful contribution to this article. If this was my first experience at making a contribution to Wikipedia, it would be a very negative experience and certainly would not be something that "anybody can edit". Mr. Foxe has repeatedly mentioned that only a small select number of individuals ought to be considered qualified to make any meaningful additions to the article. I certainly am not in that list. --Robert Horning 15:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John Foxe

Although it is true, as 74s181 has said, that all the other named parties (as well as Visorstuff, who protected the page during the edit war) are Mormons, they are not necessarily acting as part of a conspiracy. I would especially like to commend Visorstuff for his impartiality and COGDEN for his knowledge of Mormon history, which I acknowledge is superior to mine.

The essence of the debate at First Vision can be reduced to two basic issues:

First, my Mormon opponents would like to ensure that historical facts be labeled “criticism” so they can be answered by Mormon apologetics under the formula: “Critics say,” but “other scholars reply.” For example, the first account of the First Vision was not published until twenty years after it is said to have occurred (and in England to boot). If this statement is a fact—as much a fact as that Mars is a planet—then it is my view that it cannot be characterized as “criticism,” as an attack on Mormonism made by “critics.” (Yes, I do understand the importance of how and where such facts are presented, and I’ve always said that such matters can be worked out through collaborative discussion.)

Second, we have at this article a situation in which the majority opinion—that the Mormon religion is false—is represented by one editor, and the minority opinion—that it is true—is held by everyone else. In such a case, a nose-counting “consensus” will ensure that the minority editor who holds the majority opinion will lose at every significant juncture.

Finally, I doubt that the on-going discussion at First Vision has been more intense than would be revealed by the talk page of any important article on politics or religion. The level of discussion has not been especially vicious or uncivil, especially on my part. I must say, however, that it is frustrating to have my civility and attempts to reach compromise used against me as evidence of my guile. John Foxe 18:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk)

I would hope that the administrators pay at least some attention to the actual content, since it is key to this dispute. I believe the main issue is over an interpretation of WP:NPOV. All but Foxe appear to believe that all sides of a controversy should be presented, while Foxe tends to either eliminate alternate opinions or place them in footnotes. Foxe presents what he perceives as facts, often along with his interpretation of those facts, but resists alternate interpretations of those facts. His focus is on "truth", but his definition of truth appears to be those facts that support his POV. This is made worse by his actions - he will frequently not participate in discussion about the content, but then revert changes that come about as a result of that discussion. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 04:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved GRBerry

Unfortunately, a significant percentage of religion and philosophy RFC requests receive no response. As the clerk has already noted, one was filed. I can find no evidence that any RFC responder showed up because of it. GRBerry 17:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Blue Tie

I am familiar with John Foxe and some of the other editors mentioned. I consider John Foxe to be an excellent editor in terms of writing style. Really extraordinary and an asset to wikipedia. However, the complaints mentioned here, echo my own experiences with John. With me, he has been insistant (and I quote him): "Nothing true is POV. Wikipedia can say anything without citation that's true beyond reasonable doubt." (Never mind that what is "true" may differ according to the observer). John insists that if (he believes) something is true beyond a reasonable doubt, nothing you say is pov. I showed him the policy that says that we do not need to call Hitler evil, we just show the facts and let them speak for themselves. John rejected this wikipedia policy and repeatedly refused to accept it. In the exchange he and I had, we argued over the labeling a scholar as "brilliant". I told him that this judgment of the scholar is strongly pov. I again quoted wikipedia policy that we should simply let the facts speak for themselves and not force wikipedia to pass judgment. John replied that since this scholar's brilliance was true, it was not pov and did not need to be supported. There wasn't much room to negotiate this in his approach, and I suspect that may be part of the problem with this editor. I would add, that though I find John Foxe unwilling to edit in accordance with certain wikipedia policies governing NPOV, he is unfailingly cordial. He is also far better at construction of articles than most editors. --Blue Tie 02:54, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

In response to this request, I see that an article RFC was filed here. The first talk page archive after the date of the RFC is here but is not formatted like an RFC and seems to have attracted no outside comments. From a quick scan of the article, it looks like original research is a significant problem here. See for example the very top of the talk page archive here. Also, the article has over 130 reference notes but the great majority cite writings by Joseph Smith himself. It looks like the editors are engaged in original research, compiling primary sources to synthesize a new argument, rather than reporting what previous religious scholars have written. Thatcher131 12:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/2/0/0)

Requests for clarification

Place requests for clarification on matters related to the Arbitration process in this section. Place new requests at the top.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid

Certain parties involved in this issue who argue that the article Allegations of Israeli apartheid does not belong on Wikipedia have created a whole slew of articles, Allegations of Brazilian apartheid, Allegations of Chinese apartheid, Allegations of tourist apartheid in Cuba, Allegations of French apartheid, and Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid (another one, Allegations of American apartheid, has already been deleted but is on DRV). In every deletion debate they ask for "consistent" treatment of all articles in the series, clearly referring to their objections to Allegations of Israeli apartheid. In every deletion debate the same clique of users invades a subject area they had no prior interest in, and drags their old battles into a new venue.

This is a classic case of WP:POINT. I request the ArbCom condemn and stop this action. --Ideogram 04:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot Allegations of Jordanian apartheid (created by User:Chesdovi, now deleted), Allegations of Puerto Rican apartheid (created by User:Bleh999, now deleted), and Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid (created by User:Theo F, now moved to another title). Anyway, Ideogram's statements are basically false. Most of these articles were created by people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the previous case, and most of the people asking for "consistent" treatment on AfDs had nothing whatsoever to do with the previous case. In fact, most of the existing articles have easily survived AfDs because they are well-written, well-sourced, complied with all the policies and, frankly, were interesting - I encourage ArbCom members to read the remaining ones. You're probably going to read a lot of lengthy fulminations following this post from people who haven't been able to get articles they don't like deleted, filled with uncivil, bad faith, and basically untrue comments. Just recognize them for what they are; attempts to get the ArbCom to handle a content dispute, by deleting articles for them that they don't like. Jayjg (talk) 05:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As a mostly uninvolved user, I'd encourage ArbCom to re-examine the behavior of involved parties in light of the amnesty granted in the initial case. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of American apartheid was closed by ChrisO, heavily involved in the apartheid dispute, which was poor judgement on his part. While his close was reasonable on policy grounds, it's predictably touched off a firestorm given his prior involvement. Similarly, a number of "Allegations of apartheid in..." articles have been created, maintained, and defended by a group of editors - and it is reasonable to believe that this is being done to make the point that the Israeli apartheid article should be deleted. Please see [64], where the tactic is laid out, and [65] [66] [67] [68], among others. It would seem that these articles are POV forks being created to make a point about the Israeli apartheid issue, and it's intensely disruptive and divisive. Given the scale of involvement and the length and depth of this conflict, I think it's most appropriately looked into by ArbCom. MastCell Talk 05:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As predicted. As has been pointed out at least a dozen times, the person making this comment didn't create any of these articles, nor did he edit any of them, so his opinion about motivations or "tactics" are completely irrelevant. One cannot "lay out" something which one hasn't done and doesn't know anything about. Moreover, he didn't at all say that the articles were written in bad faith or for WP:POINT; on the contrary, he apparently believes they were written to uphold WP:NPOV. In any event, it's not a good idea to keep repeating obviously invented falsehoods as if they were admitted truths. Jayjg (talk) 05:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, and I appreciate your viewpoint. I don't know Sefringle (or, really, anyone else involved), and I don't edit these articles, so your perspective is probably more informed than mine. I'm just saying that, from a relatively external vantage point, it seems to me a reasonable conclusion that these articles are at least partly intended to drive home the fundamentally unencyclopedic nature of all "Allegations of apartheid..." articles. Which I agree with 100%, including the Israeli one. I just think that this particular approach, if I'm correct about it, is unecessarily disruptive and divisive, and I don't feel I (or any other individual admin) has the standing to address such a long-running, complex, and rancourous dispute - hence ArbCom. MastCell Talk 05:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(reply to Jayjg) Let's name names, shall we? People from the previous case involved in this mess are Humus sapiens (talk · contribs), 6SJ7 (talk · contribs), and, surprise, Jayjg (talk · contribs). But it has already been recommended to me to create a new case, and I'm happy to. --Ideogram 05:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of the one dozen "Allegations of apartheid" articles, how many were created by Humus sapiens (talk · contribs), 6SJ7 (talk · contribs), or me? Jayjg (talk) 05:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) As an "involved editor" (but not the creator of any of the articles listed above), I want to point out a few problems with this: 1: The above request seems to be in the wrong place, as it is not a request for clarification, but a new request that deals with a completely different set of facts from the previous arbitration; 2: As a result, it is in the wrong format, meaning among other things that it: 3: Does not list any parties nor state that anyone has been notified of the request; 4: It says nothing about prior dispute resolution (and in fact there probably has not been enough of that to support a "last resort" request for arbitration)... and probably most significant of all, 5: This is a content dispute. There has been some conduct, not mentioned by the requestor -- and not done by the people who have created the articles in question -- that might require attention by the Arb Comm in the future, but that would be a whole different subject from what is mentioned above. 6SJ7 05:39, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I had not seen Ideogram's comment immediately preceding mine, so some of my procedural points may become moot. But its still a content dispute. As for his apparent intention to make some accusation against me, all I can say is, Go ahead, make my day. All I've done is comment on a bunch of AfD's and a DRV, and some talk pages, and pointed out some questionable conduct here and there. I created none of the articles in question, and except for the original article in the "series", I don't think I've ever even edited any of them. 6SJ7 05:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk note: Because Ideogram has now filed this as a new request for arbitration (see above, top of this page), this request for clarification is moot. I will leave this section here for 24 hours before deleting it in case editors who have commented in this section wish to move or refer to their comments here in responding to the new request above. Newyorkbrad 14:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review Request: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 3

The arbitration committee has closed the above case.

Restrictions applying to Huaiwei:

The above is the shorthand restrictions placed on Huaiwei after an ArbCom case more than a year ago. Several months ago, it was found that Instantnood was not only being generally disruptive but also running farms of sockpuppets to disrupt votes/discussions and Instantnood is now permanently banned. Huaiwei hasn't been in any other kind of dispute resolution before or since the Instantnood issues.

It's clear to me that while Huaiwei was wrapped up in Instantnood's belligerence (as were a half dozen others on the periphery) it was Instantnood's wiki-stalking of Huaiwei (which continues with sockpuppets even now) that caused the problem, and not a general problem with Huaiwei as an editor. Without the instigation of a bad actor, Huaiwei is an excellent and dedicated Wikipedian who has been with the project for several years. These restrictions and potential punishments hang on him like an albatross.

I'd like ArbCom to review Huaiwei's contributions since the permanent banning of Instantnood and remove the previous restrictions.

SchmuckyTheCat
Right, Huaiwei has one 3rr with one user that is not Instantnood. I think the sequence of that one was, slow revert, Huaiwei realized he went over and reported it, both got blocked. He was also using the talk page to try and work out what was going on with someone belligerent.
One instance does not justify such harsh restrictions. SchmuckyTheCat
Well, that one instance is not the justification, the entire history is. I'd like to see three clean months before I support lifting the restrictions, though. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I believe that in a similar situation recently, the committee voted that someone's probation from a prior case would be ended if he remained out of trouble for a specific period of time. That might work here. Newyorkbrad 16:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: See motion in arbitrator voting section, below. Newyorkbrad 05:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Prechter

The Robert Prechter case (decided about four months ago) indefinitely banned smallbones from articles related to Prechter. Smallbones’ equally aggressive hostility to Technical analysis was a key point in the outcome of the case, as is clear from this comment on the workshop page by an arbitrator.

“The problem is that you go a little too far. It is TA [technical analysis] that you maintain is pseudoscience, not just the Elliot Wave. The problem for me is determining if editing restrictions are necessary for you as a result of habitual POV editing. Fred Bauder 11:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)”

In the past couple of days, smallbones has reappeared on technical analysis, with inflammatory comments and edits. I am requesting clarification from the Committee on whether smallbones’ participation in the technical analysis article is in keeping with the remedy in the Prechter case. Thank you.--Rgfolsom 00:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As a third-party not involved in the original arbitration, I find Smallbones's edits to technical analysis be appropriate, modest, and consistent with Wikipedia rules. His only edits were to remove a passage that plainly violated WP:SYN/WP:NOR and to reinsert (once) a dispute tag that Rgfolsom inappropriately deleted through reversions on three occasions in 24 hours. The only POV-pusher here is Rgfolsom, who has WP:OWN issues with this article. THF 01:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Committee members may wish to assess the comment from THF in light of recent examples of incivility, name-calling, and unfounded suggestions of bad faith. --Rgfolsom 01:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would tend to conclude that the "topic ban" would not apply to the technical analysis article. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comment. I will respectfully ask you and other administrators to please look again at the most recent activity on the Technical analysis article and talk page. smallbones has alleged a conflict of interest where none exists, erroneously argued on behalf of other editors, claimed a non-existent consensus, and then reverted edits that were in place just as a true consensus appeared at hand.
The previous arbitration took more than three months to decide. It would be tedious indeed for the Committee to go though it again regarding the same behavior, the same editor, and a very similar article. Thanks for your consideration.--Rgfolsom 19:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Without wanting to try to speak on behalf of the rest of the committee, I think you'll find that the committee will move quickly if there is genuine evidence that the problem is unabated but has merely moved to another page. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 05:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. As of a few hours ago, I can offer genuine evidence that the problem is somewhat beyond unabated. Smallbones solicited a vote on THF’s talk page, in an AfD that smallbones himself is banned from. Smallbones had no doubt that this other editor would serve as his proxy (see THF's comment above), and that is indeed what happened. Thanks for your time and attention.--Rgfolsom 16:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I note for the benefit of the committee that THF took it upon himself to inform a number of participants in AFD1 that AFD2 was underway. I reviewed those notes earlier this morning, and concluded that THF informed several respected editors on both sides of the AFD1 discussion, and did not engage in votestacking. GRBerry 17:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make and vote on such motions. Other editors may comment on the talk page)

Huaiwei (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Note: See also the discussion in Section 2 above.

I move that the restrictions, now over a year old, from the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 3 case on editor Huaiwei be lifted. While Huaiwei appears to have been involved in some edit wars and has received a number of 3RR blocks, I do not believe that the probation and limits on participation remain relevant at this point.

As there are presently 12 active arbitrators, of whom one is abstaining, a majority is 6.
Support:
  1. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 05:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. James F. (talk) 09:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Paul August ☎ 13:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
  1. First, I would like to see a clean block record for at least 3 months and no evidence of edit warring. FloNight 11:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain:
  1. As I suggested above, I'd like to see a bit more time. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]


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