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FloridaArmy and AfC woes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The first thing that should be said here is that there is no doubt that FloridaArmy is an net positive for the wiki. No one is questioning that. However, his drafts in the AfC process (which he was previously sanctioned to run all articles through) has become overwhemingly burdensome. There is consensus from the discussion at the AfC project page that something needs to be done (found here). Kylietastic summed it up best in the OP:

For those unaware the reason FloridaArmy spams AfC is due to this ANI issue — offloading the strain on AfD and other areas onto AfC. However their ongoing behaviour does not seem fair to the other submitters or on the reviewers. According to Template:AFC yistics/pending they currently have 68 open submissions (4.6% of all submission), also they just resubmit with little or no changes causing much more load. I just noticed they recently submitted multiple articles with only 1 source such as Draft:James Martin (South Carolina), Draft:Solomon Dill, Draft:Joseph Crews and Draft:Lucius Wimbush which they clearly know is not good enough. Yesterday I rejected Draft:Koninklijke Militaire School with no independent sources, just the single schools own link. In the past they have added non references such just a film name as a ref for the same film and other such things that they clearly know are not valid. They clearly do understand how things work and the guidelines, but persist of submitting the junk with the good and have a more combative than collaborative attitude to editing. They appear to be getting worse (from what I've seen), maybe due to virus lockdown.... is it not time to take some action? They continue to expect others to do work for them, never submitting properly (just with {{submit}} so AFCH does not work until fixed up), rarely formatting references, first submits that have no chance of acceptance without others improving first etc. Their behaviour was not considered good enough for AfD, why should it be OK to continue in AfC? Should this go back to ANI? Should they be restricted to the number of current open submissions, and not allowed to just resubmit? I'm sure if they focused on fewer articles at once, and worked more collaboratively they would be an big positive to the project, but they way they choose to work is not fair on others (submitters and/or reviewers).

TL:DR version, the editor is submitting a myriad of problematic drafts and is not responding or adapting to the countless attempts by reviewers to get them to improve. They expect other's to do their work, which is an unfair burden to put on reviewers, especially if they editor knows how to do it themselves. WP:BUILDER.

The rough consensus seems to be to limit FlordiaArmy's total pending AfC submissions at one time or to limit the rate at which they can submit them. The AfC community desperately needs relief from this situation. I am pinging the AfC reviewers who in the above mentioned discussion showed concern about FlordiaArmy's drafts, most of whom have also said some sort of action needs to be taken. KylieTastic, Chris troutman, Robert McClenon, Nosebagbear, CaptainEek and myself. RoySmith and Scope creep also expressed concern, but did not explicitly state yet whether they believe action should be taken. Sulfurboy (talk) 04:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• At AfC I suggested a limit to individual submissions to prevent WP:GAMING. I proposed a three strikes system, where each draft of Florida's gets two declines, and is automatically rejected the third time. Drafts which are not improved between submissions should also be auto-rejected. Florida has been at this for years and should know better. Though let me say, I very much want Florida to stick around, they are a valuable contributor, and in no way do I think we should block them. Just...provide some sanctions that will guide them. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I will clarify what I said, and I think this is consistent with what User:CaptainEek has said. I do not think that the community needs to take any further action beyond the action already taken of sending their submissions through AFC. I think that the reviewers, as a subcommunity, can enforce some common-sense rules such as are being mentioned. If the purpose of this thread has been to solicit community discussion of those rules, we welcome that input. (If the purpose is to impose any further community restrictions, I do not think that is necessary.) Robert McClenon (talk) 05:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I don't mind extending someone 50 strikes as long as they put in good faith efforts on each submission. This is why I think a limit on the amount of pending submissions might be better as it would actively encourage the editor to spend the time to improve each submission. And yes, I echo the sentiment, that bringing this to ANI should in no way be interpreted as an effort to get the user banned in anyway.

  Instead, I think some sort of formal regulation is needed. I don't share in the optimism of Robert that we (as reviewers) can enforce common-sense rules without the support of ANI, because we've tried that and so far it hasn't worked. Sulfurboy (talk) 06:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I have accepted and rejected several of FloridaArmy's drafts at AfC. Some were decent articles and were acceptable immediately, some were marginally notable but got over the line after I found a couple other sources (some of which weren't easily accessible) and I don't remember any being "not notable," but I do remember a few not being ready for draft space. AfC is perfect for this type of thing. Our goal is to improve the encyclopaedia, and the articles FloridaArmy creates are generally notable. I do echo the concern, but I don't see any need to take action - if anything, a restriction that requires an AfC to be submitted with at least two sources would be the most beneficial to the encyclopaedia. I also think the three-strike rule could be problematic if the topic is indeed notable. SportingFlyer T·C 06:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Question Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, can I respectfully explore what the actual problem is here? AfC reviewing is voluntary, and you can choose which drafts from the queue to review, and which to pass over. If a reviewer doesn't like reviewing FloridaArmy's drafts because they require so much work, they're free to pass over them on move onto a submission from someone else. Is there a major problem in having a large, but not ridiculous, number of old drafts from a single editor hanging around for long periods of time in the AfC system - does that break anything? Perhaps the long wait times might encourage FA to put a bit more work into their drafts, in the hopes of getting them reviewed quicker? I'll add that I agree with SportingFlyer that the three-strike-reject option doesn't seem ideal - perhaps a better approach would be to limit the number of AfC submissions that FA could make - either time-dependent (e.g. no more than one submission per week) or backlog-dependent (e.g. can submit no new drafts if they have >10 in the current queue). GirthSummit _(blether) 07:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  The problem isn't so much that there's a large number of drafts. The problem is the continual re-submission with little to no improvements. Sources are regularly improperly formatted. Constant use of unreliable sources. Constant spelling/grammar mistakes. Constant addition of irrelevant statements. I generally don't have a problem with this if the user is inexperienced/new and I in fact love helping to fix up an article by a new user. However this editor isn't new. They know better. They've been asked a countless amount of times by reviewers to do just a basic bit of cleanup. They've also been asked to properly source articles. They are completely non-response to this, and it seems to be just getting worse.

  Yes AfC is voluntary, so is all of Wikipedia. AfD is voluntary and FA's burden on that was dealt with, not sure why the same can't be done here. Eventually someone has to review these drafts. I don't like filtering what I review, I just go down the list. Asking reviewers to cherry pick what they review to skirt the problem instead of just addressing it seems inefficient. Sulfurboy (talk) 14:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Pace the obviously triggering effect of backlogs anywhere for us obsessives, I think that creating a couple of badly undersourced drafts every day and having most of them languish indefinitely while a few are fixed up and promoted, is probably a better outcome than creating badly undersourced articles and then bludgeoning AfD, which was what happened previously. This seems to me to be pretty much what Draft space is for. Fromt he popint of view of the admin cabal, the problem at AfD was hectoring. That is a problem wherever it happens - the AfC discussion implies this but is there evidence? Also the number of G13'd drafts that are then REFUNDed and resubmitted with insufficient improvement is a bit of an issue, e.g. Draft:Mbanga soup (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Guy (help!) 12:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• (Coming from ping due to WTAFC involvement) - I do not believe in this three strikes bit. It risks various issues, and also goes against the basis on which "rejection" was bought in as an option. I would, however, suggest a rate limit. I don't mind too much if it's per week (1 or 2) or in total (5-10), but something needs to be done. @Girth Summit:, I can't be 100% sure on other reviewers position, but my reasoning on why it impacts us and the queue (rather than just being ignored), is that we can't just ignore tough calls. Unless it's mention in article comments or declines, an FA non-clear draft looks the same as any other editor's, so I can't just ignore his. We can't just ignore non-clear drafts in general that we'd rather not do because that places more and more work on the few willing to tackle them, risking driving them off. FA's large spike clutters up more than is reasonable, whereas a few would be okay. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nosebagbear, hi - can I just ask you to unpack that a bit for me - I don't quite understand what you mean by 'non-clear drafts', or why it's not possible to selectively ignore them. (I'm not sure how other people approach the AfC queue, maybe that makes a difference - I use the New Pages Feed, which present you with the person who created the draft beneath the title.) GirthSummit _(blether) 12:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Girth Summit:, a "non-clear" draft is my phrasing for a draft where it's not clear whether an "accept" or a "decline/reject" would be suitable, necessitating more and deeper consideration. I find the NPF a little jittery for me (I think it doesn't play well with some of my scripts), but you're right, that would allow avoiding a specific submitter's drafts - I've usually used this list (with its various filters) Nosebagbear (talk) 13:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nosebagbear, I suggest simply declining as having insufficient sources to establish notability. Most of them are directory entries, after all. Guy (help!) 14:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Commenting only: this may be connected to this thread (permalink) on Jimbo's page, raised in questioning racism in AFC process in the wake of the death of George Floyd. --Masem (t) 12:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's being implied here. AfCs concerns with FA extend back well before this thread. Also, I along with many other reviewers (I think) agree that coverage is lacking on African Americans and are sympathetic to that problem. There is not as much a problem with the subjects as there is the incredibly poor quality of the articles and the habitual re-submission without improvement. The race card is regularly pulled instead of doing just basic cleanup. Accusations of prejudice from page creators in AfC happens a lot. I've personally been accused of being prejudiced towards basically everything (including but not limited to black people, white people, asians, men, women, bagpipe bands and just recently New Zealand). However, this almost exclusively comes from new users that want to cry foul instead of doing even minimal fixes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sulfurboy (talk • contribs)

I only brought up that convo as the timing of that discussion with this ANI may suggest a possible issue related to POINT, but I don't have enough insight on past behavior with that editor to know. Was just bringing it up with in case it was relevant. --Masem (t) 15:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

So you don't have insight on past behavior, yet you felt the need to imply reviewers are bringing this up as a point of retribution? No matter how implicit the implication, this could broadly be construed as a personal attack. AfC reviewers deal with enough abuse from UPEs, SPAs and other angsty new editors. They don't need to also be leveled without merit by experienced editors. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'll summarize what I already wrote at WT:AFC: FloridaArmy creates a high volume of low quality drafts about interesting and encyclopedic subjects, and stubbornly resists all efforts to help him improve. That's unfortunate, but it's better than most of the crap we see on AfC, which is unabashed spam: people promoting their own (or their paid clients') companies, bands, projects, or selves. That's where we need to be tightening up the rules, Not bashing editors who are clearly and unequivocally WP:HERE, even if they are borderline WP:CIR cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 09:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) GirthSummit makes a valid point about the volunteer nature of AfC but those same volunteers are just working a backlog without filtering FloridaArmy's entries from view. I agree with CaptainEek's suggestion about three strikes but I believe AfC can impose that without needing wider community consensus. I commented on an earlier thread that this issue needs to come to ANI because FloridaArmy's skirting notability to turn out two-sentence drafts violates WP:GAME, in my opinion. I suggest that FloridaArmy needs to be disallowed from creating new drafts, entirely. We have good editors that could build meaningful articles but FloridaArmy undercuts the incentives by robbing our other editors of four awards by persisting in this way. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Chris troutman, We're WP:HERE to write articles, not collect awards. To use my previous example from WT:AFC, Wikipedia existed for 17 years before FloridaArmy started Oberlin Academy. The idea that they somehow robbed somebody of an award by getting there first is hogwash. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I certainly agree that to argue that any negative effects FA is having are due to robbing editors of specific awards, or even of being able to be the first to write on their article, is without merit. I also firmly disagree with FA (a GF actor) from being completely blocked from drafts, especially as it's indicated in the messages here and on the AFC talk page that there are drafts that have gone through AfC without issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I see FA as a net positive for the project. Many of the articles they create may be marginal in notability but the overall effect is definitely one of a more complete encyclopedia. On the other hand, the process they use does have its drawbacks. Creating a draft that contains one line and one source transfers the onus of figuring out notability on the AfC reviewer, which does make life harder for them. Perhaps something like banning FA from resubmitting rejected articles may work? If FA believes that the article is notable enough, they would need to involve someone else in the process who can work on and then resubmit it. --regentspark (comment) 15:09, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  RegentsPark, how about a restriction based on the criteria necessary to reach DYK? 1,500 characters is scarcely War And Peace, I think. Guy (help!) 15:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  My only concern is that that would stop FA from contributing entirely. I don't see them as writing anything more than a few lines in an article. But, AfC is designed for evaluating reasonably coherent articles and not for one or two liners so I'm willing to support if it comes to that. --regentspark (comment) 16:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for bringing this topic up Sulfurboy. This is a frustration that I have felt throughout the time I have been volunteering at AfC. Since Wikipedia is not WP:SRSBSNS, I have tried to address my own frustrations by avoiding FA's low-effort drafts, as Chris troutman has mentioned. Unfortunately, this only continues the backlog of articles at AfC. I think that RoySmith makes an important point. Despite my fustrations, FA is adding entries about notable topics (especially around state-level politicians), but two sentences does not an article make, and the sourcing can be very lacking (that is not solely a FA issue). Additionally, as RoySmith mentioned, after these proto-stubs make it to mainspace, they languish there with no additional work or changes. Should the onus be on AfC to keep these drafts in "development hell" until they are ready for mainspace, on AfD to be more particular about these articles passing the muster, or the original editor to further develop the articles that have already been accepted? Bkissin (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Lobbing (baseless) charges of racism is a personal attack on many of our hard working editors but FA's inability or unwillingness to understand sourcing requirements and doubling down on such personal attacks makes me question their competence here. There's an argument to be made that certain subjects, especially about people of color lack the coverage we require but that is not the responsibility of reviewers to fix. Praxidicae (talk) 16:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• I think we need to have a broader discussion about FA's problematic and incendiary behavior. Comments like this, YOU ARE RACISTS., are absolutely uncalled for and a blatant personal attack. Perhaps focusing only on his AFC editing isn't the solution here...a clear restriction on commenting on other editors would go far since it seems to be FA's default when things don't go their way. Praxidicae (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed. That type of behavior is not acceptable on a collaborative project. Blanket aspersion casting of that nature should be met with a block. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Praxidicae, A lot of this is getting lost in what's turned into a wall of chaos. It might need a separate header or separate ANI all together. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  There's two distinct issues here, although it may be difficult to completely disentangle them. One is the quality of FloridaArmy's drafts. I include in this disruptive behavior such as tendentious resubmissions, and their unwillingness to accept any constructive feedback. I've already covered my stance on that adequately.

  The accusations of racism is another thing entirely. It's fine to make statements such as, discriminating against African American subjects and history is wrong (from Jimbo's talk page). I don't think anybody would argue with that. Digging a little deeper, there's an implication that wikipedia does indeed practice such discrimination. I don't have any issue with that either. I'm not sure it's true, but I certainly have no problem with the accusation as a general statement of project-wide bias.

  Statements such as,"YOU ARE RACISTS" cross the line into inappropriate. That's especially true if it's being used as a excuse for why so many of their drafts get declined. Certainly by the time you get to calling specific people liars and/or racists, you're well into WP:NPA territory. If ANI were to censure FloridaArmy in some way for those personal attacks, I'd have no problem with that. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• As the OP who kicked this off at AfC I wish I had done more due-diligence prior. Yesterday I worked on a FA submission William Beverly Nash to acceptance and FloridaArmy's reply this was friendly, appreciative and encouraging, a side I had previously not noticed and had been overshadowed by the submissions that have generated the friction. Today I did a qualitative check (not 100% accurate as not all reviewers post the notices, or use AFCH) but this shows why from AfC point of view we all know FA... They have had more reviews than most by a factor or two, but still with a positive acceptance rate. So clearly as I think has universally been expressed FloridaArmy is a definite net positive to the project. From looking at everything said I get the feeling the problem is caused by different POVs. FloridaArmy appears to aim to create notable stubs, in the cases causing issues pushing the line of notability, which I guess is the same behaviour that caused the original issues at AfD. From the AfC side we struggle with the daily influx and the backlog that IMHO is still way too long and a disincentive to new editors. From this you can see over the same month we had 166 reviewers to the 6,313 reviews but heavily weighted to a subset of reviewers. Saying that I do still think having 68 open submissions (currently 54) and resubmission with little change or discussion because they disagree is problematic and is not good for either FloridaArmy or reviewers. I actually believe that the issues need to be addressed globally not just against FA. I don't think having so many open submissions is acceptable with the current number of active AfC reviewers; I don't think re-submitting with little change or discussion is acceptable, and certainly not when more than one reviewer has declined; I personally don't think that a single source is ever enough. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• I think we're here because regular AfC reviewers have a very different conception of what they should be doing than what the community has asked them to do. I don't blame AfC reviewers (exactly) for this. But I think these differing conceptions, especially with the reason FA was restricted to AfC, are where the problems creep in. The community has asked AfC to screen for articles that are, more likely than not, able to survive AfD and to screen against UPE and other forms of COI editing. AfC see itself as screening for articles that meet a certain basic quality standard and against UPE and other forms of COI editing (COI/UPE is clearly not the case with FA so I will be ignoring that for the remainder of my comments). But AfD participants, on the whole, don't care about malformed citations, bad categories, one sentence stubs and the like that bother some AfC reviewers. And it is clear that like AfD participants, FA doesn't care about those things either.
  In my experience, FA does, on the whole, create encyclopedic value. Let me repeat that in another way because I think it's an important point: English Wikipedia is made better by FA's attempts to cover topics that not been previously written about and which are, in quite a few cases, examples of systemic underrepresentation. I would love if FA were to take more care in their references. And their categories. And the other things that they do which (fairly) aggravate many gnomes and reviewers. I would have hoped after the restriction being in place this long we'd in a place where FA could have shown competency in a way that would be letting us remove or ease it rather than add to it or discuss even more drastic sanctions. But one way for FA to cause less trouble at AfC is for AfC reviewers to not expand the scope of what they screen for and instead to do what the community has asked judge whether an article more likely than not able to survive AfD. If the answer is yes approve the article. If the answer is no reject it. If the answer is yes accept it. I will probably be supporting Guy's proposal below because FA does need to step up their game, but I also felt the need, like Roy, to speak in FA's defense. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Barkeep49, if you are suggesting that AfC reviewers act as a rubber-stamp for drafts that aren't blatant COI/UPE and let AfD and Mainspace deal with the rest, then I will gladly be WP:BOLD and take that on to reduce the ongoing backlog. Just don't template me when issues arise. Bkissin (talk) 12:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Bkissin, no I am suggesting if it is likely to survive AfD it be accepted. I intentionally used that phrase because that's what WP:AFCPURPOSE says. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Just curious...why can't we just create a program for AfC that automatically rejects submissions that are less than (pick a number) in prose size and/or have no citations? That would send the work back to the article creator where it belongs and eliminate quite a bit of the backlog. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, feel free to propose this. I think the issue will be lack of consensus on the size. Regardless, FA's drafts do have citations. Just not generally good enough ones. Guy (help!) 23:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thx, Guy - I'll start a discussion at NPP and see what happens. In the past, we've managed to get WMF to accommodate some of our needs but not without a good dose of persistence (which is right up my alley 😊). ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, Ping me if you want help with any of this. I'd likely be on board and help collaborate with any applicable write-ups. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, I've seen (and accepted) plenty of legitimately short and unreferenced drafts. Users create WP:DAB pages as drafts. I recently accepted 1710 in India, which, as a navigation tool, would have been just fine without any references at all. I've even see redirects created as drafts (current example: Draft:Monosuit, which I would have just WP:IAR accepted instead of bothering to kick it back with a template). -- RoySmith (talk) 15:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  RoySmith keep up the good work! What I'm proposing would not have any effect on non-article pages, such as dabs, lists, categories, templates, TP, redirects, etc. - only articles such as Ōizumi Observatory which was created in 2005, and never expanded beyond 69 words. See what I proposed at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Potential proposal for AfC which involves a bit of coding that tells the editor at the point of submission (save) what more is needed before it can be saved. Of course, that is what we're working on now, and how best to approach it but the goal is to design instructional coding that will inspire the stubee creator to actually submit a better stub. We don't need thousands of ideas coming at us in the form of 50 word unsourced stubs when we've got huge backlogs in AfC and NPP. The submission modification can be something as simple as an error message like you get when filling out a form and you forget to include your address or phone number, or you entered an invalid email address, etc. I'm simplifying here but it's along those lines - maybe a JS or Lua script can handle it. I'm not a programmer, but I have summoned a few to review my proposal. We did manage to get curation tools from WMF, so hopefully, we can inspire them to work with us again to help reduce our backlogs so we can actually focus on expanding and improving the thousands of articles that are calling to us for CE and updates. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Forgive me if I don't reply to every proposal below, because there is far too much in this thread to know the best place for this comment. It boils down to AfC reviewers exceeding their authority and declining articles that would almost certainly be kept at AfD. This is all part of a larger problem where people who spend all their time marking other people's work rather than doing any themselves seem to be listened to more on our drama pages than the people who actually create the content that is the lifeblood of Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Phil Bridger if you believe this is because "AfC reviewers exceeding their authority" you are in a position to solve this whole issue and make everyone happy! Just sign up at WT:AFCP and then go to Template:AFC statistics/pending order by User and accept all of FAs articles, as apparently not doing so is "exceeding their authority". You will make FA very happy, and the AFC reviewers very happy. And BTW we don't "spend all their time marking other people's work" most of us spend a lot of time researching and improving drafts so we can accept them, and also work outside AfC. Many of us have spent many hours improving FAs articles before accepting them. New users are forced to use AfC so we need reviewers to accept these articles that "actually create the content that is the lifeblood". Although I would disagree that just creating new content is "the lifeblood of Wikipedia", now we have 6+Million articles, stopping spam, promotion, dross, unsourced content, vandalism is as equally important as new content. But in all seriousness to you and any other of similar minded editor please please join AfC and accept as much as you can. We desperately need as many good editors as possible to accept as much as possible, and the less the backlog gets the more time we all get to work on submissions. KylieTastic (talk) 21:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

KylieTastic - Further to this, I've noticed that some of FA's accepted drafts only got through after others had done a lot of work on the draft to bring it up to standard. I also wonder if we should analyse the accepted versus the rejected drafts and check what proportion of them are actually biographies of African Americans. I'm not sure quite where to start with this. Deb (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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FloridaArmy is advised that new articles submitted via AfC should aim to meet the minimum length criteria at WP:DYK, i.e. 1,500 characters of prose (ignoring infoboxes, categories, references, lists, and tables etc.), and should contain sufficient reliable independent sources to establish notability per the general notability guideline. FloridaArmy is encouraged to work on drafts in his sandbox until they are ready for submission.

• Support as proposer. In short, they should establish the answer to the simple question: why should we care? Guy (help!) 15:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support great idea. I'm all for inclusion but I'm an immediatist, first. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose all sanctions at this juncture, as there is clearly more to this than meets the eye: FloridaArmy's claim that Draft:Lee Myxter was erroneously rejected caught my eye, and, indeed, it was wholly inappropriate for User:Ahecht to decline the submission as not meeting WP:NPOL (Draft:Lee Myxter), when that guideline explicitly states that politicians...who have held...state/province–wide office, or have been members of legislative bodies at those levels are deemed notable. Now, AfC reviewing is a hard, and probably occasionally thankless task, but it literally is not helping itself by refusing notable topics: not only does it foment bad feeling, but it adds to the work of the next reviewer. In short, although clearly FA's articles aren't always 100% up to scratch—whose are at the beginning?—they are not, I suspect, all as poor as it is being suggested. And until we see some pretty black and white data, I feel sanctions would be inappropriate. ——Serial ^# 16:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  In fact, in the spirit of data mining, the history of FA's talk page is revealing: since 10 February this year (the last 1000 edits to the page), they have had 223 articles accepted through AfC and 231 declined. ——Serial ^# 16:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  With respect @Serial Number 54129: you looked at the details, however the top of WP:NPOL clearly indicates A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. something which this stub did not meet when you Promoted it to mainspace. I question your judgement with respect to this draft and suggest that you return it back to Draft space for additional work. Hasteur (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  The article clearly meets NPOL. And, Serial is autopatrolled, anyone who disagrees should try AFD, instead of asking for redraftification. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  So in a completely non-POINTy way, the article is now up for deletion :D ——Serial ^# 17:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe I should've have cited WP:NPOL, but a quick search for significant non-routine coverage showed that this person completely failed to meet WP:BASIC, and per the top of the section that includes NPOL: meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 17:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. If we want a general sitewide restriction on articles not meeting these parameters, let's have one, but we should not require one editor to provide more than is required of others for a draft to be moved to mainspace. BD2412 T 17:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Completely reasonable asks that hits all the marks of concern. Neutral, see second proposal. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral As written this is a higher bar than we set for other AFC submissions. The ruberic has always been (at least as far as I know) "Excluding policy reasons why, a draft must have at least a 50% chance of surviving a AFD discussion". Hold FA to that standard. in WP:AFC we have an informal practice of "If the same draft is submitted 3 times without correcting the defects, it may be taken to MFD for failure to support the purpose of Draft Space/AFC while pointing out contributing reasons for why this page wouldn't survive if it were in mainspace". Our standards and practices work, we just have to enforce them. Hasteur (talk) 17:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Hasteur, where does that 50% thing come from? I've never heard that. I've never promoted an article that wasn't bulletproof at AfD, never have and never will. AfD is being used as a remedial tool for FA, because a tool to teach how to write an article is what it is. Why have it if its standard isn't as high or higher than AfD? Another thing many of you seem to be missing. AfC isn't AfD. An article is promoted or not on its own merit. The notability of the subject is irrelevant. If the article won't certainly pass AfD, why promote it? John from Idegon (talk) 10:04, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • WP:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions#Core purpose: "Articles that will probably survive a listing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion should be accepted." and "Articles that will probably survive a listing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion should be accepted.". If your reviewing standards have been inappropriate, I am relieved it has been through lack of awareness. Other reviewers are knowingly abusing the AFC process. Thincat (talk) 13:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The only purpose given to AFC is to make sure the artic4le demonstrates why it is notable and deserves to be on mainspace before it gets to be included. This is helpful for inexperienced users who might be writing about a notable topic but fail to explicitly establish exactly why the topic is Wikipedia notable such as is convention here. For editors familiar with SNGs and AFDs, the AFC minimum should be no more than one sentence stub establishinng which SNG is met, and one source verifying the claim. Draftspace articles aren't automatically submitted by virtue of residing in that namespace, so the point about the sandbox makes no sense. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments above. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose There are no minimum length criteria requirements for any editor to create any content, so imposing an arbitrary length for one editor is overkill. There are plenty of worse articles being saved into the main article space every single hour. Examples include this and this. The latter being created by an editor who has been here for 15 years! Topic ban from AfC might be an option, but a better one would be for someone to mentor FA. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral as I think such a requirement is really only fair if applied to all, and clearly many articles are created in main-space that do not meet this reasonable condition. Make this a requirement for all and I 100% support KylieTastic (talk) 19:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - this would be significantly more onerous than required. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Any reviewer who doesn't want to deal with these sub-stubs can decline them or ignore them. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - someone starting articles is a good thing, perhaps we should suggest that they request articles? I'm sure WiR would welcome any list of suggested articles of women. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
  
• Support - Since I was involved in the original problems that obliged FA to go through AfC for everything, I sympathise with those who have had to give attention to his sloppy submissions. It may seem like "starting articles is a good thing", but I don't think Rich can have had much to do with this user before if he feels it's good to encourage him to carry on in this vein. I feel like something needs to be done, and if it's not making him submit stubs of a reasonable standard (God knows he's had enough practice by now), then it's limiting the number of times he can submit and the number of AfCs he can open simultaneously. Any of these would help. Deb (talk) 16:15, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Given the circumstances, these are not onerous conditions to impose on FloridaArmy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a collection of lengthy articles. Nearly all articles in traditional print encyclopedias are shorter than 1500 characters, so why should Wikipedia be any different? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Because we don't use printing on paper bound between cardboard covers, and are therefore not bound by physical limitations, except the amount of data our servers can hold, which is, for all practical purposes, infinite. Why would you want to be held back by a physical limitation which no longer applies to this format? I do note that a number of the articles you created came in over 1500 characters (one is over twice as large, and another more than 3 times 1500 characters), [1] so if you need help in reducing them to the ideal 1500 character limit, let me know. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• That is a reason why articles can be longer, not why they must be longer. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Arbitrary word-count minima are bad because they encourage padding and prolixity which is contrary to our summary style. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, in some cases a short stub is better than nothing at all.--Hippeus (talk) 10:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Resolution

Here's a small sampling of articles created by User:Lugnuts today.

• Werner von Foerster
• Horacio Monti
• Lars Lundström
• François Chapot
• Martin Sharp (sailor)
• Frank Murdoch
• Franklin Woodroffe

Contrast these with the articles I'm having rejected:

• Draft:Frank Opperman (actor)
• Draft:Fred Hornby
• Draft:Jana Lund
• Draft:Lee Myxter, erroneously rejected today for not meeting Politician inclusion criteria.

There is a problem. Notable artice subjects I start are being blocked by editors not respecting our inclusion criteria in an improper amd abusive fashion.

All of these would survive as Snow Keeps at AfD. The solution is to remove the requirement I use AfC and to restore my ability to participate at AfD. The entries I create are better sourced and more notable than the vast majority of what's being added to Wikipedia. I comply with all of our editing rules. And the abusive obstruction, harassment, and interference with my good editing work needs to stop.

Every single entry discussed in this convo is notable and belongs in mainspace. It's a travesty that several editors want to obstuct the inclusion of additions on underrepresented subjects such as a traditional dish of Cameroonian cuisine or the military school that the long serving president of Suriname went to in the Netherlands, but improperly and unevenly applied rules should no longer be used to create problems for me or the AfC reviewers who should be able to return their focus to the spam and advertising that proliferate in their area of wikispace. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

FloridaArmy, Some people seem to think that Wikipedia is a directory of Olympians and that competing in the Olympics confers automatic notability. They have chosen not to change WP:NOT to support this but that's what they think. Guy (help!) 16:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"but that's what they think" - Sounds very much like a threat/personal attack. Maybe you'd care to elaborate? Please be WP:CIVIL. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

How does that sound like a threat? A mild personal attack maybe, but there's no threat there at all. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'd like to reiterate my comment on the AFC page applauding FloridaArmy's good work on pages on our long list of drafts for missing state supreme court justices. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• @FloridaArmy: Please refer to "What about...." and WP:NOTTHEM. Your actions and behavior are at discussion here. Hasteur (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Although, of course, pointing out inconsistency of application is perfectly accepatble. ——Serial ^# 17:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Purely as an example, I can't see much wrong with the decision to turn down the draft at Frank Opperman (actor). This was a straightforward WP:GNG issue as articles have to be properly sourced.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

As is noted right at the top of that entry he clearly meets criteria 1 and 3 of WP:NACTOR. FloridaArmy (talk) 18:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If I looked just at the article, how would I know that? NACTOR #1 - significant roles in multiple notable films. The second part, that's covered but the second part? It's not. If he was a co-star on any of those film, adding a text blurb would EASILY have helped demonstrate that. A list of films and roles doesn't help with that first part, a blurb that mentions those significant roles would make that check easy. NACTOR #3 is unique, prolific or innovative contributions - I'm guessing you're saying the length of his career covers prolific. Probably, but without any context on the roles they played, if they had lots of bit parts / background roles, I'd really question if that meets #3. Ravensfire (talk) 18:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You would know because the article states per Motography that he "had a 29 year career on stage and a 7 year film career" as of 1916, lists 54 films he was in including his credited roles in most of them, and links to the existing Wikipedia articles for the vast majority of the films. FloridaArmy (talk)`

You do realize uncredited roles don't count toward notability, right? As an example, more than half of the films you claim make him notable are uncredited. The Unchanging Sea uncredited, The Hero of Little Italy uncredited, Fatty's New Role uncredited, The House of Darknessuncredited and the list goes on. Unless there is some special N criteria for actors pre-1950, I fail to see how this fulfills at least "significant roles" Praxidicae (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I said "including his credited roles". So yes, I understand that credited roles matter. Of coutse we don't yet have article for most early silent films, so having credited roles in at least a couple dozen and uncredited roles in dozens more stil qualifies per our notability guidelines. The article would be a slam dunk keep at AFD. If you disagree try taking it there and prove me wrong. Good luck. You'll need it. FloridaArmy (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Good luck. You'll need it. incendiary comments like this are unnecessary. Might I suggest you start actually reflecting on criticism instead of just being combative? Praxidicae (talk) 19:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Frank Opperman looks like he would be suitable for an IMDb entry or similar, but the bar is set higher for biographies on Wikipedia. We don't get to know much about him beyond listing the films that he appeared in.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If anyone wanted a preview of the hostility that AfC reviewers are regularly met with by FlordiaArmy here you go. This is actually pretty tame compared to some instances. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"incendiary", "combative", "hostility"? Sorry, I'm not seeing it in the words that are there on the screen. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 12:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Andreas Philopater, according to FloridaArmy, those who do not accept his drafts are "bigots" and those who describe them as less than blindingly obviously notable are "liars". Guy (help!) 14:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal #2

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Limit the number of pending drafts by FA in AfC to 20.

Looks like there's some kickback from the suggestion of length requirements which I will be switching my vote to neutral to in light of this alternate proposal I'm going to suggest. To me, the simplest solution is to limit the amount of pending drafts FA can have in the AfC process. Pending defined as actively waiting for review, this would not include declined drafts that haven't been resubmitted.

The purpose is two fold: 1) To help lessen the strain on AfC reviewers. 2) To encourage FA to put additional work into the currently pending drafts. As a note, while the backlog says 5+ weeks, the vast majority of articles are reviewed in a matter of days, so it's not as if those 20 would languish for weeks. The ones that make it to the back are typically ones that would require insight from an SME or native language speaker, neither of which would apply to any FA articles that I've seen.

1. Support As proposer. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   While this might help them from overwhelming the queue it won't solve any underlying issues with FA's articles that causes them to get declined in the first place. I am sympathetic to the idea of not overwhelming AfC but I would much rather try to nudge FA towards having a higher success rater than just limiting them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   I would absolutely endorse that approach. I would hope that persuading FlordiaArmy to move in the direction of writing longer, more detailed articles with more comprehensive sourcing would genuinely be positive for them and for us all. FloridaArmy would certainly see their article rejection rate decline dramatically and I would suspect they would also find their articles would be reviewed more quickly and with more enthusiasm by the AFC volunteers. We need to look after not only our content creators like FloridaArmy, but equally, we need to look after our AFC reviewers and frequent AfC users like FloridaArmy have an important role to play in that. Nick (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   Thanks Nick for saying we need to look after our AFC reviewers and frequent AfC users like FloridaArmy have an important role to play in that. That is absolutely true and not a sentiment I adequately have expressed in this thread yet. Best, Barkeep49 (talk)

2. Weak Oppose - The reviewers can deal with a backlog by ignoring it. Too many drafts do not do any harm if ignored. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   Sorry Robert McClenon I think there is harm - letting the backlog grow and ignoring issues means new editors can have acceptable articles not get reviewed till they hit the end of the queue in weeks or months. Yes we catch most in the first couple of days, but if missed you wait and it's a huge discouragement too those editors. KylieTastic (talk) 08:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

3. I think this just moves the queue. Each time a draft is rejected or accepted, FA will simply move the next in. Now there's 20 articles in AFC and another 40 or 50 or whatever waiting to be in AFC. It also seems like it would be difficult to track, so you would need to get buyin from FA. --Izno (talk) 19:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   That's the point Izno is every time a slot gets freed up and they have 40 waiting a submitter will pick the most likely to be accepted, not just resubmit one that's been declined with not much change. KylieTastic (talk) 08:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   That doesn't follow. I expect the user won't care. If he does, it will simply end up the case that he cycles through his whole queue on his side until all he's got in the AFC queue are the "bad" ones. Then AFC still has 20 "bad" articles to deal with. It you want to make this rule and have it be effective, you limit him to one draft in AFC at any time. I'm still skeptical as to the utility. --Izno (talk) 13:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

4. Support but only if it applies to all submitters. It stops overwhelming AfC; It encourages submitters to put their best article through first; It encourages submitters to try to improve (better sources; clearer indication of the content that supports notability) before resubmitting a declined article. KylieTastic (talk) 21:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support as general restriction only. Everything more is just disruptive spam.Lurking shadow (talk) 13:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
6. Support Clearly, FloridaArmy can write decent articles; let him decide to focus his efforts on the twenty that might get accepted. There's no reason AfC's queue should be burdened. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
7. Support, but I'd prefer a lower limit - say 5-10. Deb (talk) 16:19, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
8. Support in conjunction with Proposal #1. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
9. Oppose Even with this AfC restriction it appears as though half his drafts are making it through AfC. And the numbers are large. AfC reviewers that don't want to review his work can, well, just not. Yes, a lot of his drafts could be better. And they probably should be, but I don't see what this limit gains anyone. I do see how it hurts Wikipedia. Hobit (talk) 03:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
10. Support I was about to suggest 5-10, but 20 is also fine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
11. Support If just because every time FloridaArmy has a draft rejected he posts about it on several WikiProject pages imploring someone fix it for him, and it would cut down on that junk, too. We like to help, and I have, but at this point it's pure spam. Kingsif (talk) 06:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
12. Oppose The bottleneck seems to be the reviewers who are imposing standards of their own. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
13. Support Whilst this is not necessarily an ideal solution, it would provide some for of respite to AfC reviewers. The main problem is the sheer volume of poorly drafted and referenced articles being submitted by FloridaArmy. After being on the receiving end of some of his harassment when I have refused to accept these AfCs I would support any efforts to focus his attention on the quality of his AfCs rather than the quantity. Dan arndt (talk) 02:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
14. Support. If this is burdersome on the creator, then convince us you can just skip AfC and submit normally. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:20, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
15. Support w/caveat - I'm of the mind that if FA is firmly held to creating only acceptable stubs rather than half-assed dictionary entries that are going to be deleted anyway, it will naturally limit his submissions because he will be putting more work into each stub instead of throwing stuff together hoping it will be accepted. If during the course of a month, FA makes than 3 submissions that go to AfD, a t-ban should be imposed for spamming WP. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
16. Strong support Even though I am not an AFC reviewer, I do think that it lessens the strain of AFC reviewers, reducing the number of articles they have to review. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 15:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
17. Support. Twenty is a reasonable number. I do think there should be a way forward so that FloridaArmy is allowed at some point, if enough of his articles consistently pass AfC, to create articles directly without AfC. But as long as FloridaArmy is restricted to creation via AfC, FloridaArmy should not flood the queue.--Hippeus (talk) 10:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal #3

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Accept that FloridaArmy is what he is and move on.

1. Support as proposer. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
2. oppose ,m because it's pissing people off. Wikipedia is not therapy, and obsessives doing the right thing in the wrong way cause drama. Guy (help!) 23:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose because blanket accusations of racism are not okay. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose FloridaArmy needs to accept two things here. Firstly, some of the articles for creation were turned down because of good faith WP:GNG decisions. They just weren't sourced properly and did not establish the subject's notability, which is a key requirement of GNG. Secondly, repeated accusations of racism amount to a failure to assume good faith. The users doing the articles for creation reviews are trying their best, and should not be accused of acting in bad faith without very clear evidence.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 04:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support I would rather have FloridaArmy contributing stubs than not contributing stubs. They are a net positive even if annoying. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
6. Support They did have a draft incorrectly declined immediately before this occurred, so I'm willing to WP:AGF. SportingFlyer T·C 07:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
7. Oppose because the current way of running is clearly causing FA as much stress/negativity as it is to the AfC reviewers. KylieTastic (talk) 08:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
8. Support as he is a net positive, but needs to avoid casting aspersions, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
9. Support Agree he is a net positive. I would also remove his AFC restriction because the problems with his articles aren't usually ones that AFC is well suited to deal with. (Bad formatting etc. should not be an AFC concern, and nuanced notability issues are better suited for AFD rather than a single AFC reviewer.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:35, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
10. Oppose per KylieTastic. I don't think AfC volunteers have to let FloridaArmy be a pain in the ass. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:11, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
11. Oppose. I don't agree that he's a net positive. Deb (talk) 16:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
12. Oppose There's enough of a issue here that closing our eyes and walking away is not useful. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
13. Eh We should all try to improve ourselves and that includes communication on Wikipedia. FA needs to not throw around accusations of bias. That is something that really can't be put up with in the long term. And it would be nice if the shorter articles were better sourced. But it does feel like folks are a lot more upset about the AfC submissions than seems reasonable. Hobit (talk) 03:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
14. Support FA is not the problem. It is AfC which is dysfunctional. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
15. Oppose this is a significant ongoing issue and to allow it continue without some sort of action would effectively support his behaviour. The likelihood being that AfC reviewers would give up reviewing articles. If it wasn't an issue for AfC reviewers then it wouldn't have been reported here in the first place.Dan arndt (talk) 02:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
16. Oppose - absolutely not - in essence, the stubs that go to AfD are no different from spam and should be treated that way, and so should the editor submitting the spam. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
17. Oppose 1. He is not a "net positive". 2. When something goes wrong, don't leave it out; it may grow. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 23:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal #4

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Recognize that User:FloridaArmy presents two overlapping issues that should be dealt with separately. The first is the submission of low-quality stubs, a content issue. The second is civility violations and failures to assume good faith by reviewers, a conduct issue. Accept that sanctions will not deal with the content issue and move on. Issue a formal warning that conduct will require escalating blocks, 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 1 week.

1. Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Request Please provide examples of these supposed low quality stubs. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This proposal is flawed. Guy has repeatedly lied about my conduct and comments, and I see he recently did so again. I do not create single sentence stubs and I absolutely continue improving LOTS of articles that are in mainspace, mine and others. Lying about my work is a civility violation and he's done so repeatedly. [User:JzG]]'s conduct should result in his being blocked.
• That there is bigotry on Wikipedia is obvious from the resistance to including subjects on African Americans, the African diaspora, and African American history. These are the EXACT article subjects identified as problematic. user:sulfurboy hates these subjects so much is so opposed to including these subjects he dragged one of them to AfD after another editor approved it. Oberlin Seminary was also high drama. What do all these subjects have in common? They involve African Americans. I know it's upsetting to have Wikipedia's bigotry and editor bias pointed out, but we must do better. Sanctioning those trying to address the situation is a step in the wrong direction and only proves to illustrate Wikipedia's hateful intolerance that excludes these subjects. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  @FloridaArmy: This would be a shame, but I'm going to short circuit this discussion by blocking you indefinitely if you say something along the lines of "user:sulfurboy hates these subjects so much he dragged one of them to AfD after another editor approved it. Oberlin Seminary was also high drama. What do all these subjects have in common? They involve Africam Americans" again. If you're making general comments that Wikipedia has a bigotry and institutional racism problem, I'd probably use different words, but would generally agree. If you're repeatedly singling out specific editors as racists with insufficient evidence (hint: no one is agreeing with you that they are racists) then you're going to be removed from the site. That would be a crazy result, but it's in your hands not mine. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:57, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You're absolutely right User:Floquenbeam, no one acknowledges racism. They just can't stand including subjects related to African Americans, the African American disapora, and Africa. I am clearly at fault for daring to create articles on these notable subjects and then objecting when they are excluded. I should just go along with excluding anything to do with Black people. My life would be so much easier on Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You're putting words in my mouth, and this kind of passive aggressive statement is not going to be helpful. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Floquenbeam, Again? How many times do we have to be openly accused of racism and bigotry without a single shred of evidence? Everyone seems to be so hesitant about doing something that would discourage FA from editing further that direct personal attacks in an ANI are just getting a stern warning?

  If this was a new user they would have been immediately banned and this comment would have been removed. I shouldn't have my reputation dragged through the mud for zero reason.

  I challenge any person to show any instance that I've ever, in 60k some odd edits, ever, EVER showed even an inkling of prejudice or racism.

  I challenge you to find another editor that even remotely feels this way about me. I completely and 100% open myself up to WP:BOOMERANG, because I'm 100% positive you won't find anyone that agrees with Florida army that I'm a bigot or racist.

  Why does no one seem to be worried about the chilling effect this will have on the AfC process and how much it might turn off people from wanting to participate in it? I shouldn't have to worry about wanton personal attacks at every turn. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  While you may think that a final warning is too lenient, I don't understand why you think a final warning shows I'm not worried about this. If they've been given a final warning previously, talk to the admin who gave it and ask them to act. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Floquenbeam, You're right, and I apologize for letting my frustration get the best of me. My intent wasn't to attack your decision process. Just understand that it's incredibly frustrating to have my reputation sullied without merit. I think I'm just going to take a backseat to this whole thing since it's got me pretty clearly riled up. Cheers Sulfurboy (talk) 18:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  and you are 2% short of 60K edits. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 13:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Suggestion - I suggest that an uninvolved administrator give User:FloridaArmy a one-week block so that other editors can address serious content and conduct issues without being distracted. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I would oppose such a block. It would play into the narrative of persecution, and I think we can get where we need to go without it. BD2412 T 19:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I would also oppose such a block, along with this proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 07:43, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

1. Support. I don't see why FA should be treated with kid gloves and allowed to get away with making personal attacks on other editors. Deb (talk) 16:21, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I do not think a cooling off block will be effective in this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• (non Admin comment) Florida Army needs to stop treating themselves like a martyr for some holy cause. I've created dozens of articles on African subjects and a small handful on African American ones. I've never faced the issues they are experiencing, because I actually bother to source my contributions and can at least manage to spell things correctly. FA, stop chalking this up to people being racist. I'd much rather see you banned for such ill-advised comments than put up with that so we can get a few more African/African diaspora articles out of you. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The tension and cross words seem to be arising because FA has been forced to submit to AfC but they don't get on. This sanction should be lifted so that FA submits his work to mainspace and the mercies of the NPP instead. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support w/caveat - if my other suggestions are ignored. Something has to be done. I doubt the editors who work AfD would like it if NPP started sending an overabundance of submissions their way. We already have numerous backlogs throughout WP that it is downright depressing. We certainly don't have an overbundance of reviewers, not to mention admins handling backlogged RfC closure requests. I'm of the mind that our PAGs are far too lenient as they apply to article submissions. It worked well when the pedia was just getting started but bad articles create bad press which eventually equates into a bad reputation for the pedia. We should at least try to avoid some of that or it will only get worse. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A Policy Issue

There is a policy issue that needs to be discussed, possibly at the Village Pump, having to do with people who pass a test for ipso facto notability, but about whom there is not enough information for a good stub. Most of the special notability guidelines for people are weasel-worded to say that people meeting the test are presumed notable. Both the political notability guidelines and the lengthy sports notability guidelines are worded in such a fashion. This ambiguity is sometimes hashed out twice for association football players, once at AFD and then again at Deletion Review. The stubs submitted by User:FloridaArmy are about people who are presumed notable. Some editors, including myself, prefer almost always to have the clarity of saying that a person who passes the threshold is notable. Other editors say that the presumption of notability only means that one should try to find the sources.

So there definitely is a policy reason for declining the stubs in question, some of which are corner cases. The fact that there is a policy issue is yet another reason why it is irresponsible to cast aspersions about racism.

Perhaps there should be a discussion at VPP. That would certainly be more useful than just yelling racism. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:59, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, There's another issue. For somebody alive today, especially somebody with a paid PR agent, there's going to be tons of information available about them. Most of it will be crap, but there will usually be enough to get you past some silly SNG. Somebody who was, say, a struggling two-bit silent actor getting uncredited movie roles, isn't going to have the same collection of blog posts, on-line movie reviews, web sites, and all the other gigbytes of google-indexed ephemera they would have today. So, holding the two of them to the same standard is just absurd. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, User:RoySmith. I have more thoughts on the policy issue, but this is a conduct forum. (Meaning we can discuss at VPP or a WT page.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

There need to be fresh guidelines in this area, although the existing ones are already clear. The guidelines should make clear that sometimes African Americans or important academics may not have enough sourcing to meet WP:GNG, but that does not means that they are non-notable or that Wikipedia does not care about them. The mainstream media has also repeated this myth. Also, anyone who takes part in the AfC process should be told that if a request is turned down, WP:ASPERSIONS are unacceptable.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ianmacm, RoySmith, and Robert McClenon: I have started a discussion at VPP related to the comments in this section. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

There's no admin issue here

Nobody is asking for a block. This is about how the AfC community wants to deal with a burdensome but valued editor. Why is it not being discussed there instead of at AN/I? Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

If there is an admin issue, it's a million characters ↑ thataway. I've lost track but it's more about stubs/article creation. I opened a discussion suggesting a potential workaround at Wikipedia_talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Potential proposal for AfC if anyone is interested. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:55, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Another idea

FloridaArmy, you are advised and directed as follows.

Your behavior has been determined to be problematic, and you are directed as follows. An editor who has developed to the point of creating or submitting large amounts of articles should have learned certain things more than newbies on their first article. For newbies, other folks (such as those at AFC, NPP or AFD) don't mind doing some of their work for them such as seeing if the required coverage in sources exists. They also generally don't mind doing this if they see that the creator has invested substantial work in the article. Prior to creating or submitting any more articles, you are directed to read and learn wp:notability, understand that fulfilling wp:notability is a requirement for existence of a separate article, and also read and learn any listed special notability guideline that applies to an article that you are submitting or creating. As an editor who has reached the point of starting or submitting larger amounts of articles, you are directed to, prior to submitting or creating an article, establish for yourself which specific provision of the notability guidelines your article passes and the details of how it does so, and at least briefly describe this rationale in the talk page of the article. In general this will be either establishing that it has the required type and amount of coverage specified in wp:GNG or that it meets specific criteria in an applicable special notability guideline. If your article is rejected, held or challenged on wp:notability grounds and you wish to argue for passing or keeping it, the very first part of your argument is to specify which wp:notability provision you determined passed your article, and provide details which led you to that conclusion. Your argument for the existence of the article should NOT include making accusations against other editors or groups of editors such as being racists, having racial bias etc. Any other provisions remain in place.

North8000 (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

If this were a perfect world...I see the intentions here and they are excellent from a potential results viewpoint. But how does this get executed? Someone above suggested a mentor. Essentially that's also what you are suggesting here, simply because if FA were inclined to be that organized, he'd already be that organized. In order for that organization to occur, someone would have to monitor him. Can't see this very good faith proposal going anywhere. John from Idegon (talk) 10:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest this if no other measure passes, in which case add in a "better than doing nothing" argument. But, it puts a finger on the actual problem and what it would take for FA to resolve it. By saying that debates about wp:notability on an article are to be based on wp:notability criteria, that could either influence FA toward debating along the proper lines, or give the other editors recourse there by pointing to FA having violated the direction given here. It says that trying to use accusations of racism as a tactic in debating wp:notability on a particular article is not allowed. It refutes any claim that restrictions on new articles are a double standard by clarifying that this is a standard / expectation for a prolific experienced editor. It points out why this case is an abuse of AFC folks, compared to accepting / handling it on the first 1-2 articles from a newbie. Finally, having been given firm guidance, it gives them a good chance to improve, and if they ignore it / blow it, sets the stage for another trip to ANI and a stronger action at that time. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:07, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think this is on the right path. The issue is that while FA does some pretty good work, we do expect someone who has been around as long as FA to get articles better on the first pass. The newbies are still learning, so teaching them seem like a good use of time. But it seems like a less good use of time to work with someone who seems set on not improving in a few dimensions. I say this as someone who thinks FA is a clear net positive to the project. We'd just like you to get your initial articles in better shape. They don't need to be amazing, but they should have sources that meet either the GNG or the article should otherwise meet the SNG. This isn't always clear cut, but it should be most of the time. Just continue to try to improve and take some people's comments on board that there is room for improvement. Hobit (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• In few words, FloridaArmy needs a mentor. (IMHO, FA is acting in good faith but just needs help writing articles that will get accepted.) Is any experienced editor available & willing to take on this duty? My own personal life prohibits me from reliabily filling this role. -- llywrch (talk) 19:10, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• The problem is they keep churning out shit like this. Some weird template thing, inappropriate bold print, a bare GBooks URL, and not a shred of a claim to notability. (It's funny/sad that the only claim to fame is they were prosperous...) Someone will slap that with A7, then someone will click on the link, then someone will do the actual work, and then at some point FloridaArmy, now all of a sudden interested in article improvement, will appear on the talk page to start complaining on what all is not in the article and what all is wrong with it (I nominated Joseph Crew for DYK and gave them co-credit for it; I regret doing that now). They've been here almost four years--and I'm avoiding them and their articles like the plague, which is a shame cause that Reconstruction era is wildly underdeveloped on Wikipedia. Drmies (talk) 20:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that's a fair representation. You posted this comment ten minutes after that article was created. I looked at their last six page creations, and they all start with a diff like the one you linked to, and then get expanded, and then approved at AFC. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. The article you linked to seems to have followed the same pattern [8], albeit still pending at AFC. And there are editors who are autoconfirmed, and admin, who put out less-developed article than that -- one sentence ("So-and-so played for such-and-such a team") linked to a sports statistics database -- by the hundreds, and they don't go through AFC, and they don't get into any trouble for it. I don't get why FA is different. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 01:28, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• And it'll linger there a bit more unless FA indicates why some property owner would be notable in the first place, which is one of the first things we do when we write articles. How is that not incompetent? Whataboutism doesn't change that fact. I don't give a damn about those semi-automated articles with info pulled from databases, but at least you know they're on notable topics. What's interesting about this man, of course, is that he was a Black man who owned considerable property (and owned fourteen slaves...) at a time when that was worth noting--before the Civil War. And the DYK hook could be that he didn't just complain about being "subject to discrimination", but that he said his daughter might become the victim of police harassment. And if one puts that in the article, one doesn't just stave off A7, but also generates 10k hits on the main page ("DYK that Black American merchant Richard Edward Dereef said that harassment by white police against his daughter was a real threat--in 1860?"). But what we have now is an article on someone who's been mentioned in a newspaper--that's A7 territory, that's incompetence. Drmies (talk) 13:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• I agree that FA does things differently than I do. But generally the articles they create are notable, even if they start out with few refs. One of the problems here is systemic: Levivich notes correctly that editors are forever creating one-liners about a notable person. Why do they do that? Because other editors aggressively remove notables from lists that clearly meet notability guidelines, but don't have an article. That aside, I occasionally look through FAs drafts for articles of interest and add to them. That's not "mentorship", but I wish more of us would try "help mode" rather than "exterminate" mode. Jacona (talk) 12:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

If ANI would come to a decision something like the beginning of this subsection plus saying that they must have a mentor, (so that there is a framework to work from, not just he beginnings of a new debate) then I would be OK with mentoring them. North8000 (talk) 19:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• I've been noticing improvement lately. I also like to edit a sentence or two at a time, so I have a certain sympathy. It's leaving them that way for longperiods that has been the problem, but draft does specifically allow for 6 months. DGG ( talk ) 23:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Possible Violation ?

Has the topic-ban on User:FloridaArmy creating new articles been lifted due to a resolution, or is it still in effect? If, as I think, it is still in effect, I think that FloridaArmy just violated the topic-ban, probably by accident. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Tetragonotheca_helianthoides&oldid=963045390 . It was promptly draftified by User:Nightenbelle with the usual note, "Undersourced, incubate in draft space". Well, it wasn't undersourced, but it was a, probably accidental, topic-ban violation. If my understanding is correct, I will tweak it before letting the plant volunteers do their stuff. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I though it was that they needed to go through AFC; I.E couldn't place articles directly in article space. North8000 (talk) 16:52, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I didn't edit the reason I draftified it- which is my fault and I appologize. I draftified it because the first line showed it was an obvious WIP and because it had a notice that said it was still waiting AfC acceptance and creating the page was probably an accident. When I saw those, I didn't even go beyond in my new page checklist to see if there were other problems (like a topic banned creator). I'm sorry. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing restrictions are listed at WP:RESTRICTIONS. Yes, FloridaArmy's ban is still in effect. If this was their only infraction, and there's reason to believe it was accidental, I'd strongly suggest not freaking out about it. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. No apology required. It is as I thought. I have accepted it into article space because I have confidence that the volunteers at WikiProject Plants can do a better job on the Work In Progress than either I or FloridaArmy. It is a species, and I will accept a species with one source as documenting the scope of human knowledge. There are a few million species, and one species that can count other species. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

There's a norm of loosening wp:notability for plant and animal types though it stops short of categorically doing so for all down at the species level....as you noted there are millions of them. Also getting into the few exception type areas with this particular editor could complicate things. North8000 (talk) 18:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Here is another one. Unless I am reading the article histories wrong, there are also a few instances of creating short articles and then turning them into redirects, so that you end up with a stub hidden behind a redirect. This one was in draft, then FA published it an hour later, removed the content and redirected it. To be fair the intention seems to be creating a redirect, not an article.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

ThatMontrealIP, https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/45926 will give you the full list of his mainspace creations, more or less. The "more or less" qualifier is because I'm depending on the edit comment to filter out redirects, and that's not always reliable.

I spot checked a few of these. Most of them look like accidents, quickly followed up by moving the page to draft space. Some of them are WP:DAB pages. And, of course, some are redirects. The ban says, "articles". DABs and redirects aren't articles. So, my take on this is he's following the spirit of the ban and we should leave it at that. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:25, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• If this ban stands, then FloridaArmy appears to be gaming the system or conducting some kind of breaching experiment (e.g. [9], created in maonspace, then moved to Draft; ditto here and here, where it was Draftified by another user). This is not cool. These creations include biographies, not just plants Guy (help!) 19:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Do they know how to create pages directly in Draft Space? spryde | talk 20:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Sp, yes, they do it all the time, hence the original thread. Guy (help!) 16:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit warring, Aspersions and Canvassing by IZAK

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

IZAK has recently been edit warring against the scholarly interpretation of The Exodus, [10], [11], [12].

Additionally, they have cast WP:ASPERSIONS by implying that editors that oppose their changes are antisemitic [13].

They have also attempted to engage in WP:CANVASSING of multiple editors not involved in the article to influence its outcome [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19].

All of this is compounded by an apparent lack of understanding of Wikipedia's sourcing policies regarding in particular WP:RSPSCRIPTURE and WP:PRIMARY, despite having been on Wikipedia since 2002, see [[20]] for the discussion at Talk:The Exodus#Myth yet again as well as User talk:Ermenrich#WP:NPOV.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:48, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Ermenrich: (1) I have not been "edit warring" I made edits in good faith. At no time did I violate the WP:3RR, (2) and at no time did I call anyone an "antisemite". (3) User:Ermenrich displays an attitude of WP:OWN at The Exodus article,and my point was to introduce some Jewish studies content into the lead of the article, which he seems allergic to. (4) At no time have I violated WP:NPOV and WP:RS. (5) User:Ermenrich has an evident hostility to Rabbinic Judaism and marginalizes the Orthodox Judaism perspective.IZAK (talk) 15:34, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

When you say I "marginalize the Orthodox Jewish perspective" you mean I oppose your efforts to denude the article of its serious scholarly engagement with the topic because it violates your religious beliefs or to label a rival Jewish group a heresy. Both of those things are the very definitions of violating NPOV. You introduced, as far as I can see, no new content to the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: The Jewish religious approach about a Jewish religious text is justified in such an article as The Exodus, you do not WP:OWN the topic or the article. I was only editing a few words in the lead and moved one paragraph. I am not denuding anything, that is what you are doing, denuding the views of Judaism and Christianity to their own texts by inserting latter-day commentaries. You did not give me enough time and you ignore WP:Common knowledge of the Jewish and Christian views on this subject. Modern scholarship has to be put in proportion and chronologically correct order. Don't put the cart before the horse. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

For such a highly experienced editor as IZAK, this blatant canvassing is quite amazing. Zero^talk 13:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Zero0000: I was asking for help in editing an article which is permitted. It was not a AfD or CfD. It is not a violation of WP:CANVAS to ask other editors for their scholarly help. IZAK (talk) 15:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• [21] edit summary: It's not a myth, millions of Jews and a billion of Christians believe it to be true - believing something into existence is apparently possible. This doesn't bode well for their editing. WP:Competence is required? starship.paint (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

My advice to IZAK is to do the same I do: since I cannot kowtow to WP:RS/AC at abortion and health effects of salt, I generally avoid those articles. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Those edits are wildly inappropriate, especially for an experienced user. IZAK needs to commit to making edits consistent with scholarly consensus, or needs to avoid those articles. If they are unable to do so, they likely need to be removed from the topic. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment : I feel this discussion, which immediately preceding the action at The Exodus, where Izak tried to add the category Heresy in Judaism to the article Sadducees ([22], [23]) is probably also relevant to this discussion. It speaks to bias and a lack of understanding of policy.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Wildly inappropriate is exactly right, per Vanamonde. I've blocked IZAK from The Exodus and its talkpage for a month. If the disruption should move elsewhere, there could obviously be further sanctions. Bishonen | tålk 15:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC).
• Izak is a very experienced editor. In 2005 ArbCom banned him for 10 days for personal attacks.Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IZAK He's been blocked for a month from the article and talk page, but this attack: "I have noticed that a number of editors such as User:Ermenrich have been acting in a WP:OWN in articles relating to Judaism and go all out to deny what classical Jewish commentators and scholarship has to say. Very nice that you can quote SECULAR anti-religious profs xyz, but they know beans about Jewish theology and just have an ax to grind against anything Biblical and even Jewish. That's the story for now" is unacceptable, as is his canvassing. I think either may warrant a block for someone who clearly should know better, the two together certainly do. Doug Weller talk 15:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• I won't stand in the way if Doug's proposal of a sitewide block is supported here, and I certainly agree the disruption was serious. It may be worth mentioning, though, that it's been 14 years since IZAK was last blocked, so I would think even just a partial block will make an impression. Bishonen | tålk 15:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• I agree that IZAK was way out of line, and that this misconduct should not be repeated. But I think that, for now, Bishonen's sanction should stand, if in the interests of administrative consistency and nothing else. So, I'm against adding further sanctions at this time. Note that I've protected the page 4 times this year alone — always about disruption relating to the word "myth," without exception. El_C 16:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• @El C: my problem is that he still denies canvassing or that saying that someone has "ax to grind against anything Biblical and even Jewish" suggests that they are anti-semitic. Or am I alone in seeing this? Doug Weller talk 17:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• With the utmost respect, Doug, I disagree with your proposal. To dredge up an incident from 15 years ago, especially in light of arbcom considering an incident from a year ago to be stale, is concerning to me, especially considering how young WP was at the time. It is longer ago than some of our young editors are old. Granted, there is some strong opposition to IZAK's edits and POV, and with that in mind, it is clear that he needs to cite some high quality scholarly sources for any controversial material he intends to add to an article, but for us to even consider site blocking a 17 yr. veteran editor over this case - a case that is influenced by 10 and 15 year old incidents - is simply not conceivable to me, nor is it proportionate to the behavior. I'm not going to discuss content, which I consider to be the basis for this case, but there is no doubt that there is a POV controversy involving one side with high quality scholarly sources supporting their POV vs IZAK's POV and lack of quality citations - or at least that is my understanding. I don't agree that he canvassed per our guideline, and I don't agree that he edit warred at 3 reverts per the evidence. I also don't agree that we should consider stale incidents as a basis to predetermine future behavior because then we are debatably deploying prejudice-based prevention which opens the door to POV creep. I support Bishonen's action and good judgment in this case, and have assumed the position of let's see what happens. If in a month or so, IZAK decides to revisit that article, he knows full-well he had better have high quality RS to support whatever material he wants to add, and that includes any argument he wishes to participate in on the TP. With the latter in mind, he should probably seek expert advice beforehand to avoid potential misunderstandings and backlash. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, I know about ArbCom cases. And IZAK's behaviour since. But this is all moot as I am now supporting a topic ban and think that would be a better option. Doug Weller talk 14:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• This diff suggests that IZAK may now be editing while WP:LOGGEDOUT. Narky Blert (talk) 15:34, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Narky Blert: I only edit using my user name. It was not me in any case. I abide by the decision. IZAK (talk) 15:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Fair enough. Narky Blert (talk) 15:48, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• I believe IZAK. Their English is a lot better than the IP's, for one thing. Bishonen | tålk 15:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC).

• Tons of IPs edit the Exodus like that, so it's probably just a coincidence. The page gets protected occasionally because of the constant fights over the word "myth".--Ermenrich (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Bishonen:, given that he's been banned from the article, what's the appropriateness of IZAK continuing to argue for the changes he wants in this thread at ANI?--Ermenrich (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

This is not a topic ban I've given IZAK (you can propose one of those in this thread if you like, Ermenrich — a community ban) — but merely a partial block. He can argue in other places than the two pages I specified. Bishonen | tålk 17:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC).

• • @Ermenrich: The answer is simple. I was NOT given a chance to respond before the block was imposed. I noticed this discussion AFTER the decision was made. So I am speaking in my own self-defence now ex post facto. I am not editing The Exodus article for the near future in any case.IZAK (talk) 16:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
    • You had plenty of time to discuss the article content at Talk:The Exodus before this block was imposed. The only reason that this discussion is still open is to allow people to discuss whether you should just be blocked from editing this article or the block should be wider, not to give you some sort of rights in a court of law. Nobody on Wikipedia has the power to fine you or imprison you or sentence you to death or do anything more than tell you can't edit one particular web site, so such rights are not needed here. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Topic Ban for heresy in Judaism

Since I filed this report, this long string of edits has come to my attention where IZAK has added the category Heresy in Judaism or Heresy in Orthodox Judaism to dozens of articles such as Reform Judaism, Jewish secularism, etc, even other religions such as Samaritanism: [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34]. Most of these additions are highly offensive and serve to mark Jewish movements as somehow not truly Jewish.

As seen when confronted with views outside of those held by Orthodox Judaism, (see User Talk:Ermenrich#WP:NPOV, Talk:Sadducees#Sadducees are Heretics according to Judaism), IZAK is not capable of perceiving the fact that they have an obvious POV problem on Jewish topics. Therefore, in addition to their one month block from The Exodus, I propose a topic ban from the topic of heresy in Judaism, broadly construed.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Ermenrich: You are avoiding the obvious: All the edits are valid, they reflect what Heresy in Orthodox Judaism (NOTE, I did NOT write the article!) asserts, not "me". According to you, there is no "heresy" in anything, but in Judaism there is, simply Heresy in Judaism (NOTE, I did NOT write the article!) just as there is an article about Heresy in all its forms on WP, see Category:Heresy with detailed sub-categories in Category:Heresy in Buddhism, Category:Heresy in Christianity, and Category:People convicted of heresy, Bidʻah (Heresy in Islam), likewise I created Category:Heresy in Judaism and Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism years ago, and no one ever had any problems with it til you came along, and the purpose of WP is to educate about the subjects it deals with. You can't run around attacking people for stating what exists in the real world. IZAK (talk) 20:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding a category "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism" or "Heresy in Judaism" to Reform Judaism or Samaritanism is a pretty obvious way to attack those movements, one of which is not even really Jewish. As I've stated elsewhere, adding language somewhere to the effect that "this-and-that is viewed as heretical by Orthodox Judaism" isn't a problem, provided its within the bounds wp:DUE. But this category is being used as a covert attack category. As to other "heresies in" categories, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a valid argument, and you'll notice no major Christian denomination is included in "Heresy in Christianity," nor is "secularism" or, I don't know, the War on Christmas.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: You are engaging in classical don't kill the messenger responses. Again, it is not "my" view, it is the view of Orthodox Judaism, that is not my fault. You fail to understand how religions functions and you have no clue about the inner workings of the differences between the different streams of Judaism and how they judge each other. That is what I am reporting on WP, not attacking anyone to say that Orthodoxy views Reform as heretical. It is a verifiable statement of fact. And please stop denying when I cite examples of heresy as discussed on WP as "other stuff"" etc that is just a cop out. IZAK (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

How would you feel if I created a category “false religions in Christianity” and added Orthodox Judaism to it? It’s not my fault, it’s what Christianity teaches! Do you see how that’s not a particularly convincing argument?—Ermenrich (talk) 20:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Please don't create a red herring! Christianity regards Judaism as its mother (and father) religion, so how can what you say even make sense! Please do not venture into WP:NOTMADEUP. I do not know of any serious Christian scholarship that regards Judaism as a "heresy"! No one is talking about "false" religions, the subject is religious terminology in Judaism such as apikores and kofer (again I did not make this up), and it is not my fault you can't grasp the concepts and the terminology in loco. IZAK (talk) 20:58, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

And it’s not my fault you seem incapable of seeing your own biases and how they might cause others offense.—Ermenrich (talk) 21:07, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: You make me laugh! It is most certainly not a "bias" to accurately describe and explain a complex phenomenon and set of notions and beliefs, such as Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Modern Orthodox Judaism, Haredi Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, in a WP:NPOV which I have always striven to do on WP. IZAK (talk) 22:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There’s nothing complex or NPOV about adding a category that another version of a religion is wrong. The fact that you can’t see that is precisely why you shouldn’t be editing anything to do with this topic.—Ermenrich (talk) 22:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I am not adding my personal views. What don't you get? It is the position of Orthodox Judaism and its scholars. Sorry that you can't handle the heat.IZAK (talk) 23:22, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from heresy in Judaism and heresy in Orthodox Judaism, broadly construed. When Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism are officially categorized as heretical with Wikipedia's implicit stamp of approval, that is highly problematical. It is profoundly inappropriate to categorize denominations that account for a large majority of synangogue affiliations as heretical in this way. That's POV pushing. Consider poor Shulem Deen, a living person categorized as a "heretic" because he broke with one of the dozens of ingrown Hasidic Jewish sects. I do not think we should have any categories of people and organizations called heretical by fringe sects and extremist, dogmatic religious leaders. IZAK has proven himself unable to edit in accordance with the neutral point of view regarding heresy and Judaism. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:37, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • See the Heresy in Orthodox Judaism article for what it states, same as the category. In 17 years I have abided by WP:NPOV, withdraw the accusation. IZAK (talk) 19:27, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Cullen328, is Messianic Judaism not heretical according to even Reform Judaism? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Almost every religious sect under the sun is 'heretical' to every other religious sect. That is the nature of religion, for if not, everyone would have no problem believing in the same thing. So what do you propose we do, add the category 'Heresy in X', 'Heresy in Y', and 'Heresy in Z' to Religion A, B and C? StonyBrook (talk) 17:30, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

StonyBrook, so why topic ban someone for categorizing that? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Classifying a religious group by what another religious group believes (rather than independent assessments such as academia) is basically endorsing the latter religion's views in Wikipedia's voice. Orthodox Judaism may consider other branches of Judaism heretical, but that does not mean we should be following their lead and marking our articles as such. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: So the solution is a WP:AFD and WP:CFD according to you. Or just simply revert, since this is a WP:CONTENTDISPUTE but there is no point to a topic ban. Academia agrees that Orthodox Judaism and its laws and concepts exist in all their glory, that all can be presented in a WP:NPOV as well. That should be obvious. IZAK (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Do not put words into my mouth. And your comment completely ignores my point: Orthodox Judaism's concepts WP:EXIST, but does not mean we apply the "heretic" label to other sects of Judaism based on what Orthodox Judaism believes. They are free to believe they're the one true faith as much as they want, but we do not apply that label to other sects' articles here & effectively endorse their belief. Maintaining NPOV means not applying the category to other sects. Prior to now, I had not weighed in on the subject of whether or not you should be topic-banned. But, if you can't understand that it is not neutral to categorize one sect as "heretical" based on another sects beliefs, then a topic ban is the correct way forward. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not putting anything into your mouth. Just re-read what I wrote, it answers the problem. So all you are saying is censor the facts when they don't suite you. That is just another example of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You are then going to have the same problem with other categories in WP such as Category:Heresy in Christianity, Category:Heresy in Buddhism, Category:People convicted of heresy, Category:Free Zone (Scientology), Bidʻah for Heresy in Islam (redirect) somehow, we don't have a Category:Heresy in Islam quite yet. Category:Heresy exists and you are not going to wish it away. IZAK (talk) 16:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

So the solution is a WP:AFD and WP:CFD according to you. is explicitly putting words in my mouth.

So all you are saying is censor the facts when they don't suite you. as is this. So, please stop imagining what I'm saying and just listen. The category itself is not the problem. It's your decision to place it on rival sects pages. That's it. The fact you won't listen to anyone else is why I am finally supporting this topic ban. I'm done. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Cullen328—"heretical" is equal to the "does not equal" sign in math, which is "≠". Why would anyone get their knickers in a twist about the "does not equal" sign? Bus stop (talk) 17:15, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support per Cullen328. I will say that it is wildly inappropriate to tag categories of heresy if the tagged articles themselves do not even mention the heresy (e.g. Cultural Judaism). starship.paint (talk) 06:35, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • So just do a simple revert, No need for a topic ban. IZAK (talk)
• oppose topic ban To achieve neutral wording in ledes is difficult, and I have always thought it best to avoid all judgmental terms of any sort whatsoever in leads, rather than argue about which ones are justified. We can not assume the majority is the determining factor. I think we should try to write ledes without adjectives at all. They are meant just as introductions. It takes the fuller space of an article to approach some degree of accuracy and neutral meaning. Saying someone should have a topic ban from heresy in.... means that they should have a topic ban because I personally disagree with them. I always would vote against a topic ban for someone whose views in that topic I disagree with. Supporting a topic ban for someone whose views in the topic one disagrees with is something that is inherently liable to make one at least appear non-neutral. DGG ( talk ) 06:43, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  DGG - this topic ban isn't about changing things in leads, but is related to adding categories of Heresy in Judaism (some of these article bodies do not mention heresy). starship.paint (talk) 06:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support, largely per Cullen328. I've been examining IZAK's recent behaviour as part of reviewing an unblock request. And I'm seeing someone who appears to only see one viewpoint as neutral and honest, that aligned with his own religious beliefs. IAZK appears to me to have been editing Wikipedia through and to reflect those beliefs. I'm sure it's unintentional, but many religious believers who are unshakeably convinced that they have the truth genuinely can't see their NPOV violations. We do have many people from all sorts of religious backgrounds who are able to put their personal beliefs to one side when editing Wikipedia and stick to NPOV, but IZAK is not one of them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:04, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Feel free to review my editing history over 17 years and see that I have abided by WP:NPOV. It is not a crime to also sometimes be WP:BEBOLD. IZAK (talk) 19:33, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • That you've been here 17 years and can't see the problem with categorizing articles based on primary religious sources (and, from our brief dialog at your talk page, didn't even know what edit warring is) does give me additional concern. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:23, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Speaking of additional concerns, Boing! said Zebedee, I was shocked that IZAK [35] would consider these edits [36] as major improvements to an article at AfD (that article being Heresy in Orthodox Judaism). That's 81 words added, and no references. Roughly around 5% of the body. How could this be a major improvement? starship.paint (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
        • @Starship.paint: Yes, I think that's a further example of how a worldview directed by a very firm religious belief can make it genuinely hard for people to step back and see the wider picture. I am convinced this proposed topic ban is needed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
          • @Boing! said Zebedee: You are wrong when you say "a worldview directed by a very firm religious belief" that borders on WP:NPA, since my 17 year record on WP disproves your allegations. A good Jewish education would be a more accurate description of my background and credentials as a WP editor. IZAK (talk) 16:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
            • @IZAK: If you see criticism of your religious approach to truth as a personal attack, then that's unfortunate but there's nothing I can do about it. I see "a worldview directed by a very firm religious belief" and "a good Jewish education" (also "a good Muslim/Christian/Hindu/etc education") as synonymous. I base that on the mainstream secular approach that Wikipedia requires. Wikipedia is not a Jewish encyclopedia, can not (and will not) accept Jewish (or Christian/Muslim/Hindu/etc) education as truth, and will not present Jewish (etc) beliefs as fact in Wikipedia's voice. It genuinely disappoints me that you can not see (or will not accept) this. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
              • @Boing! said Zebedee: Wikipedia is just an encyclopedia that faithfully and empirically describes and explains phenomena, it does not advocate, and I am not advocating. Heresy in Judaism exists, I did not make that up, and certain categories and classes of people in this world of ours fall into that category. Not accusing or doing anything bad. Very simple actually, IZAK (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  Switch to Oppose. Having read and digested a lot more comments from others, below, I've been swayed into the opinion that this is more a genuine content disagreement than anything. That is, deciding how to present the subject of Heresy in Judaism. I do think there are problems using categories (which appear to be stating things in Wikipedia's voice and do not require sources, as others have mentioned) and that lists and narrative are probably better ways to deal with this subject... But, yes, that's a content discussion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:46, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support - as per Cullen328. Cheers, 1292simon (talk) 12:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Why? And what's wrong with a bit of WP:BEBOLD since WP:NOTCENSORED in Heresy in Judaism "broadly construed"? IZAK (talk) 19:42, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • IZAK, badgering the votes that don't go your way isn't going to help. 1292simon (talk) 23:07, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support The religious concept of heresy has caused many wars and innumerable deaths throughout history. The modern post-enlightenment world, especially after the French and the American revolutions, finally saw the implementation of the new concept of freedom of religion to democratic nation-states in the west. In the 20th century, western secular thought went even further in coining the expression "freedom from religion." Of course, we now live in a period where the pendulum of religious liberty seems to be swinging back. Wikipedia, as a free and secular encyclopedia, should not be giving religious fundamentalists a tool to go around tagging encyclopedic entries about historical phenomena as heresy. This is a very dangerous tool, in my view, and should be watched very carefully by WP admins. It certainly should not be given freely to a declared spokesperson for the Orthodox sect in modern Judaism. warshy ^(¥¥) 15:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • All you are really saying is WP:IDONTLIKEIT of the notion of Heresy but it does exist in all religions and it may be presented as such on WP, because WP:NOTCENSORED. IZAK (talk) 19:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

What I wrote has nothing to do with me liking or disliking an idea, quite the contrary. I tried to highlight the importance of the concept for religious intolerance throughout history. I tried to explain how the tagging of different religious ideas as "heresy" has always been a dangerous tool in society. I believe it is not less harmful for a serious intellectual tool as Wikipedia. It has to be handled with utmost scholarly care, in my view. You definitely have shown you lack such care, by creating a dubious religious category and then going around and tagging different streams of thought rather carelessly, based exclusively on religious primary sources. It is also important to point out that your own alleged "zeal" stems from religious dogma itself. This threat of religious intolerance needs to be put in check here, and that is why I support your ban from the topic. warshy ^(¥¥) 21:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Warshy, you are mistaking "zeal" for enthusiasm and expertise. WP values WP:EXPERT editors. Editors contribute because they are enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a subject, you may call it "zeal" but I know a lot of sports fans who are big fanatics and spend tons on sports, yet I would not criticize their motivations. I would not dare write or tag something I knew nothing about. But I do know about this subject through long-time study. I see that the "supports" here do not have the maturity to accept a tough subject. Let me just say, that if editors disagree with an edit they can simply WP:REVERT. Your concerns are totally unfounded. IZAK (talk) 13:50, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support It's a relatively narrow topic ban that addresses the behavior at hand, as comments by IZAK in this thread indicate that the user still doesn't understand why those particular category additions are problematic. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:06, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Um @Ohnoitsjamie: this is really a WP:CONTENTDISPUTE, it has zero to do with anyone'e behavior! IZAK (talk) 16:48, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support per Cullen and Ohnoitsjamie. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

IZAK, the Vilna Gaon, a widely revered Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, denounced the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Liadi as a heretic, and judged the entire Hasidic movement as heretical. Should we categorize every Hasidic rebbe and dynasty as heretical if we cite the Vilna Gaon? There are many sociologists and academic experts in comparative religion who describe the leadership of contemporary Hasidic dynasties using the term "cult of personality". Should we create a new category called "Jewish cult leaders" to categorize these self declared "Grand Rabbis" of villages of a couple thousand people who wear 18th century Eastern European garb and beaver fur hats in the state of New York or settlements controlled by Israel, in communities where independent thinking is forbidden and total subjection is mandatory? How about the ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta, who preach that the existence of the State of Israel is an "affront against God"? Should we cite them to categorize Israel, all of its institutions and every one of its politicians as heretics against Orthodox Judaism? If not, why not? Please do not answer that you love the sources that support your POV but reject out of hand the sources that contradict your POV. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cullen328: Since you know what you are talking about, and have addressed me directly, I will answer you in detail: "the Vilna Gaon, a widely revered Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, denounced the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Liadi as a heretic, and judged the entire Hasidic movement as heretical." True! You quote an amazing WP:RS!! "Should we categorize every Hasidic rebbe and dynasty as heretical if we cite the Vilna Gaon?" Most probably yes, but the jury is still out, the latter-day Hasidim have "reformed" themselves and returned to a better path of Torah Judaism, so "judgement is still pending" on them! "There are many sociologists and academic experts in comparative religion who describe the leadership of contemporary Hasidic dynasties using the term "cult of personality". Should we create a new category called "Jewish cult leaders" to categorize these self declared "Grand Rabbis" of villages of a couple thousand people who wear 18th century Eastern European garb and beaver fur hats in the state of New York or settlements controlled by Israel, in communities where independent thinking is forbidden and total subjection is mandatory?" Maybe it is possible, but they are not quite cults because they conform to the Shulchan Aruch the classical Code of Jewish Law required of all Jews, and they abide by all the Torah's 613 Mitzvot so they are boderline and don't make the grade of a "cult" but in some extreme cases it may be so. They number hundreds of thousands of people by the way. "How about the ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta, who preach that the existence of the State of Israel is an "affront against God"? Should we cite them to categorize Israel, all of its institutions and every one of its politicians as heretics against Orthodox Judaism?" I was holding myself back from classing Zionists as a Heresy against God because the question is a very complicated one. But it is not just Neturei Karta or Satmar Hasidism who are against the ideology of secular Zionism, every single Haredi Judaism and Hasidic Judaism movement would categorize Zionism as a Heresy against God. This is not "my" personal view but it is the reality out there in the world. "If not, why not?" As I just said, the question is complicated, in addition you have many in Religious Zionism who are NOT Heretics according to Jewish Law. "Please do not answer that you love the sources that support your POV but reject out of hand the sources that contradict your POV." I just explained the views of Haredi and Hasidic Judaism, they are not "my" personal views and it is pretty much their standard party line as it were. Feel free to continue asking. I just wish that User:Ermenrich had engaged in such a thoughtful debate before he rashly ran off like a baby to ANI to get help from "mommy and daddy"! Thanks and take care. IZAK (talk) 03:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Although I appreciate your frank reply, IZAK, I believe that you have provided additional evidence that this topic ban is needed. According to Wikipedia:Categorization, "Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate." These Jewish heresy categorizations are profoundly controversial and you are seemingly having difficulty understanding why. It also says "A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having". You can read hundreds of randomly selected articles published by reliable sources about Reform Judaism for example, without running across one that describes that denomination as heretical. It is simply not a defining characteristic of the Reform movement and it is tendentious and disruptive for you to categorize it that way or defend that category. This is a neutral encyclopedia, is not Hasidicpedia, and the category system cannot be used as a tool in endless faction fights among various Jewish denominations and dynasties. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:48, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cullen328: That there are hundreds of articles about Reform Judaism not mentioning Heresy does not make it non-Heretical as far as classical Judaism is concerned. Do you even know what Heresy in Judaism is in the first place? Basically everyone voting "support" has no clue what Heresy in Judaism even means IN Judaism! They think it is like a dirty "swear word" not uttered in polite company. But alas, Heresy, or being an apikores aka heretic in Judaism is a legal status in Jewish Law and jurisprudence. In Judaism, correct and incorrect beliefs and practices matter. There is no way around a tough topic and there is no reason that articles and categories cannot serve the purpose of what is clearly identified in both the Heresy in Judaism and Heresy in Orthodox Judaism articles, NEITHER written by be, I just wish we could have all the editors who are now gone to help me out here, but that is the price I pay for longevity on Wikipedia. Let's face it, the "supports" here just cannot abide understanding religious notions qua religious notions. Just a lot of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. What comes next? a wholesale massacre of Category:Heresy in the Catholic Church, Category:Heresy in Christianity in the Middle Ages, Category:Heresy in ancient Christianity, Category:Heresy in Buddhism etc etc etc? saying that Category:Sabbateans is "not" a heresy in Judaism, turning day into night, and light into darkness, truth into lies and lies into facts? This is sad day for Wikipedia as due to the "supports" here it takes a huge step backwards and violates its own WP:NOTCENSORED principles. IZAK (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support topic ban with a banning summary that clearly explains the scope of "broadly construed" Looking at his talk page, you will see that he rejects science in favor of religious pseudoscience. This will cause issues in multiple areas of the encyclopedia if we do not address it by making it clear that he must stay away from all topics where (some) orthodox Jews disagree with other branches of Judaism, with scientists, etc. He is a good editor when not riding his hobbyhorse. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not "religious pseudoscience" -- it's "Judaism 101"! Nothing I said is "my own" invention, you can find it in any WP:RS about classical Judaism. You keep on comparing Judaism with Mormonism, which is also bad logic. Thanks for the compliment though. IZAK (talk) 03:11, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I meant the complement from my heart. In fact, one of the reasons I am following this discussion is because sooner or later someone is sure to suggest an indefinite block instead of a topic ban, and it is my intent to oppose any indef block.

Science says that the Exodus as described in the Old Testament did not happen, Your religion says that it did. That's pretty much the definition of "religious pseudoscience". Or I could be more specific and call it the subset of religious pseudoscience known as religious pseudohistory.

Your continued insistence that your religion is right and the scientists are wrong in the middle of a discussion about whether to topic ban you is a classic example of the Law of holes. It is also WP:BLUDGEONING.

I don't know how aware you are of my editing history, but I have put in a lot of effort into dealing with editors who are unhappy with Wikipedia saying that holocaust denial is not supported by science. I think I am safe in assuming that you also reject the arguments of holocaust deniers.

The parallels are striking: like you, they like to point out that the POV they are pushing is not their own invention. Like you, they want Wikipedia to say that the 99%+ of scientists who disagree with them are all wrong. Like you, they seem to think, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that somehow their arguments will prevail and cause Wikipedia to present pseudoscience as truth.

(Before someone mentions Godwin's law, let me make clear that the only similarity is pushing pseudoscience and rejecting science. Looking at the big picture, Neo-naziism is a force for evil in this world, and Orthodox Judaism is clearly a force for good. I am comparing two completely different things that share one small aspect.)

IZAK, I don't think you would like an encyclopaedia where you won this one. If you were to win, then all of the pseudoscience I listed at WP:YWAB would also be open to being presented as facts. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Guy Macon, I appreciate your sincerity, but I must point out that you persist in comparing apples and oranges, you fall into the trap of a category mistake, a big failure in logic, each time you opine on something in Judaism which I regret you evidently know little about. For someone of your caliber I suggest you read as many articles on Wikipedia itself in the founding Category:Jews and Judaism which I inaugurated myself in 2004 [37] when the whole system of categorization on Wikipedia was started. It will take you time because there are tens of thousands of articles associated with the topic. But at the end of it you will see your mistake of comparing Judaism to anything to do with Mormonism or Neo-Nazis, or Holocaust Denial. Finally, once and for all, NOTHING (I know you don't like caps) in true Judaism is a "pseudo-science'. The Hebrew Bible aka the Tanach is an important historical document. It does not matter that some shnook/s on WP decided to "act God" and tell God that the best-seller of all time is "pseudoscience" or whatnot. P.S. I am most certainly NOT unhappy with Wikipedia, I think it is a great leap forward for humanity but it has a way to go before it tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, yeah, yeah, I know about WP:V but the truth is most certainly 100% WP:V. Take good care, IZAK (talk) 13:04, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The above demonstrates that the topic ban needs to cover more than just Heresy in Judaism. IZAK cannot tell the difference from what I actually wrote (that virtually all scientists agree that the Exodus as described in the Bible never happened) with an imaginary world where I tried to describe or define Judaism. He seems to be fine when those same scientists say that the holocaust didn't happen the way the holocaust deniers say it did, and he seems fine when those same scientists say that pre-columbian North America was not at all like what the Book Of Mormons says it was like. The belief that millions of Jews actually wandered the wildness being fed by manna from heaven is pseudoscience. The belief that the angel of God actually killed the firstborn of any families who didn’t have blood sprinkled on their doorposts on the night of the Passover is pseudoscience. Most of what IZAK believes to be historical fact never happened. The archaeological record is not consistent with the Bible version. He needs to be stopped from editing in this area. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:38, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon—pseudoscience, also known as religion. You are saying "The belief that millions of Jews actually wandered the wildness being fed by manna from heaven is pseudoscience. The belief that the angel of God actually killed the firstborn of any families who didn’t have blood sprinkled on their doorposts on the night of the Passover is pseudoscience." Are you saying that Wikipedia can't describe religion? Wikipedia is not censored. Bus stop (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Certainly Wikipedia can describe religion. The paragraph IZAK deleted in this edit[38] described religion. He just didn't like the describ=ption, so he removed it. When we say, for example, "The resurrection of Jesus, or anastasis, is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion" as we do in our Resurrection of Jesus article, we are describing part of a religion. If instead we say that Jesus actually rose from the dead (not that Christians believe that he did, but instead reporting it as a fact in Wikipedia's voice) and use the Bible as our citation, that's psuedoscience. It goes against what scientists know about people who have been dead for three days. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon—you are misusing "pseudoscience". It is "any body of knowledge that purports to be scientific or to be supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method." But that definition wouldn't apply to religion because religion generally doesn't purport to be scientific. Bus stop (talk) 11:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, you are correct in your explanation of the difference between religion and pseudoscience, but you have completely mischaracterized my position to the point of stuffing words down my throat, making an excellent argument refuting a position I have never held, then, having knocked down a straw man of your own creation, declaring victory. I don't think you are doing this purposely, so I will assume that I was unclear and attempt to explain my actual position to you. You may end up agreeing or you may wish to argue against my actual words, but at least we will be talking about the same thing.

If anyone claims

• "God exists and created all things".
• "Jesus saved me and the Bible is his inspired word".
• "The Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since"'
• "Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates with divine assistance".

Those are religions, not science or pseudoscience. Wikipedia will never say that those claims are false, and Wikipedia will never say that those claims are true. We describe them as accurately as possible, and we describe who holds those beliefs. However, the following claims are both religion and pseudoscience:

• "God reliably heals people of HIV. You have received his healing and you can stop taking your medications".
• "What you read in the Torah is historical fact, literally happened exactly as described, all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong and quite possibly antisemitic".
• "Joseph Smith says that in the pre-Columbian Americas there were horses, elephants, and steel swords that rusted, so those are historical facts and all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong."
• "The earth is less than 10,000 years old, and humans and dinosaurs coexisted."

The above are all religious pseudoscience because, although motivated by religion, they make claims that purport to be factual and supported by science but are not. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Again, as I have already pointed out, your are mixing apples and oranges and falling into the illogical trap of a category mistake because Judaism and it Torah in all its forms have NOTHING to do with anything in Mormonism or HIV or any "pseudoscience". IZAK (talk) 14:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Guy Macon—an Orthodox Jew would not find a scientist antisemitic because they disprove the Torah. You are writing "What you read in the Torah is historical fact, literally happened exactly as described, all of the scientists who say otherwise are wrong and quite possibly antisemitic. Bus stop (talk) 17:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support reluctantly. I've been waiting for IZAK to understand the problem, but to no avail. Categories are not designed for the purpose of stating opinions in Wikipedia's voice that can't be stated in Wikipedia's voice in the article body. It doesn't make any difference whether it is IZAK's private opinion or the opinion of a religious group. Are we going to find Christianity in the "idol worship" category next? Zero^talk 04:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Wow @Zero0000: so does that mean you also support the annihilation of all in Category:Criticism of Christianity, Category:Criticism of Buddhism, Category:Criticism of Hinduism, Category:Criticism of Islam and of course we do have Category:Criticism of Judaism etc etc etc???!!! IZAK (talk) 16:59, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

None of those examples are analogous. Zero^talk 15:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Zero0000: How about all in Category:Heresy in Christianity, Category:Heresy in Buddhism, Category:People convicted of heresy, Category:Free Zone (Scientology), Bidʻah for Heresy in Islam (redirect) somehow, we don't have a Category:Heresy in Islam quite yet. Are all these okay with you? If not why not? If yes, what's wrong with Category:Heresy in Judaism? IZAK (talk) 03:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I already wrote that Category:Heresy in Christianity has the same problems. I expect that the Buddhism one is also bad but I don't know much about Buddhism. I know even less about Scientology so I can't really say. The other examples seem ok. Bid'ah is an article similar to Heresy in Judaism, which is in poor shape but should be improved rather than deleted. Category:People convicted of heresy is not similar at all. Zero^talk 04:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment:

"[You cite] so-called secular anti-religious professors, while I am relying on the ongoing scholarship of Torah by Jewish sages from ancient to modern times... [thousands of Jewish scholars spanning two millennia] would and do assert and affirm what I have to say about the veracity of the Hebrew Bible and that The Exodus is 100% true and the 100% reliability of Judaism's Oral Torah..."[39] --Wikipedia uesr IZAK, 11 June 2020

--Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Guy Macon, tell me which part of the sentence you quote is not true within Judaism? Ever heard of Judaism's Three Pilgrimage Festivals of Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot observed by Jews since the time of The Exodus that the commemorate the Exodus and the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai? Remember, you cannot make up your version of Judaism or any religion or any subject, you must FIRST use Description and Explanation first empirically before jumping to your own (very inferior, half-baked) conclusions. Creating *your* version of Judaism or of the Hebrew Bible or of Jewish beliefs is a clear violation of WP:NOTMADEUP and would be a WP:HOAX which is a trap a lot of modern day secular professors fall into. They think because they have a PhD they can just say anything they want about Judaism and the Bible, and it just ain't so! IZAK (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from heresy in Judaism and heresy in Orthodox Judaism, broadly construed. Cullen328's arguments would be convincing enough, and Izak's responses just reinforce the need for this. Doug Weller talk 09:13, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment May I just point out to those supporters of the TBAN that one of the edits that is supposedly "offensive" is marking "Jewish-Christianity" as part of the category Heresy in Judaism. Do we really need to explain that people who believe in Jesus as the messiah, doesn't believe in one of the core beliefs in Judaism? Further, again, one of the categories, is "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism." While you may not agree with some of those beliefs, are we now censoring Wikipedia as the OP did with his edit summary of "offensive?" Take Baruch Spinoza for example, one of the most famous heretics in modern times, should we not label him because he, were he alive might find it offensive (or he probably wouldn't, but that's another story)? I actually find this one of the most egregious examples of consensus going wrong and ruining the encyclopedia. Heresy in Judaism or Heresy in Orthodox Judaism are legal terms and some of those terms that Izak edited most certainly qualify for those categories. TBANNING him is wrong, and not allowing those edits is wrong as well and just furthers the descent of PCness of this encyclopedia. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Heresy in Judaism or Heresy in Orthodox Judaism are legal terms

Under what law? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Jewish Christians were some of the first followers of Jesus, so no, they should not be classified as a heresy in Judaism. The next step is classified Christianity as a Jewish heresy (which in the view of the rabbis, it undoubtedly started as!).--Ermenrich (talk) 16:07, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich—we don't even find any mention of Christianity in Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. You say "The next step is classified Christianity as a Jewish heresy". Why don't we cross that bridge when we get to it? Bus stop (talk) 17:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Jewish_Christian#cite_note-JVL-2. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, WP:Category:Jewish Christianity includes The Epistle to the Hebrews and subcategory WP:Category:Jewish Christian mystics, which includes John of Patmos, John the Apostle and Paul the Apostle. How can you defend labeling some of the most important Christian figures and texts as "heresy in Judaism", as this particular category is the one you've most locked onto? Subcategory wp:Category:Early Jewish Christians includes Mark the Evangelist, [[John I {Bishop of Jerusalem)]], Saint Stephen, and many, many other important early Christians. This is offensive to Christians, obviously, and there is no defense for it, just because you dislike Messianic Judaism.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Jewish Christian is an article, not a category. Also, is WP:OFFENSIVE a new policy I never heard of? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph Is that even an argument? Please see [40]. IZAK never added the heresy label to Messianic Judaism, you would do well to look at what he actually did before defending him. He added the category heresy in Judaism to most early Christian figures via the category Jewish Christianity.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds, Jewish law, and it's categorized as such. This is all just a content dispute and trying to censor Wikipedia. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph Jewish "law" is religious doctrine. And are you going to argue that Orthodox belief has authority over all others branches of Judaism? Can you seriously, in good faith, argue that one denomination gets to decide all others are heretical & we should, in Wikipedia's voice, mark those religious beliefs as such? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:45, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds, a category called Heresy in Orthodox Judaism by definition means that it's Heresy according to Orthodox Judaism, not you, not me, not Izak and not Wikipedia. That's how the encyclopedia works. We have plenty of articles regarding Heresies in the Catholic Church, would you like those AFD'ed? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you really not know the difference between an article and a category? Zero^talk 17:05, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph First, Zero makes a good point: articles are not the same as categories. I have no issue with theoretical articles about what Orthodox Judaism believes to be heretical. However, categories are an organizational label we're applying to Wikipedia articles. Such articles could certainly have the category mentioned in this thread applied to them, as they're covering a doctrinal issue (supposing that controversy is notable enough for an article in the first place).

What we're dealing with is a situation where Orthodox Judaism has declared other branches of Judaism to be heretical. What the Orthodoxy declares heretical within their own denomination is one thing; what we have here is applying a category to other branches of Judaism, effectively saying "these aren't real Judaism, per the Orthodox jews." We are not going to apply a category to brand these other forms of Judaism "heresy" based on what a competing sect says. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds, it's a category ACCORDING to Orthodox Judaism. Heresy in Orthodox Judaism implies that it's a category about Heresy in Orthodox Judaism and that it's not necessarily about Heresy in Judasin. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph it's not necessarily about Heresy in Judasin (sic)

And that's the problem. It's not about heresy in Judaism in general, or even in specific tenets; it's about the Orthodox sect declaring other sects to be heretical. Are we going to have these categories for every religious sect that declares its rivals to be "heretics"? What happens when two denominations declare each other heretical, we give them each opposing categories? It's ridiculous, and these categories should not be applied to pages about the sects in question.

And that's the last I'll say on this matter, as we've gone off topic of the proposal itself. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds—even if the Category did brand another form of Judaism heresy, it would be according to Orthodox Judaism, as the title of the Category says: Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. You say "Are we going to have these categories for every religious sect that declares its rivals to be heretics?" Why don't we cross that bridge when we get to it? Bus stop (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop We're already on that bridge with this action. I'd like us to get off it rather than keep pushing articles across it. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

HandThatFeeds, An article can have many categories. It doesn't cost anything to put one on an article. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph You've missed the entire point of this conversation. Please do not ping me back here again. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:09, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - while I can see why some folks might disagree with some of the edits, at the end of the day, all you got here is a couple reverts and a content dispute, which does not rise to the status of anything worthy of a topic ban. Now, if IZAK really had falsely accused someone of antisemitism as a way of getting an upper hand in such a dispute, as Ermenrich claims, that would be topic ban worthy indeed. But here is the thing - IZAK DID NOT do that. Here’s the diff, again, provided by Ermenrich [41]. I’m sorry, where is the accusation of antisemitism again? It’s not there. In fact, it’s quite appalling that Ermenrich would so shamelessly accuse IZAK of something he didn’t do and provide essentially a fake diff. This kind of sneaky attempts at WP:GAMEing are WP:BOOMERANG worthy. Volunteer Marek 04:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nice of you to stop by Volunteer Marek, I love you too. Wonderfully bombastic as always. If you don’t see how saying someone has “an axe to grind against everything Jewish” is antisemitic, I’m not sure what is accusing someone of being antisemitic.—-Ermenrich (talk) 11:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with a content dispute. It is symptomatic of a deeper issue: the indifference in most of the articles in this topic area to following the letter of WP:RS. There is a huge and tolerated amount of WP:Primary sourcing, almost invariably making up half of the ostensible paraphrase and, as often as not, citing 'official' primary sources taught in yeshivas. Touching anything on issues in the ancient history of religion by citing materials imbibed in yeshivas, madrasas or seminaries is playing with fire. The practice should be forbidden. Nishidani (talk) 12:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich—you opened this thread with "Additionally, they have cast WP:ASPERSIONS by implying that editors that oppose their changes are antisemitic [42]." But they are not "implying that editors that oppose their changes are antisemitic". Bus stop (talk) 12:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. They said I have noticed that a number of editors such as User:Ermenrich have been acting in a WP:OWN in articles relating to Judaism and go all out to deny what classical Jewish commentators and scholarship has to say. Very nice that you can quote SECULAR anti-religious profs xyz, but they know beans about Jewish theology and just have an ax to grind against anything Biblical and even Jewish. So basically: I somehow "own" the article Sadducees, where this all started, because I reverted his category additions and argued against them. I'm relying on secular scholars who "have an axe to grind against everything Jewish." If secular scholars "have an axe to grind against everything Jewish", they are antisemitic. And if I'm defending their use on Wikipedia, I by implication must also be an antisemite. It's not a direct accusation, so it has a certain degree of plausible deniability (as also below where he seems to accuse me of being a Jew for Jesus but then claims he didn't), but it's there nonetheless.

Let me make a comparable example. If in a comment I accused someone of adding and defending sources that denied the Holocaust, would I not be accusing them of Holocaust denialism? Just because he didn't say "he is an antisemite" doesn't mean that it wasn't strongly implied.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Your reasoning is convoluted. Ermenrich—no one accused you of antisemitism. Bus stop (talk) 12:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

What Bus stop said. Stop digging your hole. Volunteer Marek 16:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose This seem like content dispute but I think an RFC is order when category "Heresy in Judaism" should be used --Shrike (talk) 06:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree that the category Heresy in Judaism is not NPOV and should not be applied to non-Jewish topics (Samaritans et al.) or even non-orthodox Judaism, but I think a personal TBAN goes way too far and is a non-proportionate censorship of an editor who has made some good contributions. To solve the underlying content dispute, I propose creating a wiki page "Beliefs condemned as heretical by Orthodox Judaism", similar to Beliefs condemned as heretical by the Catholic Church. Note that this appears as "Beliefs condemned as..." in the nav box title (in Protestantism for example) but the actual wiki page is "List of heresies in...". Such a page on Judaism will list individual beliefs that various Jewish movements (not necessarily Orthodox) see as heretic. It preserves NPOV since it lists individual beliefs (not entire religions) as heretical. It would also make the Judaism-related pages consistent with the Christianity-related ones (and so on for Islam etc.). altmany (talk) 07:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Note to closer Altmany (talk · contribs) has made no other contributions this year, last contribution October 9, 2019.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose These articles were tagged by IZAK probably for the simple reason that Orthodox Judaism indeed considers those more modern determinations of Judaism as being in part heretical. His edits are therefore well explained, and even if I disagree with them, I would simply have discussed this with IZAK. Ermenrich however did not do so, and is mistaking IZAK's work as an editor on Wikipedia for IZAK's personal opinions. That is wrong. In addition, I think that proposing a ban on an admin forum before even discussing with the editor why he made those edits, is not the correct procedure, and is making misuse of the fact that there was already a discussion going on regarding his edits. Looks a little bit like Ermenrich is turning this into a crusade against IZAK. Debresser (talk) 20:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Debresser, there was a discussion, in fact multiple ones, Talk:Sadducees#Sadducees are Heretics according to Judaism and User talk:Ermenrich#WP:NPOV. I simply decided after seeing their inability to understand why this would not be a good thing to add to an encyclopedia (e.g. how can the Sadducees be heretics in Judaism if they were a major sect of Judaism) that it would be better to try to spare the encyclopedia of further endless and unbending discussions on the matter. I certainly am not on a "crusade" against IZAK or seeking to punish him or whatever. I'm just interested in avoiding POV-pushing. I might also note that IZAK appears to have been on a crusade against me as he mentioned me in a thread [43] when I had had nothing to do with reverting his edits at The Exodus up to that point, that was A.Parot [44].--Ermenrich (talk) 20:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I see. Strange that you don't understand how he could tag Sadducees with a Heresy in Judaism category, because again he was correct in his logic, because modern Judaism, coming from the Pharisee school, does indeed consider them to have been partially heretical.

So you are basically reporting an editor he for a content dispute. And you even propose to ban him for it? I remain very opposed to this proposal. Debresser (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Debresser, I'm proposing it for a pattern of religious POV-pushing. If you think that's a content dispute, so be it. It's an extremely narrow ban because I recognize that IZAK does good work in other area.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think he is pushing a POV. I have seen him around since I am on Wikipedia, and he has been around much longer. We have had our disagreements, up to ARBCOM, but he is a reasonable editor. He was simply making misguided edits, and that is not enough reason to topic ban an editor. Debresser (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Aren't you the one making religious pov-pushing edits? You're the one who reverted Izak with the summary of "offensive" as if that is a policy reason to revert. It seems that you are the one who is trying to push your agenda here and getting Izak banned from editing, when all this can be taken care of as talk page discussion or RFC or 3rd party, etc. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:11, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

And what agenda is that? Am I trying to force him to convert to secularism or something? Is that my religious POV? That Wikipedia should treat all religions equally and shouldn't allow one to decide which parts of them get labeled heresy in Wikipedia's voice? Oh the horror, it's truly dystopian!--Ermenrich (talk) 22:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not in "Wikipedia's voice". It's in Orthodox Judaism's voice. Bus stop (talk) 22:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. As IZAK states, most of the opposition here breaks down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT of the notion of Heresy but it does exist in all religions and it may be presented as such on WP, because WP:NOTCENSORED. There is no endorsement in noting that a particular strain of a particular religion views a different strain as heretical. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 20:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Note to closer Briangotts (talk · contribs) has only made three edits in the last five years, the last February 5, 2020.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich—Briangotts was an Administrator at Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 13:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

...who had his admin privileges removed due to inactivity. Doesn't make his appearing now for the third time in five years any less suspicious.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Content dispute, as already well described. --MPerel 06:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

MPerel (talk · contribs) has made no wikipedia contributions for three years (and only 8 in the last decade), last contribution 14 February 2017. Heiro 07:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

12000 contribs in the decade prior however. Mysticdan (talk) 09:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1

• Comment. A personal note to IZAK. Per WP:TLDR, to be ignored by others. Take a spell and read Henri Bergson's Two sources of morality and religion. It will illuminate the modal differences between secular and religious learning. Both have enormous claims on our curiosity, but when their conclusions clash, the secular view prevails, for a simple reason: the secular sphere accepts doubt as a method, revision of principles under empirical testing, and its conclusions are provisory, not dogmatic, and it has a far wider scope in its assessment of realities. In biblical scholarship, a huge amount of what we know comes from archaeological, comparative-linguistic, textual form analysis, and non-Hebraic sources, not available to the debates internal to Judaism down to the 19th century. Josephus cited the Second Temple derivation of Babel from bālal(π.182 σύγχυσις) (confound). Only as a far wider comparative knowledge of ancient languages, via archaeological excavations of archives, emerged, was light thrown on minutiae like this, i.e. that Babel in Akkadian meant something like 'Gate of the god(s)', and that the Hebrew term reflected perhaps a folk etymology (Akkadian babālu ('to scatter') which, since it had no root reflex in Hebrew, was assimilated to that language by analogizing it to 'bālal'.) I.e. To resume Bergson's terms, knowledge can be 'closed' within a particular hermeneutic system, or 'open' (secular). By the nature of a modern encyclopedia, the latter must be the neutral voice (and Wikipedia's coverage of religious articles constantly fails to do this, reflecting the internal religious tradition's explications rather than how they are analysed in secular scholarship. The Targum's etymological section is nonsense for this reason: it is a Luwian word borrowed into Akkadian and then with Aramaic and Hebrew reflexes. But no single person can fix this). We work by collegial negotiation on the basis of both what the closed and open traditions say, naturally privileging, for the last, if provisory, word, the latter. Reform Judaism, for one, is totally receptive to this. Nishidani (talk) 09:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @Nishidani: I always enjoy hearing from you. I appreciate your POV which is not a WP:NPOV when it comes to Religion. You are not going to convince billions of believers in whatever faith and deity of your very secular scholarly arguments. Need I say more. While your observations may be true of "biblical scholarship" outside of Judaism, it is not true in Jewish studies and your claim that "the secular sphere accepts doubt as a method, revision of principles under empirical testing, and its conclusions are provisory, not dogmatic, and it has a far wider scope in its assessment of realities" does not apply to Talmudic studies and Talmudical hermeneutics where all the criteria you value are indeed practiced. Obviously you have not spent real time in a serious Yeshiva and then you would see and learn that you are dead wrong in your assertions about the inferiority of Jewish religious arguments and methods. Kindest regards, IZAK (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

People, even within the one 'faith' believe in very different ways. 'Only distinguish'. I'm not in the game of 'convincing' anyone. You did not grasp my point. I'll provide you with an image from set theory. Imagine a circle that encloses A, within which there is a smaller circle (B). For secular biblical scholarship, B here would be the total output of the Tanakh, the Talmuds and rabbinical commentary thereafter, what yeshivas concentrate on, and would form an integral and fundamental part of its body of knowledge. This 'subordination' is not compact of 'inferiority'. The field outside B is what modern scholarship consists of, i.e. inclusive of all research embracing ancient history, archaeology, comparative and semitic linguistics, form theory and textual criticism, genetics and Jewish studies as practiced in universities is utterly at home with it. Glance at the way I did the etymology of the name Esther, which was a WP:OR mess before my fix. I.e. here It starts with early rabbinical opinions (B) and then provides the modern scholarly estimations, one of which sides with one of the two sages' diametrically opposed views. If a yeshiva limits itself to B, it is a closed world; if it is open to A, we get Jewish studies and a far more accurate grasp of the problem. By the way, per below, Messianic Judaism is nothing new. Christianity began as a Jewish heresy, and the daily prayer of the 12th benediction reminds one of it. In that sense, all those raised within Graeco-Judeo-Christian civilization are Jewish in good part, conceptually. Were that understood, western anti-Semitism would become a contradiction in terms.Nishidani (talk) 14:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose those in support of this TBAN are showing why consensus is not always a good thing. Heresy in Orthodox Judaism is a legal term defined by Orthodox Jews. Now you are going to say that we can't mark articles as such because Wikipedia doesn't like it? Being declared a heretic doesn't make you an ex-Jew, it is just a legal term. Reform Judaism is an heretical movement according to conservative and orthodox Judaism, not the individual people, but the movement. Just like you have Christian sects that feel the same way. Keep in mind the OP reverted Izak's adding the tag to Messianic Judaism. It's clear someone has an axe to grind.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Joseph (talk • contribs)

If you want to have an article based on non-WP:primary sources where it discusses what and why Orthodox Judaism finds heretical, fine. Adding these categories in Wikipedia's voice is wrong however. If the information is wp:due (i.e. reliable sources frequently mention the movement as viewed as heretical by group X) it can even be added to the article body for that group. The fact is that heresy isn't a real thing, it depends on the perspective of the group in question, whether this is codified as some sort of "law" or not.

And why should reverting the addition to Messianic Judaism show I have an axe to grind? Are you suggesting that Messianic Judaism is inherently wrong and heretical? That's called POV. I originally reverted him at Sadducees, are you going to suggest I'm a Sadducee next?--Ermenrich (talk) 13:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Messianic Judaism is a Christian sect. Not one Jewish movement accepts them. Are you now saying that Christianity=Judaism too? Just how twisted can one's logic be? IZAK (talk) 14:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Um, if, as you say, Messianic Judaism is a Christian sect, how can it be a Jewish heresy? Talk about "twisted logic".--Ermenrich (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

It is Jews who accept Jesus and then want to have their cake and eat it and they say they are still practicing a form of "Judaism" plus they accept Jesus as the "Jewish messiah" which no Jewish movement does. So it is "Jewish" since Jews are involved foisting a false claim that denies the beliefs of Judaism hence it is a Jewish heresy. This is not rocket science. Only dyed in the wool Jews for Jesus use your arguments. IZAK (talk) 14:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I've been accused of being many things in my life, but never of being a Jew for Jesus. This is a (very strange) ad hominem you realize?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Gosh Eremenrich, you take everything I say as a personal description of you. Note, if I want to insult you, I will address you directly and be very clear I mean you, so stop twisting my words. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You seem to be very good at, if I wp:AFG, not understanding what your words imply. If Only dyed in the wool Jews for Jesus use your arguments then I must be a Jew for Jesus to use them. At any rate, you can't have it both ways: either Jews for Jesus are Christians, in which case they aren't a Jewish heresy, or they're Jews, in which case other Jewish groups might consider them a heresy, but it's not up to Wikipedia to decide if they are. If they themselves are Jews, then it's obviously not true that all Jewish groups consider them heretical: they are a Jewish group, and they don't consider themselves heretical. The article already covers the issue of what they say they are and what (other) Jews think about it. Adding a category "heresy in Judaism" is not helpful or productive.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

There you go again. They are (mostly) Jews who have accepted Jesus (whom Judaism regards as a false prophet, or did you miss that point?) and at the same time they want to remain Jews (for Jesus). It's an intersection and they cannot have it both ways, if they are Jewish then they are Heretics because they deny the Jewish God. If they are Christians then you are right, and please tell them this, that they cannot therefore be Jews. As illogical as it sounds, that's what they believe in. They sincerely believe in their mish-mash belief, don't pin it on me, but alas it is Heresy in Judaism that all of Judaism agrees upon. IZAK (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

They absolutely can have it both ways, it's their religion, not yours or mine. It doesn't particularly matter if other Jewish sects regard them as heretical or not. Wikipedia is not in the business of policing beliefs. And per your comments, you could just as easily argued that Christianity should be tagged as a heresy, if Jesus is a false prophet in Judaism. Better not to have to deal with such questions and engage with the issue as I have said: using reliable sources in the article body according to wp:due.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich—you say "It doesn't particularly matter if other Jewish sects regard them as heretical or not." Of course it "matters". Or at least it can matter. This isn't a forum for you to wax eloquent about what matters or not. It is potentially "encyclopedic" material that one subset of an identity regards another subset of that same identity as "heretical". Why wouldn't we want to pass that along to a reader? Bus stop (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You misunderstand me Bus stop. Of course it can matter, and if wp:RS report that it is viewed by most other Jewish groups as heretical, than they deserves mention (as I believe it is mentioned at the article Messianic Judaism). What I object to is saying as a category in Wikipedia's voice, that something is a heresy in Judaism. What others think matters, but obviously the adherents of Messianic Judaism don't think they're heretical.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:07, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we allow for contradictions within the encyclopedia, Ermenrich. Thank you for pinging me. In my opinion our Categorization can be the embodiment of those contradictions. There is no avoiding this except by failing to address certain pieces of information that contradict one another. The reader has to be given a little credit—they are not deriving logic from our Categorization. They are using our Categorization as a navigational tool. If they see within a Category tree an article they might want to check out, they do so. They haven't signed up for a belief system by clicking on an article. Readers should be assumed to be more intelligent than us. But they can't locate one of our articles if they are not aware of it. So I favor implied contradictions in our Categorization process. And I also favor overCategorization where possible. You write "What I object to is saying as a category in Wikipedia's voice, that something is a heresy in Judaism." I don't think Categories "speak". We are not "saying" something "in Wikipedia's voice" by Categorizing. Bus stop (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Messianic Judaism believes in Jesus and is used to proselytize . There is no movement that considers them real Jews, and there are plenty of rs. But again, the categories are about heresy in Judaism, not heresy in Wikipedia. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:10, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - how is this not censorship, or somehow related to advocacy? Regardless of whether or not we agree with the editor, if they are adding material that is cited to RS, and it is relevant to the article, we should include it - especially if it's a different POV. That is called diversity and NPOV. WP doesn't own a single POV - we are not homogenous, and we don't/should not t-ban or block editors because we disagree with their POV. Arguing a point in a debate is not necessarily stonewalling - look at the opposition more closely - perhaps they are stonewalling to keep negative material out as in censorship, whitewashing, etc. especially when an editor has to present a valid argument to aggressive opposition. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:10, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, what reliable sources support his additions in Wikipedia's voice? Indeed, what non-wp:primary sources support his additions at all?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:15, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, please consider my list at WP:YWAB. If an editor was trying to say that scientific racism or flood geology described accepted science and that Wikipedia should present them as being true in the name of diversity, would you accuse those who oppose them of "stonewalling to keep negative material out as in censorship, whitewashing, etc."? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Do I really have to go over the Jewish principles of faith? Especially Maimonides' universally accepted 13 principles of faith! IZAK (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The Jewish principles of faith and Maimonides are both wp:primary sources. You can't use them to determine whether a group is heretical unless a wp:secondary source has said that group X says they're heretical, and then it can only be added with the bounds of wp:due. Try again.

To quote policy: Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source. Using Maimonides to decide whether a group is heretical is a clear violation of policy.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, I can't do your homework or your reading for you, please see Jewish principles of faith#References for all the secondary sources your heart desires, over 40 of them. See also Jewish principles of faith#Further reading, 16 of them, including many analyzing Maimonides' 13 principles of faith. So what's your problem? IZAK (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, what you are asking is a content issue, not a behavioral issue. The allegation of canvassing is misplaced - at least from my perspective. The editor was requesting collaboration for editing an article, and that is not canvassing. There weren't enough requests to call it spam. The allegation of aspersions is iffy - from that editor's perspective, you were being noncompliant with WP:OWN. They are just as entitled to express an opinion and speak as freely as you do and have done here. It appears to me that there is a conflict over scholarly perceptions of what actually took place historically. The 3 edits you provided as evidence of edit warring do not cross the line into edit warring unless there are restrictions on that particular article. We actually are allowed to cite primary sources per WP:PSTS but again, I'm not here to discuss content. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You are mistaken. No legitimate scholar thinks that what actually took place historically is what was described in the Bible. See The Exodus#Origins and historicity and Historicity of the Bible#Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy, that is a content issue and it belongs on the TP, not here. We should not be t-banning editors over their POV, and I am not seeing any disruption in the evidence provided as I outlined above. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme: This call for collaboration occurred after a portion of IZAK's edit was reverted, as seen here. While it wasn't a call to tilt favor in an active discussion, it's reasonable to examine the motive behind pinging like-minded editors to an article after being reverted. Was it an attempt to tip the balance of consensus, disrupting the normal consensus-building process? If so, that violates a core value at WP:CANVASSING and shouldn't be brushed aside and ignored. --GoneIn60 (talk) 05:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, GoneIn60 - we will simply have to disagree about the canvassing allegation because based on my perception of the guideline, he was not canvassing, he was requesting collaboration from editors "who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)". We are also allowed to request collaboration from "editors known for expertise in the field" or "who have asked to be kept informed". There was no RfC or survey in process that could have been construed as attempting to influence an outcome. His request was for collaborative help, and to assume otherwise does not align with WP:AGF. What I'm seeing is clearly a POV issue regarding content, and it concerns me that our PAGs are being incorrectly called into play in an effort to silence an opposing POV which completely goes against the very core of WP. My advice to those who oppose IZAK is to call an RfC regarding the material that either wants to be included or excluded, and when it closes, adhere to consensus. It is not difficult, and best of all, we could have avoided all this drama, don't you think? Bishonen imposed a month-long page block for IZAK which I believe was a reasonable decision in the effort to stop the drama and give IZAK a bit of time to gather his thoughts and approach to an article where there is so much opposition. If he has the scholarly sources to support the material he wants added, he can present it at a later date in an RfC and let the chips fall where they may. I think it would be a big mistake to t-ban a 17 year editor from an entire topic area based on this ANI request. And that is simply my perspective. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 10:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you overlooked the fact that I didn't take a position here. I was simply stating "it's reasonable to examine the motive", which is a step removed from a simple content dispute. To frame context around the action is to look at this objectively, not an act of bad faith. You've laid out a plausible explanation, and I don't necessarily disagree. The point was that it shouldn't be an automatic dismissal in the grand scheme of things. Also, pinging "concerned editors" is legit as long as care is taken not to select "on the basis of their opinions". If you want to widen participation, you cannot skew it in such a way that it tips the bias in your favor, especially not intentionally. It doesn't look like it ever had a chance to play out, as this ANI discussion began shortly after the pings. I'm content on making that point and moving on. --GoneIn60 (talk) 11:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Atsme, none of the editors IZAK notified has ever edited anything related to The Exodus or the article/its talkpage. If they had, I obviously wouldn't have accused him of canvassing. Unless you consider "Jewish topics in general" to be related to The Exodus, they also have never edited anything related to it. I ask this in all good faith: how do you figure that these other editors were previously involved with The Exodus? I respect you and your opinions, and I genuinely would like to know your reasoning.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi, Ermenrich, thank you for the kind words, and please know that I reciprocate the sentiment. I believe closely related topics would include anything central to Judaism, Israel and/or Jewish prayer, so I used the editor interaction tool to see what types of articles were of interest to both the contacted editors and IZAK. The results confirmed related topics. I'm of the mind that it is acceptable to ask 5 or 6 editors who have collaborated on related topics to help improve an article. The latter is important for editors to know because it is easy to misconstrue the intent of our canvassing guideline, not to mention the fact that nothing resulted from it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Do you know why they avoid editing articles that you think you WP:OWN? Because they are afraid of getting into arguments with editors like yourself who will then attack them for their scholarly contributions. They are humble and lack my chutzpa aka WP:BEBOLD and WP:IGNOREALLRULES (within reason of course)! I know for a fact that editors like @Ibn Daud:@Ar2332:@SamsonKriger:@Yoninah:@תנא קמא: would be able to and VERY HAPPY to contribute of their immense depth of Jewish and Torah scholarship to Hebrew Bible articles but they avoid getting their heads blown off by secular Biblical criticism editors, as you can see happened to me here. So it is fear that keeps them away, and I was trying to bring them out of their cover and not have to live in fear on WP as if they were "Wikipedia Marranos". IZAK (talk) 17:03, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@IZAK: you're making me regret merely pageblocking you. I have siteblocked IZAK for 48 hours for the above intemperate, insulting and battleground-y post. Bishonen | tålk 17:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC).

• Support This is an encyclopedia, not an advocacy platform for one group of believers in an imaginary sky wizard to push their (mostly offensive) personal beliefs about other groups of believers in imaginary sky wizards. I can accurately guess what would happen if we started adding similar categories to the opposer's above pet articles. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Only in death—Wikipedia isn't a creative writing project. There are no references to "imaginary sky wizards" in this discussion. If you wish to weigh in, it might be helpful if you stayed on topic and provided links to possibly farfetched references such as "imaginary sky wizards". Bus stop (talk) 16:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• I will give your comment the consideration it deserves. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Only in death When writing encyclopedia articles, we include sourced negative comments about religion when relevant , no matter how rude. But in discussions about contributors' behavior we avoid insulting people or groups; religious groups as much as national groups or ethnic groups. Nor do we discuss other contributors' personal religious or political beliefs. Your comment is so far out of line that were I not already involved in this discussion I would consider a block. DGG ( talk ) 21:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support I do not agree with dismissive comments about others' faiths made by some other supporters – if nothing else, they are beside the point – but I believe a topic ban is necessary, per the reasons presented by Cullen, Boing! and Ohnoitsjamie. --bonadea contributions talk 15:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Bonadea: Does that mean you also support the annihilation of all in Category:Criticism of Christianity, Category:Criticism of Buddhism, Category:Criticism of Hinduism, Category:Criticism of Islam and of course we do have Category:Criticism of Judaism etc etc etc???!!!IZAK (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
    • No. --bonadea contributions talk 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Bonadea—within an enlightened framework, which presumably describes the framework of a general purpose reference work such as Wikipedia, "faith" can never be "dismissive" of "faith". Do you see any "dismissive comments about others' faiths made by some other supporters"? I don't. Bus stop (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Bus stop: Apologies for being unclear; by "supporters" I meant "editors supporting a topic ban", not "supporters of a particular faith". All I meant was that derogatory comments about the world views of other editors is not conducive to a constructive discussion. --bonadea contributions talk 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• But where did anyone make "derogatory comments about the world views of other editors", Bonadea? Could you link to that? Bus stop (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

For the record, as there's a "per Boing" here, I've reversed my position and I now oppose a ban. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose per Sir Joseph's argument above. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 17:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support : Per the conversation between proposer and subject at beginning of this section. That's the most egregious religious POV pushing (and WP:IDHT) I have seen on wiki in ages. Heiro 17:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support WP:NOTSOAPBOX: Wikipedia is not the place to engage in religious disputes or other forms of POV pushing, and clearly this editor has repeatedly engaged in such behaviour in this area. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support per WP:OVERCAT and reasons stated by Cullen328. Also IZAK responses indicate a lack of willingness to WP:LISTEN to the community. Per my first comment above, this is something I wanted to deescalate and avoid, but now believe it is the correct choice.   // Timothy :: talk  18:20, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I will add that I think IZAK is completely acting in good faith with no ill will at all.   // Timothy :: talk  18:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone familiar for over a decade with IZAK's contributions doubts his good faith. They worry that at times, his faith - and the rule applies to all editors who have fundamentalist commitments (which they have a perfects right to) gets in the way of good edits to a global and neutral encyclopedic project. There is nothing personal about this.Nishidani (talk) 18:35, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Nishidani, I definitely agree. But since I had not interacted with IZAK before this, I didn't want him to think otherwise about my comment.   // Timothy :: talk 

Let me pile on and say that I also am convinced that IZAK is editing in good faith and is an overall extremely positive asset to the encyclopedia. It fact, I hope that after this cloes he will be open to working with me to improve the Eruv and KosherSwitch articles. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose full topic ban. As mentioned even by those supporting the ban, IZAK edits in good faith, and has the fortitude to enter areas of Wikipedia which have caused enormous burn out. They are also "watched" by many editors—both those who may agree or disagree with the positions in question, and I, for one, am somewhat concerned about rote piling on. I would suggest that for the next x-amount of time (month?) IZAK should consider not making any possibly controversial edits until they are discussed on the talk page. ANd discussion means both sides discuss the merits, not a simple denial because it is IZAK. I think it is a net detriment to the project to lose the efforts of a productive editor that a topic ban would force. I'd rather see more discussion prior to edits, by anyone for that matter, but as the case here discusses IZAK, we can start with him. -- Avi (talk) 19:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

If the ban were to apply to Judaism, I'd underwrite every word above. I think it's about heresy in Judaism, that's a very restricted field really, and abstention from it would not reduce his productivity. Certainly on Judaism, he undoubtedly has much to offer. The vexed potential issue is the area of historical articles regarding the Bible. I think he just has to take on board that, modern historical approaches leave traditionalists of all faiths and creeds uneasy, and that there is little scope for challenging reliable academic specialist sources, 99% of which (many of them, need one add, from the superb professorial ranks of teachers of Jewish studies) accept that literalist or orthodox interpretations are fine within communities, but not appropriate to encyclopedic studies.(Nice to see you around, by the way, Avi) I refrain from voting either way on this kind of issue because a vote from me would look, inevitably, political or otherwise. Nishidani (talk) 20:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban from Judaism I think IZAK is an extremely good contributor in that area. It is only when he pushes pseudoscience or attacks other religions / other branches of his religion that I have a problem with his edits. A wise closing admin should be able to craft wording that doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Has anyone proposed topic banning him from Judaism? That was certainly not my intention.—Ermenrich (talk) 21:04, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I was just responding to the "If the ban were to apply to Judaism..." hypothetical above. I doubt that it would get a single supporter if it became a proposal. I also realize that having your behavior discussed in ANI can be quite stressful, and I wanted to make my high opinion of IZAK outside of the areas of religious pseudoscience and labeling religions as heresy crystal clear. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:11, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment to the closer - Would the closer please take care to differentiate between !votes which are about a hypothetical ban from Judaism as a whole, which no one has actually proposed, and those !votes which pertain to the actual proposal under discussion. Thank you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support - But only a simple ban on using the heresy in Judaism category tag. There's no evidence of major problems beyond this, certainly not in the whole field of Judaism. For now, just make sure that this user can no longer add the heresy in Judaism tag to any articles.Homemade Pencils (talk) 02:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

*Oppose any ban. Wikipedia isn't censored. Argumentation is normal within Judaism. Snowflakes oppose frankness and forcefulness of argument. There is something to be said for speaking plainly. Bus stop (talk) 02:07, 15 June 2020 (UTC) (Striking vote. Sorry. I voted twice.)

Wikipedia isn't the place fight sectarian battles. And who are you calling snowflakes? Heiro 02:19, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Please clarify: what "sectarian battles" are you referring to? Bus stop (talk) 02:28, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You said "Argumentation is normal within Judaism.", I'm merely noting Wikipedia is not the place for it. Now, which editors are you calling snowflakes? Heiro 02:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

One of the meanings for "snowflake" found at wiktionary is "someone who is too sensitive". Are we going to topic ban someone for engaging in normal rough-and-tumble of argumentation, and for representing those places where Judaism finds irreconcilable differences—represented by the word "heretical"? Bus stop (talk) 02:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum for arguing about doctrinal matters, but most importantly Wikipedia is definitely not the place to present the opinion of one religious group about another in Wikipedia's voice. It would be ok for Christian Judaism to include a properly-sourced sentence stating the opinion of traditional Judaism about that sect, but it is definitely not ok to label it as heretical by categorisation. That is an abuse of the category system. Zero^talk 03:12, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Zero0000, A category called "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism" is not in Wikipedia's voice, it's a category for Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. Are we now to strip all the Christian Heresy categories? What about this article? List_of_heresies_in_the_Catholic_Church Isn't that offensive to those who practice it? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

No, it is not an "abuse of the category system", Zero0000. The Category system can tolerate contradiction. And no one is "arguing about doctrinal matters". Do you seriously think that "heresy" cannot be represented in our Category system? How could it matter if two groups each call one another "heretical"? That is not in Wikipedia's voice. The Categorization system does not have a voice. Yes, the "implications" are present, but we have a choice—we either studiously avoid "implied" contradictions within our Category system, or we accurately represent the views of each of two subsets of Judaism. I favor representing reliably sourced information. I don't think it is all that important that our Category system may appear to be contradictory. The Category system is a navigation tool; it assists readers in finding articles they may be interested in. Omitting contradictions means not apprising readers via the Category tree of articles related to a subject area they are interested in. Bus stop (talk) 04:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop: Note that the category is named "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism", not "Movements considered heretical by Orthodox Judaism" which would at least indicate whose opinion it is. I still wouldn't like it much, though. Will the article on Orthodox Judaism soon sport a category stating the opinion of Reform Judaism? Will the article Haredi Judaism soon belong to a category giving a highly unflattering characterisation by secular Jews? There are Christian movements which think that Jews have the choice between converting and going to hell; can't they have categories expressing their opinions too? Why not? There is lots of labeling fun to be had by all. I say nip this practice in the bud right now. Zero^talk 05:42, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You are asking a farfetched question when you ask "Will the article on Orthodox Judaism soon sport a category stating the opinion of Reform Judaism?" There is no concept of "heresy" within Reform Judaism. But within Orthodox Judaism there is a concept of "heresy". So, why wouldn't there be a Category "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism"? Bus stop (talk) 09:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I said "the opinion of Reform Judaism", nothing about heresy. The point doesn't rely on what the opinion is. Zero^talk 10:28, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

We would not have a Category for a mere "opinion", Zero0000. You are taking issue with Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism, are you not? The concept of Heresy is not found in Reform Judaism. Hypothetically, supposing there was a category for "abstract art of 20th century Italy". Would there be a category of "abstract art of 15th century Italy"? Why not? Because the flourishing of abstract art is thought to have arisen in the 20th century in many countries including Italy. You say "Will the article on Orthodox Judaism soon sport a category stating the opinion of Reform Judaism?" It can't. We don't have opinions as a parameter for categorization. By way of contrast, "heresy" is actually an institutionalized concept in Orthodox Judaism. It makes sense to have a Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. The existence of a Category "Heresy in Orthodox Judaism" is not saying anything "in Wikipedia's voice", as you or others have termed it. The Category serves the very constructive purpose of allowing readers to sort through the articles in that Category. This is the navigational purpose that Categorization is supposed to serve. Bus stop (talk) 15:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

A doctrine of a particular religious group is an opinion, no question. Anyway, you are avoiding my general point by picking on the details on one of several examples I gave. Zero^talk 15:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Zero0000—I only addressed your first example, that is true. You also asked "Will the article Haredi Judaism soon belong to a category giving a highly unflattering characterisation by secular Jews?" We don't categorize by "highly unflattering characterisation[s]". The contrast is even greater here than in your first example. We cannot possibly say that there is an institutionalized concept of "heresy" among secular Jews. These are insubstantial opinions shared on a whim by a small percentage of secular Jews. We don't categorize by virtually meaningless parameters. Bus stop (talk) 15:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

But you are proposing that the highly unflattering characterisation "heresy" by one Jewish group against another is ok. "Institutionalized concept" is a strawman that you introduced; why should one group care whether the other group's insults are institutionalized or not? Zero^talk 16:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Zero0000, it's a categorization according to that group. We don't censor Wikipedia. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:24, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The "not censored" argument is the weakest given here. Nobody that I can see, certainly not me, has suggested that Wikipedia shouldn't report what Orthodox Judaism considers heretical. We do however require some things of our edits, such as that opinions be attributed and sourced. What I object to is using the category system as a device to avoid those requirements. Zero^talk 17:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Zero0000: So the correct and rational solution (according to you and User:Ermenrich) to this situation should have been a broad WP:CFD which is done all the time on WP with a solid discussion to follow (as happened with Heresy in Orthodox Judaism now), and definitely not an unfounded vendetta against me simply because I express myself strongly, yet I always abide by WP:NPOV, because I was just following up posting the categories of Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism and Category:Heresy in Judaism based on the content in the two articles Heresy in Judaism and Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. IZAK (talk) 22:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You aren't here because of "an unfounded vendetta against you simply because you express yourself strongly". Many editors express themselves strongly -- some with opinions far more unpopular than yours -- on article talk pages and user talk pages without ever ending up at ANI. You are here because of [A] Your edits to articles and categories, and [B] your being unwilling or unable to accept the advice of the many editors who have tried to explain to you what you are doing that is unacceptable to the Wikipedia community. You are here because you have made it crystal clear that you will not change your behavior unless forced to do so by a block or topic ban. The only question is the exact nature of the topic ban needed to stop your unacceptable behavior. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Just because you are now expressing yourself stridently, does not make your so-called allegations "right". This is A A Wikipedia WP:CONTENTDISPUTE over two categories Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism based on the Heresy in Orthodox Judaism article (which I did not write) and Category:Heresy in Judaism based on the Heresy in Judaism article (which I did not write). B A simple WP:CFD would have sufficed to resolve the issue in a WP:CIVIL manner, which I have abided by in a concomitant WP:AFD for Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. C No "behavioral" issues are present in this segment of the topic ban discussion. D This is an attempt to override the clear rules of WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:BEBOLD. Finally, I will continue by citing this, as per User:Atsme (the alphabetization is mine): "E how is this not censorship, or somehow related to advocacy? Regardless of whether or not we agree with the editor, if they are adding material that is cited to RS, and it is relevant to the article, we should include it - especially if it's a different POV. F That is called diversity and NPOV. WP doesn't own a single POV - we are not homogenous, and G we don't/should not t-ban or block editors because we disagree with their POV. Arguing a point in a debate is not necessarily stonewalling - look at the opposition more closely - perhaps they are stonewalling to keep negative material out as in censorship, whitewashing, etc. especially when an editor has to present a valid argument to aggressive opposition....Ermenrich, H what you are asking is a content issue, not a behavioral issue. I The allegation of canvassing is misplaced - at least from my perspective. The editor was requesting collaboration for editing an article, and that is not canvassing. There weren't enough requests to call it spam. J The allegation of aspersions is iffy - from that editor's perspective, you were being noncompliant with WP:OWN. They are just as entitled to express an opinion and speak as freely as you do and have done here. K It appears to me that there is a conflict over scholarly perceptions of what actually took place historically. L The 3 edits you provided as evidence of edit warring do not cross the line into edit warring unless there are restrictions on that particular article. We actually are allowed to cite primary sources per WP:PSTS but again, I'm not here to discuss content." IZAK (talk) 02:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment final comment here, Izak's edits were marked "offensive", there is a list article called List_of_heresies_in_the_Catholic_Church and under the section of 20th Century Movements are several heretical movements practiced by people worldwide, for example, Santa_Muerte, I think people who practice Santa Muerte would be offended that their religion is on a list of heresies. Goose, gander, anyone? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sir Joseph: A list article is quite different from a category. A properly written list article on movements considered heretical by traditional Judaism would be acceptable. The difference is that an article allows (in fact, mandates) attribution and sourcing of opinions, whereas a category doesn't provide for either attribution or sourcing. The category for heresy in Catholicism (which I wasn't aware of until now) has similar problems to the Jewish category. Zero^talk 05:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a content dispute, being played out on ANI instead of a RFC or the category's talk page. IZAK is on the wrong side here on some of the content, but that's a matter for discussion and consensus building and not ANI.--Hippeus (talk) 10:21, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support the specific ban on the heresy label, per Boing and reinforced by the ongoing bludgeoning and Izak's responses in this very thread. Grandpallama (talk) 12:34, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  For the record, as there's a "per Boing" here, I've reversed my position and I now oppose a ban. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Is there any reason why we are all doing something merely because the OP finds something offensive? "This is offensive to Christians, obviously, and there is no defense for it, just because you dislike Messianic Judaism" as the OP repeatedly said? That is his reason for the TBAN, and many of the supports. Yet, that is not a policy, nor a reason to TBAN someone. If anything, this is a content dispute, but to TBAN someone because they are adding something to a category based on what you deem offensive, is wrong. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:35, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't find any specific mention of Christianity in Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. I don't think the existence of that Category is offensive to anyone—not to non-Orthodox Jews, and not to Christians. Wikipedia isn't censored. Why can't we Categorize by what Orthodox Jews think constitutes "heresy"? The reader should be apprised, via the Category tree, of articles that may pertain to the Orthodox Jewish concept of "heresy". Bus stop (talk) 16:50, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  Bus stop, what about this article? Heresy_in_Christianity_in_the_modern_era#Heresy_in_the_Catholic_Church Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:53, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

These are just concepts, wherever they they are found, and whoever issues them. And the Categorization system does not constitute an assertion. At most the categorization system constitutes an implication. But this is necessary if readers are to track down information. Bus stop (talk) 17:01, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd be the last person to defend Christianity, but from memory, no one there is obliged in a statutory prayer to curse heretics every day.Nishidani (talk) 17:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Nor does Orthodox Judaism curse heretics every day as part of statutory prayer, Nishidani, but I don't know how that would be on-topic even if it were accurate. Bus stop (talk) 17:40, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It does actually, at least anyone who recites the Amidah. Basically, I've thought right throughout this that this was IZAK's problem with the category, why he was so convinced it was proper, because it is inscribed in daily prayer. But we don't need to elaborate here.Nishidani (talk) 18:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• NOTE: Judaism's view of Christianity: it is not Jewish@Nishidani:@Zero0000:@Ermenrich: Please take note, that Category:Heresy in Judaism and Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism do not apply to non-Jewish religions such as Christianity and Islam which are different non-Jewish religions, practiced by non-Jews (gentiles) outside of and independent of Judaism. Heresy in Judaism however would apply to the early Nazarene (sect) who "were an early Christian sect in first-century Judaism" as the article about them says. The Apostles and Jesus were Jews who accepted Jesus as the Jewish messiah, and so therefore Jesus is added to List of messiah claimants and it is difficult to put the word "heresy" on them because in their time there was the potential for a messianic claim but that was not proven true over time. But as far as Christianity and Islam are concerned they are not regarded as heretical movements within Judaism, just other religions practiced by non-Jews (gentiles) that Judaism does not accept. In fact Maimonides rules that there is a positive purpose to both Christianity and Islam in that they prepare the world for the notion of the future Messianic Age to come. IZAK (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support a broad topic-ban. Some people in here seem to be trying to argue this is just a content dispute, but that disregards how we got here to begin with; the issue is obviously conduct with regards to edit-warring, POV-pushing, and canvassing. Editors can reasonably differ on how to interpret or represent the sources, but if they're going to wade into controversial topics they need to sometime show a modicum of caution or restraint. In that regard, trying to argue that virtually every Jewish denomination but one ought to be labeled as heretical in the article voice would already be so inappropriately far from WP:NPOV that it would raise alarms, but to do so on top of all the other conduct issues only throws their aggressive efforts at POV-pushing into stark relief. IZUK's own statements here (which aggressively defend the patiently absurd use of categories to push a point-of-view, defend edit warring by taking WP:3RR as a guarentee, and defend plainly inappropraite comments like [45] by effectively saying "Well, I didn't literally use the word antisemite") all indicate that this isn't going to be resolved on its own. --Aquillion (talk) 21:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • You make no sense and your POV was already refuted above, as per User:Atsme "how is this not censorship, or somehow related to advocacy? Regardless of whether or not we agree with the editor, if they are adding material that is cited to RS, and it is relevant to the article, we should include it - especially if it's a different POV. That is called diversity and NPOV. WP doesn't own a single POV - we are not homogenous, and we don't/should not t-ban or block editors because we disagree with their POV. Arguing a point in a debate is not necessarily stonewalling - look at the opposition more closely - perhaps they are stonewalling to keep negative material out as in censorship, whitewashing, etc. especially when an editor has to present a valid argument to aggressive opposition....Ermenrich, what you are asking is a content issue, not a behavioral issue. The allegation of canvassing is misplaced - at least from my perspective. The editor was requesting collaboration for editing an article, and that is not canvassing. There weren't enough requests to call it spam. The allegation of aspersions is iffy - from that editor's perspective, you were being noncompliant with WP:OWN. They are just as entitled to express an opinion and speak as freely as you do and have done here. It appears to me that there is a conflict over scholarly perceptions of what actually took place historically. The 3 edits you provided as evidence of edit warring do not cross the line into edit warring unless there are restrictions on that particular article. We actually are allowed to cite primary sources per WP:PSTS but again, I'm not here to discuss content." IZAK (talk) 21:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. IZAK, over the years, has proven himself to be a level-headed contributor that adds a special touch and dimension to our online encyclopedia, with broad knowledge in Jewish-related topics. His contributions, in my view, are invaluable to this encyclopedia. And while we all might differ on specific issues, there is always given a certain amount of hearing / recourse to these views, and they can be debated openly on the respective Talk-Pages, without hindering or jeopardizing the editor's overall good standing and useful contributions.Davidbena (talk) 00:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose any ban for IZAK. This is a content dispute. So for once IZAK was wrong at most points. Let me summarize my observations. Ideally, the heresy in Judaism article would suffice. Since Orthodox Judaism is most concerned with heresy this is a legitimate spin-off but someone -not IZAK- started such an article too early. Now it has grown a bit too much but it is a valid article after some trimming.

The validity of the article doesn't mean it should have a category. In fact, it shouldn't and its category should be merged with Heresy in Judaism in which the Orthodox heresy article is just an item. Other religions are not at all defined by Judaism in general. Orthodox Judaism does not define other parts of Judaism or other religions (well it does for its own purposes but not for ours). This includes Karaite Judaism and Samaritanism, all forms of Christianity, Islam, etc. Two exceptions I know are "Messianic Judaism" and "Jews for Jesus" as these without base claim to be part of Judaism (the former more than the latter), including in their names. If we keep these movements at these names, it should be written loud and clear that these are not part of Judaism, including in the first paragraph of their articles. This was a small digression of Judaism defining other religions in order not to be imprecise. There are also Frankism and Sabbateans, already subcats of the heresy in Judaism category. These could be included as historic movements. Yet no added value to rehashing these in the cat system. It can be mentioned in the articles that Orthodox Judaism views certain movements as heresy, given sufficient V and RS.

Per small cat, after removing the excessive items, there is no justification for the Heresy in Orthodox Judaism category. I will be happy to propose a merger. Beyond the nondefining part, heresy is not the same as heresies in our categorization system. The plural is reserved for the cases of heresy (compare to comedy for the art form and comedies for the items). These cases are by default nondefining.

Nothing of all this belongs in the ANI. IZAK is one of our best contributors. He does sometimes get carried away a bit but then again who doesn't? ANI just isn't the answer to content disputes. gidonb (talk) 02:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Gidonb and Davidbena: - how in the world does one of our best contributors, who is level-headed with invaluable contributions, make the following claim [46]? IZAK believes that an 81-word addition, equivalent to a ~5% expansion, with no references added, some of it is possibly original research, [47] constitutes major improvements to an article at AfD (that article being Heresy in Orthodox Judaism). This is a totally compromised judgement, the utter opposite of level headed. starship.paint (talk) 03:03, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

So, if he he erred, reprimand him. Is that a reason to ban him altogether from editing in this area? Who doesn't err? I have seen many of IZAK's other contributions, and only with rare exception are they controversial (as in this case where he did not not add any references). The simple fact that we are all calling his attention to his blunder, he will now take the necessary precautions the next time around. That's my personal view. I am not quick to discredit an editor whose overall motives are good.Davidbena (talk) 03:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Davidbena: - this wasn't IZAK's additions. It was someone else's additions which IZAK said were major improvements. Regardless of motives, dramatic errors in judgment can be disruptive. starship.paint (talk) 03:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Starship.paint, and that is a reason to TBAN someone? He said that someone's edits were "major improvements" and they weren't? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph - you have barred me from your talk page, yet you wish me to reply to you here? I thought you had enough of me. starship.paint (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Starship.paint, That didn't answer my question. You are using that as a reason to TBAN someone and this isn't my talk page, this is ANI. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:16, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph - I’ll answer your question after you remove the restriction. starship.paint (talk) 15:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Starship.paint, I'd rather not, as you see from your behavior here shows. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

So it is, Sir Joseph, that’s fine with me. If anyone else wants to know my answer, just ping me and ask. starship.paint (talk) 15:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Starship.paint, sorry but these are extremely weak claims. He may have exaggerated a bit but this is extremely common when people try to make a case. It is well covered by my next statement "He does sometimes get carried away a bit but then again who doesn't?" If this is your strongest defense, then you're confirming my point that this should not have been an incident, let alone that any action is in order. I say "if" because I'm always open to my own mistakes and these of others. I'm happy to look into stronger arguments. Incidents take valuable resources away from content development and improvement and need to be opened as a last resort. I rarely if ever opened one as a Wikipedian for 17 years. Believe me, people have annoyed me at discussions. On a rare occasion, this has included IZAK for his 12 point responses. ANI is not the place for minor issues. gidonb (talk) 03:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nope. He's a primary sourcer, as often as not, and that means allowing one vast scope for going directing to a text in the tradition and citing it to support one's personal view as an orthodox person. How on earth can one talk of heresy in orthodox Judaism when so much of Judaism has had a complex history of internal dispute as to what constitutes heresy. Compare Moses Hagiz, to name one of many, or the standard orthodox view before 1948 that Zionism had heretical elements (now changed in the majority of orthodox views). You can't sort out issues like this by citing primary sources, or creating categories which preempt independent judgments.Nishidani (talk) 12:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

This is a stronger argument but it does not take us out of the bracket of content dispute. You are an expert on certain sources. IZAK is on others. All are relevant. You guys need to talk and cooperate to move this domain forward. Below you are making a start. That is a good development. gidonb (talk) 11:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I beg to differ. It is not a content dispute. It is a dispute about how Wikipedia policy works in the practical use of sources. In my experience no content from antiquity can be cited except in the context of what expert secondary scholarship work on it states: who authors it doesn't matter, suffice it that they are peer-reviewed. I guess the only way I can illustrate this is by taking a sensitive topic in this area, and showing how one can do it thoroughly without ever independently using the primary sources, only qualified secondary sources that examine them. In my view, one can have a masterly grasp of primary sources and make serious errors. Scholars not infrequently do so, and are corrected by their peers. We can't allow people to read the Qur'an, or Thomas Aquinas, or Maimonides, and then cite them directly as if this were encyclopedic, for the simple reason that such texts are enveloped in a web of commentary that modifies, reconstructs, or annotates obscurities or contradictions which a reading of the primary text won't tell you about. If a fundamentalist reads Genesis 1:1 and assumes it automatically means that was the beginning of the world, they are espousing unwittingly an assumption, one ignorant of Rashi’s analysis of the text as a construct construction, which means absolute creation began earlier. Both what he and the medieval exegetes who followed him argued still requires, to be understood, modern critical scholarship to clarify the difficulties that this text gives rise to. If we don't observe this rule, then IZAK becomes our reeident authority on the meaning of Talmudic texts and later commentaries, just as I might then barge in as the Sir Oracle of subjects I know a lot about. No. Neither of us counts, compared to what the peer-reviewed scholarship argues, and that, note, is often at loggerheads, leaving us only the option of describing differences of interpretation (not on Exodus though).Nishidani (talk) 12:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• NOTE to @Starship.paint:@Guy Macon:@Nishidani: You are making a mountain out of a molehill because 1 WP articles are not created perfectly ex nihilo, they are usually written incrementally, first an editor will write something without sources, a second editor will then add WP:RS, a third editor will then WP:WIKIFY the article and so on and so forth over and over again until a proper article emerges. 2 My editorial record on WP is superb, just looking at a few excellent articles I created in the last year in Category:Jewish history such as History of the Jews in Angola [48], History of the Jews in Malawi [49], History of the Jews in Eswatini [50], History of the Jews in the Isle of Man [51], History of the Jews in Artsakh [52], and many others too many to cite here. But this should put to rest any false allegations against me. IZAK (talk) 12:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@IZAK: - if you are doing good work on the history of the Jews in somewhere, please do continue. Hopefully, the topic ban on heresies will not encroach on that, but instead make you focus on areas where you can make positive contributions. Also, if these articles are as good as they say you are, you should offer them for GA and FA. starship.paint (talk) 14:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear IZAK. I only checked one datum in one article (Angola), and the source you used, that on Paulo Dias de Novais, of whom you write that historians say he was "Jewish" , adding in brackets a WP:OR gloss '(probably meaning "Crypto-Jewish" or a Converso of some sort). Some historians turns out to be one historian, David Birmingham. Since the suggestion that a fidalgo of the Portuguese court, accompanying a Jesuit mission, and known to be a godfather at baptism of Angolan indigenous royalty, was a crypto-Jew was interesting, I looked into it also because there's a fine distinction, often appallingly ignored, to be made between acrypto-Jew and the Cristão-Novo. I checked the Portuguese wikibio, and there is no mention of this. Many in the Atlantic trade were either 'crypto-Jews' or practicing Catholics of Jewish descent, an important distinction. At least one of the men Dias de Novais brought with him was a 'new Christian' (Duarte Lopez), which can't be glossed as a crypto-Jew unless there is proof. These new Christians (not crypto-Jews) were the primary merchants in the Atlantic trade at that time (Jared Staller , Converging on Cannibals: Terrors of Slaving in Atlantic Africa, 1509–1670, Ohio University Press 2019 p.60). So I read a chapter in Linda M. Heywood's Njinga of Angola (HUP)2017, and there is no mention of it there either. She has him crediting his military victories to the 'Blessed Virgin Mary', and states nothing he did was undertaken without first consulting the Jesuit priests. His whole campaign, among his own troops, and the Africans was infused with the usual Catholic intensities (pp.30-33)

This to illustrate that just googling Jews+country to get stuff (unpaginated) is parlous. I'm glad you wrote those articles, but the method used leaves a large number of problems that could have easily been avoided by the usual multiple source control of each and every datum. People out there rely on us to do this pernickety legwork. I hope you can use this to correct the error.Nishidani (talk) 14:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Nishidani, thanks for the thorough feedback, as usual. Feel free to make the improvements you feel are needed. My point was to show that I am not "married" to primary sources work only. It is one hell of a job writing new articles with good content that are readable, I welcome cooperation and input from other editors at all times. IZAK (talk) 15:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll dump the note on the relevant talk page for someone to use. I'm just too busy offline to do much at the moment. If I touch the article, knowing my character, I'd probably end up feeling obliged to go through it top to bottom for two days. Nishidani (talk) 16:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support a topic ban, per Cullen and others. Way too much soapboxing and problematic sourcing--never mind the myth thing. Drmies (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose topic ban, delete the category Heresy in Judaism instead. Problem solved.Smeat75 (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. I was really on the fence up until now, but the sheer amount of WP:BLUDGEON going on here, combined with IZAK's refusal to listen to anyone else & insistence that his WP:EXPERT view is the only reasonable one, means I cannot see anything short of a topic ban improving the situation. I have no issue with the existence of the category itself, especially on pages about topics that Orthodox Judaism considers heretical within their faith. But the idea that it's okay to place a "heretic" category on the page of rival sects is poorly thought-out. Insisting that it's okay because of WP:NOTCENSORED is baffling. And claiming that a CFD is the solution is just maddeningly off the mark. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:38, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

And now IZAK had to be blocked because of this personal attack. That says it all: IZAK believes himself to be "protecting" this area from anyone who disagrees with his viewpoint, and paints his side as persecuted Jews. This WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality is not something that can be fixed by deleting a single category, and clearly IZAK has no intention of backing down. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support narrowly defined topic ban from "heresy in Judaism" for two reasons. (does seem problematic, but possibly not to the level of a topic ban). First, labeling non-religious Jews as heretics is indeed problematic [53]. Secondly, this is really a huge disruption based on the number of comments above. Something must be done about it. But having the category Heresy in Judaism is fine. My very best wishes (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose The efforts by IZAK have always been to describe those entities that are described by reliable and verifiable sources as Heresy in Judaism or Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. Of course no one likes to be labeled as a heretic, but the facts that there are entities that are deemed heretical is undeniable. If the issue is with the category deal with it there. If the issue is that the entities have not been labeled as heresy as backed by reliable and verifiable sources, then discuss it on the article's take page. But this topic ban is intended to inappropriately censor IZAK. The facts simply don't justify a topic ban. Alansohn (talk) 18:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

No, they are NOT described by reliable and verifiable sources as Heresy in Judaism or Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. That's the problem. Do you really belive that Cultural Judaism is ubdeniably a Heresy as this diff/edit suggests? Any RS to support such assertion? There is none on the page. Note that other numrous similar edits by the contributor (at the very top of this thread) were also just like that. My very best wishes (talk) 01:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

My very best wishes, you utterly miss the point I made and yet make it for me at the same time. As I stated above, ".. the facts that there are entities that are deemed heretical is undeniable. If the issue is with the category deal with it there. If the issue is that the entities have not been labeled as heresy as backed by reliable and verifiable sources, then discuss it on the article's take page." There *ARE* entities that are deemed heretical by Judaism and / or Orthodox Judaism. If there are articles, where the category was placed without the reliable and verifiable sourcing that would satisfy you, the place to discuss that is on the article's talk page. Alansohn (talk) 17:42, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps topic ban is too harsh. My very best wishes (talk) 17:55, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

While there are other venues available for individual issues, this is the right place to discuss allegations of disruptive behavior within a certain topic area and possible remedies such as a WP:TBAN. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. If another sect of Judaism is considered heretical by Orthodox Judaism, it should be placed in a Category for "considered heretical by Orthodox Judaism" or some such language. Christianity definitely should not be placed in such a Category. It is a separate religion. But those articles on subjects that are related to Judaism and that are considered heretical by Orthodox Judaism should be placed in such a Category. This is entirely appropriate. Nobody should be offended. This is informational. It makes navigating the Category tree more productive. And Wikipedia is not censored. Bus stop (talk) 22:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Bus stop: - you voted twice. Please strike one of your votes. starship.paint (talk) 01:07, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Starship.paint: - Yes. I have struck my earlier vote. My error. Thanks. Bus stop (talk) 02:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• This (User talk:IZAK#Policy proposals) is kinda insane. He's seriously proposing a WP:POLICY change that would give preference/precedence to what happens to be his personal religious beliefs over secular/mainstream sources in articles. Heiro 02:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not "insane" at all, Heironymous Rowe. Wikipedia can address cultural topics as well. I am considering religion to be a cultural topic. We wouldn't want someone not interested in art coming along and arguing "that's not a bowl of plums, it's just some paint". Bus stop (talk) 03:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• "I am going to make my 10 points a beacon for anyone who wants to know what Judaism has to say on a subject, I cannot impose it on anyone, even though maybe one day when the Jewish Messiah comes it will become real WP policy, until then we will have you and others adding in their comments." [54] Yeah, totally rational. Heiro 18:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 2

• Support topic ban per Cullen, Warshy, HandThatFeeds, and others, relating to "heresy in Judaism" and "heresy in Orthodox Judaism". After careful consideration, I believe this is the right move. The comments here and elsewhere by IZAK are consistently combative and demeaning in nature, particularly as of late. Here's just a sample:

Recent CFD regarding Hebrew names of Jewish holy days

• In response to a cordial editor's concerns, there was unwarranted condescension:

"Elementary my dear Watson..."

• Extreme lack of good faith toward the nom:

"so what does the nominator have against Hebrew names of Jewish holidays?!" — "Wow! Now that your proposal is going down the drain, you want to turn WP policies on their head and just get your way because you are angry! Pity!"

• Combative comments (Laurel Lodged's !vote):

"You're kidding, right?!", "...not as chauvinistic, than you make it out to be" — "...so much for English jingoism on WP. So give us a break..."

• More combativeness on display (Carlossuarez46's !vote):

"so what are you going on about?"

WP:Articles for deletion/Heresy in Orthodox Judaism

• Simply disturbing and uncalled for:

"By marginalizing huge mainstream Haredi and Orthodox movements the author reveals his anti-Haredi and even anti-Orthodox prejudices that would explain why he is doing this on grounds of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and nothing else."

• Invoking WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:ALLORNOTHING principles to refute arguments:

"if there is a true difference even according to him, then surely there needs to be a different set of articles ... the nominator wishes to demolish"

Granted, some of these are quite mild and exist outside of the heresy conversation, but when taken as a whole, the developing pattern is concerning and quickly leading into tendentious and uncivil territory. They are catching unsuspecting editors by surprise and immediately placing them on the defensive. It's important to note these are just recent examples. The further back I looked, the fewer I came across and the more IZAK interacted well with others. A narrow ban would serve as a wake-up call, that it's not in their best interest to venture further down this path. It was hard for me originally to see this as more than just a content dispute, but the behavior on this page and in these examples show otherwise. The aggressive, knee-jerk responses and walls of text are not conducive to a collaborative environment. Unless something changes, the drain on valuable community time and resources is likely to increase.

On a final note, the lite canvassing that occurred at the CFD I linked to above is unacceptable, and cannot be deflected by the excuse of "concerned editors". Neutral notices in neutral locations need to be the way forward, and if that vote-stacking behavior continues, it should be dealt with accordingly. And to those editors that like to bludgeon but have frequently flown under the radar in smaller venues (they know who I'm talking about), now would be a good time to hold back. We've seen enough. --GoneIn60 (talk) 08:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

A lot of people seem to be nervous. I can’t help it. Give me a minefield and I’ll walk into it, whatever the consequences. IZAK is a religious fundamentalist. Secondly, he seems convinced that proper scholarship on these issues, that which is more authentic, is (ethno)Jewish analysis of Biblical and Talmudic primary sources.

• (a) He intimated that a number of editors who disagree with him ‘just have an ax to grind against anything Biblical and even Jewish.’
• (b)He canvassed Jewish editors to chip in and tip the balance when he found he was in a minority position. Atsme is just wrong (here, esp. in adding ‘Israel’ to the issue)
• (c) confirms that he believes there is something of a subtext of prejudice against Jews since the editors he canvassed, in his view, 'avoid getting their heads blown off by secular Biblical criticism editors, . . it is fear that keeps them away, and I was trying to bring them out of their cover and not have to live in fear on WP as if they were "Wikipedia Marranos".

I.e. for those who don’t grasp this. The prevalence of secularists here has frightened off people with immense Jewish learning. They are compelled to hide in fear, as a kind of crypto-Jew within the menacing majority secular culture of wikipedia, as Jews did in the past when Christianity was hegemonic. That is an even stronger anti-semitic insinuation, applied to several editors (I've had thrown it my way dozens of times, and mud slung sticks).

• (d) likens the atmosphere to that prevailing in the ‘cold war’.
• (e) He believes all the methodologies of secular scholarship are standard in yeshivas. I.,e. there is no difference between the very secular scholarship he is uncomfortable with, and the talmudic yeshiva studies that underwrite his personal beliefs. (There is no difference between madrasa scholarship and what one does at Islamic Studies faculties at CHOPSYtell that to the heads of yeshivas surveyed by Reuven Firestone in his Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea, Oxford University Press 2012 ISBN 978-0-199-97715-4 or to readers of Uri Ben-Eliezer's thesis about 'ethnosymbolists' and their categorical rejection of key tenets of modernist scholarship in his War over Peace: One Hundred Years of Israel's Militaristic Nationalism, University of California Press 2019 ISBN 978-0-520-97305-3). That is a bewildering contradiction, that can only be understood if it has a tacit ethnic premise: the methods are the same, but the practitioners of the better form of knowledge are more reliable qua Jewish and believers.
• (f) Notwithstanding his assertions that secular scholarship is a threat to the authentic results of religious Jewish scholarship, he contradicts himself by suggesting the two can be reconciled. Namely, to work out a compromise wherein wikipedia ought to prioritize Talmudic perspectives over secular scholarship: articles should showcase the former, and then add on whatever secular scholarship might say, later down the page. In this way we have a reconciliation of two things, Torah scholarship and secular scholarship. I.e. on any article dealing with Catholicism or Islam, graduates of seminaries or madrasas should outline the official view of their respective faiths, and then the secular lasses and lads can barge in and add footnotes. Subtext of POV-practice: get your POV up high, preferably in the lead, because WP:TLDR works out in these digital times to mean most people only read the lead and the opening paras.
• (g) After 17 years IZAK still doesn’t have a clue about what WP:RS state about quality of sourcing and the preferred, optimal kind of referencing. Despite nuancing this means we must strive to use secondary sources of high quality from academic experts,and exercise extreme caution in the citation of primary sources.

The problem is obvious, and has larger ramifications if this is resolved as IZAK suggests on his talk page, and if IZAK himself continues to fail to understand that primary sources, esp. from ancient or religious texts, should never be cited unless through reliable academic sources (which are super abundant, nota bene.Nishidani (talk) 10:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree. Given his obliviousness to his POV, IZAK will be back here again if no sanction is imposed. Indeed, if he continues in his efforts to turn Wikipedia into a reflection of Hasidic Jewish beliefs, where other perspectives are maybe mentioned further down on the page, he may be back here again anyway.—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support It is a pity that this discussion has 'wandered' as much as it has and that so many irrelevancies have crept into the discussion. As I understand it, the editor is claiming the right to use primary sources to define what is and isn't heretical, according to one 'true' branch of a religion - regardless of whether the majority of sources regard the 'heresy' as a defining feature of the sect labelled thus. Sourcing is not even seemingly necessary, since heretical status is obvious to any true believer. No one argues against text being in individual articles - subject to the usual issues of weight etc - whether that be characterising, why one branch of a religion disagrees with another or the history of relations or whatever, but this is not doing that, it is claiming primacy for one interpretation and claiming the right to insert that others are false in any and every case. That the editor doesn't see the problem, simply highlights it. This isn't censorship, we label/categorise ideas 'pseudo-science' slightly too readily IMO, but we do so only when practically all competent authority states this explicitly - we don't have "things that big-enders consider pseudo-science", even less so basing it on personal conviction. There may be a small number of beliefs/groups here that almost all commentators would characterise as "regarded as heresies by Judaism", but labelling major, different interpretations of a religion as heresies, largely on personal assessment is an act of quite stupendous arrogance IMO and shows a disregard for the essential neutrality of WP. Pincrete (talk) 17:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC) ps I doubt very much if anyone would now regard Spinoza as a heretic - criticising/abandoning the tenets of a religion is very different from creating a novel interpretation of that religion. Richard Dawkins is not a heretic!

The editor is doing more that claiming the right to use primary sources to define what is and isn't heretical, according to one 'true' branch of a religion. He is also claiming the right to use primary sources to define what actually happened when his one 'true' branch of a religion disagrees with historians and archeologists. You may think that this is "straying", but I assure you that if the closing administrator only deals with calling other religions heresies, we will be right back here next month discussing whether Wikipedia should say that the parting of the red sea or the angel of death killing the firstborn of Egypt are well-documented historical facts. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2020‎ (UTC)

You are failing to characterize what I see as one of the basic issues here, Guy Macon: other sects do not make use of the concept of "heresy". Only Orthodox Judaism maintains the concept of "heresy". For instance, Reconstructionist Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism—do not make use of the concept of "heresy". Many here may be offended that Orthodox Judaism wields this charge. But wielding that charge can be a two-edged sword—they are as likely to be criticized for using an antiquated concept. One of the basic issues here is whether or not we should Categorize by whether or not Orthodox Judaism considers a sect of Judaism "heresy". I've made my point known on that question. Countless other issues have been raised here. But I think this is the basic one. And by the way, Cullen328 has been influential here, and they have written "When Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism are officially categorized as heretical with Wikipedia's implicit stamp of approval, that is highly problematical." My point in quoting that statement is to show what the core issue is in this discussion. Bus stop (talk) 02:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Forgive me if I have not talked about the heresy bit enough. I agree that it is completely unacceptable and should be dealt with harshly. The closing admin shod do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again. I would even agree that it is the most important issue. But is it "the core issue" as in "fix this one thing and the problems will go away?" I don't buy that. How do you reconcile that view with his behavior that got him blocked on on The Exodus? That had nothing to do with calling other religious groups heretics.

Again I say if the closing administrator only deals with calling other religions heresies, we will be right back here next month discussing whether Wikipedia should say that the parting of the red sea or the angel of death killing the firstborn of Egypt are well-documented historical facts. Because that's what IZAK has pretty much vowed to put into multiple Wikipedia articles no matter who opposes him. ---Guy Macon (talk) 02:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support Cullen and others all make good points. IZAK's behavior at this ANI doesn't instill me with confidence. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 21:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Something needs to be done, a topic ban at the very least Concerning things have happened during this long discussion: 1. IZAK has shown he doesn't really get the difference between a) theology and Pseudohistory#Religious pseudohistory and b) history, archaeology, and philology, which means 2. he is unable to edit neutrally, 3. three editors who have long been inactive suddenly appeared to voice their opposition to a topic ban for IZAK. Robby.is.on (talk) 14:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

All good points. A possible explanation for the inactive suddenly becoming active is that they have IZAK's talk page on their watchlist, which has seen a lot of activity as of late and could have led them here. However, it does call attention to the fact that a significant amount of the opposition are from editors with past relations. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support topic ban – in this ANI discussion alone, IZAK has conflated Orthodox Jewish theology with Jewish theology writ large, has repeatedly tried to wield his personal expertise in Orthodox Judaism as a club to dismiss the valid concerns about POV raised by other editors, and has invoked the specter of anti-Jewish persecution to portray others' concerns as bad-faith attacks. While the impetus of the dispute over the use of Heresy categories was a content dispute, IZAK's comments both on ANI and other talk pages are concerning and cannot be so trivially dismissed. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 02:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Explanation

I don't think that IZAK is guilty. The problem is that some Jewish believers developed articles from their own POV. These are kind of niche articles, and the rest of the community simply did not care much about those articles in order to see their behavior as problematic. The problem becomes apparent when we apply such practice to the rest of world's religions: we do not want fundamentalists taking over secular scholarship, here at Wikipedia, and often various sorts of fundamentalists hate each other's guts. So chaos would ensue if every other religion would claim the privileges which Orthodox Jewish editors already enjoyed for years. The morals is that this problem is bigger than one editor and banning him from certain articles won't solve our problem. The problem is rendering yeshiva learning as WP:IN-UNIVERSE. I'm afraid this is the first time somebody tells him in a big way that that's not allowed. As far as he knew till now, he thought that that's allowed. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

You make an excellent point, although a carefully crafted topic ban will stop IZAK from being a part of the problem. So what is the solution? Where would we go to even start talking about his problem? The NPOV noticeboard, perhaps? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:42, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. IMHO one has to learn at an yeshiva in order to understand why many of their claims are relevant. That's why the rest of the community doesn't care. If one writes something about jihad, lots of people care. But if one writes on an arcane issue of Orthodox Jewish theology, there is almost none who will take issue with that. AFAIK, IZAK and his fellows wage a campaign against liberal Jews. They see liberal Jews as their enemies. They don't care about Muslims or Hindus, they care about differently thinking Jews. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

It think I will just leave this here:[55][56] --Guy Macon (talk) 04:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

In the end, we would not care about the orthodox vs. liberal shenanigans were it not for their intention to play fast and loose with historical facts. I mean, that's not even concealed, but it is something IZAK seems to be proud of. He feels like a Marrano precisely because he knows that we don't like playing fast and loose with facts. Mainstream historians have rejected his POV, and naturally Wikipedia sides with mainstream historians. IZAK equates mainstream history with devilish delusion and probably antisemitism (as far as it concerns the Bible and Judaism). Allowing him to push his POV would open the floodgates of Pseudohistory#Religious pseudohistory. While we have respect for a long history of Jewish sages as theologians, we never seek to pass them for modern mainstream historians. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Based on the comments, and the observations of Tgeorgescu, there`s definitely a much deeper problem that won`t be solved with just a topic ban. Yes, a topic ban is needed, but it is only a tiny part of the solution. We could examine the conduct of all editors involved with the topic here, in detail, or(as I suspect this would overwhelm ANI) at Arbcom. We could pass general sanctions.Lurking shadow (talk) 13:23, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems fairly certain that something more will need to be done, especially if IZAK goes ahead with his making his User talk:IZAK#Policy proposals. I quote:

• Balancing an Atheism-based or Skepticism-based POV with a Religion-based POV is unavoidable sometimes in WP articles
• Jews and Judaism are at a disadvantage in numbers even though they are the founders of the main Abrahamic religions
• Orthodox Judaism is today practiced by a minority of Jews, as the heirs to Rabbinic Judaism they uphold the classical teachings of the Torah
• Rabbis have been the teachers, leaders, authorities, legal scholars and authors in Judaism and of the Jewish people for the last 2,500 years (before that it was the prophets and kings of Israel and Judah), from ancient times to the very present and their views matter
• Most of Category:Documentary hypothesis and Category:Biblical criticism is not reconcilable with Category:Hebrew Bible and Category:Judaism and particularly with Category:Orthodox Judaism views, beliefs and practices and should be clearly demarcated as separate points of view in WP articles.

He's basically saying that Orthodox Jews are the most authentic Jews and for that reason alone they need to get special treatment. Yet he doesn't seem to understand that theology and history, archaeology, and philology are not the same thing. Rabbis are theologians, they have no expertise in whether something did or didn't happen in the Ancient Near East. But as he said in the discussion: I know this is not what they teach at all modern universities, but the Bible preceded universities by thousands of years. To him, this is a completely logical statement.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:13, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Just a technical note. In asserting:'Rabbis have been the teachers, leaders, authorities, legal scholars and authors in Judaism and of the Jewish people for the last 2,500 years,' IZAK shows he is utterly unfamiliar with modern scholarship. Rabbinic authority came quite late, certainly several centuries after the initial date given. Everyone who teaches Jewish Studies knows that. Nishidani (talk) 15:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to counter your "technical note" it is in fact possible to say that the notion of a Rabbi starts with Moshe Rabbeinu (redirects to Moses for a good reason) because in addition to being the greatest prophet in Judaism he is also the greatest teacher, which is what the word "rabbi" means, "teacher", so all the Biblical leaders were in fact prototype teachers and rabbis to the people. But the era of true rabbinic rule begins with the destruction of the First Temple and the early roots and rise of the Oral Law. IZAK (talk) 02:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I missed this. Pace Wittgenstein ('Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen) everything can possibly be said, even that Mary's boy was god, like Emperor Hirohito. So one can call Moses a 'rabbi' 1,400 years before the date attributed to his putative existence. The word rabbi, you surely must know, nowhere occurs in the Tanakh, let alone in regard to that figure, however, and only begins to be attested as fashionable in the sense you indicate in the decades before the Fall of the Second Temple (in fact one of the earliest witnesses to the change is the Gospel of Matthew). See the marvelous Encyclopedia Judaica 2nd ed. vol.17 2007 pp.11-19 for details. You should have it always at your elbow when editing. Many of the problems you've had recently could be avoided if you read that inexhaustible storehouse of profound learning. Nishidani (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Response by IZAK

Some of the observations above are only partially correct, but ultimately the complaint against "yeshiva" education is bound to fail because there is no way to measure the recesses where motivation, thoughts, ideas, notions, concepts originate from, especially if material adheres to WP:RS and is sourced correctly. For example if something is written about how a matter in Jewish Law is ruled in the Shulkhan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law, it needs to be cited first, and then other later POVs can be inserted. This is essentially what needs to be done with all Hebrew Bible articles, first the original quotation and narrative in the primary source, and later comes the secondary commentary. If this kind of case goes to ArbCom it will fall flat on its face because ArbCom does not decide on WP:CONTENT disputes. IZAK (talk) 19:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

As I have often explained. The Bible is a foundational document for Judaism and Christianity. The latter used the Greek version Jews produced in Alexandria. So where we cite the Bible, we don't cite it as the Hebrew bible, where the defining adjective has a sense of possessiveness. We cite the Bible, which is inclusive of both traditions. That is only the beginning of the problem because there are differences between the various versions, and the Hebrew Bible is a term that should be evoked only when one is citing a passage in the Tanakh which doesn't occur in the Septuagint, and Septuagint vice versa. It's very hard to get into some people minds here that the Christian clergy obsessed over that ancient text as much as did the rabbinical tradition, for thousands of years. The rest of your remarks won't fly. According to the Bible, 'quotation' ergo David did this, or that, is useless. Because we know that at least three different and often contradictory accounts exist, just as citing Genesis on the creation verbatim is pointless, because there are two conflicting and contradictory versions in the one text. Therefore as WP:RS states, use of primary texts must be with 'extreme caution' and never without support from a modern piece of biblical scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 20:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure about other religious domains on WP, but you are wrong in your assertion that "where we cite the Bible, we don't cite it as the Hebrew bible" because in any articles pertaining to Category:Jews and Judaism or Hebrew Bible etc we exclusively use the term Hebrew Bible (Tanakh redirects to Hebrew Bible) and not "Old Testament" or Septuagint because Judaism finds that term "New Testament" offensive as it does not recognize or have a "new" testament. This has been a long-standing WP convention almost from the beginning, there are somewhere old discussions about this and there was a WP:CONSENSUS reached about it. As for the use of the Hebrew Bible as a primary source, I would suggest that before one tears something apart and shreds it into oblivion, saying it's a "myth" or "it did or did not exist", one should first explain and describe in full what the subject matter is in the first place. This is the logical way. This is in any case mostly done already in most WP Biblical articles. IZAK (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

To be clearer I should have written 'we should use'. The rest of your remark is ignorant. The Septuagint does not contain the New Testament, and is not offensive to Jews. Perhaps half of the Jews in the following centuries knew no Hebrew or Aramaic, but only the Greek version of their scriptures. Philo of Alexandria wrote in Greek, voluminously: he couldn't read those works, or infra-Palestinian debates in any other language. He, like many major Jewish scholars of that period thought, wrote and read in Greek. This is before that other thing, the Aramaic texts behind a good part of the gospels, were ever thought up, and like the Bible, written, rewritten, adjusted, fiddled with, until some final form was agreed to.Nishidani (talk) 06:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Nishidani, IZAK added the category Heresy in Judaism to the category Hellenistic Judaism [57]. For him, Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and the Septuagint are heretical. As far as I know, calling Hellenistic Judaism a heresy is nonsense, but that appears to be IZAK's position on the matter.

I point this out because there's really no point in continuing to debate with someone who's sure that they have the wp:TRUTH. Any argument you raise against him he will counter in some way, whether or not it actually makes sense or is historically informed.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich—you say "Any argument you raise against him he will counter in some way". You better believe it. And that is the way Wikipedia should conduct itself—not by running to AN/I and trying to get someone blocked or topic-banned, but by civil and honest debate and ultimately, deference to sources. Bus stop (talk) 13:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

You clearly miss the point of what I'm saying. He will argue even if he has no facts or logic on his side, because his worldview does not allow him to be wrong. That is a case of WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT, and is very much a case for ANI.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:01, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Indeed it is extremely funny to find out that some editors think Judaism had a concept of heresy before the concept itself ever arose within Judaism, i.e. in the example you give. Indeed the rabbinic concept of heresy arose from the development of that concept in Hellenistic Greek. Where I often edit, this is not an anomaly. It is the norm. Policy says you have to persist in reasoning even if everything indicates interlocutors will turn a deaf ear to you. Wikipedia placed enormous emphasis of WP:AGF, you can be convicted for the slightest effusion of impatience. But try to mention the cause - WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT trait - and one will be ignored. Admins regard that as too subjective a call to make. There must be thousands of acutely informed students of these topics out there, in Israel and the diaspora, and I often wish they could spare the time to edit these areas, and save kibitzing goys like myself from having to correct the more obvious, superficial errors made by true believers.Nishidani (talk) 13:55, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Nishidani—I personally am not remotely interested to know you are a "goy". Lower the volume on the dog-whistle please. This is in response to "I often wish they could spare the time to edit these areas, and save kibitzing goys like myself from having to correct the more obvious". Bus stop (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Get a sense of irony and humour. As to your earlier remark to Ermenrich, I think it important for editors to learn to construe sentences correctly, before replying to a comment. Those words are carefully chosen. To counter just anything one might say to you regarding a view you entertain, and, in doing so, finding 'some way' or another to rebuff the suggestion, is not how any form of reasonable conversation functions. It is a characteristic of an ideologically closed mindset, which assumes that the point is not clarified by a dialectic of mutual understanding, but by simply scoring a point, with whatever argument comes to hand.Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Nishidani—I don't find it ironic or humorous that you use the word "goy" in reference to yourself. You can say "I am not Jewish", or "I am Christian", or "I have no religion", or say anything else, but please don't foist on this conversation the baggage associated with the term goy. Bus stop (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Nyaanayaanyah. That's it, feel offended, so that everyone's eyes switch from the meat of the problem to the piddling sidedish of people's sensitivities, and the problem is 'emotional'. There is nothing emotional about my posts here. If you are offended I call myself, ironically, a goy in this context, that's your problem. Don't raise it here.Nishidani (talk) 15:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I find the above reference to dog-whistle to be extremely offensive. When you say "dog whistle" you are saying that the person purposely used a term that has the normal English-language meaning to the majority, but is a secret code word for certain -- presumably racist -- recipients. It is, essentially, telling the other person that what they really mean is racist when nothing they actually wrote is racist. How can the accused prove that they aren't a secret racist sending secret code words to other racists? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

You're correct but it's not worth worrying about. My wife was told almost 60 years ago by an old peasant biddie she was teaching to write, who had noted her extreme sensivity to suffering,'Teacha, yavtabecum like a nartichoke: soft and sweet inside, but with a tough hide outside.'(it was pure dialect ergo the transcription) Best practice in wiki is to stay focused on the core issues, and treat the innuendoes, endemic in this kind of context,- where everything is read for perceived subtexts instead of construed for what is actually written - as water off a duck's back.Nishidani (talk) 16:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

---

Here are the problems other than calling other religions heresy, which is serious, but has been documented well enough that I have nothing to add at this point.

FUNDAMENTALISM

I would like to draw attention to this edit:[58]

Replying to the easily verified claim that

"The definitions of Heresy are sometimes different in certain Orthodox Jewish circles. Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews consider many works of Maimonides to be heretical, due to his more liberal interpretations of the Torah. That being said, many Orthodox Jews also hold Maimonides' Mishneh Torah to a very high regard. A small number of Haredi Jews consider the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements to be heretical, and an even smaller number of Hassidic groups such as Satmar consider the State of Israel to be a heretical institution."

IZAK claims

"This is incorrect because as the article Heresy in Orthodox Judaism points out there are specific citations from the Torah, Maimonides, different codes of Jewish law, all being 100% WP:NPOV and complying fully with WP:NOR."

This shows a basic fallacy common among all kinds of fundamentalists. They are 100% convinced that their sect's interpretation of their holy books is the only possible way to read the text. If another branch of their religion -- even a closely related branch -- reads it any differently they must be either deceived or heretics. It is demonstrably untrue that every group that calls itself Orthodox Jew has the exact same definition of heresy, and it is not true that everyone agrees on the precise meaning of the Torah. We see the same thing with fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam -- everyone says that their teachings are 100% from the Bible or Koran, different groups have different teachings despite starting with the exact same source material, and they all dismiss the others as being deceived or heretics. There is a lot they agree on, but they most definitely don't agree on everything.

The same edit shows an attitude that you will find repeated again and again in IZAKs edits. Responding to the claim

"A small number of Haredi Jews consider the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements to be heretical, and an even smaller number of Hassidic groups such as Satmar consider the State of Israel to be a heretical institution."

IZAK responds

"By marginalizing huge mainstream Haredi and Orthodox movements the author reveals his anti-Haredi and even anti-Orthodox prejudices that would explain why he is doing this on grounds of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and nothing else."

IZAKs message here is not just that that the claim is wrong or that the person making it is mistaken. but that the person who made the claim is prejudiced.

This is not an isolated incident. If you examine Talk:Sadducees#Sadducees are Heretics according to Judaism you will see IZAK arguing that the Sadducees were heretics but the Pharisees were not. Virtually everyone who is not part of a fundamentalist sect agrees that these were both ancient sects that were precursors to IZAK's sect and that IZAK's sect did not exist at the time. This is also a fallacy common among fundamentalists of all stripes. Compare Christian Pentecostalism; a branch of Christianity that arose in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century,[59][60][61] but believes that they are exactly the same as the early church during the apostolic age. (Them and a couple of hundred other Christian sects, all with wildly different beliefs...)

PSEUDOHISTORICAL REVISIONISM

Consider the following edits:[62][63][64][65][66]

Here IZAK tried to delete the well-cited Modern Scholarship section of the page, and to change "The Exodus is the charter myth of the Israelites" to "The Exodus is the narrative of the Israelites leaving Ancient Egypt" with the edit summaries "It's not a myth. Billions of people believe it to be true. Avoid WP:OR please" and "The Hebrew Bible and Rabbinical Judaism commentators are is a WP:RS and Primary source, not what some latter day prof claims in his fictional mind."

He then engaged in WP:CANVASSING of editors who he believed would support his POV:[67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74]

He canvassed many of the same editors to support him at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heresy in Orthodox Judaism. These has already been listed in this thread.

IZAK describes his own policy towards sourcing here:

"Your allegation that one cannot 'quote' the Bible in WP arguments is ridiculous because that is precisely what YOU are doing, you quote the Bible to disparage it by citing so-called secular anti-religious professors, while I am relying on the ongoing scholarship of Torah by Jewish sages from ancient to modern times, just that you may not have heard of all of them, the following would and do assert and affirm what I have to say about the veracity of the Hebrew Bible and that The Exodus is 100% true and the 100% reliability of Judaism's Oral Torah: ALL in Category:Rabbis by rabbinical period -- thousands of Jewish scholars spanning two millennia that would ALL agree with what I am trying to DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN. You have to make way for a more religious POV just like I have to make way for your secular POV, it's as simple as that."[75]

WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality towards Ermenrich and Tgeorgescu

• "I have noticed that a number of editors such as User:Ermenrich have been acting in a WP:OWN attitude in articles relating to Judaism and go all out to deny what classical Jewish commentators and scholarship has to say. Very nice that you can quote SECULAR anti-religious profs xyz, but they know beans about Jewish theology and just have an ax to grind against anything Biblical and even Jewish."[76]
• "You seem to lack an appreciation for the way that Judaism, certainly Orthodox Judaism views ITS OWN most sacred texts... [you are] infuriating other Judaic editors[77]
• "Your radical secularism..."[78]
• "User:Ermenrich displays an attitude of WP:OWN at The Exodus article,and my point was to introduce some Jewish studies content into the lead of the article, which he seems allergic to."[79]
• "ping Ermenrich The Jewish religious approach about a Jewish religious text is justified in such an article as The Exodus, you do not WP:OWN the topic or the article... that is what you are doing, denuding the views of Judaism and Christianity to their own texts by inserting latter-day commentaries... Modern scholarship has to be put in proportion and chronologically correct order."[80]
• "Face it, you just WP:IDONTLIKE the word "heresy" at all."[81]
• "ping Tgeorgescu All I can make out from this last comment is that you WP:IDONTLIKE religion, which itself is a POV bias."[82]
• "According to you, there is no "heresy" in anything... You can't run around attacking people for stating what exists in the real world."[83]
• "You fail to understand how religions functions and you have no clue about the inner workings of the differences between the different streams of Judaism and how they judge each other."[84]
• "it is not my fault you can't grasp the concepts and the terminology in loco."[85]
• "no one ever had any problems with it til you came along,"[86]
• "Ermenrich, I can't do your homework or your reading for you...[87]

(I stopped reading his edit history at this point. The above shows the behavior. It continues on through a huge number of additional posts.) --Guy Macon (talk) 04:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Call for close

This has been open since the 11th, and is getting to be huge, along with a lesser but still huge discussion on IZAK's talk page. I think that enough has been said for an uninvolved administrator to be able evaluate the discussion and decide whether there is a consensus any administrative action. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Second. It's basically impossible to follow now and, as someone said above, has wandered quite a bit from the original point in a lot of areas.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of outcome, yes, this should probably get an evaluation by an admin and closed. I regret getting into arguments with others earlier & any derailment that caused. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I have been looking over this discussion, wondering if I should close this, only form a few opinions: (1) this is a lengthy thread, & not easily grasped in a single reading; (2) this thread is still active -- although that may not mean that anything new is being said, see the first point; & (3) this thread involves a word that many will find (to use the word that has become the concern of the Foundation's crusade to impose civility upon us though the heavens fall) toxic, "heresy". It is one thing to state that group A considers group B "heretical"; it is another to take up the issue that one or more groups are "heretical" as a fact. -- llywrch (talk) 06:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

llywrch, In my opinion, any close should address the following concerns:

• Incivility, including broad hints that those who disagree are antisemitic.
• Edits labeling other sects as heretics, especially in categories but also in general.
• Edits that remove claims cited to WP:CHOPSY sources and replacing them with pseudohistorical claims sourced to ancient religious texts -- often with talk page comments claiming the the ancient religious texts, being older, are far better.

Note that some editors are of the opinion that some of the above aspects are "the real issue" and other aspects should not be addressed by the closer, while other editors are of the opinion that all of the above are aspects that should be addressed. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Guy Macon: Just a few observations, 1 you say "Edits labeling other sects as heretics, especially in categories but also in general" Where are these "edits"? Since I concentrate on categorization, I was applying the content of Heresy in Judaism (I did not write it), per Category:Heresy in Judaism to some articles, and Heresy in Orthodox Judaism (I did not write it) per Category:Heresy in Orthodox Judaism to some others. This is not "labeling other sects as heretics" but simple WP categorization. Now if other editors disagree, then fine, revert my edits, and discuss, which proves this is only a WP:CONTENT dispute that has been blown out of all proportion. 2 I only edited the categories sections, so your adding on "also in general" is just not true! 3 Then you say that "Edits that remove claims cited to WP:CHOPSY sources and replacing them with pseudohistorical claims sourced to ancient religious texts" where was this done??????? a few words in The Exodus article, that's it, where else can you point out that I did this?????? Nowhere right?!!!!! because this is just you exaggerating. Citing the Hebrew Bible in a subject straight out of the Hebrew Bible like The Exodus is not "pseudo-anything" it is an obvious fact of description. 4 As for "incivility" I was already blocked for 48 hours for my comment, which again is due more to my use of colorful prose more than anything else, so again, stop exaggerating and making a mountain out of a molehill. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 17:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Pretty sure I am uninvolved here, I don't mind being one of three to review and close this? Guy (help!) 16:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Keep in mind that IZAK has dedicated like many of us, over a decade and a half of his time to Wikipedia, and deserves consideration for that alone. No one questions his right to his beliefs, but he must in future take on board a precise awareness that, nolens volens, this is a secular encyclopedia that has no place for pushing a religious agenda, or for the authority of primary sources, his basic error. They should only be cited through modern peer-reviewed scholarship. If he will accept that, there would be no need for any sanction or restriction at all. It is not an unacceptable request: much of what he is reporting is beautifully discussed in numerous books that, however, do add details that he might find uncomfortable personally. Life's like that for all of us.Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate Nishidani's wisdom, but what he is saying has nothing to do with the topic at hand here at ANI. Can anyone point out all the places on WP where I do not abide by WP:RS and WP:NPOV where all I rely on is "primary sources"?????? and I will be glad to retract, until then Nishidani is just creating a classical red herring tangent and he owes me an apology as he insults my WP professionalism and intelligence. IZAK (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The diffs in question are already in both my initial complaint and then request for a TBAN, but since you asked: [88], [89], [90], [91], [92], [93], [94], [95], [96], [97], [98] for heresy topic, removal of sourced info in favor of religious primary sources: [99], [100], [101]. You have no secondary sources in favor of any of these edits, the best you've been able to produce is the Jewish Encyclopedia for your heresy edits, which, however, does not label any of the groups you have as heretics, it merely gives some criteria that were invented by Maimonides that you yourself have then applied.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:45, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich: 1 Of course those were the categories in question, if you disagree revert or delete or discuss until resolved. but it still remains a WP:CONTENT dispute nothing more and nothing less. You can't keep hammering away at editors' UNKNOWN personal beliefs in any case. 2 Judaism and especially Orthodox Judaism unavoidably observe the idea of Heresy, that is not "my" view. 3 I did not just cite Maimonides, I told you to see a WP article Jewish principles of faith with over 40 WP:RS references in Jewish principles of faith#References and Jewish principles of faith#Further reading that would clarify to you how the notion of Heresy works and applies in Judaism. Meaning that as far as classical Judaism is concerned, NON-COMPLIANCE with Jewish principles of faith=Heresy in Judaism. It's actually quite simple if you think about it. Just modern-day man is not used to this kind of thinking, so then we get to lots of WP:IDONTLIKEIT reactions. 4 Maimonides is the ultimate authority in Judaism as he is the greatest codifier of Jewish Law that is why I also told you to look at Jewish principles of faith#Maimonides' 13 principles of faith, again not "my" personal POV, just a statement of verifiable fact. 5 By the way, one needs to define heresy in Judaism and for that please see the Epikoros article as an intro to the concept. 6 As for The Exodus article, you blew everything out of proportion and as User:Atsme has told you: "Ermenrich, what you are asking is a content issue, not a behavioral issue. The allegation of canvassing is misplaced - at least from my perspective. The editor was requesting collaboration for editing an article, and that is not canvassing. There weren't enough requests to call it spam. The allegation of aspersions is iffy - from that editor's perspective, you were being noncompliant with WP:OWN. They are just as entitled to express an opinion and speak as freely as you do and have done here. It appears to me that there is a conflict over scholarly perceptions of what actually took place historically. The 3 edits you provided as evidence of edit warring do not cross the line into edit warring unless there are restrictions on that particular article. We actually are allowed to cite primary sources per WP:PSTS but again, I'm not here to discuss content." Thank you, IZAK (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The opinion of one editor does not change the fact that you removed sourced material against wp:NPOV because of your religious beliefs. You keep pointing to Wikipedia pages that don't say that Reform Judaism, Hellenistic Judaism, Samaritanism, etc. are heresies to justify adding a category that says they are. Jewish principles of faith#Maimonides' 13 principles of faith does not mention the word heresy anywhere. You are using wp:OR to decide based on those principles what is or isn't a heresy in Judaism.

You asked when you had violated NPOV, removed sourced info, or added things based on primary sources, I've told you. You can argue about whether or not ANI is justified until your face is blue, but that doesn't change the fact that you did it. I don't see why it's so hard for you to just admit that.

And by the way, this new insistence that we're "assuming your religious beliefs" when you characterize me and others as a inquisitors who make Jewish "Marranos" hide in fear strikes me as a form of gaslighting.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

These are all pretty trivial according to many editors. I have enough supporters here who disagree with your personal assessment. I do not have the time to get into more discussions. Let the closing admins do their job, and let's all get on with our lives. Shabbat Shalom. IZAK (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

As I said above, this thread is still alive; people are still going at each other. Maybe it should be closed just to stop it, whether or not the closer gets the conclusion right. -- llywrch (talk) 20:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. At this point it's more heat than light for a number of days and that seems unlikely to change. Heiro 22:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Heyday to you's WP:CIR issues

Heyday to you (talk · contribs) is back following a week-long block but the issues remain:

• They place inappropriate warnings on Talk pages: contributor had received a warning on 9 June, hasn't edited since, I cannot make sense of this one,
• they add unsourced content: [102],
• they use Wikipedia as a reference: [103].

At the contributor’s last unblock request, Yamla wrote „This does not address your blatantly disruptive edits. Also, frankly, it does not convince me you understand WP:RS and WP:CITE.“ WP:CIR still seems to be critically lacking. Robby.is.on (talk) 08:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The allegations of Robby.is.on are baseless. You may check user's contributions to whom I sent those warnings.

P.S. I failed to find reliable sources for those edits as my sources were being listed as external links. Since I am a novice in Wikipedia, so I ended up writing my defence statement in this page.

Heyday to you (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)Heyday to you

@Robby.is.on: is not reporting a single stand-alone incident here. Heyday to you (talk · contribs) also placed a warning today on User talk:95.15.163.182 [104] (twice - having misformed the first one [105]) - with a header for a page the IP has never edited. The IP in question was blocked for 31 hours on 24 May and has not edited since. Gricehead (talk) 14:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

This IP guy looked insane through his edits. So I placed the warning. I don't think placing a late warning is unlawful in Wikipedia. Heyday to you (talk) 17:26, 15 June 2020 (UTC)Heyday to you

That IP user was blocked as a result of their last edits. Placing a warning after that may not be "unlawful," but it's pointless and arguably disruptive, as it could potentially mislead someone reviewing an AIV report that there is more recent vandalism. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

@Heyday to you, would you at least calm down, ask for guidance when in doubt, use a sandbox to test your editing skills, and most imperatively; study a few of our policies and guidelines before attempting to directly edit in areas you aren’t sure about? Celestina007 (talk) 17:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

this guy,@Heyday to you is familiar to me. He is my neighbour;this dude doesn't know much about policies of Wikipedia. So I think he must have unintentionally did this. I am a IP address user.122.177.155.197 (talk) 06:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

You guys may check mine or Robby's talk page to check our conversation. There you may find our conversation.Heyday to you (talk) 11:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd be quite surprised if the above IP isn't Heyday to you while logged out. They left a warning template here, without having ever made a contribution to an article, and presented Heyday to you with a barnstar. Robby.is.on (talk) 08:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Earlier today, I warned Heyday to you about socking. Later today, an account which zero previous edits places another barnstar. Can admins please address these issues? Robby.is.on (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Heyday to you's edits to Black Lives Matter were minor and a few were wrong (changing American English spelling to UK English, etc.). Definitely not worthy of the BLM Barnstar mysteriously awarded to Heyday. A recent error by Heyday was creating a vandalism final warning on talk page of an IP editor who had not received any prior warnings, and was in fact editing in good faith (but neglecting to provide references for edits). Several recent article edits by Heyday have been reverted. David notMD (talk) 08:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I have started a SPI investigation agenst Heyday The creeper2007^Talk! 20:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I've encountered this user before - at best incompetent, at worst a vandal/sock. Either way NOTHERE. GiantSnowman 20:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

On Heyday's User page, claims to be 13 years old. Also claims via Userbox to have a Triple Crown for FA, GA and DYK. Not true. David notMD (talk) 00:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Heyday’s sock investigation have been closed. Although Hayday do check to Silver Play Button and one other account, the investigation was closed because the CU suspected to be multiple people sharing a IP and the CU have also not found anything abusive. The creeper2007^Talk! 17:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Composemi and redirects

Check out User talk:Composemi and you will see a wall of RfD notifications for questionable redirects created by User:Composemi. They are still creating useless or near-useless redirects (such as Harvard BS, Saint Floyd, Sachin 10dulkar, etc.), and has thus made it clear that they do not intend to change this behavior. I propose a 4-month topic ban on creating redirects. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 06:01, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Good idea

Thanks, (talk) 07:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely - with clear conditions for unblock, ie a topic ban from redirects and showing that they can and will edit constructively and communicate with others. Their failure to respond to talk page notices and to communicate is really not acceptable. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I was about to oppose the block and propose a looser, 1-month topic ban instead, but seeing their attack page (now deleted) and communication issues, I now fully agree with the block and indefinite topic ban when unblocked. Pandakekok9 (talk) 13:21, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I recommend changing the block from indefinite to up to 3 months, then see from there if he learned his lesson. And of course the topic ban until he has proven himself. OcelotCreeper (talk) 17:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Indefinite means just that -- indefinite. If they can convince us they learned their lesson, they could be unblocked tomorrow. If not, that username can remain blocked until the heat death of the universe. It's meant to be flexible, not definitive. -- llywrch (talk) 07:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, agree with the block and unblock conditions. Some of those titles are seriously inappropriate, this user needs a good hard think about whether they are in the right place. Guy (help!) 08:15, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Navonedu's unrepentant disruption

Navonedu has been warned a lot of times over his disrupting editing[106][107] but he continues to edit war by making edits such as [108][109][110][111] in violation of WP:LINKVIO, WP:FANPAGE and WP:PROMO and doubles down by leaving messages like "Please be careful of your actions! Or you will be banned", instead of understanding WP:OR and WP:RS. To me he is a case of WP:CIR and WP:NOTHERE. शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil (talk) 12:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

शिव साहिल deletes and removes large content, without any discussion, that is the main concern for me. Editors spend a lot of time gathering correct information and references, you cannot just delete a complete section for one single unavailable reference,or delete information with proper references based on the previous line.If you are having concerns regarding citations, why don't you discuss rather than washing huge content altogether? That disrupts constructive writing and is under vandalism.Please refrain from deleting important sections altogether on your personal assumption or will. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Navonedu (talk • contribs) 16:48, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - not an ANI issue, based on the diffs presented. 1292simon (talk) 11:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• How it isn't? This user is violating copyrights and considers any reversion of his edits as "vandalism". He is also marking all his major edits as "minor". This is a complete CIR issue which needs to be handled with a block. Cyphoidbomb can you take a look? शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@1292simon: Did you even look at the diffs? This one has the user drooling over Atif Aslam including content copied almost verbatim from here. Clear promotion and copyright violations would definitely be an ANI concern. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm also noticing these edits at Sonu Nigam, which when compared to the stuff he was doing at Atif Aslam looks like he's just here to back up the drool truck to Pakistani pop articles. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Navonedu, these edits are right; the content does not satisfy Wikipedia policies. Have a look at WP:OR and look at his summary: (remove WP:OR based on rumors and unreliable sources). He has a reason for deleting this stuff. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 23:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

शिव साहिल deleted the whole section!If he has a problem with one reference and citation, he can do it for that line and piece of information. How come the whole section at once? Isn't that intentional vandalism? I am myself checking the references, and not a single one of them to me seems misinformation or rumor. Please tell me exactly which line is a rumor? About the copyright violation, I will try to rewrite the sentence carefully next time, it was an honest mistake.I am against washing important section of pages for a couple of lines.I am against intentional vandalism, which clearly tries to remove whole section for few missing references. I already removed and updated a lot of references.Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Navonedu (talk • contribs)

@Navonedu: 1) Sign your posts with four tildes like ~~~~, to properly append your signature and time stamp. 2) You are shifting the burden to शिव साहिल to sift through your edits, when the bulk of the content you have submitted is atrociously inappropriate. Praise, praise, praise, this acclaimed person likes Aslam, this reknowned person likes Aslam, praise, drool, drool. It's like you have no awareness that this is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia, not a fan website. I brought these problems to your attention on 11 June, so you shouldn't act surprised that they've been deleted. It also troubles me that some of the content you copied almost verbatim from other sources, which suggests you have no comprehension of what plagiarism or a copyright violation is. Care to address these concerns? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:54, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb, is it a good idea to ban him from these specific pages? But then, there are 5 million more articles that he can do disruptive editing over. I don't know. A topic ban from articles related to Pakistani people is also good. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 18:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

•  Administrator note At present, I don't have lots of time to deal with this, and it's nagging me from the back of my head. There is a part of me that thinks the user should be removed of their editing privileges for the insane amount of promotional content they've added, and I would support that. There is another part of me that thinks someone should drop a major wall of knowledge to explain why all of these issues are problematic, to give them one final chance. I would appreciate any support any other admins might offer. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• I support indef block and the "walls of texts" providing lengthy explanation about his problematic editing can be added once he requests unblock or shows any willingness to learn how to edit. @3125A: This user is not able to edit anything in a constructive manner so far thus we don't have to reward him with a topic ban expecting he would edit something else in a constructive manner. शिव साहिल/Shiv Sahil (talk) 04:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• I suppose so; per nom. Also another issue is his edit summaries. I'm half WikiGnome so that's why I don't provide edit summaries for about 90% of my edits. But his edits mostly are with no edit summaries. And the ones which do so follow a sort of "reference" and/or "content" propaganda. So I say support indef block. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 13:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by B.Perrine

• B.Perrine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

B.Perrine insists on changing links to redirects in spite of being told numerous times on their talk page about WP:NOTBROKEN. This makes verifying their edits very tedious. I think many of the changes are not improvements - a lot are of the type such as changing "Governor of someplace", which redirects to "List of Governors of someplace", to a piped direct link. If the redirect is ever made into an article "Governor of someplace", then the link will go to the wrong place. See their talk page for the number times they have been asked to stop these kinds of changes. Magnolia677 gave a final warning months ago; there was no reply and the behavior continues. MB 16:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Diffs please. 1292simon (talk) 11:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Most of their edits do this. This is their most recent edit that replaces (superior) links to redirects with (inferior) links to the present target of the redirect. The edit history is filled with these kinds of edits and their talk page is filled with messages to stop. MB 18:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The William_Shirley history seems to be: B.Perrine changed the links, MB reverted it, then there has been nothing since. I think this is an issue for the article's Talk page rather than ANI. Cheers, 1292simon (talk) 22:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

That was just one example. They make these kinds of changes continually on many articles and have been advised many times on their talk page, with no response or change in behavior. This is not an issue for the talk page of that article. Just see their talk page where they have been warned to stop disruptive editing. MB 02:01, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

1292simon, you are incorrect: this is not an issue for the talk page of that article. Drmies (talk) 13:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Many edits this month have been to fix working redirects: [112],[113], [114]. This editor responded once last November: "i acknowledge the overlinking issue & thought i have stopped doing same". Magnolia677 (talk) 09:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The have continued today, in spite of this discussion here, without engaging. In addition to "fixing" working redirects, they continue to link things not normally linked like countries and common words like salt and lumber. MB 19:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Ohnoitsjamie warned them in May already, User:EdJohnston just did so again. That should be enough--one more such edit and we should block. Drmies (talk) 13:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

User:NVTHello

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

I first noticed this user changing or adding genres without sources at Happier (Marshmello and Bastille song). Their entire contributions consists of these unsourced changes and they have continued to make these changes after reaching level 4 warning. The user seems to refuse discussion either. Jalen Folf (talk) 18:09, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Blocked 24 hours. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, mark this as resolved please. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 23:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

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User doesn't get it: persistent copyvios and edit warring

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Honduras200010 (talk · contribs), just off their second block for edit warring, has broken 3RR in Honduras, and is repeatedly adding different copyrighted material. They seem to be oblivious to the concepts, and to numerous warnings on their talk page. --IamNotU (talk) 23:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

He/she's been doing this for quite some time, having just gotten off a 48-hr & 2 week blocks in May, for the same behaviour. GoodDay (talk) 00:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Indeffed, they're welcome to return once they can convince an administrator that they understand what they did wrong and that they won't do it again. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:23, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Odds are he/she will either create a sock or edit as an IP, to get around the indef block. GoodDay (talk) 00:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

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IP rangeblock

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Hi, Daniel Case recently blocked 2.123.46.136 for being a sock, I emailed Daniel and basically Sable332 isn't the sockmaster but the person who spotted the LTAer so he recommended I come here,

The IP today has returned as 2.123.39.188 and then as 2.125.184.101 so can a rangeblock be applied ?,

FYI there was a discussion at User_talk:TKOIII#Ford_Fiesta that involved the same IP/person so this has been going on for some time, Thanks, Regards, –Davey2010^Talk 19:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Davey2010: Range-blocked for 3 months. The last IP is separately blocked. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:30, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks QEDK much appreciated, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 20:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I have the account links for many of his other previous sock puppet accounts, around 10 or so of them I believe. Not sure if that would be of help here but if so I can add them here. TKOIII (talk) 08:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@QEDK: ^ --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@TKOIII: You can post them at my talk page, I'll take a look. Nice pointer ;)  TheSandDoctor: --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

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Nicoljaus Sockpuppet

On the Taras Bulba-Borovets there is a user 93.157.203.231 who is almost certainly a sockpuppet of Nicoljaus who is reverting edits that cite RS. One such example can be found here. Nicoljaus has been blocked four times from the English Wiki for edit warring and various other infractions such as making personal attacks, and has been banned indefinitely from the Russian Wiki for the same reasons. I do not want to start an edit war on the page so if an administrator could intervene and try to mediate the situation I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.2601:143:4200:E070:2110:34E3:9829:3A4 (talk) 18:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done, semiprotected for 3 months. Any reason the lede does not say the guy was a Holocaust perpetrator, only that he was a resistance fighter?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The similar problem in the article Dmitry Medvedev (partisan). Semi-protection would be nice.--128.68.221.32 (talk) 05:54, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected this one as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

It should be noted that 118.68.221.32 is most likely a Nicoljaus sock puppet as well and should be blocked. Ctvaughn555 (talk) 06:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

This is for checkusers. Please open a SPI.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Btw Nicoljaus is not blocked. And what is your main account is also an interesting question.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:25, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you’re saying. I never said that Nicoljaus was currently blocked. (On the English Wiki that is.)Ctvaughn555 (talk) 11:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Now as Nicoljaus has indeed been blocked the topic can probably be closed.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Uncivilised and aggressive behaviour of Kazimier Lachnovič

Although it only a talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Coat_of_arms_of_Lithuania#Merging_the_Belarusian_Pahonia_and_Lithuanian_Vytis_together?, I strongly believe requirements for civilised behaviour must remain. Kazimier Lachnovič demonstrated uncivilised behaviour multiple times, lack of arguments was "compensated" by agreesive wording and uncivilised behaviour. Clear viloation of at least WP:CIVIL at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ke an (talk • contribs) 04:11, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• I believe, that user Ke an should stop Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikihounding of me. I clearly told him that I would not discuss anything with him because he tried to humiliate my nation (The arguments are here belong to Belarussian pseudohistoric theory "litvinism" which claims that Belarusians are Lithuanians and Lithuania is Belarus in a very clumsy and paradoxical way which is not finally clear :). Since current state of Belarus was established only in 1991 in the former Rhuthenian lands which were occupied by the Lithuanians in the Middle Ages. The former occupied territories were ruled under the coat of arms of Lithuania, but that doesn't make them heirs.). But he haunted me and tried to provoke (It looks like the user Kazimier Lachnovič polutes wikipedia by attacking pages related to Lithuania and Lithuanian people. It is a typical and sad example of 'litvinism' on Wikipedia). If User:Ke an wants to be punished for Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikihounding, it should be done. But I only ask to explain this user that I just don't have time for him. --Kazimier Lachnovič (talk) 07:57, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• And both users are indeed correct. Ke an is an extreme Lithuanian nationalist once blocked for edit-warring while whitewashing a Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator. Kazimier Lachnovič is a Belarusian nationalist, part of a group which was (and presumably will continue) pushing Belarusian geographic names clearly disregarding our policies of WP:COMMONNAME. They were also previously blocked, though I do not know exactly why. Welcome to the wonderful world of Eastern European politics.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Dear Ymblanter, it would help if your comment also would follow the rules of the civilised world and Wikipedia. Maybe verbal agression and insults are your strongest side, but here it is not required, neither helpful. -- Ke an (talk) 19:42, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive edits by 1292simon

1292simon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is constantly removing properly sourced edits claiming that they are not sourced on the BMW 5 Series (F10) page. Furthermore, this user is also removing other content (such as transmission type, layout and reliable sources) without an explanation. He was previously warned to stop this disruption but instead of avoiding this, this user continues disrupting the page without seeking proper consensus on the article talkpage.U¹ _quattro TALK 04:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Now this user is doing the same at the BMW 5 Series (G30) page. I request the administration to take appropriate action.U¹ _quattro TALK 04:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

No action has been taken yet as this user continues to remove content without any explanation.U¹ _quattro TALK 03:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

67.245.249.141

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This IP seems to just be going around making unhinged and disruptive comments on talk pages. [115] Bacondrum (talk) 05:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

There's more than two and a half years between their last two edits, so just reverting is all I think was needed. I don't see any need for admin action unless it becomes persistent. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 05:31, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

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108.14.43.250

A WP:DUCK account of User:Peterjack1. Began editing 5 days after Peter's last account, User:Smith0124 was blocked, edits the same topics, and wants Wolfe removed from the infobox, which is was Peterjack1 extensively argued for as Smith0124 on Talk:2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Request block. Koopinator (talk) 10:48, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps a range block would be better? I mean, if we block this IP, he can switch to different one. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 16:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive edits by Ardovello

After multiple attempts to ask user to stop changing image on Vacuum bell to promotional material, the user continues to revert their change and blank their talk page. Please block user from page Vacuum bell ([[User talk: talk) 11:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canolanext (talk • contribs)

You're both way over WP:3RR. Instead of more reverts, please both consider a third opinion or asking somewhere like the Medicine wikiproject. Also, I'm sure its unintentional but the description you've added of the Pediatric Surgery study doesn't accurately state the findings. That last bit is off-topic for this page, happy to discuss at the article talk. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Scratch that middle part - a review of the edits do make clear that User:Ardovello is adding promotional material. Even thought the reverts are kinda slow I reckon this is something for the edit-warring noticeboard more than here. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Abuse by users Melody Concerto and Jimfbleak (WP:ADMINSHOP and several other violations)

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I had reported User:Melody Concerto to WP:ANEW for breaking 3RR in Sands Atlantic City in addition to start an edit war on my talk page. [116][117]. Melody had performed four reverts in the span of 10 minutes for a reason that wasn’t a WP:3RRNO exception.[118] As a retaliation for opening a ANEW case, Melody reported me to WP:AIV even though our issue had nothing to do with vandalism.[119] In her phony AIV report, Melody also claimed to have given me a final warning when in fact it was a Level 2. After I replied to her AIV report,[120] she went to User:Materialscientist.[121] I replied there as well that Melody was trying to get me blocked because of my ANEW report. [122] Melody then went to User:Jimfbleak who rapidly blocked me before I could defend myself with one of the most dubious responses I have ever seen from an administrator. [123] Jimfbleak also indefinitely protected Sands Atlantic City despite that I wasn’t even editing the article anymore with the page having no previous protection history. [124] In a desperate part on Melody’s part, she also unsuccessfully attempted to get Jimbreak interfering with my ANEW report. [125]

This incident is just another one example on this site on how registered users develop cliques among each other and how unregistered are treated as second class editors . Melody and Jimbreak obviously have interacted in the past and developed some sort of relation between each other on this site which led to this kind of abuse. There’s no reason why Melody wasn’t blocked as her actions was a classic case of 3RR violation. And Jimbreak’s actions are even more concerning because as an administrator he is supposed to be impartial and don’t hand over preferential treatment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.253.101 (talk) 14:25, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Please provide diffs to support the contention "Melody and Jimbreak obviously have interacted in the past and developed some sort of relation between each other on this site which led to this kind of abuse". I don't believe there is any IP user animus here, but if there is, why not create an account to prevent it? 331dot (talk) 14:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Melody wouldn't have randomly went to Jimbreak's talk page if there was no prior interaction. But even if there wasn't, that's not really the focus of this thread. This suspicious conversation speaks for itself regardless whether there any prior interaction in the past or not.

I choose not create an account because there is no requirement to do so. I often see registered users interact with each other here as if this was a social media site like Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin. I respect people's choice to create an account but that's just not for me. If Wikipedia wants all users to register then they should make it mandatory to create an account like most Wiki websites. Until such time happens, unregistered should be given the same respect as those with an account.66.130.253.101 (talk) 14:57, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Something doesn't have to be required for you to do in order for you to do it- especially if it would negate the problems that you say you have or observe- but it is your choice. I treat everyone with respect and dignity regardless of how they edit(just saying). 331dot (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

To create or to not create an account is not the topic of this thread. And even if I did create an account, it wouldn't justify or explain Melody and Jimbreak's previous misconduct.66.130.253.101 (talk) 15:30, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I mentioned it as an easy way to avoid what you claim is animus towards you as an IP user. It's certainly your choice to do that or not. I will say no more about it here. 331dot (talk) 15:35, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The first paragraph of this report was pretty exemplary in that it provided evidence (which I haven't looked at yet to determine the correctness) in support of each claim. Why do you then spoil things by sidetracking matters into evidence-free conspiracy theories in the second paragraph? Phil Bridger (talk) 14:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think Melody and Jimbreak would have conducted the way they did if I was a registered user. But you're right, that this isn't the focus of this thread and we should rather concentrate on more important concerns like Melody's edit wars and bogus AIV claims or Jimbreak's unconventional response as an administrator.66.130.253.101 (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

There's certainly no reason for the aspersions, but I think User:Melody Concerto might like to explain how posting at AIV/Admin1/Admin2's pages in quick succession wasn't WP:FORUMSHOPing, as well as justifying reverting an editor on their on talk page in violation of WP:BLANKING / WP:OWNTALK. ——Serial ^# 14:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

And perform four reverts in 10 minutes (including two with no edit summary), for a reason not in WP:3RRNO, not a violation of WP:3RR. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 15:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Ip edit warred to insert info sourced to a Yelp review (as explained to them not a WP:RS), and the Yelp review wasn't even used as an actual citation but included in an edit summary, never once availed themselves of a talk page in the matter except to blank messages from the other editor, and then reported Melody Concerto for editwarring for continuously removing it. And they're upset they got blocked? Heiro 15:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Quite. Since that talk page has been edited a grand total of four times since it was started and not once in the last decade, neither party comes out very well in the "never once availed themselves of a talk page" stakes. ——Serial ^# 16:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

1) In case you haven't noticed, Yelp wasn't the only website in the edit summary.There were two others [126]

2) Civic addresses on infoboxes are almost never sourced. Some establish users even remove sources they see attached on infoboxes.

3) Melody reverted without providing an edit summary and then slapped a generic template on my talk page. That is not the way to start a discussion to resolve an issue. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 16:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

"not the way to start a discussion", while you made no effort to discuss at all. When the insertion was contested the first time you next step should have been the article talk. Heiro 16:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I left edit summaries in all my edits so you may want to check again that part about "no effort to discuss at all". The other party simply reverted without any explanation in half of her reverts. I also don't see any discussion from her on the article's talk page either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.253.101 (talk) 16:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

When you didn't go to the talk page per WP:BRD, they should have. They only look marginally better than you in that regard. Neither one of you come off smelling like roses, but you're the one bringing it to ANI and inviting examination of the issues by other editors as if you're blameless. Heiro 16:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The thread is primarily about the other users, not me, so I don't know why you're trying to transform this thread into a thread about me. And if I do have a blame in this, it doesn't even come close to what Melody and Jimbreak did of which I can easily count at least 5 violations altogether (failure to use edit summaries, violation of WP:BLANKING, WP:3RR, WP:ADMINSHOP, frivolous AIV report, protecting indefinitely an article with no past protection, WP:INVOLVED violation by trying to get the blocking administrator to intefere with ANEW, etc) 66.130.253.101 (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

You may want to go read WP:BOOMERANG. Heiro 16:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

WP`BOOMERANG doesn't address violations such as WP:FORUMSHOP or frivolous AIV reports. Nor does it explain how an edit warrior can get away with four reverts in 10 minutes. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 17:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Heironymous Rowe: Fuck off, not every IP-started thread is a boomerang. This is appears to have merit. The IP's edits were not vandalism by our definition in any way shape or form and so Melody's report is at issue here.--v/r - TP 17:33, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I only meant to point them to this language : "A common statement on noticeboards is "this isn't about me; this is about them"........However, that just isn't the case., I wasn't calling for boomerang sanctions. But anyway, fuck off yourself. Heiro 17:53, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Bullshit, linking WP:BOOMERANG when it's unwarranted is a veiled threat to every IP editor and new editor on WP:ANI and you fucking know it. It has a chilling effect and it's used to shield established editors.--v/r - TP 18:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Why don't you dial down the invective a little? I didn't mean it as a veiled threat, I just linked to the only place I knew that specific language resided. It never occurred to me as a threat or otherwise. Period. If you can point me to similar language to what I quoted above somewhere else on WP that doesn't point to boomerang I'll use it in the future. @Phil Bridger: No I did not notice, but until you checked neither did anyone else, including the IP or presumably they would have mentioned it. And with that I think I'll bow out of this conversation now, no need to ping me further. Heiro 19:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Heironymous Rowe, didn't you notice that the address that Melody Concerto reverted to, and edit-warred over, wasn't sourced at all? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I see that at the root of this dispute is the issue of whether the address of this casino was "S Indiana Avenue & Brighton Park" or "119 S Indiana Avenue". Both are probably correct, but neither was reliably sourced in the article, so I have done the obvious thing and removed the address. Is that really an issue over which to edit-war and forum-shop and block and protect? Surely there are more important things in Melody Concerto's and Jimfbleak's and 66.130.253.101's lives that they could be doing? If it is really important to have an address in the article then talk about in on its talk page. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

While I praise Phil Bridger's logical edit on Sands Atlantic City, this thread just shows how users are treated differently and how some can get away with violating policies on Wikipedia. Melody and Jimbreak have violated have least 5 policies together and nobody wants to address those. My only potential violation was edit warring (not even 3RR) and people are turning this whole thread about me. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 17:37, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong here. I agree that your edit that sparked this off was not vandalism, and shouldn't have been treated as such by Melody Concerto and Jimfbleak. The only thing you did that maybe you could have done better was to reinstate your edit after it was reverted rather than go to the talk page, but their actions were clearly against policy. It's just that it rather makes my heart sink to see such a trivial dispute escalate in such an avoidable way. And, once again, it was far more avoidable by them than by you. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Melody Concerto: Can you please explain your understanding of what vandalism is and what warrants a report an WP:AIV? @Jimfbleak: Can you please explain your apparent anti-IP bias here?--v/r - TP 17:42, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for ping

• As far as I recall I have had no previous interaction with Melody Concerto, to claim otherwise seems a paranoid accusation based on zero evidence

• Can you please explain your apparent anti-IP bias here? is a nice twist on when did you stop beating your wife? Again, although it's hard to know with an ip account, I have no conscious recall of any dealings with the ip user before. T, you appear to be suggesting a wider antipathy against unregistered users, if that's the case, please provide evidence rather than insinuations. And unlike others, I've never suggested that ip editors should have to create an account, not even through welcome templates

• I've been here for many years, and sometimes I get it wrong. If this is one of those times, all I can say is that at the time I acted in good faith in response to a request for help; no conspiracy, no victimisation.

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

You did not acted at all in "good faith" with this answer You automatically sided with a user because she was registered without making any serious verification about what the issue was, laughed at my WP:ANEW report, indefinitely semi-protected an article that had never been protected before and basically made a mockery of the administrator position on Wikipedia. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 05:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I find the accusations listed to be ridiculous and spurious. Admin shopping? I hardly even know any of the admins well; why would I think anyone would favor me? I simply wished and called for an Admin to assist me QUICKLY; since interactions with the unregistered user were breaking down beyond my capability to handle; and the time was late in my timezone. When I found that the admin I'd called was simply not around; I asked in IRC for a more recently active admin and some editors there helped me find one.

I felt that Jim's actions were pretty fair. A short block was enough to de-escalate things; and boy did they need to be.

For the AIV reporting; I noticed simply that the user had an established history of ignoring repeated warnings about edits. So yes I used AIV. But it's not like I acted without any aid; I actually spoke with a few other editors in IRC as well; who recommended it. I saw that more than a few reverted warnings were 3s; 4s and 4im-s. So I presumed they were WP:NOTHERE to be helpful.

Regarding this IP user; I've never met them before. Never reverted them before. In general if someone wants to stand up and defend their edits I generally let be; so long as they reach out to me on my talk page and explain what their edits were and why they were valid. I can and do make errors but in general I am pretty approachable! I won't reject any potentially valid reason; why even an assertion of adding a source later would have been enough to satisfy my concern about the edits!

I don't have bias against IP editors per-se; but they do appear in my feeds a lot. I think that's a mediawiki design decision. Anonymous unregistered edits are flagged for review! Why on earth would that be a bias on my part?

Why would an established editor with experience and good faith then *refuse* to create a Wikipedia account? It...simply doesn't compute to me.

♥ Melody ♥ 05:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you even know what the issues were regarding those "3s; 4s and 4im-s" warnings? Do you even know if they were valid?

What you did was shopping for an administrator to cover yourself from the ANEW report and avoid being blocked for violating 3RR. And your strategy worked perfectly well. The administrators at ANEW overlooked my report because they saw that the page was protected and that saved you from what would have otherwise been a block for 3RR. And to make matters worse, you've violated WP:INVOLVED by trying to make Jimfbleak close the ANEW report.

And with your last sentence Why would an established editor with experience and good faith then *refuse* to create a Wikipedia account? It...simply doesn't compute to me., you've pretty much admitted that you have prejudices against unregistered editors. Are you insinuating that unregistered users can't make good faith edits? 66.130.253.101 (talk) 06:20, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Melody_Concerto, you are avoiding the issue here. Just answer the simple questions of why you regarded this as vandalism and why you reverted to a completely unsourced address. And don't say "people on IRC agreed with me". This is WQikipedia, not IRC, and what is said there has no bearing on what is right. And why do you think Jimfbleak's block was right, when you were the one reverting to an unsourced version, so surely it was you if anyone who should have been blocked to de-escalate things? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• This whole ordeal is ridiculous. All of this over changing an address from cross-streets to a numerical address? First, the IP can't list sources only in the edit summary. 2nd, the sources may or may not be acceptable -- I'm not digging into that as it seems moot. 3rd, I don't think Melody really handled the situation very carefully only adding to the IP's frustration. 4th, the IP was blocked AND the page was semi'd, yet Melody skated w/o even a warning. Last, TParis made their point but almost escalated this further. Please, everyone read what has been said above, take it to heart, don't do it again, and move on. Talk about trouts. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 07:12, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Moving on is far easier said than done when a user is blocked but the other who did worse isn't, and when an article is indefinitely semi-protected not because of an history of disruption throughout the years but rather because of the poor judgment of an administrator. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 07:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The page should be un-protected and you should take it to the talk page, IMO. You got the short end of the stick but that can't be undone nor will it be corrected. Jimfbleak stated above they sometimes get things wrong; around here that's about as good as you can expect. Melody should be admonished and really should know better. TParis is right about IPs but almost blew it. If you go right back to edit-warring, then peace be with you. All this over an address, really? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 07:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I personally don't have any desire to edit the page but it should be unprotected for other unregistered users that had nothing to do with this issue. Melody should be blocked 24 hours for breaking 3RR which, when you think of it, is really a mild block considering all her other violations. As for Jimfbleak, I don't think he qualifies an an administrator but I'm realistic enough to know that it takes more than one incident to sanction an administrator. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 08:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Just wanted to add my support for Bison X's treatment of events, after reading this whole discussion. I think all involved will be more careful in the future to use talk pages, which is really what this all comes down to.
  I would add that TParis and Heironymous Rowe cussing at each other was not really needed and an unwelcome distraction. WP:PROFANEDISCUSSIONS...I see no way to square the words fuck off with WP:IUC's admonition against indecent suggestions, and I think that TParis should apologize in private on Heironymous Rowe's talk page. I do think that their mention of WP:BOOMERANG was in good faith, the only thing they could have done better is clarify what part they were referring to, perhaps with a quote. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 08:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, I thought that wasn't great in a criticism of other editors' behaviour. Anyway, in the circumstances, I've unprotected the article in question too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Psiĥedelisto: It was absolutely warranted. We start with Melody that gets into an edit war with an IP and assumes bad faith on the IP's part (accusing the IP of vandalism). Then Jimfbleak assuming that the IP is indeed the vandal without reviewing the edits before using the mod button. Then 331dot suggesting it's the IP's fault for not registering an account. And finally Heironymous Rowe throwing a veiled threat at this IP for filing this report by bolding suggesting it'd boomerang on the IP. 4 editors have mistreated this IP and owe it an apology and I absolutely believe that the proper use of a "fuck off" was warranted in this case to raise the issue of how profoundly fucked up we've treated the IP as a community. So, I will not be issuing an apology. But those 4 editors could apologize to the IP and maybe then I'll consider it.--v/r - TP 14:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• But what is the point? People who choose not to make an account just get treated that way, often. I am actually pleasantly surprised no one has thrown around sock accusations yet, that quite regularly happens in content disputes. Or when one has a variable IP, constant SPA nonsense, marking of comments as SPA etc. because some people do not understand how it works on a technical side, that it is not by choice and so on. And many other things like being called anonymous to disparage when an IP editor is way less so than someone with a phantasy name or what have you. Or hardly ever being apologized to. Getting mad at one or two people does not do anything. It just is how it is and as long as one does not want to make an account one has to live with getting treated like shit regularly. Obviously there are many friendly people as well though. But whatever, just my two cents. 2003:D6:2714:372E:7CDD:67EE:C5B6:C3EE (talk) 15:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• You're right, but we shouldn't tolerate it just because that's the way it is and has always been. I can't jump into every case of an IP editor, but this one is pretty blatant and obvious.--v/r - TP 15:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• I edited as a dynamic IP for about 8 years and in that time directly ran into maybe 3 editors (2 were admins) who belittle IPs reflexively. On the other hand, I can probably name 10-12 admins who in that time understood WP:IPHUMAN. How you act & how you edit as an IP is on you and you entirely. Yes, IPs are people too, but a lot of people are morons. If you act like a grown up as an IP, you get treated like one by admins. If you act like an immature newbie, it makes little difference if you are an IP; but if you blame it on that no one will or should bother to listen. Being an IP means you can't rest on your laurels and every new edit is a chance to fail or succeed. OTOH, editing as an IP has a couple of advantages I still miss and anyone who tells an IP to create an account can suck it. BTW, Wikipedia:Why not create an account? is a condescending pile of crap and is part of the problem. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 17:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• (ec)For the most part i agree, if you act like an adult you have a decent chance to be treated fair. As an IP editor one has much less space for misbehaving though. Small things can lead to annoying things, like this i guess. But as you said, chances are that if one explains oneself well, reasoned and calmly, many admins will listen. And of course there are many people editing as IP's that are absolute idiots, no question lol. But then again, really no different with people with accounts. It just is very disheartening when things like that do happen. I only had like 3 or 4 really bad experiences over 6 or so years myself and many more actual positive ones where people were sticking up for me. But the bad stuff stays with you more. Also, infoboxes on userpages stating they are against IP editing are also an issue i feel. On the face of it, it is only a small, perhaps technical, thing. But it also tells me i am not wanted. And with those people there just is no talking. But, at least one can just vanish from them with a variable IP. Stay away from articles those people edit, no contribs for them to follow and just go on doing something positive. Anyway, enough general ramblings about being an IP editor lol. Not all bad and most certainly is very much about how one conducts oneself. Be decent and chances are that is how you are treated, be less than optimal and you get rightfully shown the door. Just some people blur those lines a bit too much. 2003:D6:2714:372E:7CDD:67EE:C5B6:C3EE (talk) 18:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• And one last thing, just say you are sorry if you do mess up. It happens. We all understand that many editors, admins in particular, deal with a lot of shit. But hearing someone say sorry that they messed up means a lot. Just to come back to how this should ultimately end. Anyway, happy fathers day to all you dads out there. 2003:D6:2714:372E:7CDD:67EE:C5B6:C3EE (talk) 18:54, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• I might have guessed that IRC was involved in this. That is the home of techies rather than encyclopedists, and I have lost count of the number of times that I have seen editors egged on by others on IRC to make edits against policy, and in the process gang up on editors (who may or may not identify by their IP address) who don't belong to that particular clique. Why do we put up with such off-wiki canvassing? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Phil Bridger I guess this is another conspiracy insinuation. I don't have am IRC account, although I have no idea how it's possible for me to prove that. I'd be much happier to be judged on what I've actually done/not done than what you think I've been plotting on a website I've never used, let alone be "egged on by". Cheers, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 20:20, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• And I neither said that you were involved nor have made any conspiracy insinuations. I specifically said that the original poster here should not have done so. My statement was based on the fact that Melody Concerto said above, "I actually spoke with a few other editors in IRC as well; who recommended it". Phil Bridger (talk) 20:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Moving forward, I would propose a block on Melody's account with a duration of 24 hours to make matters fair. I was blocked 31 hours for less than what she did. Melody performed four reverts within 10 minutes for something that wasn't on WP:3RRNO. Period. Any other user would have been blocked for this. Administrators have been blocked and sometimes even been desysoped for this. But somehow, Melody gets exempted because she went to Jimfbleak?!?!?! And we're just talking about 3RR here. I didn't even mentioned the other stuff from the faux WP:AIV to the admin hunting, or the failed attempt to get Jimfleak to end a report on AN3; all of which are transgressions of policies, not guidelines. Doing nothing about it sends a precedent that users can violate policies at free will and find themselves an administrator to shield them from sanctions.66.130.253.101 (talk) 03:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• @66.130.253.101: Two wrongs don't make a right. I suggest you WP:DROPTHESTICK. This discussion will be archived, and if similar happens, you can reopen a discussion. Remember, Wikipedia:Sanctions against editors should not be punitive. There's no reason to block Melody Concerto, certainly not to create some kind of false sense of "fairness" wherein everybody loses. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 03:52, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. How is being blocked for breaking 3RR a wrong and how is not being blocked for breaking 3RR a right? Blocks are there to be preventive and a short block recorded on her log would serve her as a remainder to not repeat the things that have lead to all this. As it is, there's no reason to believe that she wouldn't do it again because she has seldom participated in this discussion and for the only time she did, she denied any wrong doing and did not address the concerns people had about her behaviour. WP:DROPTHESTICK doesn't apply because the debate has not come to a natural end. Maybe that's your own interpretation of the thread but that's certainly not the fact considering that Phil Bridger asked Melody a question 12 hours ago and the concerns raised by T Paris yesterday. What's the point on opening a thread here if it's for it to be closed unresolved just because someone in their own mind personally feels that it has become obsolete when the conversation indicates otherwise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.253.101 (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Blocks are not meant to be punitive but to stop disruption - would blocking Melody Concerto stop future disruption?Nigel Ish (talk) 13:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes because she can't/won't understand that she was edit warring. Meaning that she could be redoing it at anytime. Based on my experience on this site, blocks have often been the remedy for people who did not understand that they were disruptive. In many cases, it put them back on the right track and were never reblocked for the same thing. 66.130.253.101 (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Blocks are meant to stop current active disruption. If she is not currently engaged in an edit war this moment that a block would put an end to, then it's inappropriate. The outcome of this conversation is an expression that the desired behavior out of Melody and Jimfbleak is that IPs are given a fair shake and Melody quits calling IP edits vandalism when she doesn't like them.--v/r - TP 14:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Close @Jimfbleak: has deflected and refused to explain their actions in accordance to WP:ADMINACCT and @Melody Concerto: has remained defensive and unapologetic, but the discussion has run its course. Let it close and the IP can bring it up again if it happens again.--v/r - TP 14:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I won't be editing anymore on this site and will stick to the French Wikipedia where unregistered users are treated far more differently and can still create articles (albeit with some guidelines of course). But in the unlikeliness that this thread was able to raise awareness regarding the double standard towards unregistered users, I'm happy that it was able to make some difference. If T Paris feels that it should be closed then I guess it can be closed and we can all move on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.253.101 (talk) 14:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New IP rangeblock evasion from old troll

Can we get a rangeblock to stop an old vandal from continuing with new disruption? He was rangeblocked as Special:Contributions/81.141.154.0/24 for six months but has shifted to using a bunch of London IPs, a portion of which I've listed below. In some cases his disruptive talk page comments have been revdeled[127][128] This person is an incorrigible troll. Binksternet (talk) 17:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• 86.187.239.182 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.171.101 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.234.169 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.170.217 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.238.101 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.235.225 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.174.65 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.232.172 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.231.43 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.233.77 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.165.195 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.164.230 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.162.232 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.162.216 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.160.181 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.174.248 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 86.187.234.12 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • This is 86.187.128.0/17, and there's a significant amoutn of collateral here. The other issue is that they're BT IPs; they never stay on the same range for massive lengths of time anyway. I have however removed the range from the Thunberg article for a significant time. Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the tailored rangeblock; it will keep this vandal from his most pressing desire for a while. Binksternet (talk) 02:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Range block one ip and they switch to another. It's as easy as going into router firmware on some others. Plus doing anything larger than a /22 on a dynamic IP is a terrible idea Muhammad jahiib punjit (talk) 02:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)(contribs)

User: Matthewmorrison34

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

You can end this notice. The user is an confirmed sockpuppet of another user who has been using hundreds of different accounts/IPs to vandalize Wikipedia, he's permanently banned. You can archive this, no action is further needed. --TechnicianGB (talk) 05:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Matthewmorrison34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User Matthewmorrison34 insists in deleting data backed up by sources, vandalizing pages with anonymous IPs (I have initiated a sockpuppet investigation for this, but it's clear it's the same user = same edits) and modifying another pages without factual sources, even after being warned. He is now engaged in an edit war in the page Alicante and he's also breaking Wikipedia:No personal attacks personally attacking me and making false claims about me in the page User talk:Subtropical-man because another user noticed he is the same sockpuppet and I replied today saying it's clear he is looking at the edits he's making, because of that this user started attacking in that same talk page. Nevertheless this is not the first time he's getting a warning, but today this went further beyond.

Affected edits:

Today: [129] [130] [131] [132]

Previously, obvious vandalism, modifying climate pages with fake data and no sources, he has been warned before:

1. [133]
2. [134]
3. [135] (changing an official source with a non-reliable one)

Other users were reverting his changes but he was putting them again, even if they're fake and invented. This was done during 4 following times:

1. [136] [137]
2. [138] [139]
3. [140] [141]
4. [142] [143]

Same again in another page, twice in the case of this page:

1. [144] [145]
2. [146] [147]

He has been warned previously for these edits in other pages but it seems he doesn't care at all. [148] I have warned himself in the page of Alicante but still didn't care. An anonymous IP that has been editing that page said the same as this user did (that's why I have made the investigation Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Matthewmorrison34) as well as another IPs have been doing the same disruptive edits, mostly modifying Italian cities with fake climate data, either without any source or either using broken sources. --TechnicianGB (talk) 23:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

All these diffs show is an editor removing a blatantly unreliable source that you're edit-warring to add. (It even says "Not the official airport website" right at the bottom.) You mention warning Matthewmorrison34 but that's only in edit summaries. There's no discussion at Talk:Alicante, which per WP:BRD is where you should have gone after the original revert. You left a single warning at User talk:Matthewmorrison34 and then started this ANI before Matthewmorrison34 had edited again. Of course, Matthewmorrison34 certainly could be a sockpuppet but neither of you look good here. Woodroar (talk) 00:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Woodroar: That text was there from a long time ago, it's just that this user, but using an IP and not his account, deleted it, I have inserted a source to back it up, the source is not official, obviously, but it's neither a very unreliable one since it offers a lot of real data and it even has a contact form. The edit war started to delete this text, as it was here from a long time ago, I just inserted the source to prove it's not something I have invented by myself.

Nevertheless I have made the ANI more because this user is a sockpuppet. For example, the edit [149] proves it: [150] 2 different days, an user and an IP but writing quite almost the same with the same writing style, the same that it's happening with very similar IPs and the same user in other climate pages. --TechnicianGB (talk) 00:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

See WP:LOGOUT. There is no policy against editing while logged out, unless it's done to mislead—for example, by pretending to be two users in a discussion. That doesn't appear to be the case here. Woodroar (talk) 00:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear all, as I let you investigate the issue, I would like to invite you to notice how I just removed a claim which is INCORRECT and how User:TechnicianGB was the one vandalising the page, as before today he always reverted the edits keeping that claim WITHOUT a source, and how his source today is completely UNOFFICIAL. Contrarily, I not only removed the claim as it does NOT have ANY valid source, but have also backed my arguments with concrete data from the two cities, as you can see in the edit history of Alicante, which completely proves that. Furthermore, I specified on (talk) that the climate chart of Alicante does not match the AEMET source that is cited in the page. Yet, User:TechnicianGB is still accusing ME of being the vandal, thus also breaking Wikipedia:No personal attacks, as he is personally attacking me through claims that are SEEN to be false. Matthewmorrison34 (talk) 01:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)User:Matthewmorrison34

@Matthewmorrison34: I agree that TechnicianGB should never have made the claim of vandalism since this is clearly a content dispute with both sites mostly acting in good faith, so the false accusation of vandalism is a personal attack. Which begs the question, since you knew all that, why did you come to ANI and make a personal attack of your own by also false accusing TechnicianGB of vandalism? Two wrongs don't make a right. Nil Einne (talk) 01:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

(EC) If there is a dispute over the reliability of the source, this should be solved via discussion not edit warring nor ANI. Some WP:content dispute mechanism could be used such as WP:RSN. However I suggest you re-read WP:RS and seek general feedback first since "serious source" and "has a contact form" are definitely not going to cut it and "offers a lot of real data" isn't much help either. Instead issues like who has editorial oversight for that source matter. As for the IP stuff, while editing the same article both logged out and logged in does create a risk of confusion, IMO a better solution rather than opening that CU case which seems pointless would have been to ask the editor to only edit from their account when editing those same articles (or on the same issues) to reduce such confusion. Nil Einne (talk) 01:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: I used the word vandalism as this is what he led me to believe he was doing through his actions of continuously putting back a false claim. However, I thank you for your indications regarding how this conflict should be solved via discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthewmorrison34 (talk • contribs) 01:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Matthewmorrison34: According to TechnicianGB, you are the one who keeps adding false information. Clearly you both disagree on which information is correct, and which sources support what information. That's why WP:Vandalism is clear that the editor needs to be intentionally inserting information they know to be false (or some other situations), rather than just one side says they are. Frankly, if I were an admin, I would be tempted to block the the next one to accuse the other side of vandalism As it is, from my PoV, you've destroyed any sympathy I had for you by coming to ANI and demonstrating you are no better than TechnicianGB. Falsely accusing the other side helps no one, it doesn't make people more sympathetic to your PoV. It's just lame. Nil Einne (talk) 01:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: I do regret what has happened, but from my point of view TechnicianGB was intentionally putting that claim back over and over again even if he KNEW that it's untrue (again, until today he did not have a source and did not seem to respond to anyone's argument), so that is why I reacted by accusing him of vandalism as well. Also, him accusing me in ANI definitely did not help my sympathy towards him and on the contrary alarmed me on his intentions. That being said, I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your indications on how to proceed from now on.

@Matthewmorrison34: you deleted something that's been there since November 2016 without even trying to do nothing at Talk:Alicante but further beyond than that, you're even ignoring the official sources. Check the first source of Alicante and see the weather box, the temps are the same, you are mistaking again (on purpose) with the data of Elche-Alicante airport. You ignored this again and again and again. Like it or not, the official AEMET average shows Alicante (1981-2010) having an average of 17.0ºC in January.

You started your personal attacks against me, even before I didn't say anything to you: [151] and this is what you wrote after: [152] [153] I have proven as well your disruptive edits in your sockpuppet investigation. You're using way too unreliable sources to make climate boxes for Italian cities, and if anyone deletes them, you put them again with your account or with any static IP just as proven on another pages (it's all in your investigation) quite the irony that you delete a single phrase you don't like but you put fake climate data using laugheable sources. You accused me to vandalize climate pages but you weren't able to show the proof, but I shown the proof that you vandalize Italian climate pages to make them look much warmer than they are, in fact. Either by using non-reliable sources or either by using 0 sources.

What is clear is that, you started an edit war, deleting something that was there for years, even after putting a source you ignored it, you started personal attacks and I told you to prove what you say and you didn't because you can't, you made it something personal, I investigated your contributions and I saw you are suspicious for sockpuppetry as well, so I reported you with a strong reason. And now you play the victim and you say I am attacking you while you are the only one doing it, as well as using sockpuppets and making edit wars. --TechnicianGB (talk) 01:25, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

References

@TechnicianGB: Your arguments are always less solid, as again, I removed a claim that was there since 2016 for the simple reason that it is a FALSE claim that was not backed-up by ANY source. As seen in the edit history, you reverted such edits even when you still DID NOT HAVE a source. Now you put a source that is from an UNOFFICIAL AIRPORT WEBSITE, and ignore the actual DATA that dismantles the claim. That source does not at all stand to actual official data. These are hence disruptive edits combined with personal attacks. Matthewmorrison34 (talk) 01:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)User:Matthewmorrison34 @Matthewmorrison34: I shown where you started with personal attacks against me, you shown 0 as I didn't attack you in any moment. I only said you vandalized some pages (not this one of Alicante, the ones where you used invented data, as other people already told you in your profile) You lied saying the Alicante climate box i'm using is false but it's using the official AEMET source of Alicante, I shown it here and I invite everyone to check it up, that dismantles your only argument. The "unofficial airport website" just says these things you have deleted, as for the climate box or temperatures there is already an official source. Your sockpuppet asked for a source and I inserted it but you deleted it as well. Which are your arguments exactly?

@TechnicianGB: Please stop falsely accusing Matthewmorrison34 of vandalism as that is a personal attack. As I said above, there is no apparent vandalism here from either side, instead we have good faith editing i.e. a content dispute. I don't really give a damn who started the "personal attacks". Both of you need to stop the personal attacks rather than defending it based on the fact the other party also made a personal attack. I don't know your age but we expected maturity from editors whatever their age not lame "he started it" type reasons for continuing poor behaviour. BTW, can both of you learn to indent better as this discussion is getting very confusing given the poor indentation. Nil Einne (talk)

@Nil Einne: Sorry, I didn't know that was considered as a personal attack. I was referring to what this user wrote about me in that talk page mentioned above. You are right, I didn't have to reply again to let administrators investigate it, it's what you say, this could have been discussed instead of keep deleting it and making an edit war as this user has done. I am here to report this behavior, instead of trying to discuss things he preferred to start a war and to personally attack me in another user's talkpage. I didn't even count the "vandalism accusations" as a personal attack, why I called him a vandal is not for what he wrote today.

Here you can see what I am talking about. I did this report not only for what he did today (that was the edit war I also reported where it belongs) but for his actions, this user is a vandal. Let me show you:

1. [154]
2. [155]
3. [156] (changing an official source with a non-reliable one)

He is modifying climate pages with fake data and no sources. Just to make them look colder/warmer or whatever his reasons are, as well as making fake climate boxes and using sockpuppets in Italian cities. That's why I opened a sockpuppet investigation. --TechnicianGB (talk) 01:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@TechnicianGB: I looked at the first edit. What i see is an editor who tried to add a source, and change the information so it reflected that source. Now the source may not be a good source, so potentially the info shouldn't have been changed. But it still appears to a be a change made in good faith. So please explain to me why you are claiming it WP:Vandalism. If you are unable to explain why an edit apparently made in good faith is vandalism, please withdraw your false accusation. I did not look at the other 2 edits since your first example was already a complete failure. Nil Einne (talk) 01:56, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: and changing an official source with a non-reliable one is not vandalism? Anyways, you can check the other examples. Completely made-up data with no source. Not even as in the first case. In the case of Brusells he even insisted in putting the same data even after it was deleted several times by various users. --TechnicianGB (talk) 02:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: here you have this user inserting fake data without sources. [157] [158] [159] [160] [161] until here.

Then you have another users reverting his changes and he's putting them again, even if they're fake and invented. This was done during 4 following times:

1. [162] [163]
2. [164] [165]
3. [166] [167]
4. [168] [169]

Same again in another page:

1. [170] [171]
2. [172] [173]

Are these enough evidences now? Just in Madrid he inserted a non-reliable source but that was deleted, ok, nevermind. But what about Brussels and Athens were 0 sources were inserted and he reverted 6 times the fake data after others reverted it because of that, as it's made-up data? As you can see i'm not very far saying he's vandalizing the Wikipedia. At least he did in these 2 articles, and these were recent changes, prior to the edit war from today. --TechnicianGB (talk) 02:12, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

In ones such as Madrid's I DID source the data with for example climate-data.org, until someone notified me that the existing sources were more accurate. I firstly didn't know that as I was new to wikipedia and saw climate-data.org as a source on some other pages. Same goes for Brussels etc, I was new to wikipedia and did not master it. Once I knew that, as you can see on my talk page, I thanked who told me that and stopped doing that, which to your surprise means problem solved. Now, I invite you to follow Nill Ennie's indications demanding to stop discussing this here and do so via discussion. This is because as in the beginning, you are not following the right procedure: you did not initiate any discussion at Talk:Alicante, which per WP:BRD is where you should have gone after the original revert, and you left a single warning at my User talk:Matthewmorrison34 and then started this ANI before I had edited again. I hence kindly ask you to stop this behaviour of personal attacks and instead follow the right indications. Matthewmorrison34 (talk) 02:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)User:Matthewmorrison34

No it's not. It's a WP:content dispute. Official sources, whatever you mean by that, do not always have priority on wikipedia and even if they did, it would still be a content dispute. An editor being wrong about the acceptability of a source doesn't turn a good faith edit into vandalism. The editor needs to be intentionally trying to harm wikipedia (or some other limited situations) which doesn't apply when they think they are improving the article, even if they are mistaken. Let's also remember this thread started off with you defending a source because it had an "email contact" etc, so frankly I'm not sure if we should trust your assessment of sources. (I do think the the Spanish meteorological agency is likely to be a far better source for Spanish historical weather information than climate-date.org, but ultimately we don't deal with content disputes here anyway.) I'm not going to bother to looking into your other claims, since I've tried to explain so many times to you that a good faith edit or content dispute is not vandalism, and likewise wikilinked the WP:Vandalism page many times, but you're still not getting it. I will repeat what I said one more time. If you don't want to get blocked, please stop making false accusations of vandalism. If you don't understand what vandalism is, then just don't use the word. Even for genuine vandalism it's often unnecessary to call it that. Frankly this whole dispute is an utter mess. There are claims of a link between 2 accounts but the SPI only dealt with 2 IPs and one account. There is apparent outing. And now after ~3 times we're still discussing the definition of vandalism. Nil Einne (talk) 02:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: I understand your point, that word shouldn't be used unless if it's very obvious. Got it. I have checked what you sent me and I agree with the definition. But did you check what I shown you in my last edition? Not the changes in Madrid (that was a content dispute which was deleted) but the ones in Brussels and Athens where fake data was willfully inserted without any kind of source. Aren't those disruptive edits? You could check them as these have 0 sources, they aren't good faith ones.

About the outing I don't know nothing about. I have heard as well that another users suspect of 2 additional accounts, but I don't think they're the same. The Madrid edition was an example, that's not a bad edit at all (understood, that wasn't anything bad at all) but the other ones that really included fake data and this user arrived to revert 4 times other users that were deleting that made up data. I left the links above, you can see about what i'm talking about. --TechnicianGB (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:MetallicBox, which appears to be a troll/vandalism-only account

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• The title pretty much speaks for itself. Rather than posting specific diffs, I advise editors and reviewing administrators to look at a few of the edits (any that you choose) on their recent contributions page. The editor appears to be a pro-Trump POV troll, adding nonsensical claims that are never sourced, including to the point of claiming “this is why Trump (did/will) win in a landslide in the 2020 election”. I’m fairly sure this is just someone seeking to a provocateur and a troll, as most of what they say doesn’t even make sense, and is posted across multiple articles with little variation. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 07:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, this post is moot as when I went to post the ANI notification, I noticed that they had been blocked indefinitely while I filed the report. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 07:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User: Mr.User200 reverting all edits

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User: Mr.User200 – Editor has removed all my sourced edits/content within the past 24 hours without having used the talk page and just followed all my edits and removed most content without any explanation nor sources. He just reverts back any edit I made/make, see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, He removes all my content and then accuses me Of things that I am clearly not doing. Like can the User: Mr.User200 explain why he removed this?: 6. Adding content with a clear source and then he removes it by simpely acussing it as not reliable? I clearly stated that it was an Turkish claim as does the source so why remove it? How is that even allowed? He also doesn’t listen in the Talk page either nor barely uses it. On the page of Operation Spring Shield he uses the excuse of grammar to remove literally 80% of the page while I am still working on it as I said earier in the talk page! [174] Thats not how Wikipedia works, is it? Isn’t he supposed to help and improve the page as well? Its also not copyrighted as the copyrighted parts were already removed by an other user.[175] And here [176] he even acusses me of edit warring on something that 1. was clearly not an edit war, not even close. 2. It was already resolved/fixed. If this user doesn’t get a warning or a block for this unacceptable behavior then I’m kind of done with Wikipedia. Spending hours to improve pages only to get everything removed by an user who doesn’t even give any logical reason at all and who is clearly trying to annoy me and disrupt my work, is that what Wikipedia is? Maistara (talk) 10:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit: Its unbelievable, the user continues vandalizing all my edits:9, 10, 11. Also he ignores my warnings: [177]Maistara (talk) 13:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Maistara with a account of 48 hours of created, edits the same Turkish related articles that were vandalised in February- March & May by various Socks. In the Operation Spring Shield article he make Copyright infridgement and was Warned, he reverts content without explanation. First Second More.

This new account have a Heavy Pro Turkish POV. Inflating Syrian losses from previous edits, Calling claims everything regarding Turkish military conflicts.

I was warned by another user he could be a Sockpuppet of User:Gala19000 Here.

While checking all his/her edits, there is a huge coincidence of the articles bein edited to his POV.

A CheckUser invstigation could be made, I have a list o possible Sockpuppets. Mr.User200 (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Regarding my revert on his contribution, the article of the Operation Spring Shield had Copyright issues and a terrible Grammar. "Two Russian-made Su-24 jets of the Syrian airforce that allegedly attacked attack Turkish planes were shot down. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that Turkish forces had destroyed so far two Syrian Su-24 fighter jets, two drones, 135 tanks, and five air defence systems." Literal. Another example: Turkish F-16 intruded Syrian airspace twice. The jets attacked and downed two planes of the Syrian Air Forces over Idlib. The pilots managed to eject safely," the Syrian defense ministry official said. For that reason and the heavy POV on his edits I preferred to kept all the articles on their last version.Mr.User200 (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Wait now I am the one who vandalized? You were literally ignoring the warnings. All copyrighted parts of Operation Spring Shield was already deleted and I was working on the article to improve it. You on the other hand didn’t even try to improve it but just remove everything that was added. And it wasn’t just that one, here we see what you all removed:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

You were just removing everything you didn’t like and now accuse me of being heavy pro Turkish? Are you a joke? And besides that I am now also a SP? I would use the same arguments as well if I couldn’t win a discussion with another user. Pathetic try from you here. You ignore the talk pages, you ignore the warnings and now warn me? Stop being so lame. If there are problems with the grammar then you are welcome to help me with that. I was still working on it to improve the page as I was one of the few who worked on it. And you just removed everything because that will improve the page? What?Maistara (talk) 13:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The behaviour and languague used by this user have a lot in common with those banned SP. Also the same editing habits is similar with those Sockpuppets. The way he use and known how Wikipediaworks , he is not a new user at all. He also give warning insults like here.Mr.User200 (talk) 13:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Mr.User200, and Maistara, y'all should try to indent properly, and I think both of you should stop talking here. Mr.User200, I removed that list for formatting reasons--please file an SPI. Ponyo, you did the leg work last time; if you have a moment?

Mr.User200, you're not a new user too, and you should know how to indent properly in a discussion. Drmies (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I´am not new, but I am not using a new acount. A CheckUser Investigation should be made. I have a list of those Sockpuppets in my Talk page. I want a CheckUser investigation how I can contact a SPI clerk.Mr.User200 (talk) 13:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Mr.User200, so your proposal is a boomerang block? {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 13:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

That user have all the behaviour and the same editing habits like those banned Sockpuppets, also he have the same languague, I think is obvious.Mr.User200 (talk) 13:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Example of canvassing by that User.Mr.User200 (talk) 13:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Alright, so is there going to be taken any action against Mr.User200? Or is reporting him here not enough? Have shown all the evidences I have and he still continues doing the same thing. Would like to get some help on this. Maistara (talk) 13:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

No. Drmies (talk) 13:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Iamdmonah and gross incompetence

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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User:Iamdmonah is a rather recent user with severe problems in the field of sourcing. Often giving no sourcing at all or just giving links to websites where you have to find the info on your own. Recently, Iamdmonah started started giving quotes for sources, but unless specifically pointed to the right quote, he failed to add them properly. This looks like gross incompetence (WP:CIR). No matter what, Iamdmonah thinks that we (user:Mabuska and me) should help him and not be so critical. But advice is not or hardly heeded too or plain rejected ([178]).

History of source requests and warnings about sourcing: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

Not assuming good faith: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Discussions are going nowhere and improvements are zero as Iamdmonah fails to adhere to WP:RS and WP:V. To my personal opinion, it is enough now and I request a block for gross incompetence. The Banner talk 13:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Other than a thank you they gave me for an edit, to which I didn't understand why they did, the first direct interaction I had with this editor was this bad faith and threat. I did however outline where they were wrong to which they kept trying to say that it wasn't them ([179] . Firstly they had firstly been hacked, then something about how easy it is for Google to be hacked ([180] how does that apply to Wikipedia) and then it was because someone got access to their unprotected devices, to which supposedly their Wikipedia account doesn't even have a password [181]. The message they left me on my talk page was 20 minutes prior to a string of edits they made on several articles, so they were active around the time of leaving it.

Despite their denials subsequent comments however make it clear they were full of bull and driven by political bias: And killed by those few Irishmen who fight against freedom- pretty much the story of Irish history if you ask me., I'm not even going to try and argue about Irish neutrality in WW2 with a British loyalist, I 100% accept the blame for bringing up the subject, should never have done so., My image of the "Irish freedom fighter" is countered by your views that British people are the best in the world. All of this is based simply on the fact on my Wikiedpia user page I have an infobox which states I am a proud citizen of Northern Ireland - nothing more and nothing less. In fact they would be very hard pressed to find an article or talk page edit of mine that would show me as being a "loyalist", which they can't as I am not one nor ever would be.

Away from that the editor especially at Brian O'Neill (High-King of Ireland) kept adding in information cited to poor unreliable webpages. These "sources" we also full of WP:WEASEL and WP:PEACOCK, to which this user added yet more weasel and peacockery and OR/synthesis. I have pointed them to quite a few policy articles, but they are obviously not reading them.

They also as The Banner has pointed out expect us to tidy up after them. I have made this editor aware of the policies of foreign-language names on Wikipedia and yet he continues to add them in even adding pipe-links, and expecting me to correct it for them. In regards to sources they asked me to provide online versions for them because they can't get access to them, even asking me to provide Google book links for them. I told them to be WP:BOLD and do it themselves. Yes it would be helpful but not all academic sources can be found with free previews and I made this clear to them. These edits show a laziness to do the basics of research and effort to conform to policy.

Their edits are full of issues and their views on historical events based by their use of article talk pages as a forum for soapboxing views that are entirely at odds with historical reality and academic sources. Anything that goes against their view is not true in their opinion.

My biggest concern with this editor however is that he could be a sockpuppet of the indef banned editor Lapsed Pacifist and his sock Gob Lofa, another highly politicised and biased Irish republican editor. All three accounts have nine shared articles so far, 19 articles between him and the Gob Lofa account alone, and about 12 between him and Lapsed Pacifist including quite recently the Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan article. Quite an overlap in interest and political mindset for an editor of only 249 article edits on 53 articles, with 41.5% of them unique articles shared with Gob Lofa/LP combined.

I have tried to be accommodating to this editor where possible, even going as far as helping explain a revert another editor did on one of their edits. However their extremely distorted political bias and complete inability to accept historical reality and facts and penchant for outright lying seriously brings their competence into question. Mabuska ^(talk) 15:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

These claims are nonsense in my view. I would appreciate if you would read my side of the story and keep in mind that I'm a new editor who has made mistakes, but I am trying to learn as I go along. This is my account based upon the claims of both of these editors. I apologise for any offence caused in the following:

My problems with user:The Banner: We first met on the page Brian Boru. I made edits on the page– some of my first ever edits– which I 100% accept were unsourced. They reverted them, and he was perfectly right to do so. They explained to me how my edits were unsourced, and how I could improve, which I thanked them for. I fixed my mistakes and that was that. I continued editing Brian Boru but my edits were repeatedly reverted by the Banner– despite,in my view, my sourcing being equal or superior to other sources on the page and on other wikipedia pages. I kept trying to improve and I felt I was doing well. But things started to get frustrating when they continued reverting my edits without any explanation. These often escalated into edit conflicts which could last days. I would repeatedly ask them what was wrong with my edits- to which I received no response. Therefore, I continued to edit as I hadn't received any explanation as to what was wrong with my edits. At this point I was informed that my edits on all pages were going to be checked by them. His allegations of my edits being unsourced quickly escalated from being "unsourced" to being "vandalism" (to which they did not back up or give any evidence). We had several arguments on multiple different talk pages, which eventually ended when he seemed to finally give up harassing me– or so I thought.

My problems with user:Mabuska: We met on the page Owen Roe O'Neill. I was editing the page when they moved the page from the Irish language title to the English language title– which I had no problem with. At this point I accidentally thanked them. That was that for a while. However things escalated when someone accessed my account— I still do not know by who or how– and accessed their talk page and accused them of a "campaign" of changing Irish-language titles to English-language titles. I came on to my account 20 mins later to edit my talk page. I was unaware of the edits on Mabuska's talk page until I received a response from them, in which they rightfully defended themselves– but also began accusing me of being a sock puppet account of "Irish Republican" editors which have been banned. I repeatedly attempted to explain to them that it was not me, and I apologised and accepted responsibility for allowing my account to be accessed so easily– but they continued accusing me of the previous accusation made through my account. We both eventually agreed to end the conversation– as they would not accept my explanations or apologies. But not before they said they would also be monitoring my account as they believed I was linked to these "Irish Republican" editors. We had a run in again on the page Brian O'Neill, High King of Ireland, which I was editing. They accused me of using an "unreliable source". I did not intervene when they attempted to change my edits– despite my firm beliefs that my edits were properly sourced. I reverted some of their edits I felt were unnecessary– to which they reverted again. I did not intervene again to avoid another confrontation– apart from me cleaning up some punctual mistakes they had made, which they thanked me for. However, it was at this point that we had an argument in the talk page. It was obvious we had very different opinions. And yes, I do have some Irish nationalist/republican views (which I never denied)– but NONE of my views reflected on my edits, contrary to their allegations– to which they provided no evidence whatsoever. I made the edits they provided above on TALK PAGES, not on the actual wikipedia pages. A talk page is somewhere editors can express their opinions and ways to improve the article, so I did not believe I was in the wrong making those statements. Therefore, their allegations that my edits on the actual wikipedia pages are invalid. Obviously, their accusations are based on their Ulster loyalist/Unionist views which they have repeatedly demonstrated, and I dont believe I need to provide any evidence for this– you can simply check the SAME TALK PAGES on which my edits were on. Therefore, their accusations are completely hypocritical. UPDATE: Due to concerns from the editor in question, user:Mabuska, that I am not providing evidence to prove they have Ulster loyalist/Unionist views, I have decided to provide some: FIRSTLY, on his user page, it is stated that he is a "proud citizen of Northern Ireland"– notably with a Union Jack beside it– this shows they are proud of their British identity and this is something I believe no nationalist/republican would do. SECONDLY, he has said himself he has had a number of clashes with other Irish Republican editors. THIRLDY, on our arguments on the talk page of Brian O'Neill, he repeatedly attempted to demonstrate, in my view, the superiority of Norman/English settlers over the native Irish Gaels. FOURTHLY, several of his edits on other wikipedia pages, including pages he himself created, are strongly associated with Unionist topics. I hope that addresses you concerns.

And I never asked them to provide URL links for my own sources— I asked them to provide them for their own edits, which were made manually. This is something I was punished for by The Banner– so obviously, one of these editors are lying about the "wikipedia guidelines"– I cant be wrong in both instances. And his claims that I am a sock puppet account of these Irish Republican editors are completely false– I have never heard of or had any contact with these editors. Any mutual pages on which we have edited are completely coincidental. I believe this editor is being unfair towards me because of our conflicting political views.

And in terms of me asking for help off them, I only asked for them to explain what I was doing wrong. These events with both editors escalated into a quite intense argument on my talk page which ended with them seemingly giving up on their allegations. Afterwards I continued editing, mainly small edits. Obviously I was being monitored by both editors as I went- because the second I made a mistake on Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan– it was soon reverted by the Banner (again with no explanation). Keep in mind this was an extremely small edit. Thankfully, Mabuska seemed to listen to my concerns and explained what I had done wrong, which I accepted as my mistake and thanked him for explaining. But at this point, to my surprise, the Banner made this complaint to you– seemingly because of my very small edit on Patrick Sarsfield. They accused me of making unsourced edits on purpose, which is frankly insane in my view– what reason do I have to do this? Considering this was my first "mistake" in quite some time.

In my view, all of these claims are completely false, biased, unreasonable, unfair and lacking any evidence. For the record, I did not have any previous knowledge of wikipedia and how it works or use any tools such as Wikipedia:Adventure or Teahouses– something I regret. I have only learned about these tools very recently, that is why I had not already used them. In my view, these editors are clearly taking advantage of me not knowing or understanding the Wikipedia guidelines as well as them– I'm sure if I knew them, I could find some they have violated.But I will not because I hope that you, as the administrator, has the knowledge, empathy and unbiased views that will prove me innocent. Frankly these two editors are driving me insane and I am becoming extremely frustrated– at one point I even considered leaving wikipedia because I felt I could not do anything wrong. I am really trying to my very best and am trying to learn. But these editors are not helping me at all and are in my view damaging wikipedia by attempting to drive new editors off the site. I have made repeated attempts to solve our issues– all of which they have blatantly ignored. Blocking me would make things worse– it would encourage these editors to continue harassing new editors and undermining the principles of Wikipedia. I do not want to continue arguing with these people– I am only defending my innocence and what I know is right.

Again, apologies for any offence caused. Thank you for reading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamdmonah (talk • contribs) 17:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe this editor is being unfair towards me because of our conflicting political views. - I have no issues with you because of your personal beliefs as every one is entitled to believe what they want. I can and have in the past easily worked with editors who I personally disagree with because they also follow Wikipedia guidelines. My issues with you are borne out of your editing behaviour both on articles and their talk pages along with all the nonsense and lies you come out with. You claim no evidence of my thoughts on your outright bias and problems? I have shown you the evidence and you simply ignore and carry on regardless. Mabuska ^(talk) 17:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

As a side note I was surprised to see The Banner post this AN/I as soon as they did. I would have given it a little longer before filing it personally, but I was tagged in this discussion and felt I had to share my thoughts on the incivility, incompetence, lies and possibility of sockpuppetry. And to show how serious it is and for Iamdmonah's enlightenment: The Banner and me as far as I am aware don't exactly get on with each other and disagree quite a lot on various Irish related matters. This must be the first time we agree on something, but most likely as its based soundly on Wikipedia policy and editorial behaviour and nothing else. Mabuska ^(talk) 18:00, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

A talk page is somewhere editors can express their opinions and ways to improve the article, so I did not believe I was in the wrong making those statements. - I have already pointed out to you WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:SOAPBOX and much of the content of your comments fell foul of it and unfortunately I indulged by responding to the absurdities you came out with.

Obviously, their accusations are based on their Ulster loyalist/Unionist views which they have repeatedly demonstrated, and I dont believe I need to provide any evidence for this– you can simply check the SAME TALK PAGES on which my edits were on. - Also here we go again with the lies. Show any proof to back up this statement. Please I implore you to stop lying and provide evidence. And you won't as you can't as there is none. But please go on provide it if you can. Mabuska ^(talk) 18:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not wish to argue. I agree with you that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. Again, all of my edits you have detailed or on talk pages, not the actual wikipedia page- therefore your allegation my edits in pages are influenced by my political views are invalid– and you have yet to provide evidence to the contrary. I respectfully disagree with your other allegations. I do not wish to continue this conversation– but I thank you for explaining your POV.

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regarding revoking the adnmin rights of User:Bishonen on wikipedia

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User:Bishonen have topic banned User:ScholarM just because they argued with Bishonen.It is a clear example that this user have used their admin rights on wikipedia to take a revenge of their personal attack.There is an urgent need to slap a ban on user Bishonen or to revoke their admin rights

Not argued. People should be blocked for making personal attacks. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 16:13, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

User Bishonen was first for making a personal attack and ScholarM did not attack bishonen personally — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2409:4042:E9F:14B0:0:0:6D08:E613 (talk) 16:16, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

An involved admin is highly requested to look on this issue

(edit conflict) IP, please sign your comments using ~~~~. And stop making edit conflicts. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 16:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

An IP out of nowhere making such a report? Quite suspicious. GoodDay (talk) 16:14, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps ScholarM's editing privileges need to be revoked for logging out to complain here. Bishonen has made no personal attacks. Acroterion (talk) 16:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The topic ban is (i) Arbitration enforcement (ii) seems to be fully justified (iii) not because "they have argued with Bishonen" (iv) doubts that Bishonen is involved, whereas in principle could be valid, have been discussed at length at the talk page of the user, and the arguments that she is not involved seem pretty much convinving for me.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: it is good to uplift the block from scholarM because he had created 17 valid articles with B class and C class status including the start and stub

@Acroterion: please do not be a judge here how can u say that it is ScholarM who is logging out and complaining quite silly prove it if u have any evidence

PLEASE, sign you posts. GoodDay (talk) 16:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

You're here at the administrator's noticeboard, and I'm an un-involved admin. You aren't convincing anyone, and we don't accept proxy appeals of this kind. I'm blocking the IP. Acroterion (talk) 16:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

IP blocked, ScholarM can follow the directions in the topic ban notice to appeal through regular channels. If retaliatory abuse aimed at Bishonen continues, the account may be sanctioned. Acroterion (talk) 16:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We are the judges. We inspect the evidence. If you don't like it, then report elsewhere. Bishonen, back me up. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 16:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

3125A, with respect, admins aren't judges (or police, or lawyers, or that type of thing). And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you're an admin. Maybe cool it on making statements like that on this noticeboard? GirthSummit _(blether) 16:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

fine, I'm just stressed on all the things that I have to work on. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 16:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not sure how many times an editor needs to be told to stop using self-published and unreliable sources before the inevitable result is a topic ban; which in this case looks perfectly justifiable to me. Oh, and there were no personal attacks.Black Kite (talk) 16:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

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User:Brian K Horton

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Brian K Horton (talk · contribs · count) is a single-purpose account that has, so far, mainly posted dubious comments on two noticeboards arguing for the overturn of the well-attended RfCs on the Daily Mail:

1. WP:RSN § Is it a problem that Wikipedia's own article on the Mail doesn't seem to justify depreciation as a source?
2. WP:BLPN § Does DAILYMAIL need a disclaimer, or even guidance on how it can be invoked?

Brian K Horton started the BLPN discussion after the RSN discussion failed to gain traction with other editors. After both discussions were closed as unconstructive by different editors, Brian K Horton posted a comment on my talk page (User talk:Newslinger § Stop gaslighting me) accusing me of "gaslighting" them.

As Brian K Horton appears to be solely interested in advancing frivolous arguments against the community's decision on the Daily Mail, and has shown no interest in any other topic area, I propose that Brian K Horton be indefinitely blocked for clearly not being here to build an encyclopedia. — Newslinger talk 16:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

support per nom. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 17:13, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I have made no frivolous arguments, and dubious is in the eye of the beholder, as can be seen if anyone cares to look, although I doubt anyone is going to. It's a simple fact Newslinger has been gaslighting me - by not just ignoring what I say, but making me think I'm crazy by denying my right to stand behind some basic facts that nobody but a seriously malicious person would ever deny were basic facts. Such as, it's a basic fact that it is Wikipedia policy that a consensus is not valid if it didn't address reasonable concerns. Unhappy that it hasn't succeeded and I haven't run away screaming, this is just another ramping up of that effort, to see if he can properly break me. It's contemptible. If I am such a threat to Wikipedia that you have to resort to arguing a person who makes every effort to frame their posts by showing their relevance to Wikipedia, is not here to help Wikipedia, so be it. But I'm not going voluntarily. Brian K Horton (talk) 17:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Brian K Horton - Whatever the rights and wrongs of your argument, it is just not acceptable to accuse someone of gaslighting you. I suggest you withdraw that accusation immediately. Deb (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Why is it not acceptable? Would you like it to be presented in long form instead? Do you need me to say Newslinger is deliberately making me feel like I'm crazy as an attempt to break me down, as an alternative to treating me with basic human dignity? Or is that still unacceptable? Or are you asking me to list all the times he has deliberately ignored basic facts, and simply repeated what both he and I know is a lie, back to me, apparently just because he can? You already have one, namely whether or not my argument at RSN cites a Wikipedia policy. A second is his claim my post at BLPN is a legal question to the Foundation. I can go on, if needs be. This behaviour is deliberate, its malicious, and it should be deemed unacceptable. As is blaming the victim. Brian K Horton (talk) 17:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support The user's entire contribution history consists of disruptive WP:NOTFORUM violations on noticeboards, with no constructive contributions whatsoever. He refuses to change his behavior after his posts were appropriately collapsed. buidhe 17:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Another straight up lie, no debate about it. Why are you even pretending that other people can't see that I did at least make what are hopefully unambiguously helpful posts at RSN? Such as the point about AdFontes. If not to make me feel like I'm the crazy person, of course. This is straight up gaslighting. Anyone going to call it out? No? Brian K Horton (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Action: I've given this very new user a week's block which he can use to read up on Wikipedia policies and understand that personal attacks are not acceptable. If he chooses to return at the end of that, it will need to be with a constructive attitude. Deb (talk) 17:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

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User ‎Beyond My Ken

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User Beyond My Ken twice returned his version of the article John the Apostle ([182], [183], [184]). He didn’t explain the reason why he removed the image of the tomb of Saint John, also he removed the image from the section Art and added the image from picture Last Supper not clear by whom restored. Aleksei m (talk) 17:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

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Miya people and WP:MOSIS, WP:NPOV, WP:OR issues relating to user:UserNumber

This is in response to the ANI notice by UserNumber (talk · contribs) (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1039#Disruptive_user_Chaipau) which I failed to notice in time since no notice was left on my talk page. In that ANI report they make voluminous accusations of "disruptive" editing by me. This is, of course, incorrect since I am trying to bring the article in line with standard Wikipedia policies and styles. The policies and styles with which Miya people is not aligned, IMHO, are given here.

• In the revert [185] UserNumber has violated a number of different policies and styles that guide Wikipedia.
  • WP:MOSIS - UserNumbers have inserted more Indic scripts into the Info-box and have cluttered the lead with meanings. This makes the article less readable.
  • WP:NPOV and WP:OR - UserNumbers has re-inserted a link to a dictionary that gives the meaning of Miya in Bengali. This is WP:OR because it does not say anything about the etymology of the word Miya in this particular case in Assam, given also that Miya is a widely used honorific in South Asia, which derives from Persian.
• In the revert [186], UserNumber
  • is trying to push for a POV by re-inserting a Bengali article, even as a citation in English already exists supporting the text. Bengali op-eds should be avoided for the following reasons (1) WP:NOENG and (2) the express opinion of a prominent Miya poet himself who says: "It is essentially an initiative to upset the amplified efforts made by some Bengali ultra-nationalists – with roots in West Bengal – on the Char Chapori Muslims of Assam to discard the Assamese language for Bengali. The campaign by these groups has been going on in our areas since 1991." ([187]). As a result, in this article, we should be using op-ed type sources only to demonstrate an opinion that exists and not to assert any facts, if we have to use them at all.
  • is inserting predatory journal articles (from [188])

I have tried to discuss some these issues in Talk:Miya_people#Bengali, but it seems UserNumbers is either adamant on pushing a particular point of view or displaying WP:OWN.

I request comments here to resolve which policies and styles are relevant here and how we could best implement them.

Chaipau (talk) 18:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• • I will address this again. I added ONE Indic script (Assamese script) in the infobox of the Miya article. For most people groups-related articles such as Tamils, Punjabis and Bengalis, they have Indic script in the infobox at least. WP:MOSIS only applies if there are MANY Indic scripts which makes the article MESSY.

• • Secondly, the reason why I insert the dictionary definition is because the term "Miya" is used pejoratively towards the people to make it known that their origin is in Bengal. The Persian word is Mian, and it became Miya in Bengali. I am well aware that their language is Assamese, but in this specific case, Miya is a Bengali term which Assam's people use to discriminate Bengal-origin Muslims.

• • These are the only two problems I see here. I do not see any mistake I have made. Only one of these "problems" include me adding the words "Bengali" to the article and suddenly you accuse me of pushing POV. I wasn't PURPOSELY adding predatory journal articles, they were added by another user and perhaps came back whilst I was undoing your mischievous edits (which involves claiming Miya is Urdu etc.). UserNumber (talk) 19:36, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• • Also, Admins please check this edit of Chaipau: here!, you will see he added Latin to the native name section, and also called Miya people as the descendant of "peasants". UserNumber (talk) 19:56, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@UserNumber:

• You are imagining WP:MOSIS; please read carefully: "Avoid the use of Indic scripts in the lead sections or infoboxes. Instead, use International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation guides, which are more international. Exceptions are articles on the script itself, articles on a language that uses the script, and articles on texts originally written in a particular script." The result of this RfC is a clear "No" on the question "Should we allow for Indicscript/s in infoboxes?"
• The use of pejorative use of Miya is cited from Baruah 2019. You don't need a Bangla dictionary, which is WP:OR (are you trying to say something more than what the sources say?)
• I had to correct you on a number of occasions. Here you have inserted a link to indilens.com, a news portal to claim that the immigration started during the Bengal Presidency period ([189]) Assam left Bengal presidency ended in 1873/1874 and the immigration started around 1911. Here you have inserted "Bengali Muslim" whereas Miya people themselves make a distinction between that term and "Bengal-origin Muslims" ([190]) Either you are trying to push a current political agenda in Wikipedia or you are unaware of the nuances of the issues regarding the article. In any case you are clearly standing in the way of an WP:NPOV article.

Chaipau (talk) 20:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• @UserNumber: I do think that WP:OR is a recurring issue when it comes to your overall editing.[191][192][193] These are some of the diffs I personally watched months ago and your messages show that these problems are not going to resolve anytime soon. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 18:50, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Chaipau is also adding promotional images (unreliable) to history of Assam. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Assam&diff=960745019&oldid=960732362 . 2409:4065:93:6D9C:15A6:1400:78FE:B4FA (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Chaipau, you are now lying against me. These links were insterted in my edits during the merge and move of information from the Na Asamiya article. These weren't even my original edits, I was just doing some merges. I have already discussed the "Bengali Muslim" issue and this discussion has been RESOLVED as I agree that Bengal-origin Muslims is better. Stop bringing old edits which I myself no longer agree with. You are doing the same as Aman Kumar Goel is doing, by bringing up past edits which have already been RESOLVED. UserNumber (talk) 20:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Chaipau, the only CURRENT ISSUE (we're not in the past) is Miya being a Bengali word of Persian origin. The only reason I am adding Bengali dictionary references is because YOU keep removing the fact that it is a Bengali VARIANT. In Persian it is MIAN. The reason why it is pronounced MIYA is because people discriminate these Muslims because they are of "Bengal-origin". UserNumber (talk) 20:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@UserNumber: Before you call others liars, do take care and click on the diffs I have provided. The evidence of what you have inserted are right here. All your claims are WP:OR unless you provide WP:RS (not someone's op-ed) that directly supports your claim. Furthermore, the Bengali romanization of the word is Miah; the Urdu romanization is Mian; but the romanization used here is Miya which is different from the Bengali romanization. In your edit here ([194]), you tacitly admit that Miya is not the Bengali romanization. Chaipau (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not gonna try and guess who's in the right, but reading through these messages, I don't see any particular evidence of the "chronic, intractable behavioral problems" which would warrant opening a discussion here. A content dispute such as this would be far better suited for the Dispute resolution noticeboard. Opening tit-for-tat ANI discussions are not gonna lead to any sort of meaningful resolution.
Alivardi (talk) 00:39, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Alivardi: Thank you for your comment. I have not received any reply from UserNumber on policies and styles, even after I have pointed them out. Here they are reiterating the same argument they made earlier ([195]). If we have WP:IDHT then it means we will land up here again. Also, this was a response to an archived notice, not a new one. Thanks. Chaipau (talk) 01:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

IP hopper and ad-hominem attacks / ignoring consensus

104.15.130.191 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) appears to be the same problematic editor as 67.48.200.162 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) who made ad-hominem attacks related to Hyman_G._Rickover in this edit and received a final warning. Both IPs from Austin Texas arguing for and adding a "resources" section in Hyman G. Rickover.

105.15.130.19 is continuing ad-hominem attacks in this edit. Then ignoring consensus on the talk page, restoring the material that nobody else supported.

Looking at the dialogue on User_talk:67.48.200.162, that editor's false accusation of Andrew Englehart wikihounding, and the continuing ad-hominem comments regarding folks s/he disagrees with, it seems this editor is no here to collaborate. Toddst1 (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

IP block

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Hi, Could an admin block 2.127.78.222 who's an LTA please, Not sure if rangeblocking would be better as this guy doesn't give up, See the above report Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#IP_rangeblock, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 19:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done - IP blocked, Thanks Nick Moyes

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User:Shahnwaz aalam

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• Shahnwaz aalam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has persistently engaged in edits of a promotional nature, either about themself or about various internet peronalities. Besides the deleted articles, they have also kept adding obvious copyvios to Commons. In any case, they have not engaged on talk page or any other type of constructive editing and they appear clearly WP:NOTHERE. Could an admin take a look at this and quite probably indef them (the pictures on commons need to be deleted too). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:20, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• I just reverted an edit of their's to Wikipedia talk:Contributing to Wikipedia. This calls for a CIR block. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Their latest edit to their sandbox, which appear to be starting to write an instruction guide on android app development, are not good signs either in this regard. I have of course also filed a thread at Commons regarding their problematic copyvios, if there's any admin here who's also an admin on Commons and can deal with it. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:36, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• This user's most recent edit was to vandalise my sandbox. --David Biddulph (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely — a WP:CIR, WP:COMMUNICATE block. El_C 15:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

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Apha9

Apha9 (talk · contribs) appears to be keeping a secret list of enemies at their user talk page. This is inconsistent with the purposes of wikipedia and should be removed. I have tried to engage the user, but have met with a consistent refusal to explain the list[196]. DrKay (talk) 21:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I have removed the list and warned the user about WP:NPA and WP:BATTLE. El_C 21:11, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Eostrix

• Article in question: Eastern Rail Services

User:Eostrix recently nominated an article I created for deletion, which was fine as I stated it was borderline notable at the time, but I did ask to check that he was not from a rival rolling stock company due to the speed of the proposal, and lack of any talk page comments etc first. When he said he had no such connection, and didn't even really know about the rail industry (something that now seems to possibly be untrue considering his later comments), I moved on.

Following other editors supporting the retention of the page, rather than accepting that his nomination may not have been correct in this case, this user has started what appears to be a campaign against anyone making an opposing case - having made a formal COI claim against me, despite my having replied on the article to have no interest in the company other than through being a rail enthusiast in the local area, and then accusing me of "infesting".

This persons aggressive style seems very unsuitable for Wikipedia, especially considering that despite being a new editor he has been given the role of a new page reviewer. Neith-Nabu (talk) 09:18, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Eastern Rail Services was filed after two low edit accounts showed up, one of them uploading media from within the company's stockyard and labelled as "Own work" ([197], [198]). I warned Neith-Nabu of making personal attacks, including describing other editors as "infesting", namely:

1. [199]: Neith-Nabu saying "Wikipedia is infested" by certain editors. Appears to be directed at User:Spartaz who closed the AfD delete as well as my self.
2. [200]: accusing me of being "on a personal vendetta against the company, myself, or both".
3. [201]: accusations of "lobbying for negative votes can be accomplished?" on relist of AfD by User:Spartaz.
4. [202] calling User:Spartaz a "supervoter".

--Eostrix (talk) 10:03, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Neith-Nabu: End the accusations, veil insinuations, and implications against all editors. Without evidence, they are personal attacks and you can get blocked. Reasonable fair-minded unaffiliated editors do disagree. The assumption that those that don't see it your way must be paid or part of a conspiracy against you or the railway is nonsense. Step away if you have to, but further accusations against anyone - including IPs and low-edit accounts - will earn a block.--v/r - TP 14:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Rangeblock

Last week I blocked Ythlev (talk · contribs) for a 3RR violation (they reached 9RR). Today I caught them socking with a new account Uconf (talk · contribs), which I also blocked. They are now editing from IPs; I blocked 114.137.46.249 (talk · contribs), but they have popped up again with ‎114.137.134.85 (talk · contribs). Is it possible to block them with a rangeblock? Alternatively, they have quite a narrow focus of edits (Taiwanese elections), so alternatively, all of them could be semi-protected. Cheers, Number 57 12:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

It's a /16 range so it's possible but I wouldn't recommend it. From what I see, collateral is possible but unlikely and unless newer IPs on that range pop up, I would argue multiple IP blocks being a better mechanism. --qedk (t 愛 c) 13:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

They are now reverting random edits I've made from another IP (114.137.206.26 (talk · contribs)). Beyond short-term blocks to stop them socking at the moment, I wonder whether longer-term sanctions may be required. Number 57 14:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Or, you could start acting like an admin and actually fix the problem. 114.137.206.26 (talk) 14:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Every recent edit is them - there is no collateral damage. Since they aren't about to stop, looking at the comment above, I have blocked the /16 range for a month to match their block. Black Kite (talk) 14:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Would WP:3X be a bit too nuclear? Blackmane (talk) 02:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Centre of Muslims

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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As-Salam O Alaikum!

I recently created Wikiproject Centre of Muslims. It is created to improve the articles about places with more than 80% of Muslim Population. After sometime the percentage could be reduced to 50% (places with majority Muslim Population). Similar wikiprojects are working like in the case of [Australia], The only difference is that their scope is countrywide and scope of this Wikiproject is larger, i.e Muslim World.

It was put on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Centre of Muslims because of solo participant. Someone also asked that "Would Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam be interested in this project as a Geography task force?" and I think that Centre of Muslims project should be merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam's Geography task force. --Muhammadahmad79 (talk) 15:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Brysonjett

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A user with some serious WP:CIR issues.

• Edit warring on an BLP to insert uncited material about their friend who apparently knows the famous person. 4 insertion, I reverted them but stopped at 3 reverts, someone needs to address the last re-insertion into the BLP.
• After coming off a recent block they re-inserted a pretty egregious 4 year old vandal edit on the blocking admins userpage
• then proceeded to play dumb that it was even them, see exchange here User talk:Brysonjett#June 2020
• Admin gave them a benefit of a doubt (block rational = (Disruptive editing I was tempted just to block indefinitely as WP:NOTHERE given the warnings and recent edit warring, but I'll give one last chance.[203]))
• Looking at their contribs, I was unable to find one constructrive or productive edit going all the way back to Sept 2019 when the account was created.
• Clearly WP:NOTHERE and WP:CIR come into play. Heiro 16:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

They are also harassing this editor [204] and have continued with this after notified of this ANI. Heiro 16:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

•  Done. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. @Drmies:, can you also revoke talkpage access? Per "Wtf did i do to get blocked? [205]" Heiro 16:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MixedButHumann

This user consistently edits to push a pro-Aramean POV, and has frequently made personal attacks against myself. I have provided the evidence to demonstrate that in a modern context there is academic consensus that Arameans are considered coterminous with Assyrians, e.g. Ethno-cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians, Sargon Donabed & Shamiran Mako (2009), p. 72, UNPO: Assyria, Who Are The Assyrians?, Nicholas Aljeloo (2000), Ethnic Groups of Africa and the Middle East: An Encyclopedia, John A. Shoup (2011), p. 30, Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, ed. Paul S Rowe (2018), p. 357. I have attempted to engage the user in discussion, but he has continued to push his POV.

• At Sharbel Touma, the user demonstrates he is advocating his POV contrary to the academic consensus with no evidence [206]. Note in my edit on this article, I did not change the assertion that the person is Aramean, but pointed to the consensus that they are considered part of the Assyrian people. This is also evident at Jasar Takak, [207].
• At Jimmy Durmaz, the user has replaced reliable sourced content (BBC) with a link to a YouTube video to assert the person has Aramean ethnicity [208]. At Bishara (singer), this user has asserted a living person has Aramean ethnicity without providing a source [209].
• At Stateless nation, the user has restored content by a confirmed sockpuppet, which is unsupported by the source provided [210].
• At Chaldean Catholics, the user has removed sourced content that is contrary to his POV [211].
• At Assyrians in Israel, the user blanked the article without discussion and manipulated the sources to assert his POV, despite the sources supporting the existence of an Assyrian community in Israel [212].
• At Arameans, the user restored content added by a confirmed sockpuppet. The user's "sourced content" is from the Aramean Democratic Organization, not an academic source, and a book named "The Arameans; and their diaspora" with no other details, and cannot be found anywhere. The user points to the variations in languages to support his argument that the Arameans are a separate ethnic group to Assyrians, but this is not accepted in academia, as demonstrated by the sources provided.

This user has been warned to not perform disruptive edits twice [213] [214]. Mugsalot (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi user:Mugsalot

As I already did let you know I did not POV anything on the edits I made. If you look at the sources I provided you can clearly see that the things I edited are stated by several historians, academici, and other objective websites etc and I did provide tens of sources.

I find it very sad that you are kinda trying to change the situation. Because in fact I see you together with other Assyrians editing several Aramean-related pages and remove the Aramean name of several of articles (See talkpage of Assyrian people

And again how can you state that I use a POV on Chaldean Catholics when I provide sources of objective Iraqi newswebsites? How can that be a POV?

As last I want to warn all Wikipedia moderators for Assyrian nationalists on Wikipedia. There is an ongoing Wikipedia war about Assyrian articles with their goal to strengthen the Assyrian nationalism. There is a reddit page called ‘Assyrian that has 2.5000 members and they called up everyone to make a Wikipedia account to strengthen the Assyrian cause. Please see the next link:

It’s clear that you are a pro-Assyrian if you look at the edits you made the past view months, this is not a personal attack, but facts that can be seen when someone watches your edits of the few past months.

(Redacted)

Note 3 of the 5 sources you provided in your text here above come from Assyrian nationalist who work for the Assyrian cause, that’s a POV. Sources like that cannot be used on Wikipedia. It’s a neutral place for sources with that are objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MixedButHumann (talk • contribs) 21:31, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Note: om pages like Jimmy Durmaz and Sharbel Touma the sources were already speaking about them identifying as Arameans. Yet Assyrian nationalist with a POV changed this into ‘Assyrian’. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MixedButHumann (talk • contribs) 21:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann (talk) 21:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, please don't post links to offwiki coordination and definitely please don't cast aspersion about that. Anyway, I find your reply generally unresponsive to the evidence provided. Right now, you are likely to suffer sanctions for editing disruptively and tendentiously. El_C 21:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi user: El_C

as I stated above the pages he mentioned, mentioned Arameans already and if you look on the pages you can see that the sources that are being used also use Aramean instead of Assyrian. It’s being changed by Assyrian nationalists.. please take a look at the sources mentioned in the articles, they all refer to Aramean people and not to Assyrians. Also isn’t a source of a person literally saying he’s Aramean in a interview more relevant than a source of a news website?

MixedButHumann (talk) 22:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, you are still light on evidence. And I like my evidence in the form of diffs. No, BBC is preferred to Youtube in almost 100 percent of the times. El_C 23:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

-Ok, so the topicstarter agrees Sharbel Touma and Jasar Takak being og Aramean descent.

-About Jimmy Durmaz I provided the YT-interview, because he literally stated in that video that he is from Aramean descent with his parents being from Turkey and Lebanon. I personally saw this as a source as you can literally see the person stating he’s Aramean, while news websites mostly pick it up from sources as Wikipedia. About Bishara Morad he’s a widely known young artist of Aramean descent if you look up on Google you’ll see him several times showing the Aramean flag with him.

-stateless nation I reverted this back because Arameans are being seen as the indigenous people of Syria and Turkey without an own state. The sources that were provided by another editor were valid.

-Chaldean Catholics I added the Aramean identity to the article, because there are Chaldean Catholics who besides Assyrian and Chaldean, identify as Aramean. I used a source of a telephone call with Ankawa.com one of Iraq’s biggest Christian news websites. The patriarch of the Chaldean church stated that the Chaldean Catholics are one people known under the Aramean name. [215]

-Assyrians in Israel I redirected the page with Arameans in Israel, because the sources in the article were all speaking about the Syriac-Aramean nations and the article consulted the same information as Arameans in Israel[216], even the file used on the page of Assyrians in Israel had an Aramean flag left above the church doors. [217]

Please, note that also the page Arameans in Israel was targeted by Assyrian POV that’s why it’s a protected page now.

-There is a wikiproject:Aramea that wanted to improve Aramean related articles, till now there was no page referring to the modern Arameans and there was the need to create one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MixedButHumann (talk • contribs) 23:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, I don't know enough about the subject, but Assyrian has been the status quo ante. You are the one introducing new material, which per WP:ONUS: the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. So, you discuss on the article talk page and avoid edit warring. If you reach an impasse on the article talk page, there are dispute resolution requests you can avail yourself of, like WP:3O, WP:RFC and WP:RSN. El_C 00:04, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

To be honest, I don’t really get it. Even tho if it is the Status quo ante (who and When is this decided according to what?) how is it possible to identify someone with a name, that that person isn’t identifying him/herself with. That’s like erasing someone’s culture and identity? Or?MixedButHumann (talk) 00:14, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, I'm not sure what you're trying to say about mis/identifying names. It's very confusing. Anyway, it is my understanding that until you began objecting, Assyrian enjoyed consensus by virtue of WP:SILENCE. Now you wish to challenge that consensus, which is fine, but the ONUS is on you to do so correctly. That means not edit warring and discussing changes on the article talk page often while focusing on content. El_C 00:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The user continues to demonstrate a lack of willingness to accept the academic consensus that Assyrians and Arameans are the same ethnic group.

• At Stateless nation, that edit originally by a blocked user has one source. That one source does not support the content in that edit, e.g. there's no mention of the "Between 2,000,000 and 5,000,000" Arameans in that source [218].
• At Chaldean Catholics, this edit illustrates how the user is acting on the basis of his POV that Assyrians and Arameans are separate ethnic groups, contrary to the academic consensus [219].
• At Assyrians in Israel, the sources I explained to the user on his talk page, that were already on the article, demonstrate that they have no mention of Arameans ([220] [221] [222]).

The user is under the false impression that I am actively editing with an anti-Aramean bias, and it's clear I have provided references to support persons' Aramean identity where appropriate, or simply left their identity as Aramean if the sources support that, as shown at Sanharib Malki, Gaby Jello, Abgar Barsoum, David Teymur, and Daniel Teymur. Mugsalot (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I think I understand the name mis/identification — it's about Aramean being called Assyrian. Anyway, MixedButHumann, if you don't restrict yourself to high-quality sources which represent scholarly and mainstream consensus, you are likely to be sanctioned. I gave you some advise on how to go about doing that. But if other editors consider the view you're advancing to be WP:FRINGE than it cannot be included in articles, per due weight. You are invited to get the attention of other contributors to the dispute at hand through the means described above. El_C 00:28, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipal11119

• Wikipal11119 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I think Wikipal11119 could do with some guidance. I'm not convinced this editor properly understands WP:BLP. Guy (help!) 20:51, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Theochino

Please see the comment here, hopefully why I find this inappropriate does not require explanation. --JBL (talk) 20:55, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Jeez, JBL, you sure picked a high-traffic page for your complaint! For your own privacy, might I suggest that next time, you contact an admin personally? (I, for one, am at your disposal, so please don't hesitate.) Anyway, I have revdeleted and will have a word with Theochino about WP:OUTING. El_C 21:09, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

El C raises a good point: the less attention drawn to something like that, the better. I redacted the offending portion of the edit and emailed a report to the oversight queue. —C.Fred (talk) 21:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much, both! (I am not bothered so much by the connection being drawn, hence why I came here; it's the "and I tried to call you on the phone" bit that freaked me out. I'll try something more subtle if it happens again :).) --JBL (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

2601:188:C300:14B9:51C:5874:485F:4B04

• 2601:188:C300:14B9:51C:5874:485F:4B04 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This IP keeps removing content at Gary Wheaton (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), and claims to be the subject of the article in question in their edit summaries. Can an administrator investigate this IP and verify that the IP is actually the person they are claiming to be? Thanks. SuperGoose007 ^(Honk!) 22:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

This is already at WP:AIV.— Diannaa (talk) 22:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)