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

Case clerks: Dougweller (Talk) & Lankiveil (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Newyorkbrad (Talk) & Roger Davies (Talk)

Statements from uninvolved editors prior to case being opened[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Involved parties[edit]

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that outside commentators on the COI page have been informed
Confirmation that outside admins who have commented have been informed


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Inactive Chabad movement admin
Inactive Chabad movement editors

The following are the many inactive Chabad editors whose editing patterns are continued violating WP:OWN, WP:COI, and frequently WP:NPA albeit more diplomatically and with greater skill, by the four most active Chabad editors cited in this RfA. There are many more that edit under anonymous IP addresses not cited here, based on the edit histories of three key articles: Chabad; Chabad messianism; Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC):[reply]

Confirmation that inactive Chabad movement editors have been informed

Statement by Sarah[edit]

I will expand on this when I have more time, but as a preliminary statement, I support the arbitration committee examining this case. The dispute has taken up a massive amount of space on COIN and has now spread across to ANI and it seems to be way beyond the ability of the community to address adequately. There is bad behaviour and very blatant NPA and CIVIL violations flying from both sides, very lengthy arguments and bickering which show no sign of ending and requests from admins to cease the incivility and personalising the dispute are ignored or rebuffed (see [1] for example). I don't know if accusations of COI are with merit but I do believe that there is merit in concerns about the behaviour of editors in this subject area and that the community is unable to address the dispute adequately. So I endorse the request that the Committee accept this case to examine the behaviour and input of all parties. Sarah 11:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman[edit]

Comparing Chabad to Scientology is neither helpful nor accurate. Nevertheless, if adherents to certain religious beliefs dominate any articles about those beliefs to prevent any scholarly criticism from being added, that's a problem. On the other hand, if skeptics add non-scholarly criticism, that's also a problem. If editors cannot agree to work together collegially, then ArbCom should take the case. The community is poorly equiped to deal with teams of editors who protect each other and obstruct the formation of consensus on esoteric topics. There simply aren't enough editors interested in such topics to counterbalance those with belief-driven agendas. Jehochman Brrr 14:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To the involved editors
If this case goes to arbitration, chances are good that some or all of you will be sanctioned. Is that the result you really want? Wouldn't it be better to play nice with each other and take your content disagreements to mediation instead? We can't force you to use mediation. That's a choice you need to make voluntarily.
To Guy
If it looks like Chabadniks have been linkspamming, then WP:WPSPAM may be interested to hear about it. Jehochman Brrr 22:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

I'm going to repeat something I've said elsewhere. The number of links to chabad.org appears to be out of all proportion to the significance of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. Many articles on topics related to Judaism in general but on which Chabad does not have a recognisably separate view, have links to pages on chabad.org. Over 1,000 links. An example: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport contains a link to "fight or light", an editorial by Yanki Tauber, who I do not think is a widely-cited authority. I brought this up some years back when it was pointed out to me during discussions over management of links to a site for a traditionalist Catholic website, an analogous situation since there, too, was reasonably neutral and even interesting content but by authors with no obvious authority outside the field of traditionalist catholicism, so apparently neutral information was presented but by a source of unknown authority and in the context of a great deal of rather biased information supportive of a fringe movement within the Catholic faith - Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive56 (section: chabad.org) has a record of this discussion.

Discussions of Chabad on the noticeboards if anyone's interested. Guy (Help!) 17:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jmabel[edit]

I do think it would be good for the arbitrators to take this up. I believe that Chabad/Lubavich and their views are becoming disproportionately represented in articles related to Judaism, and I don't think that the answer is just that people associated with every other tendency in Judaism need to be here pushing equally hard. I don't think people will be able to work this through without arbitration. - Jmabel | Talk 18:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atama[edit]

I am not an expert on Judaism, I have no real-life ties to any part of the religion and no opinion of various sects or philosophies within Judaism, and frankly not enough knowledge to form any opinion. To be honest, I've never heard of Chabad on- or off-wiki before the conflict of interest noticeboard complaint was issued, and I haven't had the need, time, or desire to learn anything about it since then. I am only involved in that I am a regular contributor to that noticeboard, and I've seen religion-based COI complaints raised multiple times. In my opinion, which is an opinion backed up by the majority of people I've seen commenting on that same board, religion is rarely a cause for a COI complaint, nor should it be. Nor should race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. If a person has a close connection to a religious organization (a particular church or temple, for example, or perhaps a commercial entity that supports a religious position) then such a claim may be valid. But discriminating against editors because of their religious beliefs should be a practice avoided by Wikipedia.

I made that assertion at the noticeboard, and I'll repeat it now. I asked IZAK whether or not any of the parties he complained about were promoting specific Chabad web sites they were known to be affiliated with, or displaying other clear conflicts of interest and he stated that they were not. I feel that the COI complaint was without merit and it was unfortunate that it caused so much undue drama at the noticeboard.

Having said that, there may indeed be an unbalanced amount of pro-Chabad POV being presented by certain editors. I reviewed a few of the initial examples that IZAK gave, and found little to substantiate his claims of POV-pushing or conspiracy. But there was a lot of uncivil pushback from the "other side" in the noticeboard discussion, including a characterization from Debresser that IZAK's complaints were "insane" which was supported by Zsero who called him "hysterical". Most of the other editors in the discussion seemed to be able to keep things civil.

Essentially, there may be some validity to POV complaints, no validity to COI complaints, and a number of problems with personal attacks and a general lack of civility. -- Atama頭 18:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Yossiea[edit]

I just want to say that I was involved in several "disputes" on wikipedia with regards to editing. The first one was with a user Daniel575 and his sockpuppets. The articles were "his" and any changes met with fierce resistance and name calling. Eventually, it led many to stay away from "his" articles and let him just have control over it. I think in many respects the same thing is happening with Chabad related articles. When people try to edit an article, it just gets too much for us to either defend or to deflect the hostility. Eventually, people will just forget it and let them run the show, which is what they want. Yossiea (talk) 14:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durova[edit]

Agreeing with Atama about the distinction between point of view and conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is not a function of personal belief: I once met a lawyer who defended tobacco companies from lawsuits back in the days when the industry won those cases. He was a nonsmoker who deplored smoking, but the job paid well.

In 2007 the COFS arbitration articulated that organizations bear an inherent responsibility for the appropriate use of their computers and Internet connections even when that equipment is operated by volunteers. Two years later that led to ArbCom blocking IP addresses from one religious organization. In that situation a tangible conflict of interest existed that was confirmed by originating IP addresses of unlogged edits, by checkuser evidence, and by the statements of the editors themselves: they were using official organizational equipment to edit articles about that organization. If those volunteers had been editing from home then their conduct would still have deserved individual sanction but COI would not have entered into it.

There appears to be no reason to believe that these editors are employed the Kehot Publication Society or a public relations firm, etc. If evidence exists of conflict of interest in the conventional sense then please do accept the proposed case immediately. But if no connections of that sort are apparent then this can return to the community. No formal dispute resolution has been attempted. There is nothing urgent here to require immediate arbitration; other than misfiled COIN discussions it appears that this has only come to the general community's attention through a single ANI thread. No wonder the community hasn't solved it yet.

There will be plenty of conflicts this year that the Committee won't be able to avoid. This one doesn't need to open this week, and may not need to open at all. Durova392 21:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGG[edit]

I think the evidence presented by Izak is real enough,but I think it was being dealt with adequately in the ordinary way: calling attention to it by nominating articles for deletion, and, very often, getting them deleted. Requests for DR would have similarly dealt with problems of disproportionate content in articles. As for behavioral issues, yes, the other editors over-reacted to Izak, but he had previously reacted quite disproportionately to the problem. This does involve an organization known for its great efforts at publicity, and it is sometimes hard to distinguish its publicity for Orthodox Judaism from its publicity for it's particular version of Orthodox Judaism. But it is not an obscure cult with articles on obscure topics where a few people can influence the results. Nor does it engage in the tactics referred to by Durova. Maybe ArbCom should deal with it, because there are some behavioral elements on all sides that need looking into. DGG ( talk ) 02:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes[edit]

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
  • I'm thinking of removing the "on Wikipedia" part of the title unless there is some good reason to keep it, since it's assumed if some topic is coming to arbcom, it is the topic's existence on WP that is the subject of the request. MBisanz talk 09:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Feel free - your rationale is right Fritzpoll (talk) 10:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, I went ahead and renamed it to something that I hope makes it clear it deals with editors who are members of the Chabad movement and not the Chabad article. MBisanz talk 10:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clerk note Just a note that we are aware it is at +4 and are coordinating the opening of the case, it should open in a day or two at most. MBisanz talk 04:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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