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Wikipediocracy-related conduct		21 October 2024	4/1/2
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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	Motion	none	26 July 2024
Clarification request: Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban	none	none	12 August 2024
Amendment request: German war effort	Motion	(orig. case)	13 August 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	none	none	17 August 2024

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Use this page to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

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Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)

Initiated by Selfstudier at 13:43, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area of conflict"

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Selfstudier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Barkeep49 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area of conflict"
  • Change userspace to talkspace

Statement by Selfstudier

To match WP:ECR (Idk if it is worth changing both to link to namespace 1).

@Barkeep49: @Zero0000: The discussion here refers (at the bottom)

@Zero0000: Not only. See Barkeep49 statement at the relevant AE complaint (still open) However, I will note that the contradiction between the "topic area" as defined and what areas ECR do not allow for is present. And so in a different scenario I would say this user shouldn't have to eat a block that could then be escalated if there are future transgressions. However, given that there was other conduct leading to a topic ban that factor doesn't seem to apply here. To be clear, my opinion is that ECR, being later, should take precedence but that's just me.Selfstudier (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

And now, the same technicality being referred to by another editor. Selfstudier (talk) 10:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Zero0000: I am only "proposing" that this "technicality" which has not been identified by myself, be fixed up, I'm just initiating the paperwork, to the extent anyone thinks that it is required. What I want is that it not be available as a defense by non EC editors, currently two of them mentioning it, and I suspect more inbound if left unresolved. If there is another way to clean it up, I'm all ears. And @Doug Weller: has now raised the question indirectly as well https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard&curid=21090546&diff=1237149351&oldid=1236465052#Why_does_ARPBIA_allow_userspace_as_an_exception? Selfstudier (talk) 12:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sir Kenneth Kho: Many thanks for clarifying my inept proposal. For me, though, ECR should function like a tban, "any edits that relate to the Arab-Israeli conflict (broadly construed) anywhere on Wikipedia" Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Guerillero: Depends what you mean by edge case, if you mean that it isn't usually a problem, sure. However recently, I don't know quite how to put it, there has been a sort of assault on ECR, which you could, at a pinch, just call wikilawyering. See for example, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Emdosis and the comment by an admin there, "I wouldn't immediately understand "userspace" to apply to another user's talk page in this case – seems more like wikilawyering than anything else to say that this edit falls outside of the CT regime. We can drag this to ARCA if we have to, but just agreeing that the filer made a vexatious argument is easier." (I won't name them, since they don't want to be here, methinks). Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Barkeep49

There is a small mismatch between the area of scope and ECR and perhaps arbcom wants to fix that. Perhaps it doesn't. I'm not sure why I am involved in this case. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:58, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Zero0000

Can we have this request actually explained, please?

I don't see any contradiction between "userspace" in "area of conflict" and "talkspace" at ECR. They serve different purposes.

One place says that the "area of conflict" does not extend to userspace (which implies that it does extend to talkspace). ECR indicates that talkspace has some differences in restrictions compared to article space. Both these make sense and can be true at the same time. We definitely do not want the "area of conflict" to exclude talkspace, because then the ECR restrictions on talkspace would not apply to it.

Or maybe I missed the point entirely. Zero^talk 15:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

To editor Selfstudier: So a messy argument on some user's talk page is what counts as an explanation?

As I see it, Definition of the "area of conflict" defines which pages and edits are subject to editing restrictions in ARBPIA, and WP:ARBECR says what those restrictions are. I don't see any contradiction there, and it seems to me that changing "userspace" to "talkspace" in the former would remove article talk pages from the area of conflict and disable all the restrictions there. Zero^talk 02:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

To editor Selfstudier: The contradiction you claim to exist actually does not exist. Let's start at ECR:

"The Committee may apply the "extended confirmed restriction" to specified topic areas." So now, we ask, what is the "topic area" in the case of ARBPIA? That sentence has a footnote:

"The current topic areas under this restriction are listed as having the "extended confirmed restriction" in the table of active Arbitration Committee sanctions." So we click on that link and find a big table. ARBPIA is near the end. It says:

"The entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted; edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace." (my emphasis) So in fact ECR agrees with WP:Contentious_topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area_of_conflict" that edits in userspace are not in the ARBPIA "topic area". Where is the contradiction?

I'll also repeat (please answer): You seem to be proposing that "edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace" at WP:Contentious_topics/Arab–Israeli conflict#Definition of the "area_of_conflict" be changed to "edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of talkspace". Why does that make any sense? You want to remove talkspace from the topic area?? Zero^talk 11:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

To editor Selfstudier: If arbcom wish to undo the exclusion of userspace from the ARBPIA topic area, that's their decision, but your proposal does much more than that. Zero^talk 12:25, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

---

If a change to the status of userspace is to be considered, I suggest that arbcom consider all CT topics and not just ARBPIA. Personally I don't understand why an editor should be forbidden from mentioning the topic in their own user space (unless they are actively disruptive there). For example, an editor who is approaching 500 edits may develop some text in their sandbox for insertion into articles once EC is achieved — isn't that perfectly reasonable? An editor who abuses this allowance (say, by excessive pings) can be dealt with easily. Zero^talk 04:37, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

Maybe this revert I did a couple of days ago is a useful test. Is the revert valid or invalid under the remedies? Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Kenneth Kho

This amendment request came to my attention after @Doug Weller: pointed it to me, I believe I can provide some clarity for the arbitrators.

I think there is an error in the request as pointed out by @Zero0000: the intended request is likely "remove exception of userspace" instead of "change userspace to talkspace" in WP:PIA, and the opposing side would be "add exception of userspace" to WP:ECR.

The answer would depend on whether arbitrators intended WP:ECR A(1) to overrule or uphold WP:PIA 4(B), if there is an answer, we are done.

If arbitrators did not consider it at all, the strongest argument for the initiating side would be WP:BROADLY, as the broadest possible thing would be no exception to userspace.

I'm arguing in favor of the opposing side, the strongest argument would be WP:UOWN, as userspace is traditionally given broad latitude too, it seems that WP:ECR and WP:UOWN should have their own jurisdiction, and on the balance WP:ECR should not be excessively broad.

@Selfstudier: nicely pointed to WP:TBAN in support of the initiating side, but it is worth noting that WP:TBAN is intended to "forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive", while WP:GS is intended to "improve the editing atmosphere of an article or topic area", which applies here as WP:GS specifically includes "Extended confirmed restriction". Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 16:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@L235 I think Remedy 9 repeal is possibly long overdue, it was written in 2015, and it only reminds the obvious that admins can use indefinite blocks, which is true even outside CTOP. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

My understanding is that"

• #1 in the 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' applies CTOP, ECR and 1RR to all articles broadly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
• #2 in the 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' applies CTOP, ECR and 1RR applies to all other pages except userpages and user talk pages if 'General sanctions upon related content' applies.
• 'General sanctions upon related content' requires that before CTOP, ECR and 1RR are applied to any page other than an article the enforcement templates have been added to that page which is "only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools" and that this can never happen on userpages or user talk pages.

Unless thought through extensively, there is a potential contradiction between what is defined as related content:

The 'Definition of the "area of conflict"' decision says that related content is edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace (that is, not articles).

'General sanctions upon related content' says it applies to related content but then redefines this is (i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict) which I suspect is intended to mean things defined above as 'related content' (not what is actually says which is pages not covered at all in the definition).

There is also the potential that any restiction (e.g. topic ban or 0RR) imposed under contentious topics cannot apply in userspace or could an editor be restricted for an edit on a userpage or user talk page.

To avoid the confusion and contradiction created I suggest that:

• "with the exception of userspace" is removed from the definition
• "(i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict)" is replaced with "(see [[#Definition of the "area of conflict"]])".
• Then either:
  • A decision is added to the index explicitly allowing CTOP restrictions to apply to edits made in relation to related content anywhere on Wikipedia to close the loophole currently exempting userspace completely. This would mean, however, that to be covered user talk pages would need to have the enforcement templates on them.

OR

• An exemption is added so that the requirements of "General sanctions upon related content" are not applied to editor restrictions imposed under CTOP. This would be the closest to the current intent where editors could be restricted from related content based on and applying to all of their editing in the topic area regardless of whether pages have the enforcement templates on them or not.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Aoidh: See discussion here regarding the exemption for userspace. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos might remember more about the discussion and thinking behind this and my statement in general too. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by PMC

Callanecc, I'm afraid I don't recall in any greater depth than my comments at the workshop, sorry. The userspace exception was suggested by Huldra and Zero0000, who made some comments re: user talk pages that on review, look like reasonable concerns; whether or not they're still applicable I can't say. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Doug Weller

I think it would be easy to make it clear when mentioning talk space we meant user talk space and are not forbidding edit requests when the specific sanction allows them. Surely we don't want non-extended-confirmed-editors to be able add material to their own userspace they cannot added elsewhere. The purpose as I understand it of the 500 edits and 30 days is to enable them to learn our policies and guidelines and hopefully how to work constructively with others. I also think we don't want non-ecr users to use their talk space or the talk space of others to discuss the topic. Doug Weller talk 12:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I would rather not name this but recently rsn into another edotor with the same issue, but others convinced him he was wrong, although apparently he was right. Doug Weller talk 18:06, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Red-tailed hawk (Definition)

Is there a reason the proposed motion uses "broadly interpreted" instead of the standard "broadly construed"? Is there a difference in meaning we are supposed to infer, or are they one and the same for purposes of this motion? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:26, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Implementation notes

Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:35, 21 August 2024 (UTC) (replace after each update)

Motion name	Support	Oppose	Abstain	Passing	Support needed	Notes
Motion: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	0	0	0		5
Motion: Repealing primary articles/related content distinction	1	0	0		4

Notes

Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b): Arbitrator views and discussion

• At the moment, "userspace" (including user pages, user talk pages and subpages, "all of these pages") is (only) related content to the ARBPIA area as described at Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict § General sanctions upon related content. This leads to the following result, which is confusing to me:
  • WP:ARBPIA's extended-confirmed restriction does not apply to:
    • Edit requests in namespace 1 ("Talk"); RMs are not edit requests
    • Any edits in namespace 2 ("User") or 3 ("User talk").
  • All other contentious topics' extended-confirmed restriction does not apply to:
    • Edit requests in namespace 1 ("Talk"); RMs are not edit requests
  This should be changed in my opinion, and I am inclined to support the removal of the userspace exemption as edit requests should be sufficient to allow non-extended-confirmed editors to participate with minimal disruption in the area. The current state allows them to wait 30 days, make 500 purely ARBPIA-related edits to their sandbox and then move that to the mainspace. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
• I just wanted to note that I am aware of and am watching this discussion, but I would like to look more into the reasoning/history behind the current wording before commenting further. - Aoidh (talk) 02:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't see any contradiction between what WP:ECR says and what WP:CT/A-I describes; the CT page describes what is and is not under the ECR restriction in a way that is entirely compatible with the wording of ECR. ECR covers the area of conflict, and userspace is not in area of conflict. However it can be as "technically correct" as possible, but if it's confusing or seemingly incompatible to reasonable editors (which seems to be the case) then it's not doing it's purpose and needs to be rewritten or amended for clarity. If we're going to be imposing these atypical rules for this topic area then they need to be accessible and easily understood. - Aoidh (talk) 18:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
• Is this a real problem or an edge case? --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:52, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
• I think one issue with this is that the "primary articles" and "related content" distinction has proven to be less useful with time. When the case was first decided, the extended confirmed restriction had not been established. (In fact, the ARBPIA 500/30 restriction is what eventually led to the adoption of WP:ARBECR.) Now, WP:ARBECR points A, B, and C establish the proper enforcement actions to be taken, without need for any reference to "primary articles" and "related content" — a distinction that few if any other cases maintain. I would therefore support a motion defining the "area of conflict" to simply be "the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted", and making conforming edits to the rest of the case. (We can keep the templates, but the definitions of primary articles and related content will no longer be necessary in defining the scope of the restrictions.) Doing so would resolve this request and simplify the language going forward. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Red-tailed hawk: I would assume the two terms should be viewed identically. Further thoughts forthcoming — currently discussing among ourselves. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Motion: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)

For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" shall be defined as the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted.

For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	5
2–3	4
4–5	3

Support

Oppose

1. While this would solve the confusion brought by the wording, it also further erodes the ways in which an editor can edit, despite there being no compelling evidence in this discussion of intractable disruption warranting this change. - Aoidh (talk) 07:03, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion

• I hope this matches L235's idea; I'm open to them changing the motion text if I missed something. It's a simple and clear solution, and simplifying confusing conditions that have actually caused confusion is good to me. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  I'm worried this motion fails to resolve what happens to Remedies 6-8, which rely on the distinction between primary articles and related content. See below for one alternative. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Motion: Repealing primary articles/related content distinction

Remedy 4 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case ("Definition of the 'area of conflict'") is amended to read as follows: For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" is the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted.

Remedy 5 is amended by appending the following text: The {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} editnotice and the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} talk page notice should be used on pages within the area of conflict. When only parts of a page fall within the area of conflict, if there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator.

Remedy 6, Remedy 7, and Remedy 8 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case are repealed.

For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	5
2–3	4
4–5	3

Support

1. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:35, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Per my reasoning above. - Aoidh (talk) 07:05, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion

• Posting for discussion, per internal disucssion with ToBeFree. The issue with the previous motion is that Remedy 6-8 rely on the "primary articles" and "related content" distinction, and establish some special rules that are not found in the rest of the CTOP/ARBECR world. This motion would retain some of the guidance on the templates but broadly eliminate the formal differences in enforcement rules.
  One other option is to bring some of the rules from ARBPIA into the broader arbitration enforcement procedures. I think there is some merit in that idea — currently, all WP:CTOP says about scoping is one sentence (Unless otherwise specified, contentious topics are broadly construed; this contentious topics procedure applies to all pages broadly related to a topic, as well as parts of other pages that are related to the topic.) and one footnote (This procedure applies to edits and pages in all namespaces. When considering whether edits fall within the scope of a contentious topic, administrators should be guided by the principles outlined in the topic ban policy.). If it would be useful to import some language from Remedy 6-8, that could be on the table. But there may not be much appetite for doing so, in which case we can just adopt the motion as drafted here. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

  I do like this motion as is already! Thanks for creating it; I hadn't noticed the need for adjusting the other remedies as well. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:38, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Clarification request: Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban

Initiated by Lima Bean Farmer at 20:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Original topic ban made before switch to contentious topics

AE appeal that modified the topic ban

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Lima Bean Farmer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Lima Bean Farmer

I need clarification on how I would properly appeal a topic ban. According to Wikipedia:Contentious topics, after a year a topic ban in contentious topics wouldn’t need community review. However, what makes this complicated is that the initial topic ban was imposed by one administrator but a later appeal was decided by AE consensus. It is not clear what level of appeal or how I would go about removing the topic ban and would appreciate any clarification. Thank you in advance!

Statement by Tamzin

Commenting as closer of the appeal. I see the logic that an appeal's denial at AE is tantamount to a consensus-of-AE-admins sanction. However, that would create a perverse incentive not to appeal in the first year of an individually imposed sanction. Why appeal to AE at 11 months if a decline would strip you of your right to appeal to an individual admin at 12 months?

I think the only way to avoid that paradox is to say that declines only count as AE-consensus sanctions if the AE admins a) explicitly assume the action as a consensus action, and/or b) impose new, stricter sanctions in the course of declining. (Here, I imposed a new sanction with Dreamy's consent and other admins' support, but it was narrower than Dreamy's original.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 07:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Red-tailed hawk (Lima Bean)

Is it correct to read WP:CTOP as saying that more or less any admin can unilaterally undo any unilateral CTOP action on appeal provided that 1 year has passed? If so, it would be nice it it were more clear. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Dreamy Jazz

As far as I remember, this sanction is not subject to the 1 year rule because it was made before the switch to contentious topics. This is based on WP:CTOP#Continuity. As such, it needs to follow the rules as if it was a sanction made less than a year ago. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac, given the appeal and subsequent modification was held at AE after the switch to contentious topics, does the modification of the topic ban now prevent it from being seen as a topic ban that is exempt from the 1 year rule?

I would argue that the topic ban modification doesn't necessarily change the 1 year rule exemption (unless I've missed something that's said in the document).

Asking this to you specifically because you said this is now modifyable after a year and I don't know if this because you see the modification as removing the exemption to the 1 year rule or if the modification of the scope represents a entirely new sanction. I don't see this as a new sanction because in the WP:AELOG it is styled as a amendment of the scope and my original topic ban is not struck. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:11, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

As to whether an appeal should be granted from my point of view, I have not had a chance to review recent contributions so don't have an opinion at this time.

If my comment is desired on that, let me know and I should be able to do that next week. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I've provided some thoughts at AE where an appeal has been filed. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 20:05, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Recuse as I've made a statement here and imposed this topic ban. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Declining an appeal at AE is not imposing a sanction, so the "no appeals" language does not apply, unless per #Appeals and amendments A rough consensus of administrators ... may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals ... may be submitted. Per the procedural summary, then, it is appealable after a year and may be extended, but would not strictly require a consensus at AE to lift. Primefac (talk) 12:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

  I will have to re-review the issue; if the ban was in place before the switch to CTOP then it would probably fall under the old procedure but I will have to check. Primefac (talk) 10:43, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Per other comments, declining an appeal should not reset the clock or change the methods of appeal, but a significant modification or positive reaffirmation should do so. In this particular case, I agree with Tamzin's proposal to not consider this either of the latter two options as it narrowed the topic ban; once could almost consider it to be a partial lift of the original sanction. Primefac (talk) 13:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• As I noted to some of my colleagues recently, I miss ACDS sometimes (if I had to start somewhere, the cooler name ...). Anyways, my understanding of this is that as the AE topic ban (changing to post-1992) was carried out under the new contentious topics procedures, it superseded and replaced the old DS topic ban. As it was imposed at AE, the one-year rule does not apply and a formal appeal would need to be successful (ie consensuses at AE/AN or a motion here).
  On the broader policy question, I agree that declinations of appeals by themselves do not reset the clock, but since this appeal led to a new sanction being imposed, that is a material change in circumstances. @Red-tailed hawk: I feel like the procedure is relatively clear: only single-administrator sanctions and indefinite blocks can be undone in this manner (see Wikipedia:Contentious topics#Procedural summary too).
  I think that this status quo is okay, unless I've grievously misinterpreted things. There may be issues with interpreting whether something is narrower or broader than another sanction, which makes me think that changing it isn't necessary. Sdrqaz (talk) 13:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
• @Red-tailed hawk: That is what the committee was trying to do, as someone who was very much in disagreement on this point. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:50, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: That is probably the most logical way to cut the knot --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:52, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• I would hold that appeals still need to go to AE/AN; i.e., that they cannot be heard by any single administrator (without Dreamy's consent). That's because the one-year rule does not apply to the original sanction (under Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Continuity), and I would hold that the AE appeal narrowed the original sanction rather than imposed a new sanction. @Dreamy Jazz: if you don't have time to review this on the merits, you can if you want consent to other administrators changing the sanction on their own, under Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  This seems to be largely moot given that Lima Bean Farmer has appealed at AE. Does anyone (@Primefac and Guerillero: as folks who expressed a preference to possibly change the procedures) feel like we should keep this open to amend the procedures, in case this comes up again in the future? If not, I would suggest closing. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  I'm fine closing, I have a feeling that the number of individuals sanctioned under DS who are unsuccessful and have their appeal modified at AE will be steadily decreasing over time. Primefac (talk) 15:38, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  I agree -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 17:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Amendment request: German war effort

Initiated by Cinderella157 at 03:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

German war effort arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort#Cinderella157 German history topic ban

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Cinderella157 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort#Cinderella157 German history topic ban
  • A lifting of the topic ban imposed.

Statement by Cinderella157

I simply ask the community ArbCom to review whether this ban continues to serve any reasonable purpose consistent with the prevailing WP:P&G. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I have learnt to discern that some things are difficult to substantiate and are therefore better left unsaid. I am not a project coordinator and have no foreseeable aspirations to become one. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

ToBeFree, the absence of K.e.coffman is news to me. Cinderella157 (talk) 21:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Responding to Sdrqaz

The sanction was imposed as a remedy for personal attacks against a particular editor. ArbCom determined that I could not substantiate particular allegations and that in consequence, these rose to being personal attacks. If I was inclined, I might have continued to make such attacks against the editor of record in areas unrelated to the Tban or despite the Tban. I have not. I submit, that ArbCom's determination that the editor of record had not engaged in misconduct was sufficient remedy to prevent further similar allegations/personal attacks.

As noted, I have been actively editing in several contentious topic areas, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Indo-Pakistani wars - areas known to foster editor misconduct an personal attacks. I have become more discerning in how I deal with perceived misconduct or whether I deal with it at all. Where I have had occasion to raise issues of conduct, I have been more discerning and circumspect as to how and where such matters are dealt with. My conduct in doing so has not been seen by the community as being personal attacks or otherwise inappropriate - certainly not rising to the level necessitating sanction. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Comment by Newyorkbrad

As some of the arbitrators have noted below, it is the ArbCom rather than the broader community that would consider whether to terminate or modify one of ArbCom's own remedies. Given that Cinderella157 filed his appeal request on this particular page, it is likely that he was aware of this fact, and that his use of the term "community" either was simply inartful, or perhaps was meant as a suggestion that non-arb community members might wish to comment on his request. In any event, if he wasn't already aware of the proper procedure, he is now.

What would be needed next is some explanation of why Cinderella157 believes the sanction no longer serves a reasonable purpose. Simply saying so without a word of explanation will certainly not succeed. In making his case, I suggest he should also bear in mind that when the German war effort case was decided six years ago, none of the current arbitrators were on the Committee. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Euryalus

I was on the Committee during this case and this sanction has been bothering me somewhat. Some points:

• The topic ban: It was proposed in case /Evidence that Cinderella157 could not edit WWII topics neutrally because they are an "apologist" for Nazi Germany (see this "Apologetics" section). This was a strong claim for which we should expect strong proofs. Unfortunately, very little evidence was then provided, with the principal diffs on topic neutrality being:
  • this disagreement re the qualifications of authors of a specific WWII history book;
  • this statement that historical re-enactment society volunteers might or might not all be sympathisers of the cause they re-enact; and
  • this evidence section by Cinderella157 which relevantly states: My position is that WP must find a middle ground in dealing with events of WW2 and particularly biographies IMO - that is, a position that does not glorify or apoligise (on the one hand) but which does not vilify without substance (in the case of individuals as opposed to the regime). I don't entirely agree with these sentiments but wouldn't describe them as worthy of a topic ban from WWII.

Perhaps reflecting the paucity of hard evidence, the Committee made no reference to these diffs in the Decision and no Finding of Fact regarding Cinderella157's neutrality in this topic.

• Personal attacks: Separately, Cinderella157 make this comment during the case, which was correctly perceived as a personal attack on another editor. Evidence was also presented of a difficult relationship with that editor over a long period (see here and here. The Committee made a Finding of Fact on personal attacks here. I mention this because disruptive interpersonal relationships between editors in the same topic area can sometimes lead to disruption of the topic itself. However the normal responses to disruptive interpersonal relations or personal attacks are interaction bans or blocks. Neither was imposed in this case, and again given the passage of time it seems the issue has resolved. If a personal attack was made at some future point it would more appropriately be responded to with an i-ban or a block, rather than a topic ban from any specific set of articles.
• Progress since the ban: Cinderella157 breached the topic ban once in 2019 and was blocked for 5 days. Since then have since made around 9,000 edits to military history articles, seemingly without issue. Their edit history and talkpages seem to suggest competent engagement with complex and controversial topics including the Russo-Ukrainian War, and no issues with apologetics or personal attacks.

Apologies if all this seems like a relitigation of the actual case. Fwiw I'm not an editor of WWII history and have never interacted with Cinderella157 or anyone else from this case in any other topic. I also don't doubt the sincerity of the editor who originally lodged this case, or their multiyear commitment to improving Wikipedia's coverage of this topic. Their evidence against some others, for example LargelyRecyclable was impeccable and justified the ban that we imposed.

The reason for posting the above re Cinderella157 is simply that this topic ban has stuck in my mind over several years as a sanction that probably didn't need to be made. So long as they didn't seem to care, neither did I. But now they've asked for it to be lifted it seemed reasonable to take a minute to support that request. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

To somewhat clarify the above: the principal point I'm making is that the topic ban was adopted as a misplaced response to a personal attack. There was no real evidence that Cinderella157 was unable to edit this topic neutrally. There's also no evidence of ongoing personal attacks. On these bases I've always considered this topic ban unnecessary and this ARCA was a good opportunity to say so. :)

Beyond that, agree its up to Cinderella157 to provide a more substantial justification for its removal than they currently have. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Kenneth Kho

I would support waiting for Coffman's statement for two weeks, but the reason is simply to provide all sides fair opportunity to be heard. However, if there must be an answer as to whether the "timing of the appeal has anything to do with Coffman's absence", it can't be anything other than a resounding no per WP:AGF. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 16:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by K.e.coffman

I do not object to the T-ban being lifted with the conditions outlined in the motion. Perhaps Cinderella157 has indeed matured in their interactions. For background, I had limited contact with Cinderella157 prior to the Arbitration case, except for a few instances where they attacked me out of the blue: [2], or joined in LargelyRecyclable's arguments with me: Talk:World War II reenactment#Recent edit.

It was Cinderella157's behavior during and after the case that was more of a concern. As the case was concluding, Cinderella157 attempted to re-litigate the entire case on the PD's talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort/Proposed decision#Conduct of KEC -- in 11 subsections, all about my behavior. From there, they linked to a separate, 9-000 word document, with more diffs & links: User:Cinderella157/GWE evidence suppliment. That seemed overly obsessive and concerned me greatly at the time.

After the case, the issues included edit-warring against me at the same Waffen-SS reenactment page: 19 June 2019, 20 June 2019, 1 July 2019, and refusal to listen to advice from AE admins: [3]; Cinderella157's response: [4]. They also ignored a prior warning from another admin, Bishonen, pertaining to the topic area: March 2019.

Cinderella157 has demonstrated some poor conduct regarding their T-ban after it was instituted, but not as far as I know after 2019. I hope that's a good sign for the future. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

German war effort: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

German war effort: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Cinderella157, this is not the place for the community to review a sanction put in place by the Arbitration Committee; you need to convince us that the sanction is no longer necessary. Primefac (talk) 11:54, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

  I am in support of lifting the topic ban following the explanations by Cinderella157; while the K.e.coffman editing is on the surface problematic, I see no reason not to believe Cinderella157 that they were unaware of this editing gap, making it more of a coincidence than anything. Primefac (talk) 21:34, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Short of the community taking the drastic step of amending arbpol to allow it, there is no way to appeal sanctions imposed by the committee to the community --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 15:01, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
• Thank you very much for your explanation and context, Euryalus. Cinderella157, I think that Committee members would find it easier to handle this appeal if you explained further on why you think that this sanction is no longer necessary. Thanks, Sdrqaz (talk) 13:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
• I'd like to hear K.e.coffman's thoughts about this request and have now invited them here. I'd additionally like to know if the timing of the appeal has anything to do with K.e.coffman's current absence. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, I've now had a closer look at the XTools statistics and find this strange. K.e.coffman has had low edit counts for a while, but an entire month without edits only occurred once before, 2020-11. Now that K.e.coffman has not edited during the entirety of July, we suddenly have an appeal about a ban issued for attacks against them. I don't like this, even if it's a coincidence. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Cinderella157, thanks for the clarification and sorry for my misinterpretation. No concern regarding this from my side then, but I'd still like to wait (at least a week or two) to hear K.e.coffman's opinion if possible. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:43, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you very much for the quick and detailed response, K.e.coffman! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:16, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

• I am open to suspending the TBAN. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:54, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• I am as well. While I think it's reasonable to wait to hear from K.e.coffman, I don't think we need to delay making a decision by up to two weeks. - Aoidh (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Motion: Cinderella157's topic ban suspended

Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") is suspended for a period of six months. During the period of suspension, this topic ban may be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator, as an arbitration enforcement action, should Cinderella157 (talk · contribs) fail to adhere to any normal editorial process or expectations in the topic area. Appeal of such a reinstatement would follow the normal arbitration enforcement appeals process. After six months from the date this motion is enacted, if the topic ban has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the topic ban will automatically lapse.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	6
1–2	5
3–4	4

Support

1. Proposed based on a previous suspension motion that appears to have good language, as three arbitrators have expressed support for lifting or suspending the TBAN. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 14:58, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
2. Primefac (talk) 16:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
3. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion

• ...

Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)

Initiated by Red-tailed hawk at 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles and related AE thread.

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Pursuant to WP:CTOP#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee, a recent Arbitration Enforcement thread has closed with instructions to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision.

Lists of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

Involved AE participants

• Levivich (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (AE initiator)
• האופה (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Bluethricecreamman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ABHammad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Selfstudier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• fiveby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• IOHANNVSVERVS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sean.hoyland (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Iskandar323 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dan Murphy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Nableezy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BilledMammal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Zero0000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread

• PeleYoetz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TarnishedPath (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Nishidani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DMH223344 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• M.Bitton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Referring administrators

• Red-tailed hawk (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (referral initiator)
• ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Barkeep49 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Levivich
• האופה
• Bluethricecreamman
• ABHammad
• Selfstudier
• fiveby
• IOHANNVSVERVS
• Sean.hoyland
• Iskandar323
• Dan Murphy
• Nableezy
• BilledMammal
• Zero0000
• ScottishFinnishRadish
• Barkeep49
• Theleekycauldron
• PeleYoetz
• TarnishedPath
• Nishidani
• DMH223344
• M.Bitton

Information about amendment request

• Pursuant to WP:CTOP#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee, a recent Arbitration Enforcement thread has closed with instructions to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision.

• Throughout the discussion among administrators at AE, several sources of disruption were identified:

1. Long-term slow-motion edit warring by a number of individuals within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
2. Long-term tag-team edit warring by several groups of individuals with the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
3. The widespread nature of edit warring, battleground mentality, and POV pushing within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
4. The ineffectiveness of previous warnings within the topic area to stop the disruption.
5. The inability of the tools available at AE to adequately handle disruption that involves a large number of parties over long periods of time.

Several suggestions were floated by administrators during the discussion, including the issuance of warnings to multiple individuals, the imposition of 0RR restrictions on either select individuals, or 0RR restrictions on large numbers of individuals coupled with select IBANs, TBANs, individual anti-bludgeoning restrictions, and topic-wide restrictions on the length of posts people make in discussions within this topic area. However, because the discussion broadly turned into a set of complex and multi-party complaints regarding behavior of multiple editors over long periods of time, a consensus was reached among administrators to refer the broader dispute to the arbitration committee.

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Red-tailed hawk (AE referral)

 Note: The arbitration amendment template limits how many individual I can initially add, so I will shortly be adding the rest of the admin and non-admin participants to the list above in their own section.

Additionally, as I can't find any prior examples of referrals by looking through the archive, I have tried to do my best here in light of the fact that this is a referral rather than a standard amendment request/appeal. Arbitrators should not hesitate to let me know if I have formatted this in an unexpected way.

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich: As should be more obvious now, it's everyone who contributed to the AE discussion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich: There's currently a discussion over at WT:Arbitration/Requests#Template for referrals from AE around that topic. For completeness's sake, I included everyone in this one. Going forward, there might be some norm/convention, but I figured that it was better to incorporate everyone rather than potentially leave someone relevant out. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I do acknowledge that I left out several individuals whose behavior was directly mentioned, and I will fix that issue now. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Please see my comment above, and my exchange with Levivich for an explanation as to why you are listed under the category of "Involved AE participants". — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 11:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@L235: Thank you for your comment. I think that a full case/case-like structure would be best, as that is the sort of thing that would allow for clear examination of the complex multi-party disputes that AE is not quite able to handle well. In my view, I don't think the topic-wide "please be brief in discussions" provision will be enough, as it isn't going to remedy the long-term edit warring/tag teaming, nor the civility issues that have driven away good faith editors from the topic area.

In the event that a full case is opened, I agree that it is most appropriate to only have the individuals whose behavior is under examination to be considered as parties. But, before that list is finalized, we might want to have some space for the community to identify that sort of behavior—perhaps the section for statements in this thread? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I believe that it might be useful for some anti-bludgeoning sanction to incorporated into the discretionary sanctions available for administrators to dole out, but if so, I think it should look like one that the community has previously endorsed in a DS area. One such sanction is that which was imposed on NewImpartial, of no more than two comments per discussion per day, except replies (of reasonable length) to questions or very brief clarifications of their own comments.

I would hesitate to apply a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words topic-wide in a blanket fashion; I feel like this sort of thing would serve as a trap to good-faith newcomers who are verbose, and we needn't WP:BITE good-faith editors who are entering the topic more than already occurs. That being said, making it available as a discretionary sanction that could be applied by an admin would not cause the same issue with more or less auto-biting good-faith editors new to the area, and might be reasonable. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich

Looking at the list of parties, those who have been sanctioned in this topic area have not been disruptive since their sanction, AFAIK. Most of the list have never been sanctioned. If there are concerns regarding anyone's behavior in the topic area, a filing at AE, ANI, ANEW, or some other noticeboard, should happen first, before an arbcom case. An arbcom case should only happen when (1) there are editors who want to present evidence to arbcom, and (2) community options have first been tried and failed (unless there's private evidence involved). Because these criteria are not met, the case request should be declined.

Limiting everyone in the topic area to 500-1000 words is a terrible idea. This topic area has more sources (see here or here for an idea of how many academic books have been published just in the last five years), and more sources that contradict each other, than almost any other topic area. Discussions about sources can't happen in 500-1000 words; the very notion is ridiculous. More to the point, any kind of topic-wide restriction would be a horrible, counterproductive overreach. The vast, vast majority of editors are doing nothing wrong.

Removing appeals to the community is not something arbcom can do, as that would require a change to WP:BANPOL, which arbcom cannot do.

I don't think the AEs I filed are particularly "complex" or "multi-party". I think they're straightforward, and each one can be judged on its merits without considering the actions of other parties. Of the 5 I filed, 1 ended in sanctions, 2 in warnings, no problems with those. The PeleYoetz one is still open and they just made their first comment there recently. I don't see any reason admins can't review that as with any other filing. If arbs want to review that filing instead of admins, seems like overkill, but OK. האופה hasn't edited since I filed the AE 8 days ago, so while arbs could review it, I see it as moot, and I don't think reviewing it would be a good use of anyone's time at this point.

There is nothing for arbcom to do here. People who are concerned about disruption in the topic area should raise it at one of the community noticeboards. A sprawling, unfocused case with lots of parties, is a terrible idea, as has been proven multiple times by past arbcoms, and this is especially true in the absence of any showing that the community is unable to handle this. The only thing worse would be a topic-wide sanction; please don't do that, I fear it would trigger a "constitutional crisis" and waste more editor time. Levivich (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Bluethricecreamman

• There seems to be constant RFCs and threads about the reliability of sourcing in this area. I know the current arbitration request is about long term edit warring, but there is also long-term campaigns in talk spaces to remove usage of certain sourcing. See the downgrading of the ADL, the current RFC in WP:RSN about Al Jazeera, etc. The downgrading of the ADL, in particular, caused significant media coverage for barely much difference in the status quo of average Wikipedian (from my understanding, we already had significant warnings about using ADL with attribution only when speaking about Israel Palestine, the change in status quo hardly meant much more than a media circus). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• In terms of reversion, the reversion limits are harder to understand in CTOP space, especially for more contentious arguments. A clarification of what the "base" article text is and what the contentious edit that is being reverted is would be useful. In my case on Genocide of indigenous peoples, there are still questions of how to apply WP:NOCONSENSUS vs WP:ONUS when a contentious edit (which probably should be removed by WP:ONUS) had been placed in text for long while (and therefore should remain by WP:NOCONSENSUS). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Additional clarification on whether coordinated tag-team editwarring (i.e. WP:CANVASSED) or incidental tag-team editwarring should be treated similarly would be useful Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Going off of the suggestion from ScottishFR, for the limit of 500-1000 words, some of these RFC discussions go long. Instead of absolute limits that could unfairly limit discussion among the most passionate editors of the topic, would it be possible to go with proportional limits (no more than 500 words or 10% of comments, whichever is greater?), or limits per week (500 words per week?) In addition, I have questions if such a limit would apply to single RFC threads, or to the whole topic at once. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• I think categorizing and various ontologies is also problematic and hard to determine, as is expected. See the issue with whether Israel is just accused of being an apartheid state, or also a Talk:Herrenvolk_democracy#Inclusion_of_Israel_in_imagebox. Allegations of just genocide or Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples. There are POV-fork type issues, but this is one of those topics where every time there is a question of how to categorize the conflict, it opens up the same exact battle lines of arguments in a million pages, even if they cover completely different aspects that may involve Israel/Palestine as one example. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

  TLDR; battleground fractures into dozens of talk pages that aren't necessarily pov-forks, same arguments pushed everywhere in each RFC. Better guidelines on how to be more succinct with RFCs on this topic, and how to discuss WP:ARBPIA topics on pages that aren't necessarily centered on ARBPIA would be wonderful too. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

• Regarding Number57's assessment, A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage). this seems disingenuous to suggest this, especially given the WP:NOTAVOTE rule. There are RFCs where arguments on either side are heavily favored by numbers before an admin/uninvolved closer throws away votes that have reasoning that is logically rebutted. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:56, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

  I will also say the 30/500 restriction as a "worsening" of situation seems silly. I am not quite sure about the logical reasoning behind that assertion, though some other biased publications have attempted to use that to suggest that wikipedia "censors" certain viewpoints? [5][6][7] Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

• It sounds like a few of folks are leaning towards massive topic bans against all participants... Regardless of how unlikely such a proposal is, I hate the idea of "cleaning the slate" and such a broad strokes approach is likely to cause more problems than it would theoretically solve:

  * There is benefits to having folks with bias on here, especially the most heaviest editors, doing major work. Bias is inherent to humanity and pretending otherwise is just an excuse to press the red ban button without considering consequences (or especially because they hate the current bias of Wikipedia compared to their preferred bias). The way to deal with bias is using the principles we have, rules we can apply even handedly, WP:WIKIVOICE to correctly attribute which side says what, etc.

  • Many topic areas have specialized folks who do important work (see Pareto rule). Seeing a list of highly motivated folks in this topic area is not a sign necessarily they are always hogging the attention, so much as they provide much of the energy to keep Wikipedia up to doate.

  • The precedent of massive topic bans without careful assessment of the reasoning why leads to dangerous precedents for other future content disputes.
  • The precedent of retroactive punishments for areas of conflict is a dangerous precedent
  • I am not sure the same cabal of pro-Palestine/pro-Israeli editors is necessarily "crowding" out other editors? There are folks who loudly complain about exiting ARBPIA areas, especially on this section, but that isn't quite the same as actual stats to back that up. I'm actually fairly new-ish to this topic area, and admins have been kind enough to help shepherd, provide useful guidance, and prevent my early exit (voluntary or involuntary).

• I think pressing a mass TBAN on this topic area would be somewhat equivalent to doing WP:TNT on large sections of the editor community who specialize on here... Unless it is certain that all of the project is absolutely unsalvageable or ARBIPA is somehow all a failure, I ask arbitrators to avoid granting such a power. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
• @Sean.hoyland thanks for the numbers, they are really informative! I will say, it is fairly obvious a giant influx of editors to the topic area happened recently as a result of the conflict (myself included), though obviously the analysis of such a large dataset to confirm or deny toxicity by a core group would go beyond just numbers. I think the pure mass of folks in the topic area is just a lot harder to govern around and regulate, especially with the contentiousness of the topic area. And as the conflict spreads beyond obviously ARBPIA pages to tangentially related pages, the regulations get murkier. I think if PIA5 does happen, a key issue is just how to govern and regulate en masse, as well as on the individual editor/cabal level, and how to handle PIA content on pages that aren't just pure PIA (see the Herrenvolk_democracy talk page RFC for an example)? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by ABHammad

I think we have arrived at a point where editing in this area is not just a battleground environment but an ex-territory of the project. I recognize that I, too, took part in this in the past, not out of desire but because I felt I had no choice when I saw the consistent POV pushing and disregard for policies and consensus. There’s probably a reason why Wikipedia is now maybe the only mainstream source to use terms such as Gaza genocide and Israeli apartheid (read the lead) with its own voice. Many disputed changes like this have been introduced through edit warring (check Zionism, now defined as looking for the “colonization of land outside Europe”), in spite of substantial opposition. The current situation both scares away potential great editors and destroys our credibility and neutrality.

The feeling is that a bunch of 5-10 experienced editors have taken dominance over the area. Much of their edit histories show a focus on promoting one side's POV and discarding the other. Although some problematic editing occurs on both sides, it should be noted that the extent of POV editing on articles about one side is only a fraction of what occurs on articles about the other. This situation is perpetuated as new good-faith editors trying to balance the content often face aggressive behavior such as strong CTOP messages from Selfstudier followed by inquiries how did they find this and that article, "previous accounts" questions from Nableezy, accusations of "gaming the system to achieve EC status" from Iskandar323 on noticeboards, and as we seen in the last month, unverified tag-teaming allegations from Levivich. Those who survive all of the above then find their user talk pages filled with allegations, insults and other kinds of personal attacks and aspersions. Even five edits in this topic area can provoke such reactions. WP:ONUS and WP:CONSENSUS are ignored - they are applied only to others. RfCs, AfDs, and RMs are manipulated through mass bludgeoning. They blame others for edit warring - but this is exactly what they are doing. Based on my experience with these editors over several months, I am afraid it would be naive to think that simply limiting word count in discussions would solve the problem. Looking over their logs, many of these editors already have a long history of warnings and short-term topic bans, so something else must be done this time. ABHammad (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Much of what I was discussing is unfolding as we speak. Take a look at this discussion in an article recently created by an EC editor who appears to be an expert in security studies. Iskandar323 opens a technical move without any prior discussion [8], Selfstudier casts aspersions on other editors who joined the discussion and disagreed with them [9], Nableezy asks the opening editor on their page if it's their first account [10], and Sean Hoyland accused the creator of being a sock [11], just two days after blaming another editor for being a sock solely based on some shared topics of interest with a blocked editor who had 72,000(!) edits [12]. I can only guess how this editor feels right now and how long they will stay with us. ABHammad (talk) 08:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Selfstudier

1.There is another relevant recent related AE thread, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani. Many of the editors here, including myself and several of the uninvolved administrators, were participants and the case revolved around behavior (and content) at the Zionism article and this same subject matter is a part of the current case, 6 Levivich diffs refer (in the last two statements).Selfstudier (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

2.This one as well (PeleYoetz). Editors named here continue to respond there. Although procedurally a separate AE case, it was filed contemporaneously with and is part and parcel of the related AE thread. Selfstudier (talk) 12:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

3.In the interim, avoiding this sort of thing or this would be as well. Selfstudier (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

4.Several editors suggest that editors are scared off by a toxic environment. this example for the Zionism article (Sean.hoyland), shows the contrary, an influx of new editors in recent times. Difficult to be certain without more data but my sense is that the pattern will hold up for other articles as well. It is of course possible that both things are true. Selfstudier (talk) 09:34, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began. I'm not saying that, I'm saying that there has been an influx of new editors regardless of the temperature.Selfstudier (talk) 10:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

5.@Nishidani: Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment +1, I would indeed like to see the data. Selfstudier (talk) 10:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by fiveby

I don't think the referral of this particular case and the inclusion of the first two items listed as identified disruption dealing with edit warring necessarily means that AE can't deal with such or didn't in this instance. Just because the experiment blew up the lab does not mean it was a bad thing to try. Seemed like a reasonable request and a result of you need more evidence to demonstrate tag team editing seems reasonable, which everyone could have and maybe should have accepted and walked away from. fiveby(zero) 17:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

I tend to agree with Ravpapa's assessment that we have probably "exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area". I have no idea what that would look like.

I would like to know the answer to the following question

• Why would a person on a righteous mission hand over control of which rules they have to follow to people hostile to their cause when they can simply use disposable accounts and pick and choose which rules to follow without having to concern themselves with the consequences of non-compliance?

Answers like "It's against the rules", "It's dishonest", "It's hypocritical", "They will be discovered and blocked" are wrong answers. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding a perceived "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide, I'm not sure this tells you anything very useful. There is already training material teaching people how to resemble a multi-topic interested Wikipedian. This is good advice because there is utility in diluting POV edits, edit war participation etc. A few strategic edit warring edits in a sea of multi-topic edits will likely be treated differently than a few strategic edit warring edits by an account that resembles an SPA, even though they are the same. It may also devalue article intersection evidence between accounts and reduce the chance of a checkuser being approved. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

A plea for humility

This is for all the people making sweeping statements.

• It might be better to assign low credence, by default, to the accuracy of assessments of the state of the 'topic area', a complex system with thousands of moving parts.
• This is a small part of the structure you are talking about. What is the likelihood that sweeping statements are accurate?
• Here are some numbers and some questions.
  • I don't know what the 'topic area' is exactly, but thousands of article talk pages have one of the various topic area related templates informing people about the special rules. So, we can look at those and pretend it's the 'topic area' or thereabouts.
  • This table lists the number of different editors and the number of revisions for talk pages in this 'topic area' for the last ten years or so. The number of revisions provides an upper limit on the number of editor interactions on talk pages. Obviously, the actual number of interactions will be much less, but at least there are some numbers rather than stories and feelings.
  • Questions:
    • How many of these talk page interactions are consistent with the sweeping negative assessments of the state of the topic area and how many are not?
    • How many comply with policy and guidelines and how many do not?
    • How many are hostile, toxic, combative, tendentiousness, condescending, bludgeoning, hypocritical, bullying, glaringly dishonest etc. and how many are not?

	year	actor_count	talk_revisions
0	2013	2096	17754
1	2014	2483	23773
2	2015	2167	23195
3	2016	1848	18541
4	2017	2091	21463
5	2018	2184	23643
6	2019	1907	15812
7	2020	2110	14908
8	2021	2755	21711
9	2022	2464	19716
10	2023	6778	52636
11	2024	6287	59678

Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:02, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Dan Murphy

The "dispute" as defined here is "accounts on Wikipedia disagree about various things." In my case I have recently disagreed with a number of accounts about the history of Zionism. On the one hand, early zionists and historians of zionism describe it as a colonial project of settlement. On the other hand, some wikipedia accounts really don't want the article here to describe it as such. Many of those accounts have turned out to be sockpuppets of previous accounts long banned from this area. I'd be shocked if the Peleyoetz account named in this report isn't one, too [13]. The abuse of sockpuppets is a powerful advantage at Wikipedia, and wooden enforcement of teh rulz about conduct, ignorant of content and context, a powerful disincentive to being honest and straightforward.

No matter. This unfocused, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks request, is a bad idea.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Nableezy

My view is that if this is to be an arbitration case that it should be pretty wide, and not just the four editors Barkeep named. The tendentious editing, including obvious examples of canvassing and off-wiki coordination, in this topic area stretches well beyond those four names, and I don’t think looking at four editors in a vacuum in this, or any other topic where the temperature in the real world is beyond mildly warm, is all that productive. I’m well aware of the committees past rulings on standards of behavior, but I for one am unable to understand how anybody can think a topic like this, where the real world conflict it is covering contains accusations of ongoing crimes against humanity up to and including rape as a weapon of war, mass indiscriminate killings, and genocide is going to remain calm cool and collected. nableezy - 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems highly likely that this is going to be accepted as a full case, but I do want to push back on some of the claims being bandied about here. There is this misconception that there are "pro-Israel" editors vs "pro-Palestinian" editors, and that is both not true and has never been true. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a similar argument, where one "side" was claimed to be the pro-Palestinian side, and the other the pro-Israel side. But that, like most of these disputes, was not true. One side was indeed pushing an identifiably nationalistic narrative identified with one "side" in the geopolitical conflict, the other was not. The two "sides" here have never been symmetrical here. As far as BilledMammal's highly subjective understanding of bludgeoning, he lists me as having bludgeoned Talk:Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing#MEMRI quote, but a, that isnt a formal discussion, and b. that is a back and forth with a handful of users. That isnt bludgeoning by any reasonable definition. They also somehow neglected to add Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gaza Health Ministry qualifier, where BM has some 73 comments there. I dont think that subpage is accurate either in its definition or its counting, and Id caution that evidence by editors who are highly involved not simply be accepted as accurate.

Also, regarding AirshipJungleman29 reading of my initial comment, I dont mean to say that civility does not matter, of course it does. But I also think people need to keep in mind that human beings are emotional creatures and that this is a topic that anybody who is involved in the real world is going to have moments where those emotions overtake their willingness to pretend that everybody here is editing in the best of faith and we're all one big happy community. And beyond that, as far as I am aware civility on Wikipedia has never meant not swearing. And I personally find insulting my intelligence through making specious arguments to be much more uncivil than a "bullshit" said in exasperation. But I was not saying WP:CIV should not count in this topic area, Im just saying if somebody is being realistic about how editing between people who are involved in a conflict in which accusations of rape and genocide are happening in the real world they should understand it is not always going to be roses and butterflies. nableezy - 16:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I dont want to get too caught up in what I think are opinions of people uninformed on both the actual editing in this topic area as well as being generally uninformed on what the sources actually support in this topic area. Ill just restate that this is not "pro-Israel" vs "pro-Palestinian" POV pushing, it is editors who edit according to the best available sources and editors who edit on emotion and time-wasting tactics. And those things should not be treated as though they are opposing camps. Those editing according to our content policies against those editing contrary to them is not a POV-pushing battle. Number 57's complaints about this, as somebody who is informed on how editing goes here, have to my ears always rang hollow. Consensus was against their position on things like including language on the illegality of Israeli settlements in their articles, and so he has openly called those who supported including such a thing, including me, POV pushers. Im sorry he feels that way, Ive never really been aware of what I could do to ameliorate that impression of his, but Ill just state I disagree with the premise of his claim that there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV. Since I know he means me, Ill just state that I do not edit Wikipedia to push a POV. I edit Wikipedia to try to make it so that article in this topic area are based on the balance of the best sources available. And if somebody does not like what the sources actually say about this topic, thats their problem, not mine. Im aware of my reputation on certain websites, but in my entire time here my purpose has always been to bring the best sources I can find to an article and to base the content I write and the arguments I make on those sources. nableezy - 23:09, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Thats what I meant Number 57, you objected to the consensus developed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues/Archive. Legality of Israeli settlements about including that information in each article. And since then, you have repeatedly called myself and others POV-pushers for reasons I have not yet figured out. And you have, again, that entire time played up that a couple of pro-Israel users opposed your RFA. I dont know what is disingenuous about my statement, I didnt even say anything about you besides that you have repeatedly called me a POV pusher since then. nableezy - 23:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien that was a well advertised and well attended RFC a baker's dozen years ago. What level of consensus it was really has no bearing on anything at this point. nableezy - 23:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I could collapse this section and point to Rosguill's instead. nableezy - 16:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by BilledMammal

There are a significant number of issues in this topic area that it is likely only ARBCOM can address, including:

1. POV pushing

   Including both editors switching their stance to conform to their POV (for example, supporting using massacre as a descriptive term only when Israelis were targeted, or only when Palestinians were targeted) and editors misrepresenting sources.

2. Stealth canvassing
3. Incivility

   Occasional lapses are forgivable, but it has become common for editors to ignore the fourth pillar. This drives editors away from the topic area, worsening issues with POV pushing and stealth canvassing.

   The only way the topic area can be fixed is by fixing this.

4. Bludgeoning

   See Bludgeoning statistics for an assessment of the extent of the problem. For technical reasons, it is currently limited to discussions on article talk pages and at RSN.

BilledMammal (talk) 09:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding ScottishFinnishRadish's word limit proposal, I don't think that will have the desired result. Editors are often required to review a wide array of sources, such as when attempting to determining if a viewpoint is in the majority or what the WP:COMMONNAME is, and a word limit will impede this. This will in turn worsen one of the other issues in the topic area, POV pushing.

Instead, I think a comment limit - perhaps ten comments per discussion - will be more effective at preventing the back-and-forth and repetition of points that causes discussions to expand unproductively. BilledMammal (talk) 13:12, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nableezy: My aim was to review a representative sample of discussions in the topic space, rather than providing a sample biased towards discussions that I was aware of. To do this, I limited the discussions to two clearly defined areas; talk pages in both the Israel and Palestine Wikiprojects, and RSN.

This does mean I missed at least one discussion that I am aware of where I was too enthusiastic, but it also means I missed discussions where you were too enthusiastic - it balances out.

I am also aware, and prominently state in the analysis, that it is only an approximation - while most examples listed will be bludgeoning, exceptions will exist, including possibly the discussion you mention.

Finally, as I said on the analysis page, I am willing to rerun it with different configurations, including an expanded list of discussions. I am also working to implement the recommendations on the talk page, to make the data more accurate and useful. BilledMammal (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Rosguill: There is a lot of POVPUSHING at RSN, but from what I've seen the issue is more common - and more effective - in the opposite direction from what you've seen.

For example, looking at two of the discussions you've listed:

• At the ADL RFC an editor argued that it was unreliable due to "severe bias"
• At the Al Jazeera RFC the same editor argued that bias wasn't sufficient reason to change it's status from "generally reliable"

Considering that policy doesn't provide any support for considering a source unreliable on grounds of bias, I find this example particularly problematic. BilledMammal (talk) 10:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Zero0000

I object to being listed here. I did nothing that should cause it, but RTH refused to remove me. But now that I'm here, I'll say that I don't see any suggestions so far that would make an improvement to the I/P area. Here are some points:

• If any restrictions are imposed on the area, they should apply to everyone and not to some arbitrary list like this one. One of the notable things about the I/P area in the past several months is the remarkable number of new and revived accounts that have joined in, mostly on one side of the equation and many with scant knowledge of the subject. Quite a lot of the disputes arise because of them, not because of the people likely to comment at AE.
• Imposing a limit on contributions that consists of a word limit or edit limit will cause delight to the tag teams, who will take full advantage of their combined greater limit.
• Some types of discussion such as a negotiation between two editors should not have a limit at all. Also, in general there is no way to define "a discussion" except in the case of formal discussions like RfCs. The main points of dispute are brought up repeatedly and don't have clear boundaries. This means that a limit on "discussions" will just produce a lot of arguments over whether something was part of the same discussion or part of a different discussion.
• Bludgeoning does not mean making a lot of edits. Replying to everyone who makes a contrary comment is bludgeoning, but repeatedly bringing new reliable sources is called good editing.

Here is something that will improve the atmosphere of formal discussions (RMs, RfCs, AfDs, etc): Require everyone to stick to their own statement, regardless of how many times they add to it (like at AE). This will eliminate 90% of bludgeoning right away. For RfCs: one statement in the !votes section and one statement in the Discussion section. Zero^talk 09:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: Yes, I already saw your excuse. For the information of others, my sole contribution to the AE case was to ask a participant for clarification, without stating any opinion or being mentioned by anyone else. You think this makes me an "involved AE participant" but I don't. Zero^talk 11:51, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by ScottishFinnishRadish

There is a broad array of disruptive editing, POV pushing, long term edit wars, bludgeoning, incivility, and it all basically comes down to WP:BATTLEGROUND. I've done my best to take care of all of the obvious cases that won't have to set aside a dozen hours of time to deal with, but much of the behavior is by editors with numerous prior warnings and sanctions but that topic banning, interaction banning, and blocking is not a simple matter. Most AE reports in the topic area involve behavior that is widespread among many parties, and picking out a single party for sanctioning and allowing other editors to continue the behavior isn't how enforcement should be working.

If Arbcom does wish to avoid a full case or "punt", as Barkeep puts it, there are a couple actions they can take to help out in the interim.

• As a sanction across the topic area, or added to the standard set of CTOP enforcement mechanisms available to administrators on a per editor or per discussion sanction, a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words. This should be done immediately, even if a case is accepted.
• Any appeals of sanctions by editors previously warned or sanctioned in ARBPIA should be handled by Arbcom to take pressure off individual administrators. Arbcom discussions have clerks to handle word limits, aspersions, and other disruptive editing. Arbcom can simply vote on if the sanction was a reasonable exercise of administrator discretion. This would hopefully cut down significantly on 0.3 tomats discussions at appeals, and put those decisions in the hands of the people the community elected to make them. (Hat tip to Red-tailed hawk, who came up with this.)

As for a party list, anyone who has made, been the subject of, or commented at any ARBPIA AE report since October 2023. The problem is widespread, and I think that is probably the most efficient way to generate a party list. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Levivich, that part of BANPOL is just quoting Arbitration procedure, it can be changed by Arbcom. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Barkeep49

Re:L25: I didn't support moving this here because I was looking for an ArbCom only remedy as I felt we had whatever options we wanted on the table per the Contentious topic procedures A rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") may impose any restriction from the standard set and any other reasonable measures that are necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. (emphasis added) I supported coming here because I think AE is ill-suited to a multi-party sprawling request like this. I actually think האופה is the least important party here in most ways and if the thread had stayed constrained to them a rough consensus would have been found. Instead, the discussion ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors. For me the editors whose conduct needs examining would be BilledMammal, Iskandar323, Nableezy, and Selfstudier and I think ArbCom should review, and hopefully endorse, the work SFR has been doing as an uninvolved administrator given the concerns at least one of the parties (Nableezy) has raised about that work. Additionally, I think Levivich has been promoting, in this and some other recent AE reports, claims of misconduct based on tagteaming/edit warring that I personally don't find convincing (even if the same conduct does show other misconduct I do find convincing, namely a battleground mentality) but which ArbCom is better positioned to examine both because it can do so comprehensively, rather than in a series of one-off AE requests, and because of the authority ArbCom has to interpret existing policy and guidelines, [and] recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I guess I should add one thing. If this ArbCom can't do the review of editor conduct well, and given that this is the committee with the biggest issues with activity among arbs of any 15-member arbcom in at least a decade it may decide it doesn't have the capacity to do this well, I'd suggest it find a way to "punt" that decision, instead focusing on whether or not it agrees with Levivich's interpetation of tag-teaming/edit warring. I say this based on comments members of the 2019 committee (a 13-member committee which is the only one to have a bigger activity problem than this committee) have made around their inability to give PIA4 and Antisemitism the full attention they deserved. In the latter case this then blew up into a much bigger case (WP:HJP). Barkeep49 (talk) 20:09, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720 your "magical incantation" comment confuses me. Where did SFR say it was confusing how to refer? I've raised the issue that the mechanics of referring need work, but I don't think AE admins need to be told to bold vote something in order to find consensus to refer. All 4 uninvolved admins - with 4 uninvolved admins being a lot of admins these days - agreed to refer, and all 4 were (as best as I can tell) clear about what each other thought as opinions evolved, so it's not like it was a puzzle what was happening to the uninvolved admins and since other commenters gave feedback on whether or not to refer I don't think it was a puzzle to anyone else either. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720 so you're saying the answer I gave is incorrect? If so mark me as surprised but glad for your clarification. I will eagerly await to see if a rough consensus of other arbitrators agree with you and presuming they do adjust my actions accordingly. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720 thanks for that clarification. I want to understand this second parth. Am I correct that you're saying that if the 4 uninvolved administrators had all bolded refer to Arbcom no further action would have been needed as ArbCom (arbs/clerks) would do the rest of the steps? If so that is definitely easier than the answer I gave (close with a rough consensus to refer by an uninvolved admin, uninvolved admin files a case request here, and notifies all interested editors) and so I will happily take advantage of it going forward. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Levivich's statement: even beyond what SFR pointed out (BANPOL is quoting Arbitration Procedures), I think Levivich operates under a fundamental misconception about AE. Levivich seems to view AE as a community forum, where as I feel it is, as the name of Arbitration Enforcment suggests an Arbitration Committee forum. Further, the sanctions being handed out are being done under Arbitration Committee authority, not community authority. As such under the Arbitration and Consensus policies, the Committee can do what it feels best including mandating that all appeals in this topic area are heard by it rather than AE.

As to the substance of the SFR's suggestions, I'm not sure the committee wants to hear all appeals, but if it thinks SFR's idea is a good one I would suggest it limit itself to either or both of: appeals of recent sanctions (<3 or <6 months) and appeals stemming from an AE report (regardless of whether it is actioned by an inidivudal administrator or a rough consensus). I think giving uninvolved administrators the ability to use the tools available in Iranian politics to moderate discussions (not just RfCs) may or may not work, but would feel like something that could potentially be productive to stem issues without doing a full case and thus is perhaps worth trying. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with the observations made by both Trypto and Nableezy that the "sides" here don't neatly align on pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian. Beyond the nuances they both have offered, I have seen a definite "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide (for instance SFR has pointed out that Levivich's definition of tag-teaming could apply to some of former group but is only being applied against the latter group). This complexity is why I repeat my concern about ArbCom accepting a case unless it feels it truly has the capacity/ability to do it just because a lot of people (me included) are saying the status quo isn't working. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:27, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Theleekycauldron

@L235: I agree with Barkeep that this should be a full case. But Red-tailed hawk is right on his list of parties – this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve. Not because of a lack of authority, but because of the complexity of the case combined with the standard unblockables problem. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: i think it's pretty clear looking at the chart that the number of new editors spiked because of the war (given that it spiked last october). i don't think you can claim from that chart alone what the impact of the regulars has been; it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:58, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by TarnishedPath

I understand that the list of participants is everyone who was involved in a particular AE discussion or who was mentioned in that discussion. My editing in the topic area is limited, with a limited number of articles on my watchlist. I don't intend on following this closely. If my participation is desired at any point please ping me, presuming the case goes ahead. TarnishedPath^talk 22:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Nishidani

I object to being hauled into this artificial mess (caused by an innovation in reading that defines all reverts as identical behaviourally irrespective of contexts, so if I revert an unfactual or unsourced piece of WP:OR, I immediately am, like the abusive, often new, editor, engaged in a revert war and, if the abusive editor persists, anyone else who restores the accurate text is tagteaming with me. Crazy). I have been repeatedly reported over the last year, and invariably the cases were dismissed. They were frivolous, but ‘there is no smoke without fire’ psychological atmosphere created by this repetitive questioning of my policy-adherence and good faith, indeed, precisely because AE rejected these piddling reports, the claim emerges that editors like me are ‘untouchable’ (Occam's razor. When a theory fails, those convinced of it invent another theory (Untouchables here) to account for why it was not accepted, etc.). The result here is a series of intemperate variations of a boilerplate meme chanted about the I/P area, which I have heard for a dozen years used of individual editors but now used of a group, first targeted by several off-wiki sites and now pushed as a reality which slipped past our monitoring for 20 years. And it is just an unsubstantiated opinion, esp. from editors I’ve almost never seen here, and, surprisingly seems to be getting some traction.

• theleekycauldron this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve
• Tryptofish the editing environment disturbingly toxic, . . it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject.' (See this note)
• AirshipJungleman29:a large number of experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to.
• Swatjester;The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute
• Number 57: there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV . . for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions
• The Kip: This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE . . - I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs.
• Zanahary: It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy.
• Domeditrix there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. , , , editors here incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, , , enable(s) Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits. . topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics . . I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND
• Thebiguglyalien the entrenched editors . . . their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on . . This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this. . .
• xDanielx: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers.

Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment (The IP area is notorious for the huge academic industry of explanation that has grown up around it, and unless you read this material, and put aside using newspaper current events sourcing as the default RS, you are not going to grasp anything there for encyclopedic ends). There is no evidence here, none, as far as I can see, but no doubt some will think, ‘ah, but they’ll find the missing proof for these claims when Arbcom gets to work’. And why should it work on such an outburst of unproven grievances? As I noted on my page, there is a very simple test to find evidence for this hypothesis of a conspiracy (against Israel, that is the tacit innuendo in those complaints above)/bullishly dominating control over IP articles by a 'pro-Palestinian' faction that has putatively consolidated itself as the power to reckon with in the area. Use your wiki tools and elicit confirmation of this bias by examining the list of 100 new IP articles created since 7 October (SFR's starting point). Of the hundreds of editors active over them, show that a handful of the 'regulars' has bludgeoned, intimated, harassed, been uncivil across the board, and secured their 'pro-Pal POV'. If you can't then, all we have here is the appearance of blathering highly personalized grudges. Nishidani (talk) 10:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by DMH223344

Can someone explain to me what this is all about? Specifically, how is this AE related to the previously closed one? And what am I being asked to do here?

Statement by Buidhe

I really don't want to be involved in this business, but while there is a lot of suboptimal behavior in this topic area, it amazes me some of what can be described as an "edit war" or sanctionable conduct. If these standards were enforced across the board to all editors regardless of their content contributions and all topic areas, I'm quite convinced that there would not be much of an encyclopedia. I realize that Arbcom tries to clinically separate content and conduct, but IMO one should not lose sight of the goal of the entire project. And while productive, good faith editors can be driven away from contributing due to battleground behavior and general nastiness, it's also true that they can be driven away by excessive rules and (the fear of) overzealous ban-hammers. I do believe that editors who actually work on creating an encyclopedia should be distinguished from people who just show up to revert or argue on talk pages. (t · c) buidhe 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde

I saw several reports at AE that mentioned tag-teaming as a concern. I did not find anything actionable in the ones I investigated, but I agree with BK49 above that AE is less well-placed to investigate a sprawling multi-party dispute where the behavior of multiple editors may be of concern, than the behavior of a single editor. So I believe ARBCOM should look into this. In doing so, however, I encourage ARBCOM not to narrowly constrain which editors' behavior will be considered. AE is able to deal with the behavior of single editors. What ARBCOM needs to look at is whether the outcome of editors working together is actionably disruptive where any individual's actions in isolation may not be. I also encourage ARBCOM not to take a narrow view of what constitutes conduct. Mis-representing a source is, in my view, just as bad - and possibly worse for Wikipedia's long-term credibility - than any civility issue. It shouldn't be ignored just because it is easier to police language, though I am in no way suggesting that the expectations for collegial language be ignored. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• If this weren't very clear from my statement above, I don't think this ought to be handled by motion. The issues here aren't simple; they need to be disentangled with care. If civility and edit-warring were the only problems, we wouldn't need ARBCOM. We need an evidence phase, and for ARBCOM to dig into whether editors are editing within all the PAGs, not just the ones easy to assess. I also think it would be a mistake for ARBCOM to handle all the appeals. We shouldn't be spending the limited resource that is ARBCOM's time on appeals that aren't complicated. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Tryptofish

I generally avoid editing in this topic area, and my involvement in it has been fairly minimal. But the one instance when I did get involved with it ([14]), led me to find the editing environment disturbingly toxic, and not due to some simple problem with a small number of easily identified editors. Rather, it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject. That strikes me as something that AE is poorly equipped to deal with. And it fits exactly with the concept that ArbCom should accept cases where the community has tried, but been unsuccessful, to resolve. So I recommend that ArbCom accept this case, and do so with a large number of named parties. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

(Added after some other editors have kindly said that they agree with me; I don't know if they will agree with what follows.) ArbCom should know that the problems with "the usual suspects" that cannot be handled by AE generally do not fall along the expected POV fault-lines of Israeli versus Palestinian POVs, or antisemitism or Islamophobia. (I'm sure there are POV pushers like that, but they can be handled at AE.) If anything, there's a divide between different lines of Jewish thought, with the most problematic editors favoring WP:RS-compliant scholarly work by largely-Jewish academics, but doing so with a massive-scale disregard for the ArbCom principle of WP:BRIE, and some other editors (sometimes more crudely) finding such source material to be contrary to popular political opinion. In my experience, getting caught in the middle of that can be quite unpleasant. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by AirshipJungleman29

I echo the comments of Tryptofish, Vanamonde93 and SFR. The topic area features a large number of experienced editors who have, whether consciously or not, decided to ignore CTOP protocols. This not only has the effect of turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to. Editors of all sides appear to have an unspoken agreement that civility shouldn't really matter when discussing such controversial subject matter (e.g. nableezy's statement above). This is unacceptable. I strongly endorse implementing the actions outlined by SFR as immediate remedies. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani, while I don't particularly appreciate being snidely labelled a pro-Israel complainer, I do appreciate an immediate example of "experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be". So—on balance, notwithstanding its intention—I thank you for your statement! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Aquillion

I do urge ArbCom to particularly investigate the accusations of misrepresenting sources (an extremely serious one that takes time and effort to get to the bottom of) and of people taking inconsistent policy positions (a key component mentioned in WP:CIVILPOV, which is rarely enforced) as well as the battleground / aspersion / WP:AGF issues mentioned above. The edit-warring is important and is easy to see (hence why so many cases focus on it), but if that was enough to resolve this then we wouldn't be at ArbCom. The root cause is battleground mentalities and civil POV-pushing; misrepresenting sources and taking inconsistent policy positions point much more directly to that problem. (And, of course, I also urge people to present evidence to those things in the evidence phase, if it gets to that point, because ArbCom needs that - my past experience with cases like these is that both editors and ArbCom tend to focus on the "easy" aspects of WP:CIVIL and WP:EW, ignoring the underlying causes or more complex aspects.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I also want to second Loki's statement below that much of the problem is drive-by new editors or SPAs with few edits elsewhere - a lot of the other comments here have basically said "this is all about a few bad editors"; I don't think that's correct. In topic areas like this, where the disputes here reflect serious real-world divides, new / inexperienced users and blatant new SPAs are going to constantly flow into the topic area and require experienced editors who are willing to take the time and effort to keep an eye on a vast number of pages in order to maintain some semblance of balance or even just basic compliance with policy. We aren't going to solve the underlying A/I conflict on Wikipedia; the topic area is always going to be fraught. And the simple fact is that distinguishing between an experienced editor who eg. frequently reverts in a particular way because they're doing the necessary gruntwork of dealing with an endless tide of SPAs trying to blatantly add a particular bias an article, and an experienced editor who is performing WP:CIVILPOV-pushing themselves while WP:BITE-ing innocent new editors, is often not obvious. Part of the reason an ArbCom case is needed is because the community and AE aren't equipped for that; but this also means it's important to approach the case with an eye towards the drive-by / SPA problem, at least as context for the behavior of parties to the case, and not just "who are the bad people we can make go away in order to solve this." --Aquillion (talk) 18:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Swatjester

Tryptofish's experience here echoes mine. The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute, in contrast to the uninvolved parties saying, essentially: "It's you: you're the problem." I think that's rather telling. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Number 57

I edit around the edge of this topic area, focussing on Israeli politics and civil society, and have had the misfortune over the years to have ended up in disputes with editors pushing both anti-Israel and pro-Israel POV on articles where our paths corss. I very much welcome the suggestion that long-term tag-teaming, POV pushing and the ineffectiveness of current tools to stop this should be looked at. From my nearly 20 years' experience, the main issue has always been that there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV – anyone can look at their contribution histories and see that their contributions are primarily adding things that make their side look good/the other look bad and deleting information to the contrary; in discussions such as RMs, RfCs or AfDs, their stances are easily predicted based on their editing history. A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage). Number 57 19:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Re LokiTheLiar's comment below that "a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users", I would say that is only partially correct. These users tend to be the worst in terms of edit warring and other more flagrant violations of Wikipedia rules. However, IMO the real issue here is the fact that the topic area is dominated by a relatively small number of long-term editors who rarely break rules such as 3RR etc, but (as said above) are purely here to push their POV and support other members of their group in doing so. They have been allowed to do this for years – the question is whether the community sees this as perfectly fine, or whether it wants to do something about it (which IO think can only be achieved by a mass handout of topic bans). Number 57 19:21, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

A response to Bluethricecreamman's comments: NOTAVOTE (an essay, not a rule) is not really relevant; closes against the majority of views expressed only tend to occur when there is a clear right/wrong (e.g. alignment with a certain policy or guideline). In this topic area, most things are arguable, and therefore the number of attendees do swing discussion outcomes – while this isn't an issue as a one-off, when it is many discussions over many years, it is a problem.

Re my views on 30/500 – my concern is that it is a deterrent to new editors entering the topic sphere, which is one of the issues preventing an equalisation in the number of POV pushers on each side (as I've said above, I would rather they were all topic banned, but if Wikipedia is going to tolerate POV pushers in contentious topic areas, at least allow them to contribute in roughly equal numbers). I've been here nearly 20 years and the dominant personalities in this topic sphere have barely changed in the last ten. Number 57 20:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

And re Nableezy's comment about me – disingenuous at best. For context, what I objected to was including the same paragraph of text about the legal status of Israeli settlements in the introduction of every single article on a settlement – my view was that everyone knows they are illegal and simply saying it is an Israeli settlement makes that clear. And for those who have been here long enough to remember, my RfA was disrupted by canvassing by pro-Israel editors who considered me to be a problem because I was doing things like removing articles on settlements from "in Israel" categories. Number 57 23:23, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Nableezy, I had been calling people in the topic area POV pushers for years before the discussion you reference and my issues with you also started well before then as well. While I have been accused of bias, it has come from both sides, and that gives me reassurance that I must be doing something right. I was once even accused of being a friend of Nishidani, which I'm not sure either of us would agree is the case. Number 57 00:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by The Kip

Not to sound repetitive, but I'll echo the comments of Tryptofish, AirshipJungleman29, and Swatjester. I dabbled in editing within the topic area some months back, but quickly opted to mostly stay away - since December or so, my related editing has only been in the Current Events portal/ITNC and various admin/arbitration noticeboards. This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE - they wholly disregard WP policies and prior warnings/sanctions, as most ARBPIA sanctions for experienced editors have effectively amounted to slaps on the wrist. I'd also like to specifically emphasize the point made by Swatjester of I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute, as from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.

In short, I strongly endorse both an Arbcom case and SFR's suggested remedies. I will openly disclose that I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs, as I don't think starting from scratch could make things any worse than they currently are - that said, I understand that's a rather draconian/heavy-handed solution. The Kip ^(contribs) 22:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

• With regards to the core group/"usual suspects" claim, I'd also like to link this chart gathered by @Thebiguglyalien: some months ago for a different arb case. Some of the more active users noted on that chart are now TBANned, but it still serves as a solid chunk of data for the mass-scale POV-warring in the area. The Kip ^(contribs) 22:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
• I'd also like to say I politely disagree with Tryptofish's assessment of the main area of conflict; while that is a dispute in the area, and as they say, a particularly nasty one, I think the main issue is indeed the Israeli vs Palestinian POV-warring. While AE could in theory deal with that, in practice it's been reluctant to for one reason or another - many of the experienced editors in question often straddle a line of problematic behavior that AE has seemed unwilling to definitively bring down the hammer on (hence my WP:UNBLOCKABLE concerns mentioned above), and that Arbcom may be more open to conclusively dealing with. As a result of AE's apparent higher threshold needed for experienced editors, things like civil POV-pushing, bludgeoning, weaponization of process, less "blatant" incivility, and so on are difficult to definitively sanction - you have to badly cross multiple lines to receive anything more than a logged warning that is almost always disregarded by the receiver in the long run.

That's not even to mention the specific reasons why this case was primarily brought here (in my understanding), that being AE is mainly intended to be an A reporting B case forum. When the issue at hand is tag-teaming, multi-party edit warring, multi-party incivility, etc, AE's not too well-equipped to deal with a case where A and B want to report C, D, and E, except A and B have also been engaging in the reported behavior themselves, and F probably was too but wasn't brought to the case until later due to a variety of reasons. The Kip ^(contribs) 00:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@LokiTheLiar the problem is those new-ish users are fairly easily dealt with via AE, if they haven't already violated ECR. On the contrary, AE has shown itself to be reluctant to heavily sanction any heavily-experienced, long-term editors - see how some of those named in this case pretty much receive only logged warnings and/or minor things such as revert restrictions for substantial incivility, abuse of AE process, edit-warring, etc that would've gotten a newer user swiftly blocked. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

• After further reading of comments here from multiple users on either side of the POV-war they either deny exists or insist it's mainly/only the other side that's toxic, I'd like to reiterate:

from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.

WP:RGW, WP:BRIE, et al. This complete lack of introspection/acknowledgement that "hey, maybe I'm part of the problem too" is exactly why many in the area, if not all its experienced users, deserve sanctions. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:43, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Zanahary

It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy, and an apparent policy of assuming bad faith from anyone whom you believe you’ve sussed out to disagree with you go totally unpunished and be downright normalized—and it’s mostly coming from a handful of dominant editors. Something’s gotta give, and if that’s a rain of topic bans, then so be it. I see a few names listed that I believe do little more here than worsen the project. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Ravpapa

Once an active editor in this topic area, I have for the last few years assiduously eschewed any involvement. But I would like, nonetheless to add this comment:

I think we are all looking at the wrong thing. We are discussing editor behavior, but we should be looking at the quality of the articles in the topic area. And, I think we can all agree, the articles are abysmal. They are bloated with polemics, they magnify ephemeral new items into international crises that change the course of history, they are often so full or quotes and counterquotes that they are practically unintelligible.

Will massive topic bans make the articles better? I doubt it. With the Middle East conflict, we have exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by SashiRolls

ArbCom should be aware that the table BilledMammal has offered as evidence above (Bludgeoning statistics) is deeply flawed. Efforts to encourage him to include a disclaimer noting that his "methodology" does not control for the presence of bludgeoning sockpuppets in discussions (for example) were rebuffed. As a single example, Kentucky Rain24 made about 48 comments on Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? enticing several editors into responding.

Prior to my comments on the talk page there was no methodology section. Now, BM has added some clarifications, but as a quick roll-over of that link shows, he is controlling what page visitors are aware of.

I very rarely edit in this topic area and only looked into this table due to past experience with Billed Mammal and Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) working in concert here. This is also why I learned that 18% of BilledMammal's edits to mainspace have been reverted, which might be worth looking into. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 11:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Domedtrix

I am relatively new to this topic area on Wikipedia, though I have read around the topic offline over a number of years.

I would like to echo the points of many editors above, that there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. @BilledMammal illustrated this excellently here, though that is not to say the same behavious doesn't occur across more than the two editors singled out in that diff. Though I have seen tendentious editing multiple times, I am very reticent to call it out, in part because such accusations add more fuel to the fire.

What makes this topic particularly tricky to deal with, however, is not that editors in this space are typically new to the site (although as I know from editing in the WP:FOOTBALL space, any current event will draw large crowds), as is often the case when we see these types of issues. Instead, editors here are often incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, and thus how to make a contentious change stick. This enables Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits, though I accept I am far below the median in this discussion by this metric. This, in combination with a format for resolving disputes that often seems to favour the most mobilised side, despite WP:VOTE expressly stating this shouldn't be a factor, has resulted in a topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics across Wikipedia. In my view, this amounts to an abuse of Wikipedia's voice for political ends.

The consensus process has broken down because too many experienced editors seem to have no interest in finding any consensus. I agree with @Zanahary that Badgering and Wikilawyering particularly scares off many that would like to approach the topic, so we're left with the same faces over and over again, and also the same problems. It is very rare in these interminable discussions that I see people give an iota. There is no end in sight, because it seems the desired state of the articles in the topic area from one (or each) 'side' of this conflict will likely not be content until 'perfection' is achieved.

We have been too slow to act here. It has been public knowledge for some time that Discord servers are being used to WP:CANVAS people with specific viewpoints. As this is done off-site, it is hard to know the scale of the impact, but that should not prevent the implementation of measures to guard against this risk.

The more I read in this topic area, the more disheartened I become by the state of our collective actions as editors, and the more I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND, and it's hard to imagine whatever fills this void being worse than what is already here. As @Ravpapa stated, it's not like we're protecting much of value here - this process has resulted in articles of fairly poor quality, a result of incessent pointscoring within articles. --Domeditrix (talk) 11:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by LokiTheLiar

As an occasional participant in this topic area, I'd like to second Zero's suggestion that mass topic bans are not likely to be useful because a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users. ArbCom already got a taste of this earlier this year when it banned a bunch of pro-Israel meatpuppets.

Speaking of which, I'd also like to encourage ArbCom that, when it looks at editor behavior, to actually look at the behavior of every individual involved and not assume "both sides are at fault" without evidence. Loki (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to say that my assessment of the behavior of established editors is notably less negative than many other people here. I basically agree with nableezy: it's inherently a contentious topic area and so disagreements are common and will always be common. It's also unsurprising that many editors take editorial lines that lean towards one side or the other of the conflict: editors aren't required to have no POV, only articles are. None of this is that surprising to me for editing in a contentious topic area and I don't think that any of this per se is a problem.

I do think it's a problem when editors edit war, or cross the bounds of civility, or bludgeon discussions, or bring your opponents to drama boards to try to get them removed from the topic area, or try to push a POV over what reliable sources support. And definitely some of that has been happening here, and I encourage ArbCom to look at the behavior of individual editors in this topic area. But I don't think this stuff coming from established editors is a systemic issue over and above the inherent fact that the Israel/Palestine conflict just is a contentious topic. It's fine to not want to edit in a contentious topic area but I don't think that a topic area being intimidating to edit in is by itself an issue. Loki (talk) 19:54, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Thebiguglyalien

Given the pushback from regulars in this area, I'll add one more voice from someone who's only edited at the edge of the topic area and have felt dissuaded from contributing further. I can't say it better than Swatjester: "'It's you: you're the problem'". Whatever excuses the entrenched editors might have, their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on, but we have to pretend we don't so as not to be accused of casting aspersions. I see an Arbcom case as the only way to turn this years-old "open secret" into something actionable.

The habit of always !voting in a way that benefits the same nation is a problem, and it becomes obvious when someone uses one reasoning to come to one conclusion but then uses the opposite reasoning when it's the other side up for discussion. This is commonly answered with the contradictory ideas that "they're the POV pushers, our side is just correct" and that "users are allowed to have their own POV", with the latter suggesting that it's okay to let POV dictate editing and !voting instead of following policies and sources. Call it battleground, tag-teaming, CPUSH, whatever you like, but in my opinion it should be a major focus when considering whether the editors in this area are here to build a neutral encyclopedia.

Contrary to what other statements here are arguing, I believe there are legitimate issues about editors who are only here to edit PIA. This is a strong indicator of WP:ACTIVIST/WP:SPA/WP:NOTHERE style editing, even when they have high edit counts or several years of experience. This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this.

• I like ScottishFinnishRaddish's suggestion that everyone who participated in an ARBPIA AE discussion since last October be considered involved.
• I agree with Ravpapa's points about low article quality, but these issues plague most current events articles (another area that could use cleanup, but it's not analogous to PIA).
• BilledMammal's list does produce some of the most active editors, and while there's plausibly a strong correlation, it doesn't prove bludgeoning on its own.
• Not only do I agree with The Kip and Zanahary that a significant number of topic bans should be on the table, but such bans are the bare minimum of what's necessary. At this point, topic bans aren't a drastic last resort. They're the first step of a slow, painful remedy.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

In response to the link provided by Nableezy: a reminder that WikiProjects cannot enforce their local consensus on articles. Conclusions reached by a WikiProject are recognized as essays. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by xDanielx

Number 57's point gets at the heart of the issue: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers. This often leads to situations where there's an apparent consensus which goes against (the natural or customary interpretation of) our content policies. The result is passionate edit warring, with one side righteously enforcing consensus, and the other righteously enforcing content policies.

The Zionism edit war covered at AE is one example - there's an apparent consensus to state in wikivoice, in the first sentence, that Zionism is colonization. It's frankly very hard to see how such an unequivocal statement could comply with NPOV, given the long list of scholars who take issue with the characterization. But it's difficult to enforce policies against a majority, and four editors have been brought to AE for attempts to do, with another threatened.

Another example is Gaza genocide. If that isn't a WP:POVNAME, I don't know what is. Some editors argued that titles do not imply statements, effectively saying that POV names do not exist. Such arguments tend to be invoked selectively. The move received significant press ([15], [16], [17], [18], etc), damaging Wikipedia's credibility.

I don't think word count limits would help. A bright-line rule against bludgeoning might help avoid lengthy discussions filled with redundancies, but that isn't the core issue. Enforcing behavioral policies more rigorously might help attract a few more neutral editors. The real solution would be to warn or sanction editors who repeatedly promote unreasonable or inconsistent interpretations of content policies, but of course that's difficult since such policy matters aren't black and white. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 01:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion for Radical Change by Ravpapa

So long as we remain in the realm of editor behavioral change, we will get nowhere. What is required is structural change. In this topic area, we need to abandon the open consensual editing model that has been at the heart of Wikipedia since its inception. Here is what I propose that we do:

We recruit a committee of five to ten senior editors, who have never edited in the topic area, who have no identifiable bias, and who are equally unacceptable to both sides. Only members of this committee will be allowed to edit in the topic area.

The committee will be charged with reviewing the entire corpus of Middle East articles, and making any editorial and structural changes that they see fit, including:

• deleting duplicate articles about the same topic, or merging articles closely related.

• drastically trimming down articles of marginal importance that have become bloated with polemics.

• rewriting main articles to present conflicting views in a concise and intelligible way.

The committee should look not only at individual articles, but at the corpus in its entirety, thinking creatively about the best way to present information. I give examples and suggest such structural changes in my essay User:Ravpapa/The Politicization of Wikipedia, which I wrote 15 years ago but is just as relevant today as then.

The committee will have the power to delete, merge and rename articles by consensus within their own group, without having to go through the regular article deletion. merge or rename processes. Anyone can, of course, comment on the talk page and make suggestions. But only the committee can actually edit. This proposal preserves the heart of the consensual editing model (though not strictly open), but eliminates the possibility for contentious editing.

It is a huge task. I am not volunteering. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite

A PIA5 case has the possibility to go completely FUBAR if it attempts to litigate the entirety of the topic area and regular editors in those areas. This is a stupidly contentious topic and I suspect if we looked at the complete records of every regular editor a well-meaning member of ArbCom could probably go all Portals on us and find a spurious reason to ban them. No, my idea would be to concentrate on the three areas which appear to causing the most issues at the moment.

• Sub-5000-edit accounts which are basically SPAs on the PIA area, some of which will inevitably be socks but even if they're not are equally disruptive
• Those attempting to weaponise AE by bringing multiple threads against ideological enemies
• Those holding up progress by causing endless circular arguments on talk pages (I'm not going to say "bludgeoning" because people may look at BilledMammal's subpage which IMO has a wildly flawed methodology for assessing this). A lot of these people are, again, new-ish accounts.

Also, per Rosguill below. That particular shambles of an RfC is quite revealing. Black Kite (talk) 14:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Rosguill

Based on my vantage point of having only really participated in I/P topics by way of RSN and AE discussions, I am perplexed by various assertions made in this clarification request. Reading through discussions like the recent ADL RfC, the recent Al-Jazeera RfC, a recent discussion of +972 a recent discussion of general Israeli sources, there is a consistent group of editors that repeatedly accuse a list of sources they have deemed to be "anti-Israel" while also defending-ad-bludgeon advocacy sources like the ADL and categorically defining Israeli news media as reliable. These discussions do not display the converse: there is no bloc of editors that rejects Israeli sources out of hand while categorically insisting that pro-Palestinian sources are reliable (for further evidence, see the recent Electronic Intifada RfC). We do occasionally see editors pop up who reject Israeli sources out of hand on talk pages (usually alongside US and potentially even European sources), but I don't see anyone named in this report that exhibits this behavior. Such editors are shown the door. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Huldra

• PROBLEM: the cat-herding admins cannot manage herding all the cats
• Solution: slaughter all the cats
• Problem solved
• alterntive solution: better cat-herders, or better cat-herding rules, are apparently not on the table, Huldra (talk) 18:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Arbitrator views and discussion

• Thank you to the AE admins for submitting this referral. As a procedural note I would suggest that we limit the parties to this request to האופה and other users whose behavior is under consideration here (perhaps the editors listed under "Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread", though even that list may be too long).
  @האופה: It would be quite helpful to have your perspective here. I would also appreciate hearing further from the uninvolved admins as to what you'd like ArbCom to do — I see two buckets of possibilities: (1) Hold a full case or case-like structure to resolve the complex multiparty questions here, and/or (2) Remedies that only ArbCom can impose (e.g. Maybe even everyone is limited to 500-1000 words in any ARBPIA discussion. as ScottishFinnishRadish suggests). Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:39, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• After reading the AE thread and the above statements, I think ArbCom will need to take some sort of action. I agree with L235 that I would like admins, both those involved in the AE and those that were not, to comment on whether it should be a full case or, if we are to resolve by motion, describe what ArbCom should enact to help admin find solutions to editor conduct issues. In response to how to refer a case to AE: instead of a magical incantation suggested by SFR, an admin can use a bolded vote at the beginning of a statement (something like "Refer to ArbCom", in bold) or as was done here, an uninvolved admin can determine that action as the consensus of the admin conversation. Z1720 (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
  • @Barkeep49: A bold vote isn't necessary, but it is an option. Since the question came up at AE here (in a humourous context that I chuckled at), and referrals to ArbCom from AE have not been common, I wanted to make sure there was clarification. Z1720 (talk) 15:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
    • @Barkeep49: Your answer was "correct" because it gave one path to refer an AE case to ArbCom/ARCA. My comment above was to highlight a second path to get the same result. Z1720 (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
• I agree that action from ArbCom is necessary, and having reviewed everything over the past couple of days, looks like it may need to be a full case based on the complexity of the issue. - Aoidh (talk) 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
• I was hoping when I first joined ArbCom that we would not need to hold WP:PIA5, but it is starting to sound inevitable. Primefac (talk) 12:35, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
• We probably need to hold PIA5. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:08, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Huldra: I invented ECP, so I am 100% with rule changes to make the cat herding easier -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 06:48, 22 August 2024 (UTC)