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Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	Motion	none	26 July 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.

• Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed 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 editor 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 an automatic check at 11:53, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

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

• @Aoidh: I would consider that if we want to exempt userspace from WP:ARBECR, the more appropriate way to do so would be by amending the text at WP:ARBECR. I think there's a strong interest in standardization, so I would rather have separate up-or-down votes on those two things, and then it would seem logical for you to support both of those motions. Curious for your thoughts. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:22, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• @L235: I would support amending WP:ARBECR to reflect WP:CT/A-I to avoid further confusion. - Aoidh (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• I think there's merit to the primary article distinction. This is a sprawling topic area; not on the scale of some contentious topics, but still broad. And there's a difference between the core set of articles that document the conflict and other articles that are not necessarily about the conflict but the related disputes spill over. Ideally, editors should be able to work on articles about the culture and history of the region without big scary ArbCom notices, at least until there are problems. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

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)

I have read through the analysis by BilledMammal (talk · contribs) regarding the bludgeoning. I would point to WP:ARBBLUDGEON's Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion as pointing at two things: overly repeating oneself in replies to others, and simply dominating by pure volume. The criteria used for the database search can be seen as a (flawed, but useful) proxy for the latter. The former requires contextual analysis as to whether or not someone is simply posting the same point a bazillion times in response to different people; showing diffs in the same discussion where someone is repeating the same point over and over (and over) again across a multitude of comments would provide better evidence towards that point than the analysis currently does. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: With respect to If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue, my reading of Wikipedia:Contentious topics#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee's relevant part (i.e. A consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard may refer an arbitration enforcement request to the Arbitration Committee for final decision through a request for amendment; emphasis mine) is that I had to submit it here rather than as a case request. If this is to change going forward, the instructions should probably be tweaked to clarify this. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:44, 28 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)

---

Just a heads up: if a case is opened, I will ask arbcom to name as parties and review the conduct of all the editors, admins and non-admins alike, who, on this page, are casting WP:ASPERSIONS. Those of you who have done so may want to either strike your comments or add some diffs to support your allegations, before arbcom gets around to asking who the parties should be. Levivich (talk) 16:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

---

Re: BilledMammal's comment that 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets ... The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with. 26 replies were to confirmed sock puppets, and I rather strongly disagree that it's trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with, though of course I value my own time more than others value my time. :-P Levivich (talk) 01:47, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

---

The way my report against HaOfa "sprawled" is because the first admin comment made the "other people do it, too" argument and listed a bunch of other editors, and it went downhill from there, as those editors predictably defended themselves and the discussion focused on their conduct rather than HaOfa's (despite my attempts to refocus it). I agree with TBF that an AE referral means Arbcom should review my report against HaOfa -- meaning, look at my conduct and HaOfa's conduct -- and complaints about other editors should be brought separately, with diffs not aspersions, and a showing that some other conduct dispute resolution was first tried. Because even if Arbcom does open a case, who will the parties be, and how will Arbcom decide? It requires someone presenting some evidence... in other words, an WP:ARC. Only HaOfa and I are relevant to this AE, and with HaOfa not editing since the filing, I don't think it's necessary or a good use of Arbcom's time to look at HaOfa's conduct. Levivich (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here. I think the "first admin comment" link above disproves this. Look at who replied and who didn't before that first comment was made. It wasn't the replies that actually happened split the focus, it was the first admin comment. Levivich (talk) 17:29, 30 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? [2][3][4] 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 [5], Selfstudier casts aspersions on other editors who joined the discussion and disagreed with them [6], Nableezy asks the opening editor on their page if it's their first account [7], and Sean Hoyland accused the creator of being a sock [8], 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 [9]. 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)

6: Apart from myself, and given the number of times they are mentioned, I think we should specify just which editors are the regulars. Just so we know. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

7: @Barkeep49: The difficulty is that following "referral", based on a case that was not even resolved, 4 editors were designated for investigation with no apparent basis or other case specified as reasons for such an investigation. If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now, suggesting that the only basis for said designation is the content of the replies (of editors and admins) in said case, which lacks a certain logic afaics. Which is not to say definitively that there should not be a case, just that it should have proper antecedents and not merely come about ad hoc.Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 30 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)

HJ Mitchell, these knowledgeable Wikipedians, who exactly are they? If you are thinking of those often claiming some greater knowledge or ability in this topic area, then oh boy do you have it wrong. Here is some "source misrepresentation", blatant and obvious. If members of the committee can't see it happening now and do something about it then they are the last people who should feel qualified to perform some kind of grand "source analysis" for the topic area. fiveby(zero) 21:26, 1 September 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)

Being realistic/know your limits

It's quite difficult to reconcile calls to topic ban long term experienced users with things we know about the topic area. We know quite a lot. For example, we know the following things.

• It isn't possible to topic ban or block a person and prevent them from editing in the topic area. Why? Because it isn't possible to enforce the WP:SOCK policy in PIA. It's largely unenforceable for a variety of practical, wiki-cultural and technical reasons. We all know this. There have always been plenty of accounts evading topic bans and blocks in PIA and there is apparently very little that can be done about it. They are part of the community of editors in PIA, like it or not.
• Topic bans don't solve problems. They split the PIA community into 2 classes, editors who comply with WP:SOCK and editors who do not and therefore cannot be sanctioned effectively. Maybe a currently topic banned user in this discussion could talk openly about this reality. Their input could be very valuable.
• If every editor currently active in the topic area were topic banned today, the topic area would be rapidly recolonized, probably within a matter of days or weeks. The pioneers would be more likely to come from subpopulations that do not think the prohibition against "systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" applies to them. We know this because we have lots of data about how new highly motivated biased editors cross (or tunnel through) the EC barrier and what they do when they get into the topic area.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

The Kip, regarding socks,

• Unfortunately, I think the statement "it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI" (my bolding) is just not true. That's what the data shows, and we have a lot of data, at least for people who advocate for Israel, less so for people who advocate for Palestine (although they are also present). If you ask questions like...
• "How many sock accounts are currently active in the topic area, or outside the area (to gain EC or access to wiki-mail for canvassing)"
• "How has the number of sock accounts varied over time?"
• "How many revisions to articles, talk pages, RfCs, RSN etc. are by sock accounts?"

...what are the answers? Nobody knows, but we know from the data that they are a constant presence, make thousands of edits, participate in many discussions and have a significant impact on the dynamics of the topic area (including the things often referred to as 'heat' and 'temperature' - slightly misleading terms because those are measurable quantities in the real world that are unreliable subjective guesses here).

I think there's a bit of a failure to factor in the significance of socks. The existence of an effectively unsanctionable class changes many things in important ways (this is true in other systems too). There are asymmetries in the payoffs and penalties for socks vs non-socks in the wiki-game. There are asymmetries in the costs of preparing and processing an SPI report vs creating a disposable account, which is a virtually frictionless process. These asymmetries, and there are many, seem to be very significant features of the topic area. Using disposable accounts appears to be a better strategy for the righteous advocate and it's not obvious how to change that.

Certainly, it's a problem that could be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI, but that would probably require significant changes to current norms about checkuser usage and evidence. What I would like to see, just out of interest, are experiments e.g. split the topic area up into article subsets, have different rule sets for the subsets, see what happens. Have a closely guarded set of articles with all of the existing rules, any new remedies, any new entry barriers, checkusers for every editor active there etc., the strictest possible enforcement environment. Have another set that could be a land for the oppressed and mistreated ban evading victims of WP:SOCK, for the disposable account fan, for people to edit war and advocate to their hearts content and stick a disclaimer on the articles for readers. Things like that would be interesting and possibly informative.

Are statements of the form "it's toxic disaster zone" true statements or just stories? It's not what I observe. It seems to have improved in some ways. What I have observed over time is what seems to be a gradual transition from things like edit warring as a solution, to talking and the use of tools like RFCs etc. But the topic area is so large and complex with so many individual actors, and so many events, that it is difficult to make reliable general statements about it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:27, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Meme check #1 TLDR -> some data.

How true are statements about editors being scared away from the topic area by a toxic environment created by entrenched editors etc.?

It's true that there are instances that can be selected out of the large number of comments on talk pages and elsewhere to tell this story. Sometimes they will be sincere statements and other times they will be insincere manipulative statements by ban evading socks playing the victim in the hopes of getting perceived opponents blocked.

One way to see whether editors being scared away could be to

• Look for changes in the number of unique editors in the topic area over time
• Compare the topic area to the rest of Wikipedia

If the claim is true, you might expect to see a couple of things

• The number of unique editors reducing over time
• A proportionally lower number of unique editors in the topic area than in Wikipedia in general.

I've tried to have a look at this using 3 datasets, two approximations of the 'topic area' and a set of randomly selected Wikipedia articles.

• PIA topic area - template presence (3734 articles). Articles with one of the ARBPIA/contentious topics templates on their talk pages.
• PIA topic area - project membership (3019 articles). Articles that are members of both Wikiproject Israel and Palestine. This is the approach BilledMammal uses, so thanks for that. Neither of these methods capture every article that a person would say is in the topic area, they are both different subsets of a larger set, but it's a start.
• Random sample (15000 articles).

Here are the results.

• The top plot shows the unique editor count over time for the 3 datasets.
• The bottom plot shows the same results scaled by article count. This result might suggest that the topic area is more attractive to editors than Wikipedia in general. Didn't really expect that.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Zero0000, removing topic area articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards doesn't seem to make much difference. I guess many editors might be flowing upstream from the new post-Oct 7 extensions to the topic area to update pre-Oct 7 articles. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:29, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Meme check #2 TLDR -> more data

Many opinions about the topic area talk of a set of editors ('experienced editors', 'the regulars', 'battleground editors', 'the culprits', 'entrenched editors' etc.) who have worked together to some effect.

Can we see this effect?

• One place to look might be in the relationship between account age and revisions to see who's doing the editing.
• Is it mostly these older accounts, or newer accounts, or something more complicated?
• Is some kind of evidence of article ownership visible?

I've tried to look at this by...

• Selecting 35 fairly prominent articles
• Producing histograms showing the number of revisions vs account age in days at the time the edit was made for each article and talk page.
  • To keep things visually simple the bin size for account age is 365 days.
  • 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles are marked along with the average account age.

Here are the results. The distributions vary but younger accounts appear to dominate in the topic area in terms of revision counts, at least based on this small sample. It would be interesting to see what this distribution looks like for the entire topic area. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Using evidence-based approaches

I would like to commend BilledMammal for their evidence-based approach. This way, people can discuss methodology and evidence rather than assert things about the state of PIA. Now, I was a bit disappointed to only score 89% for the percentage edits in the topic area because it is supposed to 100%, or thereabouts as it says on my user page, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. But regarding methodology, the including "all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area" will inevitably miss a lot. Perhaps it is unavoidable to some extent. It misses the contributions of AndresHerutJaim's socks for example (the cause of a previous ArbCom case about canvassing). By my count, their socks made 1927 revisions spread over 159 accounts since 2022 to articles and talk pages within the topic area (using the same definition of the topic area as BilledMammal). If you choose revisions since 2020 it's 3703, and since 2018 it's 6504, and I'm not sure any of the accounts would cross the 50% in topic area threshold. And that's just the identified accounts for one sock edit source. We have no idea what the success rate is for sock identification. And somewhat dishearteningly I can see several more (what I regard as) possible socks in the activity statistics. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

PIA dynamics

If there is a case, I think one of the things it could try to address is the following (often cyclical) property of the system, which appears to be quite common as far as I can tell.

• Step 1 - Biased extendedconfirmed editor A makes a sequence of edits (that may or may not be noticed and result in people having to spend time creating and processing an AE case)
• Step 2 - Biased non-extendedconfirmed probable-sock B uses this to justify creating a disposable account, violating WP:SOCK and WP:ARBECR, to revert the edits.

An obvious sledgehammer partial solution to Step 2 is to just EC protect every article in the PIA topic area to disincentivize disposable non-EC account creation, but Step 1 should not happen in the first place and is clearly much harder to address.

I'll also add that in my view, a case that only includes parties who do not employ deception, who are not evading topic bans/blocks etc., is about as likely to succeed in producing good results as a study that only includes data from participants who are easy to access, while ignoring an important subpopulation that is harder to reach. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:40, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Replicators (socks) - the gift that keeps giving

Again, hats off to BilledMammal for bring the receipts. Little time to look in detail right now and probably plenty to think about. But one quick comment on 'it demonstrates that the issue of sockpuppets is less significant than we believe.' The amount of sock activity is a difficult thing to image and quantify, a bit like corruption, black markets, Advanced Persistent Threat group activity, but we can see some features.

• If we just look at 2022 to present, obviously limited to only talking about logged blocked socks that made edits in PIA (with the caveat that we can't know the sock discover rate), we can see the following
  • There were a lot.
  • They made a lot of edits.
  • The average 'SPA-ness' is low (percentage of edits in PIA articles, talk, templates, categories, portal and draft namespaces). They do not generally resemble SPAs.

See plot

• Note: this statement of mine "obviously limited to only talking about logged blocked socks" is not really true. There is also the network of sock related categories that might contain accounts assigned to sockmasters that do not have log entries that I would capture or log entries at all. The labelling of socks is a bit spotty turning it into a bit of a treasure hunt. But I was too lazy to look. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

And as tempted as I am to name names because I think AGF is counterproductive in PIA when dealing with replicating threat actors, I will just say that I can still see many accounts in the stats that I regard (based on technical data) as probable socks. Maybe someone will file SPIs at some point, but it is unlikely to be me because the cost/benefit makes it too expensive. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:41, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's an idea for a fun project for someone to make something potentially pretty. Build a directed graph of the sock-related part of the ludicrously large Wikipedia category graph and color code the nodes and/or edges for actors that have made PIA revisions (and/or other contentious areas) based on something, revision count, rev date, SPA-ness etc. I imagine the PIA related part of the sock graph would be quite small. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:40, 2 September 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 [10]. 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)

Is it really acceptable for an admin to be saying on this board your atrocious behaviour to an editor? And to have the gall to say others are making things toxic? nableezy - 16:55, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

This page is considerably more "toxic" than nearly any talk page in this topic area. Any number of people are making winking references to editors and claiming some misbehavior with absolutely zero evidence besides their vibes. Not to mention the way over the top comments by one admin. I cant say I would be looking forward to a case, as to be blunt with you all ArbCom historically has focused on the surface issues of these topics and not the actual root causes, but either open a case or dont. That or aggressively clerk some of these statements. That is if we want "decorum" to apply here too. nableezy - 17:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I am largely in agreement with ToBeFree here. If this is a referral of the AE thread then the committee should rule on that AE thread if that seems worthwhile. If a full case is warranted then it should be at WP:ARC, where somebody like me can present evidence on tendentious and disruptive editing in this topic area outside of the AE request being referred here. The person who was brought to AE has not made a single response to any of this, but somehow we have a number of users rising up to demand topic bans be given out like candy on Halloween. I think there are any number of things that the committee can do in this topic area, hell should do in this topic area. I dont really see how many of them are at all related to what was referred to them here. nableezy - 14:32, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Again, BilledMammals "evidence" is dishonest. He claims I supported massacre here because I opposed "incident" as euphemistic for the murder of 7 civilians, including 6 children. When I said Im not opposed to some move here, but incident is absurd. Israel was accused of a war crime here, every casualty was an unarmed civilian, and they were purposely targeted. Calling this an incident is even more POV than calling it a massacre. You know what’s a problem in this topic area? People making things up and saying it with a straight face so that others believe them. Again, I would highly recommend that you all not take such absolutely bad faith "evidence" at face value. There are multiple examples in that table in which BM is straight up lying about an editors position. nableezy - 11:53, 2 September 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 ARBPIA discussion 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.

   In response to the comment by SashiRolls, only three listings (out of 109) were significantly impacted by sock puppets:

   1. 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
   2. 15 replies out of 45 by Selfstudier at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
   3. 12 replies out of 34 by Selfstudier at Talk:2024 Nuseirat rescue operation#Requested move 9 June 2024 were to sock puppets

   The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with. Added 01:28, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

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)

@Nishidani: I don’t consider the distinction relevant, because there is no basis in policy to consider sources unreliable due to bias, regardless of the level of bias. Tolerating editors making the assessment that source A is more biased than source B, and thus A is unreliable while B is not, is to tolerate POV pushing. BilledMammal (talk) 23:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani: The purpose of RSN is to determine the reliability of sources, not the level of bias. There is no basis in policy to consider biased sources unreliable, and that means that editors attempting to argue that "source they don’t like" is more biased and thus less reliable than "source they like" are POV pushing.

Alone, not enough to warrant action - but it is another piece of evidence that adds to evidence like only supporting the use of "massacre" when the victims are from the side they support. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Black Kite: I've attempted to address your request to identify 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 with ARBPIA activity statistics.

I've included all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area. Sub-5000-edit accounts are marked with *; sock puppets and masters are marked with bold.

@Aoidh: What sort of information would be helpful in determining a scope? In addition, will parties be decided at this stage, or will parties be able to be added during the evidence phase? BilledMammal (talk) 12:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the prevalence of issues in the topic area, the following may be helpful:

1. RM statistics, regarding the prevalence of POV pushing
2. Activity statistics, regarding the prevalence of sock puppets and single purpose accounts

   @Sean.hoyland: I think it demonstrates that the issue of sockpuppets is less significant than we believe. In 2024, only one sockmaster is in the top 100 editors by edit count within the topic area.

   @Nishidani: I think it also addresses your concerns regarding the parties list; because it shows that the topic area is dominated by editors who generally align with a pro-Palestinian position, we would expect that such editors would make up the majority of a representative party list.

BilledMammal (talk) 05:14, 2 September 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.
• There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it. All of this is exactly as it should be. Zero^talk 11:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

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 feeble 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 think it shows poor judgement on your part. Zero^talk 04:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

To editor Sean.hoyland: It's great to see someone present actual evidence. The number of distinct editors in I/P has remained essentially the same for the past 8 years until it suddenly jumped up at the start of the present war. I wonder, is there a simple way to show the same data without the articles specifically related to the war? Removing articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards might be a good approximation. Don't spend time on it unless it is easy. Zero^talk 01:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

To editor CaptainEek: I don't think ArbCom has an obligation to resolve the AE case. The fact is that there is nothing about it which AE could not handle perfectly well by itself. What you should do is send it back to AE (taking the cue from the practice of appellant courts sending cases back to the referring lower court). Meanwhile, no case has been made for PIA5. We have seen wild assertions without evidence, that's all, and it would be a mistake to take them at face value. Considering that there is a shooting war going on right now, ARBPIA is actually in better shape than one would expect. I've been editing in ARBPIA for over 22 years and for most of that time it was in worse shape than now. Zero^talk 04:36, 30 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)

ToBeFree, the tldr is the original complaint was more or less about tag team edit warring, looking into it I saw that it was, in my view, broadly similar to much of the behavior widespread in the topic area, and wasn't terribly interested in making one-off sanctions. It's incredibly widespread, as well as other disruptive behavior, and AE isn't the place to address topic-wide issues. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:03, 29 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)

@Z1720 does what I wrote above accurately summarize your thinking? I want to make sure to know whether to adjust my actions for any future potential referrals. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Z1720. Sounds like your reading is the same as what I had previously thought. So then I'm still confused about what your initial comment was suggesting - there was never any confusion (that I could see) among the uninvolved admins about what the rough consensus was at a given moment (even if I was asking for some time for a bit to see if we could avoid this referral). Barkeep49 (talk) 00:02, 29 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)

@‌Nishidani: the Arbitation Committee will decide who the parties are. So it might be RTH's list, it might be a smaller group of that, or it could be part of that and others not included there. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:23, 1 September 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)

ToBeFree: I think the fact that the thread sprawled in the way it did despite the absence of האופה is exactly why the referral is here. There became so many other editors conduct to consider - not just in tag teaming but in the AE thread itself - that it became beyond what AE can handle well in its format. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

1) I want to make sure that ArbCom is aware of the highly related AN thread about RTH's INVOLVEMENT in this topic area. 2) To the extent that Levivich's version of what happened at AE is true, I don't think that argues against a case; it supports the idea that thetopic area needs to be examined, not just having a single complaint against a now inactive editor resolved. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

One more note: if ArbCom does decide to just adjudicate the AE report for האופה it should also adjudicate Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#PeleYoetz which was closed as moot after this ARCA referral. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier: I agree that If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now is true. If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich I absolutely think you should be able to present evidence about admin conduct in this topic area. Knowing the concerns you and some others had is why I included SFR in my list of potential parties. And I think it's reasonable to say something like "after that initial post by SFR there was no choice but for a lot of other people to reply which is why that thread sprawled and PeleYoetz" didn't. But I stand by my agreeing with Selfstudier that If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now. Selfstudier and I draw different conclusions about that statement we agree on and the Arbs can decide which conclusion they agree with as it's ultimately up to them. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

HJ Mithcell: I think there are in the AE thread referring this here allegations that a particular editor is behaving tendentiously, namely BilledMammal, Nableezy, and Selfstudier (and maybe also Levivich?). I think some of these allegations are stronger than others but those allegations are 100% part of why this case was referred to you. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:46, 1 September 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.
• berchanhimez:I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.

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. Who would be so stupid, if their intention was to 'create a toxic battleground', spend decades reading hundreds of books and scholarly articles, when they could simply do what hundreds of SPA and socks do, rack up 500 edits and then, without losing time opening a book, and if caught out, sock, resock, and resock again, in order to sock the 'regular' editors with their opinions, and try to provoke them so they may garner evidence for destroying them at AE?). 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)

Billed Mammal. Re this set of diffs, They are not valid evidence for what you claim for a very simple linguistic reason. 'Severe bias' and 'bias' are not interchangeable, the adjectival qualifier makes all the difference. All newspapers have bias, like humans. 'Severe bias' in a newspaper/organization is what makes it unacceptable, as distinct from others.Nishidani (talk) 13:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@User:BilledMammal. I'm sorry, but language and grammar are merciless in these things (and the fact that such niceties are missed so often is one reason reading ANI/AE discussions is, certainly for me, so painful -I was in part permabanned because one admin could not understand irony, though everyone else saw the amicable comedy of my, to him alone, 'aggressively' 'uncivil'/abusive remark). You are simply wrong. If you have played lawn bowls, then grasping whether the ball you are drawing has a wide or narrow bias is fundamental to mastering the art. The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. I guess now, having told you you are flat-out wrong, I have now produced a diff that can be cited in just one more WP:CIVIL suit to be filed against me in the future:):(Nishidani (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

And Huldra thanks indeed for that link I'd never seen this data before, because I don't know how to consult files that log stuff on wiki.Nishidani (talk) 01:49, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Swatjester. Surely you shouldn't take exception to a somewhat playful implication you were a 'cat'. Your presence is very rare in the IP area and your remarks about sealioning and 'the usual suspects' (people like myself) might give the impression of a detached view by an experienced admin. Not quite true. You admitted 17 years ago that you used your admin tools to unblock an Israeli editor for a 3R infraction because, offline he contacted you and convinced you he was justified in breaking the rule. You didn't even check to see if his wild offline claims (presumably about me) were correct. ([11],[12], [13] [14], [15]). When I read your first post here I remembered that contretemps. I never reported it as a misuse of admin tools, and I never hold grudges. But I do remember things, and took your generalization as coming from someone 'involved' in the topic area. Nishidani (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Swatjester re my putative 'atrocious behavior within this topic area'. You don't have to believe me when I say I don't hold grudges. But I have by all accounts a good memory. If someone out of the blue, whom I haven't seen around for 17 years, implies that I am one of the 'usual suspects', a sealioning bludgeoner, then recalling the earlier episode where they abused their admin tools and damaged my bona fides is more than fair. I was a newbie at that time (that shows in my remarks there), and was almost driven off by the arbitrary punitive measures made against me. I don't hold grudges because I made no formal complaint, which might have damaged you, and I have almost never had recourse, on principle, to making ANI/AE reports to settle disputes by getting someone who disagrees with me banned, a practice that is of chronic here, one used against me with unusual frequency. I exercise care in the words I use. 'atrocious' per Merriam-Webster means 'extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel: barbaric.' You're entitled to that view of me as someone displaying exceptional brutality and cruelty on wikipedia. But you should quietly ask yourself, because I don't report insults, how that squares with the content evidence of my creation of 1,000 plus articles as varied as Kaifeng Jews, Gadubanud, Joseph's Tomb and Irvin Leigh Matus.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Swatjester That incident occurred 17 years ago, when I was new to wikipedia, and, faced with an inexplicable administrative punishment (technically) I made the inferences one can see. I wouldn't do that now. What you don't deny is the gravamen of those two incidents (a) you used your administrative tools to unblock a sanctioned Israeli user after he talked to you privately (invisibly, without even examining the relevant pages where he broke 3R to verify his narrative) and (b) denied my own unblock request when, given the circumstances, you should have stayed out of this and left the decision to any other admin who was uninvolved. I gave all the relevant links, to allow editors to draw their own conclusions. Archaeologists of wiki disputes can judge for themselves. Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@User:Sean.hoyland. Thanks Sean. That is precisely the kind of empirical data we desperately need to as a work basis to get out of the suggestive/insinuating/subjective gossip mode often prevailing on wiki when it deliberates on core issues like this.Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@User:CaptainEek. You write:

The world's mostmost intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem.

It is not an intractable problem on wikipedia, despite incessant rumour-mongering. It is, an enduring premise of mine, politically intractable, but not descriptively so, taking in both an Israel (semi-)official POV and the scholarship, to the end of achieving NPOV. To the contrary. We can draw on one of the richest WP:RS highbar resource bases existing, for the simple reason that:-

The Israel-Palestine issue has a strong claim to be the most closely studied conflict on earth. 'Voluminous' does not even begin to capture the sheer quantity of the material about it'.(Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-241-00443-2 p.8 )

A very large number of positions assumed to be contentious here are not so in that scholarly literature, where a large consensus on the historical realities exists. These however are relentlessly challenged by editors who don't care much for the ivory tower, but care deeply about a country to which they feel a profound emotional attachment (again, understandably, but love of country is not coterminous with love of any one particular government and/or its worldviews). To respin the disputes that arise as an irremediable clash between nationalist POVs is nonsense, but that is the temptation here. And, if this goes to ARBPIA5, the outcome is predictable. There will be two parties identified (regulars and nationalists/socks), and a number from each will be sanctioned, for wikipedia must not give the impression, particularly under the pressures over the last year, of siding with one 'side' or t'other. And why have we got to this? Because an innonative reading, impeccably 'behaviouralist' now takes all reverts, regardless of the rationales, to be on the same footing, and any series of reverts by different editors, regardless of the talk page or the RS literature (the contexts), as evidence of mutual tag-teaming. of course, there will also be a further tightening of the screws on 'behaviour', since everything else is considered a 'content issue' where it is presumed there are a variety of POVs that are, in any case, not up to admins to read up on or make judgments about. Nishidani (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

And yes, seconding Zero, I really would like to see a minimum of evidence that the place has deteriorated to the point of requiring executive re-examination. What evidence we have is that there has been a massive investment of editors, a great many new, creating and working hundreds of articles since Oct.7. Personal experience is risible as evidence, but it was hell for the first decade of my working here, and I don't think growing senility accounts for my impression that over the last several years much of that heat has been significantly lowered, thanks to ARBPIA3. The only change I have witnessed is the sharp rise in newly registered accounts that behave oddly - my list has over a score, since Oct.7. That issue was what Levivich tried to address, and his reports somehow got transformed into assertions that they weren't the problem, the 'regulars' were, all based on hearsay circulating for at least a decade, hearsay drummed up by new off-wiki attack sites with a clear nationalist brief to go for wiki's IP jugular.Nishidani (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

• Finally, this Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@Barkeep. Just out of curiosity, if Arbcom opens a case, who are the editors whose behaviour is to be examined. The list given by Red-tailed hawk, or is it larger? I say that because there is a massive imbalance in the people singled out, according to the usual perceptions of the IP area's POV-stand-off.Nishidani (talk) 21:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

• @Jéské Couriano. As far as I can see, your statistics do not note a deterioration over time of editing in the IP area. They only indicate that roughly half of the cases brought there are IP related, and that AE has efficiently sanctioned a large number of the editors reported. I could make many other inferences but leave a proper analysis to those competent in these matters.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
• BilledMammal BilledMammal I second Sean Hoyland’s remarks on your page. That is an excellent tabulation. I don't think it demonstrates anything of the sort, that 'pro-Pal' editors dominate the IP area. What it does show is that several editors you would include under that description devote more than half, or indeed in a few cases, most of their attention to the topic area. Greek studies are 'dominated' by people who've mastered the topic- That doesn't mean they are 'domineering' as the rumour-mill here is suggesting. Perhaps I'll have other observations later (here because I won't be participating in any Arbcome process)Nishidani (talk) 10:15, 2 September 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)
• I fully endorse what Zero has to say about academic sourcing, but I disagree with the conclusion. There are editors here who are engaging constructively, and editors who aren't: and to determine who is in which category ARBCOM really needs to examine the content and the sourcing editors are discussing. There are previous cases - WP:ARBIRP and WP:ARBGWE come to mind - where ARBCOM needed to do something similar. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:52, 22 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 ([16]), 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)

About what ToBeFree said, I suspect that the information that would be made available to ArbCom via the case request page would look incredibly similar to what you already have here, so it would just be a bureaucratic waste of time to start over from scratch. And as for any aspersions that everyone should just be removed from the topic area, that's what the Evidence phase of a case is supposed to correct. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding to that: Although numerous editors are asking where the evidence is, for starting a full case with multiple parties, the correct answer is that evidence will be presented, and critically evaluated for whether it is valid or not, on the Evidence page of the case. ArbCom should make it clear that being listed as a named party is not a predetermination of guilt, something that perhaps will be more important here than in many other cases. You have multiple AE admins telling you that a full case with multiple parties is needed, and they have given you a reasonable list of potential parties (including admins who are well-positioned to give useful evidence). This is not the time to get stuck on quasi-legalistic procedural details. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Responding now to Harry Mitchell's comment, I'm worried that ArbCom is starting to over-think this. Focus on conduct, not on which sources are definitive. Have an Evidence page. Editors will either provide evidence of misconduct, or they won't, and ArbCom can tell the difference. You've got enough people telling you here that there are conduct problems that have overwhelmed AE that you can be confident that it won't just be a fishing expedition, but it would just result in ongoing disruption if ArbCom punts for now. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

@Tryptofish This would be fine, but it doesn't do anything about the topic area in general, and I'm not convinced that AE can't handle that. Possibly not as drive-by allegations in a thread about another editor, but if a separate complaint is filed with clear evidence on each editor for admins to evaluate, I have confidence that credible complaints will result in action and vexatious ones will be rejected. But if admins would prefer to refer a complaint against a specific editor to ArbCom, I'd be happy to hear that case. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:50, 1 September 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)

• @Huldra: While my user page has remained remarkably free of vandalism I have received death threats and threats to my family, specifically targeting me as a Jew, through Wikipedia that were so bad that WMF Legal had to be involved at one point. I'm not the cat you're looking for; please keep me out of your metaphors, thanks. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 03:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Huldra: I appreciate the words written in support. With regard to the question of whether I think the "not so Israeli" side receives more threats than the Israeli side -- I don't know. I'm not sure how I *could* know as I wouldn't be privy to threats received in private much like you weren't privy to the ones I received. I'm also not sure why it matters -- neither side should be receiving death threats, but nobody "wins" by being more oppressed. As to my lack of having been targeted for on-wiki vandalism by one side or the other, as Nishidani pointed out, my "presence is very rare in the IP area" so not only would I have less visibility over other people receiving threats, logically I'm not going to be the target of abuse from that area either. And, I was considerably less active in editing from 2012 until 2023, which certainly bears on why my User Talk was not subjected to those kinds of attacks. Thus I believe I'm just not a good fit for your metaphor. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 23:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• @Nishidani: thank you for bringing up an example that I did not remember from nearly two decades ago of your atrocious behavior within this topic area, in which you became so infuriated that I denied an unblock request from you, that you went on a rant about how my military service in Iraq (miscategorizing me as a Marine, as well as not realizing I'd been out of the military for over a year at that point) categorically disqualified from participating in the Israel topic area; made the same argument about a British military admin; and then proceeded to imply that we were tag-team coordinating while admitting that you had no evidence whatsoever to make that aspersion and that it was unlikely to be true anyway, before accusing me of "partisan" and "political" motivations, while repeatedly threatening to quit the project if you didn't get your way. Are you *really* sure this is the example you want to bring up? You're making my point about "It's you: you're the problem" quite well for me. But sure, you never hold grudges... except for the one you've apparently held for 17 years. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:00, 23 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)

For Huldra's information, unfortunately I have had numerous people wishing me death and other unpleasant things both on and off-wiki – most recently in June an IP left numerous edit summaries on articles saying I should be tortured, stabbed, beheaded, raped or "bullied to suicide". Number 57 00:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Huldra, I don't think it's appropriate to get into an argument about who has suffered the most abuse, particularly using a single metric like talkpage redactions – the fact is that no-one should receive any level of abuse for editing Wikipedia. And also worth noting that I have also been impacted as a result of removing "in Israel" from Israeli settlements (when I removed them all from "in Israel" categories back in 2007). Number 57 23:57, 23 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)

I also want to make something very clear, just so my position on the area doesn't get grouped in by one side with the other side of editors here and at large (which may already be happening):

• Are there more pro-Palestinian problematic experienced editors in the area than pro-Israeli ones? Yeah, I kinda feel like that's an objective fact at this point - as berchanhimez or the aforementioned Swatjester have stated, just look at the number of experienced editors showing up to insist they're not the problem, everyone else is/"there is no war in Ba Sing Se"/their behavior is justified/etc.
• Does that mean that the many problematic pro-Israeli experienced editors are any less of a contributor to the toxicity, policy violations, et al in this area, or that they deserve any lesser sanctions? Not at all (case in point) - I support coming down on them as hard as I do the former group, including more than a few editors in this very discussion whom I won't name. Hell, from the linked motion, part of the reasons one side is smaller in the first place is because many of the problematic users from that side already got themselves TBANned.

Some previous and later commenters seem to think that my idea of "nuking the topic area" means only mass-TBANning the problematic people from the aforementioned side with more editors (see 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 yet again), thereby artificially enforcing "neutrality" by simply evening the numbers. That is not my view - mine is that all of the problematic editors be banned, POV be damned. The Kip ^(contribs) 23:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, with all due respect to @Sean.hoyland: - WP:SOCK will always be a problem in the area, nuke or not, but it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI and sockpuppeteers having an almost comical tendency to accidentally out themselves. We shouldn't just put up with how much of a mess things currently are because there's the potential that it could get worse, and anyways, I disagree that the hypothetical "it could get really bad" is worse than the current reality of "it's a toxic disaster zone." The Kip ^(contribs) 23:25, 23 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)

Just for the record... after further research I have been able to determine that it was the decision to set the cutoff at 20 comments rather than at 18 which kept Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) from appearing on BilledMammal's list. That said, and as others have already said on the talk page (or when it is was brought to ANI as an attack page), showing that people engaged in discussion, provided RS, debunked silly arguments, responded to sockpuppet provocation, etc. does not show that people "bludgeoned" anything. As the explanatory essay says: Participating fully isn't a bad thing. If there were any utility to a page which simply counts the number of times someone's signature appears on a page, I would ask him to rerun the data based on 18 comments in 4 discussions so that NoCal100 would appear in his list. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 02:03, 27 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)

@Number 57: 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.

History repeats itself. A contentious move is confirmed by @Amakuru:. The rationale? "from a rough count, I see around 22 !votes endorsing the closure and 15 saying to overturn. I also don't see any kind of slam-dunk argument in the overturn !votes". This is a repeating problem and is only leading to parties that are able to mobilise more effectively getting changes made. I'm not saying policy is being purposefully gamed here, but if it was, this is one way it might look. Tagging @Joe Roe: here as it would be rude not to, given I've mentioned one of their closes. For full disclosure, I opposed the original close. Domeditrix (talk) 22:09, 22 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)

HJ Mitchell, replying more so to you because you've provided the strongest argument against my own and have convinced me to some degree. The most critical issue, in my opinion, is tag-teaming. Which regular editors in the area are working together to !vote lockstep, always in a way that favors the same cause? Especially when they apply different rationales depending on which side benefits (articles making Israel look bad must always be deleted and making Palestine look bad must always be kept, or vise versa, even if they have the same merits).

Your definition of "behaving tendentiously" would be a huge step in the right direction, but we'd need to flesh it out in a way that might be impossible. I've raised the issue at AE before, but no one could provide an example of what diffs are necessary to demonstrate this. Even though—if we all choose not to insult each other's intelligence—it's public knowledge who the most prominent tag-teamers are.

Regarding the academic "baseline", I don't believe there is one on most aspects. The controversy and disagreement are inherent to the subject area, including academia and history studies. The standard to declare something as a baseline fact should be overwhelming agreement in reliable sources. People who assert academic consensus on a subjective controversial topic are at best victims of confirmation bias and at worst maliciously misrepresenting. The people who insist that it's "correct vs incorrect" as opposed to "pro-Israel vs pro-Palestine" should be given additional scrutiny here.

Encouraging people to avoid the use of news media and primary reporting in articles on current events is something of a pet cause of mine in general (that I've elaborated upon in an essay), and such avoidance will almost always produce better results.

I see the sockpuppetry issue to be a red herring. That's not to say it's not a huge problem, but the current focus is established users, and there are factors that make this more urgent:

• The opinions of less established accounts are taken less seriously in discussions relative to more experienced users (this probably should be the case, but that just means it's all the more important that experienced users are above reproach on POV issues).
• ECR significantly increases the investment to create sockpuppets.
• ECR makes it easy to see who's acting in bad faith via EC gaming.
• Once discovered, a sockpuppet account is automatically blocked.
• AE can't address coordinated action nearly as well as it can address individual problem users (which is why we're here).
• Administrators don't give a second thought to blocking or tbanning newbies, while they often shrink away from sanctioning entrenched editors who do much worse much more often.
• Any administrator with the resolve to take action (or even mention the possibility) is hounded and abused by the user's tag-team buddies.

To stretch the cat analogy that's been raised, we're trying to build a home for mice. We've known the dangers of cats for a long time. Keeping entrenched editors to protect us from socks and newbies is like keeping cats to protect the mice from kittens. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:24, 1 September 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 ([17], [18], [19], [20], 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
• alternative solution: better cat-herders, or better cat-herding rules, are apparently not on the table, Huldra (talk) 18:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

• And then we have cat-herders who likes to play as a cat, at times,
• As for Number 57 view: "the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage" As an editor who has been "credited" by off-wiki web-sites and blogs with bringing about this rule, I can say: "credit where credit is due", namely with the more unhinged of Israels' supporters. It was their incessant rape- and murder- threats which brought about this policy. AFAIK, Number 57 has never been threatened with murder for editing wiki, or seeing his loved ones being raped (And I am happy -and relieved- he hasn't!), but I wish he would try to imagine how he would have felt.

• As for Number 57 view: "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 I could also easily name such a group – but it would prabably be a totally different group from the one (I guess) Number 57 has in mind,
• I agree fully with Zero0000's asseccment: "There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it", I have met people with PhDs in the I/P-area, who knows far, far less about the history of the area, than some of my fellow wiki-editors.
• As for Guerillero' wish for better cat-herding rules; I was thinking of something like: scratch another cat's face: 1 month's automatic topic-ban. Of course "scratch another cat's face" has to be minutely defined ;/, I didn' think I scratched a cat's face here, but that cat apparently disagreed! Huldra (talk) 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
• Also, some cats have been more attacked than most, [21], [22],[23],[24], while others have manged to get by with hardly a single scratch; [25] [26] (and no: that isn't because our editing is that bad: some of the very worst abuse I have suffered was after I removed that the Western Wall was "In Israel" (It isn't, according to the International community.) Huldra (talk) 22:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
• Not to mention that some cats are the subject of off-wiki harassment and outing-attempts, while others are not. I cannot recall in all my years here that there has been a single attack-page aimed at the pro-Israeli editors, while there have been at least half a dozen attacking those editor not deemed pro-Israeli enough. And outing: apparently you will "help the state of Israel" if you make public my RN. Gosh, this cat had no idea that she was that important! Oh well, on the internet nobody knows you're a ......dog, Huldra (talk) 23:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

• User:Number 57 and User:Swatjester say they have received death treaths, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, and I am very sorry they have done so, BUT: Do you deny that the threats against "the-not-so-pro-Israli"-editors is far greater than against the "pro-israeli" editors? After all, your talk-pages are blissfully clean of Wikipedia:RD2 and Wikipedia:RD3, after nearly 20 years each for both of you.
• To re-iterate: some of the worst abuse I have recieved is over removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967. This should have been totally uncontroversial, but apparently isn't. Likewise, I sometimes have to undo edits which place Arab cities in Israel in "Palestine"[27] others do so rutinely as well, [28][29]. All of these edits should have been uncontroversial. But I know that when I do the former (ie.removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967) I can expect a tsunami of insults and threats, while when I do the latter (ie: placing Arab cities in Israel), I have *never* recieved any such reaction. Why this difference, I wonder?cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Arkon

Seeing many comments that should be saved for the Arb case over the last few days. Is there some threshold that needs to be passed before this case is opened? Arkon (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Shushugah

• Enforcement in this area has been largely ineffective. The net result is a hostile/toxic environment. Remaining editors face a dilemma to either disengage (probably the healthier option) or furiously engage (also bringing the worst side of all parties involved). This does not mean someone who furiously engages is necessarily disruptive. We should be careful not to draw a false equivalence between the two. Especially when one side focuses on policy based arguments, namely summarizing inclusively pro Israeli and Palestinian sources while other sides are pushing for singular/nationalist narratives.
• Cases are brought to ArbCom or ANI after obvious escalations, however what we need is stronger focus on preventive measures over enforcement after the fact.
• On a practical note, reducing the ability of individual editors to dominate a conversation by instituting either a limit on word count or percentage, would allow more voices to sustainably opine with succint policy based arguments without having to compete for eyeball attention and save clerks more time when closing a discussion. More clerks would be motivated to join in too potentially.
• The other thing that remains unacceptable is the presentation by some editors in this ArbCom request and general discussions as POV pushing by two sides, when the reality is it is POV pushing versus critically summarizing the state of different reliable sources. Having a much stricter enforcement of WP:SOAPBOX would clean up discussions.
• These remedies would be easier to resolve than the (possible) allegations of tag-teaming and or gamification of Wikipedia which will continue to be contested and or repeatedly brought here ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

  [@CaptainEek] On one hand, if this becomes PIA5, more people would have given commented (if they wished) and existing editors might have presented evidence differently. On the other hand, a lot of time is wasted going in circular questions about the correct forum, when many of the issues raised are the same. If it is possible to refactor/raise a prepared PIA5 instead of starting from scratch, I would support a separate venue. Everyone should have a fair chance to bring input, but for most editors (myself included) ARCA is incredibly confusing and bureaucratic. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by berchanhimez

I haven't wanted to comment here because I feel that others are saying what I would have to say. But I feel it needs to be stressed that some editors are continuing to blatantly ignore policies and guidelines even in this request which concerns such behaviors. To quote The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. This flat out contradicts the applicable PAG pages of WP:BIASED and WP:NPOV § Bias in sources. However, Nishidani is correct that a wide bias can lead to deprecation - I am unsure if this has actually happened (and if it has whether it's happened in the Israel-Palestine subject area), but it only takes a quick look through contentious topics on RSN to see that editors are engaging in civil POV pushing (and sometimes uncivil) through attempting to deprecate sources that have a bias towards opinions they disagree with. This is but one example of the experienced editors blatantly admitting to ignoring PAGs when they disagree with the inevitable outcome of them.

This gets at the root cause of the issues in this (and likely other) contentious topics. Those editors with experience have "practice" in using PAGs in discussions - which is great as discussions should be based on how to apply our PAGs to specific disputes. However, their experience also means they are good at abusing PAGs to further their point of view and ensure Wikipedia reflects what they think is "right". To be clear, I am not denying that contentious topics are likely to have more sockpuppetry or newer editors in the topic areas than a "tame" subject would. That does not, however, justify cherrypicking PAGs that support one side, and ignoring arguments to the contrary - and it especially does not justify bludgeoning discussions so that the closer has no choice but to find those arguments "stronger" simply because people either tire out of refuting the claims, tire out of pointing out the failures of the arguments made, or are threatened with administrative action by those who know they can be quick to take complaints to friends who are administrators or boards like AE without threat to themselves no matter what they did to fan the flames. Funnily enough, when one of these editors has their conduct called out, the others tend to show up and bludgeon that discussion - through deflecting focus on to the editor making the report or those supporting it, through calling into questions the motives of editors who are simply trying to remove bad behavior from the topic area, and ultimately through derailing any chance that the behavior is addressed. That is why this is back at ArbCom after what, 4 prior cases? And of course, many of the problematic experienced editors have already shown up to this request to bludgeon here with chants of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" over, and over, and over again to try and deflect from and/or justify their own behavior.

A contentious topic does not need to have more heat than light in any discussion. I support this case being opened with a wide reaching list of parties - to the point that I would not feel it unreasonable for people like myself, whose editing in the area is limited to participation in a small number of discussions with a small number of comments. However, the root cause of these problems isn't the sockpuppetry (where it occurs), it isn't those who ask others to respond to their PAG based arguments, it isn't even bludgeoning or incivility by "one side". The problem is that experienced editors here (as elsewhere on the internet) tend to gravitate towards the same side, and via strength in numbers can continue to make systemic bias worse, silence opposition/alternative points of view, and ultimately control the topic area. One need only look at the significant number of experienced editors who are not a part of the "in group" who've commented here that they avoid this topic area because they have no hope of participating constructively against the other experienced editors - whether they're working in coordination or simply independently being disruptive. As such, I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.

There are more than enough editors who, if those whose only response to disagreement is to turn up the heat are removed, would be willing to contribute in the topic area to keep the encyclopedia running. The result of this case will determine whether I myself will feel like my contributions are welcomed in the topic area and that I won't have to spend time fighting bludgeoning from another side with no hopes of having my points ever refuted.

Statement by Amakuru

I don't have a huge amount to say about the general question here, although I do gravitate towards Buidhe's point of view above... while this is clearly a hugely emotive and contentious topic area for many and of course there are numerous disputes, my from-a-distance perspective is that conduct is actually a lot better than you might expect. While many editors fall into one of two "camps", the WP principles of compromise, respecting others and objective analysis still seem to be present in many debates. I'd urge ArbCom to be extremely cautious about imposing too many editing restrictions or topic bans in this area, on either side of the debate, I think that would lead to less good coverage of the subject rather than more.

Anyway, I'm primarily commenting here because I was mentioned above by Domeditrix, seemingly criticising my close of the move review for the Gaza genocide article. I'd like to know what I was supposed to do differently in that instance? Perhaps it could have instead been a "no consensus" close, but the effect of endorsing the RM close would have been the same. It's been long-established that consensus building on Wikipedia takes place by viewing comments through the lens of policy, but equally closers almost always find consensus for the majority vote if there isn't a lot to choose between the strength of arguments. Bluntly, there isn't an objective policy that says Gaza genocide is a disallowed title, the closer of the original RM found consensus for that title, and many seasoned editors agreed. If Domeditrix and others think we should be evaluating discussions in a fundamentally different way from how we've historically done so, for example by not counting votes at all, then they need to run that by the community and get some sort of procedural update in place so we know exactly how to assess these things.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Doug Weller

I'm not here to comment on the case but to draw attention to a blog by a probably banned editor concerning this case and attacking a number of the editors here, specifically Number 57, Nableezy, Nishidani, Huldra, Black Kite, Sean.hoyland and Rosguill.[30] It also says "Only a technique called "semi-protection" (prohibiting people not logged in from editing) can stop crazy people from coming onto user pages and threatening editors. Huldra's Wikipedia user pages are not semi-protected." Doug Weller talk 14:54, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Jéské Couriano

Looking at my current group of AE archives (April 2024 - present), of 75 threads (discounting the two duplicates) 38 of them are PIA-related. And of 94 threads from Oct. 2023 (and the Re'im massacre) to this past March, 41 of them are PIA related.

I get the sense that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is a major driver of the increased (mis)conduct in the area given its grossly outsized invocation at AE over the past ten months, and while I do agree that PIA5 is all but necessary at this point, I would handle it as a separate matter to this, akin to COL/AP2. Have one case to handle the editor conduct issues highlighted at the AE thread here (focusing on individuals) and then a second one to address the climate in the topic area writ large (focusing on policy changes to the topic). Trying to conflate the two a la The Omnibus Case is just going to be a bigger timesink than just doing them separately. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 17:39, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Notes

Statement by RAN1

Speaking of the AE request about האופה, there's also the AE request about PeleYoetz which was closed as moot because of this referral (diff), so that should be reviewed too. RAN1 (talk) 09:20, 2 September 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)
      • Support accepting this as a full case. Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
        • @Barkeep49: Sorry that I did not answer your question sooner, as the ping was lost on my end. As the instructions are written, the admin that closes the AE discussion determines the consensus of admin who commented on the case. If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue. Bolded !votes sometimes help the closing admin determine the consensus. I would not rely on the clerks to open cases at ARCA because I am not sure how closely the clerk team is monitoring AE. Z1720 (talk) 18:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
          • @Red-tailed hawk: You are correct: since the request is coming from AE, it would go through ARCA, not a case request. Z1720 (talk) 15:21, 29 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)

  This isn't much of an update, but I don't want to give the impression that this matter isn't being considered. I've been following the statements here and I am convinced a case is needed. At the latest, once the Historical elections Proposed decision is posted I intend to make this issue my primary focus as much as possible. I agree with User:Black Kite that the scope is important, though I'm not committed to any particular scope just yet. - Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal: To your first question, while I have a good idea of what these issues are based on the statements and preliminary examinations of some of the articles/talk pages, evidence that certain issues are substantially more common and disruptive than others would be helpful in determining the scope. To the second question, I'd like to see parties decided on case creation, with parties added in the evidence phase only with compelling reason to do so. - Aoidh (talk) 20:25, 27 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)

• There has been an enforcement request against האופה / HaOfa, 2024-08-11, 20:50 UTC. The reported user has not edited since. During their absence, the report became a discussion about general behavior of multiple users in the area, then expectably too much to handle at AE, and now we're here with multiple arbitrators indicating an interest in opening a case. What I personally don't entirely get is how all this happened without a single statement from the single reported editor, and why ArbCom's task in this situation isn't to evaluate only האופה's conduct and close the original AE report with or without a sanction against האופה. If we aren't able to evaluate a single party's conduct, we aren't able to hear a case either. And if we are, a case can be requested at WP:ARC, with a list of desired parties, evidence of disruptive behavior of each, evidence of prior dispute resolution attempts about each, and without a general unenforceable aspersion-casting "we need to remove everyone from the topic area". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
• I find SFR's proposals to be exciting ideas and suggest that at a minimum we propose them as structural reforms in the area, and pronto. I think there's an immediate problem that needs to be solved: this AE report. Resolving it is our necessary goal. I'm not opposed to holding a case here, and think that we probably should given that AE has done exactly what we told them they could and should do: refer cases to us. As much as I'm remiss to hold PIA5, it seems increasingly unavoidable. The world's most intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem. Should this AE become PIA5 though? That's where I'm undecided and would be interested in more feedback on whether we can resolve the narrow origins of this AE report without also having to make it PIA5. It may benefit us to consider PIA5 independent of this AE request. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
• I apologise for the tardiness of my comments; I've been reading and thinking all along but I've had limited time to type out my thoughts, which requires a proper keyboard. I am reluctant to hold a PIA5, at least at this time and via this vehicle. I thought it was likely to come up and is one of the reasons I stood for ArbCom last year. It's likely we will end up holding it in some form but we need a clear scope and a clear question that ArbCom can answer. This is our most troublesome topic area and has already been through this process four times, so ArbCom may not have any tools left in its toolbox, having already created ARBECR out of whole new cloth. The Wikipedia dispute is a microcosm of the real-world dispute and a baker's dozen Wikipedia editors cannot resolve the entire Arab-Israeli conflict. On Wikipedia, the topic heats and cools with the real-world conflict and we are currently in a very large flare up due to horrific real-world events. I am sympathetic to the view that we have reached the limits of what can be achieved with the open, collaborative model given the proliferation of sockpuppetry in the area.

  A case with a sprawling scope and no clear question that ArbCom can answer is likely to be an enormous time sink and end up producing little long-term benefit. Instead, I think SFR's suggestions have merit for maintaining some semblance of order, even if it means ArbCom playing a more proactive role than it's used to and hearing appeals of CTOP sanctions or acting as AE admins en banc. I would also welcome direct case requests or AE referrals if there are allegations that a particular editor is behaving tendentiously (ie, the sum of their contributions is disruptive even if no one diff in isolation is sanctionable) and AE admins are unable to reach a conclusion. And something that stood out to me from AHJ (and which I've been reminded of, reading some of the comments above about how knowledgeable many Wikipedians are on their chosen subject) was the analysis of sources; I didn't think it was ArbCom's place to be doing that analysis itself, but but it could be valuable to have an agreed baseline of what the academic literature says, which (aside from being useful in itself) would then support (or refute) allegations of source misrepresentation. One final thing we could do is avoid the use of news media and primary reporting in articles on current events (this could potentially be done by consensus, or ArbCom writ, or part of the suite of sanctions administrators have available and applied article by article).

  Tl;dr: we need to do something, and we should welcome new ideas but a sprawling ARBPIA5 is unlikely to resolve anything satisfactorily. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:29, 1 September 2024 (UTC)