Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/Analysis

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) & Evidence summary — Analysis & Arbitrator Questions (Talk)  — Proposed decision (Talk)

Frequently asked questions (including details about the summary page)

Target dates: Opened • Evidence phase 1 closes 09 April 2023 • Evidence phase 2: 17 April 2023 - 27 April 2023 • Analysis closes 27 April 2023 • Proposed decision to be posted by 11 May 2023

Scope: Conduct of named parties in the topic areas of World War II history of Poland and the history of the Jews in Poland, broadly construed

Case clerks: Dreamy Jazz (Talk), Firefly (Talk), MJL (Talk), ToBeFree (Talk); Drafting arbitrators: Barkeep49 (Talk), Primefac (Talk), Wugapodes (Talk)

Purpose of analysis

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Analysis exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post their analysis and interpretations of submitted evidence.

Expected standards of behavior

• You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
• Analysis that includes accusations of misbehaviour case must be refer to summarized evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
• Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
• Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Analysis of evidence

Place here items of summarized evidence (with diff or paragraph number) and detailed analysis

Adoring nanny analysis

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence/Summary#Naliboki_massacre

Analysis

The article Naliboki massacre was vastly improved by a recent series of edits by editors with different points of view. Version as of mid February[2]. Current version (March 13)[3]. The old version was borderline antisemitic. I don't see such issues with the current version, though others may differ. The old version left the question of the participation of Jewish partisans a bit mysterious, with a few hints of yes, and somewhat-stronger hints of no. The current version makes it clear that the allegation is unproven at best and probably false. The old version contained useless info about a commission not having completed its work as of years ago. The new version summarizes what they did. The collaboration was required. For example, I certainly could not have done it on my own as I don't speak Polish.

That said, the differing points of view of the various editors, much of which involves issues I don't understand, is severe enough that it resulted in an AE thread[4] with some mild sanctions. Certainly some people were less than happy with each other. I do wish everyone would calm down. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Analysis of El C's evidence

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_El_C

Analysis

The above are just recent things that I noticed in passing (thus, I believe these are illustrative examples), but that this is how VM and GCB conduct themselves while an APL2 case is pending, I think is indicative of their unsuitability for continuing to edit the topic area/s. Therefore, I submit that their previous indef TBANS should be reinstated by ArbCom at the conclusion of this case. El_C 00:20, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@GCB: if what you got from the above is that I propose for you to be Topic Banned for not removing diffs [etc.], then you have failed to read closely. But a terse one liner reply to my in-depth explanation is about par for the course. Anyway, for some reason, you were treated with exceptional leniency. You got an edge over others in that thread by violating the rules and then ended up getting your diff-filibustering violation retained. That is not a plus. Again, I emphasize: something that I ran into in passing. I strongly believe that this example is illustrative of an overall approach. It being WP:BATTLEGROUND, even when in a roundabout way. El_C 04:15, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

In regards to the information that El C revision deleted, there is ample evidence which is either oversighted or off-wiki ,that Icewhiz did exactly what Volunteer Marek said. Obviously El C can't verify that and so I completely understand the use of RD under our BLP policy, but make no mistake that there has been real and vile harassment by Icewhiz. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

@User:El_C - No, I don't believe I should be Topic Banned for not removing diffs after being permitted to keep them. - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:59, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

----

I wasn’t aware that WP:BLPCRIME applies to anonymous former Wikipedia accounts that are engaged in harassment. It doesn’t. And El_C is mistaken. My language wasn’t “shocking”. I did not use expletives, profanity or even any adjectives. What IS shocking however, and what El_C should be shocked by, is the form of abuse and harassment that Icewhiz engaged in which is what my revdel’d comment summarized. That is what El_C is reacting to, but it is what really happened. I don’t know why El_C chose to focus on the person describing the abuse, rather than the abuse itself.

Abusive accounts get reported to ANI/AN all the time, complete with descriptions of their abuse. That isn’t WP:BLPCRIME either.

This brings up a broader point. The 2019 and 2020 ArbComs are well aware of the kind of abuse that Icewhiz did. I don’t know if the present ArbCom is. Certainly, there are editors on Wikipedia who are commenting on this subject who don’t appear to know much.

There is also a social norm, both on Wikipedia and outside, that individuals subject to abuse and harassment, especially this vile kind of harassment, are expected not to talk about it… much. It’s ugly stuff. It’s in bad taste. Bringing it up makes people uncomfortable. You have my sympathies, now let’s change the subject. Talk about something else. If you talk about it you risk some other nut case out there getting ideas. Let’s just move on. Etc.

But what this often leads to is just facilitating more abuse. There are still people on Wikipedia – and Grabowski and Klein do this as well – who really want to downplay what Icewhiz did. And pretend that Icewhiz was “unfairly banned”. All he did is just some vanilla socking with a little of slight doxing on the side. Poor guy got railroaded for some minor misdemeanors. But nobody gets site-banned by the WMF and Trust and Safety for just a bit of socking and doxing.

So if you do bring it up you get accused of having a “persecution” complex and having a sense of “martyrdom” (actual taunt from Horse Eye’s Back here). Or you’re told to stop brining up Icewhiz because you know, he’s not relevant here or something: [5]. Being quiet about it means making this kind of chicanery possible.

El_C's "evidence" means that I really don't have much of a choice anymore. Pretty clearly it’s necessary to really spell out what Icewhiz did. That too should be part of evidence. Ignoring this means ignoring crucial context here, ignoring all the stuff that's happened in the past four years. And when you’re at a point where an administrator thinks that referring to the abuse is “BLPCRIME” it really seems that the nature of this abuse needs to be said out loud. So that some people will stop pretending that what Icewhiz did wasn’t a big deal and that people who bring it up are just “playing the victim”. Or even try to get me sanctioned for talking about it, as it seems to be El_C’s intention here. Just shut up and take it and don’t talk about it…

… right. In fact I would rather NOT talk about it. Even just thinking about it makes me very emotional, angry and even scared. But El_C’s comment is perfect illustration why it HAS TO be talked about. Icewhiz posted very very detailed information on my children. Including their names, school address, birthdays and even a nickname. A few days later accounts appeared on Wikipedia made under the names of my children (and other family members). These accounts began making edits to articles about rape. When that didn’t get my attention, they made the rape threats more explicitly. Of course, all this was oversighted and the accounts banned (hence no diffs for this section). But the evidence was forwarded to ArbCom and Trust and Safety.

Was that Icewhiz or some other random psycho? Does it matter? Icewhiz was the one who posted all that info about my kids. Even if it wasn’t him personally, he made it possible and this was exactly his intent. When confronted about it on twitter he gloated and said that I “deserved it”. He also refused to deny that it was him in discussion on Wikipediocracy. After all, if you’re threatening somebody, you want them to know that it’s you.

I don’t know who here, reading this, has kids, but I hope that you can relate. How would YOU feel if someone threatened to rape your kids? What would you think of the person that either did it or encouraged/facilitated it? How would you view the people who made excuses for this person, or downplayed what he did, or worse, continued to tag-team with his sock puppets, or exchanged emails with this person and posted on their behalf, or wrote a paper based on this person’s false accusations?

And it seems that me having the nerve to describe what happened leads El_C to think that I should be topic banned! Just shut up, take it, don’t talk about it. Or you get topic banned. Even if I haven’t really been editing this area for the past year.

Note that I haven't even addressed the other stuff Icewhiz did: the sock puppeting (including impersonating real life people), somebody calling me at work self identifying as Icewhiz and telling me that if I "wanted to live" I "better stop editing Wikipedia", all the other forms of harassment.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Volunteer Marek (talk • contribs) 16:15, March 15, 2023 (UTC)

1. With regard to GCB, I did not see anything she did recently to rise to the level requiring any sanctions. I saw her comments on ANI where she insisted that the dispute needs to be brought to AE. If anything, that was an AE case "with merit" because some sanctions were made, and no one disputed these sanctions. Hence, GizzyCatBella arguably did good thing for the project by advising to bring this case to AE.
2. This is diff to a comment by Gitz6666 that caused the redacted reply by VM: [6]. In this edit Gitz666 refers to discussions off-wiki I have no idea about ("I am curious to read the second part of your text about him on your blog"). In the end of their comment (diff above) Gitz6666 also refers to this discussion. I am not sure if such reference was a topic ban violation by Gitz6666, but I think Gitz6666 explains why he is so happy to see VM in trouble during this arbitration. Based on the reaction by VM, Gitz6666 knew what he was doing. My very best wishes (talk) 18:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
3. There is a history here (related to the topic ban by Gitz), but it is beyond the scope of this case. If Arbcom wants to sanction VM for his reply to Gitz, then such history probably must be taken into account and discussed. But again, I think this would be out of the scope. My very best wishes (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• Above, VM writes: I wasn’t aware that WP:BLPCRIME applies to anonymous former Wikipedia accounts that are engaged in harassment. It doesn’t. And El_C is mistaken. Yes, it does apply—to any living or recently-deceased person whatsoever, anywhere on the project—and no I am not mistaken. You speak with such confidence about things you obviously have a poor grasp of. To quote Barkeep's reply to myself at the evidence talk page earlier today: I think your interpretation of our BLP policy is correct and the idea that it only applies to article topics is at odds with the policy (17:12, 15 March 2023) El_C 07:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

• Below it is written: The redacted part would have to be very, very bad for ArbCom to base a TBAN on it (18:32, 16 March 2023). Earlier today I had said (in part): This piece of evidence is not the sole basis for my calling for [VM's] previous EE TBAN to be reinstated (14:29, 16 March 2023). El_C 23:55, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding El C's claim that GCB was "misusing" AE, it's worth noting that she often states that she's "busy" and will do something "later" when asked for certain things, but never does:

1. 23:33, 15 March 2018
2. 23:57, 2 April 2018
3. 13:09, 27 May 2018
4. 14:41, 2 December 2018
5. 08:54, 5 January 2021
6. 21:03, 24 May 2021
7. 18:57, 24 May 2021
8. 02:13, 17 August 2021
9. 09:14, 27 September 2021 (also note Szmenderowiecki's retort [7])

François Robere (talk) 12:01, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The issue for ArbCom raised by this evidence is whether or not VM and GCB have done things that should result in reinstatement of their TBANS. I've looked at the evidence regarding VM. I can't see the part that was redacted. For what I can see, including what VM says in this section of the case page, as well as what I can see at Gitz6666's talk page, it looks to me like someone who has been the victim of serious harassment commenting about that harassment, rather than engaging in disruptive conduct. The redacted part would have to be very, very bad for ArbCom to base a TBAN on it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

what a peculiar interpretation by MVBW. I had to re-read this comment three times to understand its intended meaning.

1. I made no reference to discussions off-wiki (with VM or others): I had no such discussion.
2. At the end of my comment, I'm not referring to the whole discussion linked by MVBW. I'm referring to the link I shared (obviously...) and thus to VM's comment Explain to me why I should bother past your first two and a half sentences, which was rather rude, as VM acknowledged.
3. that is why I am so happy to comment about you and Iceweitz here right now This sentence is incomprehensible to me; I don't understand why MVBW thinks I was happy to comment on VM and Icewhitz. What I said is that I was happy to have resisted the tentation to dismiss VM's wall of text as he had done with me in the past. Instead of dismissing VM, I replied to him. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:48, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Just to note that MVBW's comment has been edited after my reply [8], which is a bit annoying because now my point 3 no longer makes sense and I would have to write a new comment to reply to the new wording of his old comment (I'd be happy to see VM in trouble - which I avoid doing. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:34, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

The issue has now been raised of parties making comments about other users, including an Arb, at Wikipediocracy. It should come as no surprise that a lot of things are being said there about a lot of people. And I'm not defending any of it. But ArbCom is going to need to be thoughtful about whether there are different standards for things said about members of ArbCom versus things said about other members of the community – and whether there are different standards for things said at Wikipedia criticism forums versus things said in an academic paper. Pretty much any way that ArbCom handles it will be put under a microscope, so it needs to be thoughtful and logically consistent. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Wikipediocracy is for discussing Wikipedia, including ongoing ArbCom cases. Volunteer Marek 05:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not standard practice, however, for a veteran editor who is party to an active arbitration case to: 1. Disparage an arbitrator, Wugapodes, with statements such as: insanely biased and obviously incorrect [...] I didn't really expect anything different from them. And 2. Attempting to antagonize myself (despite protestations to the contrary) for bringing this up, with statements such as: they're mad they don't get to play police over here as well. El_C 06:22, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I did not "disparage" Wugapodes. That's your wording. I criticized their summary of my evidence, something altogether different, and something which I also did on Wiki. And yes, people - including "veteran editors", administrators and even arbitrators - talking about ArbCom cases on WPO is pretty standard. The site is full of it and they usually open up a new thread for every ArbCom case, request and sometimes even clarifications. And if you wish to respond to my comments about yourself on WPO, nothing is stopping you from making an account and having a go. Otherwise, this is like 2013 "WP:BADSITES" all over again. Thought that was laid to rest a decade ago. Volunteer Marek 08:16, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, I'm responding here. And my response is that it is you all the same. Obviously it's my wording, I wrote it. But it strikes me that you continue to evade the crux: that you are party to an active arbitration case and that that hostility (my wording) at the WPO during which, directed against both Wugapodes and myself, is not standard practice, because this is not a normal dispute or topic. I was away in 2013, so I'm unfamiliar with what WP:BADSITES was about. But if you think it's fair for Wugapodes to have to deal with you under the pretense that what you said about them never happened, or in turn, that I do the same for daring to bring it up — well, I challenge that position. El_C 08:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• Regarding the WP:BLPCRIME issue, people need to reread BLPCRIME itself. Its wording is that ...editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime... (emphasis mine.) It is very deliberately and very clearly worded in a way that does not outright prohibit, in some cases, stating that a living person (including another editor) committed a crime despite the lack of a conviction. Depending on the context such accusations against another editor would sometimes fall under WP:ASPERSIONS or WP:LEGALTHREATS, but when they don't, WP:BLPCRIME isn't likely to be useful. It might be reasonable to ask for sanctions under it in situations where someone made accusations that were plainly flippant to the point where they were clearly not giving them due consideration, but if people are going to argue that it is never permissible to say something that would imply that a living person has committed a crime, then they're going beyond our policies. And in this particular case (per Barkeep49's statement above) I don't think the statement about Icewhiz is so far out of line as to justify sanctions under a policy that merely tells editors to seriously consider such accusations. I can understand the argument that such accusations are serious and not to be made lightly, but we also have to allow editors to raise concerns about serious harassment, including harassment that may rise to the level of breaking the laws, in situations where there is sufficient reason to believe it occurred, without worrying over immediate retaliation; "that sort of harassment would be illegal and therefore you can't talk about it unless they were actually convicted in court" is not workable. The implication would be that anonymous socks could harass someone (even to an extent that would actually be illegal) and their victim could then get sanctioned for being too blunt in summarizing the harassment they experienced. --Aquillion (talk) 12:42, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence provided by Ealdgyth and Wugapodes comments

Evidence

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Volunteer Marek: (1) Ealdgyth did strike part of her evidence in response to your talk page message, but she also added more in response which is not struck. That summary relied on her statements: Nothing in either source supports the first phrase "Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence" [...] and the next part is also not clearly related to the previous thoughts - are these fugitives ... fugitives from the ghettos? Or fugitives who fled to the Soviet Union? The last part is again, not supported by either of the sources given - neither source talks about fugitives vs. non-fugitive survival rates... so ... what's this supposed to be sourced to or discussing? I haven't gotten around to actually looking at the sources, and a single sentence out of context isn't really enough for me to decide that your reading of the sentence is unambiguously correct. I've updated the summary to say "might not" to make clear the factual ambiguity that still needs resolved.

(2) Buidhe's objection was that it was an opinion stated in our voice, but Ealdgyth's objection, present in the evidence I was summarizing, is whether the claims were adequately supported. I appreciate the talk page link; as I said I hadn't read through it, just looked to see where it could be found so that I can read it later. I've updated the summary to better distinguish between Buidhe's concerns then and Ealdgyth's concerns now.

(3) If your edit summary refers to a previous edit summary, I'm going to look at that previous edit summary so I can understand the first one. To do that, I need to open the edit history, and the first thing that appears on the page is a second revert. If you don't want me poking around the edit history, don't use edit summaries that make me go poking around the edit history. As to the summary specifically, in order to understand what it is you were saying in that diff Ealdgyth links, I need to quote your previous edit summaries to figure out what "ditto" meant. So there's 3 of the 6 extra. Ealdgyth also cited that as being the what added the claim, and in order to summarize where the claim came from, I need to look at the back and forth reverts as part of why it stayed.

(4) We have, from the beginning, indicated that we would be asking participants for evidence pertaining to specific questions so that we can get a more complete view of the situation. That was originally to be done after Phase 1 of evidence, but given what we've received we've decided to move that timeline up similar to how we opened this analysis page earlier than originally planned. As such, /Questions was created, and I have moved my request for further evidence there. — Wug·a·po·des 02:31, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: in regards to the changing timeline, I am sympathetic. I think there is something unique about Ealdgyth's evidence where an earlier question makes sense, because I think it could cause new substantial evidence. As for myself, I have a few questions I'm holding onto for now because there's no rush on my getting answers. Similarly there is no rush on you getting answers. You should not feel pressured to answer until the end of Evidence Phase 2, so don't let the early opening change your allocation of time for this case. As I indicated to you in my reply about Gitz's request I think this case could end up extending, which I know is often anxiety raising for parties. I am generally of the "have a predictable timeframe that holds arbs and parties alike accountable" which is why we did a 3 week Phase 1 to give any new parties at least 2 full weeks (the standard evidence timeframe) to participate. But, and I am truly speaking for myself here as the committee and other drafters may feel different, I think it's entirely possible that new evidence is still being submitted productively and so we end up taking longer for Phase 1 than 3 weeks. There's a lot going on here, with only some of it (as you've pointed out elsewhere), pressing at the moment so I'd rather us move things along at a reasonable pace than to jam things in based on our best guess at the outset of the case, and to do so in a way that feels anxiety lowering rather than raising for the parties involved. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

User:Wugapodes - Regarding this sentence "Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence, the survival rate among the Jewish fugitives was relatively high and by far, the individuals who circumvented deportation were the most successful." - it is indeed supported by sources, as I pointed out to Ealdgyth (which is why she presumably struck her initial comment) here. The quote from Paulsson is: It was only those Jews who escaped whose fate was in the hands of the Polish population, and, as we have seen, the rate of survival among these Jews was relatively high, despite adverse conditions. (pg. 35)

"escaped" --> "circumvented deportation".

"adverse conditions" --> "severity of the German measures". Arguably "adverse conditions" included other things but the article itself is explicit that it was not due to Polish actions.

"rate of survival among these Jews was relatively high" --> "the survival rate among the Jewish fugitives was relatively high"

This is just basic paraphrasing to avoid plagiarism/copyvio, but it simply cannot be argued that the sentence is not supported by the source.

Indeed, the objection raised to this quote was NOT that it was not supported by sources. It was that it was in Wikivoice. I suggested that it be attributed [9] which would solve that problem. But rather than keeping it in and attributing it, it was reverted.

Also, pardon me but I'm a little bit confused.

Ealdgyth presents two diffs [10] [11]. You present ... eight. You can't summarize two things with eight others. This isn't a summary but rather analysis. It looks more like you're actually presenting evidence yourself rather than arbitratin'. Your "Wug notes" also makes it sound like you're soliciting particular kind of evidence having not received it so far which also seems to over step some roles here.

Can you please separate out your comment into the part which is an actual summary of Ealdgyth's evidence and the part which is your own analysis?

Also, probably important to note that this is stuff from January 2021, or more than two years ago. As far as I'm concerned (I don't know about buidhe) this is water under the bridge. Volunteer Marek 23:36, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

User:Wugapodes - thank you for adding that "might not". If you need a copy of the source please let me know. Re (3) - I have no objection to poking around, it's just that is "analysis" not "summary". That was my only point here. Re (4) - I'm kind of uncomfortable with this. The "moving up of the time table". This stuff is time consuming and I'm not posting everything all at once. I'm also busy in real life so I have to allocate my time ahead of schedule. But now the schedule is being changed? Ugh. Volunteer Marek 02:59, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Someone makes a large-scale revert, for example [12]. Is he responsible for every bit of restored information? Maybe he just wanted to say that such version was better in general than the alternative version, in his opinion? I think it depends. If an issue with specific small segment of restored text ("..."") was raised at article talk page and the contributor still insists it should be included, then yes, this is his responsibility. But if not, this maybe just as unintentional mistake, especially if the user agrees later that it needs to be rephrased or excluded after discussing this specific segment. This is per WP:AGF. My very best wishes (talk) 15:30, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this is the essence of the case. Someone made an edit that was arguably problematic, at least in some aspects. Was it done "on purpose" as G&K say? If the edit was not debated at all (there are such cases in G&K article), we usually do not know, unless the contributor did dozens of such edits. If it was debated, then it depends significantly on the arguments by different sides, which ultimately boils down to a typical content dispute. My very best wishes (talk) 15:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• The idea by Ealdgyth to focus on content is very much reasonable in the context of article by G&K. But how such data should be processed? First of all, one should consider specific version of WP, for example one dated 01/01/2022, as it would be done with any other information resource. Then, one should use the following algorithm:

1. Check if the problem exists in the current version of the page. If it was already fixed, then it is irrelevant for analysis of reliability of the resource. Use an older version? No, such analyses are always done for the most recent version of the resource.
2. If it was in the current version, check if it was an outright misinformation or just poor wording.
3. If it was misinformation, check who placed this misinformation to the page.
4. Summarize such data for all checked pages. Then it will be clear if the central claim by G&K about systematic intentional misinformation in this area was supported by data. Actually, this is something G&K had to do themselves in their work, but they did not follow such logical approach. I suspect they would come to a different conclusion if they followed it. My very best wishes (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Speaking on step 2 of the algorithm, this is not so simple. Remember counting the Pinocchios by fact-checkers in statements by politicians. Ideally, one would need a qualified fact-checker and at least two or three Pinocchios to count something as misinformation. But it might be judged even by a typical reader who is poorly familiar with the subject like myself. In this regard, the text under discussion, Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence, the survival rate among the Jewish fugitives was relatively high and by far... - what it was? I was reading this over and over again, and was unable to understand what it means. This is most of all a terrible wording. My very best wishes (talk) 13:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis of Jedwabne pogrom evidence

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence/Summary#Jedwabne pogrom

Analysis

I consider this comment by Volunteer Marek and this edit to be tendentious and uncivil. The sequence leading to them:

• On 10 February, in the first paragraph of the lead, I noticed Gross's quotes about the Germans being the undisputed bosses of life and death in Jedwabne and the only ones who could decide the fate of the Jews, followed by an WP:OVERKILL on German responsibility in the Jedwabne pogrom. Why would one need a citation clutter to support such easily verifiable quotes? The quotes are on pp. 77-78, but on p. 78 Gross also says: As to the Germans’ direct participation in the mass murder of Jews in Jedwabne on July 10, 1941, however, one must admit that it was limited, pretty much, to their taking pictures. This passage was not quoted in the lead.
• The edit summary of my first edit mentions the need to restore source integrity and article balance by supplementing those two quotes with others on Polish responsibility, and argues that the selective quotation from Gross is distorting the main point of the book. In fact, Gross's book Neighbors (2000) had a huge impact on Polish society and historiography by highlighting the responsibility of the ethnic Polish residents of Jedwabne in the massacre of their Jewish neighbours. The book opened a harsh public debate on the Polish-Jewish relations, which is also at the basis of the current malaise of the topic area. "The Germans were the undisputed bosses, full stop" simply misses the point.
• My edit was revered by Chumchum7. This was a good faith revert followed by a collaborative discussion on the t/p. I did not restore my edit, but with this second edit I removed Gross's selective quotation. The edit summary mentions WP:V and WP:ONUS. Chumchum7 did not revert.
• VM reverted and commented on the t/p (diffs above) in a way that seems tendentious and uncivil to me.

1. VM calls my edits original research and complains of my creative and selective reading of the source. My reading of Gross is everybody's reading. VM knows well that the whole book (starting from the very title, "Neighbors") is about Polish perpetrators. Gross's point is clear: the Germans had total control of the area, but the Poles were not forced to do the killings. One can't omit the second part without distorting the book.
2. VM says The "own initiative" are your words, not Gross' and Of own free will" and "on own initiative" are two different things In the t/p discussion I mistakenly used the words "own initiative" but these words were not used in my edits and were not presented as a quote from Gross. The distinction between "initiative" and "free will" is therefore completely irrelevant, and mentioning it in the edit summary is misleading. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Regarding Gitz666's evidence:

1. Saying that someone's addition of text is "original research" is NOT incivil. It is standard discussion on Wikipedia. Same goes for "fairly inaccurate reading (of the source)". My comments address content, not editors. How else is one suppose to say "this is OR" on Wikipedia? Calling that "tendentious" ... is kind of tendentious itself. I'm starting to notice this pattern where any disagreement is automatically being labeled as "tendentious" or "stonewalling" or such in order to dismiss it or to produce "diffs" against people with some kind of strange alchemy. But disagreements happen and disagreeing is not sanctionable.

2. "of own free will" and "on the initiative" are indeed two different things. It's simply the difference between "To start something" and "To participate in something". And this is actually the main contention in this broader dispute (nobody disagrees that Poles participated in the pogrom, what's disputed is whether they or the Germans initiated it), hence accuracy is needed.

3. Gitz666's reading is NOT "everybody's reading". This is simply an assertion by Gitz.

4. In particular *I* am not "omitting" anything. I am *restoring* the first part of Gitz's statement (that "Germans had total control of the area"). The fact that Poles perpetuated the pogrom is NOT being removed, it is stated throughout the entire article

5. Strangely, in this comment Gitz6666 addresses these very same edits and do not describe them as uncivil or tendentious. In fact, they appear to view them as just routine disagreement. Yet now Gitz is including these edits in evidence and trying to present them in an entirely different light.

6. On Gitz's talk page I pointed out how "gotcha" diffs work [13] by using Gitz's own edit where Gitz included the false information in an article that the Blue Police were "Jewish collaborators" (they were Polish). HOAX! It's this kind of "gotcha" approach that has created this whole battleground in the first place. Unfortunately Gitz has not seemed to have appreciated my example as he's trying to do exactly that kind of thing right here.

7. Gitz6666 has recently been topic-banned by User:Callanecc from Russia-Ukraine topics [14] for ... tendentious edits and battleground behavior. This was a result of an ongoing dispute between myself, User:Elinruby and Gitz in that topic area. When this G&K paper came out a few weeks later, Gitz jumped into editing this topic area. At the time I expressed the sincere hope that he wasn't doing this just to stalk me and try to get payback for his topic ban. Gitz showing up here with this... really weak, stretched evidence... unfortunately makes me think that my initial fear might have been correct. Volunteer Marek 01:44, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding point 1, I agree that saying that someone's addition of text is "original research" per se is not incivil. It may be incivil, however, if you cannot answer the following question: which part of my two contentious edits (the first one or the second one, that you reverted) is an OR, meaning that it adds material not supported by RS? Nothing in my edits remotely resembles OR.

Regarding point 5, you are wrong, because the diff you shared is of the 5 March, while your revert at Jedwabne pogrom was made on the 12 March. In that conversation we had on the 5 March, I was referring to your reverts of my edits at Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, some of which were questionable, but not problematic (tendentious/uncivil). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

It is uncivil, however, if you cannot answer the following question - I don't think that's what "uncivil" means. I also don't understand this question which you, just now, posed and which afaik you haven't posed before. It's obviously the second one. I did not revert your first one or refer to it or discuss it and you did not include it in your evidence. Are you perchance confusing me with the other editor who was disagreeing with you? Since the answer should be obvious and you haven't asked it before I am left wondering how this question can serve as a criteria for whether my calling of your edit "original research" was "uncivil" or not. Volunteer Marek 03:05, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I didn't read the archived talk pages of the article before submitting my evidence. Note this recent (25 January 2023) thread opened by AdrianLot: I am concerned by the Jan T. Gross quotation at the end of paragraph 1. It is very misleading and misrepresentative of his book Neighbors, etc. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Collapsing unhelpful back and forth between Gitz and VM. I do not think this conversation needs to be continued at this time. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:ICA (d) lying (see also WP:LIE). Since you're an experienced editor and you know Gross's book very well, you also know perfectly well that in the edit you reverted [15] there was nothing that qualifies as WP:OR. The reasons I provided for that edit may be good or bad, you can think differently and provide counterarguments, but you cannot claim that removing Gross's quotation because it's selective and misleading is an "original research", or is based on an OR, on my part. That is deceptive and beyond AGF. If you claim that something is OR, you must be able to identify which content is not supported by RS and is thus "innovative"/OR. Per WP:ICA (e) quoting another editor out of context to give the impression they said something they didn't say applies to you mentioning the "own initiative"/"own free will" distinction to justify your revert in the edit summary and t/p: none of my edits were reporting that, according to Gross, the Poles took the initiative. Again, this was misleading and deceptive on your part. Note that I immediately reacted to your revert with this comment (see also this question), so you can't say that I'm making it up now just to get you into trouble. Rightly or wrongly, I immediately perceived your revert and the underying reasons as problematic, and you could then have rectified what you had said, but you choose not to reply. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC) Wait, Gitz6666 are you accusing me of "lying"? In a comment where you are accusing *me* of "incivility"? Volunteer Marek 16:51, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The Forgotten Holocaust

Evidence

The Forgotten Holocaust

Analysis

My primary interest is in historical books. Following a request for input at WP Books, I went to the talk page for The Forgotten Holocaust. I made a small number of comments offering what I think were fairly unobjectionable suggestions, based on my expertise with book articles: [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. For these comments, an anonymous threat was left on my talk page. You will see that I am accused of Slandering the reputation of Poland and lying about Jewish communist crimes even though not one of my comments said anything about Poland or Jewish people. That escalation suggests a severe and deeply entrenched battleground mentality somewhere. This is the very first online threat of any kind I have received in my life, and I am not a young person. Something is very, very wrong here.

I was already growing exhausted by the talk page when this threat occurred. Although the anonymous threat is the most alarming part, I would also observe the following troubling phenomena:

• Piotrus and Nihil Novi seemed so caught up in "fighting" that they fought deletion scarecrows, as if they couldn't even understand what others were discussing: Piotrus Nihil Novi
• Piotrus and GizzyCatBella made heavy use of the idea that the article is somehow obliged to represent every book review, and opposed the mere concept of removing any material: GizzyCatBella Piotrus -- an approach I consider intentionally obstructionist in this context
• In general, Piotrus' contributions were long, unconstructive, misrepresented academic norms, and misunderstood his interlocutors, as here (see the reply), and in this very strange argument about a review published in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society.

The key obstructive move I encountered was a large number of small claims that are so strange that they are hard to respond to. I question Piotrus' willingness or WP:COMPETENCE to evaluate appropriate sources in this context. I see very alarming behaviour from Piotrus, Nihil Novi, and GizzyCatBella, which will drive away constructive editors. And I think it would be well worth investigating the IP address of the anonymous threat I received.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LEvalyn (talk • contribs) 03:20, March 16, 2023 (UTC) Addition/clarification: In case I was not sufficiently explicit, I am the editor who has been driven away. (c.f. asilvering's line about being the historian who is alarmed) The talk page was very challenging to read. I often couldn't see how some editors' comments were meant to constitute replies to what had been said (e.g., [23] [24][25][26][27][28]). I attribute much of the confusion to editors who interpret all comments as attacks. (For example, Piotrus has expressed that his reply about AfD was based on the misunderstanding that we proposed blanking the whole page. I am sure that it was an honest misunderstanding; however, I believe that this misunderstanding sprang to mind due to a battleground mentality.) In an environment that felt hostile, I struggled to keep my own temper even though I have essentially zero opinions about Poland. I concluded that it wasn't worth it, and decided not to edit in the topic area in future. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

(Response to Piotrus) I believe that it was not your intent to create an unpleasant editing environment. We have interacted fine in other topic areas, and I hope we will do so again in future. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

---

In general, Piotrus' contributions were long, unconstructive, misrepresented academic norms, and misunderstood his interlocutors, as here (see the reply), and in this very strange argument about a review published in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society.

The key obstructive move I encountered was a large number of small claims that are so strange that they are hard to respond to. I question Piotrus' willingness or WP:COMPETENCE to evaluate appropriate sources in this context. I see very alarming behaviour from Piotrus, Nihil Novi, and GizzyCatBella, which will drive away constructive editors. And I think it would be well worth investigating the IP address of the anonymous threat I received. [signing retroactively, sorry ~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:09, 18 March 2023 (UTC)]Note: This analysis was moved here on 18:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

About current threats broadcasted by the IP 199.7.159.46 ( see Evidence presented by LEvalyn):

I addressed those recent joe-job attempts here including IP 199.7.159.46 (see my remarks at Maybe semiprotect that Signpost talk page):

Background: I was followed on Wikipedia and harassed by Icewhiz's sock puppets for the last 3 years. (Icewhiz doesn't know my real identity, thank God) His sock-puppets (or sock-puppets of his pals) acted to be me in the past. That was the latest attempt. - GizzyCatBella🍁 05:27, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000 - Arbcom is aware of this activity. I just wanted to make sure that it's clear to innocent bystanders as to who might be (I’m sure it is) behind those false-flags. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

First, I want to thank LEvalyn for joining the discussion (the more editors become involved in related discussions, the better), and express my sadness that she has been subject to harassment by an IP. Second, I'd like to note that I indeed misundertood the invokation of WP:TNT and at first thought some editors are suggesting blanking this entire article without a discussion, because I've seen such issues occasionally brought up at AfD where I am a frequent contributor (at AfD, in my experience, invoking TNT means saying "this is a total mess, delete it, nothing to rescue"). Misunderstandings happen, but I believe I was respectful and polite, and when my misunderstanding was explained (that concerns were related to a particular section, not the entire article), I did not press the issue. Third, I tried to create a friendly-to-newcomers atmosphere by explicitly inviting people to make edits [29] You are welcome to add more quotes, or remove ones you think are undue. I did not try to have a "last word", I just expressed my opinions, quoted or linked to some policies I thought relevant, and let others have their say. I did not edit war - in fact I did not make a single revert of any recent changes to that article, even through I disagreed with some, explicitly to avoid any battleground-like deterioration. With all due respect, I am unclear what policies or best practices I have violated by making a few polite and respectful comments in a discussion (I don't believe my comments violated NPA or any other policies). If anything in what I wrote was offensive to anyone, they could've asked me to WP:REFACTOR and I'd gladly have considered this. I'll end by saying that I appreciated LEvalyn's comments, I consider her input valuable, I am sorry to hear she found the discussion less then ideal. It was, certainly, not my intention to drive her away, and if anything I said can be refactored, I again express total willingness to do so, and I apologize for any impression that her contribution are anything less then very much welcomed and appreciated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:00, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@LEvalyn: In responce to [30] I believe that it was not your intent to create an unpleasant editing environment. We have interacted fine in other topic areas, and I hope we will do so again in future. Thank you for your kind words. Nonetheless, if my intent and the outcome are distinct, I would like to ensure that I learn from this incident. I stand by my offer to WP:REFACTOR any comment I made that you found problematic. Also, in reply to I attribute much of the confusion to editors who interpret all comments as attacks, I would like to note that I never felt attacked in that discussion; IMHO, CIVIL/NPA/AGF were observed by all participants; polite disagreements happen on the way to WP:CONSENSUS and the entire recent history of talk and associated article edititing seems to represent best practices per WP:TALKDONTREVERT. Lastly, I hope you'll reconsider your decision to not to edit in the topic area in future. I can only speak for myself, but I want to reiterate that your contribution to the discussion in question was welcome and appreciated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:00, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

" I am the editor who has been driven away". It is not uncommon to hear someone saying "what a hell, I am out of here!" instead of taking part in WP:Dispute resolution. This is totally OK because no one has an obligation to participate in anything. But this is not a proof of wrongdoing by another side in a content dispute. Overall, this part of evidence seems to be not an evidence about anything. My very best wishes (talk) 22:17, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

In a discussion, honest difference of opinion and ineluctable mutual misunderstanding are common (indeed, if they did not occur, there would never be need of discussion). This is illustrated by some of the evidence that has been adduced in the present proceedings against some Wikipedia editors. In particular, a casual reader – one without the patience to delve into, and try to analyze, recondite and sometimes mis-characterized diffs – might come away without realizing that Piotrus is in fact a person of great tact and integrity, civil, polite, and welcoming. Nihil novi (talk) 05:14, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Threats. The stupid threats with deliberately stereotypical language left by 199.7.159.46 on the talk pages of multiple users just as this case opens is just so convenient. Since the only plausible effect of this trolling was to prejudice the case in the anti-Polish direction, the most likely explanation is that the troll intended exactly that. False flag, in other words, and I'm confident the committee won't fall for it. Zero^talk 15:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Response to LEvalyn. I studied Talk:The Forgotten Holocaust diff-by-diff starting at the first version edited by LEvalyn. It had been suggested that the article deserved a TNT because of Grabowski&Klein's attack on it, and LEvalyn agreed. (As an aside, I believe Wikipedia should never offload its responsibility for article content to an external person or group.) LEvalyn came to that talk page with the claim of being an expert on writing articles about books [31] but encountered resistance. What followed after that was a garden-variety non-toxic discussion about what the article should contain and what its structure should be. It is perfectly reasonable to have different opinions on how and how many book reviews should be mentioned in an article on a book. LEvalyn asserted: "any book that gets an openly critical review, let alone an ongoing debate in a journal, is a deeply controversial and possibly WP:FRINGE book",[32] but that is not true; lots of mainstream history books get critical reviews and sometimes entire journal issues are devoted to debate about them. LEvalyn is concerned that the article might give someone a positive impression of the book.[33] LEvalyn's charges against Piotrus have no foundation; in fact Piotrus only offered fair opinion expressed politely. Agree with those opinions or not, they were not "long", nor "unconstructive", nor did they "misrepresent academic norms". It was Piotrus who asked for a 3O.[34] GCB's hanging offence was a single sentence suggesting that the article be expanded! In my opinion, LEvalyn did not identify any behavioral problems and the talk about driving people away is silly. Zero^talk 12:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Response to Zero (moving from where I'd posted it to 'Evidence'): My statement that any book that gets an openly critical review, let alone an ongoing debate in a journal, is a deeply controversial and possibly WP:FRINGE book and Zero's rebuttal that lots of mainstream history books get critical reviews and sometimes entire journal issues are devoted to debate about them are not contradictory: that is because many mainstream history books are controversial. Negative reviews and debates are the controversy. Both Zero and Nihil Novi appear to read quite a lot into my comment; my best guess is that this is a battleground-informed reaction to the fact that I wikilinked WP:FRINGE.

I'd add here as well: I think my other additions/clarifications at the evidence page address your other points. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 08:56, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't edit in the area at all and have no personal stake in it. I don't agree with your response but won't reply to it. Zero^talk 13:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Disruption in the topic area over time

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence/Summary#Disruption_in_the_topic_area_over_time

Analysis

This area is one of the "contentious topics". But the fact is that for the past year it actually has NOT been contentious. The pattern is that the topic area has been quieting down since the imposition of the 500/30 restriction by the Arbitration Committee in May 2020 and especially since that was changed to extended confirmed protection in September 2021. To be sure, there was a lag, mostly due to the fact that it took some time for Icewhiz to burn through some of his "established" socks: [35] [36] [37] [38] (and at least a dozen more). In fact, most of the disputes between mid-2020 and early 2022 involved at least one Icewhiz sock, who were showing up to pour gasoline on a diminishing fire.

Of course the relative quiet of 2021 was "punctured" by the December 2021 WCC case request. This too had heavy involvement from Icewhiz as he was emailing several individuals, including the filer. This was closed in February of 2022 and really ever since then there hasn't been much going on (this is both why all the stuff in the G&K paper is so old and also why most of the evidence being presented here is stuff that happened AFTER this paper was published and case opened).

Number of WP:AE reports by topic area, 2020

Number of WP:AE reports by topic area, 2021

One way to see this is to look at the number of Poland-related (especially Holocaust in Poland) WP:AE reports by year. This is probably as good of a metric of "contentiousness" as you're going to get.

Here is the number of AE reports by topic area in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 there were seven AE reports in this topic area, sixth highest out of all the topic areas subject of such reports. In 2021 there were only three, third lowest, ahead of only "Motorsports" and "pseudoscience".

I am not including a graph for 2022 for the simple reason that there were exactly zero AE reports in this topic area last year.

Number of WP:AE reports related to Poland (not just WW2), by year

It also helps to look at the trends over time. Here is a graph of Poland related (not just Holocaust) AE cases by year, going back to 2011. There was good bit of controversy in 2011 but this was mostly unrelated to the Holocaust (it was mostly related to the also-indef-banned User:Russavia). Between 2012 and 2017 things quieted down. It was the arrival of Icewhiz which changed things, as can be clearly seen from the graph. Icewhiz filed a record number of AE reports in very short time [39] and indeed this was one of the Findings of Fact during the 2019 case [40]

Beginning in 2022 and right up to the publication of the G&K paper, this was simply NOT a contentious area. The interventions by the Committee, as well as the work of several dedicated admins (yes, User:El_C, that does include you too) in blocking Icewhiz socks (even if sometimes with a bit too much of a delay) had done what it was suppose to. It worked.

Of course this doesn't speak to the content and it may very well be the case that several articles need some serious fixin'. But as far as conduct goes - which is what this case was labeled as being about [41] - there just hasn't been much going on in recent past.

(detailed data behind the graphs above available upon request) Volunteer Marek 06:33, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

As I noted in the evidence page (really should have done it here in the first place) I think links to the data are very useful for veriifcation by others. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: FWIW, Visual Editor does a nice job with tables, including tables you're copying from a spreadsheet. May be worth switching to that to help you generate the appropriate wiki code. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: I am a couple days late here but thanks for supplying the data you used for making those graphs. I plan to spend some time going through them when we reach the pause after the first Evidence Phase. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: I don't see sufficient evidence to support your main conclusions. You attempt to show that the topic area is not contentious but look only at reports made voluntarily to AE.

We have as preliminary statements claims that editors have left the topic area due to conduct issues (A, B); as a hypothetical, if editors got chased away, especially newcomers before they knew how to report issues, then we would get few reports regardless of conduct issues. I'm not saying that's the case here, but simply saying "there's declining AE reports" isn't particularly strong evidence that there are no problems. As a hypothesis, we could get declining reports if a group of tendentious editors hounded away anyone who would report them, and the statements provide evidence for that hypothesis, as does the declining number of reports. Your conclusion explains the declining numbers, but does not explain the testimony we have unlike the attrition hypothesis.

You look only at AE reports which you calim is probably as good of a metric of "contentiousness" as you're going to get. This is strange to me because we both know that there are more boards than just AE, and not every AE action occurs at AE. Why did you choose that over, say, the AE logs which are more comprehensive? By choosing the AE board instead of the AE logs, your analysis systematically undercounts AE actions done by an individual admin. Even looking just at noticeboard posts, your analysis excludes AN and its subpages which are far more prominent than AE as a dispute resolution venue. For example, this 2021 ANI report related to the case scope is not included in your data. You also do not provide data or results for 2023, so this 2023 appeal of a Poland-related AE TBAN at AN is also not counted. If reports are being diverted to other venues like AN or ANI rather than AE (which we have just seen they are), then an analysis which looks at AE only would artificially deflate the number of conflicts presented.

Lastly, I'm interested in why you made these methodological decisions. I disagree that your methodology uses "probably as good of a metric of contentiousness as you're going to get" because it leaves out two of the most recent sanctions in this area. Your interaction ban from last week which makes explicit reference to this case was not the result of an AE report and is listed in the logs under EE not AiP. You participated in this AE report a few weeks ago which related to conduct on an article about a massacre in German-occupied Poland, but because your analysis stops at 2022 it's not included (it's also listed under EE so it's not clear from your write-up how your coding scheme would handle it). Are these recent sanctions in the topic area evidence of contentiousness? If so, why were they not included in your analysis? If they were included in your analysis, would your claim that for the past year it actually has NOT been contentious still be supported by your data?

I think the analysis provided is an interesting look at a narrow part of the AE archive, but the claims are too strong and the analysis too underpowered to convince me. The alternative hypothesis---a combination of editor attrition and undercounting of data---does a better job of explaining the constellation of evidence such as preliminary statements, posts to boards-not-looked-at, and sanctions occurring after the time-span researched. If an analysis or additional data were able to explain or refute that evidence, I'd be more open to a hypothesis that the topic area is not contentious. — Wug·a·po·des 01:40, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@User:Wugapodes

1. If you think AE reports are not sufficient I can look at any other metric you like me to, like ANI or AN or RSN or whatever. But I'll tell you right now, they're all going to show exactly the same thing. As somebody who edit(ed) in this area I can tell you - there hasn't been much controversy in this topic area for at least a year and really since Icewhiz socking died down.

2. The data does not make any argument about WHY the contentiousness died down. It just shows that it has.

3. If you make a hypothesis ("As a hypothesis, we could get declining reports if a group of tendentious editors hounded away anyone who would report them, and the statements provide evidence for that hypothesis, as does the declining number of reports") it is up to you to prove it, not me. And no, the statements do not provide such evidence. Frankly, the two statements you quote are self serving and merely a way to cast WP:ASPERSIONS on others. Mhorg was... disagreed with. Well, that happens all the time. Was there an AE report filed against them? Yes one, but outside this topic area. Other than that their participation at AE has been as a commentator. Francois Robere... well, they're obviously one of the parties here.

4. I myself haven't really edited this topic area for the past year (before this paper came out). I could just as easily claim that I have been "driven away". And really, I would have 1000% more justification and evidence for such a claim. I mean, I literally received death threats and even worse as a result of editing this topic area. Nothing even close happened to Mhorg or Francois Robere or others. Piotrus was being explicitly blackmailed and threatened in real life. Yet... strangely, you chose to focus on some users who's claims boil down to "I was disagreed with and that drove me away". Really? Do you not see a problem here with your focus? I find this kind of false equivalence on your part deeply troubling.

5. What editors actually left Wikipedia as a result of disagreements in this topic area? Oh yeah. User:Poeticbent and User:MyMoloboaccount, with the second one actually suffering medical problems due to stress associated with harassment by Icewhiz (and associates), according to their last post on Wikipedia. But... you think that someone claiming they were "driven away" because they didn't get their way is more significant.

6. Your statement "The alternative hypothesis---a combination of editor attrition and undercounting of data---does a better job of explaining the constellation of evidence such as preliminary statements" is almost completely unsupported and in fact contradicted by my points above. The only editors who have been "attrited" away from this area are precisely the ones that Icewhiz harassed. Is the data undercounted? No, I just focused on WP:AE because I know from experience that this is the traditional venue for battleground behavior in this topic area. And I think admins involved in this topic area can attest to that. But you want to look at ANI and AN? Sure I can do that. Just give me time. In the mean time I would ask you to refrain from jumping to conclusions.

7. I am bothered by your statement here which seems to be hell bent on rejecting what I think is very strong evidence, especially in light of your previous comments here, the necessity of me having to appeal your factually incorrect summary of evidence here as well as our previous interactions. And also your attempts to solicit specific kinds of evidence rather than just evaluating it, which I think straddled the line between evaluating evidence and providing it yourself. Volunteer Marek 02:10, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, of course I didn't provide "evidence" of non-contentiousness for 2023! I mean - we are having an ArbCom case aren't we? Of course this case and this paper set this top area alight again. And what is the source of this paper and this case? Oh yeah, it's Icewhiz. Again. Just like it was in 2018 and 2019 and how it was his socks in 2020 and 2021. I genuinely don't understand this objection. Volunteer Marek 02:51, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

And btw, that one ANI report you mention [42]? From 2021 (so two years ago)? Yup, it involved two socks [43] [44] (closed by User:Black Kite with comment "Various socks have been blocked") causing problems. Which only supports my contention that it was sock activity that was making this area contentious once Icewhiz was banned. Volunteer Marek 03:10, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: (1) I believe your personal account, but you decided to present quantitative measures. I reviewed what was put in front of me.

(2) Yes, the data is not making an argument, you are. The data might support your argument, but they (a) seem flawed and (b) could support other explanations you did not consider.

(3) You don't have to agree with the alternative hypotheses, but if you want me to believe your hypothesis you need to provide evidence that actually accounts for all the data not just the data you chose.

(4) If you (or anyone) is being harassed I'd call this area contentious regardless of how many AE reports there are. Your analysis of AE reports also doesn't account for that.

(5) (a) I said "driven away" not "left Wikipedia", regardless (b) you're criticizing me for not taking into account evidence you're showing to me for the first time. I never said the linked statements were more significant; I pointed out that we have them in our case record and they are a problem for your analysis.

(6) For some reason you left off the full quote (emphasis added on the portion omitted): the constellation of evidence such as preliminary statements, posts to boards-not-looked-at, and sanctions occurring after the time-span researched. Your rebuttal has focused on preliminary statements but has avoided the latter two issues which make up the bulk of my review.

(7) You can personalize my review if you like, but in this venue I serve as a finder of fact and I have laid out in precise detail why your analysis above does not move me to support the finding of fact you want. I could have sat on my hands and saved this for the internal discussion, but because I am interested in a thorough and complete review of the facts, yes, I am being specific and up front about my thinking. I am, of course, not the sole finder of fact, and if you think your analysis is strong you may leave it for the full committee to consider. If not revised though, I will make the same recommendation to my colleagues that I did here: the flaws in the analysis prevent it from supporting a finding of fact as to its conclusions.

(8) If you are claiming that the pattern is that the topic area has been quieting down, then ignoring two months of data which contradict that undermines your argument. Similarly, you can try to find flaws with the examples, but the wider issue they pose for your argument remains. How many editors have been driven away? What "side" were they on? How many AN(I) reports are there? How many of them didn't involve Icewhiz? We don't know, but we know there are certainly more than 0 and that poses a serious problem for your argument.

(9) You should consider placing further comments in the comments by parties section, not comments by arbitrators section. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des 21:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Resolved error by Barkeep

@Volunteer Marek: all the more reason to see the data then because I definitely read it as 0 cases in 2017 and 14 cases in 2018 and I had someone double check me and they read the graph the same way. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2023 (UTC) @Volunteer Marek: whoops. Fixed. I'm glad you spoke up on that because it's important that the facts are 100% right. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:12, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

@User:Barkeep49 - yeah ok, just gimme a bit of time as I'm still not good with putting tables in Wikipedia. I can send it to the Committee in the meantime. Volunteer Marek 18:12, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@User:Barkeep49 (and others) here is the data for 2018. I got more details but this is just what's used for the chart. Volunteer Marek 22:04, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Here is 2019. Volunteer Marek 22:22, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Here is 2020. Volunteer Marek 22:51, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Note that of the 9 AE Poland-related reports in 2020 two were initiated by Icewhiz socks (this one by this account and this one by this account. Another AE report involved a dispute with this 5 edit account. Another report involved a sock puppet of another banned user [45] (sock sock master) that was associated with but not Icewhiz (Icewhiz complained a good bit about this sock being banned on Wikipediocracy). So almost half the Poland related reports in 2020 involved Icewhiz socks or associated. I'm not sure if this should be added to evidence or can be kept here as analysis. Volunteer Marek 23:47, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

2021 data here. Volunteer Marek 00:20, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

For 2017, as the graph shows there were zero AE reports related to Poland. Since this case is not about other topic areas I'm not going to put up the full list of all the AE reports for that year. But the absence of Poland from these reports can be easily checked - the AE archives for 2017 span Archive 207 through Archive 223. The closest we get for that year is a report filed by User:MyMoloboaccount against... me [46]. Grabowski and Klein allege that me and Mma were both part of some nefarious Polish conspiracy but here is Mma trying to get me sanctioned, which kind of shows just how silly this allegation is. This report was related to Russia rather than Poland, hence I did not count it as "Poland-related" for that year. Volunteer Marek 00:47, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Resolved error by Barkeep
@User:Barkeep49 - also, I think the high of 14 cases was in 2018 not 2017 as it says in the summary. This seems too minor to "appeal" so I'm just noting it here. Volunteer Marek 18:19, 18 March 2023 (UTC) @User:Barkeep49 - yes that reading is correct but the summary says "There was a high of 14 AE reports in 2017 dropping to 0 reports in 2022" Volunteer Marek 19:08, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Such graphs should be normalized by the number of edits or contributors in each subject area (a lot more people edit in American politics area), but the main point about no recent and significant disruption in this area is correct. My very best wishes (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but that'd be a lot more work. I also I have it as share of overall reports but it basically shows the same thing. Volunteer Marek 22:22, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I think you nicely demonstrated your point already. My very best wishes (talk) 23:28, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, using the number of log records on AE and ANI would be a better measure. I suspect it will produce something similar, but this could be checked. Not editing certain pages or subjects to avoid content disputes is a normal behavior and does not imply misbehavior by the opposite side in a content dispute. I do it all the time. However, if, as FR said in his preliminary statement, he was a subject of persistent harassment and "hounding", this can be a different story. In that case, FR or whoever makes such claims should provide some evidence of harassment and hounding. I did watch some of these discussions, usually from afar, but they looked to me as content disputes, where some participants (like FR) could resolve the issues by starting RfCs, but decided not to follow this route of WP:Dispute resolution for whatever reason they might have, such as simply willing to spend their time in a different way. But I can not talk for FR or anyone else. My very best wishes (talk) 06:40, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• I agree with TrangaBellam below that "if the ArbCom had not taken this case", nobody would be sanctioned, meaning TrangaBellam "(warning), Marcelus (0RR), VM (Iban + restriction) and Levivich (IBan)". On the other hand, there were reasons for imposing such sanctions, and Arbcom needs to check all the potential issues because the accusations are serious. My very best wishes (talk) 16:10, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

User:Wugapodes

(1) My personal account and the data show exactly the same thing.

(2) The data is not flawed. Did I miscount? No. Did I misrepresent? No. The data shows exactly what I say it shows. You don't like what the data says, ok fine. But don't pretend that "the data is flawed". And if you are going to make that argument then show how it is flawed and do some work yourself - gather your own data and show that it contradicts mine. I spend HOURS on this and I don't appreciate your blithe and uncalled for prejudicial dismissal of it, while you refuse to make any kind of effort yourself. And you're the Arb!

(3) What is this "all data" you're talking about? I checked AN/I, AN, and AN3. They ALL show the same thing [47]. Basically zero controversies. This has not been a contentious area for the past year, prior to the publication of this paper. Was it more contentious in 2021? Sure. The AE chart shows the same thing - the point is that ever since 500/30 took effect the amount of controversy in this topic area has been declining. So 2022 was lower than 2021, which was lower than 2020, which was lower than 2019. The fact you have to go back two years to try and find some controversy on ANI actually illustrates my point, not refutes it.

(4) Fair enough, but then it is not "contentious" in the way you claim it is. It hasn't been contentious on Wikipedia. All the controversy has been engineered from the outside. By Icewhiz.

(5) I believe that "leaving Wikipedia" (do to horrible harassment) counts as being "driven away".

(6) Your rebuttal has focused on preliminary statements but has avoided the latter two issues No. I extended my analysis to include "posts to boards-not-looked-at". It shows the same thing. I didn't bother doing it initially because I knew it be pointless - WP:AE is by far the most utilized drama board for controversies for this (and other) areas, and whatever happened at ANI or AN or AN3 would be closely correlated with what is happening at WP:AE. So if WP:AE is quiet so will be those other boards.

As far as " sanctions occurring after the time-span researched" go I addressed that as well. OF COURSE controversies have been re-ignited with the publication of this paper. I never claimed otherwise. And this is not in any way unexpected nor does it change the fact that before this case was initiated the area was indeed quiet.

I have laid out in precise detail why your analysis above No, you have done more than that. Rather than responding to the evidence presented you started introducing your own evidence: claims by Mhorg and Francois Robere. Those users have not posted any evidence or made any claims. Indeed, one of them has said they do not wish to participate, if I'm not mistaken. So why are you presenting evidence on their behalf? As an Arb. Either stick to arbitrating or make yourself a party to this case.

If not revised... What is it you'd like me to revise?

then ignoring two months of data which contradict that undermines your argument Again, this is not true. What I said and what the data very clearly and unambiguously show is that prior to the initiation of this case the "topic area has been quieting down". I'm sorry, but you are strawmannin' here. One more time - of course the case itself resulted in controversy. That's what opening a case always does! I thought that part would be obvious to anyone looking at it but I guess not. That does not change the fact that the area HAS been getting quieter.

BTW, this example of yours is not related to this topic area! So I'm not sure why you think it contradicts anything.

If reports are being diverted to other venues like AN or ANI rather than AE (which we have just seen they are) They are not. We did NOT "just seen that they are". In fact my evidence shows exactly the opposite is true. ALL drama boards were quiet. You keep making this completely unsupported and incorrect assertions, without expending any effort at backing them up, and then expect me to put in more hours of labor combing through the archives to disprove them.

How many editors have been driven away? What "side" were they on? How many AN(I) reports are there? How many of them didn't involve Icewhiz? We don't know, but we know there are certainly more than 0 and that poses a serious problem for your argument. We do know actually. For 2022, the answers are as follow:

"How many editors have been driven away?" - Credibly, two. Poeticbent and Mymoloboaccount, both driven off by Icewhiz's harassment. There's only evidence for these two.

"What "side" were they on?" The "harassed by Icewhiz" side.

"How many AN(I) reports are there?" In 2022 there was one (that's actually all of AN, ANI and AN3). In 2021 there were three, four if we go with "broadly construed". (again, all of AN, ANI and AN3)

"How many of them didn't involve Icewhiz?" The one ANI report in 2022 possibly didn't involve Icewhiz but who knows, the problematic editor was quickly blocked. Out of the four 2021 ANI reports one was explicitly *initiated* by an Icewhiz sock puppet [48] and resulted in a one way IBAN being applied to that sock puppet (before they got outright banned) [49]. The one ANI report from 2021 you already mentioned? Yeah that had sock puppets too [50]. In fact, it was closed by User:Black Kite with the summary "Various socks have been blocked". The third one wasn't even actually about this topic area although some people tried to pretend it was. And yes, that one too saw the appearance of Icewhiz sock puppets [51]. The fourth concerned the controversy surrounding the 2021 case request and originated in disputes with what OTHER users described as sock puppet accounts. So to answer the question, ALL four of the ANI reports from 2021 saw some involvement from suspicious account with Icewhiz being involved explicitly in three of them

So yes, we do know. But I'm the one who's spending days actually looking up facts while you're just throwing out spurious "alternative hypothesis" or making unfounded claims about what you think AN or ANI shows (which it doesn't).

And to sum up - it seems you are the ONLY person here who thinks that my data doesn't show what I say it shows. Even people who are not exactly sympathetic to me acknowledge that the data is solid. I really don't understand why you're doing this. It very much seems like you've made up your mind about something before I even presented my evidence and now are inventing excuses and reasons not to change it and in doing so are unreasonably rejecting some pretty clear cut and unambigous evidence.

Once John Maynard Keynes was accused of contradicting statements he had made previously. His response is worth considering here: "When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?" Volunteer Marek 23:36, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

"...you are the ONLY person here who thinks that my data doesn't show what I say it shows". I for one agree with Wugapodes criticism of your interpretation of the data. As (correctly) pointed out, he didn't say you were wrong, only that your interpretation of the data is (at best) incomplete. Other interpretations based just on what you have presented can differ because they are not exclusive. The idea that there have not been any controversies in the past few years (broadly construed) is absurd. Buffs (talk) 21:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I don't want to argue about this again. But if you're going to "correctly point out stuff" then please note that I did NOT say that "there have not been any controversies in the past few years". What I said is that there has been essentially no controversies between February 2022 and publication of this paper. The controversies died down in 2022. Not "past few years". Last year. I said this like six times. Volunteer Marek 02:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Just a passing comment that for me, personally, this is roughly correct as well. The last incident I personally recall was a minor comment in March last year, and since then until the stress caused by the serious allegations in the essay, I felt this topic area (from which I have mostly withdrawn anyway) is finally returning to normality. And even the small flare ups we had a month ago don't seem to have been enduring, and I hope nobody is nursing any new grudges. We should focus on constructively building the encyclopedia (WP:HERE), not on getting even for stuff that happened x years ago. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

No one is focusing on getting even for stuff that happened "x years ago", but from the link above, we have seen contentious issues regarding Poland and nationalism that is (at a bare minimum) tangentially related to this and (more appropriately) directly related to this. Rather than sticking to what you personally recall, please note those in the list I posted from 2022-2023. As for things that happened in the past, those show (or don't show) a pattern of behavior. Buffs (talk) 16:29, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The first link I clicked following the link in your previous post is to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive27 (2005). Perhaps you meant a different list, can you link it here? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Here's all of them sorted by last edit date (surely you could have done that). Take your pick... The point is that this and related issues have been ongoing for over a decade and continue to the present. Picking one link and considering the work "done" when there are literally hundreds is disingenuous. Buffs (talk) 17:48, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I clicked on your link and it seems to me that it is you who needs to do more work if you want to prove anything. The "last edit date" is usually a trivial bot edit that has nothing to do with when the content was written. Moreover, the mere appearance of the word "Poland" does not indicate relevance to this arbcom case. I looked at the first five pages in the list and none of them are relevant. If you want to present real evidence you need to look at every hit and check both its date and its relevance. Zero^talk 03:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a very bad metric. It only shows that the word Poland appears in AN(I) 411 times. I used your link and checked for other countries. Russia gives 1,188 hits. Germany, 1,349. Israel, 1,257. China, 1284. United States, 1,401. Spain, 901. Italy, 793. Korea, 722. Ok, Poland is mentioned more than Lithuania (184) or Slovenia (94) but is comparable to Portugal (391) and Hungary (417) and Roomania (452). If anything, all of this seems to be correlated to the country's size and geopolitical importance and proves that Poland and Polish topics, in general, are not more controversial than other topics areas. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:46, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Valid point on bot edits, but the idea that it's "limited" is simply incorrect. YMMV Buffs (talk) 21:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Since I was explicitly asked about the possibility of the “contentiousness” of the topic area being diverted from WP:AE to WP:ANI and other boards I added the relevant info to my evidence [52]. I was wondering if that was going to be added to the summary or if I should just collapse it. Volunteer Marek 18:40, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

• How many people make significant contributions in this subject area? I think it was few to none during last year. Several people started editing after the publication by G&K, only to immediately became sides in the ongoing arbitration. When these proceedings end, this is going to be even less contributors because people will not want to be misjudged in the next article by G&K and became a side in another arbitration. I can not say for others, but I am not going to touch this subject area with a ten feet pole, regardless to results of this arbitration. My very best wishes (talk) 16:46, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The relation, if any, between "contentiousness" of the topic area (number of AE reports per year) and "disruption in the topic area over time" (the title of this section) is not immediately apparent. I'm not arguing that this is the case with "History of the Jews in Poland", but one can easily imagine a scenario in which the topic area is completely pacified, conflict has been eradicated and extinguished, and yet disruption is at its highest, if disruption means that articles fail to comply with WP core policies (NPOV, V, NOR, etc.). As Calgacus says, "the Romans make a solitude and call it peace" – peacefulness of the topic area does not mean quality in the topic area.

In this regard, in addition to Tacitus, I can cite the authority of Volunteer Marek's Edit warring is good for you: If you're an administrator then edit warring is like the Worst. Thing. Ever. A non-contentious topic-area, such as the post-Icewhiz "Jews in Poland", is the best administrators can hope for, since it means that they don't have to get off [their] ass and do some of the things that administrators are supposed to do ... Which is "work". However, conflict can be good for article quality, since it prevents editors from getting lazy, sloppy and stupid; without it, You'd end up writing crappy articles and crappy content, simply because you could get away with it.

I think Volunteer Marek's essay is excellent, but if we take it seriously, we come to the conclusion that his evidence is addressed to what he calls the bureaucratic administrator, who is exclusively interested in avoiding conflict/drama/work. His evidence in no way impinges on the issues raised by "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust", which this case should address. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

User:Gitz6666 I actually don't necessarily disagree as in my 17+ years on Wikipedia I have seen exactly that happen in other topic areas. However, this case was opened to examine conduct and not content, which I actually think is unfortunate (the reason why I supported opening of this case was precisely so I would get to address some of the content-related points in G&K paper!). But conduct it is, and "contentiousness" and WP:AE reports speak to that so that's the evidence i provided. Volunteer Marek 02:54, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

My 2c. Or 5c, if I count my subpoints now.

1) What is a definition of a contentious area? If we work with fuzzy definitions, we will get fuzzy or even contradictory answers.

2) Running more analysis on logs or whatever is probably a good idea. I'd encourage Wugapodes and VM, and/or other editors interested in data crunching, to work on this together, i.e. perhaps Wugapodes could link to where such data (logs) is kept and suggest the scope/keywords/timeranges to analyze?

3) I think the "truth" is somewhere in between. The topic area is less contentious with the departure of Icewhiz and reduction of his socks. Is it not contentious at all? Hardly (just see the recent evidence from one newcomer trying to add another one as a party here, or some other examples that Wugapodes brings up). Determining trends is usefull, as it indicates whether this area is self-repairing or needs help. The right question to ask is "is this area contentious enough these days to warrant remedies".

4) Measuring editors views is hard. I did peer-reviewed research on this [53]. There are many methodological issues. Small samples, low reply rate, and attempts to game the system (VM addresses some of those: can we really trust what people say, on either side, or are they just trying to get revenge/help friends or a cause?). Editor X stopped editing? But maybe they are socking or "meating". Editor A claims they left the topic area due to behavor of editor B? Well, did editor A had any serious intention to edit that topic area in the first place? What is his relation with editor B, or editor C who has a particular relation with editor B? Of course, we can just say that we AGF all statements and make it a vote counting how many people blame someone? Well, I guess that's why ArbComs get the big bucks, to untangle such messes.

5) There is probably more then one cause related to making a topic area contentious and/or editors considering it difficult ("toxic" is somewhat pejorative). For example, The Holocaust is a painful subject. For some folks, even personally - tying to their family history. for example; for others, well, just reading about this great tragedy is hard. People can be subconciously sensitive here, or get hurt more easily, than when editing a more mundane topic. Here I discuss some semi-related issues, such as that a conclusion that G&K make about overuse of certain sources, which they associate with "Polish nationalist/Holocaust distortionist" narrative may actually be due to too narrow focus, as an alternative explanation may be that such sources are used in coverage of (Polish) military history instead of Holocaust or topics of "nationalist interest".

6) For what it is worth, personally I think I limited my involvement in this topic area too (note that I am still one of the most active editors on Wikipedia, so I still occasionally edit this topic area). But I think I do it much less than I used to and I also have no motivation to do any serious edits outside an occasional comment, adding a reference if I see a cite needed tag or maybe stubbing/DYKing something on the outskirts of this. If one would ask me why did I reduce my involement in this topic area, I'd certainly attribute it to the lenghty harassment (as noted by evidence) plus mental toll on researching and writing about this tragedy. I could also criticize the activities of some still active editors in this topic area, but why spread the misery? Nearly 20 years since my first edit here, I still think WP:AGF is one of the most important principles of this project. Battleground reduction should be achieved not by "winning" or "nuking the opponents", but by de-scalation and compromise. (And improving one's skills at identifying reliable sourcing, and all of that). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/2022 - I see only three relevant AE sanctions, including a warning+Page-block (Mhorg; AE), one warning (Mymoloboaccount;Arbcom), and one TBan (Pofka;AE). I took a look at AN/ANI and barring a single thread, nothing.
  Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/2021 - I see only three relevant AE sanctions, including a warning (Buidhe;AE), an indef block (Astral Leap; AE), and a one-month-long T-ban (Piotrus; AN).
  I was checking under the Anti-semitism-in-Poland and Eastern Europe headers, and ignored RUsso-Ukrain stuff. On the overall, defining contentiousness is as difficult as is establishing why it is necessarily bad. But if the number of sanctions are a metric, the conclusion is evident .. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  @TrangaBellam Would you mind spelling out the conclusion, to avoid any misunderstandings? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:24, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  By "evident", I mean that the area is not contentious. As to the year 2023, I doubt that if the ArbCom had not taken this case, either me (warning) or Marcelus (0RR) or VM (Iban + restriction) or Levivich (IBan) would have been sanctioned. But that is just me. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:24, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• I think it's interesting, up to a point, to evaluate how there may have been less conflict post-Icewhiz, but there may be diminishing returns relative to the amount of needed effort, to fine-tuning every methodological point. If I try to think about what ArbCom might do with this information, it would really make little difference to know that there weren't a lot of disputes going on, if evidence emerges that a particular user was causing sanctionable disruption. Exactly per the stated case scope, ArbCom would want to deal with such disruption, given appropriate evidence, regardless of how contentious the topic area was, overall. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  User:Tryptofish You're right in that there's either disruption or there isn't, but what this evidence explains and contextualizes is why... almost all the evidence being presented is either two+ years old or very recent (post February 11, 2023). People are either dragging out diffs from 2018 or they're trying to frame very recent edits, made in the context of this very case and paper with everything that entails, in the worst possible light. Volunteer Marek 05:30, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  That's reasonable. As I said, this is interesting up to a point. My concern is mostly with the arguments made after you initially posted your evidence, that are concerned with methodological details, and I'm saying that may prove to have been more fuss than it is worth. Put another way, a diff-by-diff analysis of how some diffs are "two+ years old" and others are framed "in the worst possible light", may actually be more decisive than some editors worrying about whether you needed to analyze some other noticeboard. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:39, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Jan Żaryn analysis

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence/Summary#Jan_Żaryn

Analysis

I was thoroughly surprized to find me listed among the main Polish Holocaust revisionists on wikipedia :-(. In fact I have close to none contribution on the discussed subject. The only notable altercation I can remember is about the bio of Jan Żaryn. From this disproportionality I may guess who were the main "inside jobs" for the article of GK in question.

Baseless accusation of me being a Holocaust revisionist

The article of GK says "After still more back and forth in July, including a five-part Request for Comment by François Robere,Footnote233 Lembit Staan and GizzyCatBella overhauled the entire article, simply removing the overwhelming majority of the journalists’ and scholars’ observations on Żaryn’s extremism" - the "simply removing" statement is false. The fact is that the mentioned "still more back and forth in July" was a thorough criticism of the additions suggested by François Robere. On my part I analyzed the cited sources in detail and my major objections per WP:BLP were: (a) mistranslations, (b) too liberal interpretations of sources by wikipedians to the disfavor of the subject of the article, i.e., Jan Żaryn, and (c) what is more fascinating, the provably poor scholarhip of the sources cited which criticized Żaryn, making these sources unreliable. My arguments may be found in Talk:Jan_Żaryn#RfC:_Jan_Żaryn. If requested I can provide specific examples and more explanations. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

False / misleading statements about Żaryn's bio

Below is just nipicking, but I really have nothing more to say because I really did nothing wrong.

The article of GK says now readers opening Jan Żaryn’s page have access to his claims (for example, that Jews were to blame for the Kielce pogrom), without being told of their baselessness. -- In fact, the bio says: Żaryn <...> has stated that "a significant proportion of Jewish individuals... supported the communist authorities or... joined their ranks"; he blames those individuals for being part of Communist censorship and propaganda organs, who were "deceitfully ... silent about Soviet massacres." This, he believes, "intensified anti-Semitic attitudes" that resulted in the Kielce pogrom. -- I fail to see the logic in the transformation from: "some Jews were bad (provably true); this intensified [pre-existing] antiSemitism (provably true), hence pogrom (opinion)" - to: "Jews were to blame for Kielce Pogrom". In fact, Żaryn reasonably attributed pogrom to the rise of antiSemitism and he explained some reasons (in his opinion) of this rise, and GK made a sensationalist spin to make Zaryn look really bad. (He does deserve this, but what is "good" for a polemic newsblurb, not good for an article pretending to be scholarly).

I do agree with GK that the views (and the low quality of scholarship, and his engagement with that the "party line") of Żaryn are described poorly. But the phrasing "without being told of their baselessness" is a preconception indicative of poor scholarship of GK. For example, the bio says "Żaryn argues that the tensions between Jews and other nations in interwar Poland were mostly due to economic reasons" (well, that's not what exactly he wrote, but this is beside the point) - here is a book by Michael C. Steinlauf which basically says the same: the prominent position of the Jews in business in the interwar Poland was the main antisemitic argument that the Jews are "taking over" Poland. -- so much about "baselessness"; rather sloppy phrasing and poor scholarship, abundant in Zaryn writings. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Piotrus: that is probably better off as evidence than a link in Analysis. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Piotrus: obviously in the end the choice of whether to post or not is up to you. But frankly I entered into this case expecting we'd have to summarize large parts of the comprehensive analysis that you and others have done of the paper. As for what ArbCom will do around FoF, I genuinely don't know. I feel like we're a long way from that point, but I will say that I have, in some of the cases I've been a drafter for, supported giving "complete pictures" of editors who have FoF written about them rather than just the info necessary to issue sanctions. That said, I think it far more likely that individual arbs in their comments would say that they find certain allegations unconvincing than we would be to say, as a committee, that something is wrong. But the earliest I would imagine we'd start to draft the case would be after Phase 1 of evidence, and depending on how much we have left to summarize maybe not even then. There's a reason we gave ourselves 3 weeks rather than the traditional 2 to draft this in the end. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Piotrus: if you don't think it's necessary you don't have to submit it. From what I've seen it is rebutall type work so would even be eligible for submission during Phase 2. If/when you do submit it, please submit it in chunks, ideally no more than 500 words but obviously as a party you could go to 1000. However, I do want to point out that evidence of your conduct definitely has been submitted with some of it already summarised and more of that to come because I've definitely been thinking about what I've seen so far in relation to you specifically (as opposed to some parties who might have evidence nominally in their section but whcih hasn't given me anything meaningful yet to think about conduct wise). Barkeep49 (talk) 16:47, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Some additional analysis of the problems with G&K essay concerning this topic (article about Jan Żaryń) can be found at User:Piotrus/Response#10._Not_criticizing_Żaryn. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:06, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 Hmmm. On some level, my entire Responce is related and could be submitted to evidence, but setting aside the "you'd have to summarize ~20k words", this is evidence mostly related to my claim that the said essay has many errors. But is this within the scope of the case? If I submit this, will the ArbCom consider making a statement about the "quality" or "errors" of the essay? Otherwise, we can only wait to see if anyone submits evidence based on diffs or claims made in the essay, and then I can submit relevant parts. In this case, if you feel it would be better, I can certainly submit that particular section (#10) from my essay as to supplement LS' analysis above. But again, do you think it needs to be "summarized" first? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:20, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 I don't mind submitting my Responce to Evidence. I did spent many hours writing it, not far from an effort required to write an entire new academic paper. But how should I do it? Will a link suffice? Do it piece by piece by copying it into my evidence in word-limit chunks...? Also, it is a rebuttal to claims that haven't yet been made in this ArbCom against me (not a single diff related to me, mentioned in that essay, has been submitted to evidence so far, as far as I know). So I am still confused about the relevance and what is expected from me here in general. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:45, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 Replying to your question about "Jan Żaryn RfCs". I looked at my comments and their immediate context, and one thing that struck me was relativley constructive attutude of Francois Robere, who in discussions preceeding the RfC (I think you link to one) often aggeed to address the issues I raised. Credit where credit is due. I'd agree that absence of Icewhiz at that time (mid-2021) and low involvement of socks on this page was likely helping to keep things moderate and constructive compared to the "Icewhiz era". Nothing about the RfC itself strikes me as unusual (I did not read it all, I don't think anything from it is in the evidence summary?), except you are right that it was never formally closed. I have to say I am not very familiar with how RfCs are supposed to be closed, but I have a gut feeling that many people were just waiting for someone to close it and then forgot about it. Many people who start RfCs forget to wrap them up and/or request a closure at Wikipedia:Closure requests (frankly, I am not sure I was aware of that procedural page until this very moment when I started reading about how RfCs get closed). It would be curious to check whether closure rates of RfCs in this topic area is different from the rate in some other areas. PS. Technically, is that RfC still open and could the closure requst be made, so that uninvolved party closes this, determining what was the consensus? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:13, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis of ER's evidence

Evidence

As of 21 March 2023 02:43 (UTC)

Analysis

• Having been warned about their behaviour at Naliboki massacre towards other editors, (AE case, reaction to case, reaction to warning), TrangaBellam bulldozes articles, refusing to discuss (Diff x, Diff y) But her rigid preconceptions and disdainful treatment of input raise the question of how well she knows the topics she rewrites. For example, she accused an editor many times more senior of "shenanigans" [Diff 1]

• This impresses upon someone that even after being warned (whether rightly or wrongly has no bearing), I have persisted on the same behaviour. However, Diff 1 is about a month-old edit that was already discussed in the AE and cited as the primary factor for the warning.
• By the way, Diff x has me stating,

  I do not oppose partial restoration AS LONG AS it is accompanied with citations to WP:RS, and you are willing to take responsibility for the content.

  There is no policy that forbids me from removing unsourced or ill-sourced passages. As the t/p discussion shows, I demonstrated that the existing sources did not support the passages and repeatedly asserted that anybody, who is willing to source the content, can restore it. What else could I have done? That article has been in such a messy state for years.

• Senior editors can be wrong of course and most of them have the grace to admit it. But they often have the benefit of having made enough mistakes to recognize one when they see it, and this is why it is wrong to dismiss them out of hand. [Diff A], No, [Diff B], [Diff C], [ Diff D - edit summary],[Diff E],[Diff F]

• What is the issue with Diff A? Marcelus speculated to an extent about what might be Tokarska-Bakir's "motive", I disagreed that we can go into such analyses, and a conversation ensued.
• What is the issue with Diff B? I objected to the contention that the information violated BLPGOSSIP.
• Diff C is not by me, but by Marcelus. How can I defend it?
• Diff E and Diff F are not optimal but part of a heated exchange. They were dealt with at AE. A strange misrepresentation of a source (see Gitz666, coffman, et al. who agreed with my POV) drew my response but content-disputes are not under the purview of this case.

• TB's questionable expertise in the topics she unilaterally rewrites is concerning. She has for example opined on whether a pl.wikipedia was neutrally written. Was she correct? More correct than Piotrus, whom she was instructing? Maybe but maybe not. Is she competent to decide whether Holocaust denial belongs in the lede for a given historian? [Alpha][Beta], [Gamma][Kappa], [Phi], [Epsilon]

• To the best of my belief, I have never claimed to be an "expert" of any sort in Polish history. Diffs, please.
• I did not opine on "whether a pl.wikipedia [article] was neutrally written". Diffs, please.
• I might or might not be more correct than Piotrus - that's the whole point of a discussion (not instruction). What is this charge (?) alluding to? Where are the diffs?
• Wikipedia does not prize academic competency; depending on one's perspective, this can be a vice or a virtue. I rewrote our article on Ryszard Bender to the best of NPOV and as far as I see, my edits have not been challenged. Arbcom might be interested in this thread; expecting that there might be some dispute on the aspect of holocaust denial in the lead, I created a t/p thread explaining my reason. That is IDEAL behaviour.
• Coming to the diffs:

• What is the accusation in Diff Alpha? No ideas.
• Diff Gamma is a reply by VMarek; each of us were trying to understand the other's positions. And - ?
• What is the accusation in Diff Kappa? I did a minor copyedit.
• What is the accusation in Diff Phi? Marcelus speculated — to a large extent — about what might be Tokarska-Bakir's "motive", I disagreed that we can go into such territories.
• Diff epsilon is my edit on Ryszard Bender's bio; already covered above.

• Since Grabowski, she has been editing in Poland. I noticed at the "Glaukopis" RSN post that this behaviour continues.

• I had made a single comment at the RSN post:

  No - It appears from the reception section that there is an unanimous consensus among scholars that the journal disseminates far-right viewpoints.

  This is a factual assertion and I fail to see any misbehaviour of any kind.

• A talk page I noticed cites this RSN.

• I challenged the reliability of Glaukopolis and cited this RSN. On consulting the RSN, it appears there is an overwhelming consensus to brand it as an unreliable source.

• I tried to report this thread. Allegations followed, which I hotly dispute but don't care to spend my words on. [Four Diffs]

• Bish warned ER about his polemics against me and then imposed a 2-way-IBan upon my (and his) request. Arbitrators might choose to consider ER's behaviour with Tayi Arajakate when he chose to comment on the dispute - see 1 and 2. They might also wish to know that ER has been sanctioned twice — two months ago for personal attacks, civility, casting aspersions and battleground behaviour, and eleven months ago for abusing conduct processes to thwart content opponents.

• The following evidence supports the behaviour pattern. Deleting reference: Diff 2

• The evidence do not support the accusation. No reference was deleted in the edit. I performed a copyedit.

• Reliability of sources has some objective measures, but can this nuanced call be made for a publication you don't know in a language you don't speak about facts you're unfamiliar with? That's a *really* nuanced question for an amateur historian to opine upon in Wikivoice. Her userpage says she is an R programmer. (writing sample)

• Mariusz Bechta, the writing sample linked to by ER, had no discussion at the t/p or elsewhere concerning the unreliability of any source. Who is an "amateur historian"? What is being opined upon in wiki-voice?

• Accusations of trolling: Diff 3, Diff 3a

• Diff 3: I will let Bishonen be the judge.
• Diff 3A: See the entire t/p conversation. Gcb behaved in a passive-aggressive manner with me, meriting my comments. If I am not wrong, he was warned in the AE thread on me.

• Large meaning change?: Diff 4

• Vague. Nobody has opposed my (sourced) edits and Piotrus even thanked me for paying attention to the article.

• Sign of issue?: [..]

• FINALLY, something that can be valid evidence. Explanation: I have tabs open for as long as a hour before commiting the edit and it is sometimes difficult to check carefully when a certain comment was made. Notifications in Wikipedia only arrive on a reload or page submission unlike FB, Insta, etc. That explains away the jarring discrepancy.
• Anyway, I and Marcelus have had many productive discussions since then such as enabling him to access a source from TWL etc.

• Dismissed BLP concern: Diff 6

• I do not believe that Marek feels my additions were patently unreasonable to be classed as a BLP violation. In light of our protracted discussion, I believe, each of us saw the merit (the extent is debatable) in the other's position and decided to wait for other editors. Editors routinely dismiss BLP concerns; that is not a wiki-crime in itself. And now Arbcom willing to take up diffs, after their case was opened, meant that VM (reasonably) feels a chilling effect. So, our discussion is stalled.

• Accusation of bad faith: Diff 7

• I share a very cordial relationship with Ppt91, who has noted his disagreement to this characterization at Barkeep's t/p.

• Bias? Unsure: Diff 8

• Sources are unanimous that the publication is conservative. We cannot really be using their own labels; as is the case in USA, far-right publications like to market them as centrist etc. Removing self-sourced descriptions do not show my bias.

• edit-summary: Diff 9, Diff 10, Diff3

• ce = copyedit which is indeed an adept description of the first diff.
• As to the second, I do not see any issue. The latest number of periodical was presented in the press conference on January 21, 2021 in the Educational Center IPN of the Janusz Kurtyka's name in Warsaw. is useless trivia. The bilingualism of the articles ensures a wide audience, the journal becomes a platform for scientific analysis of Polish-Jewish relations and discussions about it. is useless promotion, which belongs only at the about-us section of the website.
• Diff 3 is by Francois Robere. I have never edited the page and has exert control over what he/she/they writes.

• TNT: Diff 11, Diff 12

• Bold removal of unsourced content and/or trivia is not an example of misbehaviour in itself. Circulation data of random months and performance wrt other weeklies is textbook trivia. I did not face any opposition at the talk-page.

END. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:18, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I believe that I have responded to >99% of the diffs (maybe, one or two have escaped my attention) and I will not partake in this case, any further, and atleast until the resolution of this case, in the project. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:18, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The only diffs which might have been in the need of some scrutiny (Diff 1; Diff E and Diff F) had already attracted scrutiny at the AE thread on me, where ER was present. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Volunteer Marek's evidence about Gitz6666

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence/Summary#Summary_of_evidence_involving_Gitz6666

Analysis

• In his first evidence submission concerning me, VM says that Before February 15, 2023 Gitz6666 had made ZERO edits to this topic and that all of sudden, beginning with the opening of the request for this case (February 13), they began editing this area intensively. This is imprecise. I started editing the topic area on 9 February [54] and than from 10 February 2023 [55][56][57][58] onward. I'm a bit disappointed that VM doesn't remember this because on 11 February he "thanked" me for this comment [59], which I invite you to read carefully because it falls within the scope of this case and comes from the alleged harasser.

Truth is, I did not follow VM from one topic area to another (nor did I wikihound him in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area, where I never followed his edits and indeed distinctly remember that on some occasions I avoided editing certain articles for the sole reason that he was active there). I did not follow VM to Holocaust in Poland (HiP) but I started editing there after the publication of G&K paper and because of that publication (for the purpose stated here [60] – to correct errors). At first I did so very reluctantly precisely because of VM's involvement, as is evident from this these two diffs [61][62]; I invite you to read the second one, and then, as it happens, I became passionate about the topic, as I explained here [63]. There's been nothing provocative or disruptive in my edits at HiP, which indeed on a few occasions have been kindly appreciated by GizzyCatBella [64], Horse Eye's Back [65], Piotrus (several "thanks"), TrangaBellam [66] and VM himself (I think most of your edits are fine [67]). The opening of this case had no effect on my decision to edit here: it was neither a reason to do so nor a reason not to do so. The interactions with VM have been rare, have taken place mainly on my user talk page (here and here) and have not been hostile at all. Besides, this thread on the t/p of "Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust", after VM had reverted some of my edits, shows that I have no difficulty in interacting with him cooperatively.

The only exception to this mutual collaborative attitude was the incident at Jedwabne pogrom, which I reported here as evidence. In this regard, I am sorry that VM refuses to understand my complaint. Commenting that someone is doing WP:OR is not tendentious and uncivil in and of itself – I agree – but if you comment that someone is doing OR and are not able to point to their information/fact/allegation/thesis that is not supported by sources, either you don't know what "OR" means and are lacking competence, or you're trying to debase your interlocutor and mislead the others. I trust Volunteer Marek's WP:COMPETENCE. This edit summary mentioning OR and fairly inaccurate reading of the source [68] IMHO is tendentious and uncivil because VM knew perfectly well that my reading of Gross was accurate and that our disagreement did not revolve around an OR.

Anyway, these are trifles. I'm sure I have done nothing that deserves sanction, but there's much truth in what VM implies about our experiences in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area being related to my attitude and submissions in this case. In fact, my opinions about VM's editing were formed in the RU topic area, were very negative and were confirmed by what I read in the G&K paper and found in the HiP topic area. So I'm not looking for revenge, but I don't claim to be an unbiased and uninvolved editor either. I made that very clear from the beginning, when in my preliminary statement I said that I was formally an uninvolved editor in this topic area (emphasis added) because In the Holocaust in Poland topic area I see the same users (at least four of them) and the same practices that led to my recent topic ban from the Russo-Ukrainian war. I also said that I feared that the pattern of problematic behaviour and the network of collaborations that led to systematic bias in Holocaust in Poland might be exported and applied elsewhere, leading to more tendentious editing and low-quality coverage of politically sensitive subjects, which means that I agree with Wugapodes when they say that "a strict division between conduct in the case's topic area and conduct in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area limits our understanding of conduct in this topic area". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 03:42, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

"VM says that Before February 15, 2023 ". My bad. Before February 9th, 2023. Doesn't change the main point one bit. Volunteer Marek 05:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

The timeline shows that the immediate reason I started editing in the HiP area was the publication of the G&K paper. This does not rule out the possibility that I started editing to harass you, if that's your point, but it does rule out the possibility that I did so because of the upcoming ArbCom case, as you claim. Had I started editing one year or five years after my T-ban (that is, in the future) I still could have done so to harass you. But the timeline suggests an alternative explanation to yours, one that is more plausible and in line with AGF: I started editing the area to remedy the "distortions" lamented by G&K. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:22, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Gitz, you know very well that as soon as the paper came out and got mentioned on Wikipedia, a blind mole with cataracts could see an ArbCom case coming so your "alternative explanation" seems a bit disingenous. Volunteer Marek 02:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• In his second evidence submission concerning me, VM says that I have been digging out edits [of him] from 2009 and that this qualifies as wikihounding. He finds evidence of this in a sandbox of mine, this one (as it was on 31 March) and shares this illustration of wikihounding.

My comment: I did not research VM's activities since 2009; it would take forever to chack VM's activities back to 2009. Even if I were the worst hate-filled wikihounder in history, I wouldn't see the point, since no one gets sanctioned for what they did ages ago. However, when I started editing the HiP area, I came across article contents based on selective and misleading quotations of sources, falsification of sources or subtle vandalism disguised as verifiable content. In view of the upcoming ArbCom case, it came natural to me to use "WikiBlame" and check who was responsible. In most cases it was Poeticbent, who is no longer active on this project; on one occasion it was Volunteer Marek. I took note of this and added a diff + comment in a sendbox of mine where I keep material related to the ArbCom case. Volunteer Marek sifted through my sandboxes, as he is used to do (see here, this thing with you combing my sandbox is not healthy) and found his old edit. Now, I don't understand why VM is so eager to let the ArbCom know that he was already pushing the Polish nationalist POV back in 2009, but note that it is he, and not I, who is submitting this as evidence. From my point of view, his 2009 edit demonstrates, at most, his consistency, coupled with an early misunderstanding of what this project is about (NPOV, V, NOR as core policies), but no actual policy violation worth mentioning. I therefore kept it in my sandbox and did not intend to present it here. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:48, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

The reasons I looked at your sandbox are because you've used it in the past to direct personal attacks at me, addressing me directly, (I guess thinking that if you put them in the sandbox it doesn't count and you won't get sanctioned for it?) and because, obviously, that's where you were writing up your evidence.

As for my 2009 edit, no, I was not "already pushing the Polish nationalist POV back in 2009" (a few months ago you were accusing me of being a Ukrainian nationalist, weren't you? Now you changed your mind? Everyone who disagrees with me is a "nationalist!"). Or in 2010, or in 2011, or in, ..., or in 2019, or in 2020, or in 2021, or in 2022, or in 2023. Here is the source [69]. It's Jan T. Gross. My 2009 edit was based on lines 9 through 13 of that page and they accurately reflect the source. It's not a "selective quotation" because other parts of the material on that page were ALREADY described in article text. You are simply interpreting neutral edits through your own very biased POV. Volunteer Marek 05:26, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Please, would you mind sharing a diff showing that I accused you of being a Ukrainian nationalist? As far as I can remember, I've never done so. I've told you (in the appropriate forum: ANI and AE) that IMO you are an anti-Russian POV-pusher in the RU topic area, which would be consistent with the fact that you are also a Polish nationalist. I've told you that your editing in the RU topic area shows that you would probably like to exacerbate the conflict with Russia, but I've never had any reason to believe that you care about the cause of Ukraine. I was not at all surprised by these two diffs shared by Mhorg yesterday: [70][71]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

You were not at all surprised that I removed unsourced text from an article? Or badly sourced BLP vios? Well, I guess that's good to hear though I suspect that's not what you meant. I mean, here's a crazy idea: WP:RS and WP:BLP apply regardless whether you "like" something or someone or not. Volunteer Marek 00:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Also this comment you are an anti-Russian POV-pusher in the RU topic area, which would be consistent with the fact that you are also a Polish nationalist. comes very close to being racist since it implies that Poles are by nature "anti-Russian". Newsflash: the actual "Polish nationalists" associated with the far right are by large extent, same as far-right ideologues in other parts of Europe and US, pro-Putin. For example Konfederacja [72]. Volunteer Marek 00:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Obviously it doesn't imply that Poles are by nature anti-Russian, I don't even understand what does it mean anti-Russian "by nature". But I see that your gibberish about the nature of Poles supports a personal attack, very close to being racist. Beware your civility restriction in the EE topic area. By the way, could you please tell which direct personal attacks at me, addressing me directly did you find in my sandboxes? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Newsflash: the actual "Polish nationalists" associated with the far right are by large extent, same as far-right ideologues in other parts of Europe and US, pro-Putin. The actual Polish nationalists associated with the far right who are currently running Poland, PiS, have been arming Ukraine; they are not pro-Putin. Except maybe unintentionally, as "Poland’s Historical Revisionism Is Pushing It Into Moscow’s Arms". Levivich (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek, why don't you strike through your personal attack, very close to being racist? In no way can one say that my statement - Polish nationalists are generally hostile to Russia - is "very close to racism" because it imples that Poles are by nature "anti-Russian".

I also note that you did not answer my question - could you please tell [what] did you find in my sandboxes? You should answer, since you claim that you found direct personal attacks at me, addressing me directly. Your claim is false and is a blatant case of WP:ASPERSION, as you know very well (and therefore you did not answer).

The text that you found and asked me to remove is this [73], which I had already published in my OP of the June 2022 ANI discussion. You know this because I have told you here: I explained to you that I recently copied that sentence and pasted it into my sanbox because I needed the two diffs about your views on torture, which then I used in my recent comment at AN/I. In fact, I used that diff again at the January 2023 ANI discussion (11:23, 11 January 2023). You should remember this well, since I told you a second time at ANI (at 23:23, 11 January 2023). Nonetheless, here above you say

I looked at your sandbox are because you've used it in the past to direct personal attacks at me, addressing me directly, (I guess thinking that if you put them in the sandbox it doesn't count and you won't get sanctioned for it?)

I ping @Callanecc: so that they can check if the civility restriction is working well here. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:50, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

The drafting Arbitrators have consistently said that Ukraine is out of scope. I have made a partial exception, choosing to summarize some of the evidence VM left against Gitz given what appears to be necessary background to understanding the conflict between the two with-in the scope of the case. This evidence has also made me wonder if we will need to rethink this decision partly. For instance, it's possible that an interaction ban Gitz and VM would be an appropriate remedy when considering all evidence but that there isn't enough evidence just with-in the case scope to issue one. It would feel silly to me for ArbCom to let that disruption continue on that basis. I don't quite know if opening this can of worms is what we will want to do but I could see us adjusting the scope to be "Conduct of named parties in the topic areas of World War II history of Poland and the history of the Jews in Poland, broadly construed and between named editors in the topic area of Eastern Europe" (addition in italics). Courtesy ping to the other drafters Primefac and Wugapodes about this decision to include this in the summary. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:12, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

If the conduct is outwith our current scope entirely, then I am not sure this is the proper venue for it. In other words, at the moment I feel (to use this particular bit of evidence as an example) that if Ukraine is the only area where these two editors have conflict, it is unrelated to our case, but if there is additional evidence that relates to the current scope and area, then it is worth showing that the issues extend as such. Primefac (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that explanation threads the scope question nicely. Presumably it would require evidence to first establish conflict with-in the topic area and then evidence outside of it? Barkeep49 (talk) 20:10, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Correct. A summary might read "User X and Y have had conflict in this area, at <evidence>. Their dispute has extended to other areas such as A and B". Primefac (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Can one of us not simply block or use contentious topic procedures as a regular admin action? I agree that scope is a poor reason to let the disruption go on, but widening the scope just to deal with a single dispute seems like the wrong tool for the job.

That said, I think a strict division between conduct in the case's topic area and conduct in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area limits our understanding of conduct in this topic area. While the Russo-Ukrainian war and WWII Poland are distinct in time and place, the issues of nationalism in former soviets, Russian partisanship, and characterization of war crimes are common to both; While the topics are clearly distinct, the editors and interests are more fuzzy. Tendentious editors in one area might be driven to the other as we see with Gitz6666, and that's something we should be aware of even if our focus is on Poland in the WWII-era.

So I think the position on evidence should be something like "conduct occurring in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area is not accepted as evidence unless additional evidence is presented showing how the combined conduct affects an area within the case scope." So VM's evidence of Gitz getting topic banned from the Russo-Ukrainian topic area and then starting to edit within the case scope would be acceptable because it establishes a pattern that results in problems within the case scope. But if it were just evidence that Gitz had been disruptive in the Russo-Ukrainian topic area then that would not be acceptable. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des 20:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the "diffs going back to 2009" concern - for any party to this case, I would not be surprised if old diffs pop up from time to time. I highly doubt anyone is going to be specifically looking through every edit made by an individual from years past, but talk page archives are easy to skim and so the occasional diff is to be expected. Some measure of good faith must be assumed but Gitz does say they have not done this, so at the moment I have collapsed the relevant evidence section. Primefac (talk) 10:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I do think that generally Ukraine-Russia is outside the scope - this is a specific instance however where one user seems to have followed another user from THAT topic area to THIS topic area to try and get back at them for the topic ban they received in THAT area. It's specific to Gitz6666. Volunteer Marek 17:52, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

When I saw the paper by G&K, I took a part in discussion at Village pump and made a general comment. That is what Gitz6666 responded: [74]. After reading his response, I thought: "What a bad luck, what kind of terrible vengeance Gitz6666 is going to exact?!" And I started editing page "A terrible vengeance" [75] by Gogol. Everything Gitz6666 was doing after that was more or less predictable. Just to clarify, I am not advocating for any sanctions for Gitz. Perhaps he contributed just fine in the subject area covered by this case. I did not check it. Yes, I think his evidence is poor, but this is his evidence. His main weakness is constantly making misinterpretations, even in his response to me (the diff above). I am saying "This [Wikipedia content] is not a high quality content by professional historians one would expect to receive as a publication in a journal". He responds I am "not qualified to claim that" as if I was saying something about article by G&K. Yes, I do think their work was problematic, but that is not what I was saying.My very best wishes (talk) 22:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that it is fair to say that VM and I had no serious conflict in the HiP topic area. He partially reverted a few edits of mine at Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, but I opened this thread and it was just normal talk page discussion between us; he reverted one edit of mine at Jedwabne pogrom and I thought that that was problematic, but I didn't make a fuss about it on the the article talk page ([76][77]). VM asked that I become a party to the case when I started submitting evidence here, and on this I'd like to get reassurances from Arbs: if you think that presening evidence here is a sign of harassment, battleground behaviour, my combative nature (@Primefac), etc., then please let me know now and I will stop immediately - there's no need to apply sanctions. If, however, you think that my contribution to the case could be helpful, then please don't sanction me for that contribution. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be more accurate to say that - after stating publicly that you weren't going to involve yourself much in the topic area (quote: I can assure you that my presence in the area will be marginal and practically non-existent.)- you began making a ton of edits across the topic area. These edits were generally ones to articles where I had disputes with Icewhiz in 2018-2019 and the new edits you made - as part of your marginal and practically non-existent involvement in the topic area - were often in line with Icewhiz's arguments or edits he made back then. The main reason why we have no serious current conflicts in this topic area is simply because *I* haven't responded to your provocations. Volunteer Marek 03:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis of HEB "Reliable Sources Noticeboard"

[78]

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Without specific comment on any of the reliable sources discussions, what I paid attention to hen reading through those as not just possible vote stacking. I also looked for civility, bludgeoning, misleading/distorting characterizations of another editor's position/edits, misrepresentation of the source under discussion or what other sources said about that source. In short I was looking for all manners of battleground behavior and other conduct violations. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I just finished going through Horse Eye Back's evidence from RSN and hope to give more details later, but the thing that immediately jumps out from looking at these in toto is how many of the pre-2023 RSN discussions were dominated by Icewhiz's socks. There are six pre-2023 discussions listed there (I'm also excluding Encyclopedia of Ukraine one) and of those THREE were initiated by Icewhiz socks (in particular User:Bob not snob) and all saw very heavy involvement from his socks - in one of the discussions (on Oko press) he had FIVE (!!!!) essentially confirmed socks and two more likely ones, all !voting the same way. That would make him casting more than half of the total !votes all by himself. Is there any wonder this area was such a mess? Volunteer Marek 23:08, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Here's a pic of a table which summarizes the !votes and comments in these RSN discussions. I'll send the spreadsheet to the committee (and anyone else, upon request). I've included only editors who are parties to this case. Orange/brown means the editors said the source was unreliable (with darker color meaning stronger opinion). Green means the editor said the source was reliable (darker color = stronger opinion). Yellow is "no consensus" or "on the fence" or similar. Grey means they didn't participate. Bolded and dashed borders means the editor was the initiator of the discussion. Volunteer Marek 01:19, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I think one can use almost any source if it is used properly [79], excluding internet garbage and outright nonsense. The problem are not sources, but contributors who tend to trust a source just because it was published in certain journal, instead of verifying information against other sources and overall knowledge in the field. My very best wishes (talk) 04:00, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

@My very best wishes And understanding the "overall knowledge in the field" is hardly easy. Ideally, it requires a PhD in the related field. And how many editors with PhDs in Holocaust history, or even Polish-Jewish history, are editing this topic area? Wikipedia is written by amateurs, and occasionally criticized by experts who have time to pen said criticism, but not to edit our content themselves :( See my peer-reviewed articles - arguably, essays too - here and here (both should be OA). To quote myself: A lack of knowledge and incentives, and a fear of ostracism prevent many academics from publicly collaborating with Wikipedia. This is the real problem, and this case is not going to solve it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:13, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I think one should discuss specific authors, rather than journals. By the "overall knowledge" I simply mean knowing basic facts in a field, for example that Katyn massacre did happen, etc. Therefore, someone denying basic facts, like Grover Furr, would be an outright "fringe" and generally undue on any pages except the page about him (I am saying "undue", that could be reliably published). However, someone who is just offering questionable interpretations, like Arch Getty, is more complex. I would never use his views on any pages because he is a revisionist historian. But I would not blame another contributor of WP:CIR because he is citing Getty on pages. My very best wishes (talk) 14:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@User:Piotrus and User:My very best wishes - there’s nothing in the table which indicates whether a particular editor’s comments and/or !votes were “good” or “bad”. But the table does show the patterns and correlations of voting. For example, it turns out that Piotrus’ votes tend to most closely resemble those of... User:Szmenderowiecki, which I think some might find a bit unexpected. Volunteer Marek 07:18, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I assume that arbitrators are concerned about potential vote stacking. However, such discussions are not a vote. For as long as someone expresses his own opinion about the source, rather than simply supports another contributor, this is not vote stacking. It is also entirely possible that some people who came to such discussions never heard about source X in their life, but they checked review policy at the web site of the source, looked at their publications and checked comments by other contributors. If they did that, this is 100% legitimate behavior. My very best wishes (talk) 09:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking on the overall situation on the RSNB, not just in this area, I think this noticeboard was misused by many contributors who initiate new postings to resolve their content disputes, instead of simply getting an advice from other uninvolved contributors about the sources. One of obvious indications of this: the user who starts a new thread on RSNB actually knows the source much better than contributors who are trying to help and answer the question. Another indication: this is actually a "due weight" question; everything depends on context, etc. Of course getting a consensus about a source may be great. If so, this needs to be framed as an RfC. But this is not the way these RSNB threads were framed by their initiators. My very best wishes (talk) 16:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, except when a guy has up to 7 socks voting in the same discussion. Then it's "vote stocking". Volunteer Marek 18:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Elinruby's evidence re Support adding Gitz6666 as party

Evidence

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence#Support_adding_Gitz6666_as_party

Analysis

Elinruby's evidence consists in sharing this interaction analysis between VM, MVBW and me, and commenting This is relevant. I agree with him, but the analysis is easier if we distinguish 1) interaction between VM and me, 2) interaction between MVBW and me, and 3) interaction between VM and MVBW.

1. Interaction between VM and me. In the RU topic area I believe that VM wikihounded me at least at Ruslan Kotsaba (an article that I had just created and that VM immediately edited aggressively and disruptively [80], [81] [82]) and at Roger Waters (outside the topic area but related: I edit at 15:50, 6 January 2023‎, VM reverts at 20:12, 7 January 2023). In his evidence, VM alleged that I followed him on two occasions, to Torture in Ukraine and to Marxism–Leninism. The first allegation is false: since I've authored nearly 1/3 of War crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine [83], obviously "Torture in Ukraine" was on my WL. The second allegation is even more ludicrous: there was an RfC on that page, when I commented, and I regularly take part to RfCs, as I immediately explained to VM [84][85].
   In the HiP topic area, VM and I interacted only at Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, when VM partially reverted some of my edits [86][87][88][89], and at Jedwabne pogrom, when VM reverted one of my edit. On the first occasion I I opened a discussion and we behaved cooperatively, on the second occasion I believe his revert and comments were uncivil and tendentious (see my evidence). Since VM alleges that I am WP:HARASSing him, it is noteworthy that I have never reverted him. We also interacted during an AN discussion on Chapmansh, when I acknowledged that This off-wiki behaviour [G&K WP:OUTING VM's personal information] might be some kind of harassment and it should fall within the scope of administrative action, [90] so I was actually agreeing with VM on this point, as I repeated to him in a conversation on my talk page: I also sympathise with the recent attack on your privacy and reputation, which I find, as you know, not OK to say the least. We had another conversation on my talk page, which was polite and sincere. There's no basis for an I-ban. I'm very critical of VM's editing, and in an open and transparent way, but I've always been polite and honest with him, and I've never targeted, followed, threatened, offended him or harassed him in any way.
2. Interaction between MVBW and me. In the RU topic area, I'm quite sure that MVBW followed my edits at least on the following articles: Demolition of monuments to Alexander Pushkin in Ukraine (I edit at 16:10, 13 November 2022, MVBW at 18:01, 13 November 2022); Margarita Simonyan (I edit at 21:32, 5 September 2022, MVBW at 03:27, 6 September 2022); Collaboration with Russia during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (I edit at 16:09, 21 October 2022, MVBW at 16:30, 23 October 2022); Handcuffs (I edit at 11:37, 23 October 2022, MVBW at 22:08, 23 October 2022). When I was t-banned, he immediately (15-16 Jan) made a series of tendentious edits at War crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lyudmyla Denisova, Stara Krasnianka care house attack, e.g. [91] [92], [93]
3. Interaction between VM and MVBW. I don't even know how to comment on this: a life together. See 2016 request for enforcement and EtienneDolet evidence showing that MVBW follows VM's edits to support him in edit wars and t/p discussions; see here on my user talk MVBW recently vindicating this behaviour, since following a contributor you would like to help with improvement of pages is actually great. There's evidence of MVBW joining VM's arguments/edit wars in the HiP topic area: e.g.[94][95]. I think that the alliance between VM, MVBW (and also GizzyCatBella) has been a common element in the distortions of the HiP and RU topic areas. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:14, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Gitz6666: as I've noted elsewhere, large chunks of the evidence from outside the topic area was not "accepted" into evidence. Some information was accepted but only to establish background in this topic area. Do you dispute anything that was summarized? 14:55, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Gitz6666 is basically trying to hijack this case to relitigate his own topic ban in a different topic area. All this has already been discussed and it is part of what led to their topic ban. I see no point in commenting on it further except that at some point Gitz66660 insistence on discussing these matters goes well past the exception from his topic ban to participate in this case with material that “touches upon” Russia-Ukraine issue, and well into “violation of topic ban” itself. Volunteer Marek 21:59, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I can not talk for others here, but only for myself. No, I did not follow anyone in the area of history of Jews in Poland simply because I did not really edit in this area. I only watched some community discussions and occasionally joined them. Moreover, I never "wikihound" anyone anywhere in the project as outlined in the policy, i.e. "singling out of one or more editors ... to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress to the other editor...", etc. In particular, I did not do it on any pages mentioned by Gitz above. I should say that a number or contributors (Gitz including) did follow my edits of various occasions (e.g. [96]), but I did my best to tolerate it, for as long as they might reasonably argue that they acted in a good faith to improve content. My very best wishes (talk) 23:08, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

As a random example of diffs by Gitz above, Gitz made this edit on a page. That was a good edit I agree with. Then I made this edit, unrelated to his edit. Was it a bad edit by me? At the very least, Gitz did not object it on article talk page. If anything, the combination of two such edits was an improvement of content. Same on the page "Demolition of monuments to Alexander Pushkin in Ukraine", Margarita Simonyan and others: the edits are unrelated and none of us had any objections to editing by another. My very best wishes (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

In summary, none of the diffs by Gitz above indicates my intention to create distress or inhibit work by Gitz or VM. My very best wishes (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm replying to @Volunteer Marek here above claiming that I am basically trying to hijack this case to relitigate his own topic ban in a different topic area (see also here [97] pinging @Callanecc).

I'm puzzled: VM asked and obtained my involvement in the case as a party. In doing so, he shared several diffs and links pertaining to the RU area. He complained about my year-long pattern of disruptive editing in this topic area combined with a WP:BATTLEGROUND approach. He accused me of deliberately lying (I never said or did anything like that and Gitz6666 knows that very well). Finally, he shared no less than 19 diffs (!) of Elinruby arguing with me in the RU area. So, what does he want me to do here? Obviously, as a party to the case, I will comment on the RU topic area: it's the only area that I have substantially edited in this project. VM wants me to be here as a party because of my activities in the RU topic area, but doesn't want me to speak about the RU topic area? This double bind could drive me crazy - it's me, not him, who should complain about being harassed!

Kidding aside, I think the RU area is critical to understanding how VM's "Intentional Distortion" of whatever topic area he is passionate about actually works. Therefore, I would like to have the opportunity to describe what happened in the RU topic area. My purpose would not be to relitigate my topic ban, as VM says, but to be consistent with what I have been saying for months, e.g. on 15 December 2022,

From my point of view, the EE controversy stems from the fact that there are 3 or 4 users who cause disruption by engaging in nationalist editing ... I may be right, I may be wrong, but from my point of view this is the "global" issue of the EE area, and it affects the war in Ukraine only indirectly.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:48, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

The diffs for Elinruby’s comments were provided by me upon request from Arbitrators. Initially I only mentioned them in passing. Volunteer Marek 18:20, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Any diffs you may have from RU area which show that you were NOT following me around are pertinent to this case (and note I haven’t really responded to any of that) are fine. Trying to argue once again about old disputes from that topic area, in my opinion, are not, and do look like circumventing the topic ban.

As far as “3 or 4 users who... nationalist editing” goes: who exactly, according to you, are these 3 or 4 editors? The problem for you is that any quick look at evidence shows that editors who are party to the case don’t even agree with each other in the RU area (and often the HiP area)! Look at HEBs list of RSN discussions concerning Ukraine for example. There can be other examples provided too where parties to the case held different opinions in that area, so whatever relevance it might have to this case seems more like something you imagined. Volunteer Marek 18:23, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Amen to people not even agreeing about Ukraine. Furthermore, I speak for myself here, but I get kind of tired of pointing out that nobody in this conversation is Ukrainian, at all, and only one of us has anything to do with Poland, at all. Not that there would be a problem with being Ukrainian or Polish in the first place. So yanno... Why do we keep having to have this conversation? I really wish Gitz would stop saying that, it's really annoying. PS: people who follow me sometimes stop me from doing stupid things, but it doesn't seem like that's the case here Elinruby (talk) 09:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gotz6666: also, I don't know if the above text got here before or after I took issue with it on the evidence talk page, but I am getting bad flashbacks. Again: What those diffs show is *you* arguing with French grammar as I try to disengage without validating your insistence that you are right and I am wrong about the conditional verb tense.

For the sake of everyone else's sanity, I told you at the evidence talk page to take it up with me on my talk page if you weren't able to stop claiming that I argue with you. Dude. I avoid *talking* to you, let alone arguing. I will have to turn you into a frog or something if you don't stop saying that. Please acknowledge that you have read and understood this. At my talk page.

And yes, Barkeep asked VM for those diffs and I have no problem with him finding them. I especially like the one that he calls a good description of your editing style. Elinruby (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Reliable Sources Noticeboard

Analysis of Tryptofish's evidence

Evidence

Use of Jan T. Gross as a source

Analysis

I hope it might be useful for me to comment about how I see my own evidence. I don't see it as containing any evidence of wrongdoing by any named parties, but I think it does provide some helpful context. First, since the Committee is collecting sources and noticeboard discussions, it provides an additional one of each. But also, I think it might be helpful in understanding how or whether to sanction any named parties growing out of allegations in the G&K paper. As I said in my evidence, I was prompted to look for that information after seeing, in part, this diff in another evidence section: [98]. I think it's important, given the case scope, to unpack what is going on in that diff, and my additional evidence provides the context for that diff's content. Obviously, the sentence I agree with Icewhiz. leaps out at the top of the diff. It might perhaps be tempting to see that as some sort of smoking gun about the G&K paper, but it really isn't. Chapmansh goes on to agree with Piotrus, and with another editor (not a named party), who had been arguing that the source was unreliable. So she is really saying that in a peacekeeping posture, finding things to agree with, with editors on all "sides" of the content dispute (as opposed to siding with Icewhiz). The reason I'm going to some lengths to point this out is because it's natural for those of us who have been editing a long time to read the situation as if it were:

• Piotrus and the RSN consensus: Gross is a reliable source, but sometimes Gross' opinions should be attributed.
• Icewhiz: Gross is a reliable source, and calling for attribution is distortionist.

That's an inside-Wikipedia reading of the RSN discussion, but it wasn't how Chapmansh approached it. She seems to me to be approaching it as an academic who appreciates nuance, and who is trying to avoid conflict for her students. But here is how that is significant for this case. Some editors have said that Icewhiz influenced the writing of the G&K paper. I don't know whether that's true or not. But taking Chapmansh's on-wiki comments together, one can see how G&K would have regarded Icewhiz's POV differently than we would typically do, simply as a position within the study of antisemitism that is the focus of G&K's professional work, and not as the misdeeds recognized by Trust & Safety and by us. Whether or not G&K actually worked with Icewhiz, they performed their scholarship in a way that minimizes the things that got Icewhiz banned, while magnifying the differing views of source material expressed by other editors. Here, Chapmansh agreed with Piotrus, but in the paper, Piotrus is what ArbCom now calls a "named party". This is why the G&K paper is so problematic as the impetus for this case.

Also, in the evidence summary, [99], it says that no specifics about the reliable sources who criticized were given in a way that sounds to me like Piotrus might have failed to give such specifics, but my evidence actually shows Piotrus commenting in a discussion where other editors had already described the criticisms, so I think that wording in the summary might be a bit misleading. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:05, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Tryptofish: I admittedly only skimmed the original discussion on the article talk page but didn't see Piotrus giving links there or even saying "I agree with Foo" where Foo gave links. Now I might have missed Piotrtus doing either of these things and I would definitely have missed it if another editor did so. Can you give me specifics on that for possible change in the summary? Barkeep49 (talk) 22:09, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Some relevant discussion of this in my Response: 12.4. In summary, Xx236 criticized the book ([100], [101] and their other comments there) used by Champansh's student. Outside of an IP ([102]) pretty much everyone else, included me, stepped in to say it is reliable (I said so here, [103] and [104]). Note that Champansh agreed with me twice ([105]: how about adopt Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus's idea and [106] I fully agree with everything Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus wrote.). In a email later she wrote to me: Two years ago I had a student edit the article on History of the Jews in Poland, and you were kind enough to support them in his endeavor on the Talk Page. In particular, there was one user – Xx236 – who kept discrediting my student’s plans, and you were one of the editors who stood up to Xx236, so to speak. Later, in a newspaper piece, the authors summarized this incident... confusing me with Xx236 (they later corrected that error in that newspaper). Ironically, this incident (me helping/defending Champansh's student, not mentioned in the essay) was what sparked her interest in researching this topic area on Wikipedia. No good deed, eh? PS. Regardin the summary and "no specifics about the reliable sources who criticized were given" I believe I and others referred the student to multiple sources included in the article about the book in question, hence "no specifics were given". My recommendation to the studend who stated that they'll use Gross' book was "good, that's a reliable source, but read more". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:43, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

@Barkeep49: There had been a lot of it on the article talk page, leading to the RSN posting: example (and just above that diff, Piotrus points the student to the criticism section of our page on the book). I read Piotrus as assuming that as background to what he said, rather than as criticizing the source – kind of like even though editors have raised criticisms, we should consider this source reliable. He isn't agreeing with the editors who wanted to deprecate the source, just acknowledging what they had said. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Going back through that discussion, this seems like a good indication of where Piotrus was coming from: [107], and here is more from another editor who actually was hostile to the source: [108]. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of HEB's "pinging Chapmansh"evidence

[109]

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I'm sorry but... I can't even take this seriously. I thought "GCB submitted too many diffs at AE" was about as petty and inane as the "evidence" in this case could get but I believe Horse just managed to top that. "Volunteer Marek pinged Chapmansh more times than Horse thought was appropriate and THAT'S HARASSMENT!!!".

No Horse.

Harassment is when someone calls you at work and makes death threats. It's when someone contacts your employer. It's when someone doxes your kids and makes violent threats against them. It's when your talk page is repeatedly vandalized with insults, attacks and threats. It's when someone follows you from one topic area to another just to grief you and try to make your Wikipedia editing experience as miserable as they can. And it's also when someone all of sudden decides to follow you around Wikipedia, Horse, making sniping bitey little comments obviously designed to WP:BAIT the other person into replying in an appropriate, albeit "incivil", manner. It's also when that someone taunts you about the other harassment you received, like for example here [110]. THAT's Harassment horse.

I'm pretty sure that if I HADN'T pinged Chapmansh, Horse would still be here, presenting evidence about how "Volunteer Marek failed to ping Chapmansh while mentioning her" or something similar. Volunteer Marek 04:22, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• She probably did not even notice it because she is not really active in the project. Of course, if she would come here and said she was offended by pings, that might be something to discuss. In my opinion, this is the most ridiculous piece of evidence submitted so far. My very best wishes (talk) 00:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I, too, find that evidence to be unconvincing. I share VM's concern that he would have been criticized if he had failed to ping Chapmansh. It also has crossed my mind that drafting Arbs have pinged me several times during this case, and I don't feel the least bit harassed by that. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:41, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of Use of Kot (1937) at Paradisus Judaeorum

As summarized here.

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This was. essentially, a regular dispute about content. I as highly active in it, because I was also the main contributor to that article (the proportion of my talk comments is simply the same as that of my article contributions there, when looking at the "added text" metric) and I was trying to get it to a Good Article status (in the end, because of the ongoing discussions, it failed, which makes it a rare case in my Good Article's writer career - I have successfully promoted over a 100 GAs). As part of the GA process, it is expected that I deal with the issues raised in the GA review and surrounding discussions, as the article has to be stable and all concerns, resolved (ping GA reviewer User:Chiswick Chap who first passed the article, then failed it due to instability on talk page).

The overall process was lenghty, but constructive. For example, the summary cites a request by Chumchum7 to use Matyjaszek (2017), Polonsky (2017) and Tokarska-Bakir (2004), it has been implemented in the article (see ex. here or here for me adding Tokarska-Bakir to the article).

I also believe that me and Sarah followed User:Chumchum7's suggestion to disengage from that particular issue, and as the summary states, the discussion then turned to the question of the article's name (and resulting discussion between User:Nihil novi, me, and Chumchum7 seemed polite and constructive - I've pinged them both here in case they'd like to offer their own interpretation of that discussion).

It is worth noting, for background context, that I became involved in that article after a request from the article's creator (User:Pharos at User_talk:Piotrus/Archive_60#Polish_epigram). Icewhiz stalked me and tried to get this article deleted (AfD) and even after AfD was closed as keep/rename, he tried to gut the article ([111] and edit warred about it, which IIRC made the artcle's creator, Pharos, give up and leave - that's a side note about who was causing neutral editors to burn out here...). And who was constructively trying to improve content (I worked on that article for ~3 years).

There is one more fact I'd like to raise (also keeping in mind this ArbCom was started by a peer reviewed paper). The extensive discussion related this article made me do throughout research on this topic, which resulted in me publishing a peer-reviewed paper about it in Contemporary Jewry ([112]). My paper is the second monograph dedicated to this topic (the first being Kot (1937)). I am pretty sure I can get our Wikipedia article to GA (I just keep forgetting to go to WP:COIN to ask for permission to use my paper as a source). The thing is that if we are veering into discussion of content, first, Wikipedia-wise, Kot (1937) has never been declared unreliable, and remains used in that article (I don't believe there even ever was an attempt to remove it, just discussion on talk), and second, as a scholar who published a peer-reviewed work on that topic, I'll say it still boggles my mind how anyone could argue that our article on topic Foo should not use what was back then the one and only monograph dedicated to the subject. Now, once I go through the motions at COIN, if anyone is concerned we are using an old source, we can probably mostly replace it with citations to my paper - but there is nothing wrong when it comes to citing classics, particulary when they are cited for uncontroversial claims - and as far as I remember, nobody ever raised an issue about any claims made by Kot in his monograph, the lenghty discussion was about whether Kot is reliable, and he remains reliable; in fact, around the same time I succesfully got Stanisław Kot article to Good Article, a process during which I consulted multiple monographs on (biographies of) Kot, and modern historians assessment of him is very positive. To quote from our GA's on Kot: According to Agnieszka Wałęga, Kot was "among the founders of the history of education as a scholarly discipline in Poland". Lucyna Hurło writes that "his works in the... history of education, culture, literature, and [the R]eformation and Antitrinitarianism exemplify [scholarly] reliability." Waclaw Soroka writes that "in Kot, the intellectual history of Poland and Eastern and Central Europe gained an outstanding researcher and exponent." Lech Szczucki has called him "likely the most influential and industrious Polish historian of the interwar period", and writes that his contribution to the study of the Polish Reformation is of extreme value. Wiktor Weintraub has termed him "one of the leading 20th-century Polish historians" and writes that "in the Polish scholarly community... Kot secured [a] position as a first-rank historian." Brock and Pietrzyk have assessed him to be a "historian of major stature". Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman [pl] summarized his life: "He left a vast scholarly legacy in the history of education and history of culture, including particularly the history of the Reformation.".

Bottom line: through extensive discussions, Wikipedia content is improving (and occasionally it even leads to constructive peer-reviewed research). I'd encourage all interested editors here to help with this and edit that article, which is pretty close to GA status - this would be a constructive thing to do, beneficial to Wikipedia. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:45, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

In case anyone has any concerns that the 1937 study by Kot is used for anything controversial, first, I’ll note that that particular study is cited by modern scholars (ex. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2004) [113], who calls his work “solid” on p.53 - please note that Tokarska-Bakir is an expert on, among other things, Polish antisemitism) and as far as I know it has never been subject to any criticism.

Second, here’s a list of sentences from our article referenced to Kot. IMHO, none are controversial and all concern literary analysis of the work in question:

• “Kot wrote that he [pasquinade’s author] may have been a Catholic townsman, perhaps a priest jealous of the influence of Jews and others, such as Protestants and nobility, who somehow competed with Catholic townspeople.”
• “The first translation of the 1606 Polish pasquinade from Latin into Polish appeared in the 1630s. Kot translated it in 1937”
• Kot thinks that the anonymous author of the 1606 pasquinade may have been inspired by examples of proverbs from other European countries… Kot concluded that proverbs of this sort likely inspired the anonymous author of the 1606 Polish pasquinade.”
• “Due to its criticism of the nobility, the proverb was most popular among townspeople; much less so among the nobility, whose writers, if they referred to it, used it mainly in the context of Polish Jewry”
• “Kot writes that other versions in the 17th and 18th centuries criticized the clergy, Gypsies, Italians, Germans, Armenians, and Scots: groups were added or removed from the list, depending on the authors' allegiances”
• “Some 17th- and 18th-century Polish authors, themselves either nobles or clients of the nobility, saw it as an attack on the nobility's Golden Freedoms and ascribed it to a foreign author, refusing to accept that a scathing criticism of Polish society could come from a Polish author. Kot writes that the pasquinades are some of the most pointed examples of self-criticism originating in Polish society and that the nobility's refusal to accept that such criticism could come from within that society reflects sadly on the deterioration of Polish discourse in the 18th and 19th centuries”

Is anything here remotely controversial? I don't think so. Note: as far as I remember, not a single fact from the list above has been challenged on article's talk; that entire lenghty discussion was weirdly concerned with whether Kot is reliable b/c of some comment or comments he made during WWII in his capacity as a politician. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

---

Zimmerman 2015 pp. 111 et seq is available on Gbooks preview. I encourage people to read what Zimmerman writes about Kot, and decide for yourselves whether what Zero just wrote about Zimmerman 2015 is accurate or is misrepresenting that source. Levivich (talk) 04:50, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Whatever Kot wrote in 1941, in his capacity as politician commenting on contemporary events, has zero (pun not intended) relevance to his completely uncontroversial 1937 study on literary history that we cite for comments about said literary history, ex. Kot writes that the pasquinades are some of the most pointed examples of self-criticism originating in Polish society and that the nobility's refusal to accept that such criticism could come from within that society reflects sadly on the deterioration of Polish discourse in the 18th and 19th centuries. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:15, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Whether Kot 1937 should be used as a source in an article is a content dispute (it shouldn't, because WP:AGEMATTERS, without even considering Kot's antisemitism, as pointed out in that 2020 discussion). Misrepresenting a source is a conduct issue. I'm only speaking up and dropping the link because Sarah can't. Levivich (talk) 12:45, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear: what source was misrepresnted and by whom? (edit conflict) As for content dispute, I concur it belongs on talk page(s), not here. Where we can discuss stuff like opinions by Bernard Wasserstein ("Kot (who was not regarded as an anti-Semite)") and Lech Szczucki ("Kot was popular among the students from ethnic minorities: he was a strong opponent of nationalism and antisemitism"). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:49, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

My view is that anyone can read Zimmerman 2015 pp. 111 and on, and see that Kot is antisemitic and Zimmerman says so. But my point is to encourage editors not to accept other editors' descriptions of sources without actually reading the sources and making up their own minds. That includes my description of sources, too. So I drop the link to make it easier. Levivich (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I think we can both agree that reading sources is good, and linking them is also good. Maybe this is a good place to end this thread (particularly as, correct me if I am wrong, no party was citing/mispresenting Zimmerman, so we are getting pretty off-topic). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:11, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Zero writes below, "All of this is close to the opposite of the claims that were made about this source." So editors should read the source, read what other editors said about the source, and compare the two. Levivich (talk) 13:16, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to disagree with the links that appear above about whether or not Kot was an antisemite.

Piotrus first links to a google books search result for Britain and the Jews of Europe here which is first ... from the Korean language version of Google books (Why is this in Korean? I can't understand why it's in Korean at all... Polish I could understand but Korean??? Can we NOT introduce yet another language into this topic area please???) and secondly is clearly a search for the phrase ... leaving it unclear whether or not the context of the selected quotation has been read. The page in question is available from the Internet Archive here for borrowing for an hour and it makes it clear that Wasserstein is saying that at the time of the discussion in April 1940 Kot was not considered anti-Semite at that time, i.e. in April 1940. This does not mean that Kot would not be considered an anti-Semite in retrospect nor does it have any bearing on whether or not current scholarship would regard his views would be antisemitic now. I'd like to point out the further information on page 124 of Wasserstein, where he says "Against the background of such equivocal attitudes in the senior ranks of the Polish military and official community in England, the public statements repudiating anti-Semitism had a rather hollow ring, and did little to restrain what was sometimes virulent anti-Jewish prejudice among lower ranks." I do not find that Wasserstein is coming out and saying that Kot was not anti-semitic - the clear context of this statement "not considered as an anti-Semite" is the time in 1940 during this discussion, not Wasserstein's own views of Kot nor what modern scholars might think of him. (Note that I can't get Biskupski on Internet Archive so I can't judge the context of his statement)

The second link is to this pdf from Szczucki which appears to be from the Repozytorium Cyfrowe Instiytutow Naukowych, or the Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes, and appears to be a copy of a document from the Renaissance and Reformation in Poland XLIII 1999 "Profiles of Scientists" which appears to be from the first paragraphs through Google Translate - either an obituary or a laudatory address... I would not consider this a good basis to analyze whether or not a scholar's works are tainted with antisemitic issues. Szczucki is clearly writing a laudatory obit or retrospective of a scholar's career and this context needs to be taken into account for any statements about controversial views or behavior. (I continued the Google Translate for the first five-six pages and it was clearly an account of Kot's life and scholarly work - I got up to after WWI and decided I had a clear idea of the context of the account)

Of course it's important to place older scholars' views within the context of their times - you'll note that I am not calling Kot an antisemite ... because I haven't done a deep dive into the subject - but it's also not possible to pull two sources up without context and conclude that he wasn't one or that his views now wouldn't be considered antisemitic... that would need a fuller discussion... the problem with the discussion at Paradisus Judaeorum is that the context of Wasserstein and Szczucki is not brought out and instead a small quote is used without context as if it supports one thing when the fuller context is much less clear (i.e. that Wasserstein is clearly discussing the view of Kot in 1940 and that Szczucki's account is not designed as a critical view of a scholar (there is nothing wrong with such accounts - they are very common after the death of a scholar, but they should not be used uncritically either))— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ealdgyth (talk • contribs) 14:16, April 1, 2023 (UTC)

First, technical note: the link may be Korean because I live in Korea. But the cited work is in English, so I am unclear what's the problem?

Second, I generally agree with you. Those are passing remarks. Just like Biskupski's (and arguably Zimmerman's). I am not aware of any in-depth study of Kot's attitudes to Jews (and I looked for it). Which is why we cannot really say what modern (or not so modern) scholars think about it. Why we spent so much time and word-count discussing 2-3 passing remarks is beyond me, particularly since the cited 1937 source is used solely for uncontroversial claims (that I cite above - do let me know if you think anything there is remotely controversial). And to be clear, like I said many times, I would not recommend or use Kot as a source on WWII Polish-Jewish history. But he is a renowned specialist in the context of the politics, ideologies, education, and literature of the 16th- and 17th-century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and related, and this is what he is used for. If he is good enough to be cited in this context by modern scholars like Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2004, linked above, and she explicitly calls his 1937 work "solid"), he should be good enough for us to use as a source in the same context, no? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:31, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Zimmerman's "passing remarks" go on for several pages. (Unfortunately I cannot read Tokarska-Bakir 2004, which is in Polish). Levivich (talk) 14:38, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I am happy to help with Polish sources. To quote from Tokarska-Bakir: zatrzymam się na chwilę przy znaczeniu tego przysłowia. Solidne statium źródłowe, publikowane w roku 1937, poświęcił mu Stanisław Kot, który przytacza następujący fragment... which translates as "I will dwell on the meaning of this proverb for a moment. Stanisław Kot, who published in 1937, devoted a solid source to it, and quotes the following excerpt.... She later cites Kot thoughts on the authorship (W przekonaniu Stanisława Kota, paszkwil ten dowodzi nieszlacheckiego (od siebie dodajmy na pewno też nieżydowskiego)...)->In the opinion of Stanisław Kot, this lampoon proves a non-noble (let us also add a non-Jewish) [autorship]..., and then goes on to agree with Kot that the original poem was not about tolerance, but xenophobia (Na podstawie wyjaśnień Kota i Klonowica, moralna intencja określenia "Polska rajem dla Źydów" rysuje się nieco inaczej niż się ją zazwyczaj prezentuje. W określeniu tym nie rozbrzmiewa głos tolerancyjnego gospodarza, ale sarkazm człowieka bezsilnego, przerażonego bezkarnością przybyszów...-> Based on the explanations of Kot and Klonowic, the moral intention of the term "Poland is a paradise for Jews" is somewhat different than it is usually presented. This term does not echo the voice of a tolerant host, but the sarcasm of a powerless man, terrified by the newcomers' impunity). The same point I make in my paper, which is in English and which you should be able to read. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:53, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

• After looking at page Stanisław Kot, i.e. who that man was, I would say his views would be certainly due on the page if summarized briefly and attributed as his opinion. Citing his views (whatever they might be) does not mean endorsing them. Same with many other Polish historians who appear in this case. My very best wishes (talk) 01:13, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  I have no opinion on the matter discussed here, but given Zero's comment below, I want to report what Zimmerman says about Kot's report of 25 November 1941. According to Kot, "the fate of the Jews is better" compared to the Poles because they are "neither tortured nor deported en masse to concentration camps". Kot acknowledges that the living conditions in the ghettos have "now crossed a line to that of a monstrosity", which explains why "Jews feel envy more than hate due to the Poles’ better living conditions in terms of food and work, forgetting the bloody exterminationist policies (krwawe polityki eksterminacyjnej) and monstrous persecution to which the Poles are subjected". In contrast to the Poles, who "hate [the Germans] with a passion", "Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants". Kot believes that "During these trying times, Jews cannot really forge an alliance with the Poles because their way of thinking and feeling cannot be grasped", "Polish society is terrified of excessive Jewish influence" and therefore – he concludes – "not only has the Jewish question not lost its sharpness, but it has, to the contrary, become significantly inflamed". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:52, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  This is really off topic since, for the n-th time, nobody is using Kot's 1940s writings as a source, or Kot as a source on WWII topics in general, but the crux of the issue, if I understand Zero's argument (shoot the messenger), is whether this is what Kot thinks, or what the sources tell him Polish populace thinks, and he is simply summarizing them? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:28, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks Gitz. For those who may not be aware of what it is: Jewish question. Levivich (talk) 02:51, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

• Zero I'm not misquoting the source. Kot, as reported by Zimmerman, writes about Polish perceptions in a way that expresses his own evaluations and bias. Thus, I will not refactor [my] misleading post, as you ask, but I will do the following:

1. I will ask you to refactor your post by removing the bold character from it per WP:SHOUT. Do you see anyone else using bold charachter here?
2. I will copy and paste in a box the while text of Zimmerman highlighting my quotations so that everyone can check who has misquoted, who has misrepresented and who has misunderstood.

Zimmerman, pp. 111-112

Meanwhile, the London government’s Council of Ministers received a report from the Polish ambassador to Soviet Russia, Stanisław Kot. Dated November 25, 1941, Kot’s report, “News from the Homeland,” took up the theme of Polish-Jewish relations. Based on accounts from German-occupied Poland, Kot offered a detailed discussion of the current state of Polish-Jewish relations. The four-page, typed, single-spaced report began with a pessimistic note, stating that in the period of the German-Soviet partition, one would have assumed that the persecution of both Jews and Poles “would have brought these two peoples, heretofore alien to one another, closer together – that the [shared experience] would have, at the very least, brought about a softening of the sharp influence of the Jewish question. The very opposite is nonetheless the case,” Kot wrote disappointingly.92 Kot, a professional historian from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, offered an extended analysis of why the gap between Poles and Jews had widened rather than narrowed. One factor driving a wedge between Poles and Jews, Kot argued, was related to German policy. Kot argued that Nazi Polish and Jewish policies played an important role in dividing the two communities. “Poles,” Kot wrote, “are to vanish from the face of the earth sooner or later by losing their national character or dying. The Jews – according to Nazi theory – are to be pushed out of Europe.” In addition to the different place of Jews and Poles in Nazi policy and ideology, the two people had been treated differently. Whereas Poles had been subject to “absolute terror, mass arrests, executions and deportations to concentration camps, torture, as well as to a range of political and national persecution which fell upon Polish society with monstrous force,” such treatment generally did not extend to the Jews, Kot argued. “Although destroyed economically, ruined, and knocked around,” Kot continued, “the Jews nonetheless were neither tortured nor deported en masse to concentration camps for a martyred death. From this perspective, the fate of the Jews is better. So deportations to labor camps in Germany – which so terribly oppress the Polish people – have not fallen on the Jews who only work as forced laborers in Poland – a huge difference.”93 While maintaining that Poles had been subject to more physical and political oppression, Ambassador Kot nonetheless acknowledged that living conditions for the Jews under German rule were decidedly worse. “If we take into consideration the masses then the situation of the Jews is, without question, significantly worse.” He continued, stipulating that “while the misery of the Polish people is today terrible, the extreme poverty in the ghettos has now crossed a line to that of a monstrosity.”94 Both Poles and Jews, Kot further maintained, had a tendency to focus on their own suffering while downplaying the other’s misery. Therefore, Poles saw themselves as the victims of oppression and terror under the Germans, including mass executions and deportations to Germany “while remembering less . . . about the horrific situation in the ghettos. On the other hand, Jews feel envy more than hate due to the Poles’ better living conditions in terms of food and work, forgetting the bloody exterminationist policies (krwawe polityki eksterminacyjnej) and monstrous persecution to which the Poles are subjected.” Another cause of Polish-Jewish antagonism, as Ambassador Kot stated, was the relations of the two peoples toward the German occupier. Poles “hate [the Germans] with a passion” and “hold their heads up high” while working for the future of a sovereign, free state. But, according to Kot, the majority of Jews had not devoted themselves to the Polish cause. Speaking of Polish perceptions, he stated that “in contrast [to Poles], Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants, etc.” Kot emphasized that even those Polonized Jews now in ghettos had lost their patriotic fervor. For these reasons, Kot maintained that a psychological transformation had taken place among the Poles by which it was believed “that the Jewish element was, is and will – unfortunately – always be foreign . . . [because] they lacked a common spiritual basis with a higher moral value than the material one. During these trying times, Jews cannot really forge an alliance with the Poles because their way of thinking and feeling cannot be grasped.”95 Kot added that “it also has to be remembered” that Jews under the Soviets “behaved, from the Polish perspective, hideously.” The most disturbing aspect of Ambassador Kot’s analysis was his portrayal of general Polish views on the Jews. Tapping into age-old stereotypes of Jews and money, Kot wrote the following: Polish society is terrified of excessive Jewish influence. It is afraid that the need to import foreign capital into a decimated Poland would give the international financial Israelite magnates excessive power in the country, and that this might, in turn, enchain the country to “an economic Jewish slavery.” Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland, a fervent wish of the Polish nation. Kot concluded with the evaluation that “not only has the Jewish question not lost its sharpness, but it has, to the contrary, become significantly inflamed.”96

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:59, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

What Zero says here (at 12:29, 2 April 2023) is correct. However, it must be supplemented by noting that on 25 November 1941 (the date of Kot's report) the mass murder of Jews had already begun in eastern Poland, and this must have been known to Kot, as it was known to the Home Army.

In June more than 2,000 Jews had been killed in Białystok, hundreds of them burnt alive in the synagogue; in July at least 400 had been killed in Jedwabne and hundreds more in Radziłów (see Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia, vol. III, 2012, pp. 419 ff.). Moreover, the Einsatzgruppen had already begun their mass shooting of Jews, killing thousands in Łuck and Równe (see USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. II, pp. 1412, 1460). As reported by Zimmerman himself (p. 113),

Just when Ambassador Kot filed his analysis with the London government’s Ministry of Information and Documentation, the ZWZ-Home Army’s BIP submitted an intelligence report on the situation in Eastern Poland. In southeastern Poland, the report cited several mass executions of Jews. In Równe and Łuck, the report stated, the number of massacres that had taken place was estimated at a total of 22,000 Jews

My point is not that Kot was antisemitic or that he shouldn't be used as a source: I'm just saying that if one wants to prove that he was not antisemitic, one cannot rely either on Zimmerman or on what Kot wrote in November 1941. I'm happy that Zero acknowledges that his reading doesn't mean he [Kot] didn't share any of the opinions he reported on, but this text only provides evidence for that in a few limited cases. Inevitably encyclopaedists want to discuss these kinds of things: I propose that the conversation, if it is to continue, continue in Stanisław Kot's talk page. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:28, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

While it's true the Final Solution began in 1942, Holocaust by bullets in Poland began in 1939, two years before Kot 1941. Levivich (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

As did various other Nazi crimes against the Polish nation. More constructively: Knowledge of the Holocaust should not be a red link. If my time wasn't sunk into a certain arbitration case, I know what I'd be stubbing right now... (semi-relevant: International response to the Holocaust, and in particular: Raczyński's Note and The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:28, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

There is a serious misconception about a point in this referenced debate that should be clarified. The talk page discussion started by Sarah cites a 1941 report of Kot described in Zimmerman (2015), The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945, pp111–112, as evidence of Kot's antisemitism. However, Kot's report was about the attitudes of the Polish population, not for the most part a statement of Kot's own opinions. Zimmerman takes pains to make this clear. Kot's report was "a detailed discussion of the current state of Polish-Jewish relations". "The most disturbing aspect of Ambassador Kot’s analysis was his portrayal of general Polish views on the Jews." Even the sentence quoted by Sarah begins "Speaking of Polish perceptions". We don't need to guess what Kot's own opinions were because Zimmerman tells us: Kot "wrote disappointingly" that Polish-Jewish relations had widened rather than narrowed since the German–Soviet occupation. All of this is close to the opposite of the claims that were made about this source. The purpose of the report was also summarised in Fleming (2014), Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust : "the British were advised of anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland by Stanisław Kot" (p86).

Kot's belief that Polish-Jewish relations had broken down irreparably led him to suggest to a delegation of British Jews in 1940 that many Polish Jews might wish to emigrate after the war. (Note that this was a year before the Nazis settled on mass extermination as the fate of the Jews.) Palestine and southern Russia were mentioned as possible destinations. This is the only reason other authors provide for their declarations that Kot was an antisemite. One of those Jews later described the meeting as "friendly discussions which we had the pleasure of having with you" (Fleming, p327).

(Arbitrators can ask me for these pages or even the whole books.) Zero^talk 04:27, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

It is clear that Kot accepted a common stereotype about Jews and international finance, but the heart of the passage is about the Jews of Poland and there Zimmerman is very clear that Kot was attempting to describe the attitudes of the Polish population as a whole. It is a very unflattering description but not an excuse to shoot the messenger. Anyway, Piotrus is right that this has no relevance to the reliability of a scholarly work Kot wrote on a different topic at a different time. If we eliminate authors according to the worst things they ever said there wouldn't be many left. Zero^talk 01:47, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

A couple of pertinent quotations from the Wikipedia biography on Stanisław Kot:

"At university he [...] clashed with right-wing National Democrats over his insistence on respecting the rights of the region's ethnic Ukrainian citizens. Kot also rejected the National Democrats' antisemitism."

"Kot was popular with his students, particularly those from ethnic minorities, and has been described as 'a strong opponent of nationalism and antisemitism'".

"[M]any outstanding Polish scholars of Jewish descent, when up for promotions, ran into difficulties for 'extra-scholastic' reasons... One of the most outstanding historians, Józef Feldman, had trouble getting through his habilitation because one of the [examining] professors had maliciously prepared questions that were impossible to answer (Prof. Stanisław Kot came to [Feldman's] rescue, declaring that if Feldman were not given his habilitation, he [Kot] would resign his own [professorial] chair, because he did not know the answers to the questions either)"

His opposition to the antisemitism then common among Polish chauvinists has been attributed to the political activism that he had begun in his student days.

References

Nihil novi (talk) 06:04, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Most of Kot's Wikipedia article was written by Piotrus. Nihil Novi is #2. There was some other stuff in the Kot article that was removed. Levivich (talk) 03:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Levivich, when looking up the history of the "Stanisław Kot" article, had you bothered to see what I actually contributed to the article – rather than merely how often my name appears in its history – you would have discovered that it was all just copyediting for flow, with no addition of substance except for my adding the lead photograph of Stanisław Kot.

Your comment only distracts from the substantive discussion concerning Kot as a reliable source for the "Paradisus Judaeorum" article.

Nihil novi (talk) 08:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Gitz6666: It would help if you didn't misquote the source.

• Zimmerman wrote "Speaking of Polish perceptions, he stated that 'in contrast [to Poles], Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants, etc.'" By leaving the first part out, you turned what Kot is reporting about the perceptions of the Polish population into an opinion held by Kot.
• Similarly your text "Kot believes that 'During these trying times, Jews cannot really forge an alliance with the Poles...'" is a serious misquote because Zimmerman does not say that Kot believed that. What Zimmerman actually writes is that "Kot maintained that a psychological transformation had taken place among the Poles by which it was believed ...". Over and over, at least four times, Zimmerman stresses that Kot is referring to the Polish population and not to himself. You really should try to read more carefully, and you should refactor your misleading post. Zero^talk 06:57, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Gitz6666 claims "Kot, as reported by Zimmerman, writes about Polish perceptions in a way that expresses his own evaluations and bias." Says who? Not Zimmerman, only Gitz6666. Now you double down and present the text with your cherry-picked sentence fragments underlined. Why didn't you underline the bits that cast a different light on it?

Zimmerman, pp. 111-112

Meanwhile, the London government’s Council of Ministers received a report from the Polish ambassador to Soviet Russia, Stanisław Kot. Dated November 25, 1941, Kot’s report, “News from the Homeland,” took up the theme of Polish-Jewish relations. Based on accounts from German-occupied Poland [Zero notes:Kot wasn't in Poland], Kot offered a detailed discussion of the current state of Polish-Jewish relations. The four-page, typed, single-spaced report began with a pessimistic note, stating that in the period of the German-Soviet partition, one would have assumed that the persecution of both Jews and Poles “would have brought these two peoples, heretofore alien to one another, closer together – that the [shared experience] would have, at the very least, brought about a softening of the sharp influence of the Jewish question. The very opposite is nonetheless the case,” Kot wrote disappointingly.92 Kot, a professional historian from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, offered an extended analysis of why the gap between Poles and Jews had widened rather than narrowed. One factor driving a wedge between Poles and Jews, Kot argued, was related to German policy. Kot argued that Nazi Polish and Jewish policies played an important role in dividing the two communities. “Poles,” Kot wrote, “are to vanish from the face of the earth sooner or later by losing their national character or dying. The Jews – according to Nazi theory – are to be pushed out of Europe.” In addition to the different place of Jews and Poles in Nazi policy and ideology, the two people had been treated differently. Whereas Poles had been subject to “absolute terror, mass arrests, executions and deportations to concentration camps, torture, as well as to a range of political and national persecution which fell upon Polish society with monstrous force,” such treatment generally did not extend to the Jews, Kot argued. “Although destroyed economically, ruined, and knocked around,” Kot continued, “the Jews nonetheless were neither tortured nor deported en masse to concentration camps for a martyred death. From this perspective, the fate of the Jews is better. So deportations to labor camps in Germany – which so terribly oppress the Polish people – have not fallen on the Jews who only work as forced laborers in Poland – a huge difference.”93 While maintaining that Poles had been subject to more physical and political oppression, Ambassador Kot nonetheless acknowledged that living conditions for the Jews under German rule were decidedly worse. “If we take into consideration the masses then the situation of the Jews is, without question, significantly worse.” He continued, stipulating that “while the misery of the Polish people is today terrible, the extreme poverty in the ghettos has now crossed a line to that of a monstrosity.”94 Both Poles and Jews, Kot further maintained, had a tendency to focus on their own suffering while downplaying the other’s misery. Therefore, Poles saw themselves as the victims of oppression and terror under the Germans, including mass executions and deportations to Germany “while remembering less . . . about the horrific situation in the ghettos. On the other hand, Jews feel envy more than hate due to the Poles’ better living conditions in terms of food and work, forgetting the bloody exterminationist policies (krwawe polityki eksterminacyjnej) and monstrous persecution to which the Poles are subjected.” Another cause of Polish-Jewish antagonism, as Ambassador Kot stated, was the relations of the two peoples toward the German occupier. Poles “hate [the Germans] with a passion” and “hold their heads up high” while working for the future of a sovereign, free state. But, according to Kot, the majority of Jews had not devoted themselves to the Polish cause. Speaking of Polish perceptions, he stated that “in contrast [to Poles], Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants, etc.” Kot emphasized that even those Polonized Jews now in ghettos had lost their patriotic fervor. For these reasons, Kot maintained that a psychological transformation had taken place among the Poles by which it was believed “that the Jewish element was, is and will – unfortunately – always be foreign . . . [because] they lacked a common spiritual basis with a higher moral value than the material one. During these trying times, Jews cannot really forge an alliance with the Poles because their way of thinking and feeling cannot be grasped.”95 Kot added that “it also has to be remembered” that Jews under the Soviets “behaved, from the Polish perspective, hideously.” The most disturbing aspect of Ambassador Kot’s analysis was his portrayal of general Polish views on the Jews. Tapping into age-old stereotypes of Jews and money, Kot wrote the following: Polish society is terrified of excessive Jewish influence. It is afraid that the need to import foreign capital into a decimated Poland would give the international financial Israelite magnates excessive power in the country, and that this might, in turn, enchain the country to “an economic Jewish slavery.” Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland, a fervent wish of the Polish nation. Kot concluded with the evaluation that “not only has the Jewish question not lost its sharpness, but it has, to the contrary, become significantly inflamed.”96

The whole thing is exactly what Zimmerman explicitly says it was, namely a report on Polish-Jewish interrelations. I was wrong that Zimmerman said that 4 times; actually he said it 9 times. Kot was a professional historian analysing a society and his report was a report on that society, not an op-ed. That doesn't mean he didn't share any of the opinions he reported on, but this text only provides evidence for that in a few limited cases. Zero^talk 09:28, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, and I'll try to be brief as this feels off-topic for this case, at the time of Kot's report (Nov 1941) it is true that Poles and not Jews were being sent as slave laborers to Germany and sent in large numbers to the concentration camps. Jews had been mostly ghettoised but not sent to camps yet. From June 1940 to mid-1942, the inmates of Auschwitz were mostly thousands of Polish political prisoners, "members of the intelligentsia and anyone potentially involved in the Polish nationalist resistance, above all teachers, scientists, clerics and doctors" (Steinbacher, Auschwitz, A History, Ch. 2). Some Jews in those categories incidentally were included, but the mass murder of Jews as Jews started later. The Reinhard death camps started killing Jews in early 1942. What Kot wrote should be judged according to the facts at the time he wrote it. Zero^talk 12:29, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I haven't read the source material on its own, but based upon what Zero has presented here, it appears to me that Gitz (with some encouragement from Levivich) may be seriously misrepresenting source material right here on a case page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Note that there is no point arguing on the basis of what Kot didn't say, as we don't know what he didn't say. We only have a few sentences out of a long report. For example, we don't know whether or not Kot mentioned mass shootings. Zero^talk 01:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of Andreas' evidence (UCoC violation)

Evidence

Personal_information_in_Wikipedia's_Intentional_Distortion_of_the_History_of_the_Holocaust

Analysis

The Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on December 9, 2020. [114]

The Universal Code of Conduct is in force. It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by Wikimedia Foundation officers or staff nor local policies of any Wikimedia project. [115]

The Code's "Unacceptable behaviour" section includes "harassment". The definition of "harassment" includes the following:

Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects.

As the Committee is no doubt aware, the essay by Grabowski and User:Chapmansh shares other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment, [...] without their explicit consent, and shares information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees approved the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines on March 9, 2023. [116]

Once again, the Wikimedia Foundation has stated that these guidelines may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by Wikimedia Foundation officers or staff nor local policies of any Wikimedia project. [117]

The m:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines state:

Enforcement of the UCoC by local governance structures will be supported in multiple ways. Communities will be able to choose from different mechanisms or approaches based on several factors such as: the capacity of their enforcement structures, approach to governance, and community preferences. Some of these approaches can include:

• An Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) for a specific Wikimedia project

Will the Committee take action in this case to enforce the Wikimedia Foundation's Universal Code of Conduct? --Andreas JN466 17:02, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Is it your or any other arbitrators' contention that the quoted parts of the Code have not been violated?

The WMF is absolutely clear that the Code supersedes any English Wikipedia policy. And with the best will in the world, I cannot see any way in which the essay can be deemed to be in compliance with the Code, according to the plain meaning of the English words written there. --Andreas JN466 00:52, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct makes no mention of prior on-wiki disclosures figuring in any way in the assessment of harassment. That aspect has traditionally played a role in English Wikipedia policy, but it is absent from the Code – which the Wikimedia community has just voted with a very large majority to have enforced, with ArbCom as the prime enforcement mechanism. The Code may not be circumvented or ignored, so we should focus discussion on the Code rather than past policy. --Andreas JN466 22:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

It is certainly possible for Wikipedians to harass each other off-wikipedia. In fact the most of the worst harassment of Wikipedians, including in this topic area, happens off-wiki. The Universal Code of Conduct rightly bars this. In my analysis, however, the UCoC isn't all that relevant here because English Wikipedia policies already duplicate or exceed the minimum standards of the UCoC when it comes to harassment, including doxing and OUTING. So even without the UCoC we would still be considering this issue. The core question to answer, for me, is whether journalists writing for a reliable source or professors publishing in an academic journal are violating Wikipedia policies and guidelines if they also happen to be Wikipedia editors? Barkeep49 (talk) 18:56, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: you're right that I left out important context in my initial response. A review of the personal information in G&K by a few oversighters and then by the Committee as a whole determined the information had been disclosed on-wiki by those editors. If all we were doing is enforcing the UCoC, I could stop there. But because it's English Wikipedia policies that matter and our policies go beyond the minimums of the UCoC, I think further consideration is needed. And I interpret the enwiki harassment policy to say that even if something has been disclosed on-wiki it can still be OUTING/harassment but a wholeistic interpetation of the situation is needed. Which is how I land on the question I posed above. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: I welcome you to assert which information was not contained either directly or in the linked identity in the diff you have expressed concern about. I believe in further discussion there were also other diffs but that's the one I know off the top of my head. Happy to take that answer here or privately as despite it not being OUTing I have shared your concern about opening up your identity further. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:28, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

@Piotrus: thanks for that feedback on a potential principle. I had seen you write about the concept before but had seen it as more of an issue for an Institutional review board than for Wikipedia. However, the potential for a principle is definitely worth considering and obviously could be with-in our remit. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:51, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I believe this is also relevant to my evidence presented here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:18, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I was not outed. My concern is serious accusations, such as those of "intentional Holocaust distortion". Arbitration Committee's very own principles, linked above, say: For example, claims of stalking, sexual harassment, or racism could harm an editor's job prospects or personal life, especially when usernames are closely linked to an individual's real name. These types of comments are absolutely never acceptable without indisputable evidence.

As an academic researching Wikipedia myself, I fully endorse all manners of research, and media coverage, on and about Wikipedia. I draw the line, however, at naming any individuals, perhaps outside obvious trolls, in negative context. This is common sense when it comes to ethical research (see ex. APA's statement on ethics code Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming... research participants... or perhaps more relevant, Royal Historical Society's Statement on Good Practice: taking particular care when research concerns those still living and when the anonymity of individuals is required. In my own field, sociology, ASA's ethical code states: Sociologists take all reasonable steps to implement protections for the rights and welfare of research participants as well as other persons and groups that might be affected due to the research... In their research, sociologists do not behave in ways that increase risk, or are threatening to the health or life of research participants or others.

Therefore I believe that the Committee should formulate a guidance to academics researching or writing about English Wikipedia, perhaps informed by Wikipedia:Ethically researching Wikipedia wbich also briefly mentions something about doing no harm to participants and wasting volunteer time (which is what, IMHO, we are mostly doing here) - although that page does not seem to consider issues related to off-wiki harassment through serious accusations, or outing issues. The Committee may suggest to the Community that that page needs an update. As to what to do with academics and similar individuals who violate our policies and have on-wikipedia accounts, while I generally agree with Tryptofish's view that nobody should get special treatment, I'd like to note that some academics also do uncontroversial "teaching with Wikipedia" activities, so any sanctions on academics may contain an exception to their activity as a course leader (assuming said activity was not found problematic in itself). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:19, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

@User:Barkeep49 A review of the personal information in G&K by a few oversighters and then by the Committee as a whole determined the information had been disclosed on-wiki by those editors. This is simply not true. I have never disclosed where I work/employer on-wiki. Grabowski and Klein got this info from "somewhere else" (take your guess). If I'm wrong I would like to see a diff.

This is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that one of the forms of harassment that Icewhiz engaged in was contacting my employer/encouraging others to do so. Why do I even have to explain this in public, potentially opening myself up to even more abuse???

Even regarding the 14 year old diff where I disclose my name - I have tried to get that oversighted and was told by oversighters that it would be "too complicated" to remove it. In other words I have certainly tried to have it removed but was refused so that's kind of crappy too. Volunteer Marek 02:16, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

And just as a reminder, as User:Jayen466 quotes from the UCoC: "Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment" <-- it's right there. Volunteer Marek 02:18, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that my initial reaction was justified. While the G&K paper is an RS that we should be allowed to use to remedy many mistakes and shortcomings, the page on VM mentioning his name and profession is an attack on the serenity and independence of editing here, which is the purpose of WP:HERASS, WP:CIV and WP:NPA to proect. It's an ugly misstep, which should not go unnoticed [118]. In fact, that paragraph on VM is completely gratuitous and non-academic. Why did they even think that VM's uncivility (which is truly astounding) is relevant to the reader? They are clearly speaking as Wikipedians to Wikipedians: they are not addressing Holocaust scholars [119]. Furthermore (and I think I said this somewhere, but now I can't find the diff) to claim that it was not WP:OUTING because VM had voluntarily released his private information seems to me a mere formalism contrary to common sense. It had been 14 years since this had happened and the information was no longer in the public domain. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 03:50, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Gitz6666, there is a very simple explanation for why that section was included in the paper. It's really not that hard to figure out, especially given the overall nature of the second portion of the paper, roughly paragraphs 30 through 60, which are literally just mechanically going through every single WP:AE report Icewhiz filed and every dispute resolution he was part of (with one exception - the paragraphs on Richard Lukas are inserted in there).

I might as well point out here that the instances of my "incivility" that they quote are:

1. My comments in response to Icewhiz's Request for a Case in 2019, where he falsely accused me of "Holocaust Distortion" by presenting diffs by OTHER users and insinuating they were mine. I lost my temper when accused of something like that. How do you respond to somebody making such vile accusations against you in obvious bad faith? Regardless, those comments were precisely why I got the topic ban from that case (I wasn't the only editor he tried to pull such tricks with and not the only one who lost their temper. Same thing happened with User:Malik Shabazz (whom you mentioned in another context - while we had our disagreements in 2009, we actually became Wiki-friends subsequently and I even supported his RfA), who was hounded off Wikipedia by Icewhiz (you know, another person "driven off")

2. My comments from ... 2016 (7 years ago) on talk page of Jared Taylor, a white supremacist. Here, everyone go look for themselves [120]. There I got fed up with an account named "User:James J. Lambden" who was trying to whitewash Taylor's racism. So this is a completely different topic area, which makes the fact that they chose to quote THIS particular instance a bit strange. Volunteer Marek 05:09, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

where he [Icewitz] falsely accused me of "Holocaust Distortion" by presenting diffs by OTHER users and insinuating they were mine. This is interesting because I thought the same about the article by G&K. They first declare a number of contributors whose editing they do not like to belong to a "group". Then, they find problematic edits by some people (mostly banned and inactive contributors) who they say belong to the "group". Then, they implicitly and explicitly accuse (or make look guilty) all members of the "group" of the deeds by the troublemakers. Actually, this is a typical approach used during Stalinist trials, but I would rather not quote newspaper Pravda because some participants might find this offensive. My very best wishes (talk) 13:36, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

In case anyone needs evidence to back up what MVBW and VM said, see User:Piotrus/Response#12._Collective_responsibility. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:49, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others

As we all know, ArbCom passed a motion at the start of this case, concluding that Chapmansh did not violate the outing policy. I suppose that one could make an argument that, in doing so, they already enforced the Code of Conduct by examining the paper and making a finding of fact that the Code had not been violated, and consequently, the analysis here is out-of-scope. That would certainly be the easy way out. But I would like to strongly recommend that ArbCom not do that. And I'm going to set aside another easy tack, that the motion did not address the CoC, just en-wiki policy, and that, in focusing on outing, the motion did not address the broader issues of off-wiki harassment and damage to Wikipedia. That would be wikilawyering, so I'm not going to do it. Instead, I'm going to come right out and say that ArbCom needs to reconsider that part of the motion, and be ready to modify it. In fairness, I want to recognize that it appeared at the time to be a political compromise within the Committee, and that it was motivated in part by a generous desire not to cause harm to an editor who is mainly concerned with being a course instructor and who published something offsite as part of her professional duties. But it was still problematic to prejudge the matter before accepting evidence, and I would argue that it has boxed ArbCom into a corner that ArbCom now needs to get out of. Personally, it seems to me that the G&K paper does fall afoul of the CoC in a way that raises problems about an author of the paper being able to continue to edit on Wikimedia projects. Continue to pursue her scholarly work offsite, no problem, and no business of ArbCom's. But, given that offsite work, ArbCom cannot pretend that it has no implications for continuing to contribute under the Terms of Use. I'm telling you that there are members of the editing community who are uncomfortable with just letting this pass. And I'm telling you that, once there is a decision that the G&K paper is not a problem, there will be no bottom to the amount of future harassment where the perpetrators will try to wrangle a justification for it out of that ArbCom decision. Whether this means you have to sanction Chapmansh, I don't know. You probably can find a good outcome without doing that. But you are going to have to spell out the principles that apply, and to do so in a specific, clear, and thoughtful way that will hold up under a microscope. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: thanks for discussing this. I'll say again that I think that Wikipedia has no right to interfere with journalists or academics doing what they do professionally, offsite. The distinction that needs to be made as a matter of careful logic is how their offsite work might or might not impact what they do as editors. Where you ask whether professionals publishing in reliable sources can violate policy "if they also happen to be Wikipedia editors", I think we have to turn that around and ask if Wikipedia editors violate policy, do they become a different category of Wikipedia editor if they also happen to have certain professions? So, does ArbCom want to legislate a new policy (one that does not currently exist in the community), that journalists and academics are not subject to the same policies as other editors? If a journalist or academic engaged in undisclosed paid editing to promote their place of employment, wouldn't we still hold them accountable, rather than give them a special dispensation based on their professions? Beyond doubt, we would. So is there some sort of rationale that says that journalists and academics have to obey the paid editing policy, but not the harassment policy? The answer should be an easy no. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: That additional information is very helpful. I've deliberately not been looking to see what the alleged "outing" might have been, for obvious reasons. So it's new information to me that a careful review found that the personal information in question had already been voluntarily supplied onsite. (Now I'm assuming that this really was voluntary, and not something engineered by Icewhiz.) That's very significant. I tend to think that this fact takes the situation out of the arena of something-that-must-be-harshly-sanctioned. As you say, this is something to be interpreted holistically. If I reach into my (non-reliable source) magic ball of "what the Proposed Decision should say", I think I'm seeing something about "Chapmansh advised" – but not just a complete omission of the issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I've struck through most of my last comment, because, on reflection, I've come to have serious reservations about what I said, and I worry that I have done a disservice by prematurely putting a happy face where it might not belong. I came to that change of heart on my own, but on logging in and seeing further comments, I am even more concerned. From what VM said here, it sounds very much like the characterization of the personal information as having all been voluntarily disclosed onsite is simply incorrect. If that's the case, we are dealing with an unambiguous violation of our harassment policy, as well as of the CoC, in the G&K paper, and there is no getting around what that would mean for continued editing here. (As I've said before, continued scholarly work as an academic, fine, but ArbCom's responsibility is to determine future editing onsite.)

Even before seeing that, I was thinking about Piotrus' evidence and my own, that demonstrate that Chapmansh was editing here well before the publication of the paper, and was making edits in the content area of the case scope that went well beyond a simple role as a WikiEd course instructor, into actually being a participant in content disputes. I'm trying to make up my mind whether – interpreting this information "holistically" – this puts the situation into one of taking what began as an onsite content dispute, and pursuing it offsite, with possible implications for WP:OWH, where the issue of personal information disclosure becomes extremely sensitive. Had the paper been published on, for example, the Wikipediocracy blog, ArbCom would doubtless be treating it differently than a peer-reviewed academic publication. So ArbCom needs to have a clear rationale for treating it differently. Such a rationale would have to depend on the existence of academic peer review. But it's important to understand that academic peer review would never concern itself with whether the authors had a prior conflict with other editors at Wikipedia. In that specific regard, the actual circumstances of the G&K paper are indistinguishable from something at Wikipediocracy. Academic peer review makes the "optics" different, but not the substance for the specific purposes of this ArbCom case.

Furthermore, the G&K paper is what we, here, would call a primary source, reliable for the views of the authors. But it's not a secondary source, because the authors were not summarizing publications by various scholars of Wikipedia's coverage of the topic area. The views of G&K are their own views of where Wikipedia gets it wrong, not the consensus views of scholars in that area of history. Using Barkeep49's analogy to journalists, there are distinctions between a journalist who simply reports the facts, one who writes opinion pieces, and one who also campaigns for or against a candidate or a position.

Whatever ArbCom may or may not conclude about Chapmansh's conduct regarding personal information, there are also some serious considerations about whether we should restrict her ability to have her students edit within the case scope topic area. Currently, her class is not editing there, but her classes have done so in the past, and ArbCom cannot pretend that there is no possibility of students getting caught in the middle of a dispute between their instructor and other editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

It gets worse. If ArbCom confirms what VM has said about personal information, I can think of only three possibilities for how that information found its way into the G&K paper. Either: the authors found it by conducting what I might call "opposition research", or they were told it by Icewhiz, or they found it by looking at something that Icewhiz had posted somewhere. I can't see any way for ArbCom not to take this seriously. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

There is a fair amount of gaming the system going on here. Yes, in principle, peer-reviewed academic articles deserve our full respect, but when those articles are written by editors with an axe to grind, the potential for abuse is obvious. At that point, WP:IAR is triggered: the liabilities to the project are significantly outweighed by any benefits deriving from quoting such publications. — Biruitorul ^Talk 09:14, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

François Robère evidence, "Editors' conduct" section

Evidence (from Analysis of Collaboration with the Axis powers, moved back to my sandbox for rewriting)

Analysis

Re: As Elinruby put it: "polite distortions of the truth seem to prevail in wiki proceedings over attempts to defend it that also express irritation."[121]

I stated this as a general rule and am correctly quoted; I just wanted to note that while I do still think that this is a true statement, the two editors who have so far publicly agreed with me were talking about quite different situations than I was.

I for one found that interesting and do not envy the arbitrators their task.

I also addressed a question to François on the evidence talk page that Barkeep asked me to move here, about an old edit summary from Collaboration with the Axis powers ca. 2018, where he called some text in the Jewish collaboration section "blood libel". I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the description, just neutrally asking if he would like to expand on that or anything else in the diffs provided for context: [122][123][124][125] [126][127][128]

Just so that doesn't seem like a gotcha question, it may be worth pointing out that a page patroller tagged the Poland section of the article as long (patroller tagging), whereupon another editor at the page accused François of vandalism. [129]. Noting that. Elinruby (talk) 08:24, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I used the term "blood libel" in 2018 in the context of a statement on "Jewish collaborationist baiting techniques".[130][131]. This poorly-sourced idea that Jewish agents used to entrap Christian families seemed to reflect two common elements of blood libels: the use of deception and kidnap by Jews in the service of a secret agenda, and their need for Christian blood. François Robere (talk) 20:48, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

FYI for those unfamiliar, from Blood libel#20th century and beyond:

The 1944–1946 Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, which according to some estimates killed as many as 1000–2000 Jews (237 documented cases), involved, among other elements, accusations of blood libel, especially in the case of the 1946 Kielce pogrom.

See also: "Although the starting point for all the Polish postwar pogroms (save for one) was a blood libel", "The Last Blood Libel in Poland — Kielce 1946", "The blood libel is alive and well--in fact and fiction!", and many more. Levivich (talk) 23:35, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, Tokarska-Bakir (2004) cited above has a chapter on blood libel in her work as well. Btw, this is not a topic I am very familiar with, but shouldn't this be mentioned in Eucharistic_miracle#Flesh,_blood_and_levitation? That article, btw, mentions Jews only in one sentence: An alleged 1370 Brussels miracle involves an allegation of host desecration; a Jew attempted to stab several Hosts, but they miraculously bled and were otherwise unharmed. On the subject of repating/endorsing antisemitic myths, perhaps someone should take a look at that article? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Good point, Piotrus. I will look at that if nobody else gets to it before I do. Here is a follow-up question for anyone who cares to comment: if something an editor says is received as "blood libel" then what is an appropriate response from that editor? (Note that I explicitly am stating that I don't know enough about this to evaluate the statement on my own, so this is an honest question with no gotcha.) Conversely, can calling something an editor has written be construed as "fighting words"? I am asking this question in the abstract, although of course there is an example of this here. If anyone wishes to comment on the situation, note that the diffs above are just a representative sample, and this all went on for a really long time,so if you must comment on the specific situation, please comment on all of it. Also that this isn't a situation where anyone is in peril of sanctions, since François already got a short block, I believe that this situation predates Gizzy's topic ban, and the other people involved are not parties. Elinruby (talk) 01:14, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Piotrus I just changed "a Jew" to "somebody", since I didn't want to get into the historicity of miracles and it's really not relevant to the account of the miracle who it was that supposedly did this. What do you think? You can answer on my t/p if you prefer Elinruby (talk) 01:30, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby Perhaps that article's talk page would be best. I concur the change is likely correct per your reasoning. The miracle is relevant, the changed detail is problematic and arguably irrelevant outside being an antisemitic trope. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:01, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Analysis of FeydHuxtable evidence

Evidence

WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II_and_the_history_of_Jews_in_Poland/Evidence#VolunteerMarek_interaction_deep_dive

Analysis

Despite spending 20+ hours on a deep dive as requested by Wugs, Im torn on if Ive presented my findings fairly, and as to what sort of remedy they indicate. Im leaning to the view that VM would benefit from an adomishment level directive to comply with WP:Cival , in its broadest sense, if he choses to futher edit in this TA, as an upgrade to the useful Callanecc restriction . But if Arbs chose to give VM an exoneration & commendation, I couldn't deny there's plenty of evidence for such a result.

One thing I am confident on, even if it may equate to platitude level of obviousness, is that full compliance with WP:CIVAL in its broad sense by all involved editors, seem extra desirable for this sensitive topic class, especially the call for radical compassion for different perspectives, e.g. not just 'how would I feel if someone said that to me', but How would I feel if someone said that to someone I love who cannot just 'brush it off'?

Some may benefit from reading WP:ENEMY - just an essay, but if one is going to be forcefully bossing article content like VM sometimes seems to, it's a near essential practice for compliance with the non negotiable WP:NPOV policy. VM's editing as competition philosophy as laid out in his essay and exemplified by his conduct is admirable to a degree, and in other topic classes I've direct experience of it leading to article improvement just like he says. But competition generally means there has to be both winners & losers. Competition mode isn't that far from gladiator mode, and who does that serve?

Competitive editing seems at best orthogonal to the sort of win-win collaboration encouraged by WP:Cival. And especially not appropriate for hyper sensitive areas like holocaust adjacent topics. What Im less confident on, but which I guess was the guiding thought for how I presented my evidence, is that in this sensitive TA, the competitive approach, combined with VM's past aggressive editing , apparent aversion to sugar coating his words, etc, may have led others to see him as at best unsympathetic, even as a bad actor, and hence he triggers emotional effects that don't bring out the best from normally excellent editors.

Im self boxing the rest of my analyses, its not compareable to the quality sourced based analyses many of you guys are posting, maybe isn't worth anyones time, but some may find value in it as Im looking at matters a little differently than others.

Expansion on the above, sub boxes on Dov Levin, Icewhiz, Polish heroism

In my investigation, I found VM invariably seemned correct in his various complaints on opponents making false claims about what sources and diffs actually say. But one of his assertions seems wrong – when he suggests folks are counting on admins to be too busy or lazy(!) to do the work to verify said claims. That implies they are dishonest. I don't think that's the case with most of the quality long term editors VM has tangled with. Rather, they get provoked into a 'passion rules reason' state that all of us are prone to under the right duress. When folk are emotional about something - but lack the time, energy or clarity to make an optimal rational decision – they'll sometimes fall back on heuristic shortcuts. In this case, possibly: 'VMs a baddie – the opposite of what suits him is for the best!'. VM's propensity to use belittling language etc may have helped create such an impression. Along with his apparent aversion to sugar coating his words – sometimes even if you have a great grip on the sources, you should take care to express extra empathy for different perspectives when discussing issues as sensitive as the holocaust. When in a 'passion rules reason' state, you're more likely to misread things in a way that suits your objective. I suspect some of the normally good editors who made mistakes opposing VM sincerely believed the evidence supported them. If VM was to return to the TA editing with a whole hearted WP:Civil mindset, showing sincere & sensitively expressed empathy for those with different perspectives, then after a while, social contagion effects would likely see others do the same. If my read is correct that VM may be the editor most responsible for amping up -ve feelings in this TA (despite his general high integrity & policy compliance) then this might be a fitting penance for him. Again, my read might be entirely wrong, the contentiousness may be entirely due to other actors, the inherent divisiveness of the subject & external factors. And VM might have been a huge net +ve, upholding policy, eliminating undue anti Polish sentiment & antisemitism (as he does do both, if not necessarily to an equal degree.) Dov Levin, and the place for vagueness . Dov Levin is an author even Icewhiz seems to respect. After reading just a few pages of his The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet Rule, you get the sense Levin may be just as passionately pro Jewish as Ice himself. So here's the thing – a large part of the book is about Jews cooperating with the Soviets, who to many seemed by far the lesser evil compared to the Nazis, as they were obviously vastly less anti-semitic, not just refraining from persecuting Jews, but happily giving them important public sector jobs. One could maybe go further than Levin does in excusing Jews for cooperating with the Soviets. Quite a few intelligent & compassionate people still believe Marxism is the best system even today. Back in the early 40s that was a vastly more common view. For a while, American media was flooded with reports about how great 'Uncle Joe' was. And that wasn't just propaganda. Internal documents show that several of the most senior US officials sincerely held such believes, saying things like “Yeah, Ruskies much more our crowd than the imperialist Brits! Lets prep to make them our no 1 partner for world governance once Jerry is back in his box.” So of course Jews were always going to be working alongside the soviets, sometimes even taking orders from NKVD . And there were always likely to be cases of Polish Slavic units attacking Polish Jewish units purely as they were on the soviet side, so nothing to do with anti semiticism. In such cases, it's clearly a case of regular irregular warfare. But often things are grey, its seems to be a frequent theme in this TA that WP:RS offer differing views. So there can be doubt as to whether an attack was holocaust related. And for a holocaust related page you never want to be adding info that implies the Jews partly brought it on themselves. So in the grey cases where you'd want to omit any mention of cooperation with the soviets even if WP:RS exist for that, perhaps it should be considered to downplay any text specifically blaming Poles for the atrocity as otherwise the risk is the article would seem unduly anti Polish. Icewhiz In my evidence I asserted Ice seemed to be a model editor until he began interacting with VM. That may seem a little bold considering most would probably agree he's been rightly permabanned. Anyway, to explain why I used to feel it was a great honour to have Ice as a fellow member of the Rescue Squad. In this discussion I complemented Ice on his knowledge on such esoteric topics as the difference between Asymmetric, Irregular & Unconventional warfare. And what really impressed me was his gentleness in responding to the delete voter who was posting forcefully and seemed possible a little stressed, despite apparently having very little knowledge of the topic apart from what he'd read in a mid tier book. That kind of gentleness seemed quite typical of Ice during his first year. Its easy to see how he pulled off the mild mannered Esoterix who almost made it to a near flawless WP:200 admin promotion, I think that was his default demeanor. Ice was obviously passionately pro Jewish , but if anything, during his first year he seemed to have an almost careBear level of concern for all the worlds peoples. I detected zero sign of him harbouring any hate for historical enemies of the Jews. In his first year Ice saved dozens of WWII German fighter Aces from deletion , more than he did for any other article class. Here's an example discussion, which also shows other editors deferring to Ice's obvious military expertise. Here's an example of him helping to rescue a Polish Count Of course, nothing here proves it was VM's aggression that set Ice on the path to a perma. Certain developments from the Polish goverment, which while in no way intended to be anti Jewish, did risk promoting forms of anti-semeticism as a side effect, may have been the main cause. Ice may be able to take a relaxed view of historical matters, but he is not he sort to be able to countenance an increase in current anti-semeticism. But it seems possible VM was a factor too. Polish Heroism in WWII from a UK perspective I'm typing this comment from West London, just a few miles from the Polish Air Force Memorial and the fields from where Polish airmen took off to defend us from the Luffwaffe. They're scarcely if ever mentioned these days, but back as a kid in the 1970s & 80s they were a living memory and older people often talked about them. The RAF didn't think much of them to start with. By after a few months of showing us their fighting spirit they were universally hailed as heroes. I recall one veteran RAF guy who wasn't too happy about them intentionally killing the pilot ( an Englishman would often go out of his way just to take down the plane) but otherwise reports were universally positive. Noble chads with everything to live for, who kept taking to the skys to fight for us despite knowing the life expectancy for pilots was only ~4 weeks. None of our native squads did as well as 303, their kill rate was over twice as high as other squads. Over 1000 gave their lives, with the exceptional fighting spirit of the Poles very possibly being decisive for the Battle of Britain. Such info was reported on the radio at the time, and stayed in common memory, at least locally. Britain never properly honoured the Poles, largely due to embarrassment at how we'd let them down at Yalta, but folk in this part of London never forgot their heroism, well not until about the 90s, and even then some of the lasses would still preferentially like to sleep with Poles as they were raised to see them as heroic. It's fringe to see any link between virtues and an ethnicity, but not to think a people can be more prone to certain virtues at a particular point in time, due to its unique recent cultural history. Seems unlikely that Poles would be such outstanding heroes here in London, but not back in their own country. None will take the slightest notice of my view about Polish heroism, I guess I typed this out as my Grandad used to feel bad about how we'd let down the Poles after what theyd done for us, and in case it came across that Id focussed on VM as I don't like Poles. That would be wrong. I focussed on VM for legit reasons, such as that he'd allegedly distressed SlimVirgin, as he was arguably instrumental in getting a valued rescue squad member permabanned, and as his buddy was the one who started the ANI thread that ended the Colonels 15 year run at AfD & prod patrol. Didn't expect to find VM's editing was in many ways admireable.

FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

I haven't read the evidence in detail which means I would normally not say anything. But I find the insinuation that if not for Volunteer Marek's edit, that Icewhiz would have remained a productive editor to be absurd and an incredibly unfair insinuation. And frankly, FeydHuxtable given the full picture, which I think you know enough of to understand what I'm about to say, incredibly hurtful. I will perhaps have more to say about this evidence after full consideration but I could not let that go without comment. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, I've removed the insinuation. — Wug·a·po·des 00:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

User:FeydHuxtable: I found your evidence/analysis insightful, although I do disagree with some of it – in particular, in similar vein to User:Barkeep49 and User:Wugapodes and User:Tryptofish, I think your evaluation of Icewhiz’s character is way off the mark. He was “bad” right from the start, it’s just he had no need to show you that side of him on issues he wasn’t all that invested in.

Ok, but I said your analysis was insightful and that part refers more to your thoughts on “competition” (you an economist?), CIVAL and ENEMY and the role these play in article quality as well as editor interactions. But that gets kind of philosophical so perhaps a different venue is better suited to that discussion.

Here I wanted to say a thing about the accusations of incivility. First, most of the actual cases of straight up incivility – the “sleaze ball” and all that – are from my response to Icewhiz in the 2019 ArbCom case request. He made a very vile accusation against me, and tried to dishonestly pretend/insinuate that other editors’ problematic edits were actually mine (he would go on to make several other incredibly offensive and false accusations during the 2019 case). I think this is a case where people need to put themselves in my shoes and think about how they would respond if someone made a false accusation like that against them.

But yes, I did lose my temper and should not have written that. And I paid for it. By being topic banned in that case – notably and in line with your analysis, the 2019 Committee did not find any fault with my content-related edits, only my “incivility” towards Icewhiz.

Regarding User:Callanecc’s civility restriction that I am under… I actually kind of like it. There might come a time where I’ll get absent minded or someone is going to try to spuriously use it against me, at which point I’ll find it irritating (which is why the restriction has the very reasonable option of striking comments) but I’ve found that it makes me articulate my thoughts better. I have not had much time to devote to article edits since I’ve been focused on this here controversy, but in some of the instances where I did do some commentin’ on article talk pages, I’ve realized that taking a pause between the writin’ and the hittin’ of the “Publish changes” button just to review my words is a quite useful exercise. Not only because it makes me avoid language that others might get ruffled by but also because I can express what I think better. So I’m down with that civility restriction FWIW. Volunteer Marek 04:13, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we should require VM to self-report himselt to ANI for trouting? Which is what IIRC User:AndyTheGrump's recently did ([132]/[133]). Some folks are just more outspoken then others. I generally believe we should be civil and whatsnot, but sometimes calling a WP:SPADE or a WP:DUCK for what they are is needed. In the end, what we don't allow here are personal attacks and battleground creation, not frankess.

And considering what VM' wrote above about Callanecc’s civility restriction, perhaps it might be a worth considering as a type of "best practice" to be recommended, or perhaps, even implemented en masse in contentious topic areas. We already have a source restriction and maybe a 1RR here. Enforcing some civility might be the missing ingredient to consider. PS. Conidering the existence of various noticeboards, including some invoked in this ArbCom, it stilll puzzles me, years on, that WP:PAIN did not survive. It tells us something about our community, but I am still not sure what, exactly. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:24, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Everyone needs to be reminded that they are dealing with human beings, not robots. It’s easy to lose your temper and get triggered in the circumstances VM was with all those persistent attacks, and harassments (including in real life at VM's family! Good Lord..😔). - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• With regard to the issue "who is responsible for Icewhiz’s action", obviously Tryptofish is right and Icewhiz is the sole responsible for what he did. However, we should also refrain from self-indulgence and try to understand what happened. The topic area is not Egyptian numismatics, the Academy Awards, coleoptera and fungi: it's the memory of the Holocaust. In an area as this, the prolonged frustration of not being able to correct minor errors ... subtle manipulations and outright lies (G&K's quote) must have been unbearable. If G&K are right and there are serious distortions in the topic area that could not be addressed through the usual editing process – collaborative editing didn't work, articles remained unbalanced, improvements got stonewalled, talk page discussions were blocked and dysfunctional – then it was inevitable that sooner or later some arch-POV-pusher would show up, ready to do anything to publish their content: we can blame the POV-pusher, but we should also try to understand the underlying dynamics. This is particularly true if the distortions were originated by repeated violations of WP policies such as CIV, HARASS, WAR, DIS: these policies are meant to protect not only the integrity of the editorial process and the quality of its outcome, but also the well-being and mental health of us editors. If these policies were systematically disregarded in the HiP topic area, which then became "toxic", this would not only be detrimental to the reliability of the encyclopaedia, but would also raise a health and safety issue. The observation that Icewhiz's editing was impeccable before he entered the HiP topic area is quite instructive: while in no way excusing Icewhiz for his misbehaviour, it underlines the urgency of addressing the problem that this case is intended to solve. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:48, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Gitz6666 Just a sidenote, that Icewhiz's primary account was registered in January'17. By June that year he already was making comments in AE (in the Isreali-Palestine topic area) and dipped into the Polish topic area through Aleksander Piotr Mohl. In August he filled his first AE report, again in the IP TA. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:52, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• And as early as June 2017, only a few months into his en-wiki career he created this article basically celebrating a racist book and tried to DYK it (it was rejected [134] - see User:Gatoclass' first comment there) in what looks like to me a straight up attempt at trolling other editors he was already in disputes with. This is a year or so before I was even aware of his existence I believe. Volunteer Marek 04:14, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Commenting only on the part about Icewhiz, although Icewhiz is not a party to this case, using VM or any other party as an explanation for Icewhiz's conduct is blaming the victim. Icewhiz is responsible for what Icewhiz did, and no one else is. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Trying to make this my last contribution to the case, & I'm self boxing most of this reply. As 1) Starting to look like my effort wasn't the sort of deep dive Wugs wanted. 2) The risk of being unproductively philosophical. 3) And mostly,as while agreeing I may have gained some insight from my deep dive, I failed to understand the sources well enough to have good view on big pictures issues like to what extent the central G&K allegations are true.

@Barkeep – back at you on "I think you know". Arbs must have been aware that taking the unprecedented step to self open this case would call for exceptionally hard work, and was fraught with risk. But you did it anyway, which I consider most commendable as it could be highly beneficial both to the community and our readers.

@Trypto & Gitz. Could not agree more. I like how you pick out CIV, HARASS, etc as all important for the wellbeing of us editors. And "Unbearable" is a great word to capture how caring editors can feel about unresolvable content issues. In the box, I've tried to elaborate on the view that for a TA as sensitive as this, focus on sympathy for different perspectives on content, may have to come first, before full compliance with those editor protecting conduct policies you mention.

@ Piotrus Agreed. But the surface civility / PA thing may already a solved issue, at least as far as VM is concerned. Even before VM explicitly confirmed above he likes the Callanecc restriction, he'd implied as much on the Evidence page. If PAs were my concern, I'd have stayed away from the whole case. I led with cussing in my evidence as a concrete jump point for the deep dive. My conduct concern is all about civility in the broad sense – specifically the need to be empathetic to other perspectives in this sensitive TA. In so far as Im qualified to judge, I don't see the net effect of VM's edits as anti Semitic. I think very much the opposite. And in my investigation, I didn't see even a throwaway account suggest VM is AS himself. But it did seem quite a few, including good long term editors, seemed to think that VM lacked sympathy for Jewish concerns. And regardless of whether I totally misjudged the character of the undeniably disruptive former editor (who even I would admit was clearly volatile from the start, fundamentally a warrior not a scholar) , said apparent lack of sympathy -vely affected the conduct of far more academic and peaceful editors. The eloquent Levivich diff in my evidence is perhaps the single best example of this.

In a nutshell, the whole reason I thought it might be worthwhile to present my findings was to advance a single possibility. How in TAs as sensitive as this one, complying with the deep sense of WP:Cival & the allied NPOV imperative to be sympathetic to different perspectives, may be more central to the ongoing conduct problem than NPA.

Further reply to Barkeep, long reply to VM

@Barkeep, I did try to avoid offense, & cut out over 1,000 words I'd originally typed out, to avoid possible adverse consequence, sorry I didn't quite cut enough. I'd guess the reason VM himself doesn't seem too offended is he senses I was sincerely tyring to help even if I didn't get everything right. I thought Id try to contribute in a similar way that Trypto did in the skeptic case, by being insightful and fair to both sides, but getting a proper grip on the core mainstream strands in the WP:RS proved too difficult. So I thought I'd turn from the big picture to look at personalities, and from there try to say something central about Conduct issues. @VM Sounds like you're a lot harder on yourself on incivility than I'd be. I was initially concerned by the G&K quotes, but not after investigating the context. Some of them needed a bit of work, but with a couple they made you look good even after 2 mins looking at why you made the heated remark. One of the sub boxes I cut from my earlier post was about how in certain circumstances cussing can be not just excusable but even a good thing. Had 2nd thoughts as best not to be too equivocal about some things, and Id not say even this except it doesn't look like you have a major problem with cussing. 17 instances over ~5 years, none of which were especially vulgar, isn't that bad for a highly productive editor working on difficult topics. As said to Piotrus Id already saw the PA thing as probaly already resolved. Ive a different view on competitive editing and think its very relevant to discuss here, especially as it relates to the Conduct concerns central to this case. In RW, I'd guess we'd agree on the benefits of competition & that well meaning attempts to shield folk from its harsh side are often ultimately harmful. I think its (mostly) different on wiki – we're in an artificial environment, in some senses better than RW due to our Policies and community. Maybe Im wrong in the general sense, but not in regards to how competitive & aggressive editing is especially harmful to this TA. I'd guess you can think of many examples outside the TA, where your competitive approach has caused an opposing editor to raise their game, leading to article improvements by the process your essay describes. (I know diffs that prove this are out there, there are a couple of cases where the editor whose game you raised was me. Normally Im not the sort to get into even mild content disputes, you made me work harder than anyone else has except a certain other buddy of Trypto's , and it led to very worthwhile article improvements.) But can you pick out even one diff where your approach has raised the game of an opposing editor in this particular TA? There does seem to be abundant evidence that the converse may be happening. As said, you seemed invariably correct in the many instances I investigated where you accused an opponent of gamesmanship or worse. Sorry if I am overly focussing on you – its important for all editors to be deep sense cival in this TA. This would be even more difficult to discuss at a more general level. It's true that hyper sensitive topics, disruptive editing always a possibility now matter how deeply cival and NPOV the main editors are. But there are many examples of articles on high impact topics that are controversal in RW, but which due to haveing been written with good NPOV, are easy to update, and have next to no trouble even from socks. My contention is that in this TA, competetive, sympathy-light editing unavoidably provokes conduct issues in other editors. Including with some of far more peaceful character than Mr disruptive. At best uncollegial editing, or allowing emotions to cloud reading of sources. At worst, intentional deception and major rule violations. The rest of this post is will be to elaborate on 'unavoidably' . Im going to get a bit real world. We'd not be here if not for a RW publication that itself reports of top level government officials discussing a large budget for interventions in the TA. Whether or not that particular report is correct, we all know governments and corporations do sometimes fund such editing, as its widely understood our article content can have significant RW impact. VM, apologies for spelling out a few things you'll understand better than me. I'm doing so in case others read this, as this is EN wiki, and there's aspects to this TA that may be less obvious to some in the Anglosphere. Im going to say something that may be shocking. There are certain circumstances, where playing by the rules is not merely difficult , its unthinkable. An example US editors might relate to is the Cuban missile crisis. That was seen by some as an existential threat. Very unlikely it even entered the heads of US officials at the time that they should be observing international law, respecting the sovereign right of Cuba to partner with Russia how they liked. Existential threat is also a thing for this TA. Different people have totally different attitudes on these things, but anyone with the energy to have read this far into the box likely doesn't need an explanation as to why antisemitism is a life and death thing for some. Why the TA might invoke existential fear for some Poles may need a few more words. I wish I had a good source for this, its something I know only from conversation with Poles – that there's a centuries old fear in Poland about the Great Bear, and for at least a few this fear is always at the back of their minds. One of the sub boxes I cut from my analyses was on the plight of the Poles, mentioning my experience of Brexit negotiation back in 2018. I had some colourful but I guess distracting anecdotes on the single minded focus some of the Polish diplomats had on ensuring post EU UK would have their backs if Putin started trouble, and the unconventional means they used to max the chances of that. To appreciate the link to this TA, one has to understand that big decisions, both in terms of billion dollar capital flows & geostrategic commitments, aren't always made on a rational P&L bases. 'Don't help the antsemtie' can be the decisive thought. This is not to argue that our coverage of antisemiticism in Poland ought to be minimised. It is to say that when the balance of WP:RS supports such content being added, there should be sympathy for those editing from a pro Polish perspective. And vice versa. Ive several examples where Ive seen first hand wiki pages seemingly have a major influence on RW events, this one is perhaps the most relevant, given your interest in global Macro. Back in 2011, DSK was the living economist I most admired due to how he'd transformed IMF for the benefit of the world's poor (At leas that's how I saw it at the time, as did some rank economists, per sources I added [added some positives about him here. It was distressing to think about DSK being locked up in Rikers Island. There were dozens of sources about him likely having been stitched up in French, but less than 1% of the English ones mentioned that possibility. I doubt anti-semiticism had anything to do with it, but its impossible to make the sort of changes DSK brought about without upsetting some. I've enough experience working in Investment Banks & for central government to know [Peter Pumkinghead reflects reality. Certain ultra rich people will come at you rather hard if they perceive you as a threat to their livelihood. So I thought it would be due weight to add a few lines on the possible setup to the article . The next day, there were hundreds of English sources covering the possible setup. As some here will know, when covering a hot topic, journalists & producers can only read a tiny fraction of what other sources are saying, but many can be relied on to check the wiki page. The coverage generated much sympathy for him, and seems very possible it contributed to his freedom. Later I learnt he has unsophisticated views on GENsex , to say the least, and regretted possibly helping him out, but the possible mistake doesn't detract from the point. Trying not to say too much on a certain issue as Arbs hate to see anyone doubling down. I'll just say you might well be right, but that Solzhenitsyn who Id guess you might have read, was good on how every one of us has the potential to more towards the light or dark, and sometimes it's the interaction between our environment and our virtues that leads us astry.

FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:58, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of Horse Eye's Back "other boards" evidence

[135]

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I'm sorry, I'm confused by Horse Eye Back's evidence recently added, under BLP, NPOVN and "Misc." headings.

Ok, first, what does Tulsi Gabbard have to do with this topic area? What does a discussion from 2019 about her article that hardly any of the named parties participated in (I see MVBW made one non-controversial comment have to do with anything?

2nd, how are discussions (under BLPN) from 2018 (or even 2019) "recentish"? That's five years ago.

3rd, I'm not clear on what this one comment discussion is suppose to show. Also what is this discussion where none of the parties participated is suppose to show?

In general, what is this supposed to be evidence "of"?

The stuff Horse added on RSN discussions [136] was useful because it showed to what great extent were Icewhiz socks involved in RSN discussions, as well as the 100% correlation between Icewhiz sock votes and User:Francois Robere votes [137]. But here? I don't know, am I missing something? Is there some easter eggs or trails of bread crumbs that I'm too dense to pick up on? Volunteer Marek 22:31, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis of evidence by Jehochman

Evidence

[138]

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't find comments on WPO to be within the scope of this case unless they are part of a harassment campaign --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 16:34, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Sigh. Ok, first these are comments on Wikipediocacy not Wikipedia. Second, Jehochman, I did not say you were "colluding" with Icewhiz and none of your "evidences" show that so I'd appreciate it if you struck that. What I might have said somewhere is that Icewhiz was in contact with you during that 2019 case which you yourself acknowledged so I'm not clear what your complaint is. Just that folks are being reminded of the fact that happened? And let's be clear what your contact involved - you related messages from Icewhiz:

Icewhiz denies that they ever harassed anyone, and claims that Piotrus and friends colluded to make false complaints, which were accepted uncritically by WMF, without giving Icewhiz a chance to respond.[private email] My experience with WMF is that they are not infallible. ArbCom can't overrule WMF, but we should not necessarily accept as fact whatever WMF says without ArbCom seeing proof and hearing a response from Icewhiz. [139] <-- Jehochman posting on behalf of Icewhiz and basically suggesting that Icewhiz is correct. What word would you use to summarize you posting this stuff for him?

Third your complaints are as follow: I used a "facepalm" emoji. On Wikipediocracy. I referred to the 2019 Case request as "the 2021 Jehochman/Icewhiz case request". On Wikipediocracy. I referred to that case request as "the Jehochman fiasco". On Wikipediocracy. Ok, let's take that last one. I think EVERYONE involved in that case request believes it was a huge mess. Because of the statement you posted on behalf of Icewhiz I'm quoting above, as well as the fact that you falsely accused User:Nableezy of "supporting violence against Jews" [140] you ended up resigning your admin tools. I could quote numerous statements from editors in good standing who told you back then to drop the stick. Like User:WormThatTurned or User:Ealdgyth [141]. I think the word "fiasco" here is neither inappropriate nor inaccurate. On Wikipediocracy. Volunteer Marek 07:14, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• From my perspective, I can find the things that VM said at WPO to be understandable, and I can also find Jehochman's taking offense at them understandable. This is not an important part of the case. Speaking more broadly, I want to repeat what I said in another section of the Analysis page: [142]. A lot of people are saying a lot of stuff at WPO, none of which I would really want to defend, but ArbCom, if they act on any of it, had better have a clear rationale for acting on some of it and not acting on other parts. And very importantly, there better be a clear rationale for treating the G&K paper and WPO any differently from one another. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
• From what I can see based on VM's remarks, Jehochman only said that (and I'm summarizing here), IW should be given a chance to defend himself. I generally concur with that assessment: the accused have a right to a defense. I also don't see anything you've cited which suggests he agrees with or condones IW. If you meant otherwise, please clarify.

Lastly, "I didn't say you were colluding" is a claim that falls flat when a few sentences later you say "Jehochman posting on behalf of Icewhiz and basically suggesting that Icewhiz is correct". That is exactly the implication even though you didn't spell it out. If you meant otherwise, please clarify. Buffs (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence by Buffs

[143]

Analysis

Oh, wow, we're actually pulling stuff from the "Russavia era", literally more than a decade old. Ok, I know some of you around here are kind of young in Wikipedia years, but everyone remembers who User:Russavia was, right? That's what most of these diffs are about. The block by WGFinely? Why not link the AE report itself? Here:[144]. Russavia. Sandstein's iban? Russavia. The incivility warning from 2013... well, not Russavia, but rather this account. Seriously, why is it that every time someone complains that "VM didn't assume good faith towards user XYZ" and then you click on User:XYZ's page you get something that looks like this:

Or like this:

Every. Single. Time.

(This applies to a good chunk of Francois Robere's evidence too).

This MAY indeed show something, but I don't think it shows what the people presenting the evidences think it shows. Volunteer Marek 07:36, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This is evidence of persistent issues for over a decade. You cannot justify bad behavior by pointing to the bad behavior of others. Buffs (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of Committee statement about harassment claims

Evidence

[145]

Analysis

According to the Committee statement, the Committee believed at the time that the matter was suitable for onsite discussion. I would infer from that, that there are some significant elements of the complaint that can be made public without violating personal information. It also sounds like the complaint is back in the Committee's lap, after Trust & Safety sent it back to them. Therefore, if ArbCom ends up basing anything in the Proposed Decision on their evaluation of that complaint, I want to encourage them to make clear, onsite, what that was. (I say that particularly in the context of the motion about there not having been any outing violations in the G&K paper, along with a named party taking issue with that motion, although I might be entirely incorrect in my inference that this is what the private complaint was about.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Tryptofish: I can only speak with certainty about the report the Arbitration Committee received; Trust & Safety will share findings from their investigation but not who made the complaint and will often only give us general information about what the complaint was (e.g. "an allegation of harassment"). In terms of the complaint that was sent to us, it did not qualify for private consideration. Speaking only for myself, if the person who made the complaint at that time would like to enter the evidence into the case now they are certainly welcome to do so and it will definitely get thought and attention from the drafters and the committee. And if the person doesn't want to enter it into evidence, that too is fine but it does mean that those diffs will be treated differently. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:14, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

It's in evidence because it adds to the history of disruption work Volunteer Marek put together. To add my own analysis of what this evidence means, I think it points to a rather different experience that Arbs and interested editors had last year. It was #1 on a list of recommendations of closed business I suggested the newly elected arbs to read up on, in part because it had no wiki-presence that might have clued them in to what was on the 2022 Committee's mind. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:18, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Tryptofish, the evidence submission precedes the publication of G&K's article by a significant time i.e. it does not pertain to G&K. Izno (talk) 20:51, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

This is an important part of the overarching timeline and was one of the main factors in convincing me that a case was needed. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 02:46, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Thanks, Barkeep49, for the reply. Given the fact that the Committee statement has been entered into evidence for this case, and given the fact that the statement seems to say that T&S has left it to ArbCom to take action or not, I figured that something about the complaint is regarded by the drafters as having the potential to play a role in the final decision. If ArbCom takes action in the decision, I expect that they will explain why, to the extent possible. If, as a result of the editor who made the complaint deciding not to post it as evidence, ArbCom leaves it without action, then there is the potential for the community to have legitimate questions about why not, especially if the editor nonetheless makes onsite comments finding fault with ArbCom's decision not to take action. One might argue that such a situation would be that editor's fault, for not submitting evidence. However, the editor may have concerns about drawing attention to something, even if it is technically public. In situations of claimed harassment, I think editors who may be victims should be given some leeway in that regard (at least in general, and at least for claims that are credible). Thus the community having questions. I would not be raising this, had ArbCom not taken the initiative of issuing the statement. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll admit to being unsure of what I am saying, because we seem to be carefully avoiding saying what the specifics are – and yet I'm being told that ArbCom regards this as something that can (and probably should) be posted publicly. So you're telling me that it relates to what VM has posted on case pages, and I had already been guessing that it relates to the motion that says that what G&K said about VM was not outing. I'm aware that VM has posted on case pages that G&K say things about his personal information that were never posted onsite. He has also said this on my talk page ([146]), so I feel OK about saying this here. But if, for whatever reason, VM does not want to post evidence about it, I don't think that ArbCom can wikilawyer that it means they cannot examine whether the motion about G&K was made too hastily. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Izno, for clarifying that. I've struck a large part of what I wrote, because it appears that I misunderstood what the Committee statement was about. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Partial answer to Primefac's question below

Evidence

GCB's evidence [147] buti n regard to question asked by User:Primefac here:[148]

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

@User:Primefac - below you ask " are there any instances where FR and Icewhiz (or his socks) disagree?". As far as I'm aware the answer to that is a simple "NO". I certainly haven't seen any, I don't know about other editors. Moreover please see my analysis of FR and Icewhiz agreeing with each other prior to Icewhiz's ban, presented in the 2019 case. Here is the table with all the times FR and Icewhiz edited together prior to that case. Out of 95 disputes, FR and Icewhiz both participated in, there is ONE instance of supposed disagreement (I corrected my initial claim after FR made this claim), THREE instances of them making unrelated comments and 91 instances of mutual support.

So basically, BEFORE Icewhiz's ban, FR and Icewhiz edited together and supported each other extensively. AFTER Icewhiz's ban, FR and Icewhiz sock puppets edited together and supported each other extensively. Different accounts, same people. Presumably, FR will say that they had no knowledge these were Icewhiz's sock puppets. Volunteer Marek 22:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

@User:Primefac I’ll try to help in understanding --> Heavy socking wasn't the thing in that topic area before Icewhiz's ban but it started immediately after. Icewhiz didn't operate his sock puppets all at once. After one got blocked - 1 or 2 new ones showed up and so on. While those sock accounts were getting blocked, it was clear who is behind them. François Robere knew about the Icewhiz's investigation board because he commented defending Icewhiz's sock puppets during examinations <--(scroll down). In some instances, François Robere restored sock puppet's edit after sock puppet was already blocked and identified as Icewhiz. For example:

• Sock puppet of Icewhiz called KasiaNL is identified and blocked on May 17
• FR restores that sock puppets edit on May 21.

That’s four days after KasiaNL was identified and blocked as Icewhiz. - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:49, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

@Buffs: Thanks for the ping. I haven't had time to review much of GCB's evidence, and will likely not be able to do so for a few more days, so I can only comment on VM's claims.

• First of all, I'm always skeptical of VM's data selection, categorization and inference practices. Charts like that, which neglects to mention significant "real-world" events that influenced the TA, or the fact that several competing editors left it,[149] is emblematic of some of these problems. I can give other examples, but you might just want to go through HaeB's evidence and mine, first.
• Second, you're right that IW responds quickly to everyone, and on more than one article at the same time.
• Third, it's not news that correlation does not imply causation. For example, I can only think of a single instance where I disagreed with either K.e.coffman or SarahSV, and perhaps 2-3 instances where I disagreed with Buidhe; is either suspicious? And is it more or less suspicious when that opinion accords with external evaluations, like G&K or RSN?[150] In that case we might as well say the editors agreed on a known fact.
• Fourth, I indeed do not know "who" IW is at any moment (or for that matter - in "real life"). I was never told, I never asked, and in some sense I simply do not care. While I believe his "socking" has been more harm than good (see G&K, pp. 55-56), my opinion on that matters little - he is his own person, and will do what he thinks is right regardless. Others can waste their time chasing around his and others' "socks" - in doing so, they likely serve them better than themselves; I value my time and care about content, so as long as one contributes and stays out of trouble, I don't care in the slightest who they are or what they do. WP:DENY isn't policy, WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY and WP:NOR are.
• Fifth, as a general principle - one chooses their battles, so sampling the "ayes" doesn't necessarily say much about the "nays". For example, I rarely disagree publicly with Ealdgyth, for reasons that run from respect and confidence to interpersonal relations, but I do disagree with her on occasion. This is also true of IW back in the day - obviously, less for his "socks" - but it's still worth noting, and I believe is also an explanation for why eg. Piotrus rarely (if ever) criticizes VM's behavior or Bella's editing.

Going through the first few examples of GCB:

• The first is from WP:ANI, which everyone (?) follows, and concerns E-960 - an editor I'm very familiar with. Note I didn't object to E-960 status being restored, only to GCB and Co.'s involvement (see evidence on possible off-wiki collaboration, swaying consensus etc.).
• The second is from the article at the center of the entire TA, which again... everyone follows.
• The third and the fourth are the same as above, except I was the first to comment, and the "sock" followed.
• Same with the fifth.
• The sixth is odd. How come are we "taking turns"? I posted there once to warn them against breaking 5RR,[151] once again after they refused to revert,[152] and finally after they made some accusation against me. The "sock" entered the picture later, with their own concerns.

There's also some current affairs ("LGBT Free Zones", "Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement"), articles linked from articles that I follow ("About the Civilization of Death"), and other such stuff. Most of it is either the "sock" following me, public boards, or articles I've been editing for a while. François Robere (talk) 12:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

User:François Robere I believe you're suppose to answer here in "Comment by parties" rather than "Comment by others". Regardless:

Charts like that, which neglects to mention significant "real-world" events Well, yes, the chart fails to mention "real world events" because it is, as titled, a chart of "Total number of Poland related WP:AE reports by year" rather than a chart of "Real World Events". If you want to do some chart titled "Correlation between AE reports in this topic area and real world events" then please, present it to us. This chart here, just shows purely factual info. There were X # of AE reports in a given year. Then it adds in a few arrows which show "this topic on Wikipedia events".

I guess you're bothered by the fact that it shows that when Icewhiz arrived the number of WP:AE reports exploded. This isn't controversial. And guess what? It wasn't just the number of Poland-related WP:AE reports that exploded. There was another topic area which saw an explosion in number of WP:AE reports. Guess what was it? Yup, Israel-Palestine topic area, and yup, also because of the record number of WP:AE report Icewhiz filed in that topic area. This excuse-making-for-Icewhiz would be minimally plausible if he hadn't been doing it in multiple topic areas.

Anyway, you have other data which shows something else? Ok, let's see it. Where is it? Right now all the objections are nothing but "I just don't like what this chart shows because it is not convenient for me or my prior beliefs".

And sure correlation is NOT ALWAYS causation but if someone sticks their hand in a fire and each time it gets burned and this happens over and over and over again, with different fires (at least 12 different ones it seems) then yeah, concluding causation seems justified. And maybe you didn't disagree with K.e.coffman and SarahV all that much - ok, but were you together with them in 100 different disputes?

Like seriously, if it was one or two... maybe three, ok fine, four socks, there'd be room for ambiguity and argument here. But 12+? Nah. Volunteer Marek 18:51, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek and @User:Primefac - François Robere laboriously cooperated with more than 12+ sock puppets of Icewhiz. I clearly said in my evidence section that there are more. For example:

• Sock puppet of Icewhiz called Hippeus opposes lifting sanctions imposed on user E-960.
• 2 days later François Robere arrives to support him with exactly the same oppose vote. - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

And here will be in different order, first FR then Hippeus:

• François Robere supports removal of the IBAN.
• 2 days later Hippeus arrives to vote the same way as François Robere -

GizzyCatBella🍁 03:06, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@User:Buffs In most of these cases, IW was responding quickly to everyone on these pages, (not just FR). Yeah, no, that's not true either. In most of the cases that are analyzed (which are comprehensive for pre 2019 ArbCom case) it's the other way around - FR following Icewhiz around not vice versa. I said this originally in 2019: The best thing that you could say about this, if you're Icewhiz at least, is that FR tends to supports Icewhiz a lot more than vice versa. Icewhiz reciprocates... occasionally. [153] Even a quick glance at the table [154] shows that there are far more "FR supports Icewhiz" than "Icewhiz supports FR" entries in there. Icewhiz usually led the way and FR followed. That's also probably partially why they were not included in 2019 case. Volunteer Marek 18:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The evidences I delivered of Francois Robere tag-teaming with Icewhiz sock puppets paint a clear picture and leave no room for doubt. I typed it in a logical and organized manner, I backed it by facts and examples making it easy to follow and understand. The evidence isn't based on my assumptions or opinion, but on verifiable data. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by others:

VM, is [155] what you were referring to as them disagreeing? I looked through your table, and this seems to be closest to that (although they don't seem to disagree by much). --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

In most of these cases, IW was responding quickly to everyone on these pages, (not just FR). While they may very well agree (and let's say for the sake of argument they are going to agree because of their political persuasions), that's just agreement with each other/disagreement with you, not evidence of malfeasance. IW also responded very quickly to both GCB and VM in the same cited threads. It seems more likely that IW was following the page and responding relatively rapidly across the board. This feels very much like guilt by accusation or implication, not with evidence/assuming correlation = causation. In 5+ years, no CU has ever associated FR w/ IW. @François Robere:, your thoughts? Buffs (talk) 16:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@VM, You are conflating three claims in a manner that does not necessarily support your conclusion (1) IW and FR edited within a short span of time of each other, (2) FR wrote "support" for IW more frequently than IW wrote "support" for FR, and (3) FR and IW almost unanimously agree. For (1), IW edited within minutes of GCB and yourself as well. This indicates a close following of the pages in question. While this may be an indicator of a battleground mentality, it is not evidence of malfeasance. For (2) and (3), I understand your claim and have looked at the list. There are two problems with it. The first is that this is not a wholesale analysis of every edit they have made, only those where you found they agreed and disagreed. You have omitted all points that are neutral. Second, how many other non-socks generally agreed with IW? If everyone disagreed and only FR agreed with IW and his socks, you'd have a much stronger point. But many people did not agree with you/GCB. That doesn't make all opposition a "sock" of IW (which very much seems to be how you are/were taking it). Whether you intend so or not, the criticism is that you seem to deem all opposition of your viewpoints as due to some malfeasant root cause. Reasonable people can see the same evidence and disagree on a conclusion. Buffs (talk) 15:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Buffs, if (1) was all there was then nobody would care. It's (1) + (2) + (3) + GCB's sock puppet evidence that shows a significant problem. For (2) you say this is not a wholesale analysis of every edit they have made, only those where you found they agreed and disagreed. You have omitted all points that are neutral. - this is not true. It's every discussion (prior to 2019 case) they participated in together. So agreed, disagreed OR neutral. So no, I did not omit those... there just weren't ANY "neutrals" or "disagreed" (almost)

I understand your confusion though since the near absence of "neutral" or "disagreed" (there are like one or two out of a 100) might make it seem like I'm ignoring it - I'm not. There just is nothing to record.

This is about the pre-Icewhiz ban data.

The post Icewhiz-ban + sock puppet data is GCB's. There you see FR and the socks always agreeing. You don't ever see them disagreeing. And I don't think there's any "neutral" either. At most I found instance where a sock "strongly supported/opposed" and FR only "supported/opposed".

How many non-socks generally agreed with IW (I assume you mean IW socks)? An editor here, an editor there, not many.

I most certainly do NOT "deem all opposition to my viewpoint as due to some malfeasant root cause". There are several other editors here that I have had disagreements with and I do NOT ascribe the source of their disagreement to anything Icewhiz related or anything nefarious. For example I have had occasional disagreements with K.e.coffman. I do not think they are in any way connected to Icewhiz, I do not think they have any "malfeasant" motivations, I do not ascribe any bad motivations to them. Sometimes people just disagree. I have had disagreement or two with Elinruby. Same thing. Nothing to do with Icewhiz, or any "malfeasance", just... people disagree. Heliumballons, I've had disagreements with Piotrus or Mymoloboaccount (MMA in fact reported me to WP:AE once or twice). I certainly don't think ... etc.

However.

In this particular case - Francois Robere - the evidence is very strong and it's very hard NOT to conclude that they were editing together with Icewhiz's socks. Like I said above. One, two, three, four socks... that could be a conincidence + confluence of interests and views. But twelve or more?

So no, not "all opposition". Just FR. Volunteer Marek 21:54, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

We are not our past

(Moved here from Evidence talk page per unopposed suggestion made there)

I want to commend any community members who have made sincere efforts to improve, and strongly recommend that ArbCom recognize such improvements. To err is human. The circumstances around this case and the topic area are complicated to the extreme. We shouldn't be too critical of editors, administrators, and arbitrators who may have been confused, but are willing to learn from mistakes. Jehochman ^Talk 13:03, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I would like to second that. I might add that anyone who contributes to Wikipedia does so for love, without payment. Moreover, they do so on the understanding that it's okay to be an amateur rather than a trained scholar. Wikipedia does not demand that a contributor should have a comprehensive grasp of all the literature published in a topic area. All Wikipedia asks is that people cite a source for any content added, a source good enough to meet certain minimum standards of reliability. It's inevitable that most contributors will only have read a small part of the available literature and will add material from the works that they know and consider most relevant. Undoubtedly, which works these are will be affected by their personal background. In any contentious topic area, where scholars themselves are bitterly divided, they are bound to displease *someone*. Moreover, some scholars and publications are themselves moving targets. When a respected mainstream author or journal subsequently becomes radicalised, this makes it even more difficult for volunteers to find common ground when they try to assess works published in different time periods. Andreas JN466 19:21, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

• Is there a procedural question to be resolved here? — Wug·a·po·des 20:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  Some editors are feeling stress and I am hoping to make them feel a little better, to have a more positive experience with this process. Andreas said it better than I did. Jehochman ^Talk 21:06, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  In response to Wugapodes' question, I think it's worth noting that ArbCom, in this case, has defined the use of talk pages in a novel way (procedural questions only!), that is much narrower than what has been the established practice on the project over all these years. ArbCom can do as it pleases with setting rules about case pages, but I think it's worth noting that editors are being asked to do something that is very much different than general practice, and editors should probably be cut a little slack about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry I missed that instruction. You can feel free to ditch this section. Jehochman ^Talk 21:17, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  Indeed, that's why I asked first. We already have over 50 threads here, and multiple other pages and talk pages. While new, maintaining a good signal-to-noise ratio is important to make sure things don't get missed or lost. — Wug·a·po·des 21:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps this thread could be moved to analysis, solving that particular concern? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:48, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

  Good idea. Unless anyone objects, or beats me to it, I'll move this thread to the Analysis page around this time tomorrow. Andreas JN466 00:57, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Analysis of Haeb's evidence

Evidence

Analysis

VM and Naliboki massacre. Haeb says that G&K "back up their assertion with a diff link", but that is a partial description. G&K (footnote 92) give two diffs, one of which acts to exonerate Jews and doesn't refer directly to the massacre ("The routine attacks on Polish underground units by Soviet partisans could not have been circumvented by Jews in their ranks.", with source), and the other was revert of a Yaniv revert. The reason for VM's upset is that G&K introduces these diffs with "For Volunteer Marek’s edits on Naliboki see" as if they are presenting a comprehensive or at least representative sample of VM's contributions to the article, while not mentioning the fact that after consensus on the issue of Jewish involvement was reached VM assisted in removing it.[156] [157] [158]. In my opinion, VM's complaint against G&K is justified. Zero^talk 06:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Piotrus and The Forgotten Holocaust. Piotrus is correct to note that the May 17, 2020 article on the book mentioned multiple criticisms. Haeb seems confused to mention G&K's footnote 106, as it links to a different article. At some point of time both articles said there was a single critical review, but since February neither does. It is generally a matter of judgement whether a review is positive or negative, so NOR was sufficient reason to remove it. G&K's implication of malicious intent has no basis. Zero^talk 07:26, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Piotrus and Chart 3. In the few months between G&K's paper and recent discussion, G&K's Scholar citation counts for Richard Lukas jumped by a factor of 6, even though the cited works are quite old. There are several possible reasons, of which human error is one. For almost a month now, Piotrus' discussion has not said "acknowledged [an] error" but rather "acknowledged a problem", which is true, and Piotrus has never claimed that G&K made a mistake on purpose. So there is nothing here. However, there is plenty to be said about G&K's chart and what it says or doesn't say about citations on Wikipedia. G&K compared wiki-mentions of two authors they dislike (Lukas and Chodakiewicz) against five they like (Dwork, Kassow, Tex, Bergen, Gitelman), showing the former are mentioned much more often than the latter. However, they don't explain why they choose these five "controls" over, say, Polonsky, Gross or Browning, who are mentioned approvingly in their essay and have more wiki-mentions than Lukas or Chodakiewicz. In fact, the scholars they mention approvingly have between them more than twice the number of wiki-mentions as the scholars they mention disapprovingly. If other mainstream Holocaust scholars are included (Lipstadt, Hilber, Cesarani, Bauer, etc, all with many wiki-mentions) the story gets even more distant from what G&K want us to believe. Zero^talk 06:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Template

Evidence

Analysis

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

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Questions/Requests from Arbitrators

This section should be edited only by Arbitrators and Clerks. Any response to questions/requests posed here should be done on the Evidence page or done above as a section under #Analysis of evidence as appropriate.

• I haven't looked through the talk page archive or correlated any of it to these reverts. If we're looking at how conduct might impact article and source quality, a deeper dive into interactions like these is probably the direction we should go. If people on the talk page are looking for something to do, I'd appreciate evidence submissions which look deeper into this and other issues raised by Ealdgyth. — Wug·a·po·des 02:04, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• Regarding #Icewhiz socks presented by GizzyCatBella - are there any instances where FR and Icewhiz (or his socks) disagree? I have no issue with the information as presented currently, but I do not want a false dichotomy of "FR and IW always agree" if there are instances where this is not the case. In other words, right now you have indicated 100% support between these two, which seems somewhat unlikely (though not impossible), and I would rather get a better idea of the real value for that agreement percent. Primefac (talk) 08:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• I would be interested in hearing more perspectives/evidence about what happened at Jan Żaryn RfCs 1, 2. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Lembit Staan: particularly want to hear your thinking (both at the time and now) about your participation in those discussions. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• What does the conduct of named parties at noticeboard discussions (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_333#Mass_removal_of_criticisms_from_the_Polish_Institute_of_National_Remembrance) show and tell us? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• Want to hear more perspectives/evidence about why RfCs in the topic area would attract a small, but reasonable, number of participants but then fail to be closed. Examples include the Jan Żaryn RfCs, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_355#RfC:_Polish_sources, and Talk:Justice_for_Uncompensated_Survivors_Today_Act_of_2017#RfC:_Mentioning_the_protests_against_the_law. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• Piotrus provided examples of changes to his editing over time. I would be interested in similar evidence from/about other long time editors in this topic area, particularly from Volunteer Marek and François Robere. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

  I too am interested in this. It does not necessarily have to be a personal reflection, so if someone notices someone else's behaviour improving/declining/etc over time that would be useful information to have. Primefac (talk) 10:50, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

• In retrospect, what went wrong and right in the editing and talk page discussions of History of the Jews in Poland in Feb - June 2019? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• It feels like several of the discussions since the release of the paper have been better at finding consensus and that some of the conduct issues I observe haven't spiraled out of control. One explanation for this is the absence of Icewhiz. I would be curious to hear any evidence and analysis about other reasons this might have been the case. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• @Piotrus: how do you decide when to publicly discuss something with another editor/admin/arb and when to email that editor/admin/arb? Barkeep49 (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
• I am somewhat concerned by the timeline in the Zygmunt Krasiński and The Undivine Comedy section presented by François Robere. The other sections around it can be reasonably explained by watchlists, but the timeline in this section is a bit more suspect. Volunteer Marek, how is it that you came to learn of Mellow Boris and their edits to Zygmunt Krasiński, which you reverted wholesale in Special:Permalink/958695415? Primefac (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
• I would appreciate more clarity around potential conflicts of interest and how to assess their impact moving forward. We already have in evidence a few examples of editors modifying the BLP of a subject who has criticized them, publishing articles (both in the press and on-wiki) about BLP subjects who criticize them, and removing sources in which editors are criticized. To me it seems like there is a potential conflict between the the personal or professional interests of some editors and the interests of the encyclopedia. Put another way, I'm puzzling over how to interpret this line from the COI guideline: [Subject mater experts] are expected to make sure that their external roles and relationships in their field of expertise do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.
  There's obviously a scholarly dispute underlying this case. To be perfectly clear, the Arbitration Committee will not resolve that scholarly dispute because it is outside our jurisdiction. What we may consider, though, is how to manage potential conflicts of interest when editor-scholars become embroiled with external scholarly disputes, particularly when that "external role[ or] relationship[]" appears to "interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia". There's no hard line here, as the COI guideline says How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense, but I think we need to examine the potential conflict given that a public feud between Grabowski and specific editors has been ongoing for multiple years across multiple venues including on-wiki.
  So this is all framing for two questions that I would like evidence or analysis on:
  • To what extent have potential conflicts of interest been a problem in this topic area? We've seen a handful of examples, but there is a big difference between editors with a COI adding uncontroversial facts and those writing whole articles on the subject they have a COI regarding. Have potential conflicts of interest actually been an issue?
  • To what extent might potential conflicts of interest be a problem moving forward? For example, it seems like editing of the Jan Grabowski biography stopped after WP:BLPCOI was raised as a concern, and the COIN thread resolved. If there are potential conflicts of interest, do they pose a substantial risk moving forward or have they been resolved through other processes already?

— Wug·a·po·des 21:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

• @Ealdgyth: thanks for your latest thoughts about the topic area and for noting that you were driven from the topic area. Your displeasure with the topic area and with ArbCom has been clear throughout this case. What's less clear to me is what you'd actually like done. For all of the other parties that have participated in the case to the extent that you have I have some clear idea. Your displeasure is so clear and your the frustration you seem to feel is palpable and so I'd kind of thought you'd just written the whole topic area off. But your last paragraph suggests I have that wrong and you think something can be done, I just don't understand what. For instance, are you suggesting that the source restriction be repealed? If not, what are you suggesting be done with it given your thoughts about the Buidhe AE request? Barkeep49 (talk) 16:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)