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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hawkeye7 (talk | contribs) at 20:34, 17 October 2014 (→‎Statement by uninvolved Hawkeye7). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
DYK wheel warring   17 October 2014 {{{votes}}}
List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming   15 October 2014 {{{votes}}}
Issues in Talk:Gamergate controversy   14 October 2014 {{{votes}}}
Discretionary sanctions at Historicity of Jesus   11 October 2014 {{{votes}}}
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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

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Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: World War II and the history of Jews in Poland Motion (orig. case) 21 June 2024
Amendment request: Extended confirmed restriction none none 31 July 2024
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) none none 26 July 2024
Motion name Date posted
Historical elections 21 July 2024

DYK wheel warring

Initiated by Fram (talk) at 14:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • Link 1
  • Link 2

Statement by Fram

According to WP:WHEEL, "Wheel warring usually results in an immediate Request for Arbitration."

Earlier today, At 11.39, Casliber added the hooks for the DYK section on the main page to Queue3[2]. These were automatically added to the mainpage by a bot some 20 minutes later.

At 12.06, I removed a WP:DYK hook from those added by Casliber to the main page because it was not supported by its article at that time.[3] I explained my action in a new section at WT:DYK five minutes later, at 12.11[4]. A discussion followed, and the article was corrected by User:78.26 at 12.43[5], which he mentioned at the discussion at 12.49[6].

At 12.55, before anyone had commented on the change by 78.26, Casliber reinserted the hook in the main page[7], replying to my edit summary of "Removed one, fact not mentioned in article" with his edit summary of "err yes it is", indicating that he hadn't checked the article history or the DYK discussion. Four minutes later, at 12.59, he posted at the DYK discussion[8] "Fram are you serious?? Did you not know that 2,400,000,000,000 = 2.4 x 1012?? Re-added.", again indicating that he hadn't checked the article history or read the discussion.

That was his latest edit, making it basically a hit-and-run action.

The pages where he inserted, I removed, and he re-inserted the DYK hook are fully-protected, making this an admin-only action and thus a minor wheel war. His edit summary and subsequent response make it clear that no diligence was done when he re-inserted the hook: "Wheel warring is when an administrator's action is reversed by another admin, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus." He didn't discuss the disagreement, he used the tools in a combative fashion (see his comments), and no consensus had been reached yet (although, ironically, it wouldn't probably have taken long after the good edits by 78.26). After the fact, he was answered at the DYK discussion, but didn't reply (he didn't edit anything else either, so I'm not claiming that he willfully ignored it, but the result is the same).

Clear wheel-warring, in a careless manner (not checking histories or discussion) unresponsiveness, all this at the main page to boot, are enough to bring this here as a hopefully simple wheel war case. No full case is needed, in my opinion. Fram (talk) 14:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Seraphimblade: "Casliber reacted to the new situation." No, Casliber thought that there never had been a problem in the first place. He acted without knowledge of the situation, reinstating his own version. He did basically everything as described in WP:WHEEL. That it is a minor wheelwar (albeit at a very prominent place) is clear, but it hardly makes sense to proclaim at wheel that this normally always leads to an arbcom case, to then summarily dismiss it when it is presented. Fram (talk) 16:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Newyorkbrad: your well reasoned decline is very helpful. Leading by example? Fram (talk) 16:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Beeblebrox. No problem with your decline, but I brought it here based on the text in WP:WHEEL, "Sanctions for wheel warring have varied from reprimands and cautions, to temporary blocks, to desysopping, even for first time incidents." I didn't expect a desysop over this, I thought that the reprimands and cautions aspect was also enough to bring it here, and that opening this case didn't mean that it could only be accepted if a desysop was likely. Perhaps the guidance at wheel needs some clarification. Fram (talk) 16:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@HJMitchell. Nice, taking revenge for something you said we would leave behind us, with a lot of complaints but no diffs or evidence at all. I have no problem with a case about DYK, but I don't think that the way you try to start one is in any way helpful to anyone or anything. Still, nice to see your true colours here. Fram (talk) 17:18, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@HJMitchell. You could just have linked to that whole section, would have saved you a lot of trouble. People can easily there where my responses come from. E.g. the "I think I'll simply ignore you" was not for someone daring to question me (oh, the guts that takes!), but for someone making largely incomprehensible statements. I tried repeatedly to interact in a meaningful way, but there comes a point that one simply gives up. Similarly, "accusing editors of being motivated by statistics"? Well, if the editor wants the hook reinstated because, and I quote in full, "So put it back quickly or we won't get the proper stats!", then yes, I draw the conclusion that the editor is motivated by statistics. Shocking, I know. Perhaps next time make some accusations which have some flesh to them, not simply taking everything that vaguely resembles an incivil remark if you ignore the context completely. Anyway, "tries to shut down discussion from those who have the nerve to question him." refers to my above reply? No idea where you see an attempt to shut down discussion in that. But I'm sorry that I didn't reply friendly to your attack comment here, next time I'll roll over and ask for more. Feel free to start a case about anything you want, I'm not stopping you or even trying to. All I try to stop is the dreadful quality DYK often has, and the attitude of some editors that that can't be helped, because properly checking a hook is too much effort. Fram (talk) 18:18, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@NativeForeigner; true. Fram (talk) 18:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Casliber. "So we had a DYK section off a mainpage because Fram refused to do some multiplication." Any idea how disheartening it is to see you not getting this right even now? I did not refuse to do some multiplication, where did you get that idea? The hook said 2.4 trillion, the article said 1 trillion. Nothing in the article pointed to 2.4, 24, two dozen, or whatever else that would have been needed to multiply. I can understand that you didn't get this when you were in a hurry to put it on the main page, nor even when you wanted to put it back after it had been corrected. It's not good, but it can happen. But one would think that you would have had time and motivation to check it out more thoroughly by now. That you aren't happy about this case which will be declined anyway, fine, most people don't like having a case opened about their actions. But that doesn't mean that you should repeat your clearly incorrect interpretation of things here. My wheel-warring request was not because my feelings were hurt, it was opened because you wheel-warred to reinsert your version without realising what really happened. Which you have just proved, since you still don't understand what happened. Fram (talk) 20:01, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Casliber

  • I only just woke up as I couldn't sleep and saw this (6.15AM here in Oz) I came along to fix things after Fram had alerted me. I admit I was tired and was just about to head to bed. I saw the dialogue and at quick check of the history and was surprised that Fram had yanked it off the main page as I couldn't see what had been changed. Now were Fram the epitome of politeness and constructiveness, I might not had said what I've said, however, he's been (a) fairly up-front/blunt about commenting on others' short-comings and (b) refused to fix even the simplest error but stood over others like some sort of schoolmaster at times. So we had a DYK section off a mainpage because Fram refused to do some multiplication. And a wheel-warring case request because his feelings were hurt. I submit that it's not wheel-warring as the error was not there at the time I re-added it.
@Fram - your role is important and what you've done at DYK is a net benefit as we've let through all sorts of things there and I appreciate your work there. I'll concede my comment was intemperate so we can move on. Really. However, you really need to have a look at how you talk to people at times and how you respond to being talked to.
@AGK: (lightbulb above head goes on) - ye-eah, belated apologies. You'll know what I mean. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:25, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq

Your disproportionality meter needs adjustment. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Ritchie333

I don't think this should be accepted - this is a mountain being made out of a molehill. In my view, Fram has frequently had to deal with quality control on the DYK queues and has simply got a bit frazzled by it. The answer is to find out some way of controlling the DYK process, which is outside of arbcom's remit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:13, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Hasteur

Terse commentary, arguments about the minutiae of a nomination, the rules of nomination, fourty seven commentaries, the nine hundred major and minor judgements, ten thousand considered opinions, philosophical introspection about what is needed for a nomination to be moved up to a prep (and subsequently to queue and main page), what quality assurance is needed for the nomination to be moved forward, nominations that sit for months to be declined for a "personal preference" reason and never be looked at again. This is the behavior of the imbedded DYK usuals. If anything ArbCom should look in to address the casual rudeness and cowboy-administrator actions that plague the project both ways (too liberal with approvals, too conservative with approvals). Shepherding a DYK is something that shouldn't be antagonistic, yet the community is in a "If I can't get my way, I'm going to cause problems for everybody who is preventing me from enjoying Wikipedia" funk.

Ex-DYK nominator/community member Hasteur (talk) 16:29, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Harry Mitchell

This case is plainly absurd, but it nicely demonstrates Fram's battleground mentality. Fram has been on a campaign against DYK for some time, repeatedly using his admin privileges to remove hooks from the queue and the main page, sometimes quite correctly but more recently based on little more than his own personal opinion. When raising his concerns on WT:DYK, Fram is frequently aggressive, snide, and responds with sarcasm and insults when other editors respond in a manner which is not satisfactory to him. He has a habit of throwing his weight (and admin status) around, and uses intimidation and attrition to get his way (as is evident elsewhere, including, for example the Rich Farmborough arbitration case). I will fully admit that my own conduct has been sub-par on one occasion—I lost my temper and described Fram an "arsehole"—but Fram's conduct is much more insidious and much more damaging. I would like to see a case to examine Fram's conduct, and possibly explore wider issues at DYK. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And again nicely demonstrating my point, Fram replies with sarcasm, and tries to shut down discussion from those who have the nerve to question him. As for diffs and evidence, it's all too obvious, but a few examples for anyone who's not familiar with Fram's tactics (these are very much illustrative, and no at all comprehensive): "irrelevant babbling", " I think I'll simply ignore you" (to somebody else who dared question Fram), accusing editors of being motivated statistics (this a fairly typical tactic from Fram when dealing with goo-faith nominators), same baseless accusation, "sinking to new lows" (edit summary), snide and borderline personal attack ("If you see that as "contrary", then I begin to understand why you promote some of these incorrect hooks after all."), more sarcasm ("some insight you suddenly have"). Those are all from the last day or so on WT:DYK. That alone should be enough for any reasonable person to see that Fram is rating WT:DYK as a battleground, and is contributing to, if not causing, a hostile atmosphere there, which is harmful to DYK and to the project as a whole. I've repeatedly stated (as have others) that I have no problem with Fram pulling dubious hooks and alerting involved editors in a courteous manner, but it seems he can't or won't conduct himself respectfully. Volunteers at DYK are tin on the ground as it is, and Fram's conduct is only going to put people off. As Fram has repeatedly refused to moderate his own tone (but is all too happy to take others to task for theirs), he should be compelled to do on threat of sanction. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:56, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
More diffs: Snide and unnecessarily strident in criticising editors for letting a factual error onto DYK (an error Fram admits is widely perpetuated in apparently reliable sources), sarcasm in response to a good-faith suggestion, and accusing me of ignoring the issue by making a suggestion about a side issue, more sarcasm (including edit summary). This is not confined to DYK, nor are these isolated incidents: sarcasm on VE feedback page, berating a WMF employee ("I don't want your "help" ever again"; "You are a total waste of time"; "I don't give a flying toss about what your job is. It is a waste of money anyway." for which he was rebuked by MastCell, snide and condescending in an RSN thread. This is standard fare for Fram—he has a battleground mentality, which causes a toxic atmosphere. This shouldn't just be dismissed because of my inter-personal dispute with Fram resulting from my ill-judged and heated response to him in a previous discussion (and NF, you're welcome to address me as Harry or HJ or HJ Mitchell, but please not by an unadorned surname). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hawkeye7

This ridiculous case is just another example of Fram's WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. He had ample time to comment on the article while it was on the nomination page and in the prep area, but waited until it was on the front page so that he could pull it just to make a big WP:POINT. There was no WP:WHEEL-ing; an article was corrected and restored, which is the normal process. This is time critical work. DYK relies heavily on Harry Mitchell and Casliber, admins who, unlike Fram, are are willing to take personal responsibility for their actions. The slightest error by a reviewer, prep area assembler or promoting admin results in a tirade of abuse. Fram has a long track record of rudeness and intemperance.[9]

This was a yet another abuse of the admin tools by Fram, who only returned to DYK after threatening to block WMF staff (DannyH (WMF)) for doing their jobs.[10] He abused his admin privileges by protecting a page to prevent a software rollout.[11] He should have been de-sysopped then and ther an an office actione. A protest by Erik Moeller (WMF) resulted in considerations of launching an RFC/U/ADMIN, but it was felt that it was toothless. Given that deliberately vandalising the front page is generally regarded as the worst offence an admin can commit, I ask that the Committee dismiss this case and de-sysop Fram here and now. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

DYK wheel warring: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/6/0/1>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

  • I'm struggling to get worked up over this - yes, by the strictest definition, this is could be seen as a wheel war, but in reality Fram saw a mistake (and a small mistake at that, when we're talking in order 1012 revolutions per second the difference between 1 and 2.4 isn't that big), took the hook off the front page. The mistake was fixed, the hook was returned. All we're left with is edit summaries that could have been better and a half hour discussion. I'll wait to hear other statements, but I doubt I'll be accepting this as a case. WormTT(talk) 15:06, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as absurd. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see a wheel war here. My read is that the issue Fram addressed with the initial action had been corrected, so Casliber reacted to the new situation. Things could have been made more clear (and I won't begin to speculate on what someone knew or did not know), but I don't see any need for action on this. Decline. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline I basically agree with WTT. This was technically wheel warring, and that is something that is never acceptable. If this were part of a pattern of abuse of admin tools I would be very concerned, but it seems like it is just one edit that probably shouldn't have been made. I can't see desysopping over it so I can't see why we would accept a case. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:27, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree with Worm that this was wheel warring. As Seraphimblade correctly points out, since the error detected by Fram was corrected, the circumstances surrounding his reversion of Casliber's admin action were changed and, so, Casliber's reiteration thereof was permissible. Decline. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:34, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline Ala salvio. NativeForeigner Talk 17:04, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see much here to be disappointed about (though perhaps not surprised) and little that would warrant an arbitration case as framed. Decline at this time. AGK [•] 19:25, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

Initiated by Adam Cuerden (talk) at 11:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Due to the unusual nature of this request, I will place a note on the talk page of the list immediately after this, and allow interested editors to add themselves. The notice was posted in this diff.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Please see the "Article Milestones" at Talk:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. This has had six attempts at Articles for deletion, without ever reaching any definite conclusion.

Statement by Adam Cuerden

I believe List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming is a hijacking of Wikipedia for propaganda purposes that standard methods have failed to deal with.

Lists of dissenting scientists are a common propaganda tool: A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism and the Oregon Petition being two notable examples of attempting to give the impression of widespread scientific controversy through lengthy lists of names.

So, let's review this article against such lists.

First of all, it includes a fairly minimal amount of language explaining the mainstream position, with no emotive language, and no discussion of the evidence for the mainstream view. If you look at the references, each person on the list has massive quotations arguing their fringe view, with emotive language, and directly advocate fringe interpretations of the evidence, without any response from mainstream science, as would normally be required by WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV.

Secondly, the criteria for inclusion are similar to the propaganda lists. From the article:


Which is the same criteria criticized in propaganda lists:



So we are basically using the selection criteria we name as problematic in articles about such lists.

Other parallels could be drawn, but not in a 500 word limit.

Finally, I don't think AFD will help. The article used to be far worse than it was now (See [12] for example) and that, even more clearly propaganda version of the article survived AFD repeatedly.

NPOV is one of the five pillars, and this article inherently violates it. After six no consensus AFDs, it's time to move to the next level: ArbCom is meant to deal with the problems that normal processes can't, and I call on them to intervene.

Statement by User:NewsAndEventsGuy

As a 3+ year veteran of that article (on article hiatus Jan 2014-now), I find the good faith complaint to be regrettably uninformed. Editors who have been both (A) constructive article and/or talk page contributors and (B) who have defended the article at AFD are almost entirely - if not 100% - advocates of the mainstream science on this subject. Pick three samples who fit those 2 criteria, and check contribs at other climate pages. You will find them regularly reverting fringe science nonsense and unsourced climate denial from the other climate pages. Thus, the key charge in this complaint about finge-pushing, rather than fringe-combatting, is simply wrong.
That said, I think there are other fixable issues with the article. Chief among my complaints is that the statements intermix a tiny few peer reviewed statements with a whole bunch of op-ed type statements, as though the latter carry the same weight as the former. I previously suggested a fix demonstrated by the TOC in this version but it didn't get traction. A compromise bit of text was added in Feb 2012, but I still think overt sorting (see prior link) would

  • (A) be a large improvement and
  • (B) go a long way towards addressing the big-picture complaint raised in this complaint.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:19, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A. Behavior at the talk page is a separate issue from preserving the page.
B. Lots of notable articles could be characterized as being (your words) "a mess" but when that is the case, a good solution for good faith uninvolved editors like yourself is to become an involved editor. Don't bitch - Fix It! Or at least respect others' efforts without interference.
C. Good example of major talk page suggestions being implemented for increased NPOV
1. From before I arrived at the article, the rationale for the article was NAVIGATION. We hear regularly that "scientists don't all agree". Well, who ARE those dissenting scientists? That makes this NOTABLE.
2. From before I arrived, the rationale for the WP:FRINGE quotes was to comply with WP:BLP.
3. EUREKA! Following one of the more recent AFD's we agreed to diminish the trumpet-power of the fringe quotes by moving them from article text to the ref footnotes. Reduced visibility = more neutrality while still abiding by BLP.
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Lithistman

Very briefly, I came across this list after Serten asked for assistance at the noticeboard. It is a mess, as Cuerden describes above--just blatant propaganda. Additionally, the talkpage is a hostile, unhealthy atmosphere, where any attempt at substantive changes seem to be dismissed out of hand, and where I've been declared "involved" simply because I came over from the noticeboard post and restated the improperly removed tags. I have made no other edits at that article but one. In my opinion, arbitrators should accept this case, and untangle this knot. LHMask me a question 13:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Dmcq

I suggest the proposer trust other editors judgment at AfD rather than trying to override them by starting an arbitration request. The clue is in 'Due to the unusual nature of this request'. I summarized my view on the subject to the proposer at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#William M. Connolley on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming as:

You seem to think that Wikipedia articles should do something other than being an encyclopedia with summaries of what reliable sources have said about notable things.

and

The idea of "starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend" simply doesn't work. Wikipedia is in the job of informing people in the hope that good information will win over dogma and stupidity. The list is not a straight copy, the entries are vetted by BLP to check the entries really are scientists and that they really do oppose the mainstream view and that chops the number down very considerably indeed.

I think Wikipedia should just do its job of creating a free reliable encyclopedia. WP:PROFRINGE is quite adequate for the job without us turning mainstream science into a credo and making any divergence anathema. Dmcq (talk) 14:16, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As to NewsAndEventsGuy about it being notable because people keep asking about those scientists. It is true about the questions but the reason the list is in Wikipedia is because the topic satisfies WP:Notability and many entries in the outside lists have been discussed in reliable sources. Personally I'd like to see more discussion of the lists too in a separate article, possibly the climate change denial one (though some of the scientists themselves may not be deniers the lists were set up by such groups), I prefer to keep lists and content articles separate. Dmcq (talk) 14:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
NewsAndEventsGuy has clarified to me that by 'We hear regularly that "scientists don't all agree". Well, who ARE those dissenting scientists?' they meant people in sources outside Wikipedia rather than just navigation requests in Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:MrX

Arbcom is not a body that is elected to decide content issues or to tip the scales of consensus. This request plainly fails the scope of arbitration and should be promptly dismissed as such.- MrX 14:47, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Hammersoft

There is no user conduct dispute being highlighted. I have asked the filer of this request to focus on user conduct issues [13], but failing presentation of user conduct problems in this content dispute, there is nothing for ArbCom to act on here. I concur with MrX. Further, the filer inaccurately claims none of the AfDs reached a definite conclusion. Even if we presume that "no consensus" is not a definite conclusion, there are still three other AfDs that closed as keep. To the filer; it is important to understand that Wikipedia reports on reality using verifiable sources. We rely on verifiability, not truth. Can we verify that scientists dispute mainstream assessments of global warming? Yes, as this Forbes article (note: this would count as a reliable source) highlights. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:57, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Stephan; No, it is a reliable source. Reliable sources can be biased, and Forbes does not qualify as a questionable source, as Forbes most certainly has editorial oversight. Regardless, my point is not to further any content dispute on the subject (I have not been involved in that and have no wish to be involved in that) but rather to highlight that Wikipedia is not proscriptive, but descriptive, and there are plenty of materials on the web indicating we can verify there are scientists who would belong on this list. And Re again; we disagree. Regardless, the meta discussion is not relevant. My point is made. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:24, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement Stephan Schulz

Re. Hammersoft: No, an opinion piece in Forbes is not a reliable source. However, it does help to establish notability of the topic. The particular study misrepresented by Taylor in Forbes is a reliable source for its topic, but that is a very different topic - namely, it's about the rationalisation techniques used by some scientifically educated people to resist the consensus position. It's not trying to measure the strength of that consensus, but rather takes it as a given. This at best tangentially relevant statement brought here by courtesy of xkcd. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re2: The point is that it is not a proper article, but rather an opinion piece, about which Forbes explicitly rejects oversight: "Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own." (see author box in the left margin). Also see WP:RSOPINION. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:48, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement Ronz

I agree with Adam Cuerden: the article should not exist, yet another AfD is unlikely to help, and that the article violates NPOV at a fundamental level. Focusing on the behavioral problems: The article exists because of ownership by a few editors (who create and maintain a hostile editing environment for anyone that disagrees with them) and who rely upon their own local consensus to overrule our content and behavioral policies. Granted, they're taking advantage of the lack of strong consensus among WP:NLIST, WP:LISTN, and WP:LSC.

(Sorry for the lack of diffs. I hope to expand this further, but thought I should at least identify the behavoral problems right away). --Ronz (talk) 17:51, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement Serten

Remark: I brought the case to WPArbcom. Insofar user disputes, not just between WMC and me are involved.

Statement: The lists notability and its content is not based on real world external sourceable lists as those provided e.g. by creationist petitions. The list is WP internal, an OR based tool defended by a group of editors, which aim to reduce visibility of what they see as fringe. Therefore it is kept as short as possible. Just see current candidates on the talk page sections, important (credible, beyound the merchants of doubt) critical players as Grove, Tsonis, Rancourt, Curry, Hulme or Koonin are being left out on purpose. That said, the community has to decide wether to allow that pet tool or dismiss it. Serten (talk) 20:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@User:NewsAndEventsGuy: I see your statement here ("WP Navigation", "reducing visibility") and on User_talk:Dmcq#Huh.3F (about teaching Sen Imhofe's unguided voting flock) as proof of Adam's notions on a propaganda tool. While a list of signatories of a real world petition may be noteable, be it about creationism or abortion, this article has no external background nor value. Its noteability is doubtful, at least, its obviously internally motivated and patronizing. In its current form, WP should be ashamed of.

@Stephan's: You use a sacrificium intellectus argument. No hard science btw., if the consensus would be resisted so strongly, it wouldn't be called a mainstream opinion. The actual mainstream opinion is so watered down, that nearly no one needs to "resist the consensus position". However a position shared by anyone won't help with decision making. Thats the contrary of what the IPCC was f(o)unded for. The list ignores that and the group defending its current status ignores the research dealing with that problem (which includes high ranking insiders). Take Currys 2012 Climate change: No consensus on consensus or Hulmes "Do scientific assessments need to be consensual to be authoritative?" or Michael Oppenheimers lead essay on uncertainty guidance in the IPCC process. You insofar would not need Forbes for that take. The Forbes essay is part of the ongoing controversy. The repeated attempts to exclude it from the article is one of the reasons this section has been opened. To use another theology analogy, the article is in a fundamentalist version more popish as the Pope, but the Pope is, as Oppenheimer, not at all catholic ;) Serten (talk) 23:31, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Questions by User:Robert McClenon

As per Hammersoft, what are the conduct issues alleged? Arbitration is used for conduct issues, not content issues. Isn't the article already under discretionary sanctions twice, both as climate change and as BLP? Can't any (not yet identified) conduct issues be dealt with by arbitration enforcement rather than a full evidentiary hearing? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge

This topic is already under descretionary sanctions as the result of WP:ARBCC. There's also WP:NEWBLPBAN which apparently applies to all biographical material on living persons across the entire encyclopedia. If there are conduct issues, that's what WP:AE is for. Content issues should be resolved by following the standard dispute resolution process. I see no need for an additional case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by GoldenRing

The case boils down very quickly to, "I really think this should be deleted but six AfDs have gone against me. But I really think this should be deleted so please override the AfDs." This is, to my understanding, not what ArbCom is for. GoldenRing (talk) 03:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Clerk notes

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

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/7/0/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

Issues in Talk:Gamergate controversy

Initiated by ArmyLine (talk) at 20:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by TheRedPenOfDoom

The 9 pages of archived discussions since its creation a month ago are an indication of a heavy level of WP:TE that could potentially benefit from adult oversight.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:45, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Ryulong: The particulars as stated by the filer are obviously premature and irrelevant (being sarcastic towards an anonymous group of hashtag users known primarily for their harassment is not an arbcom issue). However, the ridiculous condition of the "discussions" at the talk page may well be worth review and intervention of some type. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:55, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ryulong

Shut down this poor excuse for forum shopping and removing actually neutral editors for the sake of letting POV pushers get their way. This is premature. There have been no valid attempts to address any of the issues ArmyLine brings up. There has simply been discussion after discussion on the content dispute and no such (valid) discussions regarding user behavior. There is no reason for me to have been singled out here, either, other than being repeatedly targetted offsite for my comments on this site and on Twitter where I was harassed by people in the movement. I will not involve myself in this any further because I sincerely hope that the Arbitration committee recognizes that there have been no failed attempts at the proper dispute resolution processes. Just a couple of warnings sent my way and the "medcom" notice sent to Red Pen. Certainly nothing formal regarding user behavior. And if this is allowed to continue in any way, it's just going to bring out every single pro-Gamergate editor who wants me removed from the article despite having not acted on any perceived bias that they feel I have.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@TheRedPenOfDoom: No, we don't need to waste ArbCom's time on this when there's been no formal attempts at user behavior resolution on this particular article. What we need first is an ANI thread to ban all of the editors who have been editing Wikipedia for the sole purpose of attempting to skew Gamergate controversy in their favor.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:50, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@TheRedPenOfDoom: There's still no prior discussion in any sort of forum on this site that has dealt with whatever issues may exist. RFCU or ANI before we waste a month and a half of everyone's time when we should just follow 4chan and Reddit's lead. Doing so will save the talk page from the same arguments being rehashed by users who should be banned by community consensus rather than a month of evidence gathering.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:58, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
ArmyLine's examples for deleterious behavior are also laughable.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ArmyLine

The two users have made personal attacks against other editors on the Talk:Gamergate_controversy page and have used the talk page to openly attack one side of the dispute. Requests that they recuse themselves from the article have been unproductive.

Example 1: oh poor poor poor gamergaters first people ignore their claims of conflict of interest because they are harassing. now people ignore their claims of harassment. its sooooooo horrible to be such an oppressed minority! what WP:SYSTEMICBIAS !!!

Example 2: No. Stop pulling conflicts of interest out of your ass.

--ArmyLine (talk) 21:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Beeblebrox - What other steps should I take?--ArmyLine (talk) 22:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem - Okay, it seems I should close it then. I'm not sure how, but anyone else can do so on my behalf.--ArmyLine (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by semi-involved Masem

There is currently a fresh mediation request that is a followup to an initial dispute resolution request over this page. I would strongly urge either for this to be closed by the initiator, or procedurally closed by clerks as premature. --MASEM (t) 22:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will add as a comment that there are problems right now with established editors that refuse to participate in any form of dispute resolution because the people bringing forward the dispute for the most part are SPA/new accounts/etc. that are driven by an outside push on this article. There are some things that cannot change about what sourcing is used that these SPA/new editors want to change, but there are very legit issues about bias and the like that I a few others have also been pushing to try to adapt a more appropriate middle ground that is better representative of how WP should be treating this type of situation but they refuse to budge. --MASEM (t) 14:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Clerk notes

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

Issues in Talk:Gamergate controversy: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

Since that has not happened I too say decline. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:52, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary sanctions at Historicity of Jesus

Initiated by Fearofreprisal (talk) at 13:05, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

This is a long-term user conduct issue, involving a large number of users editing a controversial article. Dispute resolution attempts addressing individuals are ineffective.

Statement by Fearofreprisal

I started editing the Historicity of Jesus article not because I had a strong viewpoint on the subject, but rather because the article was so screwed up and contentious, I was curious if it could be fixed. My curiosity got me topic-banned. [14]. (This is not an appeal of that topic-ban.)

The term historicity refers to the quality of historical actuality (or “facticity”) of persons or events in the past. It has only to do with “what actually happened back then.” The Historicity of Jesus is about history, not theology.

Because the title of the article includes the word “Jesus,” it attracts editors who have a strong interest in Christian themed articles. For lack of a less polarizing term: Christian apologists. These people tend to be journeymen editors, who know how things work around here, and they've been very successful at injecting theology material that is outside the scope of historicity into the article.

This is a link to a table that shows the top 10 editors, based on their number of talk page posts (as of October 10. Only recently active editors are included.) 13 editors involved in this RfA.

There are a few interesting things to note in this table:

  • 9 our of 10 10 out of 13 of these editors (in other words, all of them except me) appear to be Christian apologistshave a strong interest in Christian themed articles.
  • 4 7 of these editors have made few, if any, meaningful substantive contributions to the articles. Their involvement has been limited to mostly reverting article edits, and writing walls of text in the talk page (much of which attacks those who hold differing viewpoints from theirs.)

*Another 2 of these editors have made some contributions, but have still spent about half of their edits in reverts.

  • User:Wdford, The editor responsible for most of the recent changes to the article ultimately tried to kill it by blanking almost all of the content, and pointing readers to Christian articles on Jesus deleted over 90% of its content, replacing it with links to other articles.[15] (the resulting shit-storm is what lead to my being topic-banned.[16])

The table demonstrates something that is obvious to anyone who reads can be seen by reading the talk page: the article is dominated by a group of persistent, outspoken, and experienced editors who represent a single ideologically-based viewpoint. who tend to drive-away editors who express minority viewpoints.

Because of the majority position they hold, and their experience with WP policies and guidelines, these editors often push the bounds of WP policy and guidelines.

As a practical matter, this situation can't be changed. While the article's topic is a matter of history, it also happens to be the foundation of Christianity. It's natural that it attracts the editors it does. And it's natural that those editors use their experience and knowledge to support their strongly-held point of view. It has been this way for the 11 years the article has existed, and no amount of RfC, DRN, RfM, ANI, bans, or blocks are going to change it.

For this article to have any possibility of being fixed, its chronic POV imbalance must be managed for the long term. The only tool you have that can possibly do that is discretionary sanctions.

Response to statements by arbitrators
I've obviously misinterpreted some of the editors' motives, yet, the responses from involved editors have been enlightening. There seems to be a consensus that there are intractable problems with the article that are more a result of its controversial topic than of the actions of any individual editors. If you can get to a resolution through a motion rather than a full case, that seems to be a good option. While I might like to see those accusing me of serious misconduct be required to actually provide evidence, I can't imagine any arbitrator being enthusiastic about spending their time on that. Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
Please see [17]. This is a separate matter, where an editor has been attacking me on ANI for having filed this request for arbitration, and has inappropriately had one of my user pages deleted. I don't believe that ArbCom needs to take direct action on this (at this point), but I think it's something you should take notice of. Fearofreprisal (talk) 23:57, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Response to statement by User:Kww
I selected the editors to include in this RfA based on number of contributions to the article talk page, and filtering for those who are currently editing in 2014. (See [18] I chose the top 10. I admit that it was an arbitrary criterion, but it was as neutral as I could make it without stepping into specific content issues. It was not my intention to exclude Kww from this conversation. Fearofreprisal (talk) 02:18, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Response to statement by User:Wdford
You are right that I shouldn't have ascribed motive or intent to your actions, including your "BOLD" edit. I should have focused on facts. Which are:
  • You removed the following material from the article: The POV template, navigation template (sidebar), table of contents, all contents of the lead except its last paragraph, all contents of the References section except references from the last paragraph of the lead, all other sections (including See also and Notes), all images, all footers, and all categories.
  • The only material you retained were the last paragraph of the lead (two sentences, which made no mention of the article's topic), and its references (of which only one mentioned the article's topic.)
  • You retained 3930 characters of the 51579 that were in the article before your edit, or slightly less than 8%.
  • In short: You removed over 92% of the existing article's content, replaced it with a list of other articles, and labeled it a "disambiguation article," despite including no disambiguation.
  • All of the above is provable by examining nothing more than your BOLD edit.[19] It not opinion, it is fact.
  • I was topic-banned for expressing my opinions of your edit[20] – so my opinions on this are no longer relevant. It is entirely up to ArbCom to determine whether your edit was in accord with WP policies and guidelines (if they even want to make that determination.) Fearofreprisal (talk) 07:46, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Request for temporary injunctions
user:Hijiri88, who I have just added as a party, recently opened an ANI incident attempting to have me indefinitely blocked.[21] The ANI has since been closed [22], but Hijiri88 continues to use ANI to accuse me of sockpuppetry, TBAN violations, canvassing, and personal attacks, while providing no diffs to support his claims.[23] user:Robert McClenon, who is also a party, has this morning opened an ANI incident proposing that I be site banned. [24] At least two other editors have joined Robert McClenon, despite the fact that he has provided no diffs to substantiate his claims. I no longer have any interactions with either Hijiri88 or Robert McClenon in the mainspace, and both of their actions appear to be in reprisal for my filing this RFAR. I am requesting temporary injunctions, to stop this harassment. Hijiri88 and Robert McClendon should provide evidence here for their claims against me, rather than trying to stir up animosity against me at ANI. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Wdford

Fearofreprisal constantly declares that this article should consider “only what really happened”, but he refuses to acknowledge that there is minimal actual “evidence” on which to make that judgment, that scholars are thus forced to tease details out of the available documentary sources (specifically the gospels) and that most scholars conclude from the process that Jesus did exist although most of what is in the gospel accounts is not actually historical. This is WP:RS material, and it cannot be excluded on the grounds that it is “merely opinion”.

My edit did not blank the article, despite the false accusation being made by Fearofreprisal to this effect. A lot of material was in fact retained, all of it being supported by a scholarly consensus. It is largely the same material that currently stands in the article today, but it was much more summarized per WP:SUMMARY to avoid duplication with existing articles dedicated to those topics.

I felt that this move was needed because of extensive duplication and because of extensive edit warring – largely from banned editor Fearofreprisal. My edit was WP:BOLD but it was well received and was supported by almost all of the editors that had been working on the article at that time.

The various over-lapping articles to which my shortened article referred readers are not in any way “Christian” articles. These articles were the following – see here: Historical Jesus; Christ myth theory; Historical reliability of the Gospels; Sources for the historicity of Jesus; Historical background of the New Testament; Quest for the historical Jesus and Jesus Christ in comparative mythology – all of which deal with material that contradicts the “traditional” Christian views. To any objective editor it would be perfectly clear that NONE OF THESE REDIRECTS was to a “Christian” article at all – in fact QUITE THE OPPOSITE. This accusation against me is thus a blatant lie, and is typical of the behaviour that got the banned editor banned in the first place.

The accusation that I am a Christian apologetic is also a lie – I am not personally a Christian, and I have edited against anything that claims that the gospels are historically true. I created the Historical reliability of the Gospels article and the article Sources for the historicity of Jesus, both of which detail a lot of WP:RS scholarly evidence that leans against the historical reliability of the gospels.

Fearofreprisal fought a long and disruptive campaign against a strong consensus to change the focus of this article and to remove much of the content. Even now that he has been topic-banned, he is still tossing out false accusations against editors who stood up to him. Wdford (talk) 23:44, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response to statement by topic-banned User:Fearofreprisal about me
Actually, contrary to your false accusations:
  • I did not in fact remove “all other sections” as you claim – I retained the relevant material in the body of the article, but summarized it all to avoid duplication with the various main articles;
  • I did not in fact remove “all contents of the References section except references from the last paragraph of the lead” – there were 33 references left in the article, most of them coming from the summarized content I retained;
  • I did not in fact retain “3930 characters of the 51579 that were in the article before your edit, or slightly less than 8%” – I retained 10913 characters of the 51774 that were in the article before my edit, or slightly more than 21%.
  • In short, I did not remove “92% of the existing article's content, replaced it with a list of other articles”, I summarized the material into a series of concise summaries linked to the various main articles, removing in the process 79% of the (unnecessarily duplicated) material.
All of the above is provable by examining nothing more than my BOLD edit.[25] It not opinion, it is fact.
I shortened the lead to focus on the one important statement which is really what the topic is all about – “Yes Jesus really did exist, but no most of the gospel stories about him did not really happen”. I then summarized the key points in the article below, and referred readers to the various main articles on those topics for the full detail. My intention was that we would build up from that clean base, but a lot of editors decided it was fine as it was, so I left it and moved on to start improving the HJ article.
I followed the policies of WP:BRD and WP:IAR, with the expectations that concerned editors would simply revert me if I had gone too far. Instead a dozen editors supported my BOLD edit, including at least one highly respected admin.
On the subject of facts, you were NOT “topic-banned for expressing [your] opinions of [my] edit” – you were topic-banned for bad behavior. Continual blatant misrepresenting of the facts, false accusations, provocations and disruptiveness formed part of that bad behavior, and seemingly that bad behavior is still continuing. Shame on you. Wdford (talk) 12:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bill the Cat 7

I'm gone for a few days of R&R and I come back to this? Annoying to say the least. At any rate, since others have already made the points that I would have made, let me just say that I agree wholeheartedly with what Wdford and others have already stated. In fact, Wdford's edit of summarizing the page, pointing readers to the appropriate article, was probably the single best edit I've ever seen. It almost brought tears to my eyes.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:41, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mmeijeri

I'm surprised a topic-banned editor is even allowed to initiate such a request. As User:Jeppiz notes below, the suggestion that I'm a Christian apologist is absurd, on pages related to Christianity I mainly find myself trying to remove covert and sometimes even overt Christian apologetics. Also, closer inspection of my edits (rather than Talk page entries) reveals many more interests: science and technology in general, spaceflight in particular, mathematics, (agile) software development, history in general, WW2 in particular, linguistics, cryptocurrencies and probably some more I can't think of right now. I'm not fundamentally opposed to stronger oversight, but I don't think it's necessary right now, and in any event I'd like to see clarification as to whether a topic-banned user is even allowed to initiate a request for it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:06, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In reponse to Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs's question: there are long-standing content disputes, sometimes spilling over into conduct issues by multiple users, or at least various users have at times felt there were conduct issues. The problems aren't confined to just Historicity of Jesus, the two main sister pages Historical Jesus and Christ Myth Theory suffer from exactly the same problems and are frequented by largely the same users. The same may be true for a few other related pages. Any action that might be necessary on the current page would likely have to be applied to these other pages as well in order to be useful. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:05, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jeppiz

I've been notified about this request by the topic banned WP:SPA who has admitted they have a main account beside this SPA. I have several issues with this request made in bad faith.

  • The OP had made a table of ten users, including myself [26]. I'll get back to the content but a user topic banned from anything concerning Historicity of Jesus, including their own talk page, making a table with comments about users on that very page seems to be in breach of the topic ban. That is the smallest problem.
  • The OP claims that every user except himself is a "Christian apologist". This breach of WP:NPA is completely made up. The most active user User:Mmeijeri is active because of arguing against Christian apologists. Most of my talk page edits concerning Christianity are because of disagreements with User:Mmeijeri. Despite these disagreements, I respect User:Mmeijeri and think our discussions are fruitful. That goes for several other users with whom I disagree. Having differences of opinion is never a problem and usually beneficial for improving articles. That the OP groups us all together is as revealing as it is hilarious.
  • As for me being a "Christian apologist" I doubt even 5% of my edits at Wikipedia concern Christianity, and a number of those are against Christian views. Here are three such edits just from the last days [27],[28], [29]. Out of the ten articles I've edited the most, this article is the only one related to religion. The fact that I've made far more edits to Larissa Riquelme [30] than to Jesus probably indicates bad taste but hardly a Christian apologist.
  • The fifth column in the OP's table list "Christian article focus". According to the OP, every user involved has a Christian article focus except (of course) the OP himself. Again, perhaps 5% of my Wikipedia edits concern Christianity. In contrast, since July, the OP has made hundreds of edits of which at least 90% concern those same articles. It's beyond me how a a 5% focus on Christianity is a "Christian article focus" for me while 90% focus on Christianity is not a "Christian article focus" for the OP.
  • The OP list how often we have reverted but conveniently forgets a crucial detail. This very popular WP:CANVAS [31] praising the OP for "pissing-off those Christian editors" and calling on the people at Reddit's atheism forum to come to the article to help out the OP. A large number of IP vandalism and SPA vandalism took place before the article was semi-protected. A large part of the reverts stem from that convenient canvassing for the OP.
  • Just as the OP is untruthful about "Christian apologists" and "Christian article focus", the accusations against User:Wdford are also distorted. Far from "blanking" the article, the user made a WP:BOLD attempt at solving the situation by linking to a number of articles. That those articles were "Christian articles" is yet another lie. On the top of my head, one was to Christ myth theory, an "anti-Christian" theory in that it suggests Jesus never existed. Another was to Historical Jesus, an article that deals with what academics say about the actual person, very different (and inconvenient) for Christians.
  • Revealingly, 90% of all problems have disappeared from the article after the OP was topic banned. That is not because there is any consensus yet, but now users of different opinions discuss the sources. Sometimes passionately, sometimes too long and too much (I make this mistake myself), but despite the differences, we are all discussing and even finding common ground based on using academic sources, far from the claims about any Christian apologism. Users can have different opinions and still interact constructively. The OP was topic banned for failing this, not for any difference of opinion.

In short, the OP has made a table of users (possibly violating the topic ban), falsely accused everybody else of being "Christian apologists", falsely claimed that all other users focus on "Christian articles", falsely claimed that the OP himself does not focus on said articles, severely misrepresented Wdford's edits in particular, and left out his own disruptions and the canvassing at Reddit. Perhaps the OP's original account is here for the right reason, but the SPA Fearofreprisal is most certainly WP:NOTHERE for the right reasons, and I believe both the topic ban and this request proves it.Jeppiz (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Answer to Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs. It is clearly a subject that passionates many users and as Harry Mitchell said Several editors have not conducted themselves in a manner appropriate to a controversial article That is true of myself, for one. I've mainly limited myself to the talk page, and to discuss academic sources on the talk page, but it did happen that I reverted too fast. While no policy was broken, I could have left it and just discussed on the talk page. I'd say that that goes for several other users, some have reverted each other, some have reverted me. On the other hand, I believe in the good faith of all users except the OP. I don't believe the users with whom I disagree, and who have reverted me, have done so for the wrong reasons. They believed their edits to be in line with policies as I believed mine. So some of us have occasionally been to eager as happens in intense discussions, but for the most part we have all discussed with each other rather than reverted. Personally, I've taken a break from the article for a few days to focus on other things. In short I believe every user except the OP to be there for the right reasons, and the differences are due to different interpretations of different policies. The atmosphere has improved markedly in the last few days, with much more understanding and a common scrutiny of the sources to agree with WP:NPOV and WP:RS.Jeppiz (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Smeat75

Statement by John Carter

There have been conduct issues, including regarding myself. I believe a substantial part of the problem which initiated the conduct issues, the conduct of the filer, is now resolved by the topic ban of that party. To my eyes, as a person who has spent a lot of time involved in the broad field of religion around here, many of the remaining problems could not unreasonably be dealt with by consulting the reference sources I have found to date which deal specifically with this topic under the title "Historicity of Jesus" and "Jesus, Historicity of" and basically trying to more or less include what they include in roughly the proportion they include it and the recent book of conference papers on this topic which I intended to get to today before I found that the seminary library which has the book also currently has a huge room full of books they are giving away to all comers and which I am greedily and pointedly going through for reference sources and journals and suchlike. I find the filer's apparent categorization of me as a "Christian apologist" amusing, and think that such conduct here is almost certainly one of the reasons for his topic ban. I think it would be broadly useful to have discretionary sanctions available on a rather large number of articles relating to early Christianity, including early Christian groups which are experiencing some sort of attempted "revivals" and the significant number of somewhat controversial articles relating to the varied positions of Islam and Christianity and modern agnosticism or atheism on Jesus and his era, and would support such sanctions if useful clear and comparatively limited description of the contentious topics could be arrived at. John Carter (talk) 20:21, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Beeblebrox

I think simply implementing DS on the topic of "Jesus and history" in general might be sufficient myself. I would however wonder how an individual who has already been banned from this topic would in any way be able to address any issues which might merit such sanctions, given his existing topic ban and how any attempts at requesting such sanctions would rather obviously be violations of that ban in spirit and I believe in fact. John Carter (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Paul Barlow

Ferofreprisal's characterisation of my edits is bizarre to say the least. Yes, I have some Christianity-related articles on my watchlist. I also have "Hindu articles" and "Muslim articles", but most of my editing is wholly unrelated to religion. As it happens, I am not a Christian, though I deeply resent having to make declarations about my personal beliefs or lack of them. Fearofreprisal's definition of "historicity" is equally bizarre. The standard meaning is "historical existence of". No other editor has found the title problematic or in any way misleading. As has been repeatedly pointed out, support for the historical existence of Jesus is near-universal among specialists. This has nothing to do with Christian faith. It's not as if only Muslims believe Mohammad existed and only Buddhists believe the Buddha existed. Indeed, for many years the leading editor on both Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus was the sadly now-deceased User:Slrubenstein, who was Jewish. The principal problem is that Fearofreprisal redefines terms to fit his/her preconceptions, which makes it near impossible to have any reasonable debate with this editor. Paul B (talk) 10:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tgeorgescu

In the light of WP:RNPOV policy, my take on the article still is and I here reaffirm it: [32], namely that fundamentalist Christians create trouble inside Wikipedia because they want it to affirm the inerrancy of the Bible and inside the discussed article the fundamentalist atheists create trouble, by pushing the contrary view (its mirror image), namely that the Bible is absolutely worthless for anything pertaining to historical research, despite it being critically sifted by scholars for this purpose.

According to [33] my only two edits which could (however vaguely) be construed as attacks upon Fearofreprisal are: [34] and [35]. The first shows my disappointment that a user whose edits violate basic Wikipedia policies makes a big fuss about the removal of his errant edits, and the consequence I drew from it was that the user is unreliable and unwilling to cooperate with bona fide editors, therefore he should be topic banned if the allegation (not mine, someone's else) about his edits turns out to be true (i.e. by actually checking what the quoted sources say by actually reading them). As the links show, I am no Christian and I have no Christian bias, I am a science-loving person and I have a pro-academia bias (aka bias in favor of reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia policies and guidelines).

I have to say that none of these links does show a vicious attack upon the person of Fearofreprisal, instead I criticized his behavior, his lack of comprehension of basic Wikipedia policies and his abuse of editing privileges through misquoting reliable sources in order to push his POV. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to add that historical criticism is not an ideology, it is an academic discipline. See e.g. [36]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:24, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In order to answer newer claims: I have nothing against rendering minority views, but according to WP:UNDUE they should be clearly labeled as minority views, continuously pushing them to be rendered as majority views amounts to trolling, and of course WP:RANDY applies. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Evensteven

Real life may (unpredictably) intervene to interrupt my participation in this arbitration - indeed, in any WP activity at all, as it has done for the week past. I will give the arbitration only such attention as I may within those bounds. Having been away from Internet service for most of the past month, I have also not caught up with editing developments on the article over that time. The snippets of summary I heard at FearOfReprisal's topic ban do not greatly disturb me.

I remain somewhat unconvinced of the necessity of a dispute arbitration. FearOfReprisal was promoting the notion that Christians (and even some non-Christians) who were tainted with what he called "Christian apologetics" were therefore hopelessly biased in favor of Jesus' historical existence and therefore incompetent to render any useful findings about historicity. I was unconvinced by his denial because of his circular arguments, refusal to be plain about his concerns and objectives, and his ongoing contentiousness.

The talk page was already acrimonious when I first entered my engagement there, my first entries into this article or its talk page, and my first encounter with FearOfReprisal. You will be able to see and judge all my relevant activities there and on my talk page, where FoR brought further argument.

As for settling any dispute about the article content, I wish this arbitration well. I have presented (in some fashion) most of my own arguments within the talk page's wall of text. I ventured an article edit, mostly an exploratory trial, with a view to getting a better feel for what the editing community's response would be. I felt that FoR's disruptions were obscuring their viewpoints (which were largely unknown to me) by silencing them while they waited for the storms to pass. I did not press the issue when I was reverted, but left only one civil comment in response on the talk page. It was disappointing to get only a kind of knee-jerk reaction, but I attribute the lack of anything more to the distress under which the community labored at that time.

It is difficult to see how this article can be more than an expression of opinions (scholarly, of course, not editorial). The documentary materials and artifacts left to us after 2000 years of history are scanty, to say the least. FoR insisted upon a "scientific" basis for determining historicity, derived from a mistaken notion of what scientific method is, and to what it can be applied. I am only too pleased to have science contribute whatever it can to this topic. Like all techniques and tools, though, it has its own limitations and cannot be expected to be the only supply line in the discussions. Scientific method did not erupt in a vacuum, but developed over time from within scholarly inquiry. Modern historians can and do make use of it, but not exclusive use, because weighing human motivations and societal developments are required in historical topics, and are not subject to neat categorizations or experiment. FoR could not accept the evident.

The best impartial inquiries into Jesus' historicity are de facto going to be subject to human decisions and weighing of evidence. The gospels are the best-preserved documents of the era, and constitute evidence that we have. As is normal for historians, it is up to them how to weigh that evidence. I did not hear anyone deny that they are a work of faith. I believe that the contentions, here on WP and also in the real world, are the result of differing opinions about what to do with the fact that the gospels are a work of faith. Some deny they can be used at all.

I have made no secret of being a Christian myself. I make no apologies for it. I make no apologies for Christianity. And I make no Christian apologetics, either, and most especially about this topic, wherein there is so little factual evidence upon which to exercise scholarly activity. It is my view that the article needs to reflect the existing scholarly opinions in the world, on all sides having sufficient notability, to be articulated in the article with the maximum possible neutrality, and without undue weight to any opinions. Yes, WP policy describes the goals admirably. Editing communities and arbitrations just need to insist on them. Christian apologetics do exist in the real world, and therefore have a place in the article. Non-Christian apologetics likewise. FoR's mistake is in thinking that there is anything but apologetics to include.

As for my past participation, I am not satisfied with all of it. I welcome the arbitration's comments and actions. But I doubt there is much that has not already occurred to me, or that I have not already undertaken to improve. With regards to future participation, I am rather glad of Wdford's engagement and tend to think a balanced article will be a resulting benefit. I'll watch in any case. If allowed, I'll participate, if I need to, but I don't see this article as being particularly important to Christianity, and my interest has its natural limits. It was of interest to me, however, to oppose the establishment of an anti-Christian principle (i.e. Christian belief disqualifies contributions because of bias) at its foundation, because I think that principle would have undermined important WP policies. (It couldn't have harmed Christianity itself.) Evensteven (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

I have added myself as a party to the case request. I don't agree with any of the previous actions by the filing party about this article, but I do agree that discretionary sanctions are appropriate, not for the reasons stated by the filing party, but because the article is plagued by a combination of content issues and conduct disputes that make resolving the content issues impossible. I would ask that the Arbitration Committee expand the scope of the arbitration to include all topics related to the early history of Christianity, defined as the first century CE. Other articles in that area have also been troublesome. Historical Jesus, which is not the same as Historicity of Jesus, is commonly edited by SPAs with fringe theories. Gospel of Matthew was the topic of a recent moderated dispute resolution thread that failed. There have been previous Arbitration cases concerning the Ebionites. I ask that the Arbitration Committee open a case to request evidence of conduct issues (edit-warring, personal attacks, battleground editing, trolling) in the early history of Christianity. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The argument can be made that this filing is a violation of the filing party's topic ban. I would ask that the ArbCom accept it anyway, both as a boomerang (for a possible site-ban of the filing party), and because the conflict preceded and extends beyond the misconduct of the filing party. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Answers to questions

One of the arbitrators asked whether the conduct issues go beyond those of User:Fearofreprisal. The answer is yes, especially if the scope of the case is expanded as requested. While FOR's conduct recently has been the most egregious, other editors have engaged in POV-pushing, personal attacks, and other non-collaborative editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The question has been asked whether it would be reasonable to impose discretionary sanctions by motion, rather than opening a full evidentiary case. I think that is a reasonable idea, but would ask that the scope of the discretionary sanctions be extended to the early history of Christianity, defined as the first century CE. Discretionary sanctions can deal with future disruptive editing without the need to identify and punish past disruptive editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:58, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hijiri88

I was going to it back and see ho this goes, since it seems impossible that Fearofreprisal could reinstate his preferred (bad) version of the article through ArbCom, and once the SPAs and IPs he brought to the page through his off-site canvassing dissipate we will finally be able to implement the previously established consensus of, to use Fearofreprisal's words, "delet[ing] over 90% of its content" (removing forked content that doesn't directly relate to the historicity of Jesus but to what scholars suggest he did, that ultimately gives the false impression that these scholars deny the historicity of Jesus).

However, since Fearofreprisal has continued to bait me on ANI and now here, I will comment.

I initially saw this ArbCom request and the user subpage and read them as obvious TBAN violations by Fearofreprisal. I requested that he be blocked for this, along with his continued personal attacks ("These users are all Christian apologists! I'm not a religious apologist, just an innocent scholar advocating for the historical consensus!") and his prior admission that he was specifically editing under a sockpuppet account because he believes this area to be controversial. (In fact it is only controversial among the "atheist community", some radical elements of which believe making outlandish claims about the historicity of Jesus will help them in their "battle" against "religion"; others, like noted atheist Bart Ehrman, have a more reasonable position.) I withdrew my request for Fearofreprisal to be blocked immediately because a few users pointed out that ArbCom had been marked as an exception to the TBAN. However, Fearofreprisal's separate request for a mutual IBAN with me remains open (despite universal rejection among other editors); if Fearofreprisal had any class, he would follow me in withdrawing his frivolous request. Instead, he has continued making claims about me harassing him. When I responded last night by pointing out that since "Fearofreprisal" is an (admitted) single-purpose account for editing the two "controversial" topics Joe Arpaio (an area I am not interested in) and the historicity of Jesus (an area from which the Fearofreprisal account is TBANned), an IBAN would not accomplish anything worthwhile. If in fact I have had negative interactions in the past with Fearofreprisal's main account, then he needs to disclose said account if he wants an IBAN to be imposed, but that this would also make his TBAN effective for his main account as well. I have had bad experiences with IBANs in the past, so you can no doubt understand my suspicion that once Fearofreprisal gets me to agree to a mutual IBAN he will suddenly develop an interest in classical Japanese literature, an area he clearly has no interest in or knowledge about at present.

I still think Fearofreprisal should be forced to disclose his main account if he wishes to continue editing. I don't buy his claim that I am trying to "out" him because he edits under his real name: if he were concerned about protecting his identity, he wouldn't be deliberately trolling the Wikipedia article on the historicity of Jesus.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I also think the table in his userspace is incredibly offensive: he made the unsubstantiated claim that everyone in the list except for him was focused on "Christian articles", and then removed a couple who had specifically rejected this claim here. Those who have not specifically rejected the claim to being "Christian apologists" remain accused of having a "Christian focus" in their editing, even if their editing histories do not back this up. Of Fearofreprisal's top 10 articles edited, three are related specifically to Jesus' historicity: for all but maybe one or two of his "opponents", none of their top 10 are remotely related to Christianity. I still intend to ask that the page be re-deleted once this ArbCom dealio is done with, since it is a TBAN violation -- if Fearofreprisal wants to present ArbCom evidence that would otherwise violate his TBAN, he has a responsibility to do it on this page and this page alone. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Passing comment for Harry Mitchell

I have some involvement in this issue in an admin capacity. I came across an RfPP request related to the historicity of Jesus article, as a result of which I fully protected it to prevent edit-warring. When the edit war resumed after the expiry of full protection, I blocked two editors. The blocks seemed to dampen things down, but were only a very temporary measure. There are clearly long-term issues at that article involving multiple parties. Several editors have not conducted themselves in a manner appropriate to a controversial article but without necessarily stepping over the line into obviously sanction-worthy misconduct. I don't know if a full case is necessary here, but discretionary sanctions might be helpful in that they would allow administrators to more easily deal with the sort of sub-par conduct which creates a hostile editing environment. Arbs, this page is on my watchlist (for my sins!), but I don't venture here very often; it may be necessary to ping me if you desire further input from me. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ignocrates (uninvolved)

As background, I stuck my nose into the content part of this dispute briefly to express my opinion during the RfC in support of a shortened disambiguation article. The underlying problem is duplication of content, which has contributed to the chronic instability of the article. It has no obvious reason for being; thus, the reason keeps changing, and edit wars over the continual overwrites are almost inevitable. With respect to editor conduct, the topic ban of Fearofreprisal was appropriate. There is a continuing assumption of bad faith by the filing party in this request that doesn't show any sign of moderating. Imo, this filing seems like a revenge attempt by a topic-banned editor to get in his last shots against opposing editors on the way to a site ban.

The issue of imposing discretionary sanctions is a tricky one. It makes some sense with respect to this article and the closely related Christ Myth Theory. As both articles have been made more NPOV, they have become mirror-images, and the process of sorting out why we need both of them is likely to remain contentious. I'm less convinced that sanctions are needed on related articles. This is the camel's nose under the tent for those who favor discretionary sanctions applied across the entire category of early Christianity. Imo, that's a bad idea. It will lead to a kind of incrementalism that locks in the status quo and discourages new editors from making the bold edits which may lead to real improvements. The underlying assumption equates dissent with disruption. There are already plenty of stodgy encyclopedias. I don't see how that works as a model for a dynamic encyclopedia in the 21st century. Ignocrates (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If it's true that experience is the best teacher, I think the experience of 6 weeks on the wheel in arbitration will be of great benefit to some of these editors. ANI is not a device to be used to intimidate or eliminate your opponents to gain a competitive advantage. I recommend the case move forward to demonstrate the purpose of dispute resolution. Ignocrates (talk) 15:35, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kww

The fact that I'm not listed as a party here is a sign that Fearofreprisal's filing was focused on the group of editors he opposes rather than attempting to include all members of the dispute. Keeping that flaw in mind, this is a terrible article, and one that is extremely resistant to repair. While Fearofreprisal has cast too large of a net and made a few accusations about motives that can't be substantiated, there's a long-standing problem of a biased source pool in relationship to this topic. The "historicity" of Jesus of Nazareth is an issue studied not so much by historians as by biblical scholars who, unsurprisingly, are generally Christians that have a predisposition towards interpreting the evidence as being in favour of Jesus's existence. Any effort to try to cast the article in that light (not the light that Jesus did not exist, or that evidence demonstrates that Jesus did not exist, but that the consensus that he did exist needs to be weighed in light of the group that has the consensus) gets shut down quickly. Editors that attempt to discuss bias are subject to false claims of attack and bigotry.

The whole dispute smacks of our problems relating to pseudoscience and the various ethnic disputes, and I suspect it's intractable. Smacking Fearofreprisal around may reduce the current noise level, but will do essentially nothing with respect to fixing the underlying problem.—Kww(talk) 01:11, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:David Fuchs, the short answer to your question is that absolutely there are problems with other editors. I see Fearofreprisal's condition as being a result of fighting an unwinnable battle and resorting to misbehaviour out of sheer frustration in dealing with a group that generally refuses to engage in reasonable discussion.—Kww(talk) 01:52, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mangoe

Every article relating to how mythological the stories of Christian origins are has been plagued by a struggle between those who point to people in the field (Bart Ehrman being the most commonly cited) and what comes across to me as a dogmatic atheism which says that we have to disregard these sources, because as a rule they come from within religious academia. Personally I see this assumption of bad faith as tendentious but I suppose that it would be preferable to use secular authorities respected by all parties (that is, both within and outside religious academia). I personally don't have the time right now to go searching for these, but surely there are others who do, especially among those who think we should be reporting a controversy which I personally am not seeing evidence of away from our talk pages.

Be that as it may, FearofReprisal's approach to discussing this has been to crush all discussion through endless accusations of intrinsic bad faith and through introduction of his eccentric notion of "historicity" which I at least cannot get a decent picture of, due in no small part to his evasion in explaining it. I'm not convinced that discretionary sanctions are going to turn out to be anything but a tactical weapon in this, but I would be quite happy to see ARBCOM reaffirm his topic ban. Mangoe (talk) 16:38, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Discretionary sanctions at Historicity of Jesus: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <7/1/0/3>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

I am still of the opinion that this could have been dealt with by motion, but as there is apparently not enough support for doing it that way and there is a problem here that needs solving, Accept. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:37, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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