Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/His excellency/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

User:Jayjg should recuse himself from this case

Jayjg has had significant involvement with the parties I am disputing with, according to his talk page archives and edit history. He is familiar with both Timothy Usher and Pecher. His edit history shows he has been involved in several of the articles in which I too have been in dispute. He had once blocked me for 3RR, and had previously reverted my one of my edits to Pecher's version. He has recently also been involved in an Arbcomm case revolving around changes to the "Israeli Aparthied" article. He's been involved in the "Islam and Anti-Semitism" article, amongst others dealing with Islamic history, particularly the less positive ones. His interests, apparently, are similar to those of myself and the other parties involved, and it is likely he has a POV on the issue as we all do. Though I'm not accusing him of bias, but it would be best that the judges in this case be editors who are not directly familiar with the users involved in this dispute and those who are not personally emotionally invested in the same content disputes that users here may also be. His Excellency... 00:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC) I went through a bit of his record, and I'm not sure this request is really warranted now. He does seem familiar with T Usher and Pecher, and has edited on several articles I've also been involved in (Islam and Anti-semitism, etc) but hasn't said or done anything that implies a bias. I'll leave it to his judgement whether or not he should recuse himself. His Excellency... 19:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC) According to the Dhimmi edit history, Jayjg had done significant editing work on Dhimmi. Content disputes in Dhimmi and Criticism of Islam are pretty much alot of what this case revolves around.I still think he should consider recusing himself, for the sake of fairness. His Excellency... 21:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't thoroughly looked at the article Islam and Anti-semitism until now. It's evident user:Jayjg was involved, along with myself, Timothy Usher, Pecher, Bless Sin, and Faisal in an edit war on several instances.[1] Given his involvment and his familiarity with the users, it's best that he recuse himself. His Excellency... 21:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

It's up to him, but I doubt he has any actual prejudice which would require it. Fred Bauder 21:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Search his ID on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islam_and_anti-Semitism&limit=500&action=history . It would probably be best if he'd recuse himself from this case. His Excellency... 21:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I concur.--Bonafide.hustla 04:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC) Seems to be a non-issue.--Bonafide.hustla 06:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not. I don't see anything that shows a bias by Jayjg. Blocking H.E. does not show bias. He was just doing his job as an admin. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Both Amibidhrohi and His excellency's block logs are impressive, but I cannot see any block done by Jayjg. Pecher ^Talk 19:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety should be par for the course unless there is a shortage of arbitrators. Publicola 08:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Motion to dismiss irrelevant material

1) Motion to dismiss all irrelevant evidence, proposals and commentary.Timothy Usher 10:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

We take it all in. Irrelevant material will not be included in the proposed decision. Fred Bauder 12:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. This page has become an unreadable mess, serving only to divert attention from H.E. Pecher ^Talk 10:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This page has become merely another forum in which the user currently operating under the name His excellency can continue his personal attacks.Timothy Usher 11:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Motion to remove all personal attacks

1) Motion to remove all personal attacks, as per WP:NPA, from this page in its current version, in its history, and from all other pages in their current versions and histories. Editors contribute to Wikipedia under the expectation that policy is policy, to be enforced. It's a betrayal of that trust to suspend its enforcement. It is not a matter of disciplining editors who post these attacks, as it's rightly up to Wikipedia what sort of editors are desired here, but of ensuring that Wikipedia does not facilitate attacks on living people, including editors to Wikipedia.Timothy Usher 10:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Examples of personal attacks? His Excellency... 18:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

If my comment on Robert Spencer was a personal attack, I am not willing to take it back. How come he chooses the title "The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion" for his book? I don't want to call him a decent scholar but rather aPOV-pusher! Because he could present his arguments honestly and decently and let others judge for themselves. He could choose the title to be "Some discussions on Muhammad and tolerance of his religion." --Aminz 10:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you about Spencer. Nevertheless, were Mr.Spencer an editor to Wikipedia, he'd have every right to assume that, according to WP:NPA, personal attacks upon him were not allowed.Timothy Usher 11:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed temporary injunctions

His excellency restricted from editing

1) For the duration of the arbitration, His excellency is restricted to editing only the arbitration page and his own talkpage. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

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Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is not a soap box

1) Wikipedia is not a medium of advocacy or propaganda of any kind. Editors have an obligation to neutrally reflect on topics and issues, including those that are controversial, but should not demonstrate a pattern of editing that in effect causes an article to reflect a position of advocacy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Accepted Fred Bauder 16:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed His Excellency... 05:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Avoid bias

2) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia's three content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should therefore try to familiarize themselves with all three. These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to better reflect practical explanation and application of these principles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Correct, consensus does not trump NPOV. Fred Bauder 22:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed This is different from the NPOV principle as presented in the 'proposed decisions'. What's above is taken directly from WP:NPOV. It is to be noted that NPOV is non-negotiable, even when consensus agrees to take the article in another direction. WP policy is clear that enforcement of policy is by the users. The guidelines that forbids edit warring and other ordinarily even 'disruptive' are reasonable under normal circumstances.Where NPOV was violated so totally that articles turned into propaganda, however, even edit warring (not that I'm guilty of that, I haven't passed 3RR recently) with the intent of bringing neutrality to content can potentially be understood as an action in 'good faith'. I'm not defending incivility or edit warring, but the NPOV problem in these articles should be understood as a a factor contributing to other reactions. His Excellency... 05:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

When two opposing points of view arise from a legitimate and intractible dispute, presenting a neutral point of view demands presenting both opposing points of view, and/or explaining the dispute in terms fair to both sides. Publicola 09:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Assume good faith

3) (WP:AGF) To assume good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. So, when you can reasonably assume that something is a well-intentioned error, correct it without just reverting it or labeling it as vandalism. When you disagree with someone, remember that they probably believe that they are helping the project. Consider using talk pages to explain yourself, and give others the opportunity to do the same. This can avoid misunderstandings and prevent problems from escalating.

This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, sockpuppetry and edit warring. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is another form of failing to assume good faith.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Assume good faith is not something you can turn on and off. It is most important in situations where actual offenses have been committed. It is then that one may, by engaging in good faith negotiation, resolve disputes. Fred Bauder 16:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. If we were to assume good faith unconditionally, regardless of evidence to the contrary, people pushing POVs, or using Wikipedias as databases for their political and polemical reference (this is happening already) would be able to do so continuously, relatively immune from public review and suspicion. WP:AGF doesn't put that burden on us, it states we don't have to assume good faith when there's evidence to the contrary. I don't think Arbcomm should, as a matter of principle, presume differently.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by His excellency (talk • contribs) . 15:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed WP:AFG is already mentioned in the 'proposed decisions' page. It is not mentioned, though, that WP policy does not require one to assume good faith where evidence otherwise is overwhelmingly available. What's above is directly quoted from WP:AGF His Excellency... 07:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Don't be rude

4) Being rude, insensitive or petty makes people upset and prevents Wikipedia from working properly. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and be careful to avoid offending people unintentionally. --WP:CIVIL

Comment by Arbitrators:

The standard phrasing of this is, "Users are expected to be reasonably courteous to one another and to resolve conflict by engaging in patient dialog, negotiation, and, if necessary, further steps in Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures. Fred Bauder 16:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Well, obviously this one will come in to play. I just want to take this opportunity to repeat that this is not the first time that this has been an issue for Muslim contributors. In the US, we have a labor law concept called the "hostile work environment" which occurs, for example, when people leave offensive material in plain view. Because there are far more POV-pushers on one side of the Jewish/Muslim viewpoint divide than the other, a hostile editing environment, so to speak, is created, which infuriates Muslims. Until balance is achieved in the multitude of places where anti-Muslim bias is crept in, I submit that this hostile environment will continue to be the root cause of the observed incivilities by Muslim editors, of which this case is just one of many instances. Again, I urge the Committee to address the root cause, and again, I feel an appropriate remedy for His Excellency's particular set of incivilities would be an assignment to list and publish the worst of the anti-Muslim bias problems on Wikipedia. Publicola 09:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Quotas and balance

5) Anyone who is willing to abide by our policies is welcome to edit Wikipedia. That includes any number of talented users who hold any sane viewpoint from any ethnic group or political perspective, even if a imbalance results. It is presumed that users from any ethnic group or political perspective with any sane viewpoint will comply with core policies such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

For those who don't immediately recognize what issue is being addressed here, there is no limit on participation by Jews in Wikipedia. The remedy for any imbalance is encouraging participation by other such as those who hold pro-Islamic views. Fred Bauder 08:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no 'clash of ethnicities' problem in the context of this discussion. Most of the editors in conflict here are in the United States. The divide isn't an ethnic one, it's a political one. His Excellency... 15:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Changed to reflect situation. Fred Bauder 16:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

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Special exceptions

6) While patience is commended, even extreme patience and forbearance, there is no special exception for aggrieved users who for whatever reason, even one based on accurate identification of real problems such as systemic bias, repeatedly violate Wikipedia policies and guidelines and disrupt the site.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Fred again raise the issue of "systematic bias". When I claimed such systemtaic bias (to the other POV) the argument was ignored. Is it only when one see "Zionism" that such argument can be excpeted ? If Fred thinks this is "Zio-Wiki" he should provide proof to that . If he thinks there is sytematic zionist bias (or systematic anti-Israel bias as I claim) in both cases, he , as lead arbotor should resign for not being able to implment Wiki policies. In any case Fred should proove his point. Other wise it is just a WP:Point . Zeq 19:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No personal attacks

7) Wikipedia:No personal attacks forbids repeated, aggressive personal attacks directed at opposing users or ethnic groups, whatever the excuse.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

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Identification of problems

8) It is commendable to identify and point out problems with bias in articles or sets of article. It is appropriate to bring these problems to the attention of a project which is concerned with that area and to the attention of individual editors which regularly edit in that area.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Can we distinguish here between non-partisan projects and partisan guilds? The Muslim Guild's very name declares it as partisan (and exclusionary). How is this concept from the deleted Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia? And how is a post there soliciting POV-type assistance (e.g., blind reverts) or "votes" to CfD's, RfA's etc. funtionally different from spamming to obtain the same assistance? On several occasions I've noticed membership rolls (which until recently listed Muslim and non-Muslim members seperately!) used essentally as mailing lists for spam, but it's not all that different to just post at a central gathering point that you know attracts - and is designed to attract - editors tending on average towards a certain point of view. I don't see it as helpful to say, "such and such article is attacking we so-and-so's!" It's especially depressing when these posts includes vilification of other editors. What sort of assistance can we expect to be obtained by such solicitations?

If someone were to say, "hey folks, there is an issue on Najis where people are debating whether non-Muslims are considered pak or najis...does anyone know the answer to this, or can anyone suggest cites for contemporary jurisprudence?" Or any number of variants on that theme. Here and there, I've seen posts of this helpful and non-partisan nature, but none from His excellency.

Framing it as Muslims vs. non-Muslims and making sweeping claims of generalized bias is just the wrong way to approach this kind of thing, and guarantees - indeed, calls for - strife. If Wikipedia isn't to be a battleground, isn't it necessary to discourage 1) the overt formation of POV guilds and alliances? 2) rallying the members of said factions to battle against purported non-member enemies in order to promote a certain POV?Timothy Usher 05:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not suppress information

8) Wikipedia is projected to be a compilation of all verifiable knowledge which can be gleaned from reliable sources. Included within such information is history of atrocity and outrage. Such information is not censored.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 20:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

However note Wikipedia:Censorship was rejected by the community. Fred Bauder 20:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support in principle, but we must always be mindful that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Pecher ^Talk 21:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. Of course, such an understanding isn't independent of other WP policies, such as RS, NPOV, and V. His Excellency... 03:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. - Merzbow 06:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Unqualified support.Timothy Usher 23:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Undue Weight

9) NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. To give undue weight to a point-of-view undermines neutrality.

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. Views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.

Comment by Arbitrators:

It is not clear what you are getting at Fred Bauder 14:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Take Pecher for example. Both his additions of text and deletions of texts can be shown to affect a shift of balance in articles that in the end give undue weight to perspectives that don't represent the majority of views on the subject. Another example is the Dhimmi article, where overwhelimg 'undue weight' is given to Bat Yeor, even those many other scholars have denounced her as being a polemicist. If people would keep this in mind while reading articles on Islam listed, they'd see there's been total disregard for NPOV in this context. His Excellency... 19:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 03:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Above are verbatim, albeit summarized, from WP:NPOV His Excellency... 03:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ethnicity and reliability

10) A sober discussion of the ethnic or religious background of a scholar might be useful in appropriate circumstances; blanket dismissal of scholars on the basis of their ethnicity is unacceptable.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

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Controversial subjects

11) Certain subject areas are controversial. Editing in such areas requires courtesy if the editing process is not to degenerate into unproductive conflict. Users who disrupt editing in controversial areas may be banned from editing in those areas.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

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Reliability does not trump NPOV

12) Fair representation of all significant points of view may require use of sources of variable reliability. So long as a source is reasonably reliable it may be used as the source of information that might not otherwise be presented.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. Again, something I've always said. When I mentioned this argument in the Dhimmi article H.E. accused me of 'making up' policy. See this thread here. - Merzbow 23:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

An almost funny misrepresentation there. These are the numbers as to sources used at the time those comments were made: Of 121 instances where sources were cited, 40 times the source was Bat Ye'or. 43 times it was Bernard Lewis. 22 times Norman Stillman. 8 times Friedman. 8 times Al Mawardi. I imagine what Merzbow is now suggesting is that to have 8 out of 121 used sources be from a Muslim authors is 8 too many, and therefore there is the need to bolster the article with more from the 'other side'.

He cites a good thread to bring into the light here..Please read it. At first he dismisses WP:RS to justify the inclusion of Bat Ye'or's works, in an article that was already biased towards the Western view. My comments were in regards to Bat Ye'or. In case you are unfamiliar with her, she's a woman who had been dismissed by several scholars as being a polemicist. When she spoke at Georgetown University, many of her Jewish audience walked out in the middle of her talk. Her husband, who works with her on her books dismissed that event by saying that the Jewish students were pressurized by the Muslim students and reduced to dhimmis. In light of the presence of so many authors one could refer to for information, the use of her polemics as if they'd constitute a reliable source was unacceptable. When I add references that include opendemocracy.net, and an article on Beliefnet.com, he suddenly adopts a very strict implementation of WP:RS. I personally checked on the academic qualifications of the author of the opendemocracy.net article, as did Aminz who generally agrees with Merzbow without hesitation. Beliefnet has been positively reviewed by the Washington Times, The Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine. [2] It is a suggested website by renowned author (and critic of Islam) Irshad Manji. Both sources far more reliable than Bat Ye'or. Yet Merzbow adopted tones of ridicule in response to my use of those sources, while he defended the use of Bat Ye'or. His Excellency... 01:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

H.E. You need to prove that a source is reliable. By default every source is unreliable. Beliefnet.com and opendemocracy.net sound like "faithfreedom.net", "answering-christianity.com", "answering-islam.net", "campus-watch.com", etc. etc which are all unreliable sources. The books of Bat Ye'or in the first glance look like "Bat Ye'or 2004 p.34" for example which seems to be reliable at least in the first glance. That is why you need to really prove that those websites are reliable. --Aminz 01:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The use of Bat Ye'or as a source has been contested since April 2004! [3] In the Dhimmi talk page and on every archived talk page people have taken strong exception to the usage of her books as a source. Merzbow knows as much about her as anyone does. As for my sources, the proper response has ALWAYS been to express reasons of doubts about sources and discuss them..If necessary place the appropriate tags. Merzbow and Pecher are not novices here. They knew perfectly well that they had an obligation to at least look at the reliability of the sources before deleting them. You did that. I did that. What kept Merzbow, who'd been using WP:RS to dismiss sources for so long, from seeing the credibility of the author? The information was only a click away. At the very least, he had the obligation to vocally challenge me to produce evidences of their authority...This is all irrelevant. My point is Merzbow's statement is a terrible bit of misinformation- his defense of Bat Ye'or as a source had nothing to do with protecting 'fair representation' and NPOV. Clearly what he's saying isn't true. His Excellency... 03:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Support His Excellency... 03:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Religious categorization is undesirable

13) Wikipedia editors should not be categorized according to their religious backgrounds or beliefs. The formation of religiously-based factions is discouraged.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed.Timothy Usher 08:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any disagreement on this..It's irrelevant. It was wrong for someone to edit the Muslim Guild to list Muslim and non-Muslim editors separately. Self identification of faith should not be disallowed though. Wikipedia IS NOT secular. It's neutral. His Excellency... 15:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Support. - Merzbow 21:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Strong Support. --Aminz 10:28, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This from a supporter of the former Category:People killed by order of Muhammad? Sure. Publicola 06:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

A textbook example of argumentum ad hominem! For whatever it's worth, I also supported, Category:People killed by order of Ariel Sharon, which was created, apparently, in reaction thereto. I really don't see the problem with these. Muhammad is not "The eternal Muslim" anymore than Ariel Sharon is "The Eternal Jew". That's just the wrong way to approach history. It's about what happened; it's not about us. If we make it about us and our imagined (so it can only be) identities, then even the pretense of objectivity becomes impossible.Timothy Usher 07:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Differences of opinion are normal

14) Wikipedia is open to all editors, and inevitably will include participants representing a diverse spectrum of viewpoints. It's helpful to remember that differences of opinion, even about notions very dear to us, are normal, and do not constitute - or justify - personal attacks.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed - Sad that this even needs to be spelled out.Timothy Usher 07:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - This understanding is a given. I have respect for many editors who have been critical of Islam at times, including Zora and Editorius. "Difference of opinion" isn't a problem here- the problem is the deliberate overburdening of articles with anti-Islamic views through the selective quoting of sources to promote a certain image. His Excellency... 13:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Support. - Merzbow 21:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Differences of opinion on religous issues is okay, but the way they are expressed can constitute incivility (but of course not personal attacks on living editors of wikipedia). Personal attacks themselves are nothing but differences of opinion in the first place. Aren't they? --Aminz 08:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

They're not at all the same. First, differences of opinion need not include personal attacks; we agree on that. Conversely, personal attacks need not entail differences of opinion - for example, were I to acknowledge being a Republican, it might still constitute personal attack to preface that to every dispute, even though the finding of fact isn't in dispute. Similarly, if you're paraplegic, it's still a personal attack to say, "Aminz the cripple, in his paraplegic state, believes that..." At best, personal attacks change the subject from content and contributions to contributors. At worst, they recklessly expose their targets to real-world liabilities.Timothy Usher 08:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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Nature of dispute

1) This matter involves the editing and behavior of His_excellency (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who formerly edited at Amibidhrohi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). As a subsidiary matter His excellency's assertions that there is a pronounced anti-Islamist bias in Wikipedia articles which concern Islam are at issue.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 12:51, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

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Personal attacks and discourtesy

2) His excellency has regularly engaged in personal attacks, some directed at ethnic groups, "The Jews" [4] and "those kikes" [5], see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency/Evidence#Personal_attacks.2C_harrassment.2C_and_incivility. Personal attacks continue to the present, although in somewhat milder form [6].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 12:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I don't see how comments on 'the Jews" can be considered personal attacks. Expression of ethnic or religious prejudice maybe, but nobody was personally targeted. These were generic comments on my talk page, albeit heated and foolish ones. His Excellency... 14:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It's the difference between wholesale and retail. Fred Bauder 15:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

And hot news, Jews are sensitive about anti-Semitism. Fred Bauder 15:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think it should be noted that I only made 2 such remarks, 1 of which was only viewable for less than 1 minute. His Excellency... 15:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Noted for the record that H.E. considers his most recent remark listed above to be "completely civil" (see here). - Merzbow 20:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

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Reaction to allegations of bias

3) Some users have responded to sweeping claims of racism with attacks of their own: Pecher (Directed at Publicola)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I don't see how this is relevant to this case. If you have an alternative description for Publicola's arguments, suggest one. In addition, I wasn't the only editor to describe Publicola's arguments in this way, not even the first one. Pecher ^Talk 20:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

While Publicola has certainly shown the capacity to be productive and reasonable, his contributions to this ArbCom case are telling. There is, to the best of my knowledge, precisely one Jew here, yet Jews are said to be the hidden hand behind the actions of many editors, presumably including myself. I'm not clear that his edits are racist - he seems to me generally civil, and even the comments about Jewish influence are fairly posed, if inaccurate - but they certainly are paranoid.Timothy Usher 10:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that Publicola has shown the capacity to be a productive editor. He added the phrase ""Arabic language is capable of exercising over the minds of its users such irresistible influence" to Banu Nadir, demonstarting complete disregard for NPOV. Pecher ^Talk 12:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk of "Islamic POV" and the labeling of editors with that view as "Islamists" is to be found everywhere, including in this Arbcomm case. Nobody takes exception to that. When Publicola was pointing the overwhelming Jewish POV (based on the reliance of Jewish sources published by Jewish groups), Pecher attacked him with charges of racism. This is unacceptable. While anti-semitism is to be condemned, the unsubstantiated use of such charges to silence an editor is absolutely unacceprable. His Excellency... 02:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

But unsubstantiated charges of anti-Muslim bigotry are acceptable?Timothy Usher 07:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

A look at my evidences page will show that the charges of anti-Muslim bigotry are very well substantiated. His Excellency... 18:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

And a look at my and Timothy Usher's evidence will show that several despicable anti-Muslim remarks originated from you. - Merzbow 21:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellently said Timothy. Allegations of dark conspiracies or organized 'gangs' of editors violating articles whether or not they are characterized in racial or religious terms should be dismissed out of hand. - Merzbow 22:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And why would you not consider letting people dismiss them after a thorough review of the evidences? His Excellency... 18:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Inflammatory Language

4) Timothy Usher has repeatedly made remarks, often directed towards Muslims, that were both insensitive and inflammatory. These included such explicit statements such as that Muhammad would have been considered a war criminal, that he 'violated' women, and that he was guilty of murder and torture. [7] [8] Some of these comments were made with the knowlege that they would be recieved as offensive by the Muslims they were directed to. [9] [10] [11]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Some diffs showing such remarks? Fred Bauder 15:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 14:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Noting that Muhammad (or, to be more exact, his followers) tortured and beheaded a person or ordered assassination of poets who criticized him is no more "inflammatory" then noting that the Inquisition burned people at the stake. It's a statement of fact. Pecher ^Talk 21:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This is disputed by Muslims. The criticism of Islam article says: "Some claim that this was yet another story that Ibn Ishaq heard second-hand from Jewish sources, casting doubt on its authenticity. Others argue that Kinana was killed in battle and never taken captive." --Aminz 08:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not disputed by any serious sources. Answering-Christianity.com does not qualify as such, nor does IslamOnline, which, contrary to the article's assertion, does not say explicitly that Kinana was killed in battle. Pecher ^Talk 11:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I know Answering-Christianity.com is a junk website, but in this special case, the article is nothing but a quote from "Allama Shibli Nu'Mani, Sirat-Un-Nabi, volume II, p 173-174". Timothy commented that Ibn Ishaq is contested by Malik. I also know faithfreedom.org directed by Ali Sina is an unreliable website, but anyways, there is a debate between Grand Ayatollah Montazari and Ali Sina there. Montazari makes the very same claim there. In any case, I am just claiming it is disputed. I don't make any claims as to it really happened or not. Muir doesn't dispute it. --Aminz 20:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ibn Ishaq is contested by Malik, as you say, but the hadith of Bukhari are not (are they?). Whether Kinana was killed in battle or excecuted by torture is one thing, and rests perhaps entirely on Ibn Ishaq. Nevertheless hadith agree and substantiate that Muhammad tortured prisoners to death (e.g. Template:Bukhari-usc, Template:Bukhari-usc, Template:Bukhari-usc). In either event, can we can agree that the perception of a problem stems from mainstream/traditional determinations of what is included in the canon of Islamic scripture, rather than from any editors to Wikipedia?Timothy Usher 09:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Re the hadiths from Bukhari, I was reading Tafsir Nemooneh by Grand Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi. On the verses that the hands of theifs should be severed (*I think*), it stated this story but mentioned that those prisoners had killed the shepherd in the same way by cutting his hands and feet. So, I think Ayatollah was trying to say that Muhammad did to them what they had done to another person. But I don't know where he has got these details. --Aminz 10:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

P.S. they were not war prisoners I think. They were ungrateful theifs. I have become sensitive to the particular words you choose to be honest. --Aminz 10:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

p.s. I created the Qur'an and Bukhari templates which allow us to link to quality English translations of Islamic scripture.Timothy Usher 09:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, YOU DID A GREAT JOB IN WIKIPEDIA BY CREATING THE TEMPLATES. NONE CAN DENY! I wanted to add the POV tag to the evidence page in the very beginning. But I was replied back that the purpose of ArbCom is not to provide an unbiased view of editors, but rather focus on their negative sides. Sad, but as it is. --Aminz 10:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

And he did these things to what purpose? To give basis to the arguement that Muhammad was a pedophile and a murderer and a rapist? Everything he has done relative to topics on Islam has been to drive the point that Islam is evil. Nothing else. His Excellency... 21:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Hundreds of edits, going through various articles, many to which I've not returned, and adding and verifying links - often not changing anything else - was designed to "give basis to the argument that Muhammad was a pedophile, murderer and rapist?" Talk about assuming bad faith.Timothy Usher 22:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: If attribution of Muhammad being a "murderer" is not incivil, then attribution of Jesus being a "coward" is definitely not incivil in the first place. So, *I think* H.E.'s comment (and only one comment) on Jesus being a coward should be taken into account only after Timothy's comments were taken into account. --Aminz 00:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher regularly violated WP:NPOV

5) Timothy Usher's editings and talk page commentaries demonstrate a pattern of bad faith editing, and in particular, a repeated and deliberate disregard for WP:NPOV. WP:NPOV states the importance of maintaining that 'undue weight' not be given to controversial views, and that articles demonstrate a fair tone. [12] [13] [14] [15]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Some diffs showing examples? Fred Bauder 15:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 14:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's more: Timothy reverts Qur'an to include only those quotes in the article that would suggest Islam is violent: [16] Editing the "Did you know" template to put this bit of trivia on the main page: [17] Muhammad [18] His Excellency... 16:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Regarding this diff [19], it was made on May 25. At that time Islamonline.net was disputed by Pecher as an unreliable source. This was supported by Timothy. As far as I remember, it was on June 11[20] that the reliablity of Islamonline.net was established. So, that particular diff was not done in bad faith however it can be restored now. --Aminz 09:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a tactic explained on the evidences page. The frivilous allegation that Islamic sources aren't credible. Note that in this article, the HIGHLY critisized Bat Ye'or's works constituted almost half of the articles sources. Her polemics, as the editors of this page edited it, were produced as undisputed fact. His Excellency... 15:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Normally, we discuss these matters on the talk pages of the relevant articles, ideally in a civil and reasonable manner, focussing on content rather than contributors.Timothy Usher 09:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher's behavior demonstrates disregard for "Wikipedia is not a Battleground"

6) Timothy Usher's has repeatedly sought to engage in disputes stemming from his religious or religeo-political views. On talk pages he has repeatedly used his views on current and historical events as either tools of justifying his behaviors on Wikipedia or as means of retort against fellow Muslim editors. [21] [22] [23] He has, at least on one occasion, pretended to be a Muslim "wikijihadist" with the intent to bait other critics of Islam into involvment in Wikiproject Islam. He has gone to discussion threads unrelated to Islam, trying to draw attention to a 'politically correct' defense of 'Islamism". [24] [25]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 15:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Removal of Pro-Islamic information

7) Merzbow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has removed information which takes a pro-Islamic point of view on the basis that it constitutes "personal attacks on critics, non-notable sources" [26] and [27]. This in an article which freely cites The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911), an inherently biased source.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 18:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I wholeheartedly agree that I did this, and believe I was upholding the letter and spirit of Wikipedia policy while doing so. I should point out that I have no problem with replacing the Catholic Encyclopedia material over time with superior and more modern material, and should also point out that none of the material from the C.E. included personal attacks on living people. - Merzbow 21:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The use of the phrase "personal attacks" here is a weasel phrase used to exclude review of the behaviors and arguements of people who have been widely accused of spreading polemic content regarding Islam. Being tired of the edit warring on every single issue, I didn't bother to re-examine this paragraph. A look at Daniel Pipes will show there's been considerable criticism of him. Bernard Lewis, amongst many, dismissed Bat Ye'or as being a polemicist. Muslim rights advocacy organizations like CAIR regard Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes as Islamophobes. In an article about criticism of Islam where content derived from such writers is cited, it is entirely a NECESSITY in the spirit of WP:NPOV to present this information to the readers. His Excellency... 23:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I fully support Merzbow's actions in this case. Unreliable, outdated sources must be removed from Wikipedia summarily, even if a certain editor like what they say. Pecher ^Talk 07:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Merzbow is editing in good faith. I can swear on that. On that case and at that time, I was supporting Merzbow's position. I too, thought 'I was upholding the letter and spirit of Wikipedia policy while doing so'. I changed my mind later on some points; don't know if Merzbow has done so or not. --Aminz 08:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The quote from Catholic Encyclopedia are clearly more reliable than works of people like Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer; so I am not sure if better sources could be found. --Aminz 08:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It is very clear Aminz is a close friend to Merzbow, and Timothy Usher. I do not think his evaluation of these situations are unbiased, and therefore entirely credible. While Aminz may have thought he was 'upholding the spirit of Wikipedia policy', an evaluation of the edits show that was most likely not the case. The Catholic Encyclopedia is an almost 100 yr old compilation, highly polemic and at times inflammatory. The sources Merzbow deleted were from established publications, not blogs or personal pages, that reviewed the works and workings of these critics. No evidence and no arguement was presented by Merzbow of these sources, other than that they came from 'random sources' (what's an orderly source on the internet) that he hadn't heard of. He made no effort to review the quality of these sources and deleted them summarily. His Excellency... 15:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I must point out that your two sources consisted of an obscure rag ("IndyWeek" is an "independent" weekly rag in North Carolina that's not even a real newspaper, just a cultural publication) and a partisan website that is fond of posting political screeds against Wikipedia (for example here); neither of the two authors were notable in any way. Please refresh your memory by reading WP:BLP regarding why they aren't appropriate in this case. - Merzbow 16:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

As Fred points, the removal of such sources points to bias, particularly when you and Pecher both allowed the use of "Catholic Encyclopedia", a 100 year old volume of polemic rants , as a reliable source. You also deleted content derived from CAIR, the single largest Muslim rights advocacy group in the US. Explain that. Explain your deletion of a review of Daniel Pipes by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The hypocricy exercised on the page is evident when you consider the sources used to derive condemning accusations against Muhammad, the Quran, and Islam. As for that 'screed', given that Wikipedia's allowed Timothy Usher and Pecher and yourself undertake this project of defamation against Islam, I'd say that article makes a bloody good point. His Excellency... 22:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A laughable rant on your part, given that I don't recall you making a single objection to the C.E. content the entire time you edited on the article (and if you did, you didn't make a single attempt to replace or clean up the material). And in case you missed reading the evidence page, I no longer object to including the CAIR quote (despite the fact its leaders march in rallies with demonstrators holding Nazi flags) . - Merzbow 00:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed this book The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion written by Robert Spencer. I didn't know the language of Robert Spencer is this much harsh. What the heck is this man saying? All his quotes in wikipedia should be revised or removed I think. --Aminz 05:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I was also first shocked when I saw Daniel Pipes' quote (if honestly reported by the website I visited) "the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews" and appreciated the Council on American-Islamic Relations comment on quotes of these type that characterizes Pipes' works as "troubling bigotry towards Muslims and Islam". Good job Indeed! As long as wikipedia quotes Robert Spencer or Daniel Pipes in an article, there must be their criticisms as well, because these people are simply crazy (*I think*) --Aminz 05:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

So, do you really contend that Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has lots of members convicted for support of terrorism, is a sane organization? Pecher ^Talk 06:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Where, when? I don't know anything about Council on American-Islamic Relations (I'll read its article). If it says so, both Spencer and CAIR should go away. It is anyways clear that writing a book titled"The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion" isn't an scholarly work. --Aminz 06:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

He's one of the most notable critics of Islam, so his views must be represented in an article entitled "Criticism of Islam" for that article to have any validity. Anyone who doesn't want his words to appear in Wikipedia, they can go ahead and nominated CoI for deletion and hash out whether there should be an article on this topic at all. Otherwise, the solution is to balance out his views with opposing views, which is what the article does. Adding personal attacks against Spencer and other critics is the wrong way to do it. - Merzbow 23:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Merzbow, choosing the title "The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion" for his book proves *to me* (it is all personal thoughts) that there is something seriously wrong with him. This is not how a decent scholar works. He is a POV-pusher! He can present his arguments honestly and decently and let others judge for themselves. The title then could be "Some discussions on Muhammad and tolerance of his religion." Aminz 23:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course he's a POV-pusher. Critics of Islam are by definition POV-pushers. Nevertheless they belong in an article entitled "Criticism of Islam", as do those who respond to them. - Merzbow 19:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Imbalance

8) It is possible that the number and status of the Wikipedia users who favor a pro-Israeli or pro-Jewish point of view exceed that of the Wikipedia users who favor a pro-Arab or pro-Islamic viewpoint, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency/Evidence#The_real_problem_is_that_POV-pushing_Jews_outnumber.2C_outrank.2C_and_out-collaborate_POV-pushing_Muslims_on_Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I will propose no remedy other than courtesy and application of good faith effort. Fred Bauder 19:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Ideally for the health of the encyclopedia the distribution of viewpoints held by Wikipedia editors should be proportionate to the notability of these viewpoints in the English-speaking world. Whether or not this is actually the case with this subject matter I'm not going to speculate on. - Merzbow 21:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Surely there is some solution other than affirmative action. Fred Bauder 22:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher is a professed Christian. I don't know what Merzbow is, but he wasn't a member of Wikiproject Judaism last I checked. Pecher is a member of Wikiproject Judaism, but his involvment on articles pertaining to Judaism seems to be limited to articles dealing with conflicts with Arabs/Muslims. In the context of this specific dispute, I don't think this distinction is relevant. His Excellency... 22:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually opposed to affirmative action because the cost of 'entrance' to Wikipedia for editors is so low. To achieve my goal it simply has to be made widely known that Wikipedia is a working encyclopedia, is easy to edit, and is a civil place to edit. In general I think Wikipedia is quite healthy already; this is not to say that there may or may not be problems with specific areas. - Merzbow 16:28, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

To me, this finding of fact reads like a claim that many Wikipedia editors are inherently biased and unable to adhere to WP:NPOV because of their ethnicity or religion. At the moment, I can see no basis for this claim. Pecher ^Talk 20:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Timothy Usher's participation on WP:Islam constituted a disruption

9) Timothy Usher made repeated edits to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam project page, including repeated introductions of request that Muslims not greet each other with "Salaam", that they not display shows of affection for their faith on their user pages, and that they not affix "pbuh" after the names of prophets. [28] [29] On response that such instructions to Muslim Wikipedians would be taken as offensive, the 'suggestions' were removed.[30] [31] [32] Timothy Usher, proceeded to 'edit war' with other users, insisting that the instructions remain. Given that Muslim editors have expressed such comments were offensive, and that no consensus was ever expressed accepting such instructions on the WP:Islam project page, the addition and subsequent edit warring to retain such instructions constituted a disruption on the Wikiproject:Islam page. The removal of entries for discussions on topics also constituted a disruption. [33] [34] The 'rule' he introduced to the project page of WP:Islam that "Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and your user page is not an appropriate place for persuading other editors of the virtues of your way of life." was both unecessary and potentially inflammatory. [35]

addendum: Timothy usher has expressedly taken issue with the existence of the Wikiproject: Islam page, specifically the "Muslim Guild:. [36] Timothy Usher has also taken unconventional means, considerably 'bad faith' to draw negative attention to Wikiproject:Islam, and specifically the Muslim guild. This includes him impersonating a Muslim and calling himself a "wikijihadist" on other talk pages, and trying to invite editors criticial of Islam to join in arguement on the Wikiproject:Islam talk page. [37] [38]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes, the prohibitions in this edit do seem to be unduly restrictive. Fred Bauder 21:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 20:51, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I stand behind my edits to Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam, and again propose that Wikipedia is best served by a non-sectarian environment, after the model of contemporary academic scholarship and intellectual discourse. The formation of religiously-determined factions ought be strongly discouraged.Timothy Usher 07:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

You're a Christian. Why didn't you start at home and try to shut down Wikiproject Christianity? In light of your inflammatory comments on Muhammad and your emphasis on describing him as a pedophile, in light of your repeated criticisms of Islam using modern day events as justifications for your outrage, I find it less than cogent that it was pure coincidence that you started your 'Wikipedia is secular' movement with WP:Islam. His Excellency... 15:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of this edit?Timothy Usher 10:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• 15:59, 18 June 2006 "These 'do nots' were added without consensus, by the same vocal islamophobe. They're intentionally offensive and condescending. Please discuss on Talk"

Since I added some of that material(21:49, 8 June 2006), it is not entirely clear that the "vocal islamophobe" His excellency refers to in his edit summary is me or someone else. I think WikiProject Islam would have done well to adopt the changes Timothy Usher recommended and I supported. After it became clear to me that those changes, my contributions, and my presence were not welcome, I stopped contributing to the project. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I was not referring to you. I was aware of the incendiary remarks made by that individual regarding Muhammad on various talk pages, mostly directed TO Muslims. Even a person of less-than-mediocre intelligence would know that telling a Muslim that Muhammad was a rapist or a murder would be recieved as highly offensive. It was apparent to me that the 'do's and do nots' section was introduced with more in mind than just improving the functioning of WP:Islam. The user in question is evidently very well-read in sunnah and the Quran. He would know it's an obligation for Muslims to greet each other with "salaam", as is stated in scripture. Regardless of whether they practice the tradition or not, being told NOT to say Salaam would be offensive. "Salaam spamming" was never a problem in Wikipedia, that such a rule would be a necessity on the project page. Incidentally I believe that you were aware of this as well, though I pursued nothing in that regard since you didn't have the same track record of making offensive remarks. His Excellency... 17:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the first version of the "don't"list originally included advice not to treat Islam as a target for arbitrary vilification. When I recognized that this clause had been removed, I restored it[39]. User:FairNBalanced (among others) is the type of editor I had in mind with this suggestion (they are not, after all, "restrictions"). Basically, these are two different sides of the same coin.Timothy Usher 01:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

His Excellency disrupts Wikipedia to make a point

10) [40] - Nominates Dhimmi for deletion in bad faith. This is obviously so because he cites WP:NPOV as a basis for deletion, when in fact it is not, and responds with incivility against admins when told otherwise (see this short thread [41] - "How did you become an admin? Your rhetoric is ridiculous.")

Addendum: As further evidence see H.E.'s self-described attempt at "Wikiharikari", which resulted in him vandalizing this ArbComm article multiple times the weekend it was filed: [42] [43] [44] - Merzbow 00:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed - Merzbow 21:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an oft repeated and malevolent interpretation of my intentions and actions. 3 principles of Wikipedia are said to be non-negotiable. It's said that articles that fail to adhere to those 3 principles do not belong in Wikipedia namespace. I've worked to address the POV problems with Dhimmi, most notably the highly disproportionate representation of anti-Islamic polemicists as sources and the misrepresentation of those sources as fact, when they're barely credible as opinion. I decided to opt for an AFD on the article, hoping the POV issue would be addressed by the greater Wikipedia community, or that the article would be rightfully deleted. An admin closed the AFD in about an hour after its opening, making the entire effort useless.This was not a 'bad faith' act on my part. The article is still unacceptably biased. His Excellency... 16:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

So you in fact created the AfD in full knowledge that NPOV was not one of the criteria for an AfD? That is flat-out WP:POINT and disruption. - Merzbow 16:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Once again, an extreme misrepresentation of my statements. At the time I filed the AFD, I wasn't aware of such rules. Even now, well after that incident, I see WP:AFD states NPOV is USUALLY not grounds for deletion. Logically this is because through editing POV issues can be worked out. In the text of the AFD I stated that the bias cannot be worked out because of the few editors involved, and the overwhelming bias of most of them. I STILL think the AFD was appropriate, and that the action didn't violate WP regulation. It is also to be noted that filing the AFD didn't 'disrupt' Wikipedia in any way. Only one editor on the talk page was even AWARE that an AFD was filed, others becoming aware only after the process was shut down by CrazyRussn. I was wrongfully blocked for filing this AFD. His Excellency... 02:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Being unaware of the law does not relieve one from the responsibility of abiding by it. Do you want to argue you were unaware of WP:NPA too? Pecher ^Talk 06:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That is an absurd representation of the incident. An article on an important topic that has many editors working on it is not under any sane intepretation of AfD policy a candidate for deletion solely because of NPOV. Your incivility to the admins who told you this is prima facie evidence for the charge of bad-faith and disruption. - Merzbow 06:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I don't see any nomination of any article for deletion, by itself, to be disruption. It is nothing more than a suggestion. People are free to accept it or reject it. I wonder why some were offended by a suggestion in the first place?!!! I don't see anything wrong with that. It was just a "over-strange" suggestion. So, I don't support further accusations of H.E. to disruption on that basis to have been valid or even helpful. Similarly, I think H.E.'s incivil response the admin in charge is definitely unacceptable. --Aminz 09:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

His Excellency edit wars to push his POV

11) Main evidence for this is in my evidence section here. The most notable incident is the "Professor Friedmann edit war", where H.E. repeatedly removed properly-sourced and relevant material against consensus (consensus being me, Pecher, and Aminz, with itsmejudith abstaining from this particular argument). I will also point to the "Proxy personal attacks on (non-Wikipedia) opponents via unreliable sources" section, which outlines his attempts to sneak in near-libelous personal attacks against living authors he disagrees with using quotes from poor-quality sources, in direct opposition to WP:BLP.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed - Merzbow 21:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Every editor has a perspective; few editors edit to include things outside of their field of view. On Hizb ut-Tahrir I edited to included what might have been considered a non-muslim POV, as I did in Islamism and Shariah. I find myself edit war for NPOV.

' This is the content derived from Friedmann: Based on the Quranic verses 2:221, 60:10, and 5:5, the consensus opinion is that such a marriage would lead to an incompatibility between the superiority of a woman by virtue of her being a Muslim and her unavoidable subservience to a non-Muslim husband. As some Muslim scholars put it, marriage is like enslavement, with the husband being the master and the wife being the slave, and thus just like dhimmis are prohibited from having Muslim slaves, so dhimmi men are not allowed to have Muslim wives. Following the same logic, Muslim men were allowed to marry women of the "People of the Book" because the enslavement of non-Muslims by Muslims is allowed. [45]

Unless you travel to some part of Afghanistan and meet with some illiterate Taliban idealists, you won't find a Muslim on this planet who suscribes to the notion that the husband is 'slave-owner' and the wife is 'slave'. The relationship between man and woman is described as a partnership in the hadiths, with both husband an wife equals. The exerpt from the Wikipedia article expressed above speaks in the present tense, and assumes its content to be fact, though it represents a belief held by virtually NO Muslim. What Merzbow would allege of me would be a legitimate claim IF WP:V were the only Wikipedia policy in existence. There IS however WP:NPOV, the text of which states undue weight cannot be given to minority views (and I presume non-existent would count as a minority), even if it's verifiable .WP:NPOV is non-negotiable, even if consensus decides it should be otherwise. I don't recall ItsmeJudith supporting this contents inclusion. She was in full view of my edits on this matter, yet on the evidences page here she states she supports edits I made to the article in question.

I've repeatedly defended the quality of the sources I used, both in the talk pages of Criticism of Islam and the evidences page of this Arbcomm case. Their purpose was limited to showing that the 'critics' on whom the article relies on have been subject to review, not all of which were positive. The use phrases like "near-libelous" "personal attacks" here are weasel words used to exclude review of the behaviors and arguements of people who have been widely accused of spreading polemic content regarding Islam. Being tired of the edit warring on every single issue, I didn't bother to re-examine this paragraph. A look at Daniel Pipes will show there's been considerable criticism of him. Bernard Lewis, amongst many, dismissed Bat Ye'or as being a polemicist. Popular Muslim rights advocacy organizations like CAIR regard Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes as Islamophobes. These scholars are VERY frequently cited in the article, presumed as 'reliable sources'. In an article about criticism of Islam where content derived from such writers is cited, it is entirely a NECESSITY in the spirit of WP:NPOV to present this information to the readers. His Excellency... 23:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

First, I note that you admit to 'edit warring' and believe it is justified in pursuit of your vision of NPOV, despite the fact that 'edit warring' is disallowed by Wikipedia policy for any reason. Second, you are again misrepresenting the facts. That version of the paragraph you list is an earlier version, which you deleted once ([46]); then I fixed it up to make it clear it was referring to the past ([47], [48]). But then instead of compromising, you proceeded to delete the improved version 3 more times against consensus ([49], [50], [51]). The behavior here is of an editor incapable of working with others, not of an editor willing to improve an article. - Merzbow 02:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding the phrases like "as Friedman relates" doesn't change the fact that the sentence still states that Muslim marriages are relations of slavery. According to WP:NPOV however, mentioning this view of Muslim marriages at all would still be giving undue weight to a virtually non-existent view of Muslim marriages. It's noteworthy that Friedman himself concedes that the Hadith he interprets doesn't actually endorse the "marriage is slavery" view, but that Muhammad was lamenting the treatment of women at the time. YOU expressed an awareness of this point. [52] It presents a view that is both a misrepresentation, AND reflects an understanding of marriage held by virtually no civillized Muslim. It is an insignificant minority view (a minority of 1?) that WP:NPOV suggests should have no place in Wikipedia namespace. Also, this 'consensus' you speak of didn't exist. Pecher reverted your changes back to the 'fact' form of the passage. I felt it should be deleted altogether. "Aminz and you" doesn't count as a 'consensus'. Your change to the sentences didn't change the fact that the bit of content didn't deserve space in the article at all. His Excellency... 01:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's a fact that some Muslim scholars compared marriage to slavery and used this analogy to prohibit marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man. No amount of your denial will change this fact. Pecher ^Talk 06:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it a fact? Which Muslim scholars are you quoting? No, you're not quoting a Muslim source, you're quoting Friedman. That phrase is taken verbatim from Friedman's book. Thus, the proper phrasing would be "According to Friedman, several scholars..." To attribute to comment to "Muslim scholars" is to imply it is an agreed fact that Muslim scholars viewed marriage as a form of slavery. It implies that the sources were Muslim in origin. That is false. The Hadiths and the Qur'an compare marriage to a partnership. Also, that bit of content is in the present tense, so it suggests Muslims still view marriage as a form of slavery. If I recall, the 'scholar' Friedman was referring to was Ibn Taimiyyah, whom most Sunnis and Shias reject. This is, like many other of your works, a deliberate misrepresentation of texts to imply something that's more darker than the truth actually is. His Excellency... 18:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Although I think that my version is slightly more accurate than Pecher's version, in neither version is this view stated as fact - it's always attributed to "some Muslim scholars". Friedmann backs up his view with multiple quotes from multiple Islamic sources; the Muhammad statement is ambivalent and is just as open to interpretation one way as the other. Your blatant attempt to censor a rock-solid scholar who is quoted almost verbatim from a scholarly book on the subject I hope won't go unnoticed by ArbComm. - Merzbow 23:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

"Islamic jurists reject the possibility that a dhimmi man (and generally any non-Muslim) may marry a Muslim woman.[99] Based on the Quranic verses 2:221, 60:10, and 5:5, the consensus opinion is that such a marriage would lead to an incompatibility between the superiority of a woman by virtue of her being a Muslim and her unavoidable subservience to a non-Muslim husband. As some Muslim scholars put it, marriage is like enslavement, with the husband being the master and the wife being the slave, and thus just like dhimmis are prohibited from having Muslim slaves, so dhimmi men are not allowed to have Muslim wives. Following the same logic, Muslim men were allowed to marry women of the "People of the Book" because the enslavement of non-Muslims by Muslims is allowed.[100] Touching a sensitive point of the Muslim psyche, this prohibition was enforced with the utmost rigor,[101] with any violations of it, including a sexual relationship between a non-Muslim man and a Muslim woman, being punishable by death.[102] ". This is being framed as fact. "As some Muslim scholars put it" isn't an attribution of opinion, but simply pointing to the 'fact' that Muslim scholars have expressed the view. The phrase is taken directly from Friedman's book. The proper way to turn this 'fact' into 'opinion' would have been to have it read "According to Friedman, some Muslim scholars believed...". This play on words of yours will hopefully not fool any of the arbitrators. The fact that this view is held by virtually no Muslim living today its presence in a WP article inappropriate because it gives undue weight to a view that's virtually non-existent. That is why I deleted it. The paragraph reads in the present tense, not the past.

What makes this of all scholars 'rock solid'? He's a professor in some University in Jerusalem, he's not particularly popular as an authority on Islamic history. His paragraph on marriage was based on two sources- Ibn Taimiyyah, an icon for Wahabis, and a Hadith in the prophet, where even according to Friedman, Muhammad was lamenting the treatment of women by his people and was merely urging fathers to be cautious in whom they give their daughters to. To add this content violates WP:NPOV (undue weight) which is non-negotiable; regardless how 'reliable' a source is (this is stated in WP:NPOV), if content impresses on a point that is held by a minority (or non-existent) portion of the people, it doesn't belong. Impressing on the readers that Muslim wives are slaves to their husbands (this was the intended effect of the paragraph) violates NPOV on 'undue weight' grounds, even if it comes from a source that you designate as 'rock solid'. My deletion of that content was the right thing to do. His Excellency... 18:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As with Buhkari and Ibn Ishaq, His excellency blames academics and Wikipedia editors for merely recounting the history and findings of Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence. H.E.'s claim that hardly any living Muslims view marriage in this way I don't remotely doubt, but it's wholly beside the point.Timothy Usher 07:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I blame Wikipedia editors who've cherry picked the most damning bits and pieces to frame on Wikipedia. That's all. I have nothing against academics. Bat Ye'or isn't an academic btw. She left college before completing her degree in sociology (the subject of choice for college cheerleaders). His Excellency... 18:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Then why don't you do your own research and add the non-damning bits and pieces that you think should have been included?Timothy Usher 23:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Uh...Because when I do it gets deleted? His Excellency... 15:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

His Excellency sees Wikipedia as a battleground

12) Main evidence is here in my evidence section, under "Wikipedia as battleground, conspiracy theories". For example, [53], [54], [55]. I don't see how it is possible how an editor who believes these kind of things can work with and reach consensus with other editors in a constructive and civil manner on any Islam-related article. H.E. states categorically that "there's absolutely nothing in the realm of good faith in the works of any of the editors participating in the Islam-related articles" ([56]). He even frames the conflict in racial terms, stating that 'anglos' are impossible to work with and will just "stab you in the back" ([57]).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed - Merzbow 22:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia was made into a battleground, thanks to those who've turned Wikipedia articles into platforms for defamation. My evidences page gives just a glimpse into this problem, but I think it's sufficient for any objective observer to note a difference. See if you can find an equivalent to Criticism of Islam in any conventional encyclopedia. Criticism of Islam is 4.8 times bigger in size than Criticism of Christianity; the size of a medium-sized book. The WP policy is "Wikipedia is not a Battleground", not "Nobody is to observe the Wikipedia is a battleground". The remarks I made above demonstrate I strongly disliked the fact that Wikipedia had been turned into some online front on the "war on terror". I would have loved' to have found articles on Islam neutral. My evidences notes other users noting a problem with users like Pecher and Timothy, disputes in talk pages where I played no part. Blame those who make Wikipedia into a battleground, not those who observe and denounce the problem and try to fix them. His Excellency... 23:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Just by the language used alone, your "observations" were clearly put forth to further inflame matters and drive editors apart, not to help improve things. A self-fulfilling prophecy indeed. - Merzbow 02:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The problems in Islamic/Islam-related articles that His Excellency notes are real

13) His Excellency's actions were in fact in response to a actually observable bias on several articles on Islam, Muslims, Islamic history, and other Islam-related topics. This does not, to any degree, excuses his violations of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; this does however suggest a systemic problem of bias and defamation exists, within these Islam-related articles, that may cause offense to readers and create frustration in editors. Several, if not all, of the articles he has listed in his evidences page show a quality that is generally not expected in an acedemically credible encyclopedia. Several, if not all of the articles he listed demonstrate an observable POV biases which amounts to terrible and blatant violations of WP:NPOV. Several of these articles can accurately be described as 'defamatory' to the religion of Islam and to Muslim people.

Comment by Arbitrators:

proposed His Excellency... 23:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

What is your opinion of the article History of Slavery in the United States? Would you not agree that this reflects more poorly upon America than Dhimmi does upon the history of Islam? How does Spanish Inquisition reflect upon Catholicism? Or Martin Luther and the Jews on Protestantism?Timothy Usher 02:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You know the answer already. Do you think Dhimmi's collection of Bernard Lewis' views on that bit of history reflects his actual views as written in his book accurately? Only condemning pieces were picked out. He did credit Muslims with providing a much better environment for Jews than Christians did. He did note many Jews becoming very successful and influential under the Muslims. To selectively include information that condemns Islamic history, while excluding anything positive, is POV. It's defamation. Dhimmi is one illustration of this, Criticism of Islam is another. The article on CAIR is effectively libel. The article on Aisha is offensive. You people know exactly what you're doing here. His Excellency... 16:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Pecher has repeatedly misinterpreted textual sources

14) Pecher has repeatedly misinterpreted sources he cites to present a more skewed impression of events and facts than the authors of his sources had written. He has been found to mix his own original research with texts he uses as references to present a picture through his writings that are more negative to the subject matter the article describes. Other editors have noted that he quotes sources out of contexts, while others have used the word "misinterpretation". ([58]; another example: the claim of misrepresentation made by admin User:TShilo12 (or Tomer) here [59] and reply by Pecher [60]) This is evident in that several editors have independently noted the difference between texts which they verify, and the sentences he actually introduces into articles. The use of such methods of editings violate WP:V in that, though content he introduces are followed by a 'cited source', the content of what he introduces are not mirrored in the sources he cites. This also violates WP:NPOV, and is clear evidence of bad faith editing. [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66], [67]

Addendum by User:Aminz: As I stated here[68], I think Pecher "has selectively picked some sentences hiding other neighbor sentences that make the paragraph or section neutral or complete the meaning of that very sentence. His selective manner of picking quotes has sometimes changed the meaning of quotes in some cases, that is, if one reads that quote in its context will get a different impression than when they are read here."

A note on assumption of good faith: At the beginning I was assuming good faith, so in my early posts [69], I was always using Alleged misrepresentation of a source; I even requested H.E. to rename the heading of his paragraph from 'Abuse of Sources' to '"Alleged" abuse of "a source"' [70]. I was welcomed by Pecher calling my request of H.E. as "talk page littering" which only led me to be more confident of Pecher's misrepresentation of sources. I have seen enough evidences to dare to claim that Pecher has misrepresented sources. I don't think any doubt would remain if one compares this version of Dhimmi article [71] with the current version.

Comment by Arbitrators:

00:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 00:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

abundance of examples of such tactics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency/Evidence#Pecher His Excellency... 00:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

An accusation of "misrepresentation" usually demonstrates the accuser's unwillingness to assume good faith. Of the above differences; two are accusation by Aminz on Talk:Dhimmi; one is an edit to Dhimmi itself (not sure what it is supposed to demonstrate); one is a content dispute on Talk:Battle of Khaybar, where it was demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that my source indeed says what I had written, and the dispute was resolved to mutual satisfaction of the parties; and the last difference is an accusation of misrepresentation made by User:Tariqabjotu on Talk:Mosque, for which Tariqabjotu subsequently apologized. Thus, I have no problems with Tariqabjotu, but Aminz and His excellency clearly fail to assume good faith. I think the ArbCom should take this fact into consideration. Pecher ^Talk 21:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

His excellency, you're not an arbitrator; you cannot write in the section above. Pecher ^Talk 21:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a miracle that so many editors on so many articles arrive to the same conclusion. I've even ASKED users if your misquoting could be attributed to error or sloppy reading. The response was a strong 'no'. You otherwise seem intelligent, and so the repetition of this act that is so easily observed by anyone bothering to verify your additions to articles and the difference between what you say and what your sources say,makes it impossible for an intelligent and objective observer to conclude of your editings anything other than a tactic to misinform. His Excellency... 02:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If the above links are any guide, then the "miracle" is restricted to Tariqabjotu and Aminz. After it was demonstrated that I had been right, Tariqabjotu apologized. It is only Aminz who keeps assuming bad faith and pushing this accusation. Pecher ^Talk 21:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The evidence of my claim is abundant. One example is this [72] and everybody can check it. Also, one can compare the the current version of Dhimmi article with this [73]. I have got Lewis book in front of my eyes. I studied it carefully and eventually arrived at that conclusion. --Aminz 22:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators can read the article's talk page and arrive at their own conclusion. Pecher ^Talk 06:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPA states: "Comment on content, not on the contributor." I cannot emphasize this point more. What your behavior, Aminz, on Talk:Dhimmi and on this case amply demonstrates is your failure to abide by this policy. For example, when editors disagree with a certain point in the article, they edit it to their liking or propose as an alternative on the talk page. This is what most editors do on thousands of articles every day. However, you, Aminz, always focus on the contributor (me, in this case), not on content. This is another problem with your behavior worth considering by the ArbCom. Pecher ^Talk 06:57, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Added one more example. --Aminz 03:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

H.E., why don't you add diffs from other users such as user:Editorius as well (if you have some) ? --Aminz 03:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm quite tired of you telling me what to do. Why don't you add them? You've participated here as much as anyone. Who is holding you back? His Excellency... 07:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Man, sorry, Because I haven't studied all these diffs as carefully as you have done. Sure, I'll add it. --Aminz 07:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll ask Joturner to comment here, if he still thinks that was a misrepresentation of the source. --Aminz 02:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Since I was asked for clarification of opinion on this edit, I will add one. I believed and still believe that the statement was a incomplete representation of a source; that seems quite clear given the difference between the actual source and the quoted sourced. Now, whether it was maliciously misrepresented is a different story. Pecher says he didn't maliciously misrepresent the source but instead made a genuine attempt to just summarize and extract the most important pieces from the source. Because he didn't object to my refactorization of the source to be more inclusive, I was willing to accept that. I thought it would be better for the Mosque article just to take Pecher's word for it and move on, as evidenced by my last statement in the section. But if you don't believe Pecher and think he really presented an incomplete representation of that source and others maliciously, that's your prerogative. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 03:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps misrepresentation is not the best word to use as misrepresentation almost always has a negative connotation. I meant incomplete representation. I believe Pecher's quotation was an incomplete representation of the source, but not necessarily a maliciously incomplete representation of the source. I'll correct that in my above statement. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 04:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Joturner, this is what I think [74] Please have a look at this version of Dhimmi article [75] and compare it with the current version. It is just full of incomplete representations; and incomplete representation is misrepresentation when done in a large scale. --Aminz 04:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion; I'll just leave it right there. I don't want to be dragged into this because I'm really not involved in editing these articles (with the exception being Mosque). If I could be of anymore assistance, don't be afraid to contact me on my user page. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 04:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment anyways. --Aminz 05:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Attacks on other Muslim

15) His excellency has attacked other Muslims who he considers traitors to the Faith [76].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 02:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. A clearly relevant finding. - Merzbow 21:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Removing or suppressing sourced material by Pecher

16) Pecher removes or suppresses sourced material. Please see [77] Specific examples: [78]; removal of "19th century" added by user:khoikhoi claiming it contradicts the sources [79] but actually that's what the source says [80] (quoting Lewis : "Thus the first set of rules dating from late nineteenth-century Iran forbids Jews... By the early years of the twentieth century such beliefs and the resulting practices were gradually being forgotten.... More recently, however, they have again been remembered.") Here is another example [81]. Please see [82] where I have quoted the whole paragraph from Lewis's work.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Added an example. Fred Bauder 07:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[83] [Talk:Dhimmi#Removal_of_section_:.22Relations_between_the_converted_Dhimmis_and_their_former_brothers_in_faith.22 discussion]

While it is of marginal significant, it would seem that the contemporary Shi'a view could be included. Fred Bauder 12:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comments on this edit [84]

The issue of thw Jewish Encyclopedia was argued ad nauseam on Talk:Dhimmi, and Aminz's claims are absolutley baseless and made out of context. The full picture is that Aminz himself asked jayjg to give an independent expert view on the reliability of Jewish Encyclopedia. Jayjg responded by saying that it's not a good source if better and more recent sources are available. Other editors, including myself, hold the same view. Therefore, the removal of material sourced to the Jewish Encyclopedia was absolutely legitimate; illegitimate were repeated attempts by Aminz to push the source into the article despite strong objections. Pecher ^Talk 20:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it wasn't legitimate unless you can find better and more recent sources. In the lack of such sources, you can not simply remove the sourced material by calling them unreliable sources. --Aminz 21:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The whole article is written with better and more recent sources. Pecher ^Talk 21:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not convinced. Either something satisfies WP:RS or it does not (I tried but couldn't find modern sources addressing the same issue). I'll leave the Arbitrators to make the decision. I would like to add that the article from Jewish Encyclopedia does have the Jewish POV which the secular academic sources may not have. For example the connection between "brotherhood of Ishamel and Issac" and "how Jews were living under the Muslim rule" made by that source is an interesting one to my mind which I don't think one can find it in secular sources. --Aminz 22:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What? You tried, but couldn't find modern sources addressing the issue of dhimmi? The "Refererences" and "Further reading" sections in Dhimmi are full of them. Dear Arbitrators, please read this conversation in its entirety: these are the sorts of arguments I have had to listen to for several months. Pecher ^Talk 06:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I looked into parts of the Lewis book that I have. I don't have time to go over all the sources. Why don't you find a more recent source that contradicts Jewish Encyclopdia on that point? It is not my responsibility. I have found the Jewish Encyclopedia. --Aminz 06:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not supposed to find sources contradicting every single claim made by the Jewish Encyclopedia. This source is outdated and unreliable, period; we have many better sources than this one. Pecher ^Talk 07:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add that the Jewish Encyclopedia article states that 'Reform Jewish rabbi Joshua L. Segal calls it, "a remarkable piece of Jewish scholarship" and adds, "For events prior to 1900, it is considered to offer a level of scholarship superior to either of the more recent Jewish Encyclopedias written in English".' So, for the particular case of Jewish POV of drawing a connection between "brotherhood of Ishamel and Issac" & dhimmis, there are people who think the Jewish Encyclopedia offers a higher standard than the more recent Jewish Encyclopedias. I also request the Arbitrators to read this conversation in its entirety and please let us know the true wiki policy on this case. --Aminz 07:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Joshua L. Segal is no authority on history-related subjects. In addition, the Jewish Encyclopedia is no more Jewish POV than the Encyclopedia of Islam is Muslim POV. There is no "Jewish POV" on historical issues; we can only talk of "Jewish POV" when there is a view of Judaism on a certain subject. The JE is a tertiary source based on scholarly academic works available at the time, which have been superseded over the past century. Pecher ^Talk 07:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Islam is not "Islamic Encyclopedia". It is an encyclopedia that covers Islam and is written by secular scholars such as Henri Lammens (who is a Jesuit). Jewish Encyclopedia however is more close to Catholic Encyclopedia and has a POV ([85] please also see my comment here [86]). --Aminz 07:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want to assert that the Jewish Encyclopedia reflects only the view of Judaism on all aspects that it covers or that it was written by non-secular scholars, you must show proofs. "It's name sounds like that of the Catholic Encylopedia" is not an argument. In addition, you're further undermining your assertion that it is a realible source. Pecher ^Talk 12:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I claim it is an great scholarly work but has a POV (and that's one reason it should be included). Its comparison with the work of Edward Said I think is quite unfair but makes my point clear (at least what I think). Similarly Catholic Encyclopedia is an scholarly work. --Aminz 21:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem with your arguments here and elsewhere: you keep claiming something without ever citing the basis for your claims. Until you begin providing proofs, it's unlikely that your claims are taken seriously. Pecher ^Talk 06:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg stated that "The articles were written in an idiosyncratic and highly POV way, and varied depending on the author."[87]. Yes, I don't have a citation from a reliable source in order to prove it and Jayjg also didn't provide any "proof" for that. I have read many articles from Jewish Encyclopedia (JE) and this is what I *personally* believe in it. In any case, even if JE doesn't have any POV, I still believe in my previous argument that while we haven't disputed JE using a more recent source, it should be kept. --Aminz 07:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments on this edit [88]

Regarding "Views of Modern scholars about Dhimmi" section in Dhimmi, it is helpful to note that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, including quotes. If views of modern Muslim scholars are different from the views of scholars in the past, then we can find reliable sources describing the differences. Inferring that views have changed from a couple of quotes from two Shi'a jurists is original research. In addition, there are POV and relevance problems in this section. If this section is to be included into the article, then it must reflect the predominant opinions in proportion to their notability. For examples, Shi'as account for roughly 10% of Muslims nowadays; therefore, it might be logical to conclude that the views of Sunni scholars must be described in much more detail and take more space, then the views of Shi'a scholars. In addition, we should demonstrate what is a consensus view; simply quoting from a couple of scholars does not prove that their views are actually representative of the consensus. Writing a section consisting of two quotes from two Shi'a scholars is thus a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Pecher ^Talk 21:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• Please note that Pecher himself removed quotes from Islamonline.net [89] which is directed by a very famous Sunni scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Please check out the article from Islamonline.net [90] and one can see the same view on jizya. Reliability of Islamonline.net is argued here [91]. So, those views are not definitely minority views of modern scholars, and "I am sure Pecher and everybody who has been working on this issue for awhile knows this well".
• You could simply add a stub tag to the section. It can never justify your unilaterally removal of the section without any discussion on the talk page. And this is what you generally do. First you remove something which starts an edit war (and it is clear that it will happen by common sense); and then start the discussion on the talk page in parallel.
• More examples will be provided. --Aminz 22:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

IslamOnline is a self-published source, which is, therefore, not reliable by definition unless you use it for Qaradawi's fatwas. In addition, the articles you refer to were unsigned unless "a group of Islamic researchers" (or whatever) qualifies as an author. Of course, I did and will continue to remove material from unreliable sources, let alone those discussed ad nauseam, like the Jewish Encyclopedia or IslamOnline. In WP:V, Jimbo Wales advises to remove such material "aggressively"; doing so is following the policy. Pecher ^Talk 06:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is untrue. www.Islamonline.com is a very elaborate website run by the independent media organization "Aljazeera Publishing" (not associated with Al Jazeera news). It is no more a 'self publishe website' than Bernard Lewis' books are 'self published books'. It is an entirely credible source in the context of WP:RS and WP:V. The exclusion of this source is only viable if we assume the standard for it should be different than that which was used to judge books by Bat Ye'or or Robert Spencer. That would be a violation of WP:NPOV. His Excellency... 06:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

By this logic, if I start a company called, say, "Aljazeera Media", any my works published by this company immediately become reliable sources. Pecher ^Talk 12:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

But we are missing the point here. I wanted to show that the quotes from Shia scholars are not the particular POV of shias. As to the Islamonline.net, I think it can be used for Qaradawi's fatwas. An article signed by another famous scholar can be used. But reserve my judgment for other articles. As to the Jewish Encyclopedia, it is reliable unless contradicted by more recent sources. --Aminz 07:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"I wanted to show that the quotes from Shia scholars are not the particular POV of shias." You tried to do so with the help of a misleading heading, having not even the slightest basis for claiming that the cited opinions are in any way representative of the opinions of even the Shi'a scholars. "An article signed by another famous scholar can be used." Yes, for his fatwas, not for his historical research. Pecher ^Talk 07:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to change the heading or add a tag to it but please don't remove it. This is exactly what those scholars say, and the commentaries written by those two scholars are the top two famous commentaries that students use in Iran (i.e. Tafsir almizan and Tafsir nemooneh). I had a hard time finding those quotes and I was following Merzbow's suggestion in re-introducing the quotes [92]. --Aminz 07:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

As it is now, the section must go. A couple of quotes from modern scholars do not constitute a NPOV and valuable section. One can always ask: why these two quotes from these two scholars? If there were indeed recent divergent developments regarding the treatment of dhimmis in the Islamic law, then they can be sourced to reliable scholarly sources. Pecher ^Talk 12:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Because Tafsir al-Mizan is written by an eminent Shia scholar Allameh Tabatabaei. Tafsir Al-mizan and Tafsir Nemooneh are the two top famous commentaries in Iran. Furthermore, Tabatabi is making this technical comment: "Allameh Tabatabaei...commenting on a hadith that claims that the verse 9:29 has "abrogated" other verses asking for good behaviour toward dhimmis, states that "abrogation" could be understood either in its terminological sense or its literal sense. If "abrogation" is understood in its terminological sense, Muslims should deal with dhimmis strictly in a good and decent manner." I wonder what it has to do with the consensus of scholars. He is providing an analysis of a qur'anic verse. I don't see any reason for its removal. The other quote is about Jizya which has been abolished long time ago. I showed you the footnote of Khumeyni's speech saying similar thing. That article from Islamonline.net has the same context. It is not a view of the minority. I happened to find it because Tafsir nemooneh is a famous commentary. One might change the heading of the section to "Some quotes from modern scholars", or anything else, but I don't accept the removal of the laborious work I've done in finding these quotes. --Aminz 23:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"Because Tafsir al-Mizan is written by an eminent Shia scholar Allameh Tabatabaei." So what? What's the basis for your claim that it is a modern argument? What's the view of the majority of Shi'a scholars? Until you have answers to these questions coming from reliable secoindary sources, all your conclusions are pure original research. Pecher ^Talk 06:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the view of majority (though I can guess). Why if we rename the heading of the section to "Some quotes from modern scholars", can't we have those quotes in the article? I have got two quotes from two very famous shia commentary and they are eligible to be added to a quote section. What they say is also very relevant to the article. Feel free to add the POV tag to that section if you think they are not representative of what modern scholars think. The secondary sources could also be added; that does not contradict having a section on quotes. --Aminz 08:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a Wikiquote project designed specifically for collections of quotes like this. Pecher ^Talk 20:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

But the Tabatabi quote adds scholarly information to the article. --Aminz 22:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments on this edit [93]

Observation: Pecher removes "19th century" added by user:khoikhoi claiming it contradicts the sources. Fact: Quoting Lewis : "Thus the first set of rules dating from late nineteenth-century Iran forbids Jews... By the early years of the twentieth century such beliefs and the resulting practices were gradually being forgotten.... More recently, however, they have again been remembered." So, those regulation were there only in late nineteenth-century and the early years of the twentieth century --Aminz 03:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments on this edit [94] I invite everyone to take a look at this typical example of whitewash by Aminz[95]. Aminz wants the readers to believe that it is only "according to Bernard Lewis" that the Shi'as may consider non-Muslims to be unclean (najis). As the reference shows, there are at least 3 different sources (Lewis, Bat Ye'or, David Littman) saying that non-Muslims are unclean in Shi'a Islam; the article najis provides another source (Encyclopaedia of Islam), and I'm certain more sources can easily be found. Lewis himself says it absolutely unequivocally that Shi'a Islam does, not may, consider non-Muslims to be unclean. Now, tell me: is this honest editing? What is it, if not an unabashed attempt at whitewash and sweeping incovenient facts under the carpet? Pecher ^Talk 09:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Dear Arbitrator, please note that Pecher has not addressed my question. My reply has three parts: 1. The question pecher didn't reply 2. My reply to Pecher's comment 3. An aside point about the works of Bat Ye'or and Littman in general.

• 1. The question I asked was about the sentence:

  "In Persia, where Shi'ism is dominant, these beliefs brought about restrictions that aimed at limiting physical contact between Muslims and dhimmis. Persian Muslims sought to limit contact with non-Muslims by requiring them to settle in separate parts of the city, banning them from public baths." in Pecher's version versus "In Persia, where Shi'ism is dominant, these beliefs brought about restrictions that aimed at limiting physical contact between Muslims and dhimmis. In the late nineteenth-century, some very strict authorities in Iran forbade Jews to go out in rain or snow. "By the early years of the twentieth century such beliefs and the resulting practices were gradually being forgotten". However, Lewis, pointing out the view of Ruhollah Khomeini on ritual purity, states that such beliefs have been more recently remembered." in my version.

  There is an overgeneralization in Pecher's version. Those restrictions were only there in the late 19th century and were forgotten by the early years of 20th century. The exact quote from Lewis can be found here: [96]. Please note that we have a section on the talk page of Dhimmi [97] in which I stated that I've checked all the three sources but couldn't find any support for the claim there. My post to the talk page was much before the controversial edit [98].

• 2. As it is clear from discussion on the talk page [99], I have studied all the sources. They are online and everybody can check. Pecher wrote: "Aminz wants the readers to believe that it is only "according to Bernard Lewis" that the Shi'as may consider non-Muslims to be unclean (najis)." Here is what I wrote in the article: "Shi'a Islam devotes much attention to the issues of ritual purity — tahara. According to Bernard Lewis,strict Shi'as may consider Non-Muslims ritually unclean— najis — so that certain physical contact with them or things they touched with wet hands would require purification before undertaking religious or ritual duties.[135] In Persia, where Shi'ism is dominant, these beliefs brought about restrictions that aimed at limiting physical contact between Muslims and dhimmis. In the late nineteenth-century, some very strict authorities in Iran forbade Jews to go out in rain or snow." I never meant to say that it is only Lewis who says that. I just wanted to attribute it to someone for the sake of completeness; I don't think any reader will think it is Lewis personal opinion given the context. Lastly, Pecher wrote: "Lewis himself says it absolutely unequivocally that Shi'a Islam does, not may, consider non-Muslims to be unclean." Lewis says that the strict Shi'as does consider non-Muslims to be unclean. Honestly, I don't know why I made the mistake of putting "may" in the text: "According to Bernard Lewis,strict Shi'as may consider Non-Muslims ritually unclean— najis — so that certain physical contact ..." I agree that the word "may" must be taken out. I read through the passage for many many times trying to find out why the word "may" has entered into the text. I'm sorry for the word "may". Had anyone pointed out this before, I would have removed "may" myself. It wasn't definitely a 'whitewash' as Pecher interprets. Pecher calls this a 'typical example of whitewash by Aminz'; was it fair if I had called those of Pecher's uncivil edits[100],[101] as typical examples of incivility by Pecher? Pecher needs to show at least four or five different examples to establish his claim.

  3. Aside point about Littman and Bat Ye'or: They are very controversial. For example, [102] --Aminz 22:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Given the millions of Shias living in the West today, it would be terribly irresponsible to genaralize them all as people who consider non-Muslims as filthy (najis). There are moderate Shias as there are moderate Sunnis, and not all suscribe to harsh interpretations of shariah."May" is perfectly acceptable, as Wikipedia shouldn't be seen as promoting racial, ethnic or religious stereotypes. If this is your idea of a goldmine to showcase Aminz's 'whitewashing', you must have a pretty flimsy case. His Excellency... 14:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed --Aminz 05:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed remedy: If this was approved, Pecher accepts it and promises not to do this again. --Aminz 05:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a separate proposed remedy section. 15:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Added an example.--Aminz 07:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Always/Not Always

17) Pecher believes that "I've always been civil with other editor"[103]. However Refrences 1 & 2 in evidences presented in the section ("Evidence presented by Aminz ")[104] (section for Pecher) show otherwise.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed --Aminz 07:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Remedy: Pecher accepts that he has not "always" been civil with other editors. --Aminz 07:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher has harassed editors

18) Through the use of Wikilawyering, in addition to direct commentary and his editing pattern, Timothy Usher has worked to both intimidate and alienate both Muslim Wikipedians and non-Muslim editors whose works could concievably be seen as sympathetic to Islam or Muslims. [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed. diffs pending. His Excellency... 15:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Timothy Usher's works have effectively reduced representation of an Islamic point of view

19) NPOV demands that all notable perspectives be represented, as proportionally as possible. The sum of Timothy Usher's efforts to draw negative attention to The Muslim Guild, his inflammatory and insensitive comments on Muhammad and on Islam, and his editing patterns aimed at pushing a single POV, all worked to constribute an environment in Wikipedia that Muslim editors and editors sympathetic to the pro-Islamic viewpoint would find hostile. While this in no way suggests Timothy Usher was the only party contributing to this polarizing environment, his contribution is notable. This constitutes a disruption of the proper functioning of Wikipedia. [113]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 15:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

His excellency has pointed out bias problems

20) His excellency has pointed out what he considered to be bias problems to other editors [114].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. It would be better if such problems were not blamed on "known Islamophobes" or "rather extreme and deliberate effort by a group of editors (and a few administrators) to promote a negative image of Islam.". To do so is to combine personal attacks with perfectly appropriate requests for attention. Fred Bauder 17:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I will consider the underlying situation as well as His excellencies response to it. He will get a hearing on his complaints as well as on his behavior. It is not a reward. It is his due. Fred Bauder 13:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose per my comments below on not rewarding H.E.'s incivility by publicizing his POV in a forum like this. - Merzbow 07:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. The presence of condemning evidence doesn't justify the exclusion of mitigating evidences. I am not sure that this particular point is very 'mitigating' anyway, it merely states I pointed out bias problems, which is a fact. It would certainly strengthen Merzbow's case to have all mitigating evidence relative to my participation here censored. But that is not what arbitrators should be looking to do. His Excellency... 16:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I personally don't see any relevance of "rewarding H.E.'s incivility" to having his viewed heared. H.E. has the same rights as we all have before anything is proved. Aside from this, H.E. claims his incivility has been a result of something else; so addressing his claim is not rewarding his incivility but rather analyzing his incivility. But that's what I think. --Aminz 09:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Merzbow's evidence clearly shows that H.E'/Amibidhrohi's incivility predates any of what is discussed here. And I'd be very surprised to learn that he refrains from these behaviors in all other aspects of life. There is always a good reason to hate people around us, if we wish to find one.Timothy Usher

I haven't studied Merzbow's evidences closely so I don't know when all these happened. I was away from wikipedia for a couple of weeks and "LOTS" of comments brought up as evidences on all sides happened exactly at that time. In any case, still I don't see any reason for not having his views to be heard. I think it is quite unfair and merciless to ignore H.E's points in the very first place. --Aminz 10:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Evidence presented by me shows Amibidhrohi's incivility going to his very first days on Wikipedia. Dsiputes on Hizb ut-Tahrir, Osama bin Laden, or CNN predate those on Criticism of Islam or Dhimmi, but his pattern of behavior is similar. Pecher ^Talk 12:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"I will consider the underlying situation as well as His excellencies response to it." - I challenge the assumption that H.E.'s behavior is a response to any particular situation. People don't generally attack others day in and day out unless there is something about the behavior itself that appeals/is cathartic to them. If His excellency is truly motivated by content, why is every discussion invariably steered away from content and sources (which he's not bothered to consult) to attacks on contributors?Timothy Usher 08:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, If you read a source and find it greatly different from how it is represented in a wiki article, what would you think? How do you feel? Assuming you are right, how do you want this not to be repeated? Nobody here really wants to attack others nor anybody enjoys seeing others banned. We would like to make a place where we can all work together. And this is not possible unless everybody understand himself/herself better. --Aminz 08:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This finding isn't suggesting that my violations of WP policy are justified by my protests of biases. Don't read into it more than the text states. Timothy, your contribution here isn't restricted to content disputes. It includes very personal attacks against Muslims, including calling their prophet a 'murderer', saying he commited rape. It includes harassment of both Muslim editors and non-muslim editors who sought neutrality amid the Islam-bashing (eg. Zora). It includes your justification and protection of hate speech on Wikipedia namespace by pointing to the Danish cartoon controversy and the US 'war on terror'. You should've been banned from Wikipedia indefinitely for any one of these categories of activist behaviors on Wikipedia. The content dispute is a huge problem. Having someone who expresses the kind of views you do editing them is a part of that problem. His Excellency... 19:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Once again H.E. shows that he doesn't understand how a personal attack is defined under WP:NPA. Insulting somebody's prophet, as you have done yourself against Jesus, is not a "personal attack" on a particular editor. It may be WP:CIVIL, but not WP:NPA. - Merzbow 23:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

His excellency has called for more Muslim participation

21) In his campaign to reduce anti-Islamic bias His excellency as solicited and encouraged more Muslim participation in editing of controversial articles [115].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Although an us against them mentality is not encouraged, additional editing by Muslim editors is part of the solution. Fred Bauder 17:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Actually, I don't see many non-Muslim editors actively editing Islam-related articles, especially now that His excellency has driven away Timothy Usher. If anything, there is an underrepresentation of non-Muslim editors on Islam-related articles. Pecher ^Talk 22:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Funny. Unless I'm mistaken, on the first page of the Dhimmi edit history, I count 1 muslim participating and 11 non-muslims (I happen to not be Muslim). On Criticism of Islam the ratio is 1:7, favoring the non-muslims. Is one Muslim participating one-too-many? His Excellency...

How do you identify who is Muslim and who is not? To Fred: this is the sort of Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomy between Wikipedians that Timothy Usher fought against. This is the sort of ideological self-identification with userboxes that Tony Sidaway tried to do away with. We are all Wikipedians here, not Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, or whatever. Fixing divisions in an ArbCom ruling is at best unwise. Pecher ^Talk 06:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Didn't YOU just state there's an underrepresentation of non-muslims now? Clearly that's a misrepresentation of facts. How did you come to the conclusion that non-muslims are underrepresented? What Timothy Usher fought against was anything that made Muslims feel welcome. He vandalized Wikiproject Islam despite the protest of every Muslim there who noted his changes. You've offered NOTHING to Wikipedia except your Islam-bashing. "Anti-sectarianism". Maybe if the word "sect" is interchangable with "Muslim" or Islam. His Excellency... 06:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"Vandalized"?Timothy Usher 09:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no religious questionaire accompanying the registration process. Anyone is welcome, regardless of confession. That’s not just principle, but a technical fact. At the same time, there is no special welcome wagon for followers of any religion, nor special protections. In this, Muslim editors are exactly equal to any others. Do you hold this to be inadequate?Timothy Usher 09:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the point here is a practical one rather than a theoretical one, otherwise soliciting and encouraging more Muslim participation should also be fine, *I guess*, according to the policies. --Aminz 09:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

As a finding of fact, sure, but I categorically oppose exhortations for more or less of any given ethnic or religious group to edit on Wikipedia. - Merzbow 07:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'll just oppose this as a finding. I don't see why we should reward editors who have behaved in the manner H.E. has by publicizing their POVs in a forum like this. He had every opportunity to push forth his claims of bias in a civil manner, but chose not to do so. - Merzbow 07:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Support. The presence of condemning evidence doesn't justify the exclusion of mitigating evidences. It would certainly strengthen Merzbow's case to have all mitigating evidence relative to my participation here censored.But that is not what arbitrators should be looking to do. The purpose of this process is not merely to serve as a my prosecution while turning a blind eye to everything else.His Excellency... 16:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If these three findings of fact are approved, they would set the example that in order for an editor to make one's views publicized prominently on Wikipedia one simply has to violate policy for as long as is necessary to have an ArbComm case filed against them. - Merzbow 00:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really need to even respond to this. Arbcomm will weigh condemning evidence with mitigating ones; accusations with responses and counter-accusations, and will review underlying incidents and situations. Your insisting that my activities other than my violations of WP policy be censored from consideration will not appeal to anyone with an objective mind. This is a fact; its mention and presentation is both relevant and noteworthy. His Excellency... 01:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Concern about anti-Islamic bias

22) There has been concern expressed regarding anti-Islamic bias in Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias#Islam_topics. His excellency, nominal focus of this case, cites the articles, criticism of Islam and dhimmi, stating, '...the bias I spoke of is clearly evident. See Criticism of Islam and Dhimmi, bearing WP:NPOV in mind, particularly the bit on “undue weight”.'

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 20:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose per my comments above on not rewarding H.E.'s incivility by publicizing his POV in a forum like this. - Merzbow 07:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree, Wikipedia is not His excellency's soapbox. Pecher ^Talk 07:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That I make this point is a fact, and this section deals with finding of facts- there is nothing to 'oppose', unless it's evident that I didn't raise such points. The only real outcome this point would induce is attention to the articles in question. If Merbow and Pecher felt my allegations were unfounded, I imaging they would see this point as an opportunity to show how full of hot air I am. They know better. Addressing alleged POV biases aren't 'rewards' to anyone. The purpose of these proceedings is to protect the quality of Wikipedia. Merzbow continues to imply that the only purpose of such proceedings is to list indictments and prosecute (he implies this point on several instances in this page alone). That is not the case. No harm can be done by getting more people to familiarize the articles where disputes came into being. Once again, it would strengthen Merzbow's case to not have arbitrators actually analyze the quality of the articles mentioned, and therefore it would be to his advantage if mention of the POV problems regarding these articles were censored. It would be to his advantage as readers would then have no sense of context and would merely judge on what's being said here. A review of the bias problems is absolutely a necessity. His Excellency... 23:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Findings of fact in an ArbComm case obviously serve a greater purpose than to simply relate undisputed facts, otherwise we may as well propose a "finding" that the sky is blue. If someone wants to propose a finding that editors like Aminz or Bishonen feel there is bias in the Islam articles, sure. But then the proposal must cite their words, and not H.E.s. Again, H.E. must not be rewarded for the activities that led to this case being filed. - Merzbow 00:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a rather absurd response. The POV-bias in the articles mentioned are described and elaborated in my evidences sections. It's relevant. "The sky is blue" isn't. Your proposal that my expressed views and arguements be censored has no basis in Wikipedia policy. Aminz and Bishonen aren't involved parties in this dispute. I would suggest you review the rules and regulatings regarding the workings and purposes of Arbcomm. Once again, the purpose of Arbcomm is to uphold the quality and workings of Wikipedia. It is in Wikipedia's interest that bias allegations (I would use the word 'defamation') be investigated. According to you, NPOV in this context would constitute a 'reward' to me, and since such rewards cannot be justified, Wikipedia should suffer biases rather than bring about neutrality which could be seen as a 'reward' to me. If my allegations of bias are false, the arbitrators will determine that themselves, and then respond accordingly. To me, that you oppose this point suggests you're fully aware of such biases and merely wish that they be protected from review. His Excellency... 01:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

"To me, that you oppose this point suggests you're fully aware of such biases and merely wish that they be protected from review." - I very much doubt that this is the way Merzbow is looking at this situation. Have you any evidence for this notion beyond your own (by now classic) assumption of bad faith?Timothy Usher 07:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect to Aminz and Bishonen, they became involved in this case by their choice to present evidence and involve themselves in discussion. Their opinions and actions are just as relevant for citation and review as any of ours. - Merzbow 23:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Wikipedia policy implores us to use reliable sources - preferably academic sources - and to characterize them fairly. Supposing this continues to be the policy, it would seem impossible to simply look at an article and say, "it's biased". First, we're setting up our own view as neutrality, when in fact - whoever we are - others most likely will see it as otherwise (in one direction or another). Second, if we feel the academic literature itself biased, we're obliged to reflect its bias; to do otherwise would constitute original research. It's been repeatedly charged that the academic study of Islam in general is hopelessly biased (or, more directly, is dominated by Jews) - if it's true, then the only way to rectify the situation in the short term is to change Wikipedia's source policies (in the long term, editors might publish contributions to the field of Islamic studies which might then be cited here). Finally, to determine whether sources have been fairly characterized, it should seem necessary to familiarize ourselves with those very sources.

And if we're to do all that...why not simply join the talk pages of the articles like any other editor, and make whatever additions or changes to the articles you feel the scholarly sources support? (Though unlike Islam, Dhimmi is very thoroughly sourced, so there is a lot of work involved...). What can be the purpose of making generic pronouncements from on high, when books are available to and articles are editable by all, including the members of the Arbitration Committee?

His excellency simply declares something biased on the basis of his predetermined assumptions, even on historical subjects such as Dhimmi for which he has no more direct experience than do the rest of us, and rather than immersing himself in the details of the scholarly discussion, proceeds directly to personally attacking editors who've done and continue to do the hard work he's eschewed.

Saying something is biased comes cheap, it requires no homework, anyone can do it...and one is usually right, as nearly every serious scholar has a discernable point of view. The real challenge is to say where and how something can be improved, not to merely tear others down, but to contribute something meaningful ourselves.

"This offends Muslims, and you're a Muslim-bashing bigot," isn't any sort of meaningful contribution, and ought be simply ignored, except insofar as it's a breach of etiquette (and potentially slanderous at that).

I am not myself a scholar of Islam, but there's at least one very serious scholar of Islam in this arbitration, and it would offend me as an academic (in another field) to see his honest, thorough and scrupulous labor subjected to non-expert, apparently politically-motivated (short of immersing oneself in the discipline, how could it not be?), inherently personalized (as this case only exists because of H.E.'s personal attacks) review.

And, as this is supposed to be a reference work...does anyone ask if we've actually learned something? I learned a whole lot from Dhimmi, Battle of Khaybar and other "controversial" articles. I learned nothing at all from Islam, Muslim, Muhammad, or any number of "non-controversial" articles - and look at the references section - many more for one minor aspect of Islamic practice then for the whole religion, or for its founder!

The problem isn't generic "bias", or a lack of "Muslim participation", but a shortage of serious, scholarly-minded editors - precisely the sort of individual who will be driven away by His excellency's behavior. Ask: if the chair of a prominent Islamic studies department had joined Wikipedia under his real name, would he stick around in the face of H.E.'s attacks? Calling him a bigot out to get Muslims? Attacking him for being a Jew? Suggesting the existence of homosexual relationship between himself and other editors? Inviting him to perform fellatio upon H.E.?

These are questions we must consider if Wikipedia is ever to itself be taken seriously in scholarly circles.Timothy Usher 07:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a long response with little substance. I list the articles I have found to be biased on the Evidences page. Those articles have talk pages. Those talk pages elaborate on the bias problems. An example: Dhimmi was overwhelmingly reliant on the works of people like Bat Ye'or, a woman with no academic training in either religious studies or history- she doesn't even have a bachelors degree in the subjects she deals with. She has been critisized by a host of scholars and publications. And yet otherwise intelligent editors here quote her rhetoric as if it were fact. Pecher was found REPEATEDLY to misquote sources; to delete and add words into exerpts he'd taken out of sources, and added that content in expressing that content as fact (see the distinction between fact and opinion in WP:RS). Even TODAY, on Battle of Mut'ah, sources from popular well-respected Islamic sources ("Al Raheequl Makhtum won several prizes as a biography) are being excluded by a host of editors, including Pecher. If you have the time to devote to investigating my claim of biases, I'd suggest you go through the 'works cited' section of the articles I've listed. Some are academically credible, some aren't. Daniel Pipes isn't an academically credible scholar- he's an activist denounced as an Islamophobe by every Muslim organization that bothers to be aware of him. Same's true for Robert Spencer. Bernard Lewis's works are often used, and I regard him as well-respected...HOWEVER, his works are often misinterpreted here. Editors including Pecher and Usher pick only those bits of information that can be used to build a condemning case against Islam, and EVEN THEN, Pecher frequently misquotes the texts. Sources like Catholic Encyclopedia and Jewish Encyclopedia are used, despite both being old and polemic texts.

Timothy Usher argues my response has simply been to point and make accusations of bias. Take a look at the talk page of Dhimmi and tell me I've simply made sweeping remarks without understanding the articles or how they were compiled. Look at my evidences page. And I'm not the only editor aware of the abuses being played out on these articles. His Excellency... 21:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Echoed. BTW, who is that scholar of Islam?? :P --Aminz 07:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, re "It's been repeatedly charged that the academic study of Islam in general is hopelessly biased (or, more directly, is dominated by Jews)..". dominated by Jews??? What does it have to do with the Jews? Seems new. Jewish people historically were always in minorities and were persecuted. How come if an academic text is unbalanced, one concludes it is dominated by Jews??? Edward Said states Islam has been looked at with a particular hostility and fear in west due to many obvious religious, psychological and political reasons, all deriving from a sense "that so far as the West is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also a late-coming challenge to Christianity." Watt doesn't mention anything about the Jews. Also, I may be wrong but I think I read somewhere in Lewis's book that Jews were not criticizing Muslims much, but I may be wrong. Do you have any sources to justify this claim? --Aminz 07:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Some of Timothy's edits has been offensive to Muslims

23) William Montgomery Watt argues that Muhammad should be judged by the standards of his own time and country rather than "by those of the most enlightened opinion in the West today." and states that "Of all the world's great men none has been so much maligned as Muhammad". Although Timothy states that "a view of seventh century Arabian history is not an indictment of any living person or people" but in reality he has proceeded up to level of indictment of Muhammad in several cases as Zora pointed out. [116]. Here is my argument of why Timothy's comments are offensive to Muslims: [117]. Timothy's argument is that Muslims view Muhammad as an exemplar even in the Modern world which is of course true. However, I have studied all the relevant diffs closely and found this argument to be quite insufficient to justify all of Timothy's comments (but that's my personal judgment). Furthermore, one needs to have a very good understanding of 'how mainstream Islam views Muhammad' in order to address the "Muhammad as an exemplar" case. I believe Timothy's view of Muhammad is formed based on some secular western sources; but the Muslim picture of Muhammad is formed from Muslim's own sources and interpretations. For example, many stories accepted by Muslims (and influential in how Muslims view Muhammad) are simply rejected by western academics. So, in conclusion, I do see some of the Timothy's comments to be unhelpful to wikipedia. Even if he argues that he was pushing the academic POV, one can argue that he is pushing a particular academic POV.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

If there is any logic in the whole argument above, then it has eluded me. What's the problem with Timothy's comments? If it's that they differ from the Muslim worldview, then, sorry, he is not obliged to share other people's beliefs. Pecher ^Talk 12:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed --Aminz 21:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Remedy:

1. Wikipedia needs more precise regulations of how and to what extend editors have the right to use particular academic/unacademic POVs to condemn or praise a person. This is quite important in the case of Muhammad where even within the academia, Montgomery Watt agrees with West's historical denigration of Islam and Edward Said criticizes the western scholarship of Islam.

2. Timothy should avoid words that have got particular meanings in the modern language such as the word "murderer" when applying them to 7th century characters such as Muhammad.

3. Timothy should note that many editors will read his comments. What he may not consider to be offensive, some editors may interpret them as offensive. We have editors like Zora who are not Muslims but spread wiki-love rather than wiki-hate by their comments. --Aminz 21:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a separate "proposed remedy" section. His Excellency... 02:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"X is so" vs "According to Y, X is so"; Please do us a favor!

24) I (Aminz) have had this discussion with Pecher for a "long", "long" time. I think we are both exhausted and neither of us has been convinced. I believe that only if something is proved to be "a fact" rather than "an opinion", it can be written as "X is so" unless we should by default write "According to Y, X is so". We have had revert wars over this: For example [118] in which "Muhammad moved to attack Khaybar in order to raise his prestige among his followers, as well as to capture booty to sustain subsequent conquests." is stated as a fact. I believe that it is not the Muslim POV that Muhammad had those two and exactly those two motivations. Pecher believes in my "failure to distiguish between facts and opinions" and has argued here[119]. Please see Reference 4 in the evidence provided by me on the evidence page[120] for the details of the above edit-war we went through. Thanks.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed --Aminz 09:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher's work disruptive

25) Editors have found Timothy Usher's contributions to Wikipedia to be disruptive. [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 15:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks made against Timothy Usher are not exactly evidence against him. More likely, this is evidence against the editor making this personal attack. Pecher ^Talk 15:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

More links added. His Excellency... 16:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Timothy Usher has demonstrated antipathy towards Islam and the Muslim Community

26) Timothy Usher's editing pattens and his disregard for civility in his dealings with Muslim editors demonstrates his antipathy for Islam and the Muslim community. An illustration of this: he has explicitly stated that the act of showing deference to Muhammad by saying PBUH is equitable to endorsing the killings of Jewish captives in the Middle Ages. [127] [128] Another illustration is his defense of 'hate speech relative to Islam" on Wikipedia namespace, which he later justifies by the fact that "we are at war", and contrasts (as a means of justification) the use of inflammatory anti-Islam/Muslim images on Wikipedia namespace with the Danish cartoon controversy.[129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 15:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Quite simply a lie. I harbor no antipathy towards "the Muslim community."Timothy Usher 11:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've long agreed that the first diff H.E.'s presented was over-the-top, and shouldn't have been made. While I do see the idolization of Muhammad morally problematic, particularly in regard to his treatment of Jews, and while I find the atmosphere of ritualized piety insufferable, and overtly antithetical to critical thought, it would have been far better for me to step away from the keyboard for awhile. There was no need for such strident language.

Although this remark wasn't directed at H.E., I acknowledged as much, posting[135]. He responded with this:[136], [137]. I believe this demonstrates once again that H.E. is more interested in the perpetuation than in the resolution of personalized conflict.

H.E.'s been touting this "we are at war" diff for awhile now. but it's been carelessly misrepresented, as I'm relating my impression of another user's motivations, not expressing my own.Timothy Usher 01:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Incivility: Pecher

27) Pecher has on occasion adopted a tone of voice and dialogue that violates WP:Civil. [138] [139]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 16:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Pecher has made inflammatory remarks directed at Muslim editors

28) It is general knowlege that believing Muslims revere Muhammad as their 'last and final prophet from God". While criticism is to be expected in a neutral encyclopedia, Pecher has on occasion used exceptionally inflammatory, unwarranted terms and rhetoric, directed against Muslim editors. [140]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 16:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Inflammatory remarks regarding Muhammad

29) Pecher has expressed unwarranted, potentially inflammatory remarks regarding Muhammad, whom Muslims revere as their prophet. [141] [142]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 17:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Pecher has participated in edit warring on WP:Islam

30) Pecher has edit warred on Wikipedia Wikiproject:Islam to reinsert unwarranted 'rules' that would dictate the conduct and behaviors of Muslim editors. Such 'rules' were rejected by the members of the Wikiproject previously. [143] [144]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 17:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Pecher's POV bias is disruptive to Wikipedia

31) Numerous editors have found Pecher's editing to suffer from an extreme POV bias. This bias has been noted across many articles, by editors who do not seem to collaborate with one another. This bias has been noted both by editors who typically present a Muslim perspective, and those who do not. Frequently editing to push a POV and reduce the neutrality on a multitude of articles constitutes a disruption of Wikipedia. [145] [146] [147] [148] [149] [150] [151] [152] [153] [154] [155] Just as this pattern has gone on and been noted by other editors in the past, it is still ongoing.[156] [157] [158]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 17:57, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that Zora is not a Muslim (she's stated this explicitly, she's buddhist). I don't know what Editorius is and I won't make any assumption... Both editors have been critical of the Islamic perspective at times, in their editings. Additional cases of criticisms are on the evidences page- one includes an editor on Wikipedia Wikiproject Judaism calling Pecher a "POV-pusher" on that talk page.[159] [160] As the number and backgrounds of those critical of Pecher's editings are so diverse, their critiques of Pecher's biases cannot be attributed to an "Islam POV vs. Western POV" conflict. His Excellency... 18:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

It'd be nice if we could stop categorizing editors according to their religion (or perceived religion). Just my opinion.Timothy Usher 08:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, I see your point. But Zora being a Buddhist is kind of relevant in the sense that her knowledge of Islam is formed by academic sources, so I think it is relevant to that extent. What do you think? --Aminz 08:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with her being Buddhist or not. Editors of all confessions are free to rely upon academic sources.Timothy Usher 00:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

But it is a confirmation that her views are based on academic sources. Furthermore, there would be no doubt in any interest of her in unnecessarily make Islam look good on the controversial cases. --Aminz 08:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The awareness of a distinction between Muslim POVs and Western ones is one that's been around before my involvment here, and in articles I am uninvolved in. The point I make here is that Pecher's editing is not critisized just by editors who would be expected to view things from an Islamic perspective. Zora was vocal against some edits by Muslim editors that presumed things most non-Muslims wouldnt believe. Same's true for Netscott and Editorius. In short, Pecher's misrepresentations of sources and his POV-pushing agitates people across the board. His Excellency... 20:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Pecher deleted content that represented a pro-Islamic POV

32) NPOV is only attainable if all significant and notable perspectives are allowed to be reflected in articles. Pecher has deleted information that would have provided context and a broader understanding of the topic matter as is understood from different views of the topic matter. [161] [162] [163] [164] [165] [166] [167] [168] [169] [170]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed. His Excellency... 21:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

His Excellency is ungrateful

33) Timothy Usher(with the help of others) "created the Qur'an and Bukhari templates which allow us to link to quality English translations of Islamic scripture" There was some technical difficulties to it. Later, Timothy done a time-consuming job in replacing all the verses references with the template. NOW, H.E. instead of thanking Timothy claims "And he did these things to what purpose? To give basis to the arguement that Muhammad was a pedophile and a murderer and a rapist? Everything he has done relative to topics on Islam has been to drive the point that Islam is evil. Nothing else." [171]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Seems to be a failure to assume good faith here. Fred Bauder 03:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't really aware of what Aminz is talking about until now. Given my evidences page, I don't think WP:AGF requires me to assume much. Timothy Usher's works on Wikipedia are evidently biased. I hope others will review his edit history and make their judgements on that. That I failed to be 'grateful' is barely something to mention here. His Excellency... 05:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that you attacked before even realizing what was being discussed?Timothy Usher 07:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. H.E. should apologize for this and promise not to do it again. --Aminz 00:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? I've made the point repeatedly that all Timothy usher has done is to push a negative image of Islam. His creating of a Quran or Bukhari doesn't contribute anything positively to Wikipedia. The consensus across several articles was that they're both primary sources and therefore are unusable as sources for Wikipedia content, unless they've also been used by a secondary source. If citing a secondary source, it's best to interpret the Quran as that source quotes it. It is evident from my evidences page (which is a fragment of all that's out there) that Timothy Usher used resources in his disposal to promote a negative image of Islam. His Excellency... 01:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

So, H.E., you make a ludicrous charge, that I created these templates and propagated them across dozens of articles in order "to give basis to the arguement that Muhammad was a pedophile and a murderer and a rapist," and rather than retract it or (gasp!) apologize, you now dismiss it as useless and return to your narrative without skipping a beat.

As for primary sources, as I said, I wasn't considering how they were being used in any given article, only adding links where there was an unlinked citation, and ensuring that the passages spoken of were being referenced with the right verse number (they often weren't). It does often seem that they're being marshalled in the service of original research, but that would be an apt characterization of the majority of Islam-related articles.

I am now curious to hear how my translation of Arabic names to their English equivalents fits into the plot.Timothy Usher 02:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Deprecation of scholars on the basis of ethnicity

34) There have been instances where the reliability of scholars has been challenged on the basis of their ethnicity [172].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Reliability consideration

34) Sources which contain information regarding Islamic subjects vary in reliability. On the one hand, one encounters materials which, while it has the appearance of scholarly work, is little more than war propaganda. One the other hand, the provenance of Muslim sources may not be familiar to Western readers.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support - I've always said that there needs to be more translations of Muslim sources and more visibility regarding which Muslim authors are reliable are not and in what fields. Very few Westerners know which Muslims are considered to be respected and reliable commentators on the Quran, for example. At the same time, it must be recognized that standards for reliable sourcing on historical commentary should be different than, say, standards for religious commentary. For example, Syed Abul Ala Maududi would be a top-notch source for Quranic commentary, but a terrible-quality source for historical analysis. - Merzbow 23:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The article on Syed Abul Ala Maududi says he was an extremist. ;D I was scared after reading the intro of his article.:) But yes, he has a good commentary. --Aminz 08:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Strong Support --Aminz 22:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to quote Edward Said who stated that

“ I have not been able to discover any period in European or American history since the Middle Ages in which Islam was generally discussed or thought about outside a framework created by passion, prejudice and political interests. ”

--Aminz 07:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

H.E.' I think this quote is a good addition to your userpage. --Aminz 07:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

PBUH

35) (PBUH), an abbreviation of "Peace be upon him", or a similar expression, is traditionally inserted after mention of Mohammed by Muslims.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 20:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I think there's a consensus amongst all editors here that PBUH should not be inserted within articles as that would suggest an exclusively Muslim POV. On talk pages, people should be able to express themselves without such restrictions. His Excellency... 20:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As the need for neutrality has played a large part in this discussion: are we to believe that an atmosphere of pious reverance will promote neutrality? None of here are neutral; we can hope only to recognize and try to curb our excesses, and keep an open mind. And having a point of view shouldn't prevent us from being able to edit. However, it's important to emphasize that neutrality doesn't just mean not against but also not for. An atmosphere in which Muhammad (or anyone else) is reflexively praised is overwhelmingly likely to make Wikipedia less neutral.Timothy Usher 22:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher edited to exclude Muslim POVs

36) NPOV can only exist if all notable and prominent views on a subject are proportionately represented. Timothy Usher has on occasion edited on articles dealing with Islamic history to exclude content reflecting the Muslim POV. [173] [174] [175]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 21:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Oppose. I don't see Timothy's edits done in order to exclude content reflecting the Muslim POV.--Aminz 10:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

One diff opposing transparent (and successful) vote-stacking. One asking for reliable sources. One asking to depersonalize the discussion. This is what you call excluding the "Muslim POV"?Timothy Usher 06:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Patience by Bishonen

37) Bishonen has been very patient with His excellency Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Bishonen.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Nonsense. I'd be gratified if I were commended for general patience and good faith, but this is unjustly phrased at the expense ofUser:His excellency, as if he were a child to need any particular "patience with". It was no conjuring trick on my part to notice the circumstances and the kind of pressure that provoked him into the "wikiharakiris" and other gestures of frustration. IMO cause and effect lie open and visible to anybody of good faith who has studied the sequence of events, noting especially the timing of the blocks in relation to the heated comments, and noting the withdrawal of such comments, and the harsh "ownership" climate at the Islam articles. His E is rather to be commended for resilience in his efforts to negotiate the barbed wire round those articles and in continuing to edit in circumstance that have driven off so many others. User:Zora comes to mind, and I've just added my own small-scale frustration at Bernard Lewis in my evidence section, as an unimportant but illustrative example. The arbcom needs to consider the toll such a climate takes on the temper of the pushed-out "outsider". I feel distinctly less pleasant for the experience myself. Bishonen | talk 21:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC).

H.E. began his campaign of "frustrated" vile personal attacks long before he came near the Islam articles, as my evidence section clearly shows. He was not transformed from a decent, hardworking editor because of any "barbed-wire" fence - he brought the same behavior with him from articles like Ann Coulter and Fox News to Islam. I honestly cannot fathom your faith in this individual. - Merzbow 21:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of Islam

1) The article Criticism of Islam suffers several qualitative problems that are untypical of acceptable Wikipedia entries. The article is 118kb in size. Copied onto a word document, its contents span over 40 pages; on smaller pages it would be the size of a small book. These differerences are particularly notable when one considers the article Islam itself is only 39kb is size, and Criticism of Christianity and Criticism of Judaism are 24.6kb and 6.7kb respectively.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed His Excellency... 15:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Tom Harrison's indefinite block on His Excellency was wrong

1) The indefinite block placed on His Excellency's account as a result of a personal attack on Timothy Usher was unduly harsh. [176] [177] [178]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I hope the arbitrators consider all this only after reviewing the relevant ANI reports and Bishonen's Evidences entry. I think it's clearly evident from reading those documents that there's been an element of opportunism in affecting blocks using NPA as a justification. Tom Harrison's placement of an indefinite block for the use of the word 'bigot' is one example. Tom Harrison is well informed on the inflammatory use of insults directed against Muhammad by Timothy Usher in order to humiliate Muslim editors, but he never so much as councelled Timothy on that. He is also aware of Pecher's editing patterns. As my Evidences page demonstrates, the three are close and Timothy Usher and Pecher have relied on Tom's admin powers to get their way. This use of admin authorities only to affect punishments against myself while turning a blind eye to Timothy's edit warrings on WP:Islam was unacceptable, particularly given that Muslims voiced their protest to the regulations Timothy sought to invent. His Excellency... 16:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

"...the inflammatory use of insults directed against Muhammad by Timothy Usher in order to humiliate Muslim editors" - I can't for the life of me understand how a negative characterization of Muhammad humiliates "Muslim editors". It would never have crossed my mind to be "humiliated" by your allegation that Jesus was a coward, and would be very surprised to learn that anyone else had this particular reaction. Maybe there is some cultural difference here of which I'm not aware, in which case I invite you to explain it.

Also, I do not believe that I've "insulted" Muhammad; rather, I've been appalled by some of his actions as recounted in Islamic records (just as I'm appalled by some of the mayhem recounted in Deuteronomy). Do you hold that it's not my right to arrive at this conclusion?

In any event, it was certainly never my intention to humilate anyone, as you've alleged, and can see no reason for you to have assumed that.Timothy Usher 03:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course you deny it. The arbitrators will view the evidence and make their own conclusions. His Excellency... 04:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The indef. block maybe wasn't the best choice although Tom made it clear that he doesn't want the block to remain. See, H.E. makes personal attacks frequently. I, personally, was scared by some of his comments. His personal attacks 'are' disruptive. They can not be justified in any way. I know Tom for quite a long time. He is a very friendly and fair admin. He always stays cool and is quite valuable to Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not gratitude a valuable admin like Tom in this way. --Aminz 06:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want a block to remain, you don't block indefinitely. You don't block and then effectively say "come back to me and promise you'll be good, and then maybe I'll let you go". There is no precedent for this kind of bullying. At least not one that had ever been endosed by Wikipedia. He is clearly neither fair nor unbaised, as my evidences show he had been used by Timothy and Pecher to both set blocks on users and as a means to help them and their editing collaborators to evade blocks. This is a misuse of the admin powers. I think he should have those powers revoked. My evidences page should illustrate clearly what kind of actions I 'disrupted'. His Excellency... 18:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Jews are immune from accountability; Muslims are fair game

1) Jewish editors are to be given every benefit of the doubt. Where doubt is lacking, make some up. Conversely, Islam, Islam-related topics, and Muslims are fair game. They're not much good for anything other than blowing things up anyway; the Wikipedia community is unlikely to find any real resistence from them, since reading and comprehension isn't a strong point from the backward Islamic community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

proposed" His Excellency... 00:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Template

1) {text of proposed remedy}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

His Excellency to compile list of bias problems

1) His Excellency, to atone for his numerous personal attacks, is ordered to compile a list of the articles which he believes exhibit a pro-Jewish or anti-Muslim bias, along with the reasons why for each, so that the list can be published for all to see, and with luck, for many to work on to achive greater balance.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I will not propose this; rather I suggest that all users active in Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam and its subdivisions make an effort to identify and rectify such problems. It is only by confronting these issues openly and actively cooperating to solve them that we will make progress towards creation of an encyclopedia which fairly presents all significant points of view regarding topics. Fred Bauder 16:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

You must be joking. "The Jews also have more admins in their ranks, so it's considerably easier for them to get page protections and 3RR blocks..." I urge the committee to closely evaluate Publicola's attempt to further frame this issue as a religious/racial conflict between Jews and Muslims. - Merzbow 17:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not joking, and I'm certainly not the first to refer to this problem in terms of the factions -- the term "Balkan War" was brought up by another party. Even if you discount my analysis (which has been absurdly misrepresented by Merzbow above), the proposed remedy here would unquestionably do the whole project much good, if only to map out the sources of conflict which are something of a mystery to the secular masses. Publicola 07:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Publicola, I suggest you restructure your evidences and observations, and your suggested solutions, for the limited purposes of this dispute. I DO note the anti-Muslim rhetoric and bias, as you do. However, to date I have neither researched nor found conclusions regarding a pro-Jewish bias. Condemnations for Pecher's deliberate misinterpretation of sources have been expressed by members of Wikiproject:Judaism as well, as has been annoyance over Timothy Usher's rewriting of their project page. For the purposes of this article, the number of Jews in Wikipedia or of Jewish admins or their biases are irrelevant. I don't even know that any of the 3 people I am engaged in dispute with here are in fact Jewish. Your observations may be correct, for all I know...However they are not relevant to this particular case. His Excellency... 00:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The arbcom does not adjudicate content disputes. "Bias of articles on Wikipedia" would be considered a content dispute. They look at user's conduct and nothing more. --Woohookitty^(meow) 03:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind engaging in a project dealing with defamation of religions (or ethnicities as the broader problem might be) and the abuse of Wikipedia for promoting prejudice. I don't know if Arbcomm can deal with such an arrangement, but I think it's something that's necessary. His Excellency... 00:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/His excellency/Evidence#The real problem is that POV-pushing Jews outnumber, outrank, and out-collaborate POV-pushing Muslims on Wikipedia for context. Publicola 13:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

See above. The arbcom does not adjudicate such matters nor do they generally take them into consideration. --Woohookitty^(meow) 03:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

His excellency placed on personal attack parole

2) His excellency is placed on personal attack parole, should he engage in personal attacks directed at individuals he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeat offenses. Should he engage in attacks directed at ethnic groups such as "The Jews" or "The Kikes" he may be blocked for extended periods of time, up to a year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

He is free to complain about pro-Israeli bias all he wants, especially if he is willing to point out specific problems which need attention. Fred Bauder 16:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This provision is far too lenient. The user operating under the username "His excellency" has shown himself more than willing to accept block time in exchange for the ability to use Wikipedia as a forum for personal attacks. Wikipedia policy states, "no personal attacks", but this finding practically amounts to, "one series of personal attacks per week on talk pages, and limitless personal attacks on H.E.'s Wikipedia-provided user talk page." I've no objection to H.E. returning - even tomorrow - if and only if we have assurances that he will not resort to further personal attacks.

As heinous as attacks on Jews generally are, they do not expose any particular editors to personal distress or endangerment. H.E.'s personal attacks do.

I therefore propose that this remedy be simplified and amended to read, "His excellency is placed on personal attack parole. Should he engage in personal attacks directed at individuals , or engage in attacks directed at ethnic groups, he shall be blocked for extended periods of time, up to a year."

Further, Wikipedia should commit to removing H.E.s attacks from page histories. My interest isn't, and has never been, in punishing the user behind this username, but merely to ensure that these attacks are no longer published by Wikipedia.

I ask that the arbitration committee act now to eliminate personal attacks, and links thereto, from this page and others in accordance with WP:NPA. We cannot say, no personal attacks, and then wilfully publish them.Timothy Usher 10:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

First, define 'personal attack'. A look at Merzbow's list, and Tom Harrison's evidences shows that the phrase 'personal attack' is being overused as a tool of Wikilawyering. Many of the things said by Timothy Usher and Pecher, often to Muslim editors have been far more offensive than anything I've ever said, and yet nothing was ever affected to stop their harassments. Admins like Tom Harrison never took exception to Timothy telling Muslims that their prophet was a murderer and a rapist. Bishonen's evidences documents some of the extreme blocks placed against me for relatively frivilous reasons. WP:NPA cannot be used to as a tool to silence editors who represent a different perspective. That's precisely what's being done here when you consider the harsh enforcement of rules against me, often wrongly, with absolutely nothing being done in regards to the highly offensive actions and comments by these users. His Excellency... 15:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

His excellency placed on personal attack parole

2) His excellency is placed on personal attack parole. Should he engage in personal attacks directed at individuals , or engage in attacks directed at ethnic groups, he shall be blocked for extended periods of time, up to a year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed: A modified version of Bauder's proposal above, which brings personal attacks in line with attacks on ethnic groups, such that neither is allowed.Timothy Usher 11:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

oppose. The editor in question is clearly far too valuable to block for such an extended length of time. His Excellency... 03:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

His excellency banned

3) His excellency, having made one personal attack directed at "The Jews" and another directed at "those kikes" is banned for one month for the first offense and 3 months for the second offense, to run consecutively.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest 6 months for the next. Fred Bauder 16:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering I self-reverted the latter comment within less than a minute of posting it, before it could be read by anyone, (those who saw it were researching through my talk page edit history), is such a strong punishment warranted? His Excellency... 15:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This should be reworded to cover all his personal attacks, not just these two specifically (if specific ones must be pointed out there are certainly many to choose from, in any given time period, from my Evidence section). And I suggest 1 year. - Merzbow 22:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Probation

4) Any user who demonstrates inability to maintain civility towards other users while editing articles which relate to Islam may be banned from editing in that area by any administrator. Such bans shall be based on a documented pattern of personal attacks or incivility. Should a dispute arise as to the righteousness of a ban, the ban may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. All bans and the basis for them are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency#Log_of_blocks_and_bans. Only edits which follow a final decision in this case are acceptable as evidence for such a ban.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Traditional Muslim usages

5) Traditional Muslim usages such as "Salam, brother" or (PBUH) on talk pages is at the discretion of the user; however, care should be taken to not create a hostile atmosphere for non-Muslims, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Islam#Dos_and_Don.27ts.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 21:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support up to "however"...That a user takes offense to words like "Salaam" or the affixing of "PBUH" on a talk page says more about him than it does of the Muslim using such words and phrases. I have yet to see suggested restrictions applied to editors of other faiths or ethnicities. I have never seen a non-muslim editor take offense to someone saying salaam or affixing "pbuh" in talk page commentary. Given nothing has ever happened to provoke such suggestions, no such suggestions should be made as they would produce more hurt feelings than the situation such suggestions aim to avoid itself ever had a record of producing (ie none). It would be humiliating for Muslims to find themselves 'advised' to adopt restrictions, even self-imposed ones, that are not suggested to followers of other faiths. His Excellency... 03:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Support. - Merzbow 22:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support.Timothy Usher 03:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Support though I don't understand what is the meaning of this item. First of all, "Salam" is not a religous word. It just means 'Hello' in persian and Arabic. So, I use "Salam" when I start chatting with persian editors (both Muslim and Non-Muslim). "brother" and "PBUH" are different though. I use them when I would like to make a justified WP:Point. I don't understand this item. How can these usages create a hostile atmosphere for non-Muslims on talk pages? --Aminz 07:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Bishonen commended

6) Bishonen is commended for her patience and good faith.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 00:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose: First, Bishonen is a she, not a he. Second, can the one who proposed this please identify themselves? Third, while I'm not accusing Bishonen of violating any policy, I don't see her actions or lack thereof as being commendable either. - Merzbow 23:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

She is now echoing H.E.'s paranoid ramblings with her claim that editors are fleeing "these gang-patrolled pages" ([179]), a remark apparently made after her being on the losing end of a content dispute at Bernard Lewis. How this shows patience and good faith is beyond me. - Merzbow 21:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

God knows I'd have been blocked if I used the phrase "Merzbow's paranoid ramblings"...His Excellency... 21:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not the one accusing admins of being corrupt, as you're doing below to Tom Harrison. - Merzbow 22:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

It was proposed by Fred Bauder. [180] And Bishonen is indeed a she. And I agree with this commendation. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose: First, Bishonen is a she, not a he. Second, can the one who proposed this please identify themselves? Third, while I'm not accusing Bishonen of violating any policy, I don't see her actions or lack thereof as being commendable either. - Merzbow 23:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

There are many good reasons why personal attacks are prohibited on Wikipedia. One of them is that it distracts us from the real issue, that of content. Another is that it discourages participation from people who have better things to do then engage in flame wars.

Yet another is that Wikipedia might expose editors to real life personal and professional consequences through the publication of libelous material. Wikipedia would be well advised not to allow itself to become a publisher of vicious and ongoing attacks against real living people. Administrators and editors - particularly those who use pseudonyms - ought to strongly consider the distress to which such vilification might subject its targets, and the potential consequences thereof.

At no point, to my knowledge, did Bishonen so much as ask H.E. to stop. If anything, Bishonen ought to be counselled not to unblock editors who have been blocked for personal attacks in the absence of reasonable assurances that those attacks will stop.Timothy Usher 00:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The evidences page details Bishonen's responses to this conflict after they were listed on ANI. In every instance where she chose to be involved, several if not the majority of other uninvolved individuals agreed with her judgements. She held the position that Tom Harrison's indefinite block for a single personal attack was unwarranted and that such permanent penalties should only be enforced after a decision Arbcomm. Other uninvolved observers agreed. She held that the block against me that was affected where half of the reason was my filing an AFD has no precedence, and was therefore also unwarranted. There also, others agreed. The frequency of Bishonen's involvment in this matter is to be attributed only to her paying attention to reports submitted on ANI. She responds to many of such disputes and still does. Bishonen should indeed be commended for taking on the responsibility of objectively responding to these conficts. Most would simply avoid commenting or acting simply because the dispute is rooted in issues too 'hot button'. His Excellency... 00:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I would support this because Bishon supports those who happen to be in a weaker position and this is her general manner I think. I like that and *appreciate* that. She has been nice and kind to me, so I would be personally happy to see she being commended. --Aminz 08:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

H.E.'s not in any kind of weaker position: he's using a pseud. I post in screaming caps (as he's done), "His excellency is a bigot!" as he's done, he does the same to me: who loses? I joke about physical violence against him (as he's done), he does the same re me: who loses? There is a proposed finding saying "Timothy Usher is so-and-so", then there is one saying, "His excellency does so-and-so": who loses? His excellency has nothing whatsoever to lose, because "His excellency" has no livelihood or reputation at all. Despite the pretenses of policy to the contrary, the user operating under the pseudonym "His excellency" has been provided a free forum from which to baselessly slander people. Were it not for Bishonen's repeated intervention, this would not have occurred. The problem had already been solved by other admins. Bishonen unsolved it. Bishonen facilitated personal attacks which any reasonable observer would have concluded were inevitable given H.E.'s behavior and uter lack of contrition, and despite having been repeatedly petitioned to cease doing so. As such, she bears responsibility for those attacks, as does, arguably, Wikipedia as the publisher of these attacks. It is vital that Wikipedia ensure that it does not provide a platform for false and malicious charges against its editors, and honor its stated policy, "no personal attacks," under which editors agree to contribute.Timothy Usher 08:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me for not assuming good faith in this instance, but I don't buy that Timothy Usher is your real name. You've been clever enough to pretend you were a Muslim to goad another user into fighting on WP:Islam. You're intelligent...You've been complaining about your 'name' being ruined by these disputes for months now, and yet after all this time you haven't changed your ID. Even I suggested it to you on your talk page. The process is simply enough, just ask an admin. Or make a new account. This "don't pick on me this is my real name" business doesn't fly with me. You don't deserve immunity from criticism because you didn't have the sense to use a pseudonym. His Excellency... 14:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the concerns expressed here should be taken seriously. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the concerns expressed here are offensive to Wikipedia. Timothy Usher seems to be saying that because he doesn't use a psuedonym, he is in a non-symmetric situation where it is more acceptable for him to make personal attacks on others than for others to make personal attacks on himself, and that it is less tolerable for him to receive a personal attack than it would be for others to receive the same attack. His suggested remedy: since he is in this delicate predicament, if he says so, someone should be banned. (Note that NPA is policy but administrator-based long-term banning for PAs is not.) A remedy more in line with actual Wikipedia principles might be to suggest that Timothy Usher should leave and return under a new, unidentified, pseudonymous account. Timothy's personal animosity toward Bishonen (she bears responsibility for those attacks) is offensive as well. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

He chose his name in May of 2004. The policy then said, "The best username is typically either your real name, or a longstanding internet pen name." It seems odd to say he should have known better than to do that, or that he should have changed it since to avoid personnal attacks that the community is unwilling to prevent. The policy says, "There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Please do not make them." Maybe the next sentence should be changed to say, "Nothing much will happen to you if you do make them, and if you are careful you may be able to use them to drive off users you dislike." Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You would maybe prefer the next sentence be changed to read "If any administrator feels that you made a statement which constitutes a personal attack, you will be permanently banned and any attempts by other admins to review the circumstances will be met with scorn and derision"? There's a middle ground between "nothing much will happen", and that proposed wording and these ArbCom proceedings are part of it. And unless if this was the first use of the internet Timothy Usher ever made, he would have been aware of the risks of putting your real name out there. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, there is lots of middle ground. Maybe we need to look at the policy on blocks for personnal attacks and do something like 3RR, though I dread instruction creep. My indef block of Amibidhrohi was his seventh or eighth. Yours for 48 hours, on the ninth of July was what, his 12th? Look at the result. As long as he does not attack an ethnic group, he can call anyone a racist or a bigot or an Islamophobe once a week. If the community does finally get fed up, he can pick a new name and do it again. His victim has to take it, or leave. Bishonen is a good experienced administrator. I do not have a problem with commending her for good faith, or patience. If His excellency had refrained from personnal attacks after she unblocked him, we could commend her good judgement as well. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking more closely at the proposed remedies, I see the remarks I struck out were not enitrely accurate. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I took Wikipedia personal attack policy at face value. Time and time against, I'd seen editors blocked for personal attacks. Bishonen's actions here took me completely by surprise. Prior to encountering Bishonen, I had no idea that there were admins who would allow constant attacks based on sympathy with anyone's "frustration" (sympathy based on a misanalysis, as Merzbow's evidence shows, and in any event one not extended to the targets of his attacks). Knowing this obviously changes the calculation, but by the time this became clear, it was too late. Withdrawing from disputed spaces wasn't enough for H.E., who continued to denounce me in my absence.

Bunchofgrapes wrote, "But I believe Fred is right that there should be no lattitude here for incivility involving insinuations of physical harm, and some remedy is called for."[181] with regards to the statement, “Do try the puffer fish - it's delicious!” [182] I wonder what Bunchofgrapes think of this: "Not that I'd punch him in the face, of course.That'd be a personal attack. That's not to say that if someone else did, I wouldn't point and laugh." [183]. That's an "insinuation of physical harm," is it not?Timothy Usher 22:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

"Time and time against, I'd seen editors blocked for personal attacks." I've seen that too. I've seen His excellency blocked for personal attacks. Oh, you mean indefinitely blocked? Someone who seems to make good contributions too? If you're seeing that, Wikipedia has a problem. Unless if you're talking about the WP:BLOCK#Users who exhaust the community's patience clause. But as I've mentioned before -- that's supposed to be open to admin debate. It is the correct behavior for an admin to speak up when they disagree with a proposed ban of that nature.

The fact is, I personally feel His Excellency deserves sanctions for the personal attacks he has made and it appears that ArbCom will impose such sanctions. I agree with Bishonen that a community ban was inappropriate, and that this was a case that deserved the more ponderous scrutiny of ArbCom. These are not mutually inconsistent views, try as you might to paint them that way! —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, I understand your point. Timothy, there is *no single* doubt that your presense has been very useful to wikipedia. I do respect you. I want to reply you back indirectly. Take it this way. Had H.E.'s block stayed, was everything solved? I don't think so. New H.E.'s would have come. It is a truth that there are tensions between you and all Muslim editors working on the same article as you do (H.E. has asked me not to call myself Muslim, so, I am out). Take it as a system. Why is it like that? Why Zora didn't have this much problem with Muslims? Many Muslim editors gave her a barnstar. I know that you are extremely smart and exceedingly knowledgeable. Your comments are not actually far from a mixture of what famous scholars have said. Your controversial comment, for example, that "no mention of the fact that he and he alone was exempted from the four-wife limit (33: 50, thanks be unto Gabriel for conveniently coming to his rescue)," is not far from the view of D. S. Margoliouth who saw Muhammad as a charlatan who beguiled his followers with techniques like those used by mediums today.D. S. Margoliouth said:"For whatever he does he is prepared to plead the express authorization of the deity. It is, however, impossible to find any doctrine which he is not prepared to abandon in order to secure a political end." So, I do respect what you believe. There are differing views among academics ranging from Watt who believes Muhammad was inspired by God, and Margoliouth who believes Muhammad was a charlatan. So, anybody can stand wherever he wants in this spectrum. I think yours is a mixture of them. Timothy, what you believe is respectable but, but please note that there are many people who love Muhammad (pbuh) with their hearts. They read your comments. I know you do not mean it, but you can not go around mocking their religion. Timothy, you may not consider it mocking but they do. Timothy, I was extremely hurt on one case and that was your support of Pecher when he was trying to write "Muhammad moved to attack Khaybar in order to raise his prestige among his followers, as well as to capture booty to sustain subsequent conquests." as a fact rather than attributed to some scholar(s). I agree that there may have been these motivation but saying Muhammad was doing that *just* to "raise his prestige among his followers, as well as to capture booty" will make it an indictment of Muhammad (it will make him look like an immoral man). Timothy, yes, you can probably find some scholars agreeing with your words, but please please don’t make them in public. They are all opinions and not a facts after all. We are not here to discover any truth. Having said that, I don't wish my comments mean my support of H.E.'s personal attacks in anyway. I was actually in some cases scared by his comments. --Aminz 09:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Bishonen counselled

1) Bishonen is counselled not to unblock, or to petition for the unblock of, users who have been blocked for personal attacks on other users, without reasonable assurances that their attacks will not continue.

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Proposed.Timothy Usher 11:28, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. This is ridiculous. In every instance other admins and editors have agreed with Bishonen's findings. His Excellency... 15:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

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Oppose. --Aminz 22:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Tom Harrison commended

1) Tom Harrison commended for sincerely doing what he thinks is right to aviod personal attacks against living editors in wikipedia.

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Oppose. Several users have found his application of an indefinite block for a personal attack to be excessive, particularly considering he opposed an indefinite block against another user who engaged in utterly disgusting shows of hate through the use of offensive images aimed at insulting Muslims. The evidences page shows Timothy Usher and Pecher, both engaged in POV-driven disputes across several articles, repeatedly used Tom Harrison to affect blocks on other users, AND remove blocks from either themselves or users they had collaborated with. This is corruption. Being so closely familiar with Timothy Usher and Pecher, it is remarkable that Harrison took no exception to the many instances of incivility on their parts, as well as their edit warring to push a POV (see Evidences page and Tom Harrison's talk pages). This is not something to be commended. If anything he should be censured for selectively applying his powers to support friends. His Excellency... 07:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Corruption?Timothy Usher 07:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Support. If anyone is to be commended here, it is, of course, Tom Harrison, who was the first to step forward and deal firmly with H.E.'s abusive editing. Pecher ^Talk 16:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

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Proposed --Aminz 06:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher banned from Wikipedia

1) Editors who repeatedly and deliberately misuse their freedoms to edit Wikipedia in a way that projects prejudice or bias threaten the success of the project and its intended purpose. Given the evidences presented against Timothy Usher, [184] including the frequent use of insensitive and inappropriate comments directed towards Muslim editors, deriding their faith and their religious figures; given his clear and continuous POV-bias demonstrated in his editing, edit-warring, and other actions actions aimed at using Wikipedia as a platform to express anti-Islamic bias, Timothy Usher is to be banned from editing articles on Wikipedia namespace.

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proposed His Excellency... 15:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. A groundless proposal if I ever saw one. - Merzbow 22:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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This is an unduly harsh proposal. BhaiSaab ^talk 23:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher banned from editing Islam-related articles

1) Given the evidence provided that demonstrates that Timothy Usher had abused his freedoms as an editor to push his views on Islam related articles, in clear violation of WP:NPOV, and his frequent uncivil interaction with Muslim editors such as to cause them distress and offense, Timothy Usher is to be banned from editing articles on Islam-related topics.

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proposed His Excellency... 15:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Equally groundless. - Merzbow 22:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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1) Violation of bans imposed under the terms of this decision may be enforced by blocks appropriate to the offense involved. All blocks and the basis therefor to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/His_excellency#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

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Proposed Fred Bauder 15:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

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Analysis of evidence

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At this time I have no detailed comments on the now-enormous amount of additional evidence presented on the evidence page. However, now I can more easily clarify what this case is really about:

"That's not to say I want to be taken as excusing, on any provocation, such posts as 'butt buddy'. I'd be surprised if HE excuses it himself." - Bishonen [185]

OK, fair enough. But the very first sentence of H.E.'s response leads with:

"My defense is that my ‘incivility’ had been in response to blatant POV-pushing and effective defamation Islam in certain articles here." - H.E. [186]

And then later on in a section titled In My Own Defense:

"This isn’t incivility on my part, its outrage. I don’t expect leniency for my actions, and I won’t hold any negative feelings for whatever penalty you apply. I do ask that you respect that my actions were in response to the realities here." - H.E. [187]

As I've said, the crux of this matter is H.E.'s incivility, not issues of article content. H.E. clearly wants us to believe his incivility is not really incivility (by putting it in quotes) but a legitimate response to an alleged conspiracy of POV pushers on the Islam page. That's about as far from an apology or a promise to desist that you can get. In a nutshell, what this case is about is whether policies about incivility and personal attacks do not apply when the goal is to address a perceived POV imbalance in articles. I encourage those who may share his ideological concerns about content to think about whether the ends justify the means, because the 'end' of driving all reasonable people he disagrees with off of the articles he edits will surely be achieved if he is allowed to continue. - Merzbow 19:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I acknowlege my actions have violated WP policy. If asked to by the committee, I will make it a point to bring my responses within limits of civility. If banned permanently, I will gladly consider taking up other hobbies. I have gone through significant trouble presenting my case for you, as the length of my response shows. I truly wish that Wikipedia live up to Wales' optimistic senses of its potentials. But if passionate activists are permitted to turn the project into an amplifier of their bigotries, Wikipedia may indeed, and probably should, fail. Going through my evidences, and looking through the articles I mentioned, it should be clear to you by now that my 'conspiracy theories' are nothing more than what's been noticed by many users here, most of them non-Muslim.

I only use 'incivility' in quotation marks when the word is used by people such as those I have been in conflict with here. Merzbow, for instance, has shared communications with both Pecher and Timothy Usher for a long time. He is thoroughly aware of their comments, actions and their editing patterns, as I have posted on the evidence page. Not once has he characterized their actions, their hate speech even, as being incivil. Aminz, whom Merzbow considers a 'good editor', and with whom Merzbow had been working for a while, had himself sought to approach Arbcomm on the matter of Pecher's deliberate misinterpretation of sources and cherry picking of negative messages. Merzbow took no note of that. Defamation is incivility, in my consideration. All that Timothy Usher and Pecher has ever done here has been incivility. Apparently Merzbow's definition of the word 'incivility' is different from mine, and so when I place the word in quotation marks, what I am actually referring to is "the word incivility as Merzbow defines it". As you can see in his list, many of my posts have been misrepresented as violations of policy when they were indeed not (see my responses to all of his points). Call me crazy, but I consider that 'bad faith", and also incivil. I don't contest that he does note occasions where I truly have violated policy. Had it not been for my latest outbursts ("wikiharakiri"), I could have made the convincing arguement that I had significantly resisted the desire to make personal attacks, and that the allegations made against me through the last several 1-week blocks can all be examined and shown to not be violations WP policy at all. Woohookitty's block was certainly unwarranted- his grounds included an AFD, and a conversation between myself and Netscott where no attack was directed at anyone. As Bishonen noted, and as you can examine of my responses after assuming the "His excellency" ID, I've really only adopted harsh language after I had been subject to blocks.

I continue to ask that the committe to address the concerns I've brought forward. This being an encyclopedia project and not a social gathering place, I cannot see how the issues relating to content can be excluded on Merzbow's request from the reaction to it on talk pages. I cannot imagine that the content issues could not take precedence over personal exchanges. It does not seem reasonable to me that issues on article content could take a back seat to the issue of niceness on the talk pages. I've been mentioned on ANIs frequently enough, I've filed ANI requests; and at every chance I had, I tried to draw attention to what was being done to the bodies of the articles I take exception to.

Merzbow repeatedly stresses that the crux of the matter is my 'incivility'. Though many of the cases presented to Arbcomm seem to resemble a judicial trial of an individual, that is not what the Arbitration Committtee meant to be. If Merzbow considers this to be some 'Law And Order' fashioned court proceeding where the prosecution of a single individual is the focal point, he has mistaken the purposes of these meetings. What the 'crux of this matter' is has expanded significantly since the statements of myself and other parties have been added on. I am told by several admins that all sides are heard and all sides are examined. There are 4 involved parties here, and I assume therefore that there can be well more than 4 'cruxes' to consider. I noted eariler, that no RFC or any other early-stage mediation attempt has been made on this particular matter (the RFC Merzbow cites in his request for arbitration was filed by me in regards to the content of Criticism of Islam). Therefore the whole dispute is presented here, and not some segment of it to the exclusion of everything else. The actions of all parties are to be considered, as well as the circumstances in regards to content that I have been reacting to. Merzbow has built his case on what I've said and done since October of last year, in response to persons and articles in which he had no interest, well before he was aware of my participation here. Certainly what I have seen of Wikipedia that has me responding in this way is relevant. His Excellency... 21:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

His excellency presents three diffs as evidence that Timothy Usher called Muhammad a pedophile:18:33, 9 August 2006. In the first link pedophilia is not mentioned. It appears to be a factual description of their wedding, cited to the Qur'an and Hadiths. The second appears to show Timothy Usher removing the word pedophile, and significantly shortening the discussion of Aisha's age at marriage. In the third, Timothy Usher does not use the word pedophile at all, and says child molester is incorrect and anachronistic, and should not be included in the article. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Tom. As I stated clearly (so I thought) on talk, my inclination was to remove all the back-and-forth argument, which reads like a "criticism of..." article and reduce the entire thing to one or two straightforward and non-judgemental sentences. One faction wishes to suppress or arbitrarily hedge this information, another wishes to put Muhammad on trial in mainspace, and the result is an unencyclopedic mess. Bukhari's Hadith - narrated by Aisha herself - are pretty clear about her age, but there's simply no reason to assign a judgement to it, or turn the article into a speculative treatise on whether or not she was pubescent, if that makes Muhammad a child molester, etc. It only distracts from her much more important role in the power struggles which ultimately doomed the "rightly-guided" Caliphate (didn't Aminz say I'm inclined to a dim view of history?). Jeremy and I were hashing this out - he agreed, but wanted to wait to gain consensus - when I had to decline further participation due to H.E.'s attacks.Timothy Usher 20:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a few more points for now:

Re "We're at war" justification of his defense of User:FairNBalanced: [188]: Here I described what I felt to be FairNBalanced’s motivations, not my own. It’s difficult to see how this might be read otherwise.

• Re: Category:People Killed by order of Muhammad: I also urged “strong keep” for the far less popular Category:People killed by order of Ariel Sharon. I understand the arguments about whether these categories are truly encyclopedic, but I found both interesting enough, and view their deletion as POV suppression of valid information (although with the Sharon cat there was an arguable point violation, as it was only created as a retort to the former).
• Distinguishes between “Muslims and Academics”[189] [190]: For “Muslim views” vs. “non-Muslim views”, I’d accurantely substituted “traditional” vs. “academic”. Just which of these is presumptive? Which is divisive?[191].
• Re Musaylimah, consider what it had replaced[192]: the article is still unsourced, but on its face is significantly more neutral. We’re not in the business of saying who is or isn’t a real or false prophet. The article was basically a hit piece on Musaylimah far worse than anything alleged here vis-a-vis Muhammad. In retrospect, perhaps I should have stubbed it.
• Uncited POV edits: In both instances, I’d reverted to someone else’s version, in the first, because it was replaced by an equally uncited and POV, less informative (the cites do exist), edit, and the second because I’d been getting flak for changing the section title.
• We can’t say prophet Muhammad: true, we shouldn’t. See WP:NPOV.
• This diff was greatly distorted by H.E., who wrote "No time is a bad time to call Allah "moon god"". Context: “There is an intentional bias here towards expert opinion...That's why Allah doesn't mention the moon god stuff.” In other words, the “Allah = moon god” idea is just anti-Muslim ignorance not worthy of inclusion. As with “pedophile/child molestor”, H.E. appears to be suggesting that my refutation of inappropriate (or in the case of “moon god”, simply false) characterizations is just an excuse to mention them.
• “Otherwise cited edits reflecting his single POV (These are violations of WP:NPOV on "undue weight" and "fair tone" grounds)” = [193] - My adding links to Qur’anic verses reflects my POV???Timothy Usher 00:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Editors edit with the knowlege that readers have some familiarity with the rhetoric and general knowlege. The focus on Aisha's being 9 is clearly for that one reason. Nobody needs to say he's a pedophile, when you state he had sex with Aisha when she was 9, the word 'pedophilia' comes to mind anyway. Timothy Usher is generally selective on what aspect of Muhammad's life to focus on. He discusses killings of Jews, not how he brushed his teeth. He discusses how Muhammad punished enemies and prisoners, not the rules he established on refraining from violence against civillians. In short, he goes for the provocative aspects of Muhammad's life. The newsworthy bit. Why an interest in A'isha of all his wives? To suggest that she was wed at 6 and raped at 9. Why does Timothy then discuss on the talk page the need to eliminate the use of the word 'controversy'? That's so that the article suggests there's a consensus that such a marriage and consumation happened, despite of evidence and arguement to the contrary. Tom's suggestion that the reduction of the controversy section reduces the implied imagery is deceptive - what was deleted was content suggesting the 'age of marriage' matter was contested and debated. His Excellency... 01:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

So when Timothy Usher removed the passage linking to child sexual abuse and pedophile it was really a fiendishly ingenious way to draw the reader's attention to it. When he suggested it was a poor approach to history to apply contemporary moral standards to historic figures, this was an example of his subtle malice. In your interpretation, the very absence of allegations of pedophilia emphasizes it. I can only imagine what you would have said if he had instead added the passage he deleted. A simpler explanation is that you mis-characterized the nature of the edits to present them as evidence against him. I guess everyone has to read the evidence and make up his own mind. Tom Harrison ^Talk 02:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me for saying it, but that's a rather stupid analysis of what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that Timothy edited Aisha to turn opinion into fact. By selectively removing those bits of the article that suggested the historical account might have been faulty, Muhammad's marriage to Aisha at 6 was made to look like an undisputed fact. His Excellency... 15:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Now consider this recent edit to your talk page, where you are counting the length of what you consider all the “Criticism of Islam”-like articles. You’ve added Aisha's age at marriage to the list: [194] This article was spun-off from Aisha, and consisted of precisely the back-and-forth original argument I’d tried to remove! Yet, having denounced me for trying to remove it, now you denounce Wikipedia by the kilobite for allowing it to remain.Timothy Usher 05:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Analysis of Zora's Evidence

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It should be clear that when Zora speaks of non-Muslim NPOV-pushing editors being pushed out of Wikipedia, she's referring to herself. She happens to be Buddhist, and as she explains, she's become fed up with the debates and arguements with the POV-pushers trying to present a negative image of Islam.. "The editors pursuing the case against him have done their best to turn the Islam-related articles into an indictment of Islam and Muhammad. They show no concern with fairness or NPOV. I couldn't stand it ... I felt as I were facing a gang all alone." She's had a long conflict with those editors, and noted, as I have, the overwhelming force they've put up to present articles in the most biased and polarizing fashion. His Excellency... 18:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Once again I must fact-check you. I don't recall interacting with this Zora in any article anywhere, much less push her out of any. - Merzbow

I edited to correct for that. When she said "the editors pursuing the case against him" I assumed that to include you. Sorry for that. His Excellency... 21:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I interacted with Zora on many occasions and usually in a positive way. The only negative experience I had with her was on Talk:Muhammad, where she poured much abuse on me, for daring to argue with reliable sources that Muhammad's wife Aisha was 9 years old at the time of marriage. Zora was subsequently blocked for 3RR on Muhammad; if that's what drove her away, then I don't know how anyone, except her, can be guilty of that. Anyway, all of that has no connection to this case. Pecher ^Talk 20:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

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Timothy Usher's Evidences

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Users have their political and social views. The statements Timothy Usher has listed, which I believe Merzbow listed already, are my views, expressed in conversation on my talk page. These particular comments were made after another, what I considered unfounded, block. They were therefore heated remarks more stern than I would ordinarily have expressed them. I am highly skeptical of Western evaluations of Islamic history. This isn't just my view, but that of many scholars, most notably Edward Said; who terms the phenomena as "orientalism". I don't think most Western, Christian or Jewish, scholars have been even-handed or truly neutral in their interpretations of Islam. Those who list themselves as skeptics (e.g. Robert Spencer) 'cherry pick' the worst instances or look for the worst interpretation of facts, while those who are apologetic (Karen Armstrong) lose credibility because they refuse to be critical. The editors on Wikipedia have largely followed suit. In both Muhammad and [Battle of Mutah, distinctions had been made between "Muslim scholarship" and "Academic scholarship", as if to say Muslims were never academic. This despite it being universally known that what we now call 'academic scholarship' is actually a western evaluation of Muslim sources.

I know WIkipedia isn't a 'paper encyclopedia'. But it's essential to compare the articles with which I have a problem, with other articles from credible acedemic sources. There's a massive difference. Where most credible scholars would at least feel the obligation to evaluate Middle Eastern history in the context of a certain time, the evaluation of Islam on Wikipedia here is highly judgemental, with little regard for context. I'd ask people to compare Wikipedia's Islam-related articles to any other modern mainstream encyclopedia. There's a difference.

I do get upset that Muslims now rely on the West for security, social and economic development, and now scholarship, and I voiced that. Yes, a verse of the Quran even warns against reliance on others, and I stated that. It's a political view maybe, a social view, and maybe not one agreed to by most WP members who come from the West. It should be quite obvious by now the context in which such comments were made- the overwhelmingly condescending approach to Islam by some editors. I don't believe in censorship. Not the best use of my talk page, you might say? Probably not. But there's no clear violation of WP policy in that , and therefore isn't relevant to an Arbcomm proceeding and my statements have not been taken negatively by any admin or fellow user as yet. His Excellency... 16:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

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Tom Harrison's evidences

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He notes my complaint that his behavior amounted to something similar to racism. In ANI discussions, he expressed his objection to an indefinite block on a user who displayed, on his user page, two images- one of a pig with the name "Allah" superimposed on it in Arabic, another picture of a US soldier torturing an Iraqi prisoner in Abu Ghraib, followed by a crude and insulting joke. This user, "FairNBalanced" then joined Wikiproject:Islam so that his display would be in full view of Muslim editors. This is an editor who frequently edits on Islam-related articles.[195] To any objective observer, and to most editors on the ANI discussion other than Timothy Usher, Pecher, and Tom Harrison, this deliberate display of hate warrants strong measures. Tom felt the indef block would be too harsh. He did however indefinitely block me for calling Timothy a 'bigot'. I found the selectivity in distinguishing when to be severe and when to be forgiving troublesome. Others have noted this as well. [196]

On his allegation of 'continuing personal attacks', his quoting of one of my remarks on Timothy's produced works as an act of 'personal attack' demonstrates either his failure to distinguish between a critique and a personal attack, or opportunism seeking to find any possible excuse to provide condemning 'evidence' . "And yes, these comments strongly suggest your editings constitute works of bigotry. " Yes, this is a scathing review of an editor's product on Wikipedia, but it is not a personal attack. My evidences on Timothy Usher should be make it evident that such reviews are not unwarranted. His Excellency... 15:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

So you're actually defending your behavior by claiming that that your most recent remarks are as incivil as possible without crossing the line into WP:NPA (and they arguably do, given that you've directly called Timothy a bigot many times in the past)? A classic H.E. moment, people. - Merzbow 00:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm saying my remarks are completely acceptable and civil. Pointing out defamation and bigotry is perfectly civil. Your protection of such prejudices expressed by users you collaborate with is what's incivil. His Excellency... 05:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Calling somebody's works "works of bigotry" is inherently uncivil because bigotry is a term that inherently refers back to the alleged racist/sexist/whatever views of the author. To claim that using this term is being "perfectly completely civil" is outrageous. - Merzbow 23:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll use an example as an illustration. The WP:Islam page. Telling Muslims to avoid saying salaam, without citing any WP policy to justify such an order. Ordering Bless Sin that she should not call Muhammad a "prophet" even within the context of personal comments. "He has a name". Repeatedly responding to Muslims with phrases such as 'murderer', 'rapist', 'war criminal'...These are attempts to humiliate and demean the Muslim editors Timothy communicates with. These are acts of bigotry. The purposes of such commentary is obvious to anyone who bothers to do the research. Saying the individual was a bigot was wrong, of course. That's a violation of WP policy. But if a act or pattern of behavior is clearly aimed at aggravating and humiliating users on account of their faith, calling the spade a spade cannot be avoided. The alternative would be to allow such expressions to go on unchallenged. I haven't even addressed the massive hypocricy in that Timothy hadn't been penalized for calling me an anti-semite on Netscott's page, or that Pecher called Publicola racist. For the record, I will NOT apologise for stating what is unpretty but true. Nor will I tolerate accusations of incivility for pointing such things out. A violation of NPA is a violation, and that must be avoided, but too often here allegations of violations of NPA have been made when all the comments were was critical. The arbitrators can decide if I'm wrong for saying so. If you ask me, what's incivil is that administrators and editing collaborators either applauded or acquieced to such behavior for so long. His Excellency... 22:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

As for Tom's newest additions: Karl Meir simply blanked referenced and cited information for no other reason than that he didn't like them. There's several reverts and blankings that went on before that selective diff. The action was nothing less than vandalism given no expressed reason ("this is crap" not being counted) was issues to question either the credibility or the notability of the edit. As for Aminz's addition to my user page, it was nothing more than a faux award for alleged POV-pushing. It takes some pretty thick beer goggles to see a sincere compliment in that. His Excellency... 00:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I honestly never imagined my barnstar can be considered as an insult in anyway. I apologize if you think it was. "POV", I think, is "Point Of View" and I used both expressions "my POV" and "his POV". I didn't know 'defending a POV' can be interpreted as 'Pushing a POV'. I didn't meant it to be that way though I do see it being read in that way. --Aminz 00:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

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Considering only Dhimmi, to which I tried to contribute in the past, scholarly sources supporting what His excellency wants to include are not available. I have in the past been willing to relax the standards, and include what seem to me to be common opinions. Part of my motivation for such a compromise with strict standards was my own hope that the sources for an interpretation of dhimmitude more generous to Islam do exist, but are not available in English. The rest of my motivation was pragmatic: I wanted to bring stability to a contentious page, and reach a working compromise with good-faith contributors like Aminz, even at the expense of our standards. Pecher has not been willing to make such a compromise with strict scholarship. I think in the end that may be more to his credit than to mine. Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

On Bat Ye'or, the bar was extremely low. For her polemics, WP:RS was all but discarded by both Pecher and Merzbow, despite the fact that other editors have contested the use of her works for years. Given this, and given the frequency of times other editors have accused Pecher, with evidence, of terrible misrepresentations of texts he had used, I don't think his heavy handed restrictions of other sources can be attribted to his sense of 'standards'. His Excellency... 22:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect to Tom, I don't think the works of Lewis are "un-generous" to Islam. Definitely historically Muslims didn't practice modern human rights. But for a long time, their behaviour was quite normal and acceptable to Christians. Jews (in general) were actually grateful Lewis says. It stoped being so after our moral standards improved. I really don't know why you think there is no english work on Dhimmi generous to Islam. --Aminz 23:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. the term dhimmitude is coined by Bat Ye'or. --Aminz 00:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I mentioned earlier the funny episode when Jewish students at Georgetown University walked out in the middle of her speech. Her husband dismissed their walking out by saying the Jewish students were reduced to dhimmis by the Muslim students. There's already an article on that ridiculous term "Dhimmitude", which has nothing to do with the historical phenomena of the dhimmi in the Muslim empire. On Tom's assertion that 'scholarly souces supporting what His excellency wants to include are not available", they certainly are. Bernard Lewis is a quite respectable source as an academically credible commentator on the Dhimmi phenomena. He doesn't merely chastize the Muslims who enforced such a system- he thoroughly evaluates it, and explains it within the context of the times it was applied. Of course, Pecher is cautious not to introduce any content that could be seen as anything other than condemning of Muslim nations. Looking at the Dhimmi talk page, you'll find that ItsmeJudith has found sufficient reliable information to sustain an informative-yet-NPOV article. The problems here aren't due to a lack of credible sources. His Excellency... 00:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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Possibly too soon for this, but I'll comment based on my impression of the discussion at Talk:Criticism of Islam when responding to the RFC there, watching it for a few days more, and then reading it again tonight. I formed the impression that His Excellency reached a conclusion before he first put fingers to keyboard, and then lacked openness to considering alternatives, compromises, or the possibility that he was in error. I formed the impression that Merzbow was sincerely trying to improve the article, and was doing a good job along with Aminz of researching and reworking the article. I was quite happy to let their work proceed without taking any further action in regard to the RFC that His Excellency had raised. I saw Merzbow's work in a couple of other places subsequently, and marked him down on my mental list of editors that might be a good source of help for me. I leard of this arbitration when I went to ask him for some help earlier tonight. I have no recollection of any other significant encounter with those involved in this arbitration, nor any particular desire to wade through the screens of evidence presented. GRBerry 04:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

GRBerry is probably the only person to have responded to my first RFC on "Criticism of Islam". It was my first filed RFC, so I didn't know that I was supposed to type it out to represent a general view and not my own. The tone of my statement reflected my perspective. Merzbow later edited to reflect his (note it wasn't changed to anything neutral). I didn't care- I just wanted people to look at the article. A look at my evidences will clearly illustrate that my views on the article weren't impulsive, but thought out and reasoned.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and every one of its articles should give the impression that it is a presentation derived from a credible encyclopedia. The Criticism of Islam article does not resemble an ecyclopedic entry. Even now, I'm observing it and editing it to exclude 'original research', written in as if the article is meant to be a piece of investigative reporting. The depth of analysis into every single criticism made against Islam, or Muhammad or the Quran is something not seen in most encyclopedia entries. Compare with Encyclopedia Brittanica or Encarta if you wish.The article is titled "Criticism of Islam", but in the eyes of Usher and Pecher and Merzbow, the article is actually "All that is Wrong with Islam". An illustration of this: one would think that a general analysis of critics would be a legitimate, if not important view for the article to present. "Who criticizes Islam and why do they critisize". There are academic critics like Bernard Lewis who had been studying Islam all his life, and has made reasoned and informed observations of Islam that many Muslims might find disagreeable. There ARE those who criticize Islam for political and religious reasons. I felt a "Criticisms of Critics" section would bring perspective, as well as neutrality by illumanating observations of WHY critics criticize. There's plenty of verifiable sources to base such a section on. The responses ARE notable. Daniel Pipes had been criticized by people such as Ted Kennedy and Christopher Hitchens; Bat Ye'or's credibility has been questioned by most academically credible observers who bother to take note of her, including Bernard Lewis. This all deserved mention in an article that had previously presumed the allegations (I'd call it defamation) of these critics as fact. On the Talk Page of Criticism of Islam, Merzbow expressed the desire to 'nuke' that section altogether. For the article to reflect analysis of the critics and their motives apparently was beyond acceptability. His Excellency... 19:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You name all these famous people who supposedly have criticized these critics, yet all you were able to come up with was virulent screeds from nobodies on non-notable web-zines. Hardly encyclopedic. - Merzbow 20:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said, Beliefnet.com has been reviewed by major newspapers, it's been mentioned by Irshad Manji in her book. Notability is what determines what is included here, and the content of Beliefnet.com is fairly notable. I could expand the section easily enough to include Hitchen's comments and Kennedy's, but you've already explained you don't want comments critisizing the critics in the article. Being fed up with games, I didn't bother pushing those forward. His Excellency... 19:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was like, irrelevant. Neither of the two disputed sources you provided for the criticisms against Robert Spencer were from belief.net. (See [197]). They were from sources even less notable than that, one of which is fond of posting political screeds against Wikipedia. - Merzbow 22:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, beliefnet was the subject of another dispute. Another source you summarily dismissed as 'non-notable'. Another 'screed' as you describe these sources. The beliefnet matter is noted in 'evidences'. Your objection to this source is ridiculous, if I might say so. The content I added, that you refer to, is "The Council on American-Islamic Relations characterizes Pipes' works as "troubling bigotry towards Muslims and Islam". To support it, I use a source as reference, that source being the CAIR official website. There could be no better source for the content I added in. As for Robert Spencer, the sources cited were adequate for the content I included, which was that some have criticized Robert Spencer. This being an opinion and not a fact, I gave the source of the opinion- MediaMonitors.net, which has been operating and publishing articles for over 6 years. The other is also an established magazine. Such publications are not as popular as the NY Times, but the NY Times doesn't address these kinds of topics. I see no problem with my use of sources here. Given so many of the source you don't take exception to are personalities and books which amount to hate-driven activism, I see no reason why you complain on these. His Excellency... 23:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

In other words, you're willing to lower your standards as far as is necessary to dig up a source that addresses the 'kinds of topics' you're looking for, in this case the topic apparently being personal attacks on authors you disagree with. If you're going to publish malignant statements about an author, your source had better be of greater quality than the average for the article you're editing, not lower. - Merzbow 06:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The source stated the existence of criticisms regarding certain critics. The sources were publications, not blogs or discussion forums. The information added in was limited to the criticisms expressed in those articles. The article as you have it structred shows NO such criticism. The article as you'd prefer it would offer no review of the history or tactics of these critics. As such, the article as you'd prefer it would violate WP:NPOV. In the absense of any source documenting a review or response to these critics, I used what I found first, after taking note of their quality. My addition would have improved the article from what it is now- which thanks to you is mostly propaganda. I won't pretend to assume you're ignorant of WP:RS, and so I won't give you the benefit of the doubt. The use of sources from anti-religious activists or groups is prohibited. And yet this article refers to the likes of Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, and Robert Spencer (founder of jihadwatch.com). Your protection of these sources, and your cheap tactic of censoring criticisms of them by labeling all criticisms as "personal attacks" is part of the reason why the article's quality is as foul as it is. His Excellency... 20:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, if you can't find a reliable source that says what you want, then the problem is not with the article, the problem is with the notability of your POV. I'm sure there are plently of articles in rock-solid sources like the NYT that criticize Spencer (the bestseller Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam must have been reviewed widely). However, I'm also betting they don't use terms like "Muslim-basher". Either you're not willing to do the research to dig up these solid sources or you're dead-set on referring to these critics using libelous language like "Muslim-basher", language that no reliable source will print. That's the only explanation for your editing behavior I can come up with. - Merzbow 20:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't find mention of him on NYT. On Amazon, the most notable reviewers of that particular book are: Michele Malkin, Bat Ye'or, Ibn Warraq, and such. Speaks to his notability as a source. He is nothing more than a rabid bigot, like Bat Ye'or whose words you accept is fact. His ideas, so far, are only particularly noteworthy to those fractions of the readership which takes keen interests in the subject of Islamophobic hate speech, either by promoting it or opposing it. Since everyone editing Criticism of Islam falls into one of those two categories, those editing the article may have bloated notions as to the credibility of people like Robert Spencer. His Excellency... 06:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a fundamental difference (established in Wikipedia policy) between attacking an ideology and attacking a person. In fact, the ability to understand this difference is essentially what this case is about. - Merzbow 17:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So content calling Muhammad a PERVERT and a PEDOPHILE would be against WP policy? By what logic are reviews of Robert Spencer's works to be censored while insults against Muhammad from some totally unknown sources (ie Jerry Vines) are to be included? Strange that you've never acted on that realization when the target were Muslim figures. "Established in WP policy"... I'd like evidence of this policy you say that's 'established' that attacking ideologies is somehow more acceptable than attacking individuals. I'd like to see evidence where defamation of a religion in endorsed. The tone of the articles you work on violates WP:NOT in that WP is effectively a soap box for anti-Islamic views. WP:NPOV mentions that the use of anti-religious sources is frowned upon, a bit of policy you've repeatedly ignored.Also, mentioning reviews of known polemicists isn'r actually 'attacking' if the content is phrased properly. Once again, a rather selective application of policy. His Excellency... 19:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:BLP, which also addresses criticism of individuals anywhere in Wikipedia as well as in biography pages. "Information available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Information found in self-published books, newspapers, or websites/blogs should never be used, unless written by the subject (see below)." Conveniently enough one of your two Spencer sources is an obscure newspaper, and the other is a partisan website. - Merzbow 07:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

H.E. wrote, "The article is titled "Criticism of Islam", but in the eyes of Usher and Pecher and Merzbow, the article is actually "All that is Wrong with Islam"." He's constantly returned to this article, the main author of which to my knowledge is Aminz, and recently, Merzbow. My primary involvement was to add links to Qur'anic cites. I don't recall that Pecher has played any significant role here, either. Yet somehow H.E. presumes to know what the article is "in [my] eyes".Timothy Usher 09:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Funny..Edit history suggests about 62 edits from you (rough count). - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by His excellency (talk • contribs) 2006-07-26 13:27:35 (UTC)

Searching the Edit history statistics for Criticism of Islam shows Aminz in first place with 682 edits, Merzbow second with 160. Timothy Usher is in sixth place with 62 edits. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It would appear that Pecher has made a grand total of one edit to this article.Timothy Usher 03:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, you forget that you, me, and Pecher are actually the same person. That is how "Pecher and Timothy Usher and Merzbow" came to decimate so many good articles in the same way. - Merzbow 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Clearly you don't see things THAT differently than I do. You filed this Arbcomm report listing Timothy Usher and Pecher as fellow involved parties, apparently without going far in consulting them first. Timothy's suddenly become very shy in his participation and has made it quite clear he wants to be nowhere close to this, and Pecher's demanding that he not be put under the same microscope. My evidences illustrate well enough how often your works overlaps, particularly in Dhimmi. It's not meatpuppetry per se, but the bias pushing has been a collaborative effort between many users, some not mentioned here. I'll admit, the tactics are so similar across so many articles, I do sometimes mistake one for another. Dhimmi is essentially a fork off Criticism of Islam, even if it wasn't supposed to be. His Excellency... 16:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Folks, H.E. states that I am not a good representative of the Muslim community. There is lots of truth in it. I think it is true that I am only a representative of a minority of my religous community. I like the works of peoples like Abdolkarim Soroush (who is hated by many religous characters in Iran). I do agree with H.E.'s point on my talk page. I do not necessarily follow what a typical person from the majority of the shia community does. This is an important point. In fairness, I, myself, have requested another persian editor to post comments on this page. --Aminz 00:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't state that you're "not a good representative of the Muslim community". I don't know what kind of Muslim you are. I took strong exception to you saying "I'm a Muslim and I support this article". I asked you to refrain from doing that. This "Muslim stamp of approval" business, I dislike; particularly when the defamatory tone to the article is unmistakable to any neutral reader who bothers to read the articles you endorse. What I did say is that I find your defense of Timothy Usher incomprehensible, and I do. Your evidences in this case are limited to your talk page discussions. We already know Usher and you are friends, exchanging 'barnstars' and all. Obviously he opted to take a civil, if insincere, tone with you. You're asking us to judge his works by his exchanges with you alone.

You say of his "style": "the style is not the style of an anti-Muslim bigot, but the style of a thinker". Bigots are thinkers too. Some are even rational thinkers.There are plenty of thoughtful members of the KKK in America- doctors and engineers and political and philosophical and religious figures. Look at his edits and commentary on the articles he involves himself in. Look at how he supported FNB's display of a pig with "Allah" superimposed on it. Isn't it blindingly obvious what his purpose and objectives have been here? Has he shown an ounce of goodwill to Muslims other than yourself? Netscott has addressed him on his problem openly, as did Bhaisaab and Faisal. Muslim or non-Muslim, everyone with an ounce of objectivity sees his works for what they are. He doesn't hide it. Yet you plead ignorance.His Excellency... 04:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

H.E., since your attacks of the 18th of June - well before your ArbCom case - I've retired from any of these articles you're angry about. Yet you still relentlessly attack me. I've long since ceded all space to you, not out of principle, but after the practicle observable fact that Wikipedia allows your personal attacks to continue. Thanks to Bishonen, you were allowed to do this, and I had to leave. You won. Why do you continue? Please stop.Timothy Usher 12:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, looking at your edit history, you did continue to edit on other articles pushing the same POV, just not the same ones I was involved in. I wonder why you would take a keen interest in Aisha? What of his other wives? Why not the article on his nephew? What is it about Aisha that has you so interested? Ah, I see..It's the whole "Muhammad married a 6 yr old thing". So much of your participation in Wikipedia had been devoted to the defamation of Islam and everything related to it. I don't know you personally, I just know your works. I have been critical of them, and the pattern they follow.

Except for my use of the word 'bigot' that one occasion, the remainder of my less-than-friendly comments haven't been personal attacks. By British parliamentary standards, nothing I said would have been considered blameworthy. Same by the standards of the US congress. Given the punishments I've suffered here for comments, it seems Wikipedia has an ad hoc definition of "personal attack" and "incivility", definitions that have never been elaborated. His Excellency... 17:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

"Except for my use of the word 'bigot' that one occasion, the remainder of my less-than-friendly comments haven't been personal attacks."

• 04:20, 19 June 2006, "I do believe the selective sense of offense shown by Tom harrison here and Netscott is equatable to racism,of course save that Muslims aren't in fact a race. Aside from that technicality, the root sentiment is the same."
• 02:40, 9 July 2006, "Aminz is the Muslim to perch on your shoulder so you feel less guilty for being a bigot"
• 06:55 9 July 2006, "you're nothing but a traitor to your religion, siding with the people who ridicule your parents' religion."
• 14:54 21 July 2006, "People have noted the hatred in his rhetoric and his edits. Faisal, BhaiSaab, Netscott, and several others. I've noticed his sweet words in discussion with you, but aside from that, he's never been civil with a Muslim here."
• 15:09, 22 July 2006, "What would a bigot do? And what have they done and what have they been doing?"

Maybe that short list is not representative; certainly it is incomplete. I'm sure people will read the evidence and judge for themselves. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If the question is whether I've made comments against other users, yes I have. I was speaking in of my comments directy at Usher. The first one you posted is to Merzbow, and ugly as the comment may seem, it's pretty accurate. I do think Merzbow and Usher are using Aminz. I acknowlege the comment I made directed to Aminz in my evidences. Aminz approached me on the topic of Timothy being a bigot, using the word himself..I didn't shy away from explaining my reasons and the evidence I know of. His Excellency... 19:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not dispute resolution

Fred's made it clear he's going to ignore all allegations made in this case except those made against me. I've repeatedly informed him that ethnic differences and representations are not factors in this case. Unlike Publicola, I don't see this dispute as being one between "Muslim and Jew", but rather honest editors and those who wish to promote activist propaganda. Existing WP:policy is sufficient to guarantee neutrality in the articles in question, or at least they would have been if administrators here took any interest in maintaining such policies. Fred's accusation is that my 'overt anti-semitism' makes it impossible for him to hold the other parties responsible for anything. That's ridiculous. Even the parties involved didn't dream up that excuse for overlooking their actions. My 'anti-semitism' amounts to two comments, both on my talk pages, not directed to anyone in particular. The first was the use of the phrase "those Jews". The second, a more reckless one, lasted for all of 1 minute as I self-reverted almost immediately. Generally Wikipedia doesn't punish editors who self-revert their offenses. In contrast, my evidences page points to far many more occasions of attacks against the Muslim community here. My entire arguement has been that these Wikipedia articles are being used to push anti-Islamic activist views and propaganda. I've given the example of Robert Spencer's website forwarding its readers to Wikipedia articles. Timothy Usher has clearly attacked several users, such as IbrahimFaisal and BlessSin using their religions as a soft spot. Fred's expressed his intention to ignore all of this.On talk pages he admit to finding Pecher's works biased, but chooses not to reflect that finding on the Proposed Findings page. What he's suggesting is that he takes 1 comment on Jews (ie the use of the phrase "those Jews") to be more serious than the scores of occasions where clear and obvious anti-Muslim hatred was shown. This in itself is an extreme bias on his part. He is suggesting that The Jewish Wikipedian warrants far greater protections for slights against him than the Muslim Wikipedian does, even when the attacks against the Muslim community here are far greater in number, far more derogatory, and systemic. In fact, he's suggesting the attacks against Muslims here are utterly negligible. That's racist. His Excellency... 16:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

On the ban suggested against me, relative to the affect Timothy Usher's attacks and Pecher's editing, my comments have had little, if any, effect on the Wikipedia community. Both were on my talk page, directed to no particular user. Both were made in particularly heated moments. The latter was deleted immediately after my posting it, and therefore affected nobody. You only know of it because Hypnosadist went fishing into my edit history. Up until now, I did not express any disagreement with the penalty regardless, as I feel expressions of bigotry shouldn't be tolerated, regardless of circumstance. It's pretty clear now that the standards aren't being applied fairly here. Comments against Jews gets you the axe. Open and obvious attacks against Muslim editors and twisting of articles to push propaganda? That's too insignificant to warrant even a response. This is absurd. His Excellency... 16:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)