Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3

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Case clerk: L235 (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Guerillero (Talk) & Seraphimblade (Talk)

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Do not edit this page unless you are an arbitrator or clerk.

I see no reason not to post, nor do I see reasons to delete edits with sufficient sources. If not this entire encyclopedia gives only one perception to the reader, that of the Israeli. I find it troubling that many pages dealing with this conflict are locked and only one side, the Israeli side, may edit. I find it disgusting that minor pages, dealing with this issue, are only accessible to edits by those who only agree with the Israeli view on things. Fucking, shame.

If this is a 'free' encyclopedia'

I see no reason not to post, nor do I see reasons to delete edits with sufficient sources. If not this entire encyclopedia gives only one perception to the reader, that of the Israeli. I find it troubling that many pages dealing with this conflict are locked and only one side, the Israeli side, may edit. I find it disgusting that minor pages, dealing with this issue, are only accessible to edits by those who only agree with the Israeli view on things. Fucking, shame.

Preliminary statements

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Statement by MrX

Arbcom should swiftly decline this case. There is no evident pattern of long-term WP:ADMIN abuse or tool misuse. Malik Shabazz seems to have reacted to perceived harassment by another user. The community has not been afforded the opportunity to address the concerns in this complaint, as is the usual process defined at WP:ADMIN#Disputes or complaints. I would also add that it's silly to redact Malik's comments on ANI, yet bare them for the world to see here.- MrX 01:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

As an ordinary member of this community, I'm stunned by the suggestion that Arbcom should discuss de-sysoping in private, and equally disheartened to see that some committee members have apparently already made up their minds to permanently de-sysop. The subject of this case has not even been given to opportunity to answer publicly, or to have his response examined by the community. Please help me understand under what policy Arbom derives the authority to circumvent the consensus established dispute resolution processes? - MrX 03:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Guerillero: Sure, I understand the need to temporarily de-sysop an account that may have been compromised, or when we fear that someone is going berserk and might break the internets. Setting that aside, my comments about due process and transparency stand.- MrX 03:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by non-party Zero0000

I'm an administrator whose editing interests have overlapped with Malik Shabazz's for a long time. Malik Shabazz has been an excellent contributor to the encyclopedia for many years, so it is sad to see him lose control as he did here. I hope that he will be given the opportunity to resume editing after a break. Just one comment on the evidence: a case for misuse of administrator tools needs to be made more carefully than it has been. Ceradon's list contains examples that are not misuse (the first diff: if an administrator improperly uses an offensive edit summary, then revdelling it should be his next edit), and examples not requiring administrator tools or done by someone else. Zero^talk 02:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Chillum: I don't know his motive, but you don't either and we shouldn't assume malice without evidence. On principle, something offensive should remain in the encyclopedia for as little time as possible. Of course he shouldn't have written the edit summary in the first place, but after he did so deleting it was proper, even required. Zero^talk 02:22, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm disturbed by the haste here. One hour and 14 minutes between filing and desysopping. Doesn't Malik even get an opportunity to speak in his own defence? Zero^talk 02:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Further to this, I understand better after Courcelle's comments. I hope that any permanent action will be taken with much less urgency, giving Malik adequate time to make a defence. Actually he has been one of the best editors I've interacted with and I believe that a careful review of his administrative activities will show that, with the possible exception of the past day or two, he has been a good administrator. I'll also mention one matter that probably escaped the attention of a few here: Malik is Jewish (userbox). Words that are shocking in most circumstances can be unexceptional invective within the tribe (think of the 'n' word as used between African-Americans). Whether that holds here, I don't know; just give him a chance. Zero^talk 03:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland: @Kingsindian: On the subject of socks, there is a matter we shouldn't forget. Israeli newspapers have documented well-funded programs to teach people how to "promote the image of Israel on the internet". Some fraction of the new users who pop up with suspiciously good pre-existing Wikipedia skills might not be socks at all, but rather graduates of courses that taught them such skills. Zero^talk 02:33, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

@Avraham: Avi, sorry but I don't accept that. AGF applies to individuals, not to generic observation of an area of Wikipedia. Of course there are also pop-up new editors with a Palestinian perspective, but they are much fewer and almost always comparatively inept. In both cases, they get the benefit of AGF until they prove they don't deserve it. Anyway, do you really think that a Yahoo group is analogous to a government-funded program? Zero^talk 04:08, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

@Avraham: Avi, I frankly don't know what you are talking about. I did not accuse any person of anything, all I did was report what was in the news. My statement was aimed at those, most of whom you would consider to be on my side of the fence, who always cry "sock" when a new user with already-mature skills comes along. Often they turn out to be right, but I expect that sometimes they are not right. The discussion amongst arbitrators here is moving towards a general review of the I/P area. Perhaps I should wait until the review is officially underway, but I'm perfectly entitled to mention one factor that I suspect plays a significant part. The example I mentioned was the only one I can document; if you know of others feel free. Zero^talk 05:34, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

@Twobells: Your analysis of "sonny boy" is off-target. Yes, it is a phrase that can be used as term of endearment, to a child, a loved one, etc, but none of that applies to its use towards a stranger in a hostile situation. It is like "honey", which is common between lovers and from a parent to a child, but if you use it to a woman who is a stranger engaged in a dispute with you, she will be offended and call you a sexist pig. I know nothing of the practical use of "sonny boy" in a racial situation, but I don't see the slightest reason to doubt that Malik was offended by it. It would have been obvious to him, and it should be obvious to you, that the term was not intended to connote endearment. I advise you very strongly to not try it out on black strangers. Zero^talk 13:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

With respect, what I did was try to make editors aware of the facts pertaining to the term 'sonny boy', not anecdotal or regional experiences just the facts and that is 'sonny boy' is not as far I have researched, a racist term. Twobells^t@lk 15:06, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Writ Keeper

I'd like to note two things. First, Malik's revdel of the 8th was done at Brad Dyer's request.[1][2] Not strictly correct, perhaps, but not something I'd hold against them, either.

Second, I feel that it's important to note that there was (imo) clear provocation from Brad here. Brad accused Malik of directly copying from a source, which is a serious accusation that wasn't true (it was actually added here). I would argue that the opening shots in this exchange came from Brad, with his condescending (to say the least) "sonny boy" here. Add that with the recent history between these two, and I'd say it's pretty clear that Brad was just looking for an excuse to pounce on Malik, and this was the next thing that came along.

Not that any of this excuses or even much mitigates what Malik said, or should interrupt the level 1 procedure here (which I personally think might be hasty but that's to one side); I'd just like it on the record that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 02:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved EvergreenFir

The use of racial and ethnic slurs in this manner should be ground for immediate removal of tools. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

First a handful of cases of sexual harassment and now one of racial harassment. When are we going to fix WP:CIVIL and WP:HARASS and actually implement it? If you want stuff like this to stop then do something about it and stop opposing every effort to address it. The discussion on HARASS after LB's case is all but dead in the water. Suggestions to the community in a proposed decision won't do anything more than the nothing it's already done. We need strong enforcement and strong protections against this.

Do you have any concrete suggestions for an alternative way forward? We are prohibited from creating or imposing policies ourselves. Thryduulf (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

A strong position statement from arbcom and action from WMF come to mind. But as long as people block any attempt to recognize the project's problem with identity-based harassment and insist that all harassment is equal, we're not going to get anywhere with consensus alone. We'll just keep losing editors and retaining those who benefit from the harassment. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Drmies

Wow, sometimes ArbCom works really quickly, and in this case unnecessarily so. You can't desysop like this for an insult, and the abuse of tools is singular: one revdel, in anger of course, just one, and no suggestion of a pattern. Not even a second abusive tool usage. I'm also puzzled by the suggestive rhetoric of "what else has he hidden", a phrase used by the filer--well, that's easy: you have admin glasses, Ceradon, and you can see what he has hidden, so there can be no question here. I find it sad that Malik did what he did, and I also find this whole circus wholly unnecessary. It's like Human Resources is looking over our shoulder constantly, and we are more than happy to rat each other out with these procedures--do you all not remember we're supposed to be colleagues here? (Someone commented that racial abuse is grounds for a desysop--surely that person knows how "sonny boy" must have been intended in this case.) Malik, I'm sorry.

• After some more arbs have weighed in, I still am not convinced how we (you) extrapolated from one single clear error in judgment to the suspicion that this would be an ongoing pattern. One strike and you're out? Drmies (talk) 04:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Hasteur: no, no cloud. No cloud. A hastily performed temporary emergency desysop which, as seems to be more and more clear, was unnecessary, that's not a cloud. Malik should never have been desysopped in the first place. At the risk of repeating myself, I still am not convinced how we extrapolated from one single clear error in judgment...etc. There was no pressing need to desysop him--and I have no idea why anyone thinks that was a good idea, even though it was supported by some people who generally have good sense. But all of this does only one thing, and that's to ensure that Malik won't be back. Here we are, figuring out whether he was just temporarily insane or is at risk of habitual tool abuse, patronizing the fuck out of him and making ourselves look like asses. All of those involved or being witness last night, including me, should have blocked that baiter. We're all cowards, inasmuch as we knew it in a timely manner, for not acting on that, and instead focusing on the aftermath, which could have been prevented. No, no cloud, except for ours. Drmies (talk) 23:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Courcelles, I support that "bad evening" proposal of yours--if only your actions, and of some others, hadn't made it necessary. And if you're going to write it, please make it sound as little patronizing as possible: it wasn't just Malik who was having a bad evening. ArbCom was at the wheel, with eyes wide shut. Drmies (talk) 23:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• GorillaWarfare, "not unprovoked" is a good candidate for understatement of the year. Drmies (talk) 15:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Softlavender

I recommend not accepting this case. Malik Shabazz is the most gentle, reasonable, forgiving, and harmless editor, never mind admin, I have ever seen or come across on Wikipedia. He also endures, without complaint, a nearly daily and non-stop onslaught of racial and ethnic slurs and abuse (check the revert and also revdel list on his talk and user pages), for being black and for being Jewish, and for editing circumspectly on controversial pages on Judaism, Muslim and Arab issues (which he also has an interest in because of his stated interest in Malcolm X), other ethnic conflicts, and pages on black figures or issues, etc. Thus far, to my knowledge, he has endured all of this without a single complaint or drop in civility, until apparently just now. Obviously a breach of civility and revdel parameters occurred, but this short-term lapse in judgment after enduring years of abuse is not worthy of an ArbCom case or a de-sysopping. Merely a warning should suffice. If this were a longterm pattern, that would be another thing entirely, but this is a singularly out-of-character short-term blow-up and misjudgment. Softlavender (talk) 03:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Hammersoft: Your cherry-picking of four edit summaries without any context at all, out of 8 years of exemplary and thankless service mainly in anti-vandalism in highly troublesome areas, and enduring near-daily racial, ethnic, and religious slurs, is not "sustained incivility". Calling out relentless trolls on their bullshit is not incivility in my opinion, especially after the trolls' repeated attempts to game the situation. The f-word is only used twice, once on Malik's own talk page when removing trolling. I've heard it said, and done, by admins (including at least one of the admins opining on this page), that one is allowed to say "Fuck off" in an edit summary on your own talk page when removing trollish posts. I'd invite you to examine the years of abuse that Malik has received on his talk page, but you wouldn't be able to view most of it because most of it has been revdelled by admins. Softlavender (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Panyd: I don't know that this will influence your position, but you do realize that Malik Shabazz is Jewish, right? By religion, by ethnicity, and by birth: both of his parents are Jewish (one is Ashkenazi, one is black -- statement here). Softlavender (talk) 09:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Malik Shabazz: Oh for heaven's sake, you haven't even broken the standards that you linked to, in my opinion: User:Malik Shabazz/Recall. If you are reading some sort of inviolable Olympian ideal into the word "appropriate", then you've set yourself above mere mortals and expected yourself to be a god or a superhuman or a saint or an angel. I think most everybody here who knows the details of your eight years of difficult, much-assailed, and unstinting service would call your conduct "understandable". And extremely short-lived (not an actionable pattern). No one in existence has never done something "inappropriate". By God, you've forced me to drag out an impromptu sermon I wrote when another admin "retired". Please read: starting at sentence three. And please give yourself a ******* break: You are not made of stone, and you are not superhuman, a saint, or a robot, as much as you might like to be any one of those. Come back and resume your service; to deprive us of it over some unreasonable expectation of perfection is ... unreasonable. Softlavender (talk) 04:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Ivanvector

I believe I'm uninvolved although I did comment at ANI that I endorsed (as a non-administrator) Chillum's initial block of Malik. Given that Malik was abusing the tools to edit through a block and restore revdeleted personal attacks, the level I desysop was absolutely warranted, however I encourage the Committee to decline this case at this time. It seems obvious that Brad Dyer's pointy behaviour and his own use of thinly-veiled racial epithets (per Drmies) were the opening salvo in this exchange, which somehow pushed one of our most level-headed admins to completely and rapidly self destruct. Of course that doesn't excuse Malik's behaviour, which would be appalling from any user but especially from an admin, but with the temporary desysop and both users on an enforced holiday, these issues are for the moment resolved. I agree with other users who have said here and at WP:ANI that if Malik's regrettable but isolated misstep resulted in permanently losing admin rights, that would be an overreaction and a net loss to the project. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 03:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the motion: as a matter of process, Malik should not be resysopped if he intends to retire. If I may: suggest amending the motion to read: "1. Malik Shabazz is hereby resysopped may be resysopped at his request if he intends to return to active editing, and is reminded that use of the tools while blocked is prohibited." (changes in green) I don't believe this alters the spirit of the motion, and I, like others, hope that Malik does decide to return. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 14:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter and Nishidani: The idea of limiting certain topic areas to editors with a higher number of edits is not new. I came across a discussion some time ago on a page which had a restriction requiring something like users at least 30 days old with at least 200 edits (a much higher bar than 4 days/10 edits). Of course I can't remember where that was now or I would link to it; hopefully someone else watching this maelstrom recognizes what I'm talking about. I'd be interested to hear if that has helped to calm the environment there. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Beyond My Ken

Very little to say here:

• My observation of and limited experience with Malik Shabazz have been uniformly positive. This appears to be a fairly singular incident, albeit a rather serious one, and ArbCom should take his exemplary editing and administrating history into account.
• Neverthless, I endorse the temporary desysopping. Under the circumstances it was warranted and justified.
• I believe the the Committee should accept a full case to delve into the circumstances of the provocations of Brad_Dyer towards Malik Shabazz. Since the case might end up in a permanent desysopping (although I don't think it will and don't believe it should), it can't be handled by the community, or, rather, if the community handles it it will probably just wind up here anyway. BMK (talk) 03:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a little weird how this case requested mutated into a review of the P/I circumstance. I hope the committee is able to make some headway there, although the ongoing situation in the RW might be a good indication of the difficulty of doing so. On the other hand, if ArbCom is able to come up with something new, maybe it could be applied to RL. BMK (talk) 02:08, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Dave Dial

It's as if nobody on ArbCom knows Malik. I agree that his actions deserve a block, and if a continued use of the tools, a temporary desysop. But Malik has been one of the best and most level headed admins on the project. This seems to be a very hasty response with little to no thought about the individual and the character of that individual. Dave Dial (talk) 04:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC) @Seraphimblade: Uggg, so ArbCom must accept this 'case' and further deliberate to death what should be dealt with using patience and common sense? By all means, don't wait a few days for some of the heat to die down. Bahhh. There is no pattern of this type of behavior, there is no need to examine the intricacies of the whys and hows. It's obvious. Sorry, this will be my last comment here. I respect ArbCom members volunteering their time for the project, but..... Dave Dial (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Avraham

I try not to get involved in Arbcom discussions, but I feel compelled to speak, if only as a character reference. I have dealt with Malik for many years now—often on actuarial related topics, sometimes on Judaism or Israel related topics. We often do not agree, but he has, to the best of my recollection, always comported himself with dignity, class, and great reserve. He has done so for years, even dealing in some of the more tendentious areas of the encyclopedia. As I can best understand it, in this instance, his prodigious patience ran out. So, yes, he was actively violating the civility norms; unquestionably. For that he was blocked as a protective measure to prevent further escalation. Similarly, the talk page block was appropriate.

My concern is for the apparent rush to desysop. As noted in the original request, Malik has been an admin for 8 years, and an active one for that time. I am of the firm belief that no admin should get any special treatment just for being a member of that class. I am of the same level of belief that every editor needs to be judged in the context of his or her history, regardless of class. Malik is not a problem editor; nor is he is a problem admin. Just the opposite. This week, though, Malik lost his temper, his cool, his reserve, and his will-power, and let his frustration, anger, and emotion get the better of his common sense and good judgment. That is not desysop-worthy in my opinion. A reminder that as an admin he should act as befits an officer and a gentleman is warranted. Perhaps an outright warning as well, but a knee-jerk desysop of someone whose years of history and tens of thousands of civil and respectful edits—content and maintenance both—would be punitive and not preventative, and giving one incident out-sized weight, in my opinion. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 04:22, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Malik's retirement is clearly a net loss for the project. If anything positive comes out of this fiasco, it is my opinion that it should be 1) that we finally put our money where our mouths are and civility should be enforced and 2) as social construct, common sense and wisdom should temper rote bureaucracy. -- Avi (talk) 14:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, this case is a counter-example to what I meant when I said "the formality of an Arbcom case is a feature, not a bug." A measured response was called for, not an emergency desysop. I believe even a cursory review of Malik's history would indicate that he was not going to cause any immediate disruption to Wikipedia, which is the purpose of an emergency desysop. -- Avi (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I echo and re-echo StevenJ81's frustration and would urge ArbCom to use this incident as a springboard to implement some real cleanup of the most difficult areas of Wikipedia, with a focus on cleaning up the SPA/Troll/Attack accounts on all sides. I don't know if an edit count minimum is the right way to go; if anything, I'm afraid that caters to those who know how to work our system. Perhaps something like a 1-strike and you're topic banned for a week for certain violations. 3RR would probably not be one, as it's easy to get caught up, but ad hominem attacks, or even insulting throw-away comments would result in a wide-area topic ban. Refusing to use the talk page is another. Put serious repercussions on the behaviours that prevent, if not collegial, then at least cordial editing. -- Avi (talk) 18:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@WJBScribe and Doug Weller: Per Malik's own statement about failing his own recall criteria, I think he has made a public decleration that were he ever to want to be an admin again, he volunteers to undergo RfA. -- Avi (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• @Zero0000, Sean.hoyland, and Kingsindian: I find your statement, Zero, to be a striking example of assuming bad faith. Automatically assuming that any new editor whose point of view isn't Palestinian is a plant aimed at violating Wikipedia's policies is something I find rather distasteful. Also, there is evidence of the same from the other side (such as Pallywood and that yahoo group years ago which was formed specifically to edit articles from a Palestinian perspective). If you have suspicions that someone is a sock of a blocked/banned user, by all means, drop the hammer. Otherwise, everyone needs to be given the assumption of good faith, whether you agree with them or not, so long as they do not violate Wikipedia policies. We may not have to agree with each others' opinions, but we need to work collaboratively as best possible. Painting people you disagree automatically without proof does not foster collaboration. -- Avi (talk) 02:54, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
  • @Zero0000:This is not the venue to discuss the various attempts by governments, quasi-governmental entities, local new organizations, or the like, to influence the I/P area. One can make the case that there are multiple Arab governments funding initiatives to color the narrative as well. As I said, irrelevant. Your statement can be taken as a form of poisoning the well against individual editors with whom you disagree. That is counter the policy of AGF and the spirit of collaboration which is necessary on Wikipedia, and especially necessary in this most contentious of areas. Again, if you have evidence that someone is violating Wikipedia policy and guideline, you know I will be first in line to protect the project, regardless of political opinion. But I reiterate that poisoning the well and the assumption of bad faith against new editors without any evidence is improper and counter to how we are all supposed to act here. And that is even if you are correct that 1) there is no difference between a public relations campaign and outright propaganda and 2) there is no similar campaign from the other side. As neither of those statements is necessarily true, honesty and integrity demand we treat everyone with the same respect so long as they do not violate our rules. And yes, blocked/banned editors (of any political persuasion) trying to evade their sanction is a clear violation. -- Avi (talk) 05:03, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
    • @Zero0000:Fair point. I do not argue that there are people with pro-Israeli positions who abuse Wikipedia. My concern is that there seems to be a theory that every "new" pro-Israeli contributor is a government plant and should be blocked on sight as opposed to new Pro-Palestinian editors. I think we are both in agreement that 1) there are serious and reasonable concerns from both sides that articles are improperly slanted and they should be corrected and 2) there are people who want to use Wikipedia as a platform to further their own political agendas or slander those who disagree with them. We need to support the former and hinder the latter. I think Sean.hoyland has a valid point where he says that most new users, from both sides, are probably not political warriors, but people whose own understanding of the conflict does not jibe with Wikipedia's, and they are trying to correct the articles. With these people, directing them to Wikipedia's pillars and some background on this morass would be helpful. If we know someone is a socks (like Brad), they should be blocked on sight. -- Avi (talk) 14:47, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
      • @Huldra: I was just bringing that as an example of there being issues on both sides; I know it's defunct and not a threat now. I also agree that the Israeli side is more "open" about their intent; or, at least, there are more articles about it in "mainstream" press as Sean.hoyland points out. Then again, it is not inconceivable to state that "mainstream" press is more left-leaning (Ha'aretz) and less "affectionate" of Israel (The Guardian). But it doesn't matter. 1) People who violate our principles and guidelines should be sanctioned, period. 2) Assuming anyone "new", or new to the area, has a diabolical plan to mislead Wikipedia is improper and an assumption of bad faith. You, I, Sean, Zero0000, Tiamut all had to start somewhere; we were all new to the I/P conflict once upon a time. If you or Zero would have been "assumed plants" and blocked, just because you exhibited 1) knowledge of the conflict 2) knowledge of Wikipedia and 3) a point of view, that would have been a net loss. While we may have differing opinions on many of the underlying issues, I maintain that the "collegial tension" helps to balance Wikipedia properly, so that NPOV is maintained, and I appreciate your (collective) work, and the fact that you are open to bettering the project as opposed to POV-warrioring. So, Huldra, I agree with you that a suspected sock of a banned/blocked editor should probably be checked for sleepers as soon as they are blocked. That, in my understanding, is clearly allowed to protect the project. (I personally haven't done much checking in the past two years, as I am on the meta:Ombudsman commission, so for propriety, I am trying to refrain so as to be able to handle cases (if any) from EnWiki. I probably will not return to active Enwiki CU duty until March 2016) However, I maintain that Pluto2012's point of view—assuming ill intent a priori to pro-Israeli editors because there is more "open" discussion of these editors—goes against our core policy of assuming good faith. Moreover, it serves to alienate a group of editors who, with some education and information, may quickly learn our policies and guidelines and bolster the ranks of the "good" editors in this area. Someone who continues to deliberately ignore our policies and guidelines, despite respectful attempts to educate them, should be, in my opinion, subject to escalating topic bans if not worse. -- Avi (talk) 21:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
        • @Pluto2012:If your intent is that we should extend to every new editor the same courtesy and short leash, and your recount of your experience was just that, and not for supporting a different standard, then I misread you, gladly stand corrected, and tender my apologies for my misunderstanding. -- Avi (talk) 05:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

I wonder which banned/blocked ethno-nationalist extremist admins are facilitating this time. Given Brad Dyer's passive aggressive nature and his whiny fucker-ness, he looks a lot like NoCal100 to me. But I guess he could be any of a number of the worst kind of Israel supporters attracted to Wikipedia who obsessively return here with the community's de facto blessing. Either way, in ARBPIA, the probability that he is a sock is certainly greater than 50%, thanks to Wikipedia's pathetically weak and time wasting defense against sockpuppetry, apparently willful blindness and tolerance for day to day POV pushing and community willingness to collaborate through discussion with liars, racists, ultranationalists, people who support ethnic cleansing etc. This is what happens when there is an almost complete lack of policing of the ARBPIA topic area coupled with the profoundly foolish and counterproductive notion that it even remotely resembles a collaborative, collegiate environment, a mantra stupidly repeated by admins over and over again. I was lucky enough to go to collage. Don't remember it being infested with sociopathic piece of shit excuses for human beings. The reality is that about half of the editors active in ARBPIA, often the most active editors, are ethno-nationalist extremists or thereabouts, who the community, for the most part, pretty much allows to get away with their abusive misuse of the site. Good people, highly involved admins like Malik, could make the topic area a genuinely collaborative collegiate environment by getting rid of the many truly appalling people who come here to advocate by simply blocking them on sight - it's easy to recognize people who come to Wikipedia to advocate. But instead Malik's 'involved' hands are tied and he is subjected to Wikipedia's weak and pointless version of tar and feathers. One day admins will need to face up to the reality that they have lost control of an entire topic area and that it has consequences. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I'll wager that 'Brad Dyer' (who I assume is NoCal100 - but what difference does it make really), has highlighted the futility of blocks, topic bans, this discussion, and the existence of admins by simply switching to the reactivated EscEscEsc account. Give it up guys, you are wasting your time. Better to shut ARBPIA down like an unsafe work place (it's only a few thousand articles) and bring it back when there are tools available that effectively protect people and content. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:, this may interest you. A while back I tried to have a look at socking, 500 edit limits, AGF and the effects of semi-protection for a prominent ARBPIA article. It's debatable whether any useful conclusions can be drawn from the results given the small sample size, but I'm not sure whether you have seen it before. One of the banned/blocked editors at that time is still active of course (via both registered accounts and multiple IPs). You just reverted them here, Buenos Aires based Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/AndresHerutJaim at the article that started this whole thing with Malik. Malik is gone, AndresHerutJaim a racist, ultra-nationalist sociopath who lies without hesitation (but is very civil on wiki - civility being a valuable tool to manipulate people), is still here. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

(Just for other users, the relevant permalinks are: this and this.) Kingsindian ♝♚ 08:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:, I've uploaded results for 2 more articles for what it's worth (not much), 2012 Tel Aviv bus bombing ( pdf) and Operation Damocles (pdf). Regarding "if we look at a set of articles, the first probability [sock] will likely stay the same or decrease, but the second one [non-sock] is likely to increase", I really have no idea, but I'm guessing that the figures for a large set of articles would have a large variance. I don't know what I think about the 500 edit requirement anymore. It would probably prevent some innocent well meaning people acting in good faith from editing (people who actually deserve civility and all the good things Wikipedia has to offer), but maybe that's a good thing because the reality is that Wikipedia can't provide a safe and collaborative environment for those kinds of people right now. There's a duty of care, I would hope, and no one should have to collaborate with (or hunt) sociopaths and fanatics simply because they want to edit a tiny part of a very large encyclopedia. More importantly though, like you, I don't think it would work, but I've been wrong thousands of times. I don't think it would work because I don't think 'Wikipedia' really understands and appreciates the creeping normality in ARBPIA, the widespread casual fanaticism, ultra-nationalism and undercurrent of bigotry that fuels the fire. I would get rid of anonymity and allow involved admins to do as they please, and accept that there will be mistakes/collateral damage - whatever it takes to get the topic area under control. Sean.hoyland - talk 12:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian:, I appreciate your thoughtful reply and I agree that WP:GLUE is a good essay, too good for ARBPIA I suspect. Problem is, I used to be like you. Now I'm not. One thing leads to another and after a few years in ARBPIA you are asking yourself, "I wonder how Colonel Walter E. Kurtz would resolve this conundrum, he seemed like a pretty reasonable guy". I don't subscribe to the view that WP:AGF and civility are nice things anymore. My experience in ARBPIA is that the people who hold pretty reprehensible and/or foolish views and act on those in ways that degrade the content and cause conflict and disruption usually do so in good faith. For me, AGF and civility are also too often collaborating with the enemy and appeasement because in ARBPIA WP:NOTBATTLE is not true. With views like this I can't edit in the topic area anymore. As for AGF with socks/trolls, and other techniques to reveal tells, I think if a content editor has to waste even a few minutes of their life dealing with socks/trolls/POV pushers, Wikipedia has failed to protect the topic area and the editor should probably do something else until things are fixed. How many edits have you managed to make in ARBPIA so far? NGO Monitor made 3,874 (identified in part thanks to Malik), the socks of banned and blocked users have made tens of thousands and will no doubt make tens of thousands more regardless of how much time editors spend dealing with them, unless something changes.

On your second point, I think your are right about the way (genuine) new contributors are added to the WP editor pool, but you are a rarity, and in ARBPIA, editors who try to comply with content policy will be treated as pro-Palestinian activists because apparently reality has a well-known pro-Palestinian bias.

On your third point, I think the number of new editors unsuited to ARBPIA, editors with what I regard as a conflict of interest (but Wikipedia apparently doesn't), editors with puzzling beliefs like Israelis and Palestinians having a different intrinsic value, has always exceeded and will always exceed the number of editors genuinely suited to ARBPIA. So, for me it should (unfortunately) be about brutally suppressing the bad and hoping the good editors will flourish. This is something I've never understood at all by the way - why won't editors stay away from topics that they cannot possibly edit without convolving their views with the article? Why is the wording of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#Editors_counseled so wishy-washy? Why doesn't anyone care that it has been completely ignored for years? When we first moved here we used to live at the Wireless road end of block that was bombed in Bangkok this week. I've walked past the shrine countless times of course. Am I editing the article about the bombing? No way. That would be dumb, as would editing any topic where I have a conflict of interest because of strong personal views or things where I might forget that I'm not a reliable source. I think this is one of the fundamental problems in ARBPIA, conflict of interest (in good or bad faith, it doesn't matter which in practice) and the misplaced belief that systemic problems get fixed, when in fact, they don't, they get worse. The editor pool is perhaps large enough already. I think the ARBCOM mandated Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jerusalem case showed that sanity and policy can prevail (together with a couple of other rare examples) when the community acts and drowns out editors unsuited to ARBPIA. But even there, so much time was wasted dealing with people saying pointless things (in good faith) because they personally believed those things to be true, people with a very clear conflict of interest. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:03, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Zero0000: et al, I'm skeptical about the significance of the various recruitment drives/training programs intended to correct the anti-Semitic pro-Arab lies in Wikipedia that demonize Israel and dehumanize Israelis by reflecting the content of reliable sources according to policy, rather than using apparently better pro-Israel sources, including ethno-nationalist extremist NGOs who do such fine work. I haven't personally seen what I would regard as decent evidence of those efforts significantly impacting on ARBPIA's demographics or the bearing of its political compass. I think Kingsindian's story is probably the norm, people mostly wandering into ARBPIA or something in the press or Wikipedia catching their eye. I don't think you need to recruit and train people to advocate anyway because, puzzlingly, they do it naturally. Wikipedia isn't technically challenging for young devotees I guess, it allows people to advocate for the truth as they see it in every edit they make and can't stop them from doing it even if it wanted to. I agree that people misidentify some new editors as socks, but I think that is perhaps because those editors consistently (and often ignorantly and/or offensively) advocate for their cause in a way that to long-term editors is cookie-cutter advocacy. After a while you've heard it all before and one POV-pusher acting in good faith looks like another banned/blocked POV-pusher (also acting in good faith for the good of Wikipedia from their perspective).

I think looking at an article like Iran–Israel relations is more informative than thinking about external recruitment and its effects. I see that in Talk:Iran–Israel_relations#Syria you are following the rules, assuming good faith and trying to collaborate, but I suspect that it's a waste of time. Who are these people adding incidents between Israel and Syria to the page without sources specifically indicate Iranian involvement? They are socks Wlglunight93/Averysoda and the IP socks of Argentina based AndresHerutJaim. The chance of apparently new editor 'AttacksinSyria' not being a sock of one of those guys is probably approximately 0. Perhaps you will see new editor 'Beukford' over there shortly.

I find it surprising that people are repeating the same Wiki-mantras as if they mean anything in practice. AGF, what Wikipedia calls 'collaboration', blocking, topic bans, civility, editing warring restrictions, SPI, everything that Wikipedia has been doing for over a decade doesn't work in ARBPIA and related articles that attract advocates. Many people can and will do as they please for the sake of their cause here, they will have a very significant impact and not a thing can be done about it right now. Wikipedia needs to try something different. Maybe try operating the topic area like an occupied territory, erect barriers, restrict movement, colonize space to exclude, patrol 24 hours, shoot first, ask questions later, rain artillery down on the guilty and innocent alike and hope that it will achieve something. Who knows? Sean.hoyland - talk 12:01, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved Kingsindian

Some background: I actually made the edits which were at the bottom of the ANI mess. The material was not added by MShabazz, as Brad Dyer mistakenly stated. As I stated on the talk page, the revert by Brad Dyer seemed rather WP:POINTy to me. (I am not accusing Brad Dyer of anything in the following) I do want to note, however, the routine socking which goes on in this area, which MShabazz is quite familiar with. I reported two socks (sock1, sock2) of Wlglunight93 just in the past month, and another user reported a long-time sock of NoCal100 (sock), active for years. I have ran into them tag-teaming (see for example the RfC here which I started, also here). I am actually pretty sure that NoCal100 is back, and I even know who it is, but I don't have the evidence yet. Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

While I agree with Avraham sentiments, I feel that the solutions he proposes would make the matter worse. We don't need more decorum in this area, and enforced "cordiality" is not to the point: we need to hunt for socks, POV pushers and vandals. If we topic-ban people for violating decorum and "cordiality", it is a standing invitation for trolls and socks to goad users to overreact, as Malik did here (I am not accusing Brad Dyer of anything). This is not a theoretical complaint: one of the major socks in this area (NoCal100) specializes in exactly this. The thing here is that some of the massive POV pushing in this area can be seen only if the editors are somewhat WP:INVOLVED, but WP forces admins to be uninvolved, so admins focus only on conduct, while forgetting about content. Kingsindian ♝♚ 22:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Panyd has been cited by a couple of arbs in their voting rationales. I find their argument dubious in the extreme. Are we really supposed to believe that this diff is not baiting by a troll? This happens a couple days after Malik reverted a copyvio of Brad's on another page. Brad helpfully stalks him to another page which he never edited before, reverts him for alleged copyvio (of material which he didn't add), and adds a WP:DTTR for good measure. Also note the timestamp, only a short while before it all blew up. Please, WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. This kind of "equal principles" will only result in punishing of the aggrieved party. The troll will just create another account. Even laws of war have special rules for reprisals (I am not suggesting this is war, just pointing out the principle). There is nothing which compels anyone to apply "equal principles" here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 20:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Comment on Hammersoft's diffs, especially the "fuck off" one. I really dislike this hunting of diffs in isolation. Diffs are just a technical method to save space and computation time, they do not constitute a conversation. Here is what happened. Miraclexix, a "new" user, appears on Malik's talk page to ask about WP:ARBPIA. Malik, painfully polite, replies to each of his points, and gives useful suggestions. After massive POV pushing on this page (all of which was reverted by multiple editors), Miraclexix repeatedly template bombs Malik's talk page. Malik starts with "thanks for the warning", then "taking out the trash", finally "fuck off". Please, tell me we should assume WP:AGF here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 21:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I will like to remind Hammersoft that WP:COPYVIO WP:HARASS and WP:NPOV are also wikipedia policies, yet nothing happened to the other editors. This context-free focus on WP:CIVIL is a recipe for disaster. This is my last comment on this matter, since I am just repeating my points. Kingsindian ♝♚ 13:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Regards to proposals made by some people, including some who I respect a lot, to restrict editing to people in this area with 500 edits: I oppose this. The topic area is very wide, and 500 edits is lot, especially for casual editors. It may quite easily turn away editors who are enthusiastic or knowledgeable about this topic. I myself made less than 500 edits before I made my first edit to this area. Initially they were just gnoming edits, but I was led into it bit by bit, and now I am very active in this area. 500 edits is fine for a very narrowly focused article like Gamergate, but not for a wide area. Socks and trolls can easily circumvent this. Kingsindian ♝♚ 06:53, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland: Your analysis is quite interesting, I hadn't seen it before. You note that >70% chance that a <500 edits user is a sock, though there exists a non-trivial chance that it is not a sock. Also, this was just one article: socks often edits lots of articles in the area, while interested non-sock users might start with something narrow (I speak from my own experience here, and some others), so if we look at a set of articles, the first probability will likely stay the same or decrease, but the second one is likely to increase. This is why I don't think this 500 edits restriction makes sense for a wide topic area like this. Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland: I read the other files, and I have three comments. First WP:AGF is not just a nice thing, it is also useful in identifying socks/trolls. A good essay I have read and apply a lot is WP:GLUE. If one deals with socks and trolls with WP:AGF, sooner or later they shoot themselves in the foot. This is the technique I used to identify two socks of Wlglunight93 for example. However, it is quite time-intensive and there is always the chance that one will lash out at a troll, which is of course what the troll is counting on. Second, one of the very first articles in WP:ARBPIA which I worked on was 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. This was at the height of the war, and the article was almost hourly attacked by socks, trolls and POV-pushers. I saw what was going on, but I also found many knowledgeable people who contributed in this area, which encouraged me to stick around. I think this is the way (genuine) new contributors are added to the WP editor pool. People pick some small area where they can contribute, and then see many good people working there, and then branch out. Thirdly, ultimately I think the trolls and vandals will win (perhaps they have already won), unless we can increase the editor pool here. Anything which makes entry harder will only benefit the socks and the trolls, and overly burden the good-faith editors who have to do the double job of writing content and fighting trolls. Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

The Committee should take this case in order to do the following:

1. Review Malik's long history, and restore his sysop bit after this unfortunate and no doubt temporary meltdown (it is likely there is some external mitigating factor at play, this is absolutely not characteristic of Malik).
2. Review Brad Dyer's behaviour.

As the statements above show, Malik is normally known to be very level-headed and calm. I think I am not alone in preferring that Malik returns to active mop-duty as soon as his normal equanimity returns. Guy (Help!) 11:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Alanscottwalker

Malik, I have only had limited interaction with you and I have been impressed. You went wrong ('fight fire with fire and all burn', as they say, I think you usually know that), but, please, hopefully you can find your way back to us (perhaps not to that subject area, even though it needs much adminning). I can only offer my best wishes to you. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC) (My hope is that you are not desysopped, permanently, I think part of that depends on what you want and say. I can offer further unsolicited advice at my talk page, if you want it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC))

Malik, please, yes, you were harassed, and called in effect, a nigger. I see that, and others do too. It is so wrong, that that happened. For the moment or for several days, can you take your understandable frustration out, away from your keyboard? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:22, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Twobells, It is precisely because it is condescending that it is such a racially loaded personal attack, when referring to an African-American man. "[I]t's the ultimate sign of disrespect, and is often more offensive than calling them the N-word."

References

To reply to some belated comments below, although their comments make no difference to whether Malik is an admin, or not, as currently he is not. Malik has apologized for his inappropriate actions and retired. To put it in context, it's clear the use of jewboy was disruption to make a point, that Malik was hurt by the disruption caused by, and the harassment of him by, the sock, Brad Dyer. Malik's point was that the sock's use of sonny boy was a racial slur, just like jewboy, and it was (sonny boy has a particular connection to black face [3] and as almost all aknowledge, boy is racially loaded. So yes, Malik went wrong, as I said seven days ago, but the harping on it below is not "deescalation". Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, pleased to meet you. I cannot find a single reliable source that refers to 'sonny boy' being a racist term. Subsequently, all the debate that followed is irrelevant in that the foundation to the claim, seemingly, holds no merit, regards. Twobells^t@lk 15:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Non-involved user Stifle

I have had a look at the situation. The behavior, save for using admin tools whilst blocked, would get an average user blocked for a few days at most. Admins being held to a higher standard, or otherwise, Malik Shabazz has ended up with a week block as far as I can see. A single isolated instance of using the tools inappropriately and a series of incivil edits do not seem to me to be worth going through the mill of a full-blown case.

Therefore I would urge ArbCom to decline, with a motion if necessary that Malik Shabazz is sentenced to "time served" in terms of the desysop and block, in view of his otherwise long and excellent record. My second preference would be in line with JzG. Stifle (talk) 11:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare: A normal editor would be blocked for incivility, and indeed Malik Shabazz was. I don't see a reason for desysopping. Stifle (talk) 15:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Collect

I greatly respect Malik. The problem is that ArbCom can not be seen to hold different standards from case to case, and there is no doubt that the language used in multiple example is quite unacceptable, and that he used sysop tools in a less than circumspect manner. Sorry - there is no way to excuse many of the comments made at all, and if a normal editor made them, they would receive more than a one week block just for that. Misuse of sysop tools has, per policy, only one result. But I still like him Malik an editor, and agree on his positions many times. Collect (talk) 11:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Xeno

Roger Davies: I agree with Courcelles in that Level I procedures were appropriately invoked here; in the time it would have taken to implement Level II procedures, the user may have performed further administrative acts through the block during (what appears to be) a temporary lapse in judgment.

Has the committee been in contact with Malik yet? Perhaps talk page access could be restored or he could be unblocked so that he may prepare a statement? –xeno^talk 12:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC) Talk page access since restored Since unblocked

Worm That Turned: Respectfully, I disagree that Level I procedures were not made out. An administrator intentionally and actively using administrative tools through a block to initiate or further a wheelwar does cause harm, if only by blatantly disregarding the social contract to which administrators are held. –xeno^talk 12:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Worm That Turned

I'm a disappointed in those who agreed to a level 1 desysopping.

• Level I procedures may be used if (a) an account appears to be obviously compromised, or is intentionally and actively using advanced permissions to cause harm in a rapid or apparently planned fashion, or (b) multiple accounts are actively wheel-warring.

Malik does not appear to be compromised or intent on causing harm in a rapid or planned fashion. 1 admin edit and it was clearly "reactive" not "planned". A simple "Don't do that" could have sorted that. I also disagree with Roger that Level 2 would be appropriate.

• Level II procedures may be used if (a) the account's behaviour is inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions, and (b) no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming. (my bolding)

I'm assuming no explanation was requested. Simply, Malik should not have had his tools removed. He should have been told to stop and then a case if necessary. The administrative action was over his edit and he unhiding it. There's all sorts of arguments over whether it should be deleted or not, but it's not a simple case of him intending to cause harm.
Now that I've registered my disappointment, we should look forward. Malik, who I've not worked with but believe the testimony's to his character, was clearly provoked here. Yes, his actions were unacceptable, but that was dealt with by the community. I'd like to see Malik contact the committee, admit he was out of order there and have the tools returned. Don't put a massive amount of hoops in the way here - a simple explanation (which should be bloody obvious anyway) is all that should be needed. Worm^TT(talk) 12:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Xeno, there's a different between where we are and where we should be. I'd support a temporary desysop procedure for situations like this, but Arbcom's "Level 1" procedures are not them. There are VERY strict circumstances that Level 1 desysop procedures should be used - compromised account, or intentionally and actively using advanced permissions to cause harm in a rapid or apparently planned fashion. The harm caused is debatable. The planned fashion completely out - this was completely reactive over reach of power. Like I say, there's 5 names who voted for that the desysop that... well, I'm disappointed in. I wasn't there, I'm not going to criticise too much - but I stand by my statement "it was the wrong decision". Worm^TT(talk) 12:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

NativeForeigner, just do it, there's enough support to see how it turns out - a Level 1 desysop was the wrong decision, taking a step to make it right is a step in the right direction. Even if it's just a motion that "Malik can request return of the tool if he decides to return"... it's the right thing to do. Worm^TT(talk) 07:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by WJBscribe

Just to note that I have restored Malik's ability to edit his own talkpage. Given that there are proceedings here, I think he should be able to post a public statement before his block is due to expire if he so chooses. Talkpage editing restrictions should be a last resort and, even the restriction was needed at the time, it hopefully isn't now. WJBscribe (talk) 12:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Firstly, a process point: I assume that your edit to the proposed motion is intended to mean that: (1) Malik can request the tools back; and (2) that the circumstances of his desysop should not be considered to be controversial circumstances by the bureaucrat who actions his request (i.e. the usual bureaucrat discretion when dealing with resysop requests does not apply)? I think it would be helpful if this were made clear.
Second, I am not sure that the edited motion sends quite the same message as the motion that has been voted on so far, and should perhaps be an alternative for consideration rather than a substitute. The onus would now be on Malik to take a positive step to regain his tools. If ArbCom's view is that there is no longer a need for an emergency desysop, and the conduct does not warrant permanent desysop, shouldn't the user get their rights back without having to ask for them? WJBscribe (talk) 15:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Pluto2012: I have blocked AttacksinSyria (talk · contribs) indefinitely. I suspect any uninvolved admin would have done the same: (1) The account's only edits were edit warring on controversial topics; (2) The username is clearly meant to be provocative; And (3), in addition, their edits were restoring content previously added by a sockpuppet. Is there a reason why you raised this here? I would have hoped that our existing processes are OK for bringing such accounts to the attention of administrators. WJBscribe (talk) 11:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Davey2010

Personally I don't think this should be accepted - As far as I'm aware Malik's never once gotten pissed off with anyone - Infact he's always been polite and calm with everyone, Even when trolls come to his talkpage he simply shrugs it off and gets on with it, Everyone on this project loses there shit at times (myself included) so I don't really think it's right nor fair to bring an Admin to Arbcom over his outburst which looks to have been his first in the 8 years he's been here. –Davey2010^Talk 13:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by DrKiernan

Black youth and artistes seem to revel in using the word nigger, and no-one says they are racist. So, is it racist for a Jewish person to use the word jewboy? Probably not, especially when it is used in a remark that is clearly satirical. DrKiernan (talk) 13:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to call a black Jew a racist, and expect to be taken seriously. DrKiernan (talk) 16:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by (uninvolved, but upset) StevenJ81

I would have taken the time to write my own opinion in support of Malik. But as of about 15 minutes ago, there is now a "RETIRED" template up on his talk page. So I think some of the high-and-mighty ArbCom/Bureaucrat/Steward types who are buzzing around this page better figure out now how this project can possibly continue when effective, responsible contributors and administrators can get bullied and slurred to the point where they want to leave. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Chillum, if you and others around here are really that heartbroken, then let's figure out a way to fix some of this stuff. There are a lot of people with a lot of fancy flags who wouldn't even dream of touching some of the stuff that Malik was willing to work on. And yet those people dare to criticize?

Really, only a little bit of this is about the particular case at hand. It's a much more general problem.

I appreciate how politically contentious this topic area is. And I really appreciate that Wikipedia is open, in principle, to editing by anyone, any time, no matter what. But at this point, something's got to give.

So what's going to give? This topic area is already de facto not open to "everyone" to edit, because a lot of good, dedicated people (like me, I'd like to think) can't stand being there, and so won't edit there. Except for guys like Malik, increasingly only the nutcases (on both sides) are left. In my view, this area has got to be left to experienced editors, and even experienced editors need to have their edits vetted (à la pending changes). If you're going to complain to me that a rule like that violates "open to everyone", I will repeat: it's already not open to everyone. So in that case, we might as well concede that, and try to create an encyclopedia that is of high quality.

Frustratedly, StevenJ81 (talk) 17:55, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Chillum: Responded there. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Comment on @Courcelles's suggestion of about 20:30 UTC: I fully support that, though don't be surprised if Malik doesn't come back, or doesn't come back for a while. The system as it is now doesn't work. Period. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

1. In support of Doug Weller's motion below, I would add: I think the ArbCom should consider the absolutely radical, unprecedented, inappropriate action of full-protecting EVERY SINGLE, SOLITARY PAGE in this topic area until this matter is settled. Malik was one of the few effective cops on the beat. I'm willing to bet that this now becomes an absolutely, positively unmanageable battlezone now. I have NO CONFIDENCE WHATSOEVER in Administrators' and ArbCom's ability to manage this now. So I strongly suggest it be completely locked down for the time being.
2. To Thryduulf and Gorilla Warfare, since you have just done the equivalent of kicking Malik while he's on the ground, I badly want to throw similar invective at you. But I won't, for fear of being blocked. Instead, let me just say this. I hope, in my heart of hearts, that in the real world, someone walks up to you, or better yet: to your mother, with you present, and calls her just as ugly a name as Malik was called. Maybe, then, you'll have a clue as to what just happened. Until then, you have no clue whatsoever. And people with no clue whatsoever have no business being on ArbCom. Just saying ... StevenJ81 (talk) 17:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Please understand that I am not at all condoning the behaviour that Malik was subjected to. I am however condemning equally the breaches of civility by both parties - two wrongs do not make a right. See also the comments by Panyd below, particularly "[I]f we don't address both the instances of incivility here, nobody will care the next time someone calls you [Mike] 'sonny boy' either. Why should they?". Thryduulf (talk) 18:02, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll accept that provisionally. But I think you're still missing a couple of things here. First, there is a reflexive instinct here to treat both parties' offenses equally, especially if you're ArbCom. But that would not be appropriate here. In an argument between an experienced, respected Wikipedia administrator and a troll, the experienced colleague ought to have our support, or at least the initial benefit of the doubt. Period. And if you will argue that on ArbCom you can't be that way, I'd respond: Maybe—but since he's already said he's not coming back, you didn't have to add insult to injury by saying you don't want this case to be connected to Mike's name. Second, I'm still not sure that you fully understand that the real problem was the fact that it got to this point at all, because of the atmosphere in this topic area. What Mike did was a consequence, not the main event. And I don't believe that there is a snowball's chance in, er, Hades, that ArbCom would be taking up the overall matter of this topic area if this hadn't happened. So not only is it appropriate that the case be opened in Mike's name, I would absolutely insist on it. Because he deserves some legacy that something good came out of this ugly event. And you, Thryduulf, need to recognize and appreciate that. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

A level 1 desysop is absolutely always only temporary until the emergency is over and all the facts can be examined soberly and all circumstances taken into account, and until those facts have been examined I am not prepared to give support or benefit of the doubt to either party. I made the comment about the name of the case precisely because it needs to be about the overall topic area, not the conduct of one person, and arbitration cases are named to reflect their scope not as a legacy for someone who deliberately and knowingly racially abused another editor (regardless of why and/or whether it was justified). Thryduulf (talk) 18:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Nice, bureaucratic answer there, Thryduulf. For the reasons I stated above, you should have been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. And for the reasons I stated above, I insist that his name stay on the case. Think of it this way: if this were a court case, it would now be in court in the name of the estate of Malik Shabazz. Be WP:BOLD about that, Thryduulf. You're an experienced Wikimedian. You can manage that. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Except ArbCom is not a court, we are not dealing with Mike's estate and the names of cases are decided by the committee as a whole not by the demands of one editor, so your instance insistence(?) is irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 19:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I certainly understand that this was not some sort of unprompted outburst, and that Malik's response was very much provoked. I think it's very important to be understanding when handling conflicts that involve very personal attacks and slurs such as these. I also think it's important that Wikipedia not become a place where one racist insult is met with another. I disagree that the two offenses should be condemned equally, nor do I think they have been. The instigator has been blocked indefinitely, which I think is appropriate, and Malik Shabazz has been unblocked but also desysopped. I think this outcome is proportionate for the time being. I would be willing to discuss the possibility of a resysop if there was some dialogue with Malik Shabazz about avoiding a situation like this in the future, but given that he's stated that he has no interest in regaining the tools, they should not be returned. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

My last response, then I think I'll unfollow the page for a while.

Thryduulf: my "insistence" is not enforceable, of course. But it's not irrelevant, either. The Arbitration Committee can do what it chooses on that front. But I'm entitled to my opinion, and I'm entitled to express that opinion.

Gorilla, nothing you have just said is wrong, of course. But I can't help but think that you are still confusing the sideshow with the main show. And the main show is (a) how much leverage WP:NOTHERE people have, especially (b) in contentious topic areas like this. Focus on the main event. Remember that WP:NOTHERE people don't care so much if they break rules. Remember that there is every incentive for them to come in and blow themselves up in order to take out others, and very little downside. Fix that. If you do that, you're entitled to worry about whether Malik Shabazz ought to get his rights back (in theory). If you don't, more Malik Shabazzes are just waiting to happen. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

User talk:StevenJ81 I realise you may have dropped this page from your watchlist, but I don't think it would benefit anyone, including Malik Shabazz, if we kept his name on a case coming out of this with a focus on reviewing the remedies in the Palestine-Israel case. I'm sure that if such a case does result and the outcome helps good faith editors in that area that Malik at least, and certainly others, will realise that something good came out of the original situation. I'm speaking as someone who hopes that he does come back someday and regains the tools. Doug Weller (talk) 21:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Hammersoft

There's claims here that this event, with regards to Malik Shabazz, is isolated. This is false. A cursory examination of history shows Malik to be uncivil on a number of occasions.

• "cut the bullshit; if you don't see scandals, regardless of your politics, your head is in the sand"
• "You can't just make shit up and put it in front of a footnote"
• "look at the end of the fucking paragraph, you morons"
• "Fuck off"

Everybody has bad days. But, sustained incivility is not compatible with adminship. I note that he has apparently retired. It would be problematic if this user's admin flag were restored and a case concluded this latest incident was isolated, therefore no problem. There is a problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Courcelles: @Euryalus: The idea of just sweeping the gross incivility under the rug as a 'bad evening' is repugnant. Thryduulf is spot on; no matter the provocation, there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for an editor, much less an administrator, to engage in the sort of depraved racist comments made by Malik. Sweeping this under the rug will effectively grant everyone leeway to insult as much as they are insulted. Is this really the Wikipedia we want to have? This, especially in light of the fact that Malik's behavior is not isolated (see my comments above), makes any notion of ignoring this and moving on simply unacceptable. Of late, we've had a lot of discussion at various locations about the fact that administrators are treated as a special class of user here, and this is why we need a community based desyopping ability. If gross, racist incivility is not enough to even rise to the level of official scrutiny at ArbCom, then it might be time to remove #3 from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Scope_and_responsibilities, as ArbCom is clearly not acting in the best interests of the community in this regard. Either WP:CIVIL is policy for everyone, and WP:ADMINCOND is policy regarding admin conduct or it isn't. Decide. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Malik Shabazz: You've encouraged people to look at the context within which the four edit summaries above exist. I'd like to address a more abstract point here, rather than highlight your specific actions in those. When is incivility actionable? Should we allow incivility when it is provoked? Should we allow it if someone really truly is a moron? Should we allow it when someone actually is a <insert racial descriptor>? Or, do we say that civility here dictates that we always show respect for our fellow editor, even when the other editor doesn't appear to deserve it? I believe the latter. I don't think anger, prodding, baiting or any other 'justification' permits any of us to go off the handle and start spewing epithets of any kind. To give a base example (and I'm addressing this at no one; this is only an example), if someone were to say to an editor "You are fucking gay ass loving piece of dogshit!" it does not grant the target of that insult permission to respond in kind with their own set of insults. Someone said recently (elsewhere on the project) that fighting fire with fire only results in both parties getting burned. This is true, but it's even worse with civility. If we have two editors going at each other with insults, we get into sandbox mode of 'he threw the first insult!' and similar refutation of common decency. It brings disrepute to the project, and our inability to address this is shameful. Insults are insults, period. Either we have a WP:CIVIL policy or we do not. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: See my comments just above this one. There is never an excuse for being so uncivil. I don't care what the provocation is. It does not excuse the behavior. Explain, maybe, but in no way should it ever be taken as an excuse. As to taking diffs in isolation, I noted in my opening of this statement it was a cursory examination. The point being that if I can so easily find such egregious cases of verbal abuse of other editors, then the notion that this latest case of a week and a half long angry spat isn't as isolated as some people want to make it out to be. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

I haven't run across Malik Shabazz very often - probably because he does the hard stuff and I do the easy stuff - but the testimonials above lead me to think that the best solution to this one-off blow up is (a) allow the NPA blocks for both parties to remains in effect, or if an {{unblock}} template is used, be addressed the way typical ones are (b) return the tools with no case, contingent on an assurance from MS that this won't happen again, (c) make sure that MS realizes that this was pretty far over the line, even if there are extenuating factors, and (d) decline a case for now, let the community try to address the underlying behavioral issues with MS and BD, and accept a new case if that fails. Before I knew the background, I was originally much more upset with the epithet "Jewboy", but based on Softlavender's and DrKeirnan's comments, my understanding is that this is not evidence of actual anti-Semitic prejudice, but an attempt to hurt with words, mirroring words thrown at him. Not good, obviously, but a different kettle of fish. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• As I look into this more, I get more and more concerned that de-escalation would be (a) highly desirable, and (b) increasingly unlikely based on how we usually work. Any possibility that, now that the heat of the moment has passed, we could take the first step and preliminarily unblock and resysop, on the basis that it's not likely to be repeated, and that we might be able to salvage an apparently invaluable admin working in a nightmare topic area? An area that I am literally too chickenshit to touch? I've been one keystroke away from a Level 1 desysop myself, and that was without being refered to by a term that, to quote Drmies, "combined racism with utter disrespect, in a word that has centuries of history in American racist speak". Surely we can find a way to bend rules in such a way that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot? --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
  • As a first step (the only one I can take as a mere admin) I've unblocked Malik. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:33, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• @Chillum:, I would interpret his previous 8 years of apparently calm and upstanding admining in a toxic topic area as evidence he knows he can't do that. He was just called a racist epithet and snapped; surely he doesn't have to grovel? --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Ritchie333

I haven't dealt with Malik much but when I have he's been a hard-working and patient administrator, one of the good guys, who is about the last person I'd expect to end up here, if I'm honest. His reaction to the message is not too different in scope to a similar incident on my talk (although I would hope it's obvious I was simply making light of the situation) and being repeatedly accused of policy violations without any proper evidence would drive anyone else up the wall. I think Malik should take a few days off to clear his head and Arbcom give him an open offer of the tools back on the condition that the next time he feels like making a personal attack, to just shout it at the monitor without pressing "Save page". It's not like he's been repeatedly disruptive all over the place; this is a one-off where things got out of hand; hence there is no reason to take a case. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Capeo

Great job, arbs. A black American male gets called sonny boy, quite literally the most insulting thing you can say to a black American male, after being hounded by an obvious sock in the most contentious editing area of the whole wiki and rather than having his back you desysop him. Well done. And the racist troll gets what? A 48 hour timeout or some such BS?. Great job, admins, as well. Capeo (talk) 15:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Soham321, are you serious? Perhaps do some research before questioning the "racial overtones" of calling a black man boy in America. Maybe start with the history of the phrase I Am a Man. A phrase that in some form or another was used by civil rights advocates from the late 1700s on to the 1960s where male blacks would march with placards saying I Am a Man. Perhaps research the Memphis Sanitation Strike in '68. A google image search will get the point across. For centuries in America adult black males were referred to as boy in a demeaning fashion to delegitimize their stature as equals. Capeo (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Thryduulf, in regards to your comment to Steven, that's a false equivalency that anyone examining the context of the dust up dispassionately shouldn't make. That's just as bad as that ANI went. Everyone harped on "OMG, that admin is swearing at that user!!! How awful!" rather than "Holy crap, that user just basically called that admin a nigger! Ban them." Which is how it should have went. Followed by a talk with admin saying we sympathize, the situation has been taken care of, next time try not react the way you did and trust us to have your back when you report it. Instead arbcom went the nuclear route, blew up any chance to not escalate the situation and likely lost a dedicated admin. Capeo (talk) 18:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Hasteur

I believe I've never had any substantial involvement with respect to any of the primary parties to the case, but would like to note the following conditions are in play currently: Level 1 Desysoping was invoked on an Admnistrator (rightly or wrongly), Said administrator has elected to retire in chronological proximity to said desysoping, Said administrator retired while under scrutiny for their administrative actions. As such I assert that a "under a cloud" situation has occured. In order to prevent AN/ArbCom flu outbreaks in the future, should the committee with to curtail the gambit, to pass a simple motion confirming the desysop and indicating that should the editor wish to regain Administrator privileges, they should stand a new "Request for Administrator" campaign. Hasteur (talk) 15:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: adding the under the cloud makes clear that there was cause for concern when the retiring took place and therefore a standard request for resysop would be out of order. Hasteur (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Nishidani

This is extremely distressing . My testimonial hasn’t the authority, or neutrality one will observe in, to name the major editors who have commented whose work I admire, Avi and StevenJ81 but I agree with them, as I rue (while understanding) their decisions to withdraw from an active presence in the I/P area. It is an extremely stressful area to work, and made more so by the unending recycling of sockpuppets, and the prevalence of the sheerly incompetent with a national mission guiding their every revert,mostly ungrounded in policy. Those who work there know that half of their daily grind will consist in trying to talk reason to editors who are indifferent to the talk page, or use it in a highly desultory fashion. Brad Dyer is a disgrace to the project, but he’s not alone: at least 8 editors there, often red-linked, are destructive in their purposes. Identify laboriously one of them, and two pop up after the ban is set, hydra-like. In good part, the area has been effectively abandoned as either (a)”toxic” (b)or because the anarchic nature of editing there works out as an attritional war, where the best fall because there is simply no answer to blind attritional gamesmanship. Malik is one of the few (two or three) admins who, able to see both sides, could be relied on to enforce policy there. This is the second instance I can recall where we have lost an invaluable editor because he, on one single occasion, blew up and got tired of being polite to either an obvious sockpuppet or a nuisance provocateur. It is this fact, the success with which idle editors can achieve a massive gain – the elimination via successful provocation of an extremely good editor/admin – without having their own record or utility for the project examined, which is deeply disturbing. An encyclopedia that shows itself ready to adopt draconian measures for the rarest lapse (and the lapse was very serious) in an admin of 8 proven years of exceptional duty, while demonstrating a total insouciance to the “toxic” idiocy of editing in the area he worked in (we need, ladies and gentleman, a high bar of perhaps at least 400-500 non-I/P edits for newbies who wish to work on I/P issues), will only serve to disenchant the few masochists who put up with the nonsense, which looks as though it were being condoned by sheer negligance. How long are we to put up with this inane anarchic state of abandon, when the best admins are punished for a frailty as exceptional for his record as it is, formally, unacceptable? Nishidani (talk) 15:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Opabinia regalis

Of course we all agree that the comments here were way, way over the line, and we all wish Malik well. But considering the category of things that can be described as an emergency - and let's even restrict the scope to things that are emergencies on the internet - is this really in that category? A person who is being racially harassed changed the visibility of one of his own intemperate reactions while blocked? Seems more like yet another demonstration of how difficult it can be to stop the gathering momentum of Something Must Be Done. Meanwhile, the desysop was done before anyone got around to blocking the person doing the harassing.

If this case is accepted it should be about some combination of 1) this repeated pattern of unnecessary escalation by ANI stampedes, 2) the general toxicity of the topic area (which is apparent even to the entirely uninvolved), and 3) the ineffectiveness of the community at dealing with harassment, provocation, and trolling as opposed to mere "incivility". Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Dennis Brown

Deysopping via Level 1 seems a bit strong, but it's done so I don't see a point in laboring it. That said, deescalating the situation would be best, and it would seem rebitting him might be in order as there isn't any immediate threat. The reason for the temporary desysopping no longer holds true. Then Arb can decide if a case is really needed, or if the community can handle it. I'm torn without looking at more details, but this is a unique blowup from an admin that has a long history of good service, so desysop may very well be the wrong long term solution. And Hasteur, "under a cloud" is meaningless because he didn't voluntarily resign the bit. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved John Carter

Granted, given my own unfortunate record, my word on its own may not mean much, and actually probably shouldn't mean much, but there is no way in hell that I can see that it is reasonable or justified to permanently desysop someone after he has been subjected to insults, like "boy," which is among the most offensive and emotionally loaded epithets one can level against an African-American. The closest thing I can think of would be calling a German of the 1950s to 1970s a "Nazi". Yeah, a lot of us, including me, at whom the insult is not directed, might not see it as being as bad as it is, but I have repeatedly heard particularly strong reactions to that term among African-Americans in St. Louis, where I live, and I have every reason to believe that the same holds true elsewhere. John Carter (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Although it has flaws, like everything else here, I actually rather like the idea of having some sort of permanent protection of certain topic areas from truly new editors, like Nishidani proposes above. There may be a few other areas of wikipedia which encounter as much controversy, maybe, I don't know. But the I/P area certainly is a longstanding point of contention which doesn't show any signs of becoming more resolved in the near future, and maybe having the creation of some new policies or guidelines or ArbCom rulings regarding how to maybe create a level above existing semi-protection to deal with such articles and topics would be a good idea. I have a really horrible feeling that a lot of the articles relating to the upcoming US presidential election would probably benefit a lot from having an additional stricter level of semi-protection available as well. John Carter (talk) 23:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Swarm: I understand and, to an extent, agree with you below. My one point of differentiation is whether, at times, "a single instance" of misconduct can extend to a brief period of time. Personally, I have to assume that, at least for some people at some times, a single instance of administrative misconduct can extend to multiple specific actions over a short time period. This might be particularly true if, for instance, the admin had just suffered some sort of real-life problem. If someone enters into editing on one day with a chip on their shoulder, as it were, and their misconduct over a period of hours extends only to one particular dispute, like on a talk page, yes, I think it might not be unreasonable to in at least some cases count that as a single incident of misconduct. I think everyone deserves at least one mistake, even administrators, and sometimes in the cases of both admins and non-admins a specific event of misconduct can extend to multiple specific acts of misconduct. John Carter (talk) 00:13, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Winkelvi

I watched this situation unfold and was certainly shocked at the racist terms being thrown around by both parties, along with the sexually-themed anger-insults. I wondered, as did other editors, why Malik's tools were removed so abruptly -- even in light of his bad choice to use the tools inappropriately following his block. My hope was that after he slept on it and a number of hours had passed that his understandable anger would have cooled and the better angels of his nature would come forth. Especially after he was unblocked earlier today. The continuation of ugly comments from him following his unblock not only shocks me but causes me to be glad he isn't getting the tools back - for now. Generally, I have always thought of Malik as a very good editor with a rougher side that would come out on occasion. The examples Hammersoft provided show a side of Malik I have actually encountered more than once - not often, but often enough for me to remember the sting of his words and actions when I was faced with them. Considering all of this, my opinion is that returning the tools sooner than later would be a mistake. My hope is that as more time passes, he will reconsider his declaration of retirement as well as the ugliness he has issued in comments along with the ugliness in comments issued against him. And that he is an administrator again, possibly on a probationary status? (if there is such a thing) If he does return, it would be hard for him to forget all of what's transpired, but even so, it would be better to have him back than to never have him back at all. He's still a net-positive in my eyes. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 22:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Huldra

The I/P area is drowning in socks, one nastier than the other, and it makes the whole area absolutely poisonous. I strongly support Nishidanis suggestion: let people have, say, 500 non-I/P edits before they can edit anything in the I/P area. It will not stop the dedicated sock, but at least we can avoid all those throw-away socks, presently 13 to the dozen. Huldra (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I know quite a few, what I would call "Palestinian activists" in RL. And, as a group, I would say that no-one, and I mean no-one, despises Wikipedia more. Most would not touch Wikipedia for their lives. If you don´t believe me: please attend a meeting of a Palestinian solidarity group; and *tell* them you edit Wikipedia.......chances are you will receive the "respect" of, well, somewhere between a serial rapist and a child pornographer.

• I also know that both pro-Palestinian people and pro-Palestinian groups have been actively warned against having a Wikipedia article about them. This because there is a whole "cottage industry" of pro-Israeli NGOs which dig up dirt (some would say fabricate it) about them, and this will- inevitably, get into their articles.

• user:Avraham, the yahoo-group you mentioned was set up by already established Wikipedians; before 2009. I was not a member, but Tiamut was. And she said it was mostly inactive, and only had a dozen messages or so. To the best of my knowledge: no pro-Palestinian recruitment campaign for Wikipedia has *ever* been done.

• Solutions? One suggestion: when socks like Brad is blocked, why isn´t there a compulsory CU? Socks virtually always have some "back-up" socks. While some sock-masters are highly competent and would probably manage not to be detected by our CU: most are not, and would be caught.

• In the meantime: on Wikipedia it looks as if every killed Jewish child gets -on average- 100 times more space than a killed Palestinian child, is this fair? Huldra (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Dan Murphy

The ongoing Wikipedia experiment measuring how long "Malik" could endure near-daily racist attacks without losing his temper appears to have run its course. He made it just shy of 9 years.Dan Murphy (talk) 22:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by passerby User:Mangoe

I have no involvement in this other than what I can read in the links. That said it seems to me that Malik's behavior is way out of line, and even if there were no prior occasions we wouldn't tolerate this of just anyone.

OTOH I see that at least from one direction User:Floquenbeam has rendered the matter moot by blocking Brad Dyer indefinitely. Mangoe (talk) 23:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Soham321

From what i can understand Malik's main grievance seems to be that Brad called him "sonny boy" and that this is something unacceptable to say to a black person which Malik claims he is. He is not the least apologetic about the abusive words he has directed at Brad: "asshole", "fucking stupid", "too stupid to edit wikipedia", etc. In fact Malik continues to show defiance and continues to use abusive language after he was unblocked ("You can all suck my balls, assholes.") I have been observing Malik for quite some time now since he regularly participates on some pages which are of some interest to me. I will clarify that i only saw him fighting obvious vandals on such pages; he never interacted with me and never reverted any of my edits.(I have also never interacted with Brad.) I had a good opinion of Malik uptill now. I find the words Malik used for Brad to be unacceptable, particularly so for an Admin who is supposed to display exemplary behavior. This is also not a one off case of Malik flying off the handle as Hammersoft has shown in this discussion. So unless Malik shows some remorse for what he has done, i am afraid he cannot be shown leniency just as Zinedine Zidane, the greatest footballer of his era, was not shown leniency when he did not follow the rules and gave a head butt to Materazzi after the latter had directed some provocative words towards him. I am also not sure how "sonny boy" has racist overtones as Malik seems to be insinuating. Sonny Boy is also the name of a song sung in the year Eddie Fisher was born; Fisher's family nickname became "Sonny Boy" after the hit song; Fisher was a caucasian. I am not claiming that Brad was completely blameless, but overall the entire incident seems to be an example of Malik being supersensitive about his alleged race.

Having said all this, does Brad really deserve to be given an indefinite block by an Admin? He did behave in a somewhat aggressive way towards Malik and he did use the words "sonny boy" but giving him an indefinite block for this comes across as an unacceptable exercise of Admin power. A warning, of the kind Chillum had given Brad, should have sufficed in my opinion.Soham321 (talk) 23:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

In view of the comments on this page (at least one of which was specifically directed at me) and on the TP of other editors, i will just state that there is a genuine difference of opinion on whether 'sonny boy' should be considered a racist taunt. On Jimbo's TP, Iridescent writes that the phrase "sonny boy" is "belittling but has no racial connotations at all anywhere other than some parts of the US." Drmies responds by saying that the word 'boy' when used for a black man is definitely a racist word all over the US.Acroterion agrees with Drmies. However, Malerooster writes: just for the record, "sonny boy" as originally coined 50 years, 75 years, 100? ago, had ZERO racial connotations, period. I do agree that the use of "boy" directed at an Africam-American adult is one of the worst things, after the n word, that can be said and does have a long history. Just so that we are clear, Brad had used the words 'sonny boy' for Malik and not the word 'boy'. There is one other thing, and that is that as Twobells has pointed out on my TP, WP is not a US centric site. 'Boy' may be a racist word in the US, but it is not so in India. As Twobells writes: it deeply troubles me that language is being policed a little too strictly in the last few years and offence taken where none is given, or at least not explicitly implied, remember, the English-speaking nations are modern, liberal democracies where giving offence in the pursuit of debate is the accepted norm, being a by-product of democracy.

I will add here that a race related controversy had broken out between Australia and India when the cricket teams of the two countries had played a match. The Australian Andrew Symonds, who is half black, was called 'Monkey' by the Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh. The Australians made a complaint of racism to the match officials. The Indian defense was that the Australians had been calling them 'bastards' which is a highly derogatory term to use against anyone in India since it is taken to be an insult to one's parents. Moreover, it was pointed out in the media that the word 'monkey' has no racist connotation in India. In fact, a prominent Hindu God is the monkey God Hanuman. A significant section of the Australian media had criticized the Australian team (the match had taken place in Australia), and one Australian paper had injected some humor into the controversy by superimposing the face of Symonds on the body of the Monkey God. More on this here, here, and here.

Mohanbhan has correctly stated on my TP that just as the word 'nigger' is unacceptable, so the word 'untouchable' for a low caste Indian should also be considered unacceptable. (Under the Indian constitution, it is illegal to call anyone an 'untouchable'). Calling Dr Ambedkar, who framed the Indian constitution, an 'untouchable' (as a senior editor on WP has been doing persistently) should be deemed unacceptable according to Mohan; personally i think it is akin to calling Martin Luther King a nigger.

I would request Arb to keep the above in mind when framing any WP policy related to racism. Soham321 (talk) 22:37, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I also request Arb to take a look at the WP page of Martin Bashir, specifically the section describing the circumstances in which Bashir lost his job at MSNBC. This was evidently a case of a black person being supersensitive about his race and overreacting to a perceived insult. And, finally, here is Sheriff J.W. Pepper of Louisiana calling James Bond a 'boy'. Notice also how a police man talking to J.W. Pepper refers to the other cops on the scene as 'boys'. And here is the same J.W. Pepper calling a black man a 'boy'. Soham321 (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Wikimedes

While it seems reasonable to temporarily desysop a blocked admin to keep him/her from using the tools while blocked, having to claim that using the tools was an imminent danger to Wikipedia to accomplish the desysopping led to a lot of unnecessary drama. It might be useful to have a standard procedure in place to keep a blocked admin from using the tools (a second time) while blocked.

I hope that both blocked parties will return after they and the community have time to cool off. --Wikimedes (talk) 09:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Panyd

Are we going to enforce our own rules or are we not? Civility is one of the five pillars this encyclopedia is supposedly built on and yet again and again we see gross personal attacks and verbal abuse of our editors and stand by and do nothing.

I thought we wanted to create an inclusive community. I thought we wanted Wikipedia to be a welcoming place for all. When an administrator, who is supposed to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others starts calling another user 'Jewboy' for any reason, and we do nothing, (bar a tiny slap on the wrist of course) we deserve all of the scorn and media derision we decry as unfair.

And if Brad called a user who identifies as black 'Sonny boy'[4], then yes, that user needs a review too. However, 'sonny boy' does not give Malik impunity in telling another user to 'suck my dick'[5]. Or another two users [6].

When Malik asks 'what's next? Calling black people niggers?' [7] I have to ask who on Earth he's addressing. The user who thought 'Jewboy' was an acceptable way to speak about another editor? Yes, I would certainly expect that user to move onto calling others 'niggers' - and I would certainly believe that any community who thought 'Jewboy' was acceptable to go ahead and allow 'nigger' to start entering our daily discourse.

The Arbitration Principles say that Personal attacks which occur during the course of Arbitration either on the Arbitration pages or on the talk pages of the arbitrators fall within the jurisdiction of the Arbitration. - has the edit repeating the 'Jewboy' epithet[8] not met this criteria? Seriously. Do we give one single toss about civility or not? Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 09:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Softlavender: - no, it does not. I understand the argument, but I could call someone 'a fucking loony' and my status as a certified crazy person wouldn't make that less of a personal attack. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 10:56, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Malik Shabazz: - you say (Nobody cared about his personal attacks either, but that's par for the course.) - do you want this to change? I want this to change, and in order to do that a case like this needs bringing forward. As others have said, I don't think anyone wants you to grovel or throw yourself at a lion - but if we don't address both the instances of incivility here, nobody will care the next time someone calls you 'sonny boy' either. Why should they? (Again, I do care. That shouldn't have happened. We should act on this stuff) Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 16:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved NebY

Malik did not use his admin tools while blocked and involved to delete or undelete an article, block or unblock an editor, or wheel-war with another admin. He performed a revdel that was requested. As he was blocked, involved and angry in a heated situation, a preventative desysop was a reasonable measure but permanent desysopping would not be clearly proportionate or necessary (compare suspending or dismissing an employee). A statement such as GorillaWarfare's "Malik Shabazz misused his administrative tools to the extent that it required a level 1 desysop" could easily be read as suggesting misuse on multiple occasions or in a major action. Can we be clear that that's not the case? NebY (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Modernist

Over the past 9 or ten years my encounters with Malik have always been productive, respectful and useful. Malik Shabazz has been an enormous asset to wikipedia. He has comported himself well over an enormous period of time - editing and essentially providing judicious expertise most of the time. In my opinion he should not be desysopped permanently but should retain his position as an administrator. Seems like every once in a while we all want to explode; this place can do it to you; point being it isn't necessary to condemn someone for getting seriously pissed after being severely provoked...Modernist (talk) 19:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Wikimandia

If your average editor behaved in such a way, ragequit included, there would be a very lengthy ban in place, end of question. Admins should be held to a higher standard than your average editor. The only one using profanity, the N word and "JewBoy" was Malik. Anyone can claim to be anything on here (black, white, purple, Muslim, Jewish etc) - nobody should get a pass on being allowed to say slurs by way of their own ethnic makeup. —Мандичка^YO 😜 03:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Count Iblis

My recommendation would be for ArbCom to abolish this whole AN/I cesspool, and also set up a new RFA process where candidates are accepted based on an expert evaluation, desysop all sitting Admins who were appointed by the old system, they can get their tools back if they go successfully go through the new system. AN/I should be replaced by an ArbCom like system where all cases are accepted, Admins hear cases like Arbs do in ArbCom cases. This enforces good behavior within such a forum. Count Iblis (talk) 03:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Cryptic

We rely on the arbcom not to make emotional, kneejerk decisions with respect to removal of administrators' bits. That's why arbcom has the authority do so, and why ANI flashmobs do not. I echo the concerns stated by this IP; it's unfortunate he or she felt too timid or threatened or whatever to say it while logged in. —Cryptic 05:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved GregJackP

Per the norm, a minority member of WP gets race-baited and all of the Euro-American-Whites can't wait to hammer them. If one is black, NDN, or Latino, from my experience, we have to not react to blatant racism. If we do react, the non-minority editors get irritated, and we get blocked. We don't have enough content creators, and we really don't have enough minority or women content creators to be running them off.

Incivility is wrong, but understandable in this case.

Regardless, Malik is a content creator who has taken articles to both featured and good article status. Editors and admins are a dime a dozen, anyone can do either. Content creators are harder to find, and it is your job to protect them against the race-baiters. GregJackP Boomer! 07:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Twobells:, in the southern U.S., "sonny boy," when directed at an adult black male, is a racial slur. Malik is well aware of the insult that was being made. Race-baiting is race-baiting. Period. GregJackP Boomer! 21:06, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Shoy

Courcelles and NativeForeigner, if you don't like the revised motion, propose a different one. Even if it doesn't pass, you'll at least make your intentions known. shoy (reactions) 13:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Mrjulesd

1. What's needed is some sort of clarifying motion. Something along these lines:

The committee resolves that:

Malik has announced his retirement from English Wikipedia, and will therefore remain desysoped. However, should Malik change his mind over retirement, he is to be resysoped under the following conditions. He needs to e-mail Arbcom, and in this e-mail he must:

1. Request the use of the admin tools.
2. Pledge to refrain from admin tool use if he is blocked for any reason.
3. Pledge to refrain from language incompatible with admin status.

An Arbcom member will then place a notice on WP:BN requesting his resysop.

2. Also, maybe the best way to deal with the PI conflict is to restrict editors to 6 month or older accounts with a minimum of 500 edits. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 20:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Lankiveil

From my uninvolved perspective, both users have directed racial abuse at each other, and obviously that can't be tolerated even under the most lenient interpretations of WP:CIVIL. I'm not going to go into which was worse than the other, both were equally unacceptable and it appears that both users have now permanently departed (with that departure being enforced on User:Brad_Dyer's part via an entirely justifiable indef block.

That said, I would urge the committee to accept this case, not to look at the I/P issue specifically, but to address the more widespread problem of racial harassment. A quick perusal of the rev-deleted and suppressed contributions at User talk:Malik Shabazz will reveal an extensive history of racist trolling and abuse. In these circumstances, it is no wonder that Malik eventually snapped, and I admire him for holding out for as long as he did under that onslaught; I doubt I'd have been able to. The committee should consider extending discretionary sanctions to all instances of racist abuse and trolling so that perpetrators can be swiftly dealt with, rather than Wikilawyering on AN/I over whether calling an African-American "boy" is really racist, as we see in some statements above. Dealing with this sort of abuse early and decisively will lead to better results for the project than taking the easy option and waiting for unpleasant incidents like this one to bring everything to a head. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC).

Statement by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

If you want to scare off the few admins willing to stick their heads in the rural route gas station toilet otherwise known as Wikipedia's I/P topic area, by all means take this case. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:23, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved TwoBells

It has just come to my attention that the actual term employed was 'sonny boy', that actually changes everything, the term 'sonny boy' has no racial connotations anywhere as far as I know. In the English-speaking world, particularly, Great Britain and the Commonwealth nations, 'sonny boy' is a gentle, harmless term employed in everyday speech. When I first became aware of the issue I thought the issue might be a little more complex seeing as the term 'boy' does have racial connotations in the USA, however, 'sonny boy' most certainly does not. In closing, do we know the nationality of the editor concerned? It would go in his favour if he is either British or from the Commonwealth where such a term is in everyday usage with no negative connotation, regards. Twobells^t@lk 08:34, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

As a white British English speaker, I would most likely interpret someone calling me "sonny boy" as condescending. However it has been made very clear that to a black person from the (southern) US it is a very racist term and Mike clearly interpreted it that way. user:Brad Dyer is now marked as a sockpuppet of user:NoCal100. The last version of NoCal100's user page written by them claimed they are an American English speaker from California, so it seems probable that they knew exactly the meaning of the term they were using. Thryduulf (talk) 09:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Hey Thryduulf, agreed, the term can be construed as condescending in the UK and the Commonwealth, however, being condescending is not racism. Having said that, if the editor concerned is American and the term 'sonny boy' is known to have racial connotation then by all means censor him of his use of language, best wishes. Twobells^t@lk 11:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

1. edit. I have searched extensively for a source that states 'sonny boy' has racial connotations, however, to date I have yet to find a single entry. Generally the term is defined thus: a general term of address to a man or boy. ...lovable; Someone who has very great personality. Younger person with great admiration for;of Someone who makes your days brighter; brings life; Someone you have great love for; He is not as perfect as sonny boy.. The very worst definition I could find was 'patronising of a young man' (1870). . Subsequently, if we are suddenly banning editors and admin for being patronising we are in deep doodoo. Twobells^t@lk 12:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

References

"Sonny boy" or even "sonny" between friends or acquaintances is fine, but between people who don't like each other is insulting. And someone not from the American south who knew that 'boy' to a black person was definitely insulting might believe that "sonny boy" was too. Doug Weller (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

The misogyny and anti-semitism of the comments is unjustifiable. This person cannot be an admin. Those who want to excuse it seem to be wrapped up in groupthink and may have lost perspective. Jehochman ^Talk 12:11, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Pluto2012

The departure of Malik is a very bad thing for wikipedia. Somebody here above has pointed out that he is one of the seldom who is trusted enough to 'enforce' a decision/a solution. That's what we lack in this project and this area. Anyway, I had felt him very nervous these last time and given what has happened, I think a break from wp and from administratorship is welcome for him.

Proposal regarding I/P articles

The reasons why the area of the I/P articles are poisoned have been discussed here above. People have to understand how tiring it is to see coming back again and again socks or meatpuppet who game the system and being in the impossibility to do anything but 'discuss' again and again for nothing. There is no pleasure in spending half of one's time against this. It is poisoning and destructive to work in that area. All this for free and for a hobby. One could question the mental sanity of people keeping trying to do so. Or maybe principle it is just a question of principles.

I identify 3 ways for these socks with strong pov editing to game our system :

1. Due to policy of confidentiality, they can create new accounts undefinitely and due to WP:AGF we cannot request CU systematically. So they are eternel ;

2. Due to 1RR (or 3RR) and the equal treatment of all contributors (new or experienced ; unable to make abstraction of his/her pov's or not), they know that they will have the opportunity to defend their case on the talk page and that if they are not answered, will introduce their pov's ;

3. With experience, they learnt to use Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing. This warranties to them that the discussion can last for ever and that nobody can stop any game because of WP:AGF.

Some remedies here above were suggested, as the 500 edit count. I fear it can be gamed easily. On wp:fr, we have seen "new accounts" adding categories in articles or addings spaces in order to reach the given limit required in some elections and then sleeping some time to get the required time of existence to reach the criteria...

We could ask a 'bot' to systematically chekc the IP of newcomers and compare this with banned users or proxies but I fear this will never be accepted but the community.

Other editors have concerns about the importance of WP:AGF and WP:CIVL. WP:1RR has also proven its efficiency. But that's also here that they game us. I think we need to find a solution around here. Something that is arbitrary enough to solve the issue but so light that it will not harm our principles.

Proposal : I suggest that we keep all the articles in WP:1RR for everybody but that we offer to some contributors who have received trust from the community of contributors in that field to be exempted of 1RR and who should fall under WP:3RR. It is very important that we have enought of these with sensitivies (CIVIL and AGF versions of the work pov's) from all sides and it is also important that this is not an automatic process but that they are 'elected' or at least 'accepted'.

Doing so, we don't prevent anybody to edit. We don't prevent anybody to be listened on the talk page. But in case of abuse or delicate situation, we entrust some editors to have a little advantage to chose the right version and to have some more weight in discussions. We also don't force contributors to discuss endlessly. If somebody is not convincing, we will not lose hours and hours to face civil pov-pushing. If we have enough contributors with all sensitivitives there is no risk of problems. We come back to the situation of other areas in wp.

Pluto2012 (talk) 01:35, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Here is a concrete case

#1 and #2. Greyshark is tagged to be rather pro-I and I am tagged to be rather pro-P. This edit is made by an obvious sock who is in infraction with WP:1RR. But given it is a newbee, he is protected by the system of warning.

• Why could not someone block him (at sight) and support us not to spend hours in finding the right way to get rid of this sock and tire him ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 10:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@WJBscribe : Thank you for very much your intervention. Pluto2012 (talk) 14:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Some WP:RS on the issue and return from experience

@Avraham and @Zero0000 : I don't agree with the symetry with which Avi wants to describe the problem even if -per WP:AGF- we have to establish totally symetric principles to solve this :

• Nir Hasson, The right's latest weapon: 'Zionist editing' on Wikipedia, Haaretz, 18 août 2010
• Rachel Shabi, Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups, The Guardian, 18 août 2010
• Hezki Ezra et Yoni Kempinski, First Ever: Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course, Aroutz Sheva.
• Benjamin Hartman, GA special feature / An online battle for Israel's legitimacy, Haaretz, 14 novembre 2008.
• Jeremy Gozlan, Wikipédia s’invite dans le système éducatif israélien, Tel-Avivre, juin 2014.

The community fought "paid advocacy". Here we are 1 step further. Israel government and other groups pay people to train others to advocate for Israel on wikipedia! There is no equivalent. And as contributors on the field we have lived that.

And even if both sides are involved :

• Harriet Sherwood, Israel and Hamas clash on social media, The Guardian, 16 juillet 2014.

There is no symetry in the means :

"In recent years Israel has recruited hundreds of students to assist in its hasbara, or public diplomacy campaign. These individuals – some of whom are paid – act openly and covertly, many engaging in below-the-line online discussion threads to promote Israel's interests.

At the start of the [2014] conflict in Gaza students at the Interdisciplinary Centre, a private college in Herzliya, launched a social media campaign on Twitter and Facebook, "Israel Under Fire".

According to its leader, Yarden Ben-Yosef, 27, more than 400 students have volunteered for the programme (...)".

On wp:fr we found a nest of these and after several years they were finally all found and banned. They founded an association and a wiki. Their facebook page is worth reading too.

Pluto2012 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Answer to Avi

@Huldra - Avraham - Zero0000:

Avi writes that: "However, I maintain that Pluto2012's point of view—assuming ill intent a priori to pro-Israeli editors because there is more "open" discussion of these editors—goes against our core policy of assuming good faith."

That's a straw man argument. I never wrote this. I wrote that we have to take care of all newcomers in the difficult area of the I/P conflict and ~that we should have more freedom to manage this because it is tiring, harms our motiviation of editing wikipedia and harms... us. What has happened with Malik illustrates this.

What I wrote, and Zero0000 and Huldra pointed out this too, it is that the situation is mainly the results of pro-I advocacy groups who are convinced that Israel is deligitimated in the media. I have documented this by wp:rs sources for those who are not aware of this. In the context of writing an article in the main, I would state that the comparison of Avraham with Yahoo is wp:undue and insisting in that direction is pov-pushing.

I am myself IRL strongly pro-I. I have arrived on the project 10 years ago and wrote several Featured Articles in the area on wp:fr. I put writing wikipedia above my convictions as a hobby and for intellectual pleasure. But as Huldra, Zero0000, and many others (!), we have been harassed and even outed at an incredible and unacceptable level.

I think the community is partly responsible of the situation for its 'inaction'. The extreme application of WP:AGF (by us) leads to WP:Civil POV pushing (by them). We (the community) should strongly support long standing editors against these dangers, wherever the problems come from and their side.

Pluto2012 (talk) 05:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by MarkBernstein

Three distinct issues are raised here. Notoriously and proverbially, complex cases make bad law.

First, there are the (apparent) emergency. It is past.

Second, we have the festering mess of Israel-Palestine at Wikipedia. As many, many people have noted above, this is intractable, it must be dealt with, and the few administrators willing to deal with it ought not to be dismayed by ArbCom's heavy and ill-considered hand.

Third, we have the separate problem of harassment of editors -- including administrators -- by Wikipedians seeking to achieve various ends -- often to drive the opposition away from Wikipedia or to secure their bans. ArbCom has given made this problem far, far worse with its decisions in Gender Gap, Gamergate, and Lightbreather -- each of which secured to sexual harassers the end they most devoutly sought. Not only do harassers now have a textbook; they now have a book of case studies. Meanwhile, the call for the community to develop a policy against sexual harassment -- weakest of weak tea -- has apparently foundered on an entirely-predictable lack of consensus.

So, sure: an editor can’t go around calling a sock puppet a jewboy. Nor should an editor go around calling a rival a corrupt faggot (Gamergate), a cunt (GGTF), or distribute their faked nudes (Lightbreather). It’s a waste of breath warning you, I fear: you're going to take this case. When you do, you must secure to yourself experts in US racism, in anti-semitism, and in the rhetoric of Israel-Palestine today. Failure to secure such expertise will doom you again to yet another of the blunders and narrow, humiliating escapes that have punctuated your past year.

If you can possibly muster the patience, it would be wise to leave this case to your successors. MarkBernstein (talk) 02:13, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Anthonyhcole

I've just noticed this. I closed this recent ANI report where, at Brad's request, Malik deleted his (Malik's) edit summary that Brad considered to be a personal attack. I looked at some of Brad's first edits and found a level of competence rarely found in newbies and a definite bias toward Israel. The dispute in the abovelinked ANI discussion also included Malik objecting to Brad using a 7(?) year old source to make a claim about the present, which I take to be (a mild case - in isolation - of) misrepresentation of sources by Brad.

In the Noleander case, we had an editor consistently slanting existing articles and creating slanted articles against Jews and Israel (and I think from memory misusing sources) whom this committee banned from the topic. If Brad is clearly not a new user, is misusing sources to push a view and is consistently slanting articles toward Jews and Israel, it may be appropriate to topic-ban Brad.

Thanks Sportsguy17 . --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:17, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Sportsguy17

I usually don't comment at this kind of thing (for a good reason), but it really upsets me when we lose a dedicated, long-term content contributor over a bunch of bullshit like this. This is Wikipedia failing its content contributors at its finest. A sock was able to successfully drive off Malik, who is/was exactly the kind of editor Wikipedia needs. I hope that ArbCom can figure out, through a case, how to retain content contributors and prevent a similar blip from ever occurring again. Content editors being driven off is actually a larger problem than some people think and it's very deleterious to the encyclopedia. Wikipedia needs more content editors. If ArbCom doesn't solve that problem, then trolls and socks will continue to be able to drive content editors off the project. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 13:10, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: Brad's already been indeffed for his egregious personal attacks and for driving Malik off the project...and he was found to be a NoCal100 sock, albeit I concur with your idea for a topic ban, as I'm sure we'll be hearing from him again (under a different alias, of course). Sportsguy17 (T • C) 13:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by HiDrNick

Editors have pride. Regardless of Malik's retirement, I strongly encourage the arbiters to take a public vote on the original proposed motion, "Malik Shabazz may be resysopped by a request to the Bureaucrats if he intends to return to active editing and is reminded that use of administrative tools while blocked is prohibited.".

Malik's tools were stripped away by a dubious application of WP:LEVEL1 procedures, and his retirement is a direct result of ArbCom's actions. Passing this motion would make it explicitly clear that Malik is welcome to return to editing whenever he is ready to do so, without being required to grovel to ArbCom first.

A full case seems likely to be accepted. If a fair and public hearing finds that Malik should be desysopped for his conduct, then so be it. HiDrNick! 19:18, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

User:HiDrNick, the case is not going to be about editors but about reviewing and perhaps revising the sanctions now in existence for Palestine-Israel related articles. Doug Weller (talk) 19:52, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Which is all the more reason to dispense with this emergency temporary desysopping by motion, immediately. The fact that Malik has "retired" is irrelevant, and ArbCom must not use that to shirk its responsibility here. Editors get riled up, retire, cool down, and later return to productive editing all the time. But if ArbCom fails to explicitly remove this cloud, why should he ever want to come back?

If Malik's desysopping was intended to be permanent, he is entitled to a hearing, and he should not have to come asking for one. HiDrNick! 20:45, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Swarm

I'm not familiar with Malik at all, but I feel compelled to objectively provide a few obvious points for the record, if only to counter those who are blatantly clamoring for him to receive special treatment:

• The original sanction against Malik was a minor and obviously-justifiable block that almost certainly would have been immediately overturned upon the resumption of a reasonable demeanor. It was Malik and only Malik who escalated the situation to the point of his block being extended, his desysopping and his retirement.
• Malik willfully and knowingly misused his administrative privileges in violation of an active block and an emergency desysopping was literally the appropriate response to this.
• Nobody on Wikipedia is irreplaceable or entitled to special treatment.
• Being an upstanding member of the community does not absolve one of the consequences of significant misdeeds.
• All Wikipedians know that administrators are subjected to exceptional levels of argumentativeness, incivility, personal attacks, condescension, coercion, wrongful accusations and disruptive behavior. Administrators are only given the tools if they have already demonstrated that they can be trusted by the community to withstand this for the entirety of their tenure, and yes, this includes hypothetical incidents of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, ableism or any other forms of discriminatory, hate-fueled harassment.
• Administrators are only human and yes of course we snap sometimes, even to the point of shameless incivility and personal attacks, and especially when provoked. I am perfectly guilty of this as are many other good administrators I'm familiar with. These incidents are virtually always overlooked and forgiven by the community. Even so, the comments made by Malik were obviously beyond the pale. The severity of his disruptive comments was obviously calculated, by far exceeded something which can be overlooked as an understandable fit of anger, persisted well beyond what could be considered to be an isolated outburst, and was directed at editors other than the one who provoked him. I completely understand why, given his long-term good standing, this drastic change in behavior is difficult for most people to comprehend, but it doesn't change the facts.
• Looking at the big picture, I have to concur with Jehochman. The initial severe incivility and personal attacks resulting in a block, compiled with the persistence of it to the point of talk page revocation, compiled with the tool misuse, compiled with even further incivility and personal attacks after being unblocked in an attempt to deescalate, clearly renders this person unfit to continue to be an administrator. We would not tolerate this sort of behavior out of anybody and the fact that people are suggesting we should is astonishing to me. Swarm ♠ 23:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why do some editors get more space to make their points?

This is not a case that I intend to get involved in, but I would like to point out that, once again, those editors who make preliminary statements get more room to make their points than those who do not.

Combine this with the fact that, once again, the word limits were not enforced (The Arbitration/Requests/Case page clearly states "Without exception, statements (including responses to other statements) must be shorter than 500 words",[9] but you let StevenJ81 post 1623 words, Avraham 1720 words, and Sean.hoyland 1960 words -- and copied them over to the evidence page without any trimming), I can only assume that the rules aren't real this time either and that you would ignore another 2000-word wall of text, so if I were to present evidence and follow the rules, I would get get 500 words while Sean.hoyland's gets 4000+ words.

Please note that we discussed this already at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Evidence#Are the instructions real or not?. I am going to repeat something I wrote on that page:

Looking at the larger picture, we may have to face the possibility that whoever sets these procedures lacks certain skills regarding predicting the probable impact of procedural decisions like what gets copied where. I am thinking of the recent case where I was made a party to a dispute about gamergate and a copied opinion on that case was entered on a different page with my signature, all against my will and without my permission. That was a bad decision on procedures and it is something that if it occurred anywhere else on Wikipedia would have resulted in sanctions for forgery. I am experienced in designing procedures of this nature and I am sure there are others like me. Can we help by forming some sort of informal advisory board on arbcom instructions and procedures? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I very much agree. If one looks at the last few cases it is hard to escape the conclusion that the enforcement of evidence limits and deadlines (including the committee's own internal deadlines) has become lax. As Guy Macon points out above, these are not necessarily harmless errors, and I fully support the idea of putting additional measures in place to remedy them. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 20:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree as well. I got carried away with responses, and grossly violated the word count. Especially as some of what I wrote was related to Malik specficially and not the I/P area. I would be more than happy to either wrap my statements in a collapse box, or have them outright deleted, and replaced with a 500 word statement focused on this case. -- Avi (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I've been bold and collapsed unrelated statements and enough text so that what is not hidden is fewer than 500 words. I would not be averse to a clerk flat-out deleting the hidden sections. I understand that any new statements are subject to a new 500/50 limit, correct? Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 21:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I would like to make it clear that I am in no way faulting the individuals I listed as examples. It is very easy to lose count when replying to multiple editors, and without a clerk watching over the case and reminding folks when they exceed the word counts, of course some people go over the limit without realizing it. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Getting back to my main point, Can we who are interested in this sort of thing help by forming some sort of informal advisory board on arbcom instructions, procedures, and enforcement? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, the way the rules get "honored" in the past is having clerks sit on it and they go warn/beg/implore people to cut down their submissions, but that takes much effort, and this case took forever to open, so my guess is it being August in the Northern hemisphere clerks are taking it easy, somewhere. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:47, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The rules didn't get enforced in the Kww case either, and that one started in June. Frankly, I am not too worried about the lack of enforcement. I am far more concerned with arbcom creating procedures that lead to bad results. I was listed as a party to a dispute about gamergate (thus putting me at risk of harassment -- and I post with my real name) and a comment on that case was copied onto a page I had never edited with my signature attached, all against my will and without my permission. It took several protests to get the forgery removed. My point is that anyone who lacks the ability to anticipate a problem like that should not be allowed to make decisions about whether or not to move other editors comments between pages. We elect arbcom members for their wisdom and ability to resolve tough people problems. That doesn't automatically make them good at creating low-level procedures like this. Please, arbcom, let us help. Let us figure out a good set of procedures and instructions, and then you can have final approval. Otherwise we will keep doing things like giving one commenter four to eight times as many words as another commenter gets. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• Respectfully, Alanscottwalker, the clerks did not open the case because the Committee instructed us to hold enacting the motion for a not-definite period, and it was only with prodding that we got authorization to enact it. FYI, the arbitrators are clarifying best practice for the clerks to follow, and I expect to be clarifying the clerks' procedures based on those shortly, especially regarding enforcement of word limits. Suggestions, etc. are very welcome, and those that involve the procedures of the clerk office can be sent to WP:ACCN. @Guy Macon: That sounds like quite a good idea, but I'm not certain what level of changes you expect to make. Do you intend for these suggestions to merely build upon existing framework, or to create a new system for proceedings entirely? Thanks all for any patience you can muster. L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 00:28, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

FYI all, I've made a quick amendment to the clerks' procedures that should remove the ambiguity in "should I warn or wait for an arb to say something", which should reduce the chances of this happening in the future. No arbs have given directions on the trimming of the existing prelim statements at the evidence page yet. L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 02:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Creating a new system is rarely a good idea, and I wouldn't support it. I am envisioning discussing minor tweaks one at a time, probably starting with trying to fix the two problems I mentioned above. (some editors get more words than others, I and several other editors were made a party to the gamergate case and had comments added to that case with our signatures, even though we never intended to get involved in that case).

The phrase "the arbitrators are clarifying best practice for the clerks to follow" troubles me. I see no evidence that being a good arbitrator gives a person the skills needed to come up with best practice for the clerks to follow, and one way of interpreting that particular sentence is "Thanks for the offer, Guy, but we don't need help from you or anyone else". --Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with almost everything Guy Macon has said so far and at the Kww case. I design, refine and outright butcher process-flows as part of my job. Writing procedures, processes to follow, how to react in specific situations. The main flaws with Arbcom's processes are 1)Process-creep. Over time the process of a case has built up to a monster that is really not appropriate to all situations. The Arbs and clerks adhere to a process that could be twice as short in some situations if taking a common sense approach. An example: Where cases are about misuse of admin tools, the actual evidence and workshop phases serve zero purpose. If the case has been accepted it has already been evidenced that the tools were misused, the next step should be 'Is the tool misuse worth detooling?' - a further evidence and workshop phase do not benefit that. 2)As Guy has demonstrated above, the actual processes they do have are either not followed or are bent beyond their intent in order to get around them. Example: Word-count is meant to force editors to think about what they are submitting and restrict their evidence to the relevant facts rather than wandering off, soapboxing etc. When the clerks and arbs allow the word restriction to no longer be relevant, it should either be removed completely or raised to a level that encompasses the opening statements. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion as to the merits and extent of word limits has been a perennial discussion internally. I'll expand on this in the next day or two, although I wouldn't be opposed to changing how word limits work. Ideally workshop and evidence should be a way for arbcom/community interaction on these issues but it oftentimes doens't work out that way. In this particular case it's largely been reframed around IP/civility issues so the introductory phases are relevant as the case is framed. NativeForeigner ^Talk 10:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree with both of the above comments. Related issue: In the normal course of events, the only time I should ever see a page on Wikipedia with a comment signed by Guy Macon is when I, Guy Macon, posted that comment on that page. The only exceptions should be things like when I post something on the wrong page, and it gets moved (not copied) with a note at the old location explaining where it was moved and why. Furthermore, on those rare occasions where such a move places one of my comments on a page where I have never posted, it should never, ever be marked as being something that I cannot delete without facing sanctions from Arbcom.

In fact, doing that might very well (I say "might" because it is a gray area) violate the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. As I write this, at the bottom of the page is says "By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License". That license in turn says "In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: [...] the author's moral rights" (wikilink to moral rights wikipedia page in original).

Some folks may not quite get what I am talking about, so let me explain using an example that is not a gray area. Someone posts an RfC and I respond with "Support, per numerous arguments presented by others" and my signature. Then someone cuts and pastes that comment into an unrelated RfC. That would be a violation of my moral rights to the integrity of my comment, by not preserving the integrity of my comment from alteration, distortion, or mutilation. In other words, in this particular example the CC BY-SA 3.0 License doesn't just protect the words of my comment (changing the "Support" to "Oppose" would be an example of that) but protects the fact that my comment was posted as a !vote on that particular RfC. Of course this isn't an absolute prohibition against moving comments to other pages -- people do post things in the wrong place and moving it to the right place doesn't violate any moral rights -- but it takes a human to make that decision. In the gamergate case the clerks copied my comment automatically because they were instructed to copy all comments, thus arguably violating the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. (As I have said before, this is not a criticism of the clerks who were just doing their jobs. It's the procedures I am arguing against here.) Related: Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

We've done this several times this year so that the evidence is all on one page and we don't have to keep flipping back and forth. I guess you could argue that we shouldn't delete anything you post on a case page, but obviously we do that from time to time if an editor has gone way over their word length and won't cut it. Doug Weller (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

All good points. I never participated in an ArbCom before, and didn't even notice that there were limits. I will in the future. Also ... as Avi did, I will edit down my comments on the evidence page, though it may take me several days to get back to do so. But as I note below, I'm not sure exactly what we're "proving" here, so I have no way to know if my comments currently on the evidence page are trenchant or not. ... And as I also ask below, is there something we already agree to, so that we don't have to keep providing evidence? I'd love to focus on solutions. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

If none of your evidence focusses on problems editing the P-I area, do nothing. Doug Weller (talk) 18:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Would the Arbitrators kindly clarify the case motion?

I truly don't mean this to be thick-headed or difficult, but I have a question. The main case page here is the original discussion page on Malik's situation. This case grew out of that situation, and I am an advocate for everyone remembering that. So I don't have a problem with that per se. However, I truly can't tell what the drafting arbitrators have decided is the question and scope to be decided. So, with all due respect to the ArbCom, would someone mind clarifying that? Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

When we accepted the case it was with a motion stating that we will be "reviewing and if necessary modifying by motion existing sanction provisions in the prior Palestine-Israel articles case." I'm in discussion with my colleagues about how we can make this more explicit. Doug Weller (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought. But by itself, it feels a little vague.

For example, we are supposed to "bring evidence". Evidence of what? Again, I think I know what you want to see, but there are a lot of ways I could go.

Similarly, I don't know how much (if at all) we start from some common ground of agreement. For example only: Do we have to prove (and to what standard?) that substantial amounts of trouble are caused in this area by IPs and single-issue editors? Or do we all stipulate (to at least some degree) that this is a problem?

The more time we have to spend proving there is a problem, the less time we have to spend discussing solutions in the Workshop. So understanding what actually needs to be proved, and getting there efficiently, is important.

Thanks to you and your colleagues for undertaking to make this more explicit. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, may I raise a parliamentary inquiry, as it were? The workshop closes on 15 September, which is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, one of the most important Jewish holidays of the year. I think we could agree that this arbitration has a strong chance of involving many Jewish participants, and a decent number of those may not be available to go on Wikipedia on 14-15 September, during the holiday. The problem is not that we cannot participate in the workshop before the holiday. Clearly we can. The problem is that for a full 48 hours at the end of the workshop, people can make suggestions and proposals adverse to us that we will have no opportunity to respond to before the workshop closes. So I would respectfully request that the workshop close on 16 September. This way, all contributors will have a fair chance for a last look before it closes. Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Evidence that the present sanctions still aren't making the area a collegial place to edit. Whatever you can provide with the word limits, although if you are already concise and have more evidence we can probably extend them a bit. The evidence phase doesn't take time from the workshop phase, so I don't see an issue there. No problem at all changing the workshop date, we'll do that (although not today, need to discuss if there's any problem with the 16th, if if the 17th might be better). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 18:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I have a related scope question; is an examination of the situation that led to this case being accepted (between Malik Shabazz and Brad Dyer) in scope? I don't have much to add on the I/P article topic broadly, but I think that the way that particular incident was handled leaves much room for improvement. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 14:42, 28 August 2015 (UTC).

I am totally confused by this. I was notified on my talk page of this arbitration today, but I have no idea what the question is. I have been involved in editing with both Malik and Brad, and have lots of thoughts to share, but it seems we are way past that stage already. If input is desired, please do let me know. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:05, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Second parliamentary inquiry (attention Doug Weller): If it was not appropriate for the the workshop to close on a major Jewish holiday like Rosh Hashanah, it is equally or more inappropriate for the evidence page to close on that day. See argument a few paragraphs just above here. I assume at this point that you cannot move the evidence close period earlier. Therefore, I respectfully request that the evidence page close not earlier than 16 September.

I will add: the new workshop close date is 28 September, which is Sukkot, another major Jewish holiday where many of us will be off-wiki. Please understand: I am not making these dates up. September 14-15, 23, 28-29 and October 5-6, along with Saturdays, are days that many Jewish contributors need to be off-wiki.

I am willing to assume that ArbCom and the clerks are simply not aware of the timing of these holidays, especially Sukkot, which was not previously part of the discussion. I therefore assume that ArbCom will accommodate this request, as they did my previous one. But I have to say that when the Workshop close was moved partly to accommodate Rosh Hashanah, and then the Evidence close is moved directly to Rosh Hashanah, my willingness to assume good faith starts to be strained. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:11, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statements removed

Hi everyone. At the direction of a drafting arbitrator, I have removed the preliminary statements from the evidence page, and posted them to the main case talk page, as was standard practice prior to a procedure change about a month ago. Thanks - L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 21:34, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Statement by JordanGero

Although this matter appears to have run a good part of its course already, it relates to circumstances I have recently (and some further back) been involved in, namely the idea of assuming or automatically granting moral superiority to those who belong to an identity group that has been or is perceived to have been historically victimized. Prior to registering a user name, several of my edits of controversial articles were reversed by one Malik Shabazz, with talk page discussions with Mr. Shabazz quickly turning extremely racial and caustic, on his part, not mine. One of the justifications used by Mr. Malik Shabazz was his "status" as a "black Jew", therefore he "knew better." I now see how deep-seated this belief of implied moral superiority actually is, and how it contributes to the mentality of certain individuals, particularly Mr. Shabazz in this case, but to those who support him as well (see following paragraph) to believe they are untouchable, as well as to the tone, diction, and overall presentation of controversial Wikipedia articles and subjects.

Namely, DrKiernan (talk) wrote the following in the 'Preliminary Statement' section above: "Frankly, I don't think it's possible to call a black Jew a racist, and expect to be taken seriously." This statement is best described by one term: permissible racism exercised by unjustified assumptions of such permission. Believing that one's identity automatically precludes one from accurately being described as a racist is in itself a racist declaration because it grants automatic moral superiority based exclusively on membership in a group, which is exactly in line with my discussion on the talk page of the European Colonization of the Americas article, not to mention says absolutely nothing about the personal qualities of the individual at hand (i.e., their character). I will forgo explaining more substantively exactly why DrKiernan's assertion that someone who is a "black Jew" cannot be accurately and reasonably described as a racist, on account that its absurdity is rather clear to begin with, and hopefully seen and understood as such. Arguing that calling someone "Jewboy" is not racist simply because it comes from a source that also claims to be Jewish is borderline nonsensical, particularly given that Mr. Shabazz appears to see the conflict as "Jewboy vs. nigger", on account of his statement of "the Jewboy has chased out the nigger." By this logic, anyone who convincingly claims to be of Jewish origin, culture, or religion can hurl anti-Semitic slurs with impunity. Moreover, DrKiernan's argument that black individuals call each other "nigger" all the time and it is not seen as racist completely belies the point: such circumstances are slang references- they are not made to racially offend, particularly not when such racial offense is made after the person making it has taken the position of not being part of the group against which he/she has verbally attacked (i.e., "the Jewboy has chased out the nigger.").

Having said all that, I would like to note that I am rather pleased that the abuses of power by the user Malik Shabazz have come to light, and that his racist and distasteful methods of injecting his point of view across Wikipedia are being thoroughly examined. I take comfort in knowing that the western bias of resolving morally and historically ambiguous contests in favor of those who are or are assumed to have been victimized has its limits, and that there is a point when bending facts and abusing one's position as a minority comes to be unacceptable in determining the best way to present a topic or event. Here endeth the lesson. JordanGero (talk) 22:10, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Interesting, how this comes out of nowhere, from a brand-new editor. Perhaps CU can clear up where this really comes from. Drmies (talk) 14:27, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I request to make a statement as well

I happened to notice this arbitration request, and want to give a statement here testifying to my respect for Malik Shabazz as an editor on Wikipedia.

Just a few words about myself. I am a top 500 Wikipedia editor, who has been actively editing Wikipedia for 8 years, and does so with much pleasure till this day.

I have had regular opportunities to see Malik in action, often as the resolver of some content dispute, mostly on Israel-related articles. We have had identical as well as opposite opinions, and often Malik has resolved the issue with another point of view, or a compromise solution. His edits and conflict solution skills are of the highest order.

I am well familiar with vandal or single-purpose edits, which constitute a rising percentage of overall edits on Wikipedia with the years. Sometimes it is very frustrating to have to deal with edit warriors. If at one time, users would propose changes before they make them, nowadays most editors just make the change and even when reverted, they think that till the discussion is over, they feel that they must restore their valuable contribution to Wikipedia.

In view of Malik's excellent record, and with a deep understanding of the hard work and frustration involved in dealing with all kinds of disruptive and tendentious editors on Wikipedia, I ask the arbitration committee to be sympathetic to Malik Shabazz, and as lenient as possible. Debresser (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (1) (January 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Zero0000 at 01:16, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

• Zero0000 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Zero0000

I'm writing concerning the General Prohibition "All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Unfortunately many articles are seeing a lot of edits from IPs and others failing to meet this requirement (many of which are probably unaware of it) followed by reverts by others. Semi-protection would help a lot. My question is: since semi-protection will have no effect on editors who are entitled to edit at all, can semi-protection be applied by involved administrators?

Of course automated enforcement of the prohibition would be the best solution.

Statement by Mz7

I don't think the committee should make any blanket endorsement of involved administrator action. I can envision disputes over which articles fall under the general prohibition, and things can turn ugly if there is an WP:INVOLVED case. Obviously, the reasonability rule still applies—if an involved admin protects a page that any reasonable administrator would also protect, then there shouldn't be any issues (see third paragraph of WP:INVOLVED). But this is a very case-by-case thing, and if there is even a slight possibility of contentiousness (and in this topic area, this might always be the case...), always WP:RFPP. Mz7 (talk) 06:18, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to create some form of hidden maintenance category that includes all the pages under the restriction, and craft a bot or an edit filter that disallows or automatically reverts and warns users fall under the restrictions? If ARCA is not the right venue for discussing this, we should probably have a community discussion. Mz7 (talk) 19:05, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

@Mdann52: According to WP:CASCADE, cascading semi-protection is currently not available to administrators, as it would effectively allow non-administrators to semi-protect pages. Even if it were possible, by my understanding of cascade, you would have to transclude every page you want to semi-protect onto one page, which would be rather cumbersome. Mz7 (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough (PIA3)

It was fairly clear that there would be trouble making this fly. The difference between a 500/30 protection on one article, and the same on a whole topic is one of kind not quantity.

While it is technically feasible to find a solution, it is pretty undesirable to effectively topic-ban 7 billion people - especially given the breadth with which these topic bans are interpreted. It is equivalent to banning all under 60s from parkland, becasue some youth drop litter. (More topical analogies might also spring to mind.)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:24, 10 December 2015 (UTC).

Statement by Kingsindian

I meant to open an WP:ARCA request for this, but was too lazy and forgot.

• There is no way to consistently apply the General Prohibitions remedy to the entire topic area, and nobody has even tried so far. It is even unclear as to what list of pages one is supposed to apply this to.

• Semi-protection will not take care of the 30/500 requirement, and is trivial to defeat by a moderately determined sockpuppet.

• IP and non 30/500 edits are often benign and useful. See this diff updating the HDI status for State of Palestine. Many others can be given.

I suggest the following, which is explicitly allowed by the remedy. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of Pending Changes, and appropriate edit filters. Let the emphasis of the enforcement be on reverts rather than semi-protection, edit filters or blocks. Use semi-protection sparingly and temporarily, in direct response to disruption. Zero0000's proposal about involved admins applying semi-protection (ideally temporarily) seems good to me. The emphasis on blocks makes the most sense, is most consistent and least harmful. It is trivial to undo any bad edits by IPs, inexperienced editors etc. In my experience, just mentioning the magic word WP:ARBPIA3 is enough to "win" any content dispute (the recent flap involving Huldra is an exception rather than the rule; she didn't say the magic word). Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:08, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I am disappointed, but not surprised that my common sense and consistent proposal isn't attracting any interest. It has been months since the remedy was passed. The sky hasn't fallen by relying on reverts so far. Nobody has a clue about how to implement the remedy in a consistent way using something more drastic like lots of semiprotection or edit filters. For instance, a ton of articles come under ARBPIA which don't have the template on their talk pages, so template based edit filters wouldn't work. Perhaps the committee should stop chasing chimeras. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Mdann52

If we are going to do this, it may make sense to create a page (eg WP:Palestine-Israel articles 3), place that under cascading semi-protection, then allow editors to add articles to it in this topic area as needed. I'd note we do also have Special:AbuseFilter/698, although this will not work effectively on larger scale applications - there just aren't the resources available for it to run! Mdann52 (talk) 22:01, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@Mz7: ah, my bad - I'm aware you can set it up in the site config, but I see why you wouldn't want to. Thanks for correcting me on the other point too. Personally, I don't believe now there is anyway we can centrally enforce this reliably in that case. Mdann52 (talk) 10:43, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

@Kirill Lokshin and Doug Weller: While an edit filter is possible, it would require every page to be manually loaded in, and with limited resources to run the filter, it's unlikely to run well enough for this purpose. Mdann52 (talk) 11:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Question from Harry Mitchell

Without comment on the substantive issue, could an edit filter not check for a specific category or a template on the talk page? Or perhaps the existence of a specific editnotice, since those can only be created by administrators and a handful of others? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:01, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by MusikAnimal

Indeed, this is basically a repeat of what I've written below... we already have a filter that disallows unqualified users to edit a explicit set of articles, which an edit filter manager can add to easily. However there has been long discussion ([10][11][12][13][14]) of a template/filter-based solution. You would add {{pp-30-500}} to any page and an edit filter would apply the 30/500 editing restriction to that page. An additional filter ensures only admins can add/remove it. See {{User:MusikAnimal/pp-30-500}}. Users would be able to request an article be put under 30/500 at WP:RFPP. So in effect we have a new form of protection until we can get WMF to create what we need. The filters need to make this work are ready to implemented, but I haven't done so yet as I also felt broader input was needed — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:49, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Mdann52: I am confident the two filters needed to make a template-based solution won't have a noticeable effect on performance. We have numerous other filters that are less restrictive and with much more complex regular expressions. With Special:AbuseFilter/698 we are already halfway there. This sounds expensive, but performance is greatly improved by restricting the filter to the article/talk space, to users with < 500 edits, and then checking for the presence of the pp-30-500 template. We could do one better and require admins add it to the very top of the article, so the regex won't need to scan the whole page — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {Other editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (1): Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (1): Arbitrator views and discussion

• I thought we had asked the WMF about automated enforcement mechanisms? DGG ( talk ) 22:42, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
• There are two questions here:
  1. Can involved administrators semi-protect pages in this topic area?
     • I do not think this topic area should be treated any differently than any other with regards to WP:INVOLVED, so no (except as per Mz7). Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
  2. Can the restrictions be enforced automatically?
     • This is not a matter for ArbCom as far as I am concerned. If it is possible (I don't know) then as long as all relevant policies and guidelines are followed then it may be used subject to community consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• If it gets the thumbs up from BAG, one could use an admin bot to semi-protect all of the pages in the topic area. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 03:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
• Concerning the clarification suggested by Thryduulf in this section, I agree that involved admins should not get involved in any aspect of enforcement, including this. I would like to see a way of enforcing numerical limits that did not rely on individual actions;any way that works is OK with me. DGG ( talk ) 01:35, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
• I have no issues with an administrator semi-protecting a page that falls within these boundaries. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Recommend semiprotecting all articles as the ruling effectively does this anyway. Yes some articles will be 'gamed' by accounts but that can be policed much more easily of all articles semiprotected. Admin actions should be done by uninvolved admins though. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:53, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
• Liberal use of semiprotection on pages that unregistered editors are not permitted to edit because of an ArbCom ruling seems logical. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 09:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Semiprotection can be superseded by the 500/30 solution as discussed below. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 20:02, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
• As I mentioned below, an automated, edit filter-based mechanism of enforcement is the best option here. Given that semi-protection does not actually enforce the specific restriction in question, I don't see it as an appropriate first resort. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 21:45, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
  • @Doug Weller and Mdann52: MusikAnimal mentions a dynamic, template-based edit filter implementation in his statement below. If I understand what's being proposed correctly, there would be no need to pre-define a list of articles, and consequently no performance issue with running the filter, even for a large article set. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 01:08, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
• If an edit filter will work, I support that as a solution. Semi-protection isn't sufficient. Doug Weller talk 13:03, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
• Exactly as Kirill has mentioned. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 13:40, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
• @DeltaQuad and Kirill Lokshin:, User:Mdann52 points out the flaw here, which had struck me also but I assumed I didn't understand how it would work. If Mdann52 is correct, we need to think again. Doug Weller talk 11:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be that MusikAnimal has answered that adequately. If he is wrong, and it does not work efficiently enough, only then we will need to reconsider. DGG ( talk ) 19:27, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (2) (January 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by When Other Legends Are Forgotten at 04:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

• When Other Legends Are Forgotten (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• MusikAnimal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [15]

Statement by When Other Legends Are Forgotten

Does an article need to be tagged with the {{ARBPIA}} template on its associated Talk page for it to be considered subject to the case restrictions (30/500)? I am referring to articles which clearly relate to the conflict (e.g, they contain text such as "Palestinians exiled in 1948 are denied their right of return.", and as such , it would be hard to argue that they could not "be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict".

A further clarification is required with regards to IPs ability to edit talk pages of articles subject to the 30/500 restriction, as it seems that some administrators are of the opinion that they are allowed to edit such pages (see [16])

@MusikAnimal: - I am not opposed to enforcing the restriction via a template, in fact, I would welcome such a measure. But that really does not address the issue I am asking clarification for, nor does your suggestion that only admins be allowed to add the template seem sensible to me - there is no such requirement to add the {{ARBPIA}] template to such articles today - any editor can do so, at their discretion. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of articles subject to the restriction, and many of them are not tagged. Are we to wait until an admin sees fit to add the template to articles such as Jibril Agreement before IPs can be reasonably prevented (via reverts ) from editing them in contravention of the restriction?

Statement by MusikAnimal

• I don't think the 30/500 restriction should be left to personal opinion. It may sometimes be that the subject itself is not directly associated to Arab-Israeli conflict, rather limited to a particular section, or even a few lines of text. At any rate I definitely don't think it's fair to unqualified users to give no indication that they shouldn't be editing.
  Currently there is an edit filter that disallows edits from users who do not meet the 30/500 qualification. When this was set up I was given an explicit set of articles to target, that has been added to since then. I believe the editing restriction should be exclusively enforced by these means. It seems silly to allow any given editor to enforce it manually based on their own interpretation (not to say When Other Legends Are Forgotten's opinion is wrong).
  There has been talk of introducing a new page protection system powered by a template (documentation to come) and two separate edit filters. Lengthy discussion can be found here and here. If we proceed with this route, it will be clear to editors the page is protected, as it will have a padlock icon. The decision to impose the editing restriction will be left to admins at their discretion, and users could request this protection at WP:RFPP (have to talk to Cyberpower678 about the bot, but one step at a time). Any admin can add the enforcing template to a page and the edit filter will then protect that page under the 30/500 restriction. An additional edit filter will ensure only admins can add and remove the padlock template. I believe this new system will alleviate confusion on what articles are under the editing restriction, as the process will be very formal. Having authored the template and offering to author the new filters, I am actually ready to move forward with this approach pending consensus to do so. Pinging SpacemanSpiff and NeilN (maybe this isn't the best place to discuss)
  Hopefully we can adopt the new system soon. Until then, I believe the single edit filter we have now is the best course. If there are any outstanding articles that fall under the editing restriction but are not currently enforced, please let edit filter managers know via the filter noticeboard.

• @When Other Legends Are Forgotten: (pings don't actually work here since there's no timestamp =P): I don't think getting admin attention will be that much of an issue, as you'll be able to request protection at WP:RFPP just as you do any type of protection (we can even add it to Twinkle). E.g. anyone can add {{pp-protected}} to an article, but it won't actually be protected until an admin comes along and does it. Similarly the same is true for the 30/500 restriction. I realize this is a bit different because with semi it's at admin discretion whether or not it should be protected, whereas if you created a new page that's unambiguously about the Arab-Israeli conflict, no one is going to argue it qualifies for the 500/30 arbitration remedy -- and by all means, revert as necessary in that case if the protection is not yet in place. You might as well request an admin to add the padlock template, otherwise it's purely up to the page watchers to enforce the restriction, and only those page watchers who know the restriction even exists. Admin intervention also ensures we don't get bogus claims that a page is eligible for 30/500 (again, not referring to you). E.g. one could add it to the talk page and start reverting away, until someone comes by and stops them.
  Another idea is to make sure all pages with the 30/500 template are also semi'd (as no anons meet 30/500). That way we can utilize some technical magic to make the {{ARBPIA}} template add a category if the corresponding subject page is not semi'd. This would give us a list of pages that probably also need to have the 500/30 enforcing template added to them. Hell, we could even have a bot find all pages with {{ARBPIA}} on the talk page and no {{pp-30-500}} template on the subject page. I don't want to get too carried away with technical matters, and further backlog my list of to-dos, but the template approach to enforcing the 500/30 restriction is at the top of that list -- and I really think it is the best solution, which means we will require admin intervention to qualify an article for 30/500 but in a way that's more formal and conducive to a stable editing environment — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:57, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• @Zero0000: If by "tag" you mean the new {{pp-30-500}} which automatically enforces the editing restriction, the addition of it will absolutely have to be left to admins (they can be involved, assuming there's no question it applies to that article). This is a powerful editing restriction, much moreso than semi, pending-changes, or even PC2. We can not let just anyone add it, we need admins to verify it is truly needed on that article or else it's usage is subject to abuse. Again, getting admin attention is as simple as making an RFPP request. These are processed quickly.
  Now, if an article is clearly subject to the arbitration remedy, anyone can of course enforce the 30/500 restriction manually, but they should at least add {{ARBPIA}} to the talk page so people are aware this is a thing, and also request 30-500 protection assuming they are aware it exists. There might also be articles where only a portion of it is subject to 30/500 restriction. In such a case we obviously wouldn't protect it with {{pp-30-500}}, and enforement would have to be left to page watchers.
  Again mind you there is an edit filter already doing this job, just doesn't go off of a template admins can add, which is the better solution as it won't require edit filter managers to update which articles are protected. This edit filter was put in place as a result of this ArbCom case, and it's usage was challenged and upheld here and here. The filter-enforced disallowing of edits is favourable over letting editors do the job manually, as it presents a friendly edit notice telling the user why they can't edit, as opposed to bitey page watchers reverting with the summary "you can't edit here". All in all, if we are to keep the 30/500 editing restriction, I see no reason why we shouldn't do in a way consistent with other page protections, especially given this one is the more powerful of protections.

• Regarding talk pages: I'm with Zero, Kelapstick and Drmies in that there should be no automatic disallowing of users not meeting 30/500 from editing talk pages. This is the only venue they have to contribute. As such protection should be done no different than as we would with any other page – only protect once repeated disruption has been observed, as a preventive measure. We should start with semi, and if disruption continues, admins will be able to add {{pp-30-500}} to enforce the 30/500 editing restriction.
  I also agree with Xaosflux that edit notices (and the {{ARBPIA}} on the talk page) should be required. The issue is unqualified editors still see the Edit button, and may spend some time making sizable contributions before edit filters disallows the edit, or someone reverts them. It's only fair for them to be given prior notice — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:28, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Kirill Lokshin and Opabinia regalis: This template/filter based solution is ready to go, I just wanted to make sure there was consensus to implement it. This is a whole new form of protection, in line with any other level of protection. With it's usage comes responsibility, and a strict protocol might be needed. I think it should only be used when a page is unambiguously qualifies for 30/500 protection, in that the subject itself falls under the restriction – not just a section of the article or a paragraph therein. I also don't think it should be used on talk pages, and that clearly is subject to debate. Note that I can implement it to only work on article pages. What do you think? — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Zero0000

I do not think that a tag should be required. Experience with the ARBPIA sanctions over several years shows that the few disputes over which articles are included are fairly easy for the admins at AE to decide. And once they have decided, the status of that article is settled from then on.

In case a tag is decided, it would be a very bad idea to require an uninvolved admin to add it. The outcome of such a rule in practice would that the sanctions would only ever be active in a small fraction of the articles in which they are required. I propose the opposite: any editor satisfying the 30/500 condition can add a tag; any uninvolved administrator can rule that the tag is not appropriate for that article. (But I still think that no tags at all would be better.) Zero^talk 07:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Regarding talk pages, previous restrictions in the ARBPIA series were not applied to talk pages and I think it would be bad policy to start now. Talk pages should be open to all editors in good standing. Editors who cannot edit an article themselves should still be able to go onto the talk page and make suggestions for article improvement. If necessary, the wording of ARBPIA3 should be adjusted to make this clearer. Zero^talk 23:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@Guerillero:, yes, the literal reading of "any page" includes talk pages, project pages, even user pages (eg my talk page is clearly related to the i-p conflict; are IPs now forbidden from writing there?). However I looked in vain for any discussion or even mention of this issue on the ARBPIA3 pages and seriously wonder if the arbitrators who voted for the proposal noticed that it said "page" rather than "article". If an IP notices a typo, where can be it legally reported? Zero^talk 07:32, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

While it's clear that ARBCOM explicitly allow for the GP to be enforced in any way that is currently possible including manual reverts, When Other Legends Are Forgotten seems to be under the impression that the restrictions can be enforced by sockpuppets of topic banned/blocked users, such as himself, very probably a sock of NoCal100, during the often extended periods Wikipedia's slow and deeply flawed system of protection against sockpuppetry allows the sock to remain active. Perhaps ARBCOM could make it clear that sockpuppets of blocked users are never allowed to enforce the restrictions (or indeed do anything at all in ARBPIA) and When Other Legends Are Forgotten could accept and abide by that clear rule so that we don't have the absurd and counterproductive situation of a person who is not allowed to edit in ARBPIA (or anywhere) telling people that they are not allowed to edit in ARBPIA. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:27, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Statement by xaosflux

Personally I abhor that a new "class" of editor has been created by decree of ArbCom. That being said, as it has been decided to ban all new editors from editing certain articles - I think it needs to be abundantly clear to the editors that they are under such a topic ban and why. I think at a minimum edit notices should be required on any page that is considered in scope of this ban. While the decision only says that this ban "may" be enforced, I would never enforce it for any good faith edit - however the sanction appears to support allowing anyone else to enforce it even for good faith editing. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:13, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (2): Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (2): Arbitrator views and discussion

• No, but articles that fall inside of the 30/500 GP should be tagged. We explicitly allow for the GP to be enforced in any way that is currently possible including manual reverts --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 06:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
  • @Zero0000: The wording is plenty clear that are prohibited from editing any page includes talk pages. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 01:11, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree with Guerillero. Having said that, I think MusikAnimal is correct in that an automatic, edit filter-based system would be a far better enforcement mechanism than having individual editors perform manual reverts, and would not object to amending the case to require its use once it's operational. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 21:21, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
  • @MusikAnimal: I would support trying it out on the basis you've suggested (application based only on article subjects and only to articles). Let's test it out for a few months and see how well it works and whether we need to adjust those criteria. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
• All articles covered by the 30/500 rule should be tagged, however from a practical standpoint I know that not all of them are. Not being tagged does not inherently mean that the article does not fall under the restriction. As far as the wording of the GP, it restricts editing on any page, which based on my interpretation would include talk pages. Having said that, common sense should prevail. For example, if an IP makes a good faith edit request on the talk page, the request should be reviewed, rather than just blanket reverted, because it's permitted. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:21, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
  • If this is ready to implement, we should implement it per Kirill's suggestion, for articles only (not talk pages). --kelapstick^(bainuu) 20:00, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
• No, and yes. No, they don't need to be tagged; yes, I see no reason to deny IPs from editing the talk pages (in other words, I'm going with Kelapstick's common sense, rather than his earlier reference to the Letter Of The Law). Drmies (talk) 19:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
• Also no and yes, in that I wouldn't add the edit filter to talk pages. GF requests should be considered, that's common sense, but I'm not sure how much use of talk pages those that can't actually edit the articles should be allowed. Doug Weller talk 21:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Doug, I think the risk of disruption on those talk page is so much lower that we can accept that. If the privilege gets abused we can block, and I suppose we can always revisit it. Drmies (talk) 20:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Sure Drmies, we don't need to do anything right now about talk pages. We can handle any problems that might arise. Doug Weller talk 15:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
• In brief, I agree with Kelapstick; articles subject to the restriction should be tagged, but common sense says talk pages should be unrestricted unless problems occur. On the template/filter system, I'm glad to see that people have been working on developing a workable technical solution for this, which is much superior to "manual" enforcement. I hesitate to have arbcom start mandating the use of specific, purpose-built technical means to restrict editing, but given the level of disruption in this topic area, would be willing to try Kirill's suggested amendment once the system is up and running. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:44, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
  • @MusikAnimal: What Kirill said. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Supporting Kirill's comments also. Doug Weller talk 15:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
• Pages should be tagged (both with an editnotice and a notice on the talk page) and technical enforcement seems optimal (to the extent of Kirill's comments above). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• I also agree that pages should be tagged (And I think that when the more complicated filter is adopted, the padlock is not sufficient tagging--though people will not be able to edit, they need to know why); and I agree that this is not meant to apply to talk pages. If we ever need to do that, we can, but so far it does not seem necessary. DGG ( talk ) 19:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (3) (January 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Sir Joseph at 14:32, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Sir Joseph

I put in an AE against someone but........... but I did have a question for clarification. The most recent decision of the ARBPIA specified that any editor may revert an IP editor or < 500 poster without regard for the content of the post.

1)If the IP is adding correct information, and another editor leaves it in, does it then still get to be reverted, and if it does, does it get to be reverted hours later? For example, an IP editor adds some content, I, or someone else looks at it and realizes it to be a good edit so it's left in. Is it still considered revertable or is it now part of the article? Does it make sense that it can be reverted 5 hours later, even if the article was edited by another editor in the meanwhile?

2)If the IP is adding/removing information and the non-IP is just reverting without looking since IP-IP-IP says we can, what can a non-IP editor do to not run into 1RR rules when he wants to keep that information in?

I understand that someone might not want to get involved, but there are issues when you revert blindly without looking at the content. I've seen it several times already and most recently yesterday/today which is what made me post this clarification request. There certainly has to be a time limit on the IP reversion, or at the very least once another editor has edited the page after the IP editor, then that IP editor's edits should not be considered revertible.

@Serialjoepsycho, so you're OK with someone reverting an IP edit's content indefinitely? At a certain point, the edit becomes part of the article and should no longer become an "IP edit subject to unlimited revert." If another editor edited the page and hours passed by, then that edit should not be allowed to be blindly reverted. You say it's not broke, but I disagree. When you blindly revert content from an encyclopedia without looking at content, that obviously is damaging to the encyclopedia. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:30, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

@SJP, it first says "ALL anonymous IP edits and then registered 500/30. Of course what is not an anonymous IP? Does that then open it up to a known IP editor who doesn't want to register for whatever reason? That's another headache. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Serialjoepsycho

This is a very simple matter. WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 is (though not called) a topic ban. WP:BANREVERT already covers it. If it's not broke don't fix it. It's not broke.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Do I have a problem with someone reverting an IP edit's content indefinitely? Absolutely. But then that's not actually what we are talking about. We are talking about someone reverting a topic banned editor, that is IP editors and all other editors with under 500 edits who are topic banned from editing ARBPIA articles. Anyone who is not topic banned is free to reinsert this material. Now this person may also be reverted, but we have talk pages. They can go to those talk pages and give a coherent justification for those changes. If they fail to get a consensus they can open an RFC or some other form of dispute resolution and seek a consensus. There is nothing new with WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 other than how these editors get released from the topic ban. Reverting banned users is not new. It's certainly not a broken system because you couldn't settle a content dispute at AE. That is actually intended.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 17:54, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

@Kirill Lokshin:, I question the actual clarity. Reading it myself I took it to apply to IP editors under 500 edits and registered editors under 500 edits. If this is intended to entirely block all IP editors it might be apt to change the language. Probably something to the effect of All anonymous IP editors or accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited.... Specifically changing the conjunction and to or.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 19:41, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved TransporterMan

If the Committee is taking the position, which appears that it may be, that BANREVERT is not applicable in this situation the Committee would be well-advised to be careful not to create or inadvertently or intentionally imply any obligation to restore the reverted material which could cause either the reverting editor, regular maintainers, or other editors to be subject to criticism or sanctions if they fail to do it. That's just another opening for the kind of drama which this restriction and exception to BANREVERT is intended to avoid. (If words such as "should be restored" are used, it should be made clear that "should" in that case means, "it would be a good thing for the encyclopedia if they were restored, but no one is required to do so.") Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:20, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (3): Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 (3): Arbitrator views and discussion

• WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 is quite clear: any IP edit to the affected pages may be reverted on sight, regardless of how much time has elapsed or whether there have been subsequent edits. If another editor wishes to re-instate the same content, they may do so using their own account, subject to the various other restrictions in place (such as the general 1RR)—but this must be done with an explicit new edit, and not by merely choosing not to revert the original one.

  (The extra work involved here is one of the reasons why I think we need to use an edit filter approach that disallows the original edits in the first place, rather than forcing other editors to revert them by hand.) Kirill Lokshin (talk) 18:30, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, in the case of a valid edit by an IP, the edit can (probably should) be reverted, and reinstated by a permitted editor, who then takes ownership of the addition. I was thinking that a null edit could be completed where the edit was accepted by a +500/30 editor, however that would just get too complicated. As Kirill states, in this case, not taking action cannot be seen as an acceptance, it is would be too difficult to track. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:27, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
• I've no issue with a null edit being used as long as it explicitly defines the content the IP has added (such as a space added either side). However as Kelapstick says it could (and probably will get complicated) so reverting and re-adding (with a link to the +500/30 IP or account edit) would seem like the best idea. I agree that technical enforcement would be beneficial. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:08, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (March 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Sir Joseph at 14:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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

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

Information about amendment request

• All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• All anonymous IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days days tenure are prohibited from editing....

Statement by Sir Joseph

The existing statement has a logic hole that while unintended creates some ambiguity if read logically. If someone has fewer than 500 edits but more than 30 days tenure, because the statement is written in the negative, that person would not be covered by the clause. While an admin and ARBCOM might understand that the person should be covered, it should be rewritten to clarify that you need to be here 30 days and 500 edits because we should enforce rules as written not as intended. You can see one discussion at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Removing_analysis_of_POV_author_in_Hebron_Pages where the logic was pointed out (originally, some user noted that it was clear, and when I pointed out to him the negative, he reversed, so clearly there is some murkiness.) As stated at the page:

1. Shit, you're right. I'm reading it as it's intended, not as it's written. Okay, so ARBCOM needs to read logical conjunction. Clpo13
2. With all those AND's in the the 500/30 ruling, it looks like a logic gate. The assumption at the time looks to be based on preventing brand new accounts and IPs from editing but it indeed fails to rule out old accounts with less than 500 edits, whether it be because the account holder doesn't edit much or the edit counting software doesn't count extremely historical edits. I'm striking my comment above as well. This looks to be something that needs a Clarification request at WP:AE Blackmane
3. I think my statement covers what is intended by the ARBCOM ruling, I ran it through my SQL brain and it does work. I also switched to "fewer" because I believe that is more grammatically correct when you are counting something distinct. This should be a simple amendment that should clarify the issue. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by RolandR

Despite the assertion above, the sanction is not written in the negative. It is quite clear, and positive: "All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited...". The "and" makes it evident that only editors with both 30 days tenure and 500 edits are allowed to edit in this topic area. RolandR (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Sir Joseph's latest response does not make sense. The phrase "All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited..." quite clearly means "all anonymous IP editors" and "all accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure". Parsing it the way Sir Joseph suggests would ban "all anonymous editors" and "all accounts with fewer than 500 edits" and "30 days tenure" (not "editors with fewer than 30 days tenure"). This would be nonsensical, and obviously not what is intended; to create such a sanction, the phrase would have had to read "All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits or 30 days tenure are prohibited..." Since the arbitrators chose to use the word "and", not the word "or", it is clear that their intention was that editors were obliged to meet both criteria, not simply either criterion. At least I agree with him about the use of "less" instead of "fewer". RolandR (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with mathematicians or computer programmers. We are editors on English Wikipedia, reading and writing in English and employing (or trying to) the common rules of grammar, not scientific specialists trying to programme a machine. RolandR (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

(Referring to an intermediate comment by Mrbrklyn, now moved to its own section). The rule IS tied together with an "and", not an "or": "All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited...". And your personal abuse is not appreciated; please in future stick to the issue itself. RolandR (talk) 12:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Additional Clarification Statement by Sir Joseph

RolandR, because this is ARBCOM, we have to be exact in the ruling, and this statement is not logical in what they want. If you parse this out logically, it excludes old accounts with fewer than 500 edits. The statement as currently written, basically says: All anonymous editors AND all editors with less than 500 edits AND editors with less than 30 days tenure. Because of all the "ANDS" the last one means it is a distinct statement, similarly to how the 500 edits clause is distinct from the anonymous edit clause. It is a simple amendment to clarify that this ruling is for anonymous edits, and 500 edits and also those with less than 30 days tenure. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

RolandR, why are you breaking the statement the way you are, "All anonymous edits" and "all accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure" the way it is written, you can also break it as, "All anonymous edits and all accounts with less than 500 edits" and "30 days tenure" I'm not sure why you are against this proposal. This clarifies the intended ruling. If you take the written statement as it is now and parse it logically, it will fail what ARBCOM intended. Take it to a programmer or a mathematician. The fact that people are debating it means it is not 100% clear and if a few commas can clarify it then we should change it. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Exactly, and the statement as written is ambiguous. You know what ARBCOM intended so you don't see the ambiguity perhaps. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:40, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare, your suggestion would have the same logic issue in your second statement. My suggestion, while a bit more verbose covers everyone, without ambiguity.

@GorillaWarfare,(mobile edit) I think because you have an "or" in your second clause it would allow older accounts with fewer than 500 edits. I'm not positive though. (Btw, the ping for me didn't work. I wonder if a space in the name breaks it)Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

One bit of clarification, what is the difference between an "anonymous" IP address and a regular IP address? Does that mean that if we have a static IP who edits for years and just doesn't want to login or register they can edit? If so, how are we, or the edit filter, supposed to determine who that is? I think it might then make more sense to just say IP, or we need to figure out a way to somehow whitelist some of the IP addresses into the edit filter for known IP addresses. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:50, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: Thanks, I think this language should be much clearer to all. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Blackmane

I also commented in the ANI thread that Sir Joseph refers to. The ambiguity arose because the reported user had only about 350 edits but the age of the account was well over a few years. The Arbcom ruling does not include such accounts. The spirit of the ruling was to prevent new accounts and anons from diving straight into the swamp of PI articles. The ambiguity unfortunately does leave a loophole whereby long dormant accounts with less than 500 edits could bypass the ruling. It would be worth clarifying whether these accounts are included under the ruling. It could be argued that such dormant accounts would not be familiar with the more recent ARbcom rulings and should thus be excluded from editing in ARBPIA3 sanctioned articles. Blackmane (talk) 04:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Mrbrklyn: I used what info is available based on the pop up tool and extended that as an example. How big your brood is, is of little importance to me and to this ARCA, as is how much time you can or cannot spend here. What is salient to the discussion is how the text of the Arbcom ruling applies to old accounts with few edits. Blackmane (talk) 11:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Zero0000

Even if the original text is ok, which can be argued, the proposed text is better. So I support the change. Zero^talk 08:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity

The rule is confusing as written. What is surely intended is the following: "Editing in the I/P area is allowed only to editors with a registered account created at least 30 days previously that has been used to perform at least 500 edits." In this instance, it's clearer to write what is allowed, not what is prohibited. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:51, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Responses by Mrbrklyn

• @Sir Joseph: No - it is restrictive enough as it is. If a use is less than 30 days or have less than 500 edits, then they should be resticts. Anyone with an account over 30 days should be given a pass. YOU HAVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE EDITED WIKIPEDEA FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS. They should not be restricted. Mrbrklyn (talk) 06:39, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

• @RolandR: You don't know what you are talking about Roland, which is not unusual. Logic is not a function of Comp Sci, and the language in predicate logic, which is what is being discussed here, was outlined by Charlse Dickens....

So learn how to read and apply logic, if you desire to be an editor on the big stage. If you can't handle this basic logic problem, how are you in a position to make decisions that affect the policy for MILLIONS of people.

What your intending it to say, and it is NOT what it says, is

ALL Announynous IPS and ACCOUNTS with Few that than 500 editos OR less than 30 days old.

You want the conditions to BE NOT tied toether with an AND, but EITHER case....

That being said, that rule would SUCK and would eliminate all us older people wh:o not only can parse basic logic, and even multiply in our heads.

I'm opposed to changing it. Those who are NOT 30 days old AND with 500 edits (both together) ONLY should be banded because then they are new. Even if they have 500 edits, they should be at least 30 days old. Mrbrklyn (talk) 06:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

• @Blackmane: My activity has not been dormant. I have 6 kids that use this thing all the time, aside myself. What I don't have is endless amounts of time arguing over nonsense all the time, or a political ax to grind, like our group of radical leftists, and BSD activists on here. Mrbrklyn (talk) 06:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Blackmane: - It is important because from the matter of policy it is being asserted that old accounts are dormant, and they are NOT dormant, and suddenly come alive in some neferious means to disrupt paged. They are not dormant and neither, most important, are the users. I'm sorry, I've been useing wikipedea and editing CONTINUALLY since its inception, and a policy that prevents my voice from being heard on at talk page sucks. The ruling should remain, IMO, that accounts younger than 30 days AND less than 500 edits, should remain. Once either of those thresholds are passed, there should be no restriction.

BTW - the software is not showing all my edits Mrbrklyn (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

• @Opabina and others: The meaning for the sentence of the restriction is not really a debating point. It has, factualy, one meaning. It is not abiguousitous either except that it confuses readers, but upon analysis it has ONE CLEAR meaning which is that accounts MUST be less than 30 days only and MUST have less than 500 Edit in order to be restricted. I would say, don't change it. The rule has been abused enough. As for the idea that accounts are more than a single user, that is HIGHLY unlikely. By changing this to an extreme restriction, you leave the editing in the hands of a few full time radicals and prevent the common working man with a chance to have an input. Maybe extend the account age to 6 months?

Additionally, wikipedea software is not tracking editing numbers in history correctly. There are 100's of edits that are not in my account listing. Ihace had whole articles created, argued and merged... no record of them. Mrbrklyn (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There really are 2 ways of reasonably interpreting this statement using normal English parsing, although they are not exactly what Sir Joseph describes:

(1) There are two classes of editors who are prohibited from editing the pages:

• All IP editors
• All accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenures

(2) There are two classes of editors who are prohibited from editing the pages:

• All IP editors with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure
• All accounts with less then 500 edits and 30 days tenure

I assume that the committee meant the latter, only because the first is the equivalent of permanent semi-protection for a large class of articles, something which is not often done, however, English does allow the first interpretation, depending on whether the first "and" is inclusive or not (the second "and" obviously is from context alone). I would also guess that the vast majority of IP editors never reach the 500/30 threshold, so any IP that does is effectively in a sub-class of "non-registered accounts" (i.e. long-time editors) which should be treated the same way as a long-term editor with an actual account. But given the potential ambiguity of the statement, perhaps a clarification would be in order. BMK (talk) 21:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

• @Mrbrklyn: Threaded discussion is not allowed in this area. Your comments have been moved to a separate section, right above this one. BMK (talk) 18:38, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

• Also, please note that the bottom section is for the comments of Arbitrators only. No one should be posting there except Arbitrators. BMK (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

• Guerillero & Kirill: That seems sensible. BMK (talk) 01:51, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

• Incidentally, although I don't think anyone has actually mentioned it, this request grew out of a discussion on WP:AN concerning Mrbrklyn's editing on Hebron and related pages, so it's probably as important to clarify the actual intended meaning of the sanction as it is to decide whether a clarification of the wording should be undertaken. Non-Arbitrator admins may want to take some action on the basis of the committee's decision. BMK (talk) 02:32, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward

This is a decaration that all IP editors are vandals. Since they change and are not controlled by the IP editor, it may be an impossible goal. Semi-pretect it. Or semi-protect it and add the requirement to newly created users. But applying 500/30 makes it seem as if anyone can acquire the ability to edit, even IP's, but that is not the case. It becomes a false assertion that the article is not semi-protected and is ripe for abuse that avoids scrutiny. --DHeyward (talk) 22:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

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

• Tidied a bit. Kharkiv07 (T) 18:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

• My understanding of this (although I wasn't on the committee when it passed) was that this restriction was the equivalent of BMK's first description. And it equated to de facto semiprotection plus a restriction on those editors who do not have 30 days tenure and 500 edits. Yes this restricts ten year old accounts with less than 500 edits. Related to the semiprotection comment, in the last (or one of the requests since January) this was discussed, and it was stated (at least by me and nobody disagreed) that this was effectively blanket semiprotection, however semiprotection was not implemented on all related pages as it does not cover the entire restriction. Since we are having this discussion it seems that there is some degree ambiguity that must be addressed. I don't see how we can say that IPs with 30 days tenure and 500 edits can be considered "one user", and thus exempted from the restriction. I believe I also mentioned in a previous discussion related to this that we shouldn't just blanket reverted an IPs edit "because we can" if it makes sense not to, and that common sense should prevail (famous last words). --kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:17, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Given the confusion above, I think clarifying this wording would be a good idea. Perhaps "Any (a) anonymous IP editor, or (b) account with fewer than 500 edits or less than 30 days tenure, is prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." I also think that 500/30-restricted articles should be semi-protected for the duration of the restriction. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @Sir Joseph: Hrm, I'm not sure I see the ambiguity, but your suggestion ("All anonymous IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days days tenure are prohibited from editing...") also seems fine. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I've gone ahead and proposed a motion since there seems to be some support for it here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
    • @Sir Joseph: I have removed "anonymous" from "anonymous IP editors," though I'd be shocked if that would cause issues if left in. GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:29, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
• I have no objections to a wording tweak, but I think in context it's quite obvious that the intended scope is that editing these pages is permitted only by owners of accounts more than 30 days old which have more than 500 edits. (There have been various proposals to implement this by technical means, either by an edit filter or a new user group, and AFAIK both have used this definition - it'd be interesting to check if anyone involved in those discussions noticed or pointed out this apparent ambiguity.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:53, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
• My original intent was BMKs first reading. The statement in question was written to exclude three classes of editors: IP editors, named editors with less than 30 days tenure, and named editors with less than 500 edits. Some accounts can fall under more than one of these classifications. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 22:22, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
• I have no objection to adjusting the wording to better reflect our intended meaning. To avoid confusion, perhaps we can simply name the three classes of excluded editors (per Guerillero) explicitly? Kirill Lokshin (talk) 01:03, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Motion: Palestine-Israel articles 3

Remedy 2 (General Prohibition) is replaced with, "All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters."

For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	8
1–2	7
3–4	6

Enacted - Kharkiv07 (T) 13:51, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Support

1. As proposer. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
2. Sure. Clarity is always preferred. Gamaliel (talk) 03:32, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
3. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 03:35, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
4. kelapstick^(bainuu) 03:51, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
5. I've also done a minor c/e. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:59, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
6. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:06, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
7. Definitely clearer than what we had passed originally. Courcelles (talk) 05:55, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
8. Doug Weller talk 16:05, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
9. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:00, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

Comments

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (March 2016 2)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Howicus at 18:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Howicus

So, I came across a new user who ran afoul of the editing restrictions related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. I do not want to give them incorrect advice, especially in an area like this where a violation can lead to a block. The restriction states "All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." Does this also prohibit those users from posting on article talk pages of articles related to the conflict? I looked around on related talk pages, and I saw IPs and new accounts who posted without getting blocked, warned, or reverted, but I would like to know for certain. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 18:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much, kelapstick. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 00:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Joseph

I think there is a big difference between a talk page and an article page. It is not that often you will find a vandal participating in the talk pages of an area. There are people who instinctively revert any IP address edit in the ARBPIA area and I think that is stupid, whether it's in an article or talk page. We should be encouraging talk page edits, they are contributing ideas and while they can't edit the actual article, they may be helping someone else come to a better edit. Of course, if they are disruptive, then you have free revert. As to the letter of the law, which is your question, yes, they are not allowed to edit in the talk page or the article and someone could bring them to AE and have them blocked. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:50, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Howicus, this came up in January. The 30/500 restriction explicitly applies to talk pages. However (my opinion) best practice is to not blanket revert and throw blocks around willy nilly when non-disruptive Good Faith™ requests come from editors who are not permitted based on the restriction. If you are looking to advise a new user, I would advise them to not edit the talk page until they meet the criteria, as they may or may not find themselves blocked if they do. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 21:24, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
• What Kelapstick said. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:53, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
• See Kelapstick 2016a --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 13:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
• Agree, seems good advice. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
• Excellent advice. Gamaliel (talk) 00:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• Pile-on "per Kelapstick". Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Ha, so I did, thanks DGG. Though I think I was thinking of whether or not they should be tagged for the edit filter. "Don't technically prevent such edits, but don't encourage them either" sounds right. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:19, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
• When this was considered in January,only Guerrillio and Klapastic said it should apply to talk pages ; Drmies, Doug, Opabinia, and DGG said it should not. I remain of the opinion that it should not. If disruption occurs there, it can be dealt with, but there is no evidence that sine the remedy was passed, the new eds. are being disruptive there. DGG ( talk ) 01:51, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 - General Prohibition (April 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Clivel 0 at 18:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

WP:ARBPIA3#500/30

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

• Clivel 0 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request [17]

Statement by Clivel 0

This decision prohibits accounts with fewer than 500 edits from editing any page that could be "reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". I would however like clarification as to what is meant by "reasonably construed" as this seems to be a rather imprecise term open to interpretation. For example, given that the vast majority of anti-Semites also dislike the Jewish State (even if the converse is not necessarily true) and therefore likely to take sides against Israel, is it the intention of WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 to stifle debate on anti-Semitism, or could that be an unfortunate side effect of an imprecisely worded decision?

A case in point being the Stephen Sizer page which Administrator User:EdJohnston has placed under the protection of the {{Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement}} banner. Due to the imprecise wording of WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 I believe that User:EdJohnston has incorrectly applied the banner.
As a vicar there would be little of note about Sizer that would even merit his inclusion in Wikipedia if it were not for allegations by the Board of Deputies of British Jews that Sizer has over a number of years promoted and distributed anti-Semitic material. This eventually resulted in his six month social media ban by the Bishop of Guildford who stated "I have concluded that, at the very least, he has demonstrated appallingly poor judgement in the material he has chosen to disseminate, particularly via social media, some of which is clearly anti-Semitic".
Also of some interest, but again in itself unlikely to be notable enough to warrant his inclusion in Wikipedia, is Sizer's strong opposition to the doctrine of Christian Zionism. A doctrine which believes that the return of Jews to the Holy Land is necessary in order to full-fill a Biblical prophesy. Again this is not directly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict although it is possible that both proponents and opponents of this doctrine could take sides in this conflict, something Sizer seemingly has done, yet I don't believe that in itself offers offers enough weight to place the page under the {{Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement}} protection. Otherwise, almost any page mentioning Jews, Israel or anti-Semitism could at a stretch be "reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". Clivel 0 (talk) 18:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf (re PIA3)

"Reasonably construed" is pretty standard phrasing on Wikipedia, and when I was on the Committee it was always taken to mean that if an uninvolved editor reasonably believed that the subject was related to the area of dispute and that applying restrictions would be of benefit then they may be applied.

The purpose of a 500/30 restriction is not to stifle debate - Wikipedia articles and talk pages are not forums to debate the subject. Wikipedia articles exist to present an encyclopaedic overview of the subject from a neutral point of view. The point of talk pages is to discuss the wording of the article and how to improve it. To this end, a 500/30 restriction facilitates the discussion in that it allows participation only from those who have at least a basic understanding of the point of the discussion and Wikipedia's policies and culture. Thryduulf (talk) 11:20, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston (re PIA3)

My decision to put the ARBPIA banner on Talk:Stephen Sizer was discussed at User talk:EdJohnston#EW: Stephen Sizer. I gave my rationale to User:Clivel 0 for considering this article to be related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed. I had first become aware of the Stephen Sizer article on March 23, per a 3RR complaint. I closed that complaint with 3 days of full protection for the article.

It is evident that Sizer holds views about Israel that have drawn wide attention. Articles about Sizer don't always agree on how to summarize him. In his own blog in 2009 Stephen Sizer asserted "I do wish to see the present illegal occupation of Gaza, the Golan and the West Bank “disappear”…" An article in Church Times says "On Monday, the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, announced that he had given Dr Sizer an ultimatum: stop your activism over the Israel-Palestine conflict or lose your parish." These sources indicate that Sizer has views that are related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is a different controversy as to whether the views of Sizer are antisemitic, but he argues plausibly that he is not. If we were only discussing whether person X was an antisemite then it's unlikely that ARBPIA would apply to their article. EdJohnston (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 - General Prohibition: Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3 - General Prohibition: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Shouldn't this have gone to AE for wider review first, if Ed's talk page explanations didn't satisfy? I really don't see that ARCA or the committee needs to be getting involved in making rulings about specific articles, and Ed's reasoning for why this article falls under the restriction seems entirely reasonable and within administrative discretion to me. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
• This is unclear. If the question is about how wide the net is cast, that's a valid question in individual cases but not yet a matter for this forum. If the question is about a specific article, that can be exciting but it 's not clear to me what it has to do with the 500/30 setup. And finally, if the question is whether "WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 [was written up] to stifle debate on anti-Semitism", the answer is no. Drmies (talk) 02:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Ed's explanation works for me also. And it definitely was not written to stifle debate on anti-Semitism. Doug Weller talk 13:37, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• What Doug said. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 21:23, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• While I'm all for clarity in our remedies, there's only so much we can define. "Reasonably construed" is an attempt to avoid trying to codify every last thing that is and is not within the topic area—a task that would be impossible. It is to be interpreted as Thryduulf explains above: if an uninvolved editor reasonably believes that the subject is related to the area of dispute, it is reasonably construed to be within the topic area. In this specific case, I think EdJohnston's application of the banner is acceptable per his explanation. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:59, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• This is an appropriate application of "reasonably construed". The restriction could not be applied to anything having to do with anti-semitism, but there is a clear connection to ARBPIA, as outlined by EdJohnston above. Gamaliel (talk) 01:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Decline to consider as I consider this to be a reasonable exercise of admin discretion which is what I generally see the role of ARCA to be in enforcing discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:51, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (May 2016)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Nableezy at 22:17, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification EdJohnston

Statement by Nableezy

The longstanding practice on what edits are governed under the prohibitions passed as part of ARBPIA and ARBPIA2 was that it applied to all edits within the topic area, meaning pages that as a whole are a part of the topic area and any edit to them is covered (e.g. Hamas, Israeli-occupied territories ...) and individual edits that are about the topic to pages that as a whole do not fall within the topic area are also covered while edits to those pages outside of the topic are not (eg editing the Barack Obama page to edit material on his views and or actions regarding the conflict are covered but edits regarding his election to the presidency are not). The prohibition WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 however says that IP editors and named accounts with less than 500 edits/30 days of tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That on its face leaves out edits to pages that are largely outside the topic area but edits that very much are within the topic area. I'm requesting clarification on whether both sets of edits are covered under the prohibition, and if so suggest an edit along the lines of are prohibited from making any edits that could be ... replacing are prohibited from editing any page that could be .... This came up on AE, so thought it wise to ask for clarification here. I'm not entirely sure who needs to be a party here, I just added the admin dealing with the AE complaint.

@Kirill Lokshin: Sean's comment below has several examples, the ones I think are the least ambiguous are [18], [19], [20], and [21]. None of those articles can reasonably be said to be, as a whole, part of the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area, but each of the edits unambiguously are. Maybe Ed is right and this is premature, but I'm not too concerned about that specific AE. Regardless of how that is closed I'd prefer a crystal clear prohibition one way or the other, and this seems like an easy thing to make that clear. nableezy - 16:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

• User:Nableezy probably opened this due to some comments made in the thread at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Wikiwillkane. The AE thread is still open. At the moment it appears that the AE complaint might well be closed due to an agreement by Wikiwillkane to cease all edits in the Arab-Israeli topic area until he has reached 500 edits. In my opinion this request for clarification is premature. In the past it has been agreed by the committee that some articles are under a topic ban only in part. Whatever the decision reached about partially-banned articles, the AE can go forward anyway since several fully-banned articles are named in the diffs. EdJohnston (talk) 14:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

The thread at AE about Wikiwillkane has now been closed with a warning against any further violations of the 500/30 rule. I am unsure whether it makes this ARCA moot or not, since I think Nableezy would like the committee to issue a general ruling. The question (I think) is whether the General 500/30 prohibition and a typical ARBPIA topic ban have the same scope. That is, they both restrict all A-I-related editing across all of Wikipedia even when the entire article (such as Roseanne Barr) is not otherwise an ARBPIA topic. In the AE I found myself rejecting the arguments by Wikiwillkane who believed that adding mention of Roseanne Barr's speech to a BDS meeting was not an A-I violation. My view was based on what I consider to be common sense. The matter is sufficiently obvious that I don't think the committee needs to pass any motion to revise the wording of the 500/30 prohibition. EdJohnston (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

Recent examples: [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]

• ARBCOM authorized the WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 restriction for the ARBPIA topic area as everyone knows.
• The restriction can now be implemented automatically by the server via extended confirmed protection (see WP:BLUELOCK). This automates the task of ensuring IPs and accounts that are not allowed to edit certain articles cannot edit those articles.
• Extended confirmed protection has not been rolled out across the topic area for reasons that are unclear to me at least. It has only been implemented on articles on request after the articles have been subjected to disruption. The ARBCOM authorized restriction will be enforced whether or not an article is given extended confirmed protection. If the restriction is not enforced by the server via extended confirmed protection, it will be enforced by editors. The effect will be the same but the cost is different. Extended confirmed protection automates the enforcement of a restriction that already unambiguously applies to thousands of articles.
• Extended confirmed protection is limited in the sense that it only works at the article level. So it could be argued that it can only reasonably be implemented on any page that "could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". If extended confirmed protection had been rolled out across the topic area, Wikiwillkane, an editor recently brought to AE, would not have been able to edit the Israeli-occupied territories, Palestinian political violence, Omar Barghouti and the Judea and Samaria Area articles and no one would have had to waste their time reverting them.
• Extended confirmed protection could not have prevented the creation of the Dafna Meir memorial article created for one of the 230+ victims of the latest wave of violence and the associated image copyright violations. Editors have to enforce extended confirmed protection in cases like that and they will.
• Extended confirmed protection is also not yet smart enough to help with the examples above where content unambiguously related to the Arab-Israeli conflict is added/updated/removed by people whose edits would have been rejected by the server if they had made the same edit in a protected article. The 500/30 rule needs to be implemented at the content/statement level to provide the kind of protection it is intended to provide. Any weakness will be exploited by people who lack the experience or integrity to comply with Wikipedia's rules. Editors who ignore WP:NOTADVOCATE will relentlessly exploit gaps in the protection, gaps that currently have to be plugged by people rather than the server.

Sean.hoyland - talk 13:27, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Joseph

We also have something similar where an editor will revert and label it ARBPIA 30/500 when the article is not under sanction at all. Most recently, I saw it at one of Israel's ambassadors. The page has no mention of any conflict, yet someone edited the page and it was reverted as if that page is under sanctions. What is to be done with things like that? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:22, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

In addition, why is Haaretz under sanctions? It's an article about a newspaper company. I looked at the history and couldn't find vandalism so extreme to label it under ARBPIA. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Nableezy, can you provide some examples of the types of edits in question? Kirill Lokshin (talk) 10:33, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
• 500/30 applies to all edits related to the Arab-Israeli conflict (not just articles). However BLUELOCK should only be applied to pages which are related to the Arab-Israeli conflict to avoid a situation where we have Barrack Obama's article (for example) BLUELOCK'd due to a related paragraph. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
• My first instinct was that this is scope creep. In particular, there is no way of informing newer editors of this restriction before they make an edit about the topic to some seemingly entirely unrelated page. But the examples offered are so obviously inappropriate that I do think they should be covered as a matter of common sense. I would hope to see people reserve strict enforcement for unambiguous cases, though. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:17, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
• Agreed with Callanecc on this one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:00, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
• I agree with Callan --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:49, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
• Coming late to the party with nothing to add except that I agree with Callan also. Doug Weller talk 17:29, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.