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Paul Siebert

No action. Sandstein 07:10, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Paul Siebert

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: My very best wishes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 22:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Paul Siebert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Eastern_Europe#Standard_discretionary_sanctions

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

[2] (last phrase at the bottom) - This is a BLP violation - accusing Stéphane Courtois of forgery; accusing a scientist of a scientific forgery is a very serious accusation.
[3] - This is a repeated BLP violation - contrary to claims by Paul, Courtois was not accused of forgery by his colleagues. They only had a public disagreement about numbers in a book and some interpretations.
[4] - This is a personal attack on article talk page (if a person behaves as a troll, then it is reasonable to conclude they are a troll, etc.) Paul argued about his edits: (a) (edit summary: "The source did not say the order was to use gas vans" and (b) [5]. Note that based on his own words (diff #3), Paul was well aware that the sources did say it, contrary to his edit summary. Here is whole thread. Paul make this edit to remove phrase "who acted on the orders from the higher NKVD administration" (his edit summary is "It is not clear that usage of gas vans was authorised by Berg supervisors...". This is also the title of the thread he started. How he justifies the removal? He tells (diff #3): "Nobody claims executions [of prisoners in gas vans] was Berg's own initiative. Obviously, he was doing that according to the order of his supervisors. The question was if the construction and usage of gas vans was the order of his supervisors." Does it sound logical?
[6] - This is personal attack on article talk page (starting from You cannot pretend you are an educated and skillful person...). This is clearly a personal comment, not just a criticism of something I have written during any discussions. He responds to this my comment.
[7] This is an unsubstantiated accusation of bad faith.
[8]. His "explanation" why I act in the bad faith.
[9] (last phrase at the bottom of the diff) - This is false accusation of misinterpreting a source. The accusation is completely groundless.
[10] Paul tells: if you see no anti-Semitism in these Solzhenitsyn's words, that tells something about you - reply to this. No, I do not see anti-Semitism in this quotation (last diff). Do you? What it suppose to tell about me? Yes, some writings by Solzenitsyn were debated as possibly antisemitic.
[11] - Long political rant culminating in accusing user Woogie10w of ... not respecting Paul's grandfather and Soviet people (your father came back .... because my grandfather was killed... Please, show respect to the people whose deaths allowed you to live. They were not just cattle...).
(older) [12] (at the bottom) - This is bad faith assumption - accusing Collect of deliberately violating a policy: You are repeatedly adding the text that violates WP:NPOV without properly explaining this addition on the talk page, citing a deliberately wrong reason. Their conversation resulted in such exchange: [13] ("you accused me of lying"), [14] ("I never accused you of lying, ... You falsely accused me in 1RR violation.")
[15] - misleading edit summary. The edit was explained on talk page [16], and Paul was well aware of this (some further comments: [17]).
(older) [18] - a thread started by Paul on article talk page. It was entiteled by Paul as "POV pushing". This is a violation of talk page guidelines. As banner on the top of the page tells, one should discuss only the improvement of the corresponding main space page. The thread by Paul was not about improvement of the page, but a flow of personal accusations ("POV pushing"). The accusations were bogus because there was no 1RR violation or any other "violations" alleged by Paul. This is actually a perfect example to explain how and why numerous article talk pages in the project are transformed to the "battlegrounds" simply because contributors (Paul in this case) start accusing others on the pages which exist only for discussing the improvement of content.

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

The alert was given on May 13, 2018

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I was very reluctant to submit this request and thought it might be avoided. Therefore, prior to filing any requests, I tried to explain to Paul that his editing was problematic (whole thread), but he responded with offenses (diffs #5, #6, "that's a lie", "you continue to pretend"). Moreover, he continued doing the same (for example, diffs #1, #2 and #9). All these discussions were related to Eastern Europe.

In addition, Paul produces very long and fruitless discussions on article talk pages and refuses to accept consensus or the lack of consensus. For example, speaking about "Black Book", he posted this question a few years ago. He recently re-posted it again [19]. He received no support, but still continue defaming the author of the book on WP pages (diffs #1 and #2). I do not know if his sources to discredit Stéphane Courtois are cherry-picked or just random, however they do not support the assertion by Paul that the notable academic has been involved in a scientific misconduct. I believe it is a BLP violation and WP:OR by Paul.

@Woogie10w. I am not surprised you do not want edit this subject. I think one problem is that Paul clearly exhibits an WP:TE editing pattern on the talk page (diffs #1, #2, #10, and #12; #9 was also related to this page). He also starts multiple threads trying to discredit the "Black Book of Communism", which is probably one of the best academic RS on the subject of this page. He does it over and over again: [20],[21],[22],[23]. And he continue doing the same on this AE page - see his response below [24].

@Paul Siebert. "Troll" again [25]? I do not find your arguments convincing, sorry.

Diff #7. You continue to insist that I mistranslated or misinterpreted something. Where? Any diff with my alleged "translation"? There is nothing.

Diff #8 (antisemitism accusations) -No, there was no any misunderstanding. Please check my comment Paul responds to in diff #8. Paul, what does it "tell about me"?

Diff #11. No, I did not make my edit against consensus. Paul provided incorrect/misleading link to something that had happen much later, after his and my edit [26]. Here is the state of discussion at the moment of his edit. What consensus? In fact, these words were unilaterally just inserted by Paul [27] (so I acted per WP:BRD).

Diff/link #12. I asked Paul previously not to make personal comments on article talk pages [28]. Nevertheless, he started this thread on article talk page 10 days later. Why? Paul tells that discussing other people on article talk pages is a proof of his good faith [29].

@TTAAC. In the first chapter of Black Book Courtois provides his own numbers of victims, which are not based on the chapters by Margolin and Werth, and he does not tell these numbers are based on their chapters. Therefore, the numbers must be explicitly attributed to Courtois. That is what I did in this edit. For some reasons Paul called this my edit "POV pushing" (link #12; at the bottom of the diff he tells I made "misleading edit summary" in this edit. Wrong. It was correct edit summary and good edit.).

Text in excess of 500 words deleted as an admin action. Sandstein 17:24, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Paul Siebert

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Paul Siebert

I have to skip the most ridiculous accusations because of space limitations.

1. Re: Forgery etc: reliable sources say that Courtois "manipulated"^[1] or "deliberately inflated"^[2] some figures, which he then used as a proof for his theory. A beginning if the discussion of this question can be found here, all diffs cannot be provided because there were a lot of them). Manipulation of figures by Courtois lead to a serious conflict between Courtois and his co-authors:^[3] Two main contributors of this book (Werth and Margolin) claimed that Courtois took the figures produced by them and produced the figures that were considerably inflated as compared to the original data. Such manipulation is not necessarily tantamount to forgery, but it is very close. That is exactly what I say ("it seems Courtois simply forged his figures"), and a well documented public scandal over this story demonstrates that my statement was hardly an exaggeration.

2. redundant

3. Re: "if a person behaves as a troll, then it is reasonable to conclude they are a troll": To explain this, I need to briefly describe a content dispute in a formal way. Durin a discussion, I said: "I agree that the facts A and B did occur. However, I disagree that C follows from A and B. ^[4] MVBW twisted my words, and claimed "You admitted that A and B did occur, which mean you yourself agreed with C". To me, such behaviour is a typical trolling.

4. Re: "You cannot pretend you are an educated and skillful person..." Truncation completely changed the meaning of this sentence. A brief summary of my full post is: "You are smarter than the posts you make, please, return to a rational discussion". (MVBW is a scientist who is supposed to be familiar with the criteria applied to scientific publications and good articles).

5. Re: "This is an unsubstantiated accusation of bad faith" (partially addressed above (#4)). The whole discussion can be seen here. Obviously:

There were no accusations of bad faith, it was an answer to a direct question: "do you accuse me of bad faith?" MVBV asked me on my talk page.

It looks like MVBW started the whole discussion in attempt to force me to make this statement (as if they were already contemplating to file this AE request).

The policy does not prohibit accusations of bad faith, it prohibits unsubstantiated accusation. In this particular case, my words were not "an unsubstantiated accusation", but a logical summary of a long discussion.

6. Re: This diff see above.

7. Re: "last phrase at the bottom of the diff". A key point here is that the exact translation of the word "расстрелять" (that means not "execution" (a general term), but "shooting").^[5] Obviously, if one sees this my phrase taken out of context, it looks somewhat rude. However, taking into account that, as a rule, any discussion with MVBW makes several rounds where all arguments are being repeated ad nauseum, some degree of irritation is quite understabdable.

8. Re: "if you see no anti-Semitism in these Solzhenitsyn's words, that tells something about you" retrospectively, I see that it was just misunderstanding. I thought we were discussing this statement,^[6] whereas that book described the same subject in two different chapters, and the wording in another chapter was less anti-Semitic.

9. Re: "Long political rant" Actually, it was a friendly discussion between Woogie10w and me on our talk pages, where Woogie10w and I disclosed some personal information about our ancestors. I feel very uncomfortable that a third person wedged into this discussion, and I am not intended to discuss the details here. Although Woogie10w and I interact very rarely, I think he is a very kind and interesting person, and I am glad he thinks the same about me. Since I believe off-Wiki communication is something we should avoid, my email is disabled, so a talk page dialogue was the only way to communicate with Woogie10w. In my opinion, MVBW's behaviour in this particular case was profoundly dishonest.

10. Re: "accusing Collect of deliberately violating a policy" Don't have space to discuss this unrelated story.

11. Re: "misleading edit summary" In reality, (MVWB was acting against talk page consensus (see the "War breaks out in Europe; a pretext for a Soviet invasion" section).

12. Re: "a thread started by Paul on article talk page" This thread must be read in full from the beginning to the final TFD's post. It is a representative example of MVBW's behaviour. I just wanted to add that although I know MVBW since very early times (starting from his conflict with another user, which gave a start to the WP:EEML story, when MVBW was editing under the currently deleted account "Biophys"), I still assumed MVBW's good faith until June 2018. Regrettably, after this case, I have no possibility to assume it any more.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:45, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Through the manipulation of numbers (...) the impression is created that Communism is four times worse than fascism and that the Holocaust was not a uniquely evil crime
^ Hiroaki Kuromiya. Review Article: Communism and Terror. Reviewed Work(s): The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, and Repression byStephane Courtois; Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201. [1]
^ Courtois enormous body count of Communism's victims certainly sparked the ire of some of his detractors - including Nicolas Werth, a contributor of the Black Book of Communism who broke over several aspects of the introduction, including the fact that Courtois used a figure of twenty million dead at the hands of Soviets, whereas Werth's own estimate, given in his chapter of his volume, was fifteen million
^ More concretely, (i) the source says that a person X obtained general instructions from his supervisors; (ii) to implement these instructions, X had to do some technical step; (iii) however, the source does not say this particular technical step was a part of instructions X got from supervisors.
^ The source says about Stalin's Great Purge. It tells about one person, Berg, who was accused of inventing the gas van. Berg explained that he was acting in accordance with the orders of his supervisors, who demanded his team execute (literally, "shoot") a huge number of people. The team was incapable of doing that, so he had to build a gas van. The source uses the word "shoot", not just "execute", which means the order to execute people did come from Berg's supervisors, but creation of gas vans was Berg's own initiative. Since MVBW is proficient in Russian, they could not make this misinterpretation just by mistake.
^ Google translates this fragment as follows: "And - I call on the Jews. Repent not for Trotsky-Kamenev-Zinoviev, they are already on the surface, they can be brushed aside: "they were not Jews!" And - to look honestly at the depth of the early Soviet oppressor apparatus - to those "invisible" like Isai Davidovich Berg, who created the famous "gas vans", which killed the Jews themselves too, and even to more inconspicuous people who were doing routine paperwork in the Soviet apparatus and never went public." In other words, Solzhenitsyn directly accused Jews, as an ethnic group, in inventing gas vans.

Text in excess of 500 words deleted as an admin action. Sandstein 20:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GPRamirez5

I regret that I don't have more time to write testimony and assemble evidence right now, but I stand by the ANI case I brought against MVBW, and I second everything that has been said here in Paul Siebert's defense. GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (--Woogie10w (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC))

I got involved in this discussion about Mass Killing under Communist regimes and gave up. The discussion degenerated into a gigantic POV storm because the editors, including myself, were not discussing the source Courtois. When I tried to discuss the various sources related to the topic I was ignored. The editors I interacted with constantly argued based on their own POV rather than citing reliable sources. I suspect that the editors were acting in good faith but were not familiar the topic and the sources. In my case I made the big mistake of wasting my time engaging a long winded discussion that involved my own POV, I realized my mistake and opted out of the discussion. Paul was acting in good faith and really needs to base his arguments on reliable sources that can be verified. I have hard copies of the sources and am willing to work with editors who want to improve the article.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@My very best wishes-By engaging in endless POV discussions ie.BS an editor can scare away other editors and by default own an article. I got tired of trying to discuss reliable sources and ran away from Mass killings under Communist regimes --Woogie10w (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheTimesAreAChanging

To give context to Paul Siebert's (admittedly unnecessarily inflammatory) "forgery" accusation against Courtois, it should be noted that Courtois authored the introduction to the Black Book, in which he purported to summarize the conclusions of the book's various contributors—notably Nicolas Werth, author of the chapters on the Soviet Union, and Jean-Louis Margolin, author of the chapters on China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. (The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia account for the great majority of all mass killings under communist regimes.) In the introduction, Courtois claimed that approximately 100 million individuals died as a result of communist regimes during the 20th century, compared to the roughly 25 million victims of Nazi Germany. To reach this total, Courtois cited estimates of the death toll attributable to communism in specific countries; for example, Courtois gave the figures of 65 million deaths in China, 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union, and 1 million deaths in Vietnam. Werth and Margolin, however, used somewhat lower and more speculative numbers for China and the Soviet Union, and Margolin (pp. 565–575) concluded only that North Vietnam's land reform was accompanied by "probably some 50,000 executions in the countryside" (an estimate that, just as an aside, has been contradicted by recent scholarship) and that "at least 3,000 people were massacred" during the infamous Viet Cong occupation of Huế in South Vietnam; Margolin further emphasized that "the subsequent fall of the South Vietnamese regime on 30 April 1975, was not in fact followed by the bloodbath that so many feared and that did take place in neighboring Cambodia." Werth and Margolin subsequently engaged in a public dispute with Courtois regarding the liberties he took with the introduction, as documented in several 1997 articles in Le Monde: "The two authors reproach Stéphane Courtois his 'obsession to arrive at one hundred million deaths.' Nicolas Werth thus accounts for fifteen million victims in the USSR, when Stéphane Courtois, in his introduction, adds five. Mr Margolin explains that he has never mentioned a million deaths in Vietnam." (In the original French: "Les deux auteurs reprochent à Stéphane Courtois son « obsession d'arriver aux cent millions de morts ». Nicolas Werth décompte ainsi quinze millions de victimes en URSS, quand Stéphane Courtois, dans son introduction, en ajoute cinq. M. Margolin explique « qu'il n'a jamais fait état d'un million de morts au Vietnam ».") While the ~20 million estimate for deaths under Stalinism was popularized long before Courtois by Robert Conquest—and it would indeed be hyperbolic to accuse Courtois of "forgery" for citing it—it appears that Courtois essentially conjured the 1 million estimate for Vietnam out of thin air, relying on Margolin to lend it some credibility even though Margolin's partial tally actually put the victims of Vietnamese communism at 53,000 or higher.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:04, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Side comment by SMcCandlish

An obvious part of the problem here is that the entire Mass killings under Communist regimes page is basically a giant multi-pronged WP:Coatrack. These are not all one topic, and putting them together is a WP:POV and WP:OR exercise, verging on propaganda. These should be split into separate articles on each government (and should not use the loaded word "regime", per MOS:WTW). I think that would go a long way to defusing conflict; a pseudo-encyclopedic article like this a magnet for PoV-pushing in both directions. And don't capitalize "communist", per MOS:ISMCAPS. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:14, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@My very best wishes: That may be the case, but it's not related to what I'm talking about. That whole page is a "we're in a magical fiefdom of our devising" WP:LOCALCONSENSUS playground, and it needs to be brought to a close. I'm not at all surprised that some editors are losing their temper there, but some editors being temperamental doesn't appear to be the root problem. The page being set up as an unencyclopedic WP:BATTLEGROUND on purpose is the problem. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:52, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re your 2nd response: Yes, I see what you mean. I'd labelled my section "Side comment" because I know it's only partially on-topic. I"m not trying to address the user-behavior specifics (others have that covered), just relate some of them (correlatively if not entirely causally) to the battleground nature of one of the pages at issue, to direct some attention there. I don't mean to imply that's a cure-all. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:47, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I have some mixed thoughts on the issue of MVBW and Paul Siebert, but as concerns this edit summary by GPRamirez5 I believe that's what's usually called "casting WP:ASPERSIONS". You can't make allegations like that against another editor without solid evidence, especially in an edit summary (which means it's impossible to strike or undue the comments).Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:35, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Collect

I note my name has appeared above. My goal would be a short article on the topic of "Noncombatant deaths attributed to communist regimes" as is clear on the talk page. I note that Paul seems to have made a substantial number of contributions to the talk page, and a substantial amount of verbiage. Some of that verbiage is, per Paul, self-attributed to English not being his first language, [30] [31] but other example indicate that he feels exceedingly strongly on the topic, to the extent of accusing others of lying, violating Wikipedia policy, and more, and some of his charges are poorly worded or unsupportable.

I also note that an IP has posted on his talk page aspersions about some editors here. [32]

Paul has greatly misapprehended my positions and made charges about me which are ill-worded, inapt, and objectionable. (see above diffs) I did not issue a complaint mainly because in his large number of edits to the article talk page (I suggest looking at the quantity and length of such edits might be useful), he has iterated such charges for a long time now.

Thus I ask that the complaint be viewed as being of a serious nature, devolving on the Wikipedia principles of affording all editors due respect, and not simply lashing out at them. IMHO, it would not hurt Paul to have a vacation from the article in question, though. Say, a month or so? Collect (talk) 18:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vanamonde93

SMcCandlish's assessment is quite correct. The page has been constructed in a manner that does not represent consensus among sources, and this construction itself is then used to exclude and/or stonewall any changes to the sources. It is completely unsurprising that tempers are getting frayed. I've taken Paul to task myself over his tendency to open numerous and lengthy discussions, but that's hardly a blockable offense, and I would concur with Sandstein's assessment of this report. Vanamonde (talk) 06:47, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Paul Siebert

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

At first glance it does look as if Paul Siebert needs to dial it back a few notches. I'm not sure whether this necessitates sanctions at this point, I could be persuaded either way, but clearly several of those comments add much more heat than light. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there's some aggressiveness in there, and I'd support a warning for that, but I for one am not a friend of the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to AE. Much of the reported conduct isn't obviously problematic or reflects content disputes. Sandstein 20:32, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll close this as no action without admin objection in 12 h. Sandstein 17:25, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:48, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GizzyCatBella

GizzyCatBella is topic-banned from the World War II history of Poland. Sandstein 19:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning GizzyCatBella

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Icewhiz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 11:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: GizzyCatBella (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Standard discretionary sanctions, specifically not complying with Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines in regards to Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view - due to entering information citing a source, which does not appear in the source (or in any reliable source).

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

Revision as of 09:12, 24 June 2018 revert to 27 Aug 2017 version.
Revision as of 09:15, 24 June 2018 revert challenged as "gross misrepresentation of sources" + talk page Revision as of 09:18, 24 June 2018 post explaining the problem of misrepresentation.
Revision as of 09:20, 24 June 2018 - re-revert to August 2017 version (+breaking cutting out infobox of the article - resulting in a -4 byte diff - but the article body. was a simple re-revert.
Revision as of 09:30, 24 June 2018 + Revision as of 10:08, 24 June 2018 - refused request to self-revert.
User made some additional edits after this - but did not self-revert, and article continues to contain serious misrepresentations which are strongly defamatory.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

Revision as of 14:44, 26 April 2018 - blocked 72 hours for edit-warring in EE.

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Revision as of 10:41, 19 February 2018 alerted + previous AE discussions.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is beyond not following WP:BRD, and previous conduct on this article (by a different user handle) has been covered outside of Wikipedia here - by Morris S. Whitcup.

This is the second re-revert - diff. This version contains a number of sentences sourced to Rossino. Rossino, however contains a single sentence mentioning Stawiki - After passing through Stawiski on 23 June, Radziłów and Jedwabne on 24 June, and Osowiec on 25 June, these units moved to the north and east of Białystok.. No Jewish communists. No Ethnic Polish families being rounded up by Jews. No Poles hiding in the forest (~6 emerging from the forest to join the Nazis in killing Jews).Other sources have been misrepresented as well. This version is in WP:HOAX territory - conveying Jewish repressions of Poles, and a German massacre of Jews (just ~6 Poles joining in) - as opposed to Poles massacring Jews which is what RS report.

Following more editing - 11:13, 24 June 2018 contains the following misrepresentations:

During the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, Stawiski was ...administration was abolished and replaced with local communists.[5] - Cites Rossino - not in cited source.
The Soviet terror lingered until the Germans returned ... .[6] - citing The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: Seredina-Buda-Z - which does not say "Soviet terror" - it does say "reign of terror with active Polish participation" in relation to the month long German occupation in 1939 (the Soviet/Polish border was adjusted after the military offensive). ~~instigated is also somewhat inaccurate.~~
The the Germans set the Great Synagogue on fire.[7] citing a yizkor book (this is more of a PRIMARY source). This account does not appear in the source. The Yizkor book does not contain a synagouge burning account in August. It does contain one for June 1941, and for 1942.
Some 60 Jews remained, mainly skilled workers and their families, who were confined to a ghetto. On 2 November 1942, the ghetto was closed and its occupants were transferred to Łomża Ghetto, and from there sent to Auschwitz extermination camp and Treblinka extermination camp.[8] - sourced to a dead link on virtual shtetl (which is not a RS AFAICT - user generated Wiki) The details do mostly match the Jewish life Encyclopedia (with Łomża instead of Bougusze, and Treblinka vs. Treblinka/Auschwitz).
The fate of the Jews of Stawiski was similar... thus linking perpetrators and victims. sourced to this - The book is academic, but is a collection of translated non-academic newspaper reports (the purpose is covering the media discourse) - not a good source. It does not say what we are citing (nor do other mentions of Stawiki in this collection) - no "Stawiski a day earlier thus linking perpetrators and victims".

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

notified.Icewhiz (talk) 11:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments by Icewhiz

Text in excess of 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 20:53, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Piotrus/MyMoloboaccount - I miscited a page number (start of chapter - 280 instead of 283) - in a book chapter by relevant scholars. Naliboki village is in Naliboki forest, and the source refers to the incident in the village (as is evident in the text and citations).

Text in excess of 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 16:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Icewhiz (talk) 06:45, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Text in excess of 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 16:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning GizzyCatBella

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by GizzyCatBella

This report was filed at 11:45, June 24, 2018 [33] (Talk page and the whole conversation with the filing user before the report was presented can be found here [34])

Timestamp of my plea for more time to work on the article and address opposing users concerns[35] - 09:37, 24 June 2018 (2.08 hours before the report was filed)
Timestamp of my another (unanswered) attempt to engage the filing user in assisting me and a plea for more time to work [36] - 10:28, 24 June 2018 (1.17 hours before the report was filed)
Timestamp of my last attempt (unanswered) to engage the filing user into cooperation (I pinged the user) 10:54, 24 June 2018 [37] (51 minutes before the report was filed)
This is how article looked like 1 minute before the report was filed [38] 11:44, 24 June 2028 versus opposing users preferred version [39]
This is how the article looked 32 minutes after this report was filed. (Please note that I was still unaware of the report, I didn't check my inbox) [40] (12:16, 24 June 2018) versus opposite users preferred version [41]

At all times I was acting in good faith (genuinely). The version about the Jewish life reverted to was seven years old [42],(note that not a single word or source in that version was mine) that is why I said it was the most stable, not because I intended to keep that version. I meant to start with an old version. I planned to edit it over the span of few hours, confirm and update sources, include information about the Jewish life before the war, during, about the 1739 synagogue (two actually), about a Polish mob massacre of Jews, about the 1942 Nazi ghetto, about the cloth and hats factories, distillery, a wartime picture and about the current Jewish cemetery. At all times I had in mind this version[43] and the objections of the opposing user despite his hostile attitude. I went through normal editing process; I modified the article best to my knowledge, I asked the opposing user for assistance (3 times) and worked my way down, so the article resembled the opposite user's preferred version. Article resembled others editors version before the report has been submitted. Despite all of this the user went ahead and filed the report choosing one first edit only, omitting everything else and claiming usage of ill sources which were not even mine. This sadly indicates to me ill intentions. Please note that the same user already reported me for placing a tag on his talk page [44]. Having said all of that I must also say that I'd try to be more careful with restoring stuff in the future. I'll try to use a template “editing in progress” (is such template available? I think it is.) Important – IM NOT AN ANTISEMITE(!).GizzyCatBella (talk) 19:25, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ealdgyth

There is definitely some misuse/misrepresentation of sources in this edit by GCB. The edit makes the statement "Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia" and sources it to this article (?). The closest thing I can find in the source that discusses the deportations of Poles is the paragraph starting "Yet arrest by the NKVD was not the only means of repression.." but that paragraph does not support the information in the article. First - it is discussing the deportations that took place throughout the period of Soviet rule. Second, it notes that Poles made up 60% of the deportees in the area - so a sweeping statement that "ethnic Poles" without qualifying that other ethnicities were also deported is incorrect based on the source. Further ... no mention in the paragraph mentions "Jewish militia" at all. Lastly, the deportations from the Lomza and Bialystok areas took place in 1941, not in 1939 as implied by the placement of the sourced sentence. The other possible paragraph in the source that is meant to support this statement starts "Other leading scholars.." but this doesn't support this statement either - as it states "Jewish militiamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles into exile" first - this is a quote from Dov Levin, and second it doesn't say that the Jewish militia was the only force that sent people into exile. The source also notes in the next paragraph some reasons why Jews may have been over-represented in the Soviet occupation administration and concludes "It seems then that the outburst of Polish anti-Semitism in reaction to the arrival of German forces was largely based on a stereotype of the "Jewish-Communist" that was shared by anti-Semites across Europe."... which definitely is not reflected in the use made of this source in the article.

The same source is used to source "Some Poles, who emerged from their forest hideaways, including prisoners released by the Nazis from the NKVD prisons" - but there is not a single mention of the word "prisoners" in the source article, and the four mentions of "prison" do not support this at all. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:54, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

VM... I did read the source. In fact, I've quoted the very same sentence above - "Jewish militamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles into exile" - this statement is not strong enough to support a sentence that says "Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia." NOthing there is about "newly formed" ... and the sentence baldly states that that militiamen did the rounding up - when the source says that the militiamen HELPED the NKVD agents send local Poles into exile. That's misrepresentation in my book... taking a "X helped Y" and turning it into "X did". Ealdgyth - Talk 18:34, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And if the source says "Musiał found that in many cases Jewish militia members directly participated in mass arrests and deportation actions." ... this cant be used to source that the militia in Stawiski did the deportations without Musial actually saying that the militia in Stawiski deported Poles. The source is making a generalized statement that cannot be used to source a specific statement in an article about a specific location without the source directly stating that it took place in that location. Since the first sentence of the paragraph added at Stawiski says "Upon the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in 1939, the local administration was abolished by the Soviet NKVD and replaced with Jewish communists who declared Soviet allegiance." The statement is obviously meant to apply to the local adminstration of Stawiski (which is the subject of the article, right?) unless it's explicitly stated that it applies to some other administration. But if it applies to some other administration - what's it doing in an article on a local community? Ealdgyth - Talk 18:38, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Text in excess of 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 20:47, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

@Sandstein: (and User:Ealdgyth) - how are you guys missing it? Just do a search for "militia". "Musiał found that in many cases Jewish militia members directly participated in mass arrests and deportation actions. " and "Dov Levin has similarly concluded "the labeling of the Soviet administration as a 'Jewish regime' became widespread when Jewish militiamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles into exile."", and " In eastern Poland, the vision of Jews greeting the Red Army, and in isolated cases of Jews in militia uniform assisting the NKVD, appeared to bear out the deepest suspicions of a nefarious Jewish-Bolshevik alliance." The last one doesn't say it was the case, but the first two sentences do.

You can question the reliability of the source but that's a content dispute and since this has been in the article for some time there's nothing wrong with GCB restoring a previous stable version.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein and Blade - you guys didn't read a source carefully and you go and accuse an editor of anti-semitism???? Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2018 (UTC) Here it is again. Note that the text is not supported just by Polish historians, but also by Jewish ones, such as Yitzhak Arad, Dov Levin and Jan Gross.[reply]

As has already been pointed out, GZB was restoring a stable version from August 2017 in response to several of Icewhiz's edits (which removed relevant sourced material). If you want to blame somebody for that text, then blame whoever put it in: [45], which was this guy.

Text in excess of 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 20:46, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Revised to cut down word length furtherVolunteer Marek (talk) 07:04, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re Sandstain's removal of my comments - just read the freakin' source, and look at the edit history of that article before you go accusing editors of anti-semitism! You owe them at least that much! GizzyCatBella REMOVED the info you bring up in statement herself, just minutes later. All she was restore an older version of the article to work off of. And the stuff on the Jewish militia - which is no longer in the article BECAUSE Gizzy removed it - is in the source! Sandstein you need to strike that odious and false WP:ASPERSION.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re Icewhiz’s newest diff-padding – these are all about a month old. Most concern issues which were discussed at the time (e.g. use of Anna Poray). They are not BLP vios – just disagreements over what sources are acceptable. These discussions continue. Icewhiz’s reflexive and false crying of “HOAX!!!” at any edit he disagrees with (even when these are based on sources – ones which Icewhiz happens to disagree with), is just indicative of his WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: restoring an older version as a basis for improvement, then proceeding with changes, is standard editing procedure on Wikipedia. If the final version Gizzy left had all the problems of the original version then maybe there'd be a basis for sanctions. But as has been pointed out repeatedly, Gizzy's final version removed almost all the problematic content (and probably would have gotten to all of it, if Icewhiz didn't jump in with this report) and is very close to Icewhiz's version from March.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish

Tending toward Volunteer Marek's interpretation (if not tone), and Piotrus's "the article was going through a perfectly normal WP:BRD process". Citing a source that's critical of some group action that happened to have involved Jews, and which even Jewish writers also cite, doesn't make an editor an anti-Semite, but someone doing their editorial "job". While I have some minor involvement in the broader topic area, about a year or two ago (esp. about the Polish army of the era), I don't know enough about the subject and the real-world conflicts between people researching it to know whether this is aspect of the "job" is being done well. But the knee-jerk rush to T-ban and indef is not supportable, and is a good example why AE (and ArbCom) have to stay out of content disputes. This isn't addressing user behavior, it's a half-assed decision that some sources in a content dispute are preferable to some other sources in it (which is what most content disputes boil down to). I agree with Ealdgyth that GizzyCatBella appears to have ~~engaged in~~ accidentally and temporarily restored some OR (namely novel interpretation and perhaps synthesis). But that's also a content dispute matter. Icewhiz's complaint is firmly in the same territory; it's almost entirely predicated on source reliability analysis and dispute (both among editors and in the real world); this is something for the article talk page, not AE, especially given that GCB didn't write this material at all, but simply restored it with the sources for it, before doing substantive work on the material shortly thereafter. That might have been better done in a sandbox, perhaps. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC); revised: 15:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re Sandstein's "I'm not interested in ..." – Yeah, yeah, we know. Fortunately, AE is open to anyone's input, the input of non-partisans is frequently helpful (and already has been in this case), and AE isn't owned by one particular admin. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

The edit by GizzyCatBella [46] (in the comment by Sandstein below) was apparently only the first in the series of edits by GizzyCatBella who wanted to create an entirely different version, as follows from their edits made before the submission of this request by Icewhiz. Therefore, making any sanctions on the basis of this diff (or any other intermediate edits by GizzyCatBella) seems to be unjustified.

It also appears that Icewhiz submitted this report at the very moment when GizzyCatBella was working to fix the content after the objections by Icewhiz on the article talk page [47]. This is clearly a battleground behavior by Icewhiz, in my opinion. He may or may not be right about sources used in the initial edit by GizzyCatBella, but he had to wait until GizzyCatBella completes their editing and discuss on the talk page any possible disagreements about new version prior to submitting this request.

Moreover, even the initial edit/revert by GizzyCatBella [48], does not strike me as something deserving a topic ban or an "antisemitic propaganda". The edit does not removes anything about the atrocities by Nazi. It only inserts some info about the previous Soviet occupation, followed by the atrocities by Nazi, i.e. in chronological order. My very best wishes (talk) 19:38, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MyMoloboaccount

GizzyCatBella didn't add the disputed information as some claim, he restored a previous version of the article that somebody else added.I also note that he politely asked Icewhiz to wait and let him finish the articlethis hostile attitude and threats??? Please stop. Will you please let me work on it? I started already and I would really welcome your input and help. Can you work with me to improve the article please?.He then removed unfounded allegationsis a communist, so ethnicity removed unless a secondary source found confirming ethnicity of local communist. But I don't think it is crucial anyway. Please read the edits carefully, GizzyCatBella actually agreed with Icewhiz and removed what he was disputing.

To sum it up.

GCB restored previous version of article to start from scratch.
GCB didn't add any disputed information as alleged.
GCB asked Icewhiz to work with him on improving the article
GCB removed allegations about Jewish ethnicity of NKVD militia.

Why is this request in the first place, if GCB actually agreed with Icewhiz and removed this information?

--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, it seems Icewhiz falsified a source himself on the similar issue in a different subject, claiming that villagers massacred by Jewish-Partisant unit were supposedly hunting down Jews [49] However I checked the source and there is nothing about Naliboki village on page 280.There is mention about Jewish partisants raids in Naliboki Forest on page 283 and their attacks against local population which authors show as example of change from victim to perpetrator role.Naliboki village and Naliboki forest are two different locations. If we are dealing here with falsifying sources than perhaps this can be looked as well by admins. To make it easier, I even uploaded a screenshot from the source in question showing that there is nothing about Naliboki village on page 280[50].If admins believe this is not the place for this, that is ok with me, I can ask about this in other thread as there is additional information I would like to point out.

--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Piotrus

I agree with SMcCandlish, it's ridiculous to declare someone an anti-Semite and block them for that (and that isn't even what Icehwiz is claiming). The RR violation is dubious (editing in progress) and I don't see what is really actionable here outside RR, rulings in interpretation of sources are for ArbCom, not a random AE admin. That said, 'both sides' seem to have a lot of problem with interpreting the sources (see MyMolobo's comment on Inewhiz). This entire topic is overdue for a proper ArbCom review, and this AE should not end with penalizing any editor, but refer this entire mess to the ArbCom. Polish-Jewish topics have become unstable in the last half a year, as several relatively new editors turned them into a battleground, as I am sure regulars here have noticed (since there were several mostly non-actionable but illustrative reports here). This needs to stop. PS. I've finally gotten around to reviewing Talk:Stawiski. This is a very short talk page, and it makes it clear that GCB was in the process of rewriting this, explained this to I., and asked for few hours to be allowed to finish this. Instead, he reported her here. If there is something concerning here, it is the WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude from the reporter, IMHO, who instead of AGF waiting few hours, tries to win content disputes over here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:03, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamonde93: Looking at the recent comment by Icehwiz about the sources, I'll note that the sources in question have been extensively discussed and we have more or less consensus on either removing them or limiting their use. None of them has been described by anyone, however, as anti-semitic (there is a bit of controversy on Ewa Kurek, but this hasn't been resolved yet either in academia or on Wikipedia, all there's to it is some criticism in press). The main problem with Poray and Paul is that they are amateur researchers and mostly self-published. Kurek is an academic and is not unreliable per se, through controversial, and her latest work is self-published. All that said, while those are not ideal sources, and I've generally support replacing them with more reliable works, they are hardly at a level I'd think someone using them should be banned. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS. I think we are arriving at the stable version of the Stawiski. I stand by my initial assessment that this entire AE thread is unnecessary (the article was going through a perfectly normal WP:BRD process), but it showcases serious WP:BATTLEGROUND issues present and merits IMHO a deeper ArbCom review of more then a single editor. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:00, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by François Robere

The change in question does two thing: 1) accuses Jews of killing Poles, and 2) shifts the blame for killing Jews from Poles to Germans. The first cites the references cited by a journal article re-posted in a blog. Did anyone actually read the sources? The second tries to excuse the Poles: "Some Poles... were led to acts of revenge-killing in German presence." What's "led to act"? What are they, sheep?

Other sources supporting Icewhiz's revision: Kossak, Zofia (May 1942). "Proroctwa sie wypelniaja". Prawda. No. 5.:

In many places (Kolno, Stawiski, Jagodno, Szumow and Deblin) the local population voluntarily took part in the massacre.

Bender, Sara (2015). "Not Only in Jedwabne: Accounts of the Annihilation of the Jewish Shtetlach in North-eastern Poland in the Summer of 1941". Holocaust Studies. 19 (1): 1–38. doi:10.1080/17504902.2013.11087369. Retrieved 2018-06-25.:

...the Poles welcomed [the German soldiers] with flowers... German army scouts... noted the hatred that Poles harboured towards the Jews. Local Poles, most of them newly released from Soviet prisons, asked the Germans to permit them to avenge themselves on the Jews, and were allowed to kill 70 of them.
On 4 July, armed Poles from nearby villages arrived in town, broke into Jewish houses and ordered their inhabitants to go to work... [Descriptions of hard labor follow] While the Jews were thus occupied, Poles went into their houses and robbed their property...
That night, a mob of Poles from nearby villages again flocked into town, and started another pogrom near midnight. All night long, dead and severely injured Jews were loaded on carts that had been prepared in advance, while the Germans stood by and photographed. That night Poles murdered 360 of the town’s Jews...
On 15 August 1941 the remaining Jews in town were surrounded and led outside the town by the Gestapo, aided by Poles. The younger Jews were shot and buried in pits near the village of Montewice, while the elderly and the children were taken to the Kieszelnice woods, shot and thrown into trenches that had been prepared in advance for the purpose. Hundreds of the Stawiski Jews were buried in the two mass graves. By the late summer of 1941, there were no Jews left in Stawiski.

This is what GizzyCatBella is trying to sanitize, and not for the first time. She's made numerous biased or misleading edits and comments [51][52][53] (also notice edit summary) [54][55] (as an IP) [56][57]. We've already had source restrictions placed on one article [58], but obviously that's not enough; either the user is banned, or the entire topic area is placed under new restrictions.

And one more thing: Volunteer Marek, who commented above in his particular style - spiteful and condemning [59][60][61][62][63][64] (edit summary) [65] (last comment) - has been warned against doing so repeatedly [66][67]. Another editor was already banned from the topic for WP:BATTLEGROUND [68]; I urge the admins to consider the same here. François Robere (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning GizzyCatBella

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

All right. My first instinct was to decline action as a content dispute. But some of these edits by GizzyCatBella appear, at first glance, very dubious. In [69], GizzyCatBella removes an apparently reliably sourced mention of an anti-Jewish pogrom in WWII Poland. Instead, GizzyCatBella ascribes a 1939 deportation of "ethnic Polish families" to "Jewish communists" and "Jewish militia". I'm by no means knowledgeable about the history of this place and period, but this strikes me as very surprising to say the least, and would need very good sourcing. Instead, Icewhiz appears to be correct that Rossino, the source cited by GizzyCatBella (however reliable it may be - a web archive of a blog copy of a copyvio?) does not appear to mention anything of the sort. On the basis of this first assessment, I suspect that GizzyCatBella is using Wikipedia to for anti-semitic propaganda by misrepresenting sources; all in violation of any number of policies. Unless GizzyCatBella has a really good explanation for this, I can't see any other outcome but a long block and a topic ban. Sandstein 13:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm waiting for a statement by GizzyCatBella. It is they who need to explain their editing. I'm not interested in the opinion of anybody except the parties and uninvolved administrators. Sandstein 20:51, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still waiting on GizzyCatBella's statement, but if it is not made by 06:50, 26 June 2018 (UTC), I intend to impose an indefinite topic ban from everything related to the World War II history of Poland, as well as an indefinite block, the first year of which under AE authority. A brief review of GizzyCatBella's articlespace contributions indicates that they are a single-purpose account dedicated solely to editing articles about the World War II history of Poland with a view to (as far as I can tell) making them more sympathetic to right-wing Poles, and less sympathetic to Polish Jews or left-wing Poles. Such single-purpose and tendentious editing is, in and of itself, incompatible with the fundamental conduct aspect of WP:NPOV which as determined by ArbCom requires that editors dedicate themselves to writing a neutral encyclopedia, rather than just trying to get their own point of view across. (Accordingly, the same manner of contributing with the opposite ideological slant would be just as disruptive.)[reply]

I am also not convinced that it is a mitigating circumstance that the revert by GizzyCatBella was the basis of later edits by them, as a result of which the article no longer contained the problematic content mentioned above. That's because in their two reverts ([70], [71]) to the problematic version, GizzyCatBella describes it as a "sourced and stable version" or "well-sourced stable version" in the edit summary, indicating that they assumed responsibility for publishing this content and at that time intended that it should remain in this form.

I agree with Vanamonde93 that there may well be grounds to examine Icewhiz's editing as well (in my experience, in this kind of situation there's generally problematic conduct on both sides), but any misconduct by Icewhiz does not mitigate that by GizzyCatBella and has no bearing on the sanction we may decide to impose on GizzyCatBella. I'd prefer it to examine Icewhiz's conduct in a separate request, if needed, to avoid complicating this case. Sandstein 16:37, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein:: having just read the replies to my post down below, I would support a topic ban with the scope you have proposed. I am particularly unimpressed by the repeated use of dodgy sources after they have been questioned. That said; I would argue against imposing both a ban and a block. Based on the evidence here, this user is unable to edit neutrally in this area, and needs to be removed from. But having imposed a topic ban, I do not think a block would be justified unless there was additional disruption that a block would prevent. I do not see GSB being intentionally disruptive; rather, they are being problematic despite editing in good faith, because their views on this topic affect their judgement. As such I do not see an argument for preventing them from editing elsewhere. Vanamonde (talk) 17:56, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the above. An indefinite topic ban for sure, and unless there are other really good contributions elsewhere that I'm not seeing a very long or indefinite block. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:15, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your comments on my reading comprehension are duly noted, thanks. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've read through the recent versions of the article, the talk page, and the source. I agree that the version of the article GCB restored is not supported by the source, and this is of concern.From the article history, it seems fairly clear that GCB was reverting to a version she wished to build on, rather than one she considered perfect. This does not address my concerns entirely, but it is a mitigating factor. Furthermore, I looked at the diffs presented by MyMoloboaccount, and they, too, are concerning. That does not mitigate GCB's behavior, but I'm less inclined to issue a unilateral sanction when the OP is guilty of similar behavior. That said, I'm inclined to wait at least a few more hours before recommending action: I think a 24 hour wait for a statement, when the reporting party has requested such a wait, is reasonable.
Sandstein, the diffs in question hardly make someone an anti-semite, and I think we ought to be more careful in using such a label; what exactly would constitute anti-semitism in this case seems to be a complex matter, and it's easy for the label itself to lose meaning when tossed around lightly. @Piotrus: While it is true that determinations of source reliability are generally outside the remit of AE, when the use of questionable sources and/or the misrepresentation of sources is what is being reported, then investigation of the source is definitely required here. Volunteer Marek For pity's sake, tone your language down. I understand that you're upset, but you're doing yourself no favors, particularly for a person who is dragged to AE as often as you. Vanamonde (talk) 06:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Icewhiz: Can you point me to discussions about the reliability or lack thereof of the sources you are linking to? While I'm not impressed with them (particularly saving, I don't want to jump to conclusions in a topic I'm unfamiliar with. Vanamonde (talk) 06:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have now taken into consideration GizzyCatBella's statement. The first part is irrelevant because it is about the conduct of others, not GizzyCatBella. Even if one accepts GizzyCatBella's assertion that the reverts at issue were intended to be the basis of further improvement - which is in fact borne out by the article history - GizzyCatBella does not explain why they twice chose to revert to an obviously problematic version rather than to improve the version of the article that did not contain such defects, or to make the improvements outside articlespace (in a text editor or sandbox) before publishing their preferred version. More importantly, neither in the talk page discussion nor here does GizzyCatBella address or even appear to recognize the problems with source misrepresentation highlighted multiple times by Icewhiz. Neither does GizzyCatBella address the problematic nature of their WP:SPA editing mentioned above.
For these reasons, and those described above, I am of the view that GizzyCatBella's continued editing of this topic area is not a benefit to Wikipedia, and am imposing the topic ban mentioned above. I invite GizzyCatBella to appeal it in six months showing evidence of substantial, competent, prejudice-free editing in other topic areas. Assuming good faith, i.e. that this is more of a case of stubbornness and incompetence rather than a deliberate attempt to insert anti-semitic propaganda, I am not blocking GizzyCatBella at this time. Sandstein 19:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rusf10

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Rusf10

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 07:40, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Rusf10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2#Discretionary sanctions (1932 cutoff): Also BLP

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1.June 26 Asserts, without evidence, that a living person (David Cutler) " hates Donald Trump". Also asserts that the subject (Cutler) is "fringe theorist" because "he's a professor, he's liberal, he's worked in Democratic administration". Apparently being a liberal academic automatically makes you "fringe".

The same comment (as well as some others, see below), also makes some concerning assertions concerning reliable sources:

"That's another fallacy, because something is published in a medical journal, it must be creditable."
"But because this guy is an academic (over 90% of which happen to be liberal), we're supposed to believe that is of high integrity and wouldn't just write a political piece"
" I wouldn't trust anything this guy says." - apparently because SOME OTHER academic did something at sometime (it's not exactly clear)

Generally Wikipedia considers academic, scholarly sources to be top-quality sources, better than newspaper articles, magazines, etc. Taken together with other comments, it's pretty clear that Rusf10 has the polar opposite view - according to him academic sources are the least ones we should trust. This is an explicit admission that the user is not willing to follow our policy on reliable sources when it comes to articles concerning American politics.

2.June 25 "Drmies, is under the false impression that everything published in an academic journal must be true which is really no more intelligent than saying "I read it on the internet, it must be true"" - appears to say that stuff published in academic journal is no better than "stuff found on the internet". Again, a pretty fundamental opposition to our policy on reliable sources.

3.June 26 " You don't have any intent to follow WP:NPOV, since its clear that you here to push a certain viewpoint, so don't lecture me on policies." - Attacks other editors and ascribes motivations to them rather than discussing content.

4.June 26 Doubles down on the "hates Trump" BLP violating claim because... he looked at the guys twitter which apparently has some criticism of Trump's policies. It should be obvious that being critical of some Trump policy is not the same thing as "hating" Trump.

More minor (at least IMO) but still problematic

June 25 "Daivd (sic) Cutler worked in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, so don't try to act like be is some highly-respected non-partisan scholar" - this is also border line BLP vio (Cutler is actually very very highly respected)
June 24 "You clearly don't like Trump and that's fine, but it doesn't mean you get to trash his article" - Unnecessarily ascribes motivations and beliefs to other editors
June 24 WP:NOTAFORUM violation

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

N/A

Note: @Fish and karate: despite what User:Lionelt insinuates, I don't have a topic ban on Donald Trump. User:JFG is also incorrect that I am "restricted" from that article. The only thing here is that I told NeilN, after he asked, that I'd leave the article alone for a few days. Also I have not cast WP:ASPERSIONS against anyone. I presented diffs in an appropriate forum. If you don't find these convincing, that's fine. But it's not aspersions, it's dispute resolution. You should also look at the diffs provided by User:MrX below.

Note: In this diff I am pointing out that just because there is the "standard disclaimer" on the piece ("does not represent the views of blah blah blah"), that does not make it an opinion piece. Lots of peer reviewed publications have these, it's just legal ass covering. And while Newsweek may call it "an opinion piece" I was objecting and still object to the proposition that this academic source is in any way comparable to "opinion pieces" published as editorials in newspapers and magazines.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

For BLP

For post 1932 American politics

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Here is the broader discussion. Rusf10 appears to have a... strange, idea of how academia and academic publishing works. He also appears to be reflexively distrustful of academic and scholarly sources. Several users, including User:Drmies and User:Neutrality have tried reasoning with him and explaining to him how it works, but it fells on a bit of deaf ears.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[72]

Discussion concerning Rusf10

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Rusf10

This is a waste of everyone's time and should boomerang on Volunteer Marek just for bringing this here. Is he really trying to take me to AE because I said a professor "hates Trump"? Regardless of whether or not he truly hates him, its 100% he doesn't like him, so this request is really petty. What Volunteer Marek doesn't want you know is that I'm criticizing an opinion piece being used as a reliable source. I never said everything published in an academic journal is not reliable, but an opinion piece that has not been peer-reviewed with a disclaimer is probably not reliable. Any claim that 80,000 people are going to die should obviously be viewed with skepticism. And this edit came right after VM said "And again, your comment basically indicates that you have no intent of following Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources (you dismiss academic and scholarly sources out of hand)." [73], so how is what I said any worse? The reset of the diffs VM provided are even more petty, so I'm not even going to respond to them. One thing is clear, VM doesn't like his views challenged.--Rusf10 (talk) 08:46, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek: I presented diffs in an appropriate forum. If you don't find these convincing, that's fine. But it's not aspersions, it's dispute resolution. That's a dishonest statement. This forum is not for dispute resolution, its for bringing sanctions. And you know that too because you been here many times before. If there wasn't a reason for a WP:BOOMERANG before, now there is. You should also look at the diffs provided by User:MrX below. Those are even worse than the one's you provided and several are taken out of context.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:42, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Drmies:I thought you'd sit this one out, but since you're here, let me point out that your behavior here is troubling as well, especially for an admin. to start you just accused me of having a " complete lack of knowledge of how science, publishing, and peer review works" and being a "nihilist."

Threatening me "OK, so here we have another editor referring to an article in JAMA as "piece of garbage". You have disqualified yourself for this discussion, and from any future RS discussion you partake in." [74]
Personal attack on another editor (not me) "First stop gaslighting with your "don't like someone's expressed opinion". "It seems that you are expressing an opinion"--yes, I am, but it has nothing to do with politics. My opinion is that you are not capable of judging what is and what isn't a reliable source, given your comments here. "[75]
" I know Trumpers don't like science" [76]
"That the right would go post-truth, who could have thunk that two decades ago. " [77]

@NeilN: In that diff, I was trying to make the point that an opinion piece published anywhere (including a medical journal) is still an opinion piece. Perhaps I could have said it differently, but this came after Drmies attacked me. Here is his comment which I was referring to [78]. Being that he is an admin, I took that to be a threat. And now he has come here and piled on even more personal attacks. Look at the diffs I posted, Drmies behavior is clearly unacceptable for an admin.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:22, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Fish and karate, NeilN, Masem, Vanamonde93, MastCell, and GoldenRing: :I appreciate that at least a few of you can see that the other side has behaved in a manner that is at least as bad. However, some of you seem to be giving the other side a pass (maybe because you agree with their viewpoint?). No one has commented yet on the diffs I provided of user:Drmies. Is there some unwritten code that admins can't criticized other admins? Again, I hate to keep repeating myself, but the "source" is an opinion piece that appears with a disclaimer and has not been peer-reviewed, something Drmies refuses to accept. Let me just say that getting something published as an opinion piece in JAMA means it's solid, it's peer-reviewed, it's been vetted more than most other pieces of writing, and that because it is an opinion piece a whole bunch of other editors besides the usual reviewers have looked it over. [79] and then again he insists that its peer-reviewed here And user:Volunteer Marek refused to accept that it was an opinion piece. That actually DOES NOT make this "an opinion piece". [80] Not an "opinion piece" [81] And I provided two sources that back up that this is an opinion piece and not peer-reviewed. [82] [83]. Of course user:MrX then tried to have Newsweek thrown out as not reliable. [84]. You cannot admonish me or topic ban me (since a couple of people have called for that) without doing the same to others. I'm glad that at least Fish and karate & Masem see both sides of this, but am troubled that some of you cannot.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:55, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lionelt

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Volunteer Marek banned from the Trump article? – Lionel^(talk) 08:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JFG

Content dispute, RfC in progress, nothing to see here. — JFG ^talk 09:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lionelt: VM is only restricted from editing the Donald Trump article. This thread is about Presidency of Donald Trump. — JFG ^talk 09:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

As documented in the diffs VM provided, Rusf10 has openly explicitly and repeatedly denied core WP sourcing policies and gratuitously defamed living persons whose professional work was under discussion on the article talk page. This user has failed to respond to the pleadings of numerous editors who have explained this problem and why such behavior is unacceptable. This editor has already drained way too much time and attention, and despite all these good faith attempts to redirect Rusf10's behavior, he has chosen to continue and to escalate his rhetoric. This user has rejected core WP policies and Guidelines and should be TBANed from BLP and American Politics articles. SPECIFICO talk 12:32, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rusf10's insipid rebuke of Drmies is all the confirmation we need to know that he is unwilling to abide by WP norms in these articles. SPECIFICO talk 18:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

As evidenced by Volunteer Marek, Rusf10 is exhibiting consensus-inhibiting behaviors described in WP:GAMING, WP:NPA, and WP:BLP. Specifically, personal attacks, filibustering, ad hominems about academic sources and similar disparagement of living people, assumptions of bad faith.

Examples

Falsely claims that Al Gore predicted that the world would end in 2016 - False claim about a living person
"... its clear that you here to push a certain viewpoint, so don't lecture me on policies." - Assumption of bad faith
"This is being pushed into the article because it fits into the narrative that Donald Trump is evil." - Assumption of bad faith and politicizing disputes
"Sorry, I have to correct you, but one of the authors of this piece of garbage was a woman" - Incendiary rhetoric
"(any more stupid questions?)" - Assumption of bad faith
"And I now know that David Cutler worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations, so he clearly has a bias." - Ad hominem

A few of such comments could be dismissed as roughhousing, but the intensity and frequency have become disruptive. In fairness, I will say that Rusf10 has made a number of constructive comments at other article talk pages.

Also, there is no basis whatsoever for sanctioning Volunteer Marek.- Mr X 🖋 15:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me Fish and karate, but did you really just call my above examples "misrepresenting others contributions out of context" and "shockingly poor form", and suggest that I be warned for it? I'm not even sure how to react to that, but "shocking" is an adjective I might use. Please explain how any the above six diffs misrepresent what Rusf10 wrote.(Note: This is not a rhetorical request; I would like for you actually do it, as required by policy). Please also clarify, for future reference, what the expectations are for quoting a user's comments as evidence at AE. The widespread practice that I've observed is to quote the offending sentence or phrase, and link with a diff to the full comments (which, by the way, also shows the full context). In fact, there is a 500 word limit at AE, so how exactly would that work? Should entire conversations be copy pasted here? I can do that now if that would help you to gain clarity about where sanctions should be applied. Please advise. - Mr X 🖋 11:54, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No Rusf10, I did not try to "have Newsweek thrown out as not reliable." I said "I wouldn't put too much stock in what Newsweek writes. It used to be a somewhat reputable publication, but not so much now", and I provided some evidence. I never dismissed it entirely. It's generally fine to use Newsweek (in fact I did yesterday), but if they are the only source reporting something, I would proceed cautiously. - Mr X 🖋 18:30, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Fish and karate, referring to a scholar's published work as garbage, when multiple editors are explaining why the work is valued, most definitely qualifies as incendiary rhetoric. If you plan to shoot the messenger by giving me a logged warning (which is an admin action), I would fully expect for you to explain your reasoning and you should expect a full appeal. - Mr X 🖋 21:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Drmies

I'm just baffled by some editors' opinions which betray a complete lack of knowledge of how science, publishing, and peer review works. That someone could think that an opinion piece in JAMA wouldn't be vetted is amazing to me, and that this would be equivalent to "something on the internet" is ... well. So in that sense, given that kind of lack of understanding, it may well be a good idea to ban them from sensitive areas. I just looked at all the opposes in the discussion, and one or two make the argument that it's UNDUE right now (User:Markbassett argued along those lines)--that's valid. What is different for this editor is not just the empty argument (they're not the only one) but also sort of nihilism which in the end undercuts RS, for starters. Drmies (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Rusf still maintains that something marked "opinion" in a peer-reviewed journal is not peer reviewed. As in the famous presidential "both sides" remark, there is no "both sides" here: false equivalency. Reasonable people can disagree on how to weight the particular article (written by two scientists and published in a scientific journal), of course, but it is not reasonable to disregard basic facts. Perhaps the editor could stop pinging me until they learned to sing a different song. Drmies (talk) 01:12, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish

Volunteer Marek says, 'I ... object to the proposition that this academic source is in any way comparable to "opinion pieces" published as editorials in newspapers and magazines.' I looked and it is not an academic work. It's an opinion piece by academics published in the section for those in a journal. Just go read it. It is absolutely, positively an op-ed, not a science paper. The fallacy "It's in JAMA ergo it's a high-quality piece of academic research" is the same fallacy as "It's in The New York Times so it must be high-quality, secondary journalism." Publications have more than one kind of material, and an op-ed is an op-ed, an ad is an ad, a book review is a book review, and an advice column is an advice column (hint: all primary, not secondary). That an opinion piece in JAMA was vetted is immaterial; it's still opinion. NYT op-eds are subject to editorial review, too. The problem is the nature and purpose of the work. It's the kind of thing we'd use as "According to an op-ed by [Whoever], ...", iff the quotee was eminent and quoting their view was relevant and WP:DUE. Unlike some well-researched NYT op-eds I've seen, this one does not provide citations for the potentially secondary factual claims it makes, so we can't really evaluate them. It may be high-quality, but it's still primary.

Both editors at the center of this are generally constructive. I'm inclined to stay out of the inter-editorial personality clash (the entire WP:ARBAP2 topic area is a cesspool). I noticed at ARCA today that ArbCom is saying "Either have AE deal with this case-by-case, or open ARBAP3", and some parties lean toward the latter. I'm not sure there's much point in AE hearing mini-cases like this in the interim, but that's up to you all. This ultimately boiling down to treating an op-ed as if it were secondary science sourcing can be addressed head-on, however. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of our sourcing policies and guidelines. It's not constructive try to bend our policies to say what they don't and fire up a huge pissing contest in the process. Just follow the damned policies.

I think this may relate to a blind spot among the WP:MEDRS crowd more that to ARPAP2. It's a guideline subject to near-total control by a handful of editors and never subjected to thorough examination by the community. There's a serious conflict with policy in it which I've tried to address several times, and it directly relates to this matter: a belief that primary sources (even press releases and position statements) by respected medical publishers transmogrify somehow into "ideal" secondary sourcing. In a post today [85] at WP:VPPOL in a thread largely about ARBAP2, I explicated this in some detail – starting at "Even MEDRS has an error in it in this regard ..."). I think this is worth RfCing, because the problems it's causing are clearly spreading from medical articles to other topics like politics.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:39, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Rusf10

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

Definitely no action to take here, this is a nonsense. I'm inclined to wonder whether VM's Donald Trump topic ban needs to be broadened a little bit to cover closely-related articles. I would note he has an arbitration sanction which states he is "strongly warned against casting general aspersions against editors who [he sees] as "pro-Trump"." Fish+Karate 11:18, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- I would note that MrX's suggesting this (read it in context with the post to which it's replying) is "incendiary rhetoric" is very, very unfair. @Vanamonde93: My thoughts are that this is a quibble over whether or not a source is reliable or not between two very stubborn people who have opposing views on the matter. What it is not is something that should result in a sanction. I can see Rusf10's point, in that the source in question, although it has been published in a journal, is an opinion piece on an environmental issue written by two social scientists which was not peer-reviewed (as per this) so what it contains ought not to be taken as a 100% stone cold fact and ought not to be granted the same level of credibility as a proper, peer-reviewed, scientific study. So I do think in this instance Rusf10 was not acting from an incorrect starting point. I can see Volunteer Marek's point, in that the approach Rusf10 is taking is rather bulldozery and argumentative. I would love for them both to be able to work out the issue and then leave each other alone. Wikipedia has tens of thousands of editors and you don't need to fight every battle. And more to the point, you don't need to see them as battles in the first place. Fish+Karate 08:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MrX: While I am not obliged to justify my statement as per the link you provided, as they are not an administrative action, I will do so anyway, but I’m on my phone so that’ll have to wait til Monday now as it’ll take forever this way. In short though if you honestly, truly think “incendiary rhetoric” is a reasonable summary of a mild and polite correction then I don’t think you’ll accept anything I say. Fish+Karate 19:56, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

- - @Fish and karate: I'm actually not so bothered by the "not everything in journals is reliable" diff. Questioning a source based on the quality of the publication is necessary. Questioning a source based on partisanship isn't, because WP:NPOV and WP:RS make no allowance for supposed partisanship. I am more bothered by stuff like this, together with persistent assumptions of bad faith. That said, I'm not in favor of sanctions either. I would suggest a warning, which I'll try to put together below. Vanamonde (talk) 09:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Vanamonde93: I think a warning (possibly to both parties) around combative attitudes is reasonable. Fish+Karate 09:15, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - @NeilN: I would agree with most of what Rusf10 said in that diff. It's not right to assume everything published in every journal is the gospel truth, particularly if the work in question is explicitly described as an opinion piece. I wouldn't agree with his first sentence, but I can see what he's trying to say overall, albeit not particularly collegiately. Fish+Karate 08:42, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would caution Rusf10 against expressing his personal views about the work of living people so forcefully (diff 1) and to take care when summarizing other editors' views (diff 2). Diff 2 is particularly concerning because if Rusf10 feels that's an accurate view of Drmies' position then I have to question if they are able to participate productively in this area which often requires the careful reading and summarizing of source material. No action against VM. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:43, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rusf10, do you have any comment on this diff? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:26, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Too many cases have passed by AE /ArbCom where editors have expressed negative opinions of BLPs but these simply go as non-actions within these , as 1) its a problem through WP, there's no reason to single out any one person unless we're going to go full bore across all editors, which would hit a lot of established editors, and 2) most of the time, it's clear these are opinions and not factual claims, to any casual reader. I agree that all editors should be asked to tone down any personal feelings they have towards BLPs as per NeilN above, and to try to argue for inclusion or omission of BLP material without getting into their personal opinions of said BLP. It helps to avoid the BLP line and can reduce the battleground mentality editors seem to have in these areas. --Masem (t) 15:42, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While Rusf10's commentary on talk pages is far from ideal (stuff like this being a case in point), I don't see a need to sanction them from a BLP perspective, though I would agree with NeilN that a caution is in order. I am far more concerned at their misunderstanding of NPOV. They seem to be under the impression that neutrality has something to do with finding an arbitrary midpoint between two arbitrarily divided political positions in one country; which has nothing to do with how Wikipedia defines neutrality. We define NPOV in terms of significant viewpoints in reliable secondary sources. Now Rusf10 is welcome to disagree with that definition, but they are still required to edit within it, and their commentary about academic publishing suggests that they may not be able to do so. This problem goes deep, and is not something that can be sorted out by a block or a restricted topic-ban; and I'm not keen on imposing a sweeping t-ban right off the bat. So, I would support a strongly worded warning, with the expectation that further evidence of misunderstanding NPOV and our concept of reliable sources may result in a wide topic-ban. There's also the issue of their continued assumptions of bad faith. Since this request has been open for a while: @Fish and karate, NeilN, and Masem: what are your thoughts? Vanamonde (talk) 05:10, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- Without opening up that discussion here, that stance on NPOV is very much debatable and has been at the center of many many disputes for at least 4+ years, and remains an issue (see , for example, this recent VPP discussion. So no, we cannot fault them on how they view NPOV; where we can find fault if there is any here is in aspects of related to WP:TE or WP:IDHT behavior if the talk page consensus has come down one way or another that we can talk some type of action against. --Masem (t) 05:26, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Masem: Feel free to ignore my definition of what NPOV is not; but my statement of what it is is from the policy, nearly word for word, and if we're unwilling to enforce that we have a problem. Vanamonde (talk) 05:41, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    - Let me restart: while that is what NPOV says, that wording is a point of contention for 4+ years, moreso in the last two (that link one example of considering what's wrong with NPOV that could be addressed) Rusf10's free to question the particular application of NPOV in a contentious area (keeping in mind that even policies are not absolute), but has to avoid the TE/IDHT in the same discussions if a consensus had previously been reached about how NPOV applies. --Masem (t) 05:58, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Masem, while I might agree with you that the wording of NPOV has been contentious and that Rusf10 is free to question it, they should not be free to question it in particular applications of the policy. Just for our own sanity, we can't have editors relitigating the meaning of the policy every time there is an RfC on the use of a particular source and to do so is nakedly disruptive. If Rusf10 wants to change the policy, then there are venues available to try to do so and they should use them. So, to the degree that this is a dispute about the meaning of NPOV, Rusf10 should have the policy explained to them and be warned that fighting over the text of policy on article talk pages is disruptive and could lead to sanctions.
For the rest of it, I read through the discussion a few days ago (a little after this complaint was filed) and haven't looked at it since; it struck me then as a simple dispute over whether a source should be regarded as a reliable. If that is still in dispute, it is a straightforward matter for RSN to decide. I don't see the BLP portion of this complaint as actionable; that same statement has me far more worried that Rusf10 is treating the dispute as a battleground - David Cutler "fits all the requirements," by which I think he means all the requirements for certain editors to want the material included. I'm not in favour of sanctions yet, but if Rusf10 continues down this path they will come. GoldenRing (talk) 07:21, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. You don't have to agree with the policy (I dislike parts of it myself), but if you want to change it, VPP is thataway. In all specific cases, you've to follow it as written. Vanamonde (talk) 07:56, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Fish and karate, Masem, GoldenRing, and NeilN: Apologies for the many pings What do you think of the following: "Rusf10 is warned not to assume bad faith in other editors and not to treat Wikipedia as a battleground, and is reminded that disagreements with policy should be brought to the community rather than litigated on article talk pages." Vanamonde (talk) 09:47, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm ok with that in and of itself but would change "warned" to "reminded" (let's not assume bad faith ourselves). It is missing any reference to the other party, though, who should be trouted for bringing this bunkum to ARE in the first place, and I'd be inclined to warn MrX about misrepresenting others contributions out of context, which is shockingly poor form. Fish+Karate 10:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Fish and karate: I'm unimpressed with Marek's language (as I've frequently told him) but I was involved in a content dispute with him over the 1973 Chilean coup some three years ago, and though it makes not the slightest difference to my judgement here I will stick to the letter of the law and not comment on sanctions with respect to him. I haven't reviewed Mr. X's conduct in detail yet, but I will do so, and if you wish to propose something in the meantime please go ahead. Vanamonde (talk) 10:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with the strongly worded warning to Rusf10, but I do think a caution to all editors involved to turn down the battleground mentality is needed. As I mentioned above, this seems to single out one bad actor among several simply because they have a certain ideological stance compared to the others. --Masem (t) 13:31, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am almost prepared to give Rusf10 a topic ban here over their JAMA comments. If you are calling something published in a very solid source (as determined by other Wikipedia editors - not me) "garbage" you'd better have other solid sources that detail why that piece is garbage, and not just your own personal opinion. That is blatant POV editing. I agree with Vanamonde93 and GoldenRing in saying that admins uphold written policy as it stands. I disagree with Fish and karate that VM deserves any warning. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with NeilN; the JAMA comments by Rusf are substandard enough that I'd consider sanctions on those grounds. This diff alone encapsulates an impressive volume of fallacies and misunderstandings of policy, aggravated by the aggressive ignorance he's displayed in the thread in question. Just in that one diff:

"Drmies, is under the false impression that everything published in an academic journal must be true..."... Drmies neither said nor implied any such thing; this is a bad-faith misrepresentation of an opponent's position.
"... which is really no more intelligent than saying "I read it on the internet, it must be true". Advocating for JAMA as a reliable source (which it is) is quite different from claiming anything on the Internet must be true. This is, again, a bad-faith misrepresentation. It also indicates a deep misunderstanding of policy; one fundamental determinant of reliability is the venue in which a claim is published. Rusf chooses to ignore this, and to pretend that it makes no difference with regard to reliability whether a source is published in JAMA or on a random website.
"BTW, I forgot to mention that I believe the guy who wrote this is an economist, not a environmental scientist, which gives him even less creditably" [sic]. The piece in question was written by two people, not one "guy". One of the two authors is a statistician who specializes in climate change and health policy. It's somewhat ignorant to suggest that an economist is unsuited to comment on the impact of policy changes on measurable outcomes (that is, after all, one key aspect of economics), but it's worse to misrepresent the article's authorship in an attempt to undermine it.

More generally, Rusf's tone in this entire thread is aggressively partisan and displays either ignorance of, or contempt for, basic site policy on sourcing. I don't doubt that there are other offenders in the topic area, and identifying and handling Rusf's editing doesn't give them a pass. But this is obviously someone whose input in the topic area is a massive net-negative in terms of both tone and content, and this is exactly the sort of behavior that we need less of. Discretionary sanctions exist to deal with this kind of thing. Like NeilN, I would favor a topic ban, although I recognize that I'm in the minority. At a minimum, it should be made clear to Rusf that his behavior isn't appropriate and that, if it continues, a topic ban will result. MastCell ^Talk 15:11, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The latest response by Rusf10 is not encouraging. Paraphrasing what I said on my talk page, Rusf10 is free to argue about the appropriateness of a source without stating a piece he personally disagrees with is garbage and a fringe theory and providing no evidence. That is POV editing (similar to when an Indian editor dismisses out of hand all works by Pakistani scholars) and that kind of editing will get you topic banned. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:11, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I read the "Survey" section at this revision. It's really not good. Basically, Rusf10 decides that a source which backs a position he doesn't like isn't reliable, despite a large number of people pointing out its provenance; then decides that one of the scientists involved is biased because of a poisition they previously held, calls the source (in the JAMA, no less) "a piece of garbage" - and then baldly states "I just proved the source is not creditable", despite having done absolutely nothing of the sort. I'm with MastCell and NeilN here. Topic ban. Black Kite (talk) 20:01, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[1] The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.

[2] This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

[3] "Through the manipulation of numbers (...) the impression is created that Communism is four times worse than fascism and that the Holocaust was not a uniquely evil crime

[4] Hiroaki Kuromiya. Review Article: Communism and Terror. Reviewed Work(s): The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, and Repression byStephane Courtois; Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201. [1]

[5] Courtois enormous body count of Communism's victims certainly sparked the ire of some of his detractors - including Nicolas Werth, a contributor of the Black Book of Communism who broke over several aspects of the introduction, including the fact that Courtois used a figure of twenty million dead at the hands of Soviets, whereas Werth's own estimate, given in his chapter of his volume, was fifteen million

[6] More concretely, (i) the source says that a person X obtained general instructions from his supervisors; (ii) to implement these instructions, X had to do some technical step; (iii) however, the source does not say this particular technical step was a part of instructions X got from supervisors.

[7] The source says about Stalin's Great Purge. It tells about one person, Berg, who was accused of inventing the gas van. Berg explained that he was acting in accordance with the orders of his supervisors, who demanded his team execute (literally, "shoot") a huge number of people. The team was incapable of doing that, so he had to build a gas van. The source uses the word "shoot", not just "execute", which means the order to execute people did come from Berg's supervisors, but creation of gas vans was Berg's own initiative. Since MVBW is proficient in Russian, they could not make this misinterpretation just by mistake.

[8] Google translates this fragment as follows: "And - I call on the Jews. Repent not for Trotsky-Kamenev-Zinoviev, they are already on the surface, they can be brushed aside: "they were not Jews!" And - to look honestly at the depth of the early Soviet oppressor apparatus - to those "invisible" like Isai Davidovich Berg, who created the famous "gas vans", which killed the Jews themselves too, and even to more inconspicuous people who were doing routine paperwork in the Soviet apparatus and never went public." In other words, Solzhenitsyn directly accused Jews, as an ethnic group, in inventing gas vans.

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@@ Line 436: / Line 436: @@
 ====Statement by Drmies====
 I'm just baffled by some editors' opinions which betray a complete lack of knowledge of how science, publishing, and peer review works. That someone could think that an opinion piece in JAMA wouldn't be vetted is amazing to me, and that this would be equivalent to "something on the internet" is ... well. So in that sense, given that kind of lack of understanding, it may well be a good idea to ban them from sensitive areas. I just looked at all the opposes in the discussion, and one or two make the argument that it's UNDUE right now (User:Markbassett argued along those lines)--that's valid. What is different for this editor is not just the empty argument (they're not the only one) but also sort of nihilism which in the end undercuts RS, for starters. [[User:Drmies|Drmies]] ([[User talk:Drmies|talk]]) 16:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
+*I see that Rusf still maintains that something marked "opinion" in a peer-reviewed journal is not peer reviewed. As in the famous presidential "both sides" remark, there is no "both sides" here: false equivalency. Reasonable people can disagree on how to weight the particular article (written by two scientists and published in a scientific journal), of course, but it is not reasonable to disregard basic facts. Perhaps the editor could stop pinging me until they learned to sing a different song. [[User:Drmies|Drmies]] ([[User talk:Drmies|talk]]) 01:12, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 ====Statement by SMcCandlish ====

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