Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kurds and Kurdistan/Evidence

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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

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Not sure this is "evidence"

FWIW I agree with Procrastinating Reader that this doesn't put any more power in the hands of one editor than in the hands of all editors. Every editor is free to dispute content not souced to recent scholarship by saying, "Hey, I don't think that's appropriate for inclusion. Please find it in recent scholarship." For disputed content, only recent scholarship can be used. I disagree with both Joe Roe and SD that this means pre-2000 details can't be included. It means they can't be included if they're disputed and no recent scholarship is even discussing them. Which in the case of a subject which is thoroughly covered in recent scholarship is as it should be, IMO. If there's copious recent scholarship about a subject, and none of those scholars are even discussing something, why would anyone argue to include it? If they are mentioning it, we report what they say. —valereee (talk) 16:55, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Valereee, was all the talk about Kurdish immigration into northeastern Syria disputed, or is recent scholarship not discussing that? Here is an excerpt from the 2005 "Companion to the History of the Middle East":

The majority of the Kurds in Syria are originally Turkish Kurds, who left Turkey in the 1920s in order to escape the harsh repression of the Kurds in that country. These Kurds were later joined in Syria by a new large group that drifted out of Turkey throughout the interwar period during which the Turkish campaign to assimilate its Kurdish population was at it highest.

Also White (2011) [The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r2178] provides some specific examples on this Kurdish immigration and how it shaped the border and border areas in Syria. How is adding info from medieval times (like Kurdish mercenaries in the Krac des chevaliers or Ayyubid dynasty control of Syria added recently by Levivich under your admin protection of the Syrian Kurdistan article) more relevant than Kurdish immigration into Syria during the 20th century? Unless I am missing something, this is clearly double standards. I'll be adding some of that into into the respective articles when I get a chance. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Straw man fallacy. This is more about the tendentious misinterpretation of statistics than the relevance of the 20th century. We have seen plenty of sources stating exactly why there is a POV push to insist on the essential foreignness of Kurds in Syria (and accompanying denial of ethnic cleansing by the Syrian Arab Republic), and it is impossible not extrapolate a motive for your insistence on this same discredited dogma refuted by all reliable sources. GPinkerton (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم, if it's being discussed in recent scholarship then this editing restriction wouldn't exclude it. There may be other reasons other editors want to exclude some information. This restriction isn't intended to be the only reason an editor could argue to exclude something. Inclusion still needs consensus. Literally the entire point of this restriction was to prevent people from over and over and over and over again bringing in older lower-quality sources when there are large numbers of top-quality recent sources. That's it. Please ping me if you respond, I've got 5000+ pages on my watch and I don't always see when someone responds to me if they don't ping me. I never mind being pinged. :) —valereee (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

References

GPinkerton posted her evidence very late giving editors no time for rebuttal

GPinkerton posted her evidence very late on the 5th before the discussion was closed:[1] I want to assume good faith and hope this was by accident, but how am I and other editors supposed to rebuttal when she posted her evidence 30 minutes before the closure? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness and anyone else who may be interested, we're working on this now and we'll have an update soon. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Supreme Deliciousness, KevinL, Isn't there a section at the workshop where evidence will be analyzed in detail?. I thought this would be done there.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with SD. The nature of the "evidence" input by GPinkerton, who went back 5 or 10 years to manage to find some random blocks unrelated to the topic at hand, is concerning, especially coming from a user with an average of one block per month during the last year or so, including one indefinite block. See here for a small part of one complaint last November by several editors on their behavior that involved many admins and took several weeks. Also, the nature of there diffs is almost entirely either content dispute or removal of unsourced content. Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 08:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I've extended the evidence phase until 8 February. I hope this is sufficient time for everyone to respond. Maxim_(talk) 14:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Maxim for the extension, but I am not really sure how to proceed with such a large number of unsubstantiated and outright false or misrepresented claims. I hope the committee look at the contributions (whether mentioned in this case or not) of every user in detail. GPinkerton has had so many tendentious editing battles and complaints against. I would argue their edits have kept admins busy more than any other editor in 2020. Anyway, do we respond to the claims of GPinkerton (and other users) one by one and debunk them or what? For example, this canvassing claim difference they added is a comment I just left a couple of days ago to an Admin (User:El C) about a disruptive user related to the topic. How is that considered canvassing? Their claim about me "minimizing Kurdish population statistics" in this difference is false again, as usual. According to the reference used (Table 3, p 11-12) (reporting French mandate statistics), the number of Kurds in Jazira province was 42,500 out of a total population of 139,546. It does not take an Einstein to figure out that the percentage is 30.45%, not 37%, as was claimed before my edit. The entire table and all numbers are presented in Al-Jazira_Province page. These are just too very quick examples so I hope the committee does not take accusations (especially from this user with so extensive edit-warring and block history) at face value. Thanks again. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 02:12, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم, we may look further into editors' contributions by our own discretion, but you should make sure to highlight yourself anything you especially want us to see—and that goes for everyone. --BDD (talk) 03:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

To follow up on this point, عمرو بن كلثوم, we will consider all evidence submitted in accordance with applicable rules and policies, regardless of the identity of the editor submitting the evidence. But that also means you are free to submit evidence in response. If "debunking" specific claims is what you view as the best way to proceed, you are free to do so (in a manner consistent with applicable rules and policies). Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks KevinL and L235. Do I/we debunk claims here at the Talk page as I just did above for two example claims, or should I submit this on the main case page? Cheers, Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 03:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@عمرو بن كلثوم: Rebuttal evidence should go on the evidence page. Analysis of evidence can go in the analysis section of the workshop or, depending on circumstances, on this talk page. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 10:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm probably going to need another 100 diffs' limit then. GPinkerton (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Could you elaborate on what you need the diffs for? Also, your evidence should not assume any subject knowledge of the topic area; if you are trying to show that someone is misrepresenting sources or is editing in a biased manner, simply linking to the diffs without explanation will not be sufficient. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 10:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

L235, Obviously I will need it to add more to the body of evidence proving that عمرو بن كلثوم and Supreme Deliciousness's personal attacks and casting of aspersion is part of their efforts to discredit NPOV editors and enforce Ba'athist revisionist history on the encyclopaedia. With more diffs and further explanation (if readers are not interested in reading the linked discussions for themselves) it will rapidly become clear that neither or these users can defend their actions and need to take the (since proven incorrect) objections of others in POV-pushing discussions that have involved my discovery, reporting, and correction of, historical POV issues in various articles whose subjects (just as was later the case with Syrian Kurdistan and the Syrian civil war) mean that there is a determined and motivated nationalistic POV pushed by numerous editors (namely, in subjects such as the Holocaust in Bulgaria (where Bulgaria's responsibility is officially denied), the Hagia Sophia (in which Turkish nationalism and the Turkish invasion of Syrian Kurdistan has played a big role), and Biblical literalism, which has caused long-term abusers like Debresser to edit war over the impossibility of the existence of certain Biblical figures). I should be noted that in all these cases, the articles' edit histories and page statistics prove that it is my writing that has gained community consensus, and it is universally the case that my detractors have been proven wrong, as will be seen is also the case in this issue. It should now be clear that عمرو بن كلثوم is dredging up settled disputes, that the community has found in my favour, and is misrepresenting them as proving some point of his. GPinkerton (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

L235, Anyone who has read through the archives of the talk page of Syrian Kurdistan and the numerous reports I made at ANI on the subject will be an expert on the matter; there is surely no call for further additions to the reams and reams of quoted material and cited arguments that can be found there. If answers to a specific question are needed then please ask them, but it would be preferable if I were un-topic-banned so I could continue to improve the Syrian Kurdistan article and the Arab Belt article, which at present the POV-pushing users have been able to edit but which I have never touched. I was hoping to make the sort of edit poposed here, which was of course met with personal attacks and denialism. GPinkerton (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Note that there is a dedicated section Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kurds and Kurdistan/Workshop#Analysis of evidence for the analysis of evidence, and there are no word limits there, as far as I understand. Nsk92 (talk) 14:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Evidence phase closes in around 27 hours

As the evidence phase has been extended, the phase will now end in around 27 hours at or after 00:00 9 February 2021. Although evidence may be submitted up to the deadline, it is better that you post your evidence sooner than later to ensure that you get it in before the phase closes. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:20, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Length of evidence + rebuttals

My main evidence is below 1000 words, but if you ad the rebuttals to GPinkerton and Valereee it is longer. I this okey? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:36, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The Evidence and rebuttals presented by Amr Ibn Kulthum are more than 2000 words long.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I am discussing with the arbitrators about both of the above on clerk-l. Me or an arbitrator will let you both know here with the decision. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 12:34, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The arbitrators have granted Supreme Deliciousness an extension to cover their statement as is at 1,500 words. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 14:14, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

And I have asked AIK to shorten their evidence, or request an extension. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 14:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Dreamy Jazz, I have pinged you on my Talk page where you had left the message to request an extension, but have not heard back from you, and the deadline is looming. Thanks. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 21:55, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

عمرو بن كلثوم, hi. The ping did not go through. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• GPinkerton has so far added almost 3400 words and around 200 diffs. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 23:35, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

  Unavoidable I'm afraid; the evidence is so voluminous and goes back many months and years. Nothing to do with me ... GPinkerton (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2021 (UTC)