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Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)

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Initiated by Red-tailed hawk at 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Palestine-Israel articles 4 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) and related AE thread.
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Pursuant to WP:CTOP#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee, a recent Arbitration Enforcement thread has closed with instructions to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision.
Lists of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Involved AE participants
Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread
Referring administrators
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • Throughout the discussion among administrators at AE, several sources of disruption were identified:
  1. Long-term slow-motion edit warring by a number of individuals within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
  2. Long-term tag-team edit warring by several groups of individuals with the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
  3. The widespread nature of edit warring, battleground mentality, and POV pushing within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
  4. The ineffectiveness of previous warnings within the topic area to stop the disruption.
  5. The inability of the tools available at AE to adequately handle disruption that involves a large number of parties over long periods of time.
Several suggestions were floated by administrators during the discussion, including the issuance of warnings to multiple individuals, the imposition of 0RR restrictions on either select individuals, or 0RR restrictions on large numbers of individuals coupled with select IBANs, TBANs, individual anti-bludgeoning restrictions, and topic-wide restrictions on the length of posts people make in discussions within this topic area. However, because the discussion broadly turned into a set of complex and multi-party complaints regarding behavior of multiple editors over long periods of time, a consensus was reached among administrators to refer the broader dispute to the arbitration committee.
— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Red-tailed hawk (AE referral)

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information Note: The arbitration amendment template limits how many individual I can initially add, so I will shortly be adding the rest of the admin and non-admin participants to the list above in their own section.

Additionally, as I can't find any prior examples of referrals by looking through the archive, I have tried to do my best here in light of the fact that this is a referral rather than a standard amendment request/appeal. Arbitrators should not hesitate to let me know if I have formatted this in an unexpected way.

— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Levivich: As should be more obvious now, it's everyone who contributed to the AE discussion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich: There's currently a discussion over at WT:Arbitration/Requests#Template for referrals from AE around that topic. For completeness's sake, I included everyone in this one. Going forward, there might be some norm/convention, but I figured that it was better to incorporate everyone rather than potentially leave someone relevant out. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do acknowledge that I left out several individuals whose behavior was directly mentioned, and I will fix that issue now. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zero0000: Please see my comment above, and my exchange with Levivich for an explanation as to why you are listed under the category of "Involved AE participants". — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 11:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@L235: Thank you for your comment. I think that a full case/case-like structure would be best, as that is the sort of thing that would allow for clear examination of the complex multi-party disputes that AE is not quite able to handle well. In my view, I don't think the topic-wide "please be brief in discussions" provision will be enough, as it isn't going to remedy the long-term edit warring/tag teaming, nor the civility issues that have driven away good faith editors from the topic area.
In the event that a full case is opened, I agree that it is most appropriate to only have the individuals whose behavior is under examination to be considered as parties. But, before that list is finalized, we might want to have some space for the community to identify that sort of behavior—perhaps the section for statements in this thread? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that it might be useful for some anti-bludgeoning sanction to incorporated into the discretionary sanctions available for administrators to dole out, but if so, I think it should look like one that the community has previously endorsed in a DS area. One such sanction is that which was imposed on NewImpartial, of no more than two comments per discussion per day, except replies (of reasonable length) to questions or very brief clarifications of their own comments.
I would hesitate to apply a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words topic-wide in a blanket fashion; I feel like this sort of thing would serve as a trap to good-faith newcomers who are verbose, and we needn't WP:BITE good-faith editors who are entering the topic more than already occurs. That being said, making it available as a discretionary sanction that could be applied by an admin would not cause the same issue with more or less auto-biting good-faith editors new to the area, and might be reasonable. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have read through the analysis by BilledMammal (talk · contribs) regarding the bludgeoning. I would point to WP:ARBBLUDGEON's Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion as pointing at two things: overly repeating oneself in replies to others, and simply dominating by pure volume. The criteria used for the database search can be seen as a (flawed, but useful) proxy for the latter. The former requires contextual analysis as to whether or not someone is simply posting the same point a bazillion times in response to different people; showing diffs in the same discussion where someone is repeating the same point over and over (and over) again across a multitude of comments would provide better evidence towards that point than the analysis currently does. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720: With respect to If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue, my reading of Wikipedia:Contentious topics#Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee's relevant part (i.e. A consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard may refer an arbitration enforcement request to the Arbitration Committee for final decision through a request for amendment; emphasis mine) is that I had to submit it here rather than as a case request. If this is to change going forward, the instructions should probably be tweaked to clarify this. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:44, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do think that a broad enforced WP:BRD topic-wide will eliminate tag-team edit warring that currently occurs to get around WP:1RR. What it will create, however, is worse: it would allow even smaller groups of people to throw up even more friction to making any substantial changes anywhere in the area. Broad WP:BRD across the whole area will exhaust editor time unnecessarily, and it would prove unworkable (particularly so for articles on rapidly developing current events where WP:1RR is already probably too burdensome). — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:55, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that a thread has closed with the conclusion that I am involved within the context of the Israel-Hamas war (2023-present) due to content edits in that area. Going forward, I will refrain from taking administrative actions in the context of that war except in straightforward cases (e.g. vandalism). — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Levivich

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Pre-motion comments

Looking at the list of parties, those who have been sanctioned in this topic area have not been disruptive since their sanction, AFAIK. Most of the list have never been sanctioned. If there are concerns regarding anyone's behavior in the topic area, a filing at AE, ANI, ANEW, or some other noticeboard, should happen first, before an arbcom case. An arbcom case should only happen when (1) there are editors who want to present evidence to arbcom, and (2) community options have first been tried and failed (unless there's private evidence involved). Because these criteria are not met, the case request should be declined.

Limiting everyone in the topic area to 500-1000 words is a terrible idea. This topic area has more sources (see here or here for an idea of how many academic books have been published just in the last five years), and more sources that contradict each other, than almost any other topic area. Discussions about sources can't happen in 500-1000 words; the very notion is ridiculous. More to the point, any kind of topic-wide restriction would be a horrible, counterproductive overreach. The vast, vast majority of editors are doing nothing wrong.

Removing appeals to the community is not something arbcom can do, as that would require a change to WP:BANPOL, which arbcom cannot do.

I don't think the AEs I filed are particularly "complex" or "multi-party". I think they're straightforward, and each one can be judged on its merits without considering the actions of other parties. Of the 5 I filed, 1 ended in sanctions, 2 in warnings, no problems with those. The PeleYoetz one is still open and they just made their first comment there recently. I don't see any reason admins can't review that as with any other filing. If arbs want to review that filing instead of admins, seems like overkill, but OK. האופה hasn't edited since I filed the AE 8 days ago, so while arbs could review it, I see it as moot, and I don't think reviewing it would be a good use of anyone's time at this point.

There is nothing for arbcom to do here. People who are concerned about disruption in the topic area should raise it at one of the community noticeboards. A sprawling, unfocused case with lots of parties, is a terrible idea, as has been proven multiple times by past arbcoms, and this is especially true in the absence of any showing that the community is unable to handle this. The only thing worse would be a topic-wide sanction; please don't do that, I fear it would trigger a "constitutional crisis" and waste more editor time. Levivich (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a heads up: if a case is opened, I will ask arbcom to name as parties and review the conduct of all the editors, admins and non-admins alike, who, on this page, are casting WP:ASPERSIONS. Those of you who have done so may want to either strike your comments or add some diffs to support your allegations, before arbcom gets around to asking who the parties should be. Levivich (talk) 16:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: BilledMammal's comment that 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets ... The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with. 26 replies were to confirmed sock puppets, and I rather strongly disagree that it's trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with, though of course I value my own time more than others value my time. :-P Levivich (talk) 01:47, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The way my report against HaOfa "sprawled" is because the first admin comment made the "other people do it, too" argument and listed a bunch of other editors, and it went downhill from there, as those editors predictably defended themselves and the discussion focused on their conduct rather than HaOfa's (despite my attempts to refocus it). I agree with TBF that an AE referral means Arbcom should review my report against HaOfa -- meaning, look at my conduct and HaOfa's conduct -- and complaints about other editors should be brought separately, with diffs not aspersions, and a showing that some other conduct dispute resolution was first tried. Because even if Arbcom does open a case, who will the parties be, and how will Arbcom decide? It requires someone presenting some evidence... in other words, an WP:ARC. Only HaOfa and I are relevant to this AE, and with HaOfa not editing since the filing, I don't think it's necessary or a good use of Arbcom's time to look at HaOfa's conduct. Levivich (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here. I think the "first admin comment" link above disproves this. Look at who replied and who didn't before that first comment was made. It wasn't the replies that actually happened split the focus, it was the first admin comment. Levivich (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does "pro-Israeli" mean pro-Netanyahu, or pro-the hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching in the streets protesting Netanyahu? Does "pro-Palestinian" mean pro-Fatah or pro-Hamas? And if the truth makes one side look good and the other look bad, does that mean it's "pro-" one side and "anti-" the other, or is it just the truth?

Somebody tries to get Wikipedia to say that East Jerusalem is part of Israel. That's called pro-Israeli POV-pushing. The pro-Palestinian version of that would be somebody trying to get Wikipedia to say that West Jerusalem is part of Palestine. Maybe it's happened, but I've never seen anybody try that. AFAIK, there is nobody "on the other side" of the pro-Israeli POV-pushing with regards to the status of Jerusalem. There are just the people who say it's all Israel, and the people who say, no it's split in two parts and it's supposed to be an international zone. That second group isn't "pro-Palestinian," just pro-truth.

Somebody tries to get Wikipedia to say that Palestinians are not indigenous or native to Palestine. Pro-Israeli POV-pushing. The pro-Palestinian version of that would be somebody trying to get Wikipedia to say that Jews are not indigenous or native to Israel (or Palestine, call it what you will). I've seen that, but rarely. Much more common are people saying that both groups are native to the region. Those people aren't pro-Palestinian POV-pushers, they're just pro-truth; they're normal editors following the sources.

There have been some names named on this page. I remember them participating in disputes about East Jerusalem and Palestinian origins, but I don't remember them ever trying to change an article to say that West Jerusalem was Palestinian, or Jews aren't from Israel. And I don't see any diffs of that.

So the disruption on Wikipedia is not pro-Israeli vs. pro-Palestinian; it's not that kind of simple. But it is editors who follow RS vs. a bunch of socks; it's that kind of simple. Yes, there are also good-faith content disputes, as to be expected, but the disruption--the edit warring, the source misrepresentation, the POV-pushing--that's largely from socks. And the response to those socks is not POV-pushing from the other side. Following RS is not POV pushing.

The damage caused by these socks can be significant. The latest example of obvious-sock-but-we-can't-say-it-until-we-have-a-certain-amount-of-minimum-evidence is FourPi. Look at their last 1000 contribs; they go back two weeks. Look at how much of other editor's time they wasted on talk pages. Just their last 1000 mainspace edits go back one month. Who has time to check all of those?

So when you see some people argue that East Jerusalem is in Israel and Palestinians aren't from there, and another group saying that's not true, please don't label them "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian." The most efficient way to handle it is to look at the RS, figure out which side is following the RS, and then checkuser the other side. Levivich (talk) 21:24, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Like others, I appreciate the attempt to move this to conclusion with some motions, but I disagree with all of SFR's suggestions:

  1. Appeals only to arbcom - I don't see any evidence that appeals are a significant source of disruption in this topic area. Where are the links to 5-10 recent disruptive appeals? So I don't see any reason to change anything about appeals.
  2. Word limits - Bludgeoning can't be determined by word count or comment count, those are indicators but not determinitive; any determination requires case-by-case analysis. Also, it's a fallacy to think that long discussions are always a problem. We can't decide whether to call it "Gaza genocide" in a brief discussion. We can't analyze the number of RSes in Template:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate in under 500 words per person. Limiting talk page discussions to 500 words would be very counterproductive to building an encyclopedia, in any topic area, because it would prevent people from discussing anything in any serious depth. Many of us can't even comment on this month-long ARCA in under 500 words; how would we ever decide "Gaza genocide" in under 500 words each?
  3. Excluding "involved" participants - "Editors designated "involved" in the area of conflict" would be everyone who edits in ARBPIA. I'm not sure of the thinking behind putting restrictions on everybody who edits ARBPIA. There certainly isn't any evidence that everybody who edits ARBPIA is editing disruptively or that excluding their voices would somehow benefit the topic area. Also, experience editing a topic area is not a bad thing. I'm having a hard time seeing the logic in replacing experienced editors with inexperienced editors and expecting that to lead to improvement.
  4. Enforced BRD - This is already something that can be imposed on talk pages, yet in my experience it has almost never been imposed on any talk page in ARBPIA (I can't think of a single example). We have one page that is under Consensus Required (Zionism). I don't know whether Enforced BRD or Consensus Required is better, or if either are improvements over neither, but we do not have enough data to know. Let admins apply them to pages first, and see how they work out, before we consider applying either of them to the entire topic area.

This has been open for almost a month, and yet nobody has yet posted a specific list of parties, and recent diffs of disruption by those parties, and links to prior discussions of that disruption that did not resolve it. I think instead of motions, it'd be better for arbcom to close this ARCA without any specific action now but with an invitation for editors to request arbcom's review by presenting specific evidence (at ARCA or ARC) of recent disruption that hasn't been addressed by the community. Levivich (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile... here's some actual disruption in the topic area, going on right now: revert, revert, revert, revert, revert, all by accounts new to the topic area, at the same time as high-profile off-wiki commentary, e.g. X post by Brianna Wu, X post by Hen Mazzig. This is an example of why "outside voices" aren't necessarily better than the voices of experienced editors. Levivich (talk) 20:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Figureofnine's comment that there is widespread belief, both on and off-wiki, that these articles are biased may be true, but there is not widespread agreement on which way that bias runs. This widespread belief is not a problem that can be fixed, or that we can even try to fix. There will always be widespread belief that Wikipedia articles are biased, just like there is widespread belief that the rest of the media is biased, because it's true, because all people are biased to various degrees, it's inescapable. WP:NPOV has "neutral" in the title, but it redefines the word to mean something unique on Wikipedia. NPOV doesn't mean free of bias, it means we adopt mainstream bias. We say in wikivoice what the mainstream says, we identify dissenting views that the mainstream deems significant, and ignore the others (calling them "fringe"). We call this adoption of the mainstream bias "neutral point of view." Everyone will always disagree with some parts of it, but it'll be different parts. Sure, I also think our ARBPIA articles are riddled with bias, but not the same parts that Hen Mazzig is talking about, and Arbcom isn't going to resolve that disagreement between us. We are not here because of bias in articles, and I don't think there is any chance that we are going to stick NPOV tags on thousands of articles, nor are we going to elect a body that can come up with a way to write a bias-free summary of the most complicated and controversial geopolitical dispute in history. Let's keep our expectations reasonable: we can kick people out who are causing a lot of trouble, and maybe find ways to reduce the amount of volunteer time wasted on unnecessary writing (cough), that's what we can try to do. Levivich (talk) 05:20, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Coretheapple's statement that the Wikipedia community as a whole has avoided this subject area is easily dispelled. Israel–Hamas war (created less than a year ago) has been edited by 1,288 editors and has 787 page watchers. For a comparison, Israel (created in 2001) has 5,686 editors and 2,928 watchers. 2024 Lebanon pager explosions (created one week ago) has 250 editors and 171 watchers. Those hundreds of editors are part of the Wikipedia community (as am I, as are the editors I work with every day). They have not avoided this subject area. Levivich (talk) 16:35, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More useful motions would be:
  • Something to address the socking -- though I don't know what (ECR hasn't posed a problem for the topic area's dedicated LTAs)
  • A source restriction like WP:APLRS, but with a carve out for current events. In recent days at Talk:Zionism, we've had editors try to cite the Bible, Wikipedia, and dictionaries, as RS. This is a too-common occurrence. Levivich (talk) 16:23, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@CaptainEek: Maybe "carve out" is the wrong word. The current wording of WP:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Reliable source consensus-required restriction (shortcut needed), includes reputable institution, and arguably something like NYT, BBC, or AP would qualify. But I think some distinction needs to be made between using news media for current events (good), and using news media for history (bad, especially because ample scholarly sources are available for history). Even that breaks down into two further categories: using current news media for history (I still think bad, because scholarship is available), and using historical news media for history -- like citing to a 1948 New York Times article that says the Arabs "fled" instead of "were expelled", which is something I've seen a number of times in this topic area, and which should be totally avoided. I would phrase it like: stick to scholarship, except for current events, then use mainstream media. Maybe "clarification" is a better word for that than "carve out"? In terms of defining "recent," I think one year minimum or two years maximum ... the purpose being that once scholarship exists, ditch the news media in favor of the scholarship. It's taken about 6 months, I'd say, for a decently-sized body of scholarship to develop about the 2023 war. A year later, we now have a good number of journal articles, and some books are starting to be published. By this time next year, there will be no need to use news media for events in 2023, as we'll have books and journal articles to draw from. This is my anecdotal and totally unscientific and unqualified opinion, of course :-) But bottom line: OK to use NYT for events in the past year or so; don't use NYT's "I-P conflict explainer," instead use scholarship for that; don't use 50- or 100-year old newspapers for anything. Levivich (talk) 16:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Eek: I think my concern about current events could be addressed with a sentence added to the RS restriction that said something along the lines of, "Reputable news media may be used as a source for current events that have not yet been significantly covered by scholarship." That's what I meant by "carve out." I think this sentence would apply to APL and ARBPIA and any other topic areas where the RS restriction was in effect. Levivich (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoidh: What is the inclusion criteria for the list of parties in your motion? Going through the list:

  • BilledMammal: One-week pblock, logged by SFR, on 8 May. No other logged sanctions or warnings, ever. (Apparently BM was never given a logged warning before being sanctioned.)
  • Iskandar323: Last sanctioned in 2021
  • Levivich: Warning logged by SFR 7 Oct; before that, last ARBPIA sanction (pblock) was in 2020
  • Nableezy: TBAN in 2023 imposed by SFR, overturned on appeal (reduced to 30 days by agreement); last ARBPIA sanction (logged warning) was in 2021
  • PeleYoetz: Never sanctioned, one AE filing, which was referred to arbcom (this ARCA)
  • Selfstudier: Warning logged by SFR 7 Oct; before that, last ARBPIA sanction (logged warning) was in 2020
  • האופה: Never sanctioned, one AE filing, which was referred to arbcom (this ARCA)

This does not seem to be a group of editors who are causing long-term problems. So why list us?

Second question: what's wrong with making people who want to have a case file a WP:RFAR, with diffs and links showing long-term disruption and a failure by the community to handle it? Why is that not the answer here? Levivich (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoidh: I appreciate your very quick and direct response, but I'm afraid I don't understand interaction between a group of editors was deemed too complex for AE to properly address. What interactions between this group of editors are you referring to? And when was it "deemed too complex," and by whom? I'm asking you: exactly what did I and the others do to make you think that you should start a case about us? And how could it be "too complex" if there are almost no sanctions and almost no AE cases, about anyone on this list (none at all for most people on this list)? What is the basis of your conclusion that this particular group of editors have had interactions that have been deemed too complex for AE to handle? Levivich (talk) 17:56, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to drill down on one example: Iskandar323. What are they doing on this list? They haven't been sanctioned since 2021 and AFAIK never brought to AE in that time period, either (not counting the obviously meritless filings brought by CU-blocked accounts). So what basis is there to say that interactions involving Iskandar323 are too complex for AE to properly address? I could similarly go one by one down this list, including myself. But let's just talk about the lowest-hanging fruit, which is Iskandar: why are they on this list? Levivich (talk) 17:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by האופה

[edit]

Wow, a very long discussion.

I haven't been here for a while due to personal matters unrelated to Wikipedia. My family has been affected both financially and physically by the war in Israel, and I had to take the time to assist them.

Yesterday, I returned and saw the lengthy discussion... it took me time to read everything, and I admit I wasn't able to deeply analyze every single word written.

I want to thank Selfstudier, who closely follows my edits and brought this discussion to my attention.

As for the matter at hand: I have never engaged in canvassing or tag-teaming. I simply agree with other editors who claim that the situation in many articles related to Israel has already crossed all boundaries of NPOV and is heavily biased. I participate in talk pages and have made reverts in cases where problematic content was promoted despite not reaching a consensus. Unfortunately, after all the edit wars, the problematic content remains in these articles, damaging our credibility.HaOfa (talk) 07:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bluethricecreamman

[edit]
  • There seems to be constant RFCs and threads about the reliability of sourcing in this area. I know the current arbitration request is about long term edit warring, but there is also long-term campaigns in talk spaces to remove usage of certain sourcing. See the downgrading of the ADL, the current RFC in WP:RSN about Al Jazeera, etc. The downgrading of the ADL, in particular, caused significant media coverage for barely much difference in the status quo of average Wikipedian (from my understanding, we already had significant warnings about using ADL with attribution only when speaking about Israel Palestine, the change in status quo hardly meant much more than a media circus). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In terms of reversion, the reversion limits are harder to understand in CTOP space, especially for more contentious arguments. A clarification of what the "base" article text is and what the contentious edit that is being reverted is would be useful. In my case on Genocide of indigenous peoples, there are still questions of how to apply WP:NOCONSENSUS vs WP:ONUS when a contentious edit (which probably should be removed by WP:ONUS) had been placed in text for long while (and therefore should remain by WP:NOCONSENSUS). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Additional clarification on whether coordinated tag-team editwarring (i.e. WP:CANVASSED) or incidental tag-team editwarring should be treated similarly would be useful Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Going off of the suggestion from ScottishFR, for the limit of 500-1000 words, some of these RFC discussions go long. Instead of absolute limits that could unfairly limit discussion among the most passionate editors of the topic, would it be possible to go with proportional limits (no more than 500 words or 10% of comments, whichever is greater?), or limits per week (500 words per week?) In addition, I have questions if such a limit would apply to single RFC threads, or to the whole topic at once. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think categorizing and various ontologies is also problematic and hard to determine, as is expected. See the issue with whether Israel is just accused of being an apartheid state, or also a Talk:Herrenvolk_democracy#Inclusion_of_Israel_in_imagebox. Allegations of just genocide or Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples. There are POV-fork type issues, but this is one of those topics where every time there is a question of how to categorize the conflict, it opens up the same exact battle lines of arguments in a million pages, even if they cover completely different aspects that may involve Israel/Palestine as one example. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    TLDR; battleground fractures into dozens of talk pages that aren't necessarily pov-forks, same arguments pushed everywhere in each RFC. Better guidelines on how to be more succinct with RFCs on this topic, and how to discuss WP:ARBPIA topics on pages that aren't necessarily centered on ARBPIA would be wonderful too. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding Number57's assessment, A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage). this seems disingenuous to suggest this, especially given the WP:NOTAVOTE rule. There are RFCs where arguments on either side are heavily favored by numbers before an admin/uninvolved closer throws away votes that have reasoning that is logically rebutted. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:56, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I will also say the 30/500 restriction as a "worsening" of situation seems silly. I am not quite sure about the logical reasoning behind that assertion, though some other biased publications have attempted to use that to suggest that wikipedia "censors" certain viewpoints? [1][2][3] Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • It sounds like a few of folks are leaning towards massive topic bans against all participants... Regardless of how unlikely such a proposal is, I hate the idea of "cleaning the slate" and such a broad strokes approach is likely to cause more problems than it would theoretically solve:
    * There is benefits to having folks with bias on here, especially the most heaviest editors, doing major work. Bias is inherent to humanity and pretending otherwise is just an excuse to press the red ban button without considering consequences (or especially because they hate the current bias of Wikipedia compared to their preferred bias). The way to deal with bias is using the principles we have, rules we can apply even handedly, WP:WIKIVOICE to correctly attribute which side says what, etc.
    • Many topic areas have specialized folks who do important work (see Pareto rule). Seeing a list of highly motivated folks in this topic area is not a sign necessarily they are always hogging the attention, so much as they provide much of the energy to keep Wikipedia up to doate.
    • The precedent of massive topic bans without careful assessment of the reasoning why leads to dangerous precedents for other future content disputes.
    • The precedent of retroactive punishments for areas of conflict is a dangerous precedent
    • I am not sure the same cabal of pro-Palestine/pro-Israeli editors is necessarily "crowding" out other editors? There are folks who loudly complain about exiting ARBPIA areas, especially on this section, but that isn't quite the same as actual stats to back that up. I'm actually fairly new-ish to this topic area, and admins have been kind enough to help shepherd, provide useful guidance, and prevent my early exit (voluntary or involuntary).
  • I think pressing a mass TBAN on this topic area would be somewhat equivalent to doing WP:TNT on large sections of the editor community who specialize on here... Unless it is certain that all of the project is absolutely unsalvageable or ARBIPA is somehow all a failure, I ask arbitrators to avoid granting such a power. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Sean.hoyland thanks for the numbers, they are really informative! I will say, it is fairly obvious a giant influx of editors to the topic area happened recently as a result of the conflict (myself included), though obviously the analysis of such a large dataset to confirm or deny toxicity by a core group would go beyond just numbers. I think the pure mass of folks in the topic area is just a lot harder to govern around and regulate, especially with the contentiousness of the topic area. And as the conflict spreads beyond obviously ARBPIA pages to tangentially related pages, the regulations get murkier. I think if PIA5 does happen, a key issue is just how to govern and regulate en masse, as well as on the individual editor/cabal level, and how to handle PIA content on pages that aren't just pure PIA (see the Herrenvolk_democracy talk page RFC for an example)? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on Motion 3. All areas of Wikipedia has "regulars" and regulars generally provide the most institutional wisdom to the project, rejection of "regulars" ability to vote would likely represent a repudiation of the current coverage of the conflict in favor of the implicit view by some that "secret majorities" have overrun the CTOP areas. For Motion 4, what would be defined as recent? editwars may take the form of months long warring, in which case which edit is a revert, and which is disputed becomes contested as well Bluethricecreamman (talk)
    * regarding the "secret majority" theory proposed by some, I argue that folks use the idea that CTOP contentiousness is driven by a small group of editors to pursue a "burn the house down" strategy of removing/wounding an editor population they perceive to be ideologically biased in one direction. Sean.Hoyland has already produced statistics indicating that editor counts are diverse and that the area is contentious primarily because the topic is contentious. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ABHammad

[edit]

I think we have arrived at a point where editing in this area is not just a battleground environment but an ex-territory of the project. I recognize that I, too, took part in this in the past, not out of desire but because I felt I had no choice when I saw the consistent POV pushing and disregard for policies and consensus. There’s probably a reason why Wikipedia is now maybe the only mainstream source to use terms such as Gaza genocide and Israeli apartheid (read the lead) with its own voice. Many disputed changes like this have been introduced through edit warring (check Zionism, now defined as looking for the “colonization of land outside Europe”), in spite of substantial opposition. The current situation both scares away potential great editors and destroys our credibility and neutrality.

The feeling is that a bunch of 5-10 experienced editors have taken dominance over the area. Much of their edit histories show a focus on promoting one side's POV and discarding the other. Although some problematic editing occurs on both sides, it should be noted that the extent of POV editing on articles about one side is only a fraction of what occurs on articles about the other. This situation is perpetuated as new good-faith editors trying to balance the content often face aggressive behavior such as strong CTOP messages from Selfstudier followed by inquiries how did they find this and that article, "previous accounts" questions from Nableezy, accusations of "gaming the system to achieve EC status" from Iskandar323 on noticeboards, and as we seen in the last month, unverified tag-teaming allegations from Levivich. Those who survive all of the above then find their user talk pages filled with allegations, insults and other kinds of personal attacks and aspersions. Even five edits in this topic area can provoke such reactions. WP:ONUS and WP:CONSENSUS are ignored - they are applied only to others. RfCs, AfDs, and RMs are manipulated through mass bludgeoning. They blame others for edit warring - but this is exactly what they are doing. Based on my experience with these editors over several months, I am afraid it would be naive to think that simply limiting word count in discussions would solve the problem. Looking over their logs, many of these editors already have a long history of warnings and short-term topic bans, so something else must be done this time. ABHammad (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Much of what I was discussing is unfolding as we speak. Take a look at this discussion in an article recently created by an EC editor who appears to be an expert in security studies. Iskandar323 opens a technical move without any prior discussion [4], Selfstudier casts aspersions on other editors who joined the discussion and disagreed with them [5], Nableezy asks the opening editor on their page if it's their first account [6], and Sean Hoyland accused the creator of being a sock [7], just two days after blaming another editor for being a sock solely based on some shared topics of interest with a blocked editor who had 72,000(!) edits [8]. I can only guess how this editor feels right now and how long they will stay with us. ABHammad (talk) 08:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As conduct issues are still pending resolution, the battleground mentality and disruptive behavior does not stop. Involved parties such as Nableezy, Sean.Hoyland and Levivich continue to (falsely [9]) accuse editors of opposing of other point-of-views with accusations of tag-teaming and sockpuppetry. Unsurprisingly, one main argument centers around differing points of view [10], continuing the line of targeting editors with different point of views to theirs.
Meanwhile, we have another experienced editor changing the first line of Hezbollah's article to describe it as a resistance group [11], while advocating to remove the group's terrorist designation, a consensus in Western nations, from the first paragraph [12]. The same editor has also used Samidoun, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands for supporting the October 7 attacks, to claim Samir Kuntar’s innocence in the lead of his article. [13] When I pointed out that Samidoun is an unreliable source, Nableezy responded with, Oh ffs, that a government says some group is a terrorist organization has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it is a reliable source for some statement. The IDF is a proscribed terrorist organization in Iran, should we not cite it for anything? [14]. Nableezy also says that It’s just Israel that claims some connection to the PFLP[15] and calls them "a registered charity in Canada", [16] but the USDT says Samidoun is "a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)."[17] Troubling? indeed.
The intimidation of new editors persists, bad faith accusations continue, and skewed content continues to be disseminated (in that case — based on a terrorist organization). ABHammad (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Recent remarks framing sockpuppetry as our biggest problem are just empty rhetoric. Even if those accused were actually guilty—though I personally believe blocking them was a mistake, as their behavior appears quite distinct, with different topics, writing styles, times, languages, learning curves, and so on—it's a minor issue. The newer editors joining in recent years hold no real influence over what's actually happening in ARBPIA. This issue doesn't compare to fifteen years of the topic's 'regulars' engaging in edit wars, intimidating new editors, and relying on extremist sources, some linked to authoritarian regimes or terrorist organizations, all leading to a large-scale bias, making fringe ideas seem mainstream, and massively distorting our content on multiple topics. ABHammad (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Selfstudier

[edit]

1.There is another relevant recent related AE thread, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani. Many of the editors here, including myself and several of the uninvolved administrators, were participants and the case revolved around behavior (and content) at the Zionism article and this same subject matter is a part of the current case, 6 Levivich diffs refer (in the last two statements).Selfstudier (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2.This one as well (PeleYoetz). Editors named here continue to respond there. Although procedurally a separate AE case, it was filed contemporaneously with and is part and parcel of the related AE thread. Selfstudier (talk) 12:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3.In the interim, avoiding this sort of thing or this would be as well. Selfstudier (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4.Several editors suggest that editors are scared off by a toxic environment. this example for the Zionism article (Sean.hoyland), shows the contrary, an influx of new editors in recent times. Difficult to be certain without more data but my sense is that the pattern will hold up for other articles as well. It is of course possible that both things are true. Selfstudier (talk) 09:34, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron: it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began. I'm not saying that, I'm saying that there has been an influx of new editors regardless of the temperature.Selfstudier (talk) 10:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5.@Nishidani: Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment +1, I would indeed like to see the data. Selfstudier (talk) 10:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

6: Apart from myself, and given the number of times they are mentioned, I think we should specify just which editors are the regulars. Just so we know. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

7: @Barkeep49: The difficulty is that following "referral", based on a case that was not even resolved, 4 editors were designated for investigation with no apparent basis or other case specified as reasons for such an investigation. If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now, suggesting that the only basis for said designation is the content of the replies (of editors and admins) in said case, which lacks a certain logic afaics. Which is not to say definitively that there should not be a case, just that it should have proper antecedents and not merely come about ad hoc.Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8: Re BM's "evidence", the same case Nableezy refers to, BM characterizes my position as not expressing a stance on the use of the term massacre when I !voted against it! -> Oppose Incident is a euphemistic whitewash for what occurred. Would support 2008 killings in Bureij or similar Selfstudier (talk) 12:45, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Then the next two on the list are RM's that I proposed and the result accorded with what I proposed. I will waste no more time with this, if anyone would like to accuse me of POV pushing based on such evidence, feel free to do so. Selfstudier (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9: If someone insists, rather simplistically imo, on labeling myself, then a more appropriate label from my own perspective would be pro human rights/International law and the alleged pro-Palestinianism derives from my belief that the hr/il rights of Palestinians are breached far more frequently than those of Israelis, in particular Jewish Israelis. And guess what, I can source that, with ease. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10: Enforced BRD or WP:CRP is useful and one such is currently operating to good effect at Zionism; for bludgeoning, I would suggest instead a rule that direct replies to !votes be disallowed, indirect replies and responses only in own sections as at AE. As for exclusion from !voting, I would go along with this provided that every editor that had made even one edit to an AI/IP article was similarly excluded (I assume that such excluded editors would still be permitted to open formal discussions? eg opening an RM is usually considered equivalent to a bolded !vote.) Selfstudier (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

11: Motion 5 might well be the case that should have been brought in the first place, now the party list appears limited, one might in addition hope that, ah, "behavior wrt content" might also be subject of examination. Selfstudier (talk) 09:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12: The reason why Iskandar made the list is apparent on reading the referred AE case. Whether that constitutes a good reason for them being in the list is a different matter. Selfstudier (talk) 18:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

13: @Aoidh: An ARCA ARC then, that might work. Just to clarify, the initial evidence is to revolve around interactions between certain editors, I am still unclear how that list of editors was determined? Were some editors involved in the 2 AE cases excluded on some basis? Can admins be parties? It seems at first blush, that SFR qualifies as a party. Selfstudier (talk) 14:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

14: @Tryptofish: after fully reviewing evidence, will remove some experienced editors from certain kinds of discussions, that will lead to improvements in the editing environment (and in AE's ability to handle complaints) Prejudging much? Selfstudier (talk) 20:16, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by fiveby

[edit]

I don't think the referral of this particular case and the inclusion of the first two items listed as identified disruption dealing with edit warring necessarily means that AE can't deal with such or didn't in this instance. Just because the experiment blew up the lab does not mean it was a bad thing to try. Seemed like a reasonable request and a result of you need more evidence to demonstrate tag team editing seems reasonable, which everyone could have and maybe should have accepted and walked away from. fiveby(zero) 17:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

HJ Mitchell, these knowledgeable Wikipedians, who exactly are they? If you are thinking of those often claiming some greater knowledge or ability in this topic area, then oh boy do you have it wrong. Here is some "source misrepresentation", blatant and obvious. If members of the committee can't see it happening now and do something about it then they are the last people who should feel qualified to perform some kind of grand "source analysis" for the topic area. fiveby(zero) 21:26, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich, WP:BESTSOURCES. In general i've seen a greater commitment to source quality in this topic area than elsewhere (tho might strongly object to some readings of the sources). Are you suggesting a rule that will only constrain the reasonable editors, but one which the unreasonable are incapable or unwilling to comply with? For instance i would not be surprised to see a citation to the Hebrew Bible in the Zionism article, and i would expect (depending on how detailed the content) citations to contemporary reporting of "fled" in that section for Haifa discussed the other day. Of course the citations would be aids to the reader and not sources to build content from. The only time i've seen something along the lines of that "Reliable source consensus-required restriction"'s article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution applied it was causing more problems than it was worth. fiveby(zero) 21:12, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by IOHANNVSVERVS

[edit]

Two suggestions to improve the topic area:

1) Make edit summaries mandatory and require them to be accurate.
2) Change extended confirmed account requirements from "account has existed for at least 30 days" to ~"account has edited on at least 30 different days"

-IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:01, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sean.hoyland

[edit]

I tend to agree with Ravpapa's assessment that we have probably "exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area". I have no idea what that would look like.

I would like to know the answer to the following question

  • Why would a person on a righteous mission hand over control of which rules they have to follow to people hostile to their cause when they can simply use disposable accounts and pick and choose which rules to follow without having to concern themselves with the consequences of non-compliance?

Answers like "It's against the rules", "It's dishonest", "It's hypocritical", "They will be discovered and blocked" are wrong answers. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a perceived "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide, I'm not sure this tells you anything very useful. There is already training material teaching people how to resemble a multi-topic interested Wikipedian. This is good advice because there is utility in diluting POV edits, edit war participation etc. A few strategic edit warring edits in a sea of multi-topic edits will likely be treated differently than a few strategic edit warring edits by an account that resembles an SPA, even though they are the same. It may also devalue article intersection evidence between accounts and reduce the chance of a checkuser being approved. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A plea for humility

This is for all the people making sweeping statements.

  • It might be better to assign low credence, by default, to the accuracy of assessments of the state of the 'topic area', a complex system with thousands of moving parts.
  • This is a small part of the structure you are talking about. What is the likelihood that sweeping statements are accurate?
  • Here are some numbers and some questions.
    • I don't know what the 'topic area' is exactly, but thousands of article talk pages have one of the various topic area related templates informing people about the special rules. So, we can look at those and pretend it's the 'topic area' or thereabouts.
    • This table lists the number of different editors and the number of revisions for talk pages in this 'topic area' for the last ten years or so. The number of revisions provides an upper limit on the number of editor interactions on talk pages. Obviously, the actual number of interactions will be much less, but at least there are some numbers rather than stories and feelings.
    • Questions:
      • How many of these talk page interactions are consistent with the sweeping negative assessments of the state of the topic area and how many are not?
      • How many comply with policy and guidelines and how many do not?
      • How many are hostile, toxic, combative, tendentiousness, condescending, bludgeoning, hypocritical, bullying, glaringly dishonest etc. and how many are not?
year actor_count talk_revisions
0 2013 2096 17754
1 2014 2483 23773
2 2015 2167 23195
3 2016 1848 18541
4 2017 2091 21463
5 2018 2184 23643
6 2019 1907 15812
7 2020 2110 14908
8 2021 2755 21711
9 2022 2464 19716
10 2023 6778 52636
11 2024 6287 59678

Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:02, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being realistic/know your limits

It's quite difficult to reconcile calls to topic ban long term experienced users with things we know about the topic area. We know quite a lot. For example, we know the following things.

  • It isn't possible to topic ban or block a person and prevent them from editing in the topic area. Why? Because it isn't possible to enforce the WP:SOCK policy in PIA. It's largely unenforceable for a variety of practical, wiki-cultural and technical reasons. We all know this. There have always been plenty of accounts evading topic bans and blocks in PIA and there is apparently very little that can be done about it. They are part of the community of editors in PIA, like it or not.
  • Topic bans don't solve problems. They split the PIA community into 2 classes, editors who comply with WP:SOCK and editors who do not and therefore cannot be sanctioned effectively. Maybe a currently topic banned user in this discussion could talk openly about this reality. Their input could be very valuable.
  • If every editor currently active in the topic area were topic banned today, the topic area would be rapidly recolonized, probably within a matter of days or weeks. The pioneers would be more likely to come from subpopulations that do not think the prohibition against "systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" applies to them. We know this because we have lots of data about how new highly motivated biased editors cross (or tunnel through) the EC barrier and what they do when they get into the topic area.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Kip, regarding socks,

  • Unfortunately, I think the statement "it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI" (my bolding) is just not true. That's what the data shows, and we have a lot of data, at least for people who advocate for Israel, less so for people who advocate for Palestine (although they are also present). If you ask questions like...
  • "How many sock accounts are currently active in the topic area, or outside the area (to gain EC or access to wiki-mail for canvassing)"
  • "How has the number of sock accounts varied over time?"
  • "How many revisions to articles, talk pages, RfCs, RSN etc. are by sock accounts?"

...what are the answers? Nobody knows, but we know from the data that they are a constant presence, make thousands of edits, participate in many discussions and have a significant impact on the dynamics of the topic area (including the things often referred to as 'heat' and 'temperature' - slightly misleading terms because those are measurable quantities in the real world that are unreliable subjective guesses here).

I think there's a bit of a failure to factor in the significance of socks. The existence of an effectively unsanctionable class changes many things in important ways (this is true in other systems too). There are asymmetries in the payoffs and penalties for socks vs non-socks in the wiki-game. There are asymmetries in the costs of preparing and processing an SPI report vs creating a disposable account, which is a virtually frictionless process. These asymmetries, and there are many, seem to be very significant features of the topic area. Using disposable accounts appears to be a better strategy for the righteous advocate and it's not obvious how to change that.

Certainly, it's a problem that could be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI, but that would probably require significant changes to current norms about checkuser usage and evidence. What I would like to see, just out of interest, are experiments e.g. split the topic area up into article subsets, have different rule sets for the subsets, see what happens. Have a closely guarded set of articles with all of the existing rules, any new remedies, any new entry barriers, checkusers for every editor active there etc., the strictest possible enforcement environment. Have another set that could be a land for the oppressed and mistreated ban evading victims of WP:SOCK, for the disposable account fan, for people to edit war and advocate to their hearts content and stick a disclaimer on the articles for readers. Things like that would be interesting and possibly informative.

Are statements of the form "it's toxic disaster zone" true statements or just stories? It's not what I observe. It seems to have improved in some ways. What I have observed over time is what seems to be a gradual transition from things like edit warring as a solution, to talking and the use of tools like RFCs etc. But the topic area is so large and complex with so many individual actors, and so many events, that it is difficult to make reliable general statements about it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:27, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Meme check #1 TLDR -> some data.

How true are statements about editors being scared away from the topic area by a toxic environment created by entrenched editors etc.?

It's true that there are instances that can be selected out of the large number of comments on talk pages and elsewhere to tell this story. Sometimes they will be sincere statements and other times they will be insincere manipulative statements by ban evading socks playing the victim in the hopes of getting perceived opponents blocked.

One way to see whether editors being scared away could be to

  • Look for changes in the number of unique editors in the topic area over time
  • Compare the topic area to the rest of Wikipedia

If the claim is true, you might expect to see a couple of things

  • The number of unique editors reducing over time
  • A proportionally lower number of unique editors in the topic area than in Wikipedia in general.

I've tried to have a look at this using 3 datasets, two approximations of the 'topic area' and a set of randomly selected Wikipedia articles.

  • PIA topic area - template presence (3734 articles). Articles with one of the ARBPIA/contentious topics templates on their talk pages.
  • PIA topic area - project membership (3019 articles). Articles that are members of both Wikiproject Israel and Palestine. This is the approach BilledMammal uses, so thanks for that. Neither of these methods capture every article that a person would say is in the topic area, they are both different subsets of a larger set, but it's a start.
  • Random sample (15000 articles).

Here are the results.

  • The top plot shows the unique editor count over time for the 3 datasets.
  • The bottom plot shows the same results scaled by article count. This result might suggest that the topic area is more attractive to editors than Wikipedia in general. Didn't really expect that.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zero0000, removing topic area articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards doesn't seem to make much difference. I guess many editors might be flowing upstream from the new post-Oct 7 extensions to the topic area to update pre-Oct 7 articles. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:29, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Meme check #2 TLDR -> more data

Many opinions about the topic area talk of a set of editors ('experienced editors', 'the regulars', 'battleground editors', 'the culprits', 'entrenched editors' etc.) who have worked together to some effect.

Can we see this effect?

  • One place to look might be in the relationship between account age and revisions to see who's doing the editing.
  • Is it mostly these older accounts, or newer accounts, or something more complicated?
  • Is some kind of evidence of article ownership visible?

I've tried to look at this by...

  • Selecting 35 fairly prominent articles
  • Producing histograms showing the number of revisions vs account age in days at the time the edit was made for each article and talk page.
    • To keep things visually simple the bin size for account age is 365 days.
    • 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles are marked along with the average account age.

Here are the results. The distributions vary but younger accounts appear to dominate in the topic area in terms of revision counts, at least based on this small sample. It would be interesting to see what this distribution looks like for the entire topic area. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Using evidence-based approaches

I would like to commend BilledMammal for their evidence-based approach. This way, people can discuss methodology and evidence rather than assert things about the state of PIA. Now, I was a bit disappointed to only score 89% for the percentage edits in the topic area because it is supposed to 100%, or thereabouts as it says on my user page, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. But regarding methodology, the including "all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area" will inevitably miss a lot. Perhaps it is unavoidable to some extent. It misses the contributions of AndresHerutJaim's socks for example (the cause of a previous ArbCom case about canvassing). By my count, their socks made 1927 revisions spread over 159 accounts since 2022 to articles and talk pages within the topic area (using the same definition of the topic area as BilledMammal). If you choose revisions since 2020 it's 3703, and since 2018 it's 6504, and I'm not sure any of the accounts would cross the 50% in topic area threshold. And that's just the identified accounts for one sock edit source. We have no idea what the success rate is for sock identification. And somewhat dishearteningly I can see several more (what I regard as) possible socks in the activity statistics. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PIA dynamics

If there is a case, I think one of the things it could try to address is the following (often cyclical) property of the system, which appears to be quite common as far as I can tell.

An obvious sledgehammer partial solution to Step 2 is to just EC protect every article in the PIA topic area to disincentivize disposable non-EC account creation, but Step 1 should not happen in the first place and is clearly much harder to address.

I'll also add that in my view, a case that only includes parties who do not employ deception, who are not evading topic bans/blocks etc., is about as likely to succeed in producing good results as a study that only includes data from participants who are easy to access, while ignoring an important subpopulation that is harder to reach. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:40, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Replicators (socks) - the gift that keeps giving

Again, hats off to BilledMammal for bring the receipts. Little time to look in detail right now and probably plenty to think about. But one quick comment on 'it demonstrates that the issue of sockpuppets is less significant than we believe.' The amount of sock activity is a difficult thing to image and quantify, a bit like corruption, black markets, Advanced Persistent Threat group activity, but we can see some features.

  • If we just look at 2022 to present, obviously limited to only talking about logged blocked socks that made edits in PIA (with the caveat that we can't know the sock discover rate), we can see the following
    • There were a lot.
    • They made a lot of edits.
    • The average 'SPA-ness' is low (percentage of edits in PIA articles, talk, templates, categories, portal and draft namespaces). They do not generally resemble SPAs.

See plot

  • Note: this statement of mine "obviously limited to only talking about logged blocked socks" is not really true. There is also the network of sock related categories that might contain accounts assigned to sockmasters that do not have log entries that I would capture or log entries at all. The labelling of socks is a bit spotty turning it into a bit of a treasure hunt. But I was too lazy to look. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And as tempted as I am to name names because I think AGF is counterproductive in PIA when dealing with replicating threat actors, I will just say that I can still see many accounts in the stats that I regard (based on technical data) as probable socks. Maybe someone will file SPIs at some point, but it is unlikely to be me because the cost/benefit makes it too expensive. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:41, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an idea for a fun project for someone to make something potentially pretty. Build a directed graph of the sock-related part of the ludicrously large Wikipedia category graph and color code the nodes and/or edges for actors that have made PIA revisions (and/or other contentious areas) based on something, revision count, rev date, SPA-ness etc. I imagine the PIA related part of the sock graph would be quite small. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Labels Regarding labelling editors pro-this or pro-that, this is a useful shorthand for casual discussion, but for analysis labelling should really be deterministic/repeatable/based on a decision procedure etc. Also, if I had to apply a label to myself it would be pro-Wikipedia (or maybe pro-human...that might be a stretch thinking about it). I think for many people it seems to be quite easy to mis-categorize pro-Wikipedia as pro-Palestinian. Perhaps this follows naturally from the claim that the media, organizations, governments, academia (everyone?) etc. is biased against Israel, so following sources will make you look biased against Israel. It's all a bit self-referential. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:36, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BilledMammel, that table is interesting, but my challenge would be - what is the utility of an unfalsifiable label? Also, if I made that I would have pretty low credence in the labels because I don't know how to write an algorithm to reliably tell the difference between "a pro-Palestine point of view"/"a pro-Israel point of view" and a policy compliant source-based view. This is the tricky thing for me. There's the personal bias, plus a person's source sampling bias that limits what they can see, plus their personal interpretation of policies like due weight, plus what they personally identify as bias etc. and you can't just do a Fourier transform to decompose them. Sticking a label on editors strikes me as an understandable attempt to impose order on something more complex and chaotic. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:21, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Once discovered, a sockpuppet account is automatically blocked. - Thebiguglyalien

This statement is false.

  • It is the kind of error that contributes to the long-term inability to resolve the issues in the topic area.
  • If you can't sanction or block a person, you can't solve problems. It's like sending the dishonest people to prisons without gates, then blaming the honest people who haven't been sent to prison for the crime rate.
  • Being "discovered" is not the same as being reported e.g.
  • And being reported is not the same as being blocked. There are many "discovered" sockpuppets operating in the topic area right now. Many people in the topic area can "see" the socks like bright objects. They are part of the community of editors, they are major contributors, they have an important effect on the dynamics of the topic area, and most importantly they divide the community into sanctionable and unsanctionable classes. And remember, sockpuppets are not just accounts that makes hundreds edits from a single account and stick around, although there are plenty of those. The majority of sockpuppets make tens of edits in PIA and are gone. Most are probably not "discovered" or blocked at all. The vast majority of articles in the topic area are not EC protected so there is no barrier in place, just the vigilance of editors who spot and revert EC violations. Then, of course, that topic area monitoring and revert work will be counted as part of estimates of how much someone resembles an SPA, which is pretty funny. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:00, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Zero0000's A proper analysis would need to compare reliable sources against !voting patterns....absolutely. I would go as far as to say the entire pro-Israel vs pro-Palestine model is very likely to be the wrong model. It's a trap, sometimes used intentionally, sometimes used unintentionally, something that traps people into ways of thinking about solutions that cannot possibly produce effective solutions. Better models could be honest vs dishonest, Wikipedia rules > personal preferences vs Wikipedia rules < personal preferences. There are probably lots of better models. The objective function for PIA is poorly defined. If it is something like to maximize policy compliance and minimize disruption, how can we ever hope to achieve that if we can't even prevent a person from editing in the topic area. Does anyone believe blocking the O.maximov and FourPi sock accounts will change anything when they probably already have alternative disposable accounts. Nothing can be done about personal bias. But plenty can be done about reducing dishonesty in the topic area. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:56, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zero0000, regarding The top 20 contributors made 23% of the edits., the 100 revision (in namespaces 0,1) cut off makes these results a particular way of looking at the topic area. Without the limit, the topic area looks a bit different. For example, from 2022-01-01 to the present there were 44739 distinct actors (excluding bots) that made at least 1 edit to a topic area article or talk page. 'Actor' rather than 'user' because that includes 23124 distinct unregistered IPs. And the total number of revisions to those 2 namespaces was 473212 in that period, which is considerably more than the sum of the PIA column in the stats. So, for me, this way of looking at events in the topic area with an edit count cutoff and a notion of dominant contributors presupposes things about the actual nature of the topic area. It divides contributions up in way that is great for pointing fingers in a partisan information war but may not reflect reality very well. From a single account 'contributor' perspective it seems to be the contributors with low edit counts that may have the largest impact on topic area (although it is impossible to really tell). I'll make some plots for the entire topic area over various periods to show who is doing the editing (in terms of account age) when I get a chance. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zero0000, I'm just counting revisions and excluding bots so it shouldn't change the top 20 counts. Or maybe I would get slightly different counts. I haven't actually checked. Should probably do that but I can't imagine it would be significantly different as we are doing roughly the same thing. What would be nice would be to see how many reverts are spent on enforcing ARBECR, but there is a lot of diversity in people's edit summaries making it tricky. Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:43, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "restore faith in the project that many do not have, or have lost" is a valid objective. Policy compliance has no dependency at all on the amount of faith people out in the world have in it. The fact that there are plenty of easily manipulated people out there who can be persuaded to believe something shouldn't have any impact on content decisions in my view. There are rules, we should just follow the rules, and people who don't like the result are free to whine about it and monetize the attention they receive. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:34, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ban evasion

In terms of motions, can anyone think of any simple practical measures that might reduce the impact of ban evasion on the topic area? Unfortunately, it seems that ban evading users tend to be sampled from the ends of the bias spectrum and some have a tendency to start fires. It could be argued that this entire discussion was triggered (at least in part) by ban evasion, so it seems appropriate to try to address it.

It's obviously not possible to know how many edits are made by ban evading actors, but it is possible to quantify ban and block evading revisions in the PIA topic area (or rather an approximation of the topic area - templated pages and pages in both Wikiprojects Israel and Palestine).

I don't have any ideas other than perhaps lowering the barrier for checkuser tool usage in PIA to a set of simple triggers like edit warring, receiving a block, ban evasion-like behavior (e.g. mismatch between edit count and experience), anything that could be considered "disruptive editing", the phrase used in the checkuser policy. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:29, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Barkeep49, thank you for the response. I understand. I sometimes wonder whether WMF would benefit from adopting some kind of 'commitment to authenticity' that you see in some social media companies that have to deal with similar ban evasion/inauthentic actor issues. Now that Wikipedia has matured into one of the most-visited websites, plays an important role in large-language model training and will probably become even more significant with models using Wikipedia/Wikidata etc. as knowledge bases to ground their responses, a system that doesn't do very well at preventing people willing to use deception from generating content and participating in consensus forming processes seems a bit problematic. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coretheapple, regarding "the Wikipedia community as a whole has avoided this subject area". I also thought this was probably the case, but the data appears to indicate that it is not the case. The chart in section 'Meme check #1' above appears to show that the topic area is more attractive to editors than Wikipedia in general, at least based on a comparison of the topic area and 15,000 random selected articles. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:44, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yearly and monthly revision counts by all actors in the PIA topic area over time

See plot (requested by Levivich). Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:01, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ABHammad, actually, my interest is largely technical nowadays. I need results to evaluate the reliability of output generated by something I'm working on out of curiosity. And I would still appreciate an answer to my question here. But I'm also interested in honesty in the topic area because I think its undervalued. So, if there is to be a battle it should on the side of honesty and against dishonesty via ban evasion. But it is a costly battle that I suspect can't be won with the current tools and culture, so I'm unsure whether it is a battle worth fighting. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

re: Nableezy's "Given the result of the SPI, I will simply restate my core contention..." a contention that I think is objectively and observably true, can I suggest that more effort is made to ensure that AE is a ban evading actor-free zone. It is not a safe space for honest people to discuss and resolve issues without interference from dishonest ban evading partisan actors. On the plus side, when a sock lobbies for blocks, this could be a complement because it might suggest they think the other party is more honest than them and will not employ ban evasion if blocked. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Iskandar323

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Statement by Dan Murphy

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The "dispute" as defined here is "accounts on Wikipedia disagree about various things." In my case I have recently disagreed with a number of accounts about the history of Zionism. On the one hand, early zionists and historians of zionism describe it as a colonial project of settlement. On the other hand, some wikipedia accounts really don't want the article here to describe it as such. Many of those accounts have turned out to be sockpuppets of previous accounts long banned from this area. I'd be shocked if the Peleyoetz account named in this report isn't one, too [18]. The abuse of sockpuppets is a powerful advantage at Wikipedia, and wooden enforcement of teh rulz about conduct, ignorant of content and context, a powerful disincentive to being honest and straightforward.

No matter. This unfocused, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks request, is a bad idea.Dan Murphy (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nableezy

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

My view is that if this is to be an arbitration case that it should be pretty wide, and not just the four editors Barkeep named. The tendentious editing, including obvious examples of canvassing and off-wiki coordination, in this topic area stretches well beyond those four names, and I don’t think looking at four editors in a vacuum in this, or any other topic where the temperature in the real world is beyond mildly warm, is all that productive. I’m well aware of the committees past rulings on standards of behavior, but I for one am unable to understand how anybody can think a topic like this, where the real world conflict it is covering contains accusations of ongoing crimes against humanity up to and including rape as a weapon of war, mass indiscriminate killings, and genocide is going to remain calm cool and collected. nableezy - 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems highly likely that this is going to be accepted as a full case, but I do want to push back on some of the claims being bandied about here. There is this misconception that there are "pro-Israel" editors vs "pro-Palestinian" editors, and that is both not true and has never been true. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a similar argument, where one "side" was claimed to be the pro-Palestinian side, and the other the pro-Israel side. But that, like most of these disputes, was not true. One side was indeed pushing an identifiably nationalistic narrative identified with one "side" in the geopolitical conflict, the other was not. The two "sides" here have never been symmetrical here. As far as BilledMammal's highly subjective understanding of bludgeoning, he lists me as having bludgeoned Talk:Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing#MEMRI quote, but a, that isnt a formal discussion, and b. that is a back and forth with a handful of users. That isnt bludgeoning by any reasonable definition. They also somehow neglected to add Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gaza Health Ministry qualifier, where BM has some 73 comments there. I dont think that subpage is accurate either in its definition or its counting, and Id caution that evidence by editors who are highly involved not simply be accepted as accurate.

Also, regarding AirshipJungleman29 reading of my initial comment, I dont mean to say that civility does not matter, of course it does. But I also think people need to keep in mind that human beings are emotional creatures and that this is a topic that anybody who is involved in the real world is going to have moments where those emotions overtake their willingness to pretend that everybody here is editing in the best of faith and we're all one big happy community. And beyond that, as far as I am aware civility on Wikipedia has never meant not swearing. And I personally find insulting my intelligence through making specious arguments to be much more uncivil than a "bullshit" said in exasperation. But I was not saying WP:CIV should not count in this topic area, Im just saying if somebody is being realistic about how editing between people who are involved in a conflict in which accusations of rape and genocide are happening in the real world they should understand it is not always going to be roses and butterflies. nableezy - 16:18, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I dont want to get too caught up in what I think are opinions of people uninformed on both the actual editing in this topic area as well as being generally uninformed on what the sources actually support in this topic area. Ill just restate that this is not "pro-Israel" vs "pro-Palestinian" POV pushing, it is editors who edit according to the best available sources and editors who edit on emotion and time-wasting tactics. And those things should not be treated as though they are opposing camps. Those editing according to our content policies against those editing contrary to them is not a POV-pushing battle. Number 57's complaints about this, as somebody who is informed on how editing goes here, have to my ears always rang hollow. Consensus was against their position on things like including language on the illegality of Israeli settlements in their articles, and so he has openly called those who supported including such a thing, including me, POV pushers. Im sorry he feels that way, Ive never really been aware of what I could do to ameliorate that impression of his, but Ill just state I disagree with the premise of his claim that there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV. Since I know he means me, Ill just state that I do not edit Wikipedia to push a POV. I edit Wikipedia to try to make it so that article in this topic area are based on the balance of the best sources available. And if somebody does not like what the sources actually say about this topic, thats their problem, not mine. Im aware of my reputation on certain websites, but in my entire time here my purpose has always been to bring the best sources I can find to an article and to base the content I write and the arguments I make on those sources. nableezy - 23:09, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thats what I meant Number 57, you objected to the consensus developed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues/Archive. Legality of Israeli settlements about including that information in each article. And since then, you have repeatedly called myself and others POV-pushers for reasons I have not yet figured out. And you have, again, that entire time played up that a couple of pro-Israel users opposed your RFA. I dont know what is disingenuous about my statement, I didnt even say anything about you besides that you have repeatedly called me a POV pusher since then. nableezy - 23:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thebiguglyalien that was a well advertised and well attended RFC a baker's dozen years ago. What level of consensus it was really has no bearing on anything at this point. nableezy - 23:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I could collapse this section and point to Rosguill's instead. nableezy - 16:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it really acceptable for an admin to be saying on this board your atrocious behaviour to an editor? And to have the gall to say others are making things toxic? nableezy - 16:55, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This page is considerably more "toxic" than nearly any talk page in this topic area. Any number of people are making winking references to editors and claiming some misbehavior with absolutely zero evidence besides their vibes. Not to mention the way over the top comments by one admin. I cant say I would be looking forward to a case, as to be blunt with you all ArbCom historically has focused on the surface issues of these topics and not the actual root causes, but either open a case or dont. That or aggressively clerk some of these statements. That is if we want "decorum" to apply here too. nableezy - 17:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am largely in agreement with ToBeFree here. If this is a referral of the AE thread then the committee should rule on that AE thread if that seems worthwhile. If a full case is warranted then it should be at WP:ARC, where somebody like me can present evidence on tendentious and disruptive editing in this topic area outside of the AE request being referred here. The person who was brought to AE has not made a single response to any of this, but somehow we have a number of users rising up to demand topic bans be given out like candy on Halloween. I think there are any number of things that the committee can do in this topic area, hell should do in this topic area. I dont really see how many of them are at all related to what was referred to them here. nableezy - 14:32, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Again, BilledMammals "evidence" is dishonest. He claims I supported massacre here because I opposed "incident" as euphemistic for the murder of 7 civilians, including 6 children. When I said Im not opposed to some move here, but incident is absurd. Israel was accused of a war crime here, every casualty was an unarmed civilian, and they were purposely targeted. Calling this an incident is even more POV than calling it a massacre. You know what’s a problem in this topic area? People making things up and saying it with a straight face so that others believe them. Again, I would highly recommend that you all not take such absolutely bad faith "evidence" at face value. There are multiple examples in that table in which BM is straight up lying about an editors position. Oh, and guess who started that RM? The supposedly non-existent problem of socks. nableezy - 11:53, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not jumping to anything, you have repeatedly misrepresented others views, you have repeatedly portrayed one discussion that was focused on one topic to support positions on unrelated topics they did not focus on. You did the same exact thing at AE, where you claimed that Iskandar323 supported the use of massacre where all he opposed was your attempt at obfuscating that it was a school that was attacked. You do this constantly, you choose to portray comments in whatever light that makes it appear that your argument is intellectually consistent and honest when it is invariably not. I’ll be happy to substantiate that further if this gets to an evidence phase, but my point here was that arbs should not treat your evidence as anything other than a partisan and dishonest portrayal of what happened. nableezy - 14:25, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I dont see why AE appeals should be at the discretion of the imposing admin be only heard by the committee. AE actions are already superblocks, removing two of the places they can be heard turns them closer to super duper blocks. The threshhold to overturn an AE action is already pretty high, and I cannot really understand why anybody thinks they should be even higher. Enforcd BRD is basically making what a skilled obstructionist can turn into a glacial place into an ice age. How would consensus be determined? Do only discussions with uninvolved admins closing get resolved? Things that would actually help? A quicker trigger finger on talk page bans for foruming. Same for pushing unsourced views. The anti-bludgeoning one is good in theory, maybe good in practice maybe not. Can find out I guess. But the enforced BRD one I think is accepting that anybody who can wikilawyer well enough will be able to freeze an article; Oh its a V failure ... Oh, I see the source, well VNOT, and it is not DUE ... Well I see it's widely cited but it still is not NPOV ... No, I dont have any sources showing that its views are challenged, I think you should first demonstrate that all sources agree with this POV ... Well I disagree, and ONUS requires consensus and because I disagree there is no consensus. And repeat. nableezy - 21:40, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a fundamental misreading of the topic area to open a case with that list of parties. I decline to take SFR's bait here from his last statement, something I should have done in the AE that precipated this request in hindsight, but if there is a case to be opened then I think you all need to examine the serial tendentious editing and yes propagandizing that occurs here. And the list of parties should expand with that scope. It would, in my opinion, include users such as Andrevan and SPECIFICO, along with a number of less established users who have repeatedly engaged in such editing such as the group of users who, along with an Icewhiz sock and some compromised accounts, were distorting the sources at Israel to obfuscate the causes of the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948, eg האופה (diff, search various causes), ABHammad (diff). If you actually are willing to examine what editors are doing in these articles with something deeper than counting reverts and actually looking at who is pushing through material at odds with the scholarship then please do that. If this, like cases of yore, is going to be a superficial look at it then I suppose I cant convince you otherwise, but, as the committee did back then and as some of the admins here were trying to do in an AE case before most of the participants were found to be compromised accounts or socks of banned editors (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive336#Nishidani, see for example this comment by one of the admins brushing aside the later proven completely correct suspicion that a user was not exactly in good standing) end up, as the most likely scenario, further cede this topic area to the dishonest editors such as NoCal100 and Icewhiz who never really get blocked or banned, because they just make another account to start over with. My comment at that AE remains my view on both that request and this one. nableezy - 23:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pins and needles to see what happens with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/OdNahlawi and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Icewhiz, which probably should be merged together. Ignore this as a ranting from a problematic regular, but my view of what is happening here, as it has over and over and over and over again, is that fires are being started by banned editors with zero inclination to be honest, and people who are observing from a distance are saying oh it's so hot over there. Whatever you all decide here, my sincerest hope is that your efforts be pointed towards the goal of making an encyclopedia. And I hope that in keeping that goal in mind that you do what you can to help those editors who are serious about that aim as demonstrated by their editing and remove those who are not. I doubt this is going to be the way, but who knows maybe Wikipedia will surprise me. nableezy - 19:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given the result of the SPI, I will simply restate my core contention about nearly every one of these issues. We are all collectively being played by a few individuals who do not operate, at all, within the rules here. Yes, it is hot, and there are certainly times where my patience ran thin and I was harsher than I should have been and raised the temperature myself. But we're all humans here, it is unreasonable to expect people to deal with bad faith editing repeatedly, sometimes continuously, without occasionally getting pissed off. Icewhiz, NoCal, Andres, they have an unlimited number of opportunities to bait somebody into something ban-worthy. The editors who are operating in good faith here and are abiding by our policies are targeted over and over by these bad faith actors, and we're expected to have an unlimited amount of patience and good will. If not having that unlimited amount of patience is ban-worthy then so be it, but we are being played here. nableezy - 21:11, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49 I'm not blaming all the topics ills on just socks of banned users, but I am saying that they are primarily responsible for getting things to this temperature where people pop off. You were on the committee that dealt with the email canvassing by one LTA. You and all the current members of this committee (I think), know that I knew for a fact that I was editing alongside people who were lying to my face. That I knew people were cheating and attempting to skew content through underhanded methods. If you look at the past NoCal100 SPIs you will see over and over again that I knew that I was once again editing with NoCal100, and I just had to suck it up and keep editing alongside somebody I knew was lying. For example Inf-in MD was reported, by me, in Oct 2021. Kept editing until being blocked in December 2021 as a sock after he once again tried to bait me into responding in a way that would result in my ban. Im not going to pretend Im perfect here, Im not going to pretend that there arent times where the frustration of editing with people I *know* are lying to me doesnt boil over. And yes, I do need to work on not letting that happen, but I dont think even you, as level-headed and calm as you invariably are on-wiki, would never lose your cool when you are being lied to over and over. Maybe you wouldnt, after all you were elected repeatedly to positions of trust based on that disposition and demeanor and I have not been (yet). But I dont think it is reasonable to think that people are going to maintain the patience of Job through years of underhanded efforts directed at them. nableezy - 15:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BilledMammal

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There are a significant number of issues in this topic area that it is likely only ARBCOM can address, including:

  1. POV pushing
    Including both editors switching their stance to conform to their POV (for example, supporting using massacre as a descriptive term only when Israelis were targeted, or only when Palestinians were targeted) and editors misrepresenting sources.
  2. Stealth canvassing
  3. Incivility
    Occasional lapses are forgivable, but it has become common for editors to ignore the fourth pillar. This drives editors away from the topic area, worsening issues with POV pushing and stealth canvassing.
    The only way the topic area can be fixed is by fixing this.
  4. Bludgeoning
    See ARBPIA discussion statistics for an assessment of the extent of the problem. For technical reasons, it is currently limited to discussions on article talk pages and at RSN.
    In response to the comment by SashiRolls, only three listings (out of 109) were significantly impacted by sock puppets:
    1. 26 replies out of 59 by Levivich at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
    2. 15 replies out of 45 by Selfstudier at Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? were to sock puppets
    3. 12 replies out of 34 by Selfstudier at Talk:2024 Nuseirat rescue operation/Archive 2#Requested move 9 June 2024 were to sock puppets
    The impact of sock puppets on this issue is trivial and not worth concerning ourselves with. Added 01:28, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

BilledMammal (talk) 09:41, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding ScottishFinnishRadish's word limit proposal, I don't think that will have the desired result. Editors are often required to review a wide array of sources, such as when attempting to determining if a viewpoint is in the majority or what the WP:COMMONNAME is, and a word limit will impede this. This will in turn worsen one of the other issues in the topic area, POV pushing.
Instead, I think a comment limit - perhaps ten comments per discussion - will be more effective at preventing the back-and-forth and repetition of points that causes discussions to expand unproductively. BilledMammal (talk) 13:12, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nableezy: My aim was to review a representative sample of discussions in the topic space, rather than providing a sample biased towards discussions that I was aware of. To do this, I limited the discussions to two clearly defined areas; talk pages in both the Israel and Palestine Wikiprojects, and RSN.
This does mean I missed at least one discussion that I am aware of where I was too enthusiastic, but it also means I missed discussions where you were too enthusiastic - it balances out.
I am also aware, and prominently state in the analysis, that it is only an approximation - while most examples listed will be bludgeoning, exceptions will exist, including possibly the discussion you mention.
Finally, as I said on the analysis page, I am willing to rerun it with different configurations, including an expanded list of discussions. I am also working to implement the recommendations on the talk page, to make the data more accurate and useful. BilledMammal (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosguill: There is a lot of POVPUSHING at RSN, but from what I've seen the issue is more common - and more effective - in the opposite direction from what you've seen.
For example, looking at two of the discussions you've listed:
Considering that policy doesn't provide any support for considering a source unreliable on grounds of bias, I find this example particularly problematic. BilledMammal (talk) 10:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishidani: I don’t consider the distinction relevant, because there is no basis in policy to consider sources unreliable due to bias, regardless of the level of bias. Tolerating editors making the assessment that source A is more biased than source B, and thus A is unreliable while B is not, is to tolerate POV pushing. BilledMammal (talk) 23:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishidani: The purpose of RSN is to determine the reliability of sources, not the level of bias. There is no basis in policy to consider biased sources unreliable, and that means that editors attempting to argue that "source they don’t like" is more biased and thus less reliable than "source they like" are POV pushing.
Alone, not enough to warrant action - but it is another piece of evidence that adds to evidence like only supporting the use of "massacre" when the victims are from the side they support. BilledMammal (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Black Kite: I've attempted to address your request to identify Sub-5000-edit accounts which are basically SPAs on the PIA area, some of which will inevitably be socks but even if they're not are equally disruptive with ARBPIA activity statistics.
I've included all editors with more than 500 edits since 2022 who have made 50%+ of their edits in the ARBPIA topic area. Sub-5000-edit accounts are marked with *; sock puppets and masters are marked with bold.
@Aoidh: What sort of information would be helpful in determining a scope? In addition, will parties be decided at this stage, or will parties be able to be added during the evidence phase? BilledMammal (talk) 12:53, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the prevalence of issues in the topic area, the following may be helpful:
  1. RM statistics, regarding the prevalence of POV pushing
  2. Activity statistics, regarding the prevalence of sock puppets and single purpose accounts
    @Sean.hoyland: I think it demonstrates that the issue of sockpuppets is less significant than we believe. In 2024, only one sockmaster is in the top 100 editors by edit count within the topic area.
    @Nishidani: I think it also addresses your concerns regarding the parties list; because it shows that the topic area is dominated by editors who generally align with a pro-Palestinian position, we would expect that such editors would make up the majority of a representative party list.
BilledMammal (talk) 05:14, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nableezy: As I said on that page:

Bolded votes in the discussion were then automatically reviewed to determine whether they supported or opposed. This process is not perfect, and manual review was then used for some of the discussions of the most prolific editors. Please raise any identified misclassifications on the talk page.

Immediately jumping to accusations that an editor is "lying" is not aligned with WP:AGF, and is emblematic of the civility issues in the topic area.
With that said, I don't believe #3 is as incorrect as you make out; your !vote was:

Oppose - euphemistic in the extreme, an "incident" in which an army kills 6 children and a cameraman, and all casualties are civilians? No source calls it an incident either. As far as sources calling it a massacre, well this was in the article until it was removed.

You oppose the move, and you make arguments in support of "massacre".
However, to avoid dispute, I have changed that cell to   -  , as while you can argue you didn't support "massacre", I don't think you're arguing you opposed it? I've also manually reviewed all the others of yours, and they appear correct; if you disagree with any of the others, please let me know.
@Selfstudier: You're right, corrected. Please let me know if there are other misclassifications.
In general, that table is intended to provide on overview of the issue in the topic area, for the purpose of helping the arb's determine scope and parties. While it will be useful in any case that is opened, and I see it as evidence of POV pushing, I don't believe it proves POV pushing by itself; additional analysis of the comments and !votes made is required, such as I did here. BilledMammal (talk) 14:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nableezy: To avoid dispute, I've switched #22 for Iskandar323 to   -  . I've manually re-reviewed all of Iskandar323's other !votes, and they appear accurate, but if you have any issues with them please let me know - although preferably on the talk page, to avoid requiring the Arb's to wade through the collaborative process of improving that table. If I refuse to change the table I think that would be when it is appropriate to raise here. BilledMammal (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishidani: Seggallion (talk · contribs) is included in the activity statistics; they're grouped as one of Icewhiz's socks:   Icewhiz (talk · contribs) (×6)  . As for the RM statistics, Seggallion only participated in one; if you like, I can try to group sockpuppets under their masters as I did at the activity statistics, but better to discuss that on the talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zero0000: My sympathies lie more with Israel than with Palestine, although I try to recognize and account for any bias that introduces in my thinking - while editors are allowed to have a POV, I think the first step in ensuring their editing is aligned with NPOV is for them to recognize that POV, as it allows them to try to manage it.
I think it would also be helpful if you told us how you classify yourself? BilledMammal (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sean.hoyland: Personally, I don't subscribe to the position that the media, organizations, governments, academia (everyone?) etc. is biased against Israel; while some individual sources are biased, I also think a lot of the criticism of Israel is fair.
There are some editors who do subscribe to that position - but there are also editors who subscribe to the position that the opposite is true, that they are biased against Palestine.
Generally, I don't think we're mischaracterizing pro-Wikipedia as pro-Palestinian, but if you want something more solid I think this table by Thebiguglyalien, and my RM table, is useful. BilledMammal (talk) 15:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the label is unfalsifiable; evidence can be provided for and against it.
I think we can also ensure it is accurate through a collaborative process. For example, looking at the top 20 editors at activity statistics, I believe that 13, collectively making 75,383 edits to the topic area since 2022, generally align with a pro-Palestinian position. I believe two, collectively making 5,832 edits, generally align with a pro-Israeli position. The remaining five, collectively making 19,550 edits, are either neutral or have a position that I have been unable to determine:
Extended content

Generally align with a pro-Palestinian position:

  1. Selfstudier
  2. Iskandar323
  3. CarmenEsparzaAmoux
  4. Makeandtoss
  5. Nableezy
  6. Nishidani
  7. Onceinawhile
  8. Irtapil
  9. Durranistan
  10. Zero0000
  11. Ali Ahwazi
  12. Vice regent
  13. IOHANNVSVERVS

Generally align with a pro-Israeli position:

  1. Tombah
  2. BilledMammal

Neutral or have a position that I have been unable to determine:

  1. Chomik1129
  2. Wafflefrites
  3. Borgenland
  4. IvanScrooge
  5. Arminden
If you - or anyone - disagree with any of these, then I think it would be helpful to discuss so that we can create a consensus list, although I would ask that the discussion be opened somewhere other than here. For the avoidance of doubt, this doesn't mean these editors are POV pushing. For example, while I feel it's obvious where Vice regent's sympathies lie, I've been very impressed by their ability to put them aside to comply with NPOV.
As for the utility, I think it helps us determine whether concerns such as those raised by Nishidani that the party list is unrepresentative, as well as concerns such as those raised by Number 57 that the topic area is dominated by editors holding a specific POV, are accurate.
As a general note, I think one of the issues with the topic area is that it is common for editors to refuse to acknowledge their own POV, while frequently insisting that the editors they disagree with have a POV. It's possible to manage a POV and edit neutrally, but only if one is able to recognize and acknowledge that POV - the frequent failure, on both sides, to do so is why we have a POV pushing issue in this topic area. BilledMammal (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich and Nishidani: The terms just means that the editor sympathizes with that side more than the other. Both positions are reasonable, and it doesn't mean they are anti-Palestinian/anti-Israeli, nor does it mean that there is a problem with those editors contributions.
All it does is help us understand the dynamics of the topic area, and is particularly helpful in understanding the background to comments like I say that because there is a massive imbalance in the people singled out, according to the usual perceptions of the IP area's POV-stand-off.
I also think, Levivich, that you're too focused on the sock issue. It exists, although perhaps it is not as impactful as we previously believed, but socks aren't the only issue in the topic area. POV-pushing among established editors is also rife, and is far more impactful than POV-pushing by socks.
The "massacre" RM's demonstrate that well; we have editors consistently, based on their own POV, saying that massacre's are only perpetrated by one side - and when we review those discussions we find that those editors present contradictory arguments to support this disparity.
(Nishidani, I do have more to say in regards to your comments - I'm not ignoring the questions/statements you made - but I don't have time at the moment) BilledMammal (talk) 22:15, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishidani: You misunderstand; I’m using the second definition of "sympathise", not the first. BilledMammal (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zero0000: That’s a discussion about moving from a title using "massacre" (Re'im music festival massacre) to a title using "massacre" (Supernova music festival massacre) In other words, the "massacre" aspect isn’t being considered, which is why it isn’t included in the table:

discussions that proposed moving an article to or away from a title containing "massacre" were reviewed

Can you clarify your point about the other articles? I don’t fully understand the argument you are trying to make.
(Also, I would appreciate an answer to the question I asked you above, when I answered the equivalent question from you) BilledMammal (talk) 04:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Zero0000:
Regarding this comment:
For your first point, I disagree that it sheds factual light. There is no useful information from someone supporting moving "massacre" to "massacre"; indeed, it is indistinguishable from someone opposing moving "massacre" to "massacre".
For you second point, I want to say I am tired of the incivility in this topic area. It drove me from it before, with the only reason I returned to it being the current conflict, and it is sufficiently bad that I believe as soon as the current conflict ends I will withdraw again.
Both your points, but especially the second, are emblematic of that incivility. A dozen requests have been made of me at User talk:BilledMammal/ARBPIA activity statistics and User talk:BilledMammal/ARBPIA discussion statistics, and I have spent a considerable amount of time addressing those requests, including two of three you made.
However, you ignore all of this, to focus on one of two that I haven't yet been able to address - and you use that failure to accuse me of manipulating the data to prevent it from disturb[ing] the point [I] want to make. I admit, I don't consider it a priority (although I have already spent some time on it), as I don't see what useful information it would provide, and your explanation didn't clarify that - but not prioritizing your request is not the same as manipulating the data, and there is no justification for these assumptions of bad faith.
Regarding this comment:
(a) - It does; Edits made since 2022 to article and talk space
(c) - This is actually similar to the other request that so far I've been unable to comply with. If you can provide me a couple of topic areas of similar size to ARBPIA, I can address both your request and NebYs. BilledMammal (talk) 08:04, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SashiRolls: Because it’s data, not methodology.
I'm not sure why you think that I believe it is unrelated to disruption in the topic area. It is related, but it’s not in the scope of that table, which is focused on presenting information about individual actors.
If you want to present evidence about grouped actors, I again encourage you to do so. BilledMammal (talk) 12:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

[edit]

I object to being listed here. But now that I'm here, I'll say that I don't see any suggestions so far that would make an improvement to the I/P area. Here are some points:

  • If any restrictions are imposed on the area, they should apply to everyone and not to some arbitrary list like this one. One of the notable things about the I/P area in the past several months is the remarkable number of new and revived accounts that have joined in, mostly on one side of the equation and many with scant knowledge of the subject. Quite a lot of the disputes arise because of them, not because of the people likely to comment at AE.
  • Imposing a limit on contributions that consists of a word limit or edit limit will cause delight to the tag teams, who will take full advantage of their combined greater limit.
  • Some types of discussion such as a negotiation between two editors should not have a limit at all. Also, in general there is no way to define "a discussion" except in the case of formal discussions like RfCs. The main points of dispute are brought up repeatedly and don't have clear boundaries. This means that a limit on "discussions" will just produce a lot of arguments over whether something was part of the same discussion or part of a different discussion.
  • Bludgeoning does not mean making a lot of edits. Replying to everyone who makes a contrary comment is bludgeoning, but repeatedly bringing new reliable sources is called good editing.
  • There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it. All of this is exactly as it should be. Zerotalk 11:34, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is something that will improve the atmosphere of formal discussions (RMs, RfCs, AfDs, etc): Require everyone to stick to their own statement, regardless of how many times they add to it (like at AE). This will eliminate 90% of bludgeoning right away. For RfCs: one statement in the !votes section and one statement in the Discussion section. Zerotalk 09:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To editor Sean.hoyland: It's great to see someone present actual evidence. The number of distinct editors in I/P has remained essentially the same for the past 8 years until it suddenly jumped up at the start of the present war. I wonder, is there a simple way to show the same data without the articles specifically related to the war? Removing articles created from Oct 7, 2023 onwards might be a good approximation. Don't spend time on it unless it is easy. Zerotalk 01:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To editor CaptainEek: I don't think ArbCom has an obligation to resolve the AE case. The fact is that there is nothing about it which AE could not handle perfectly well by itself. What you should do is send it back to AE (taking the cue from the practice of appellant courts sending cases back to the referring lower court). Meanwhile, no case has been made for PIA5. We have seen wild assertions without evidence, that's all, and it would be a mistake to take them at face value. Considering that there is a shooting war going on right now, ARBPIA is actually in better shape than one would expect. I've been editing in ARBPIA for over 22 years and for most of that time it was in worse shape than now. Zerotalk 04:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To editor BilledMammal: In several places, such as here you have granted yourself the right to classify other editors as "pro-Israel" and "pro-Palestinian". Please tell us how you classify yourself. Zerotalk 14:55, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To editor BilledMammal: Please add this RM to your table, and mark Iskandar323 as supporting "massacre" in the title. Sorry that it breaks the pattern. Readers should also note the selection bias in your table: even though many editors who supposedly only support "massacre" when the victims are Palestinians frequented Be'eri massacre, Kfar Aza massacre and Alumim massacre, none of them started an RM nor (on a cursory scan) questioned the use of "massacre". But this tacit acceptance of the facts is absent from your analysis. This is just one example of how your raw data tends to misrepresent reality. A proper analysis would need to compare reliable sources against !voting patterns. Zerotalk 04:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To editor BilledMammal: Your response to my request is what I expected and thanks for confirming my suspicion. You are refusing to present information that might shed factual light on the subject when it disturbs the point you want to make. Another example is your refusal to separate main space from talk space in the other tables (example: only 17% of Selfstudier's edits this year were in mainspace, but who knows?). My greatest fear is that arbitrators will think that you are just a helpful provider of objective information when in fact you are one of the main area protagonists and your data must be critically examined with that in mind. Zerotalk 04:58, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning pro-Israeli versus pro-Palestinian. Levivich deconstructs this division better than I could, and I wholeheartedly endorse his analysis. In terms of disputes, the most common division is between those who uncritically accept Israeli official versions and those who don't. Being critical of Israeli propaganda is completely different from being uncritical of Palestinian propaganda. Zerotalk 06:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BilledMammal invites me to describe my own pov. In the early days of WP when many editors had never heard of academic journals and very few of the best sources were online, I played a large part in making scholarly writing the gold standard in I/P topics. My philosophy is that articles should be based on the best sources available, regardless of which other sources technically pass RS. No editor other than me openly avoids citing either Ilan Pappe or Ephraim Karsh (academics at opposite ends of the pov spectrum). Incidentally, none of the articles directly related to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel or the subsequent Israeli response appear among my 1,500 most-edited articles, and Talk pages come it at number 412. No wonder I failed my Pro-Palestinian Activism exam. Zerotalk 06:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some quick comments on this contributions table by Billed Mammal.
(a) The table combines talk page edits and article edits (BM: you should indicate that). The fraction of a user's edits that are in article space differs a lot and needs to be considered before judging an editor's habits, but this information is missing.
(b) Overall, 975 days are included. This means that even the largest edit count, that of Selfstudier, is only 15 edits per day (in fact effectively less, guessing 9–10, as Selfstudier often makes consecutive small edits). My count at #16 in the list is only 2.5 edits per day, which is remarkably few given that my watchlist of length 8,687 includes most ARBPIA articles).
(c) The top 20 contributors made 23% of the edits. I don't know how to check this, but I'm guessing that in most areas of similar size the top 20 contributors make a larger fraction of edits than this. Without this information, it cannot be concluded that a small cabal of editors dominate the area. Zerotalk 07:22, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At Talk:Re'im_music_festival_massacre/Archive_2#Requested_move_8_October_2023, Iskandar323 actually proposed two titles with "massacre" in them. I'll leave it for readers to decide whether or not this is irrelevant to the claim that Iskandar323 only supports "massacre" when the victims are Palestinian. Zerotalk 09:38, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sean.Hoyland: I calculated the 23% figure using the total of 431,132 that BM gave elsewhere. Using your total of 473,212 it would be 21% unless your way of counting also changes the top 20 counts. Also, the top contribution was 3.1%. Zerotalk 14:29, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To editor Barkeep49: I'm sure BilledMammal's counts are more or less correct. Sean.hoyland is getting similar figures. What I object to is posting a mass of figures then claiming it proves things which it doesn't prove. Drawing conclusions from the data requires much more than a first impression. First it requires consideration of whether the apparent trends are really unreasonable — what should we expect the data to look like if the topic is in good shape? Second, it requires consideration of what information is available but not represented in the data and whether it changes the picture. Neither of those two things have been done. (Critique of statistical experiments is one of my professional specialties.) Zerotalk 15:12, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on the motions

[edit]

Motion 1: Appeals only to ArbCom. This gives more discretion to admins without good reason. A better idea would be to encourage AE to forward individual appeals to ArbCom if they think ArbCom is better equiped to handle them.

Motion 2a: Word limits. This will be a gift to tag-teams, who will get 500 words per person. Also, this will prevent the most productive comments, which bring reliable sources and quote from them. This motion would effectively limit discussions to "you say, I say", when they should be "this reliable source says".

Motion 3: Involved participants. This is a dreadful idea. Practically nobody attends these discussions without a pov. The effect will be that newcomers summoned on off-wiki groups, who usually come with a minimum of knowledge, will have greater rights than dedicated editors who are expert on the subject. Also, there will be endless argument over who is "involved".

Motion 4: Enforced BRD. This could work if "substantive reason" requires a talk page explanation and not just a brief edit summary.

Zerotalk 07:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gripe. Instead of proposing changes that will make it harder to write articles and not solve any problems, our dear arbs should consult the regulars in the field who know what changes will be beneficial. Zerotalk 08:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek: Don't you think that it would be a good idea to say what problem a word limit is supposed to fix? None has been specified except bludgeoning, which is not one of the main problems of the area. Moreover, 1000 words is enough to bludgeon but not enough to present multiple reliable sources with quotations. Shouldn't you be encouraging proper discussion rather than restricting it? Can you at least specify that citations and quotations of reliable sources do not count in the limit? Otherwise your proposal is going to be a net negative. Zerotalk 01:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ScottishFinnishRadish

[edit]

There is a broad array of disruptive editing, POV pushing, long term edit wars, bludgeoning, incivility, and it all basically comes down to WP:BATTLEGROUND. I've done my best to take care of all of the obvious cases that won't have to set aside a dozen hours of time to deal with, but much of the behavior is by editors with numerous prior warnings and sanctions but that topic banning, interaction banning, and blocking is not a simple matter. Most AE reports in the topic area involve behavior that is widespread among many parties, and picking out a single party for sanctioning and allowing other editors to continue the behavior isn't how enforcement should be working.

If Arbcom does wish to avoid a full case or "punt", as Barkeep puts it, there are a couple actions they can take to help out in the interim.

  • As a sanction across the topic area, or added to the standard set of CTOP enforcement mechanisms available to administrators on a per editor or per discussion sanction, a 500 word limit in any discussion under 5000 words, and a 1000 word or 10% of the discussion limit, whichever is lower, on discussions over 5000 words. This should be done immediately, even if a case is accepted.
  • Any appeals of sanctions by editors previously warned or sanctioned in ARBPIA should be handled by Arbcom to take pressure off individual administrators. Arbcom discussions have clerks to handle word limits, aspersions, and other disruptive editing. Arbcom can simply vote on if the sanction was a reasonable exercise of administrator discretion. This would hopefully cut down significantly on 0.3 tomats discussions at appeals, and put those decisions in the hands of the people the community elected to make them. (Hat tip to Red-tailed hawk, who came up with this.)

As for a party list, anyone who has made, been the subject of, or commented at any ARBPIA AE report since October 2023. The problem is widespread, and I think that is probably the most efficient way to generate a party list. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, that part of BANPOL is just quoting Arbitration procedure, it can be changed by Arbcom. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ToBeFree, the tldr is the original complaint was more or less about tag team edit warring, looking into it I saw that it was, in my view, broadly similar to much of the behavior widespread in the topic area, and wasn't terribly interested in making one-off sanctions. It's incredibly widespread, as well as other disruptive behavior, and AE isn't the place to address topic-wide issues. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HJ Mitchell, simple cases of misbehavior of newish accounts are fairly easily handled, as I think my ~80 AE sanctions this year show. The issue arises when we're asked to look into tag-team or long-term edit warring, as we were in this case, and even cursory investigation shows that a large number of editors are involved. You can't have edit warring or tag teaming with just one party or one side. AE is not equipped to handle, or at least they're is no appetite to handle, multiple long-term edit wars involving large numbers of editors. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:26, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this idea is wild, but how about anyone named in someone's evidence becomes a party? This isn't a court of law, and being a party doesn't mean there has to be findings or sanctions. Add that if you go over the standard word/diff limits you become a party and Bob's your uncle. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HJ Mitchell, if you're trying to avoid a case, something like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Armenia-Azerbaijan 3#Administrators encouraged to let us know what the committee wants done would be helpful.
Motion 3 is interesting, but it has to be clear if it is or is not a sanction, and if it should be applied to all regulars, or just over-engaged regulars.
I think there's already an enforced BRD sanction, but it only applies to the editor that first made the edit. This would be more effective in this topic, where the reverts are often between several editors. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:16, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49, I mean any guidance at all. Absent a case I want to know what Arbcom wants to see for enforcement. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49, we don't know what's going to pass yet, so we don't know that any tools are being added to our toolbox. I think a clear statement from Arbcom about the topic area would be handy if they're going to punt. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tryptofish, We've got a problem, apparently, with a bottomless well of newish accounts that make life difficult for good-faith editors, which is something that AE should be able to handle. You can see here that new(ish) accounts misbehaving are taken care of fairly promptly. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:41, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Motion 4 needs to define recent. There's already no policy that defines a revert which makes 1rr a pain. Let's not have any more vague rules to enforce. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:48, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Robert McClenon, right now administrators cannot unilaterally place word limits on editors or discussions. Imposing such limits let's editors plan out what they'd like to say and what they choose to respond to, rather than be cut off mid-discussion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, it looks like a punt. The couple additional tools will be handy, but it doesn't address the broad array of disruptive editing, POV pushing, long term edit wars, bludgeoning, incivility, and it all basically comes down to WP:BATTLEGROUND where much of the behavior is by editors with numerous prior warnings and sanctions but that topic banning, interaction banning, and blocking is not a simple matter. None of the new tools help with the case that we referred here, which falls under AE reports in the topic area involve behavior that is widespread among many parties, and picking out a single party for sanctioning and allowing other editors to continue the behavior isn't how enforcement should be working. So what we're really doing is just letting things continue as they are.
I appreciate what Eek is saying, but keep in mind that there are even fewer active admins at AE and we've already said we can't handle this at AE. When commentary like If you want to even pretend to give a shit about the things that matter here, like not making things up in articles, that would be great. and And oh of course I cant take off my blinders to see how one group of editors is so obviously editing in bad faith, that they are propagandizing in what is supposed to be an encyclopedia article. followed by There is zero evidence of battlegrounding on my part by an editor with years worth of warnings and a couple topic bans slides at AE with a finger wag it's pretty obvious that we're in the realm of shit no one wants to touch.(pinging Nableezy and Barkeep49 as I've mentioned their edits) Adding more tools isn't really going to work if no one wants to use the tools we have now, and even pinging the admins that issued a very final warning won't give feedback other than I don't disagree that it's casting aspersions. But is it battleground behavior worthy of a topic ban? I'm not sure it is, but I'm also not going to object to another admin deciding it is. (pinging Valereee)
So
  1. we still can't adequately investigate large and sprawling issues at AE
  2. there are very few admins doing any sort of AE work
  3. many of those doing that work are doing so intermittently
  4. no one wants to issue sanctions where there will be a shitshow
  5. any sanctions on a long-term editor will be a shitshow
  6. there are still more arbs than AE admins
  7. at least we can sanction new editors easily, I guess?
Anyway, I guess I'll see whoever is on the committee in a few months when it's even worse. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:35, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HJ Mitchell, Arbcom can look at the totality of evidence when it comes to editor behavior, POV pushing, propagandizing, incivility, battleground editing, and all the rest and make a decision on what editors should and should not be editing in the topic area. AE is not suited to this purpose, and expecting individual admins to continue to deal with it alone isn't going to work. There are plenty of actions I could take if they wouldn't all involve hours of investigation to build the case, then further hours defending the action on appeal, along with taking the lumps that come with any such actions. Arbcom is uniquely positioned to share those particular shit sandwiches. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:11, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Vanamonde93, I made a couple suggestions above. I think adding anyone who gives evidence or is named in evidence as a party would be fine. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Barkeep49

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Re:L25: I didn't support moving this here because I was looking for an ArbCom only remedy as I felt we had whatever options we wanted on the table per the Contentious topic procedures A rough consensus of administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") may impose any restriction from the standard set and any other reasonable measures that are necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project. (emphasis added) I supported coming here because I think AE is ill-suited to a multi-party sprawling request like this. I actually think האופה is the least important party here in most ways and if the thread had stayed constrained to them a rough consensus would have been found. Instead, the discussion ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors. For me the editors whose conduct needs examining would be BilledMammal, Iskandar323, Nableezy, and Selfstudier and I think ArbCom should review, and hopefully endorse, the work SFR has been doing as an uninvolved administrator given the concerns at least one of the parties (Nableezy) has raised about that work. Additionally, I think Levivich has been promoting, in this and some other recent AE reports, claims of misconduct based on tagteaming/edit warring that I personally don't find convincing (even if the same conduct does show other misconduct I do find convincing, namely a battleground mentality) but which ArbCom is better positioned to examine both because it can do so comprehensively, rather than in a series of one-off AE requests, and because of the authority ArbCom has to interpret existing policy and guidelines, [and] recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I should add one thing. If this ArbCom can't do the review of editor conduct well, and given that this is the committee with the biggest issues with activity among arbs of any 15-member arbcom in at least a decade it may decide it doesn't have the capacity to do this well, I'd suggest it find a way to "punt" that decision, instead focusing on whether or not it agrees with Levivich's interpetation of tag-teaming/edit warring. I say this based on comments members of the 2019 committee (a 13-member committee which is the only one to have a bigger activity problem than this committee) have made around their inability to give PIA4 and Antisemitism the full attention they deserved. In the latter case this then blew up into a much bigger case (WP:HJP). Barkeep49 (talk) 20:09, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720 your "magical incantation" comment confuses me. Where did SFR say it was confusing how to refer? I've raised the issue that the mechanics of referring need work, but I don't think AE admins need to be told to bold vote something in order to find consensus to refer. All 4 uninvolved admins - with 4 uninvolved admins being a lot of admins these days - agreed to refer, and all 4 were (as best as I can tell) clear about what each other thought as opinions evolved, so it's not like it was a puzzle what was happening to the uninvolved admins and since other commenters gave feedback on whether or not to refer I don't think it was a puzzle to anyone else either. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720 so you're saying the answer I gave is incorrect? If so mark me as surprised but glad for your clarification. I will eagerly await to see if a rough consensus of other arbitrators agree with you and presuming they do adjust my actions accordingly. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720 thanks for that clarification. I want to understand this second parth. Am I correct that you're saying that if the 4 uninvolved administrators had all bolded refer to Arbcom no further action would have been needed as ArbCom (arbs/clerks) would do the rest of the steps? If so that is definitely easier than the answer I gave (close with a rough consensus to refer by an uninvolved admin, uninvolved admin files a case request here, and notifies all interested editors) and so I will happily take advantage of it going forward. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720 does what I wrote above accurately summarize your thinking? I want to make sure to know whether to adjust my actions for any future potential referrals. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Z1720. Sounds like your reading is the same as what I had previously thought. So then I'm still confused about what your initial comment was suggesting - there was never any confusion (that I could see) among the uninvolved admins about what the rough consensus was at a given moment (even if I was asking for some time for a bit to see if we could avoid this referral). Barkeep49 (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Levivich's statement: even beyond what SFR pointed out (BANPOL is quoting Arbitration Procedures), I think Levivich operates under a fundamental misconception about AE. Levivich seems to view AE as a community forum, where as I feel it is, as the name of Arbitration Enforcment suggests an Arbitration Committee forum. Further, the sanctions being handed out are being done under Arbitration Committee authority, not community authority. As such under the Arbitration and Consensus policies, the Committee can do what it feels best including mandating that all appeals in this topic area are heard by it rather than AE.
As to the substance of the SFR's suggestions, I'm not sure the committee wants to hear all appeals, but if it thinks SFR's idea is a good one I would suggest it limit itself to either or both of: appeals of recent sanctions (<3 or <6 months) and appeals stemming from an AE report (regardless of whether it is actioned by an inidivudal administrator or a rough consensus). I think giving uninvolved administrators the ability to use the tools available in Iranian politics to moderate discussions (not just RfCs) may or may not work, but would feel like something that could potentially be productive to stem issues without doing a full case and thus is perhaps worth trying. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@‌Nishidani: the Arbitation Committee will decide who the parties are. So it might be RTH's list, it might be a smaller group of that, or it could be part of that and others not included there. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I agree with the observations made by both Trypto and Nableezy that the "sides" here don't neatly align on pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian. Beyond the nuances they both have offered, I have seen a definite "established/multi-topic interested Wikipedian" vs "less-established more and/or more singularly focused Wikipedian" divide (for instance SFR has pointed out that Levivich's definition of tag-teaming could apply to some of former group but is only being applied against the latter group). This complexity is why I repeat my concern about ArbCom accepting a case unless it feels it truly has the capacity/ability to do it just because a lot of people (me included) are saying the status quo isn't working. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:27, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ToBeFree: I think the fact that the thread sprawled in the way it did despite the absence of האופה is exactly why the referral is here. There became so many other editors conduct to consider - not just in tag teaming but in the AE thread itself - that it became beyond what AE can handle well in its format. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1) I want to make sure that ArbCom is aware of the highly related AN thread about RTH's INVOLVEMENT in this topic area. 2) To the extent that Levivich's version of what happened at AE is true, I don't think that argues against a case; it supports the idea that thetopic area needs to be examined, not just having a single complaint against a now inactive editor resolved. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One more note: if ArbCom does decide to just adjudicate the AE report for האופה it should also adjudicate Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#PeleYoetz which was closed as moot after this ARCA referral. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Selfstudier: I agree that If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now is true. If no one else other than Levivich had replied, some quorum of admin would have been able to reach consensus on האופה. The fact that the replies that actually happened split the focus in a way that AE is ill-equipped to handle is why I ultimately (if reluctantly) agreed we should refer the case here. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich I absolutely think you should be able to present evidence about admin conduct in this topic area. Knowing the concerns you and some others had is why I included SFR in my list of potential parties. And I think it's reasonable to say something like "after that initial post by SFR there was no choice but for a lot of other people to reply which is why that thread sprawled and PeleYoetz" didn't. But I stand by my agreeing with Selfstudier that If no-one else had replied in the referred case, none of us would be here right now. Selfstudier and I draw different conclusions about that statement we agree on and the Arbs can decide which conclusion they agree with as it's ultimately up to them. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HJ Mithcell: I think there are in the AE thread referring this here allegations that a particular editor is behaving tendentiously, namely BilledMammal, Nableezy, and Selfstudier (and maybe also Levivich?). I think some of these allegations are stronger than others but those allegations are 100% part of why this case was referred to you. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:46, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can appreciate and support Trypto's scope, though I'd suggest that a narrower party list is appropriate. I would also note that, today, we've had an editor present evidence right here about the topic area and multiple others accuse that editor of lying about the evidence. This suggests three possibilities to me: the editor made up/manipulated evidence, the people accusing that editor of lying are casting personal attacks, or there is such bad faith among topic area editors that honest mistakes/normal editorial choices while summarizing information is seen as being done with malevolent intent. In theory ArbCom is best positioned to figure out which of these things is true in this and several other similar accusations. And if ArbCom decides they can't (or don't have capacity to stay on top of this kind of conduct during a case), I hope they consider an intermediary step until ArbCom would have the capacity to do this. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Trypto: I think determining who should be party to an ArbCom case based on who happened to show up to an AE thread isn't the right way to determine a party list. The party list I gave might be too small but equally discouraging participation at AE because you might become party to a case when there is no accusation you've done anything wrong isn't going to help this topic area either, in my view. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:57, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishidani: I feel like you're saying we disagree (for the 2nd time here) but I don't think we do? If BilledMammal is presenting misleading evidence that is important to know and act on, especially if that evidence is intentionally misleading. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I want to bring to ArbCom's attention this message from Levivich to BilledMammal about this ongoing AE report. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think SFR's AA3 motion would be counter productive - a real "the beatings will continue until morale improves" type of thing. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:12, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ScottishFinnishRadish is any comment needed? They're giving new tools in response to the problems brought forward. Presumably the idea is that AE and individual admins start using those tools? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:31, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My thinking is that if ArbCom feels like they have enough information to make a clear statement other than "we don't see a problem" they should just take action themselves rather than telling AE admin how to do it. I think the potential tools is a far better alternative to any statement they might pass in lieu of a case (as opposed to at the end of a case where I think such statements can be genuinely useful). Barkeep49 (talk) 01:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As ArbCom considers an appropriate response I'll throw out a potentially bad idea. Jeske's suggestion that there could be separate "topic area" and "editor conduct" cases and my suggestion of a delayed start to a case could be combined. So perhaps the topic area happens now and that could inform both tools (which might solve certain editor issues) and parties to a future editor conduct case. Either case could also allow for an examination of the pieces only arbcom can handle because of their offwiki nature (including what was oversighted during this request). That said some kind of motions along the lines of what Harry offers could be worth a try, as could a narrower case that Aoidh proposes (though I think the odds of success are slimmer here because disruption truly is more widespread than just the "power users" who show up at places like AE). Barkeep49 (talk) 20:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49 (and anyone else watching) I think at this point there are no bad ideas. Part of my rationale for proposing the motions was to see if they sparked any better ideas. Separate cases might be worth thinking more about. How would we structure a general case about the topic area to avoid it becoming a mud-slinging contest? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom commits to not sanctioning editor conduct in such a case (except for conduct during the case) would be my most serious suggestion. In more of a brainstorming mode, somehow structure evidence slightly differently (post themes - source manipulation, edit warrning, etc and allow submissions for that them), you could do summary style again (would not recommend given how much time it took but it is a way and I think it accomplished the goal you're concerned about here) I haven't reread the past split case @Jéské Couriano points out recently so there might be other ideas to glean from reading those (and reading what the arbcom at the time wrote about them privately). Barkeep49 (talk) 21:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Starship.paint: and @Sean.hoyland: one of the reasons I requested CU back was to help in this topic area. But the CU policy has a globally established floor (one which is monitored by the Ombuds who report directly to the Board of the WMF which underscores how seriously its taken). Unlike most global policies where enwiki has far stricter rules, for CU (and OS) I think we're already operating close to, if not at, the floor. So if there are articulable reasons that justify CU it can be done - as I did here - but "make it easier to run CU" isn't something ArbCom or even enwiki can decide. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:43, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since Harry has asked for feedback from AE admin, I'd say if the committee thinks it can do this well a case would be worthwhile. If for whatever reason the committee doesn't think that for, and I could think of 3 or 4 such reasons, we're better off trying the motions for now. Especially because one of them (the appeals to ArbCom) is likely to give arbs a better understanding of some of the issues and might make a future case more productive. Though I think many of those issues can be seen in this case request as well. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to Nableezy's comment following the close of an SPI by myself and Izno, I actually reach a different conclusion. This isn't the first time LTAs have been blamed for everything ill in a topic area. The last time I was such an instance was Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/Proposed decision, which not coincidentally includes one of the LTAs active in this area as well. The devestating impact Icewhiz and other LTAs have had on editors and on the project cannot be stated often enough. Doing my part to combat that was a substantial reason I asked for CU back and it's why I invested most of the limited time I had for Wikipedia yesterday into this matter. I also think it important to note that I was only willing to say it's possilikely that the socks were Icewhiz; it wasn't worth my time to confirm it when I could, with much less time, say that they connected to each other and block them with basically the same result. In the context of a case perhaps it's worth ArbCom's time to do that deeper investigation. Beyond all that, I bring up the WWII case because I think the devastating impact of LTAs sometimes makes it harder to focus on non-LTA issues, such as in this incident (currently at AE). Given that we are now more than 2 months closer to the end of the year than when this was first filed I will renew my suggestion that ArbCom open the case and suspend it until sometime in mid-January. This would then let potential candidates know something that they will be facing and to act accordingly in making a decision (the net of which I suspect is an increased capacity for a case which would be a heavy lift). Absent that I think ArbCom should just close this down with the passed motions and see what happens next. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Theleekycauldron

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@L235: I agree with Barkeep that this should be a full case. But Red-tailed hawk is right on his list of parties – this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve. Not because of a lack of authority, but because of the complexity of the case combined with the standard unblockables problem. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Selfstudier: i think it's pretty clear looking at the chart that the number of new editors spiked because of the war (given that it spiked last october). i don't think you can claim from that chart alone what the impact of the regulars has been; it'd be ludicrous to say that the temperature in this area is lower than it was the day before the war began. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 09:58, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PeleYoetz

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Statement by TarnishedPath

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I understand that the list of participants is everyone who was involved in a particular AE discussion or who was mentioned in that discussion. My editing in the topic area is limited, with a limited number of articles on my watchlist. I don't intend on following this closely. If my participation is desired at any point please ping me, presuming the case goes ahead. TarnishedPathtalk 22:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if anyone has seen this article at Jewish News Syndicate which states that "Blake Flayton, a vocal commentator on Jewish and Israeli issues, responded to the post, calling the changes “egregious” and urging someone with expertise to edit the page to reflect what he considers to be a more accurate portrayal". When we are faced with this sort of off-wiki canvassing is it any surprise that there's some level of disruption to the topic area? TarnishedPathtalk 13:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on the motions (TarnishedPath)

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To me it seems that Motion 3: Involved participants may have the effect of increasing the amount of off-wiki canvassing and use of socks that already occurs in this topic area. TarnishedPathtalk 03:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek, I'd suggest that definition of "recent" is a long way from the community understanding and if implemented would give rise to increased edit warring both at the 1RR level and at the 3RR level. TarnishedPathtalk 11:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek, I've seen editors brought before AE where part of the evidence involved reverts to other edits well over a 24 hours old. So from what I've seen the idea of recent is older than 24 hours. I don't have an answer on what I think should be a good threshold for what "recent" is, however I could foresee a lot of problems if it was defined as short as 24 hours. TarnishedPathtalk 00:19, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nishidani

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I object to being hauled into this artificial mess (caused by an innovation in reading that defines all reverts as identical behaviourally irrespective of contexts, so if I revert an unfactual or unsourced piece of WP:OR, I immediately am, like the abusive, often new, editor, engaged in a revert war and, if the abusive editor persists, anyone else who restores the accurate text is tagteaming with me. Crazy). I have been repeatedly reported over the last year, and invariably the cases were dismissed. They were frivolous, but ‘there is no smoke without fire’ psychological atmosphere created by this repetitive questioning of my policy-adherence and good faith, indeed, precisely because AE rejected these piddling reports, the claim emerges that editors like me are ‘untouchable’ (Occam's razor. When a theory fails, those convinced of it invent another theory (Untouchables here) to account for why it was not accepted, etc.). The result here is a series of intemperate variations of a boilerplate meme chanted about the I/P area, which I have heard for a dozen years used of individual editors but now used of a group, first targeted by several off-wiki sites and now pushed as a reality which slipped past our monitoring for 20 years. And it is just an unsubstantiated opinion, esp. from editors I’ve almost never seen here, and, surprisingly seems to be getting some traction.

  • theleekycauldron this is a sprawling case where basically all of the regulars in the topic area have worked together to create a hostile battleground that AE hasn't been able to resolve
  • Tryptofish the editing environment disturbingly toxic, . . it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject.' (See this note)
  • AirshipJungleman29:a large number of experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to.
  • Swatjester;The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute
  • Number 57: there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV . . for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions
  • The Kip: This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE . . - I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs.
  • Zanahary: It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy.
  • Domeditrix there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. , , , editors here incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, , , enable(s) Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits. . topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics . . I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND
  • Thebiguglyalien the entrenched editors . . . their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on . . This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this. . .
  • xDanielx: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers.
  • berchanhimez:I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.

Where is the empirical evidence for these outrageous spluttering caricatures of a very complex environment (The IP area is notorious for the huge academic industry of explanation that has grown up around it, and unless you read this material, and put aside using newspaper current events sourcing as the default RS, you are not going to grasp anything there for encyclopedic ends. Who would be so stupid, if their intention was to 'create a toxic battleground', spend decades reading hundreds of books and scholarly articles, when they could simply do what hundreds of SPA and socks do, rack up 500 edits and then, without losing time opening a book, and if caught out, sock, resock, and resock again, in order to sock the 'regular' editors with their opinions, and try to provoke them so they may garner evidence for destroying them at AE?). There is no evidence here, none, as far as I can see, but no doubt some will think, ‘ah, but they’ll find the missing proof for these claims when Arbcom gets to work’. And why should it work on such an outburst of unproven grievances? As I noted on my page, there is a very simple test to find evidence for this hypothesis of a conspiracy (against Israel, that is the tacit innuendo in those complaints above)/bullishly dominating control over IP articles by a 'pro-Palestinian' faction that has putatively consolidated itself as the power to reckon with in the area. Use your wiki tools and elicit confirmation of this bias by examining the list of 100 new IP articles created since 7 October (SFR's starting point). Of the hundreds of editors active over them, show that a handful of the 'regulars' has bludgeoned, intimated, harassed, been uncivil across the board, and secured their 'pro-Pal POV'. If you can't then, all we have here is the appearance of blathering highly personalized grudges. Nishidani (talk) 10:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Billed Mammal. Re this set of diffs, They are not valid evidence for what you claim for a very simple linguistic reason. 'Severe bias' and 'bias' are not interchangeable, the adjectival qualifier makes all the difference. All newspapers have bias, like humans. 'Severe bias' in a newspaper/organization is what makes it unacceptable, as distinct from others.Nishidani (talk) 13:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@User:BilledMammal. I'm sorry, but language and grammar are merciless in these things (and the fact that such niceties are missed so often is one reason reading ANI/AE discussions is, certainly for me, so painful -I was in part permabanned because one admin could not understand irony, though everyone else saw the amicable comedy of my, to him alone, 'aggressively' 'uncivil'/abusive remark). You are simply wrong. If you have played lawn bowls, then grasping whether the ball you are drawing has a wide or narrow bias is fundamental to mastering the art. The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. I guess now, having told you you are flat-out wrong, I have now produced a diff that can be cited in just one more WP:CIVIL suit to be filed against me in the future:):(Nishidani (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And Huldra thanks indeed for that link I'd never seen this data before, because I don't know how to consult files that log stuff on wiki.Nishidani (talk) 01:49, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Swatjester. Surely you shouldn't take exception to a somewhat playful implication you were a 'cat'. Your presence is very rare in the IP area and your remarks about sealioning and 'the usual suspects' (people like myself) might give the impression of a detached view by an experienced admin. Not quite true. You admitted 17 years ago that you used your admin tools to unblock an Israeli editor for a 3R infraction because, offline he contacted you and convinced you he was justified in breaking the rule. You didn't even check to see if his wild offline claims (presumably about me) were correct. ([19],[20], [21] [22], [23]). When I read your first post here I remembered that contretemps. I never reported it as a misuse of admin tools, and I never hold grudges. But I do remember things, and took your generalization as coming from someone 'involved' in the topic area. Nishidani (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Swatjester re my putative 'atrocious behavior within this topic area'. You don't have to believe me when I say I don't hold grudges. But I have by all accounts a good memory. If someone out of the blue, whom I haven't seen around for 17 years, implies that I am one of the 'usual suspects', a sealioning bludgeoner, then recalling the earlier episode where they abused their admin tools and damaged my bona fides is more than fair. I was a newbie at that time (that shows in my remarks there), and was almost driven off by the arbitrary punitive measures made against me. I don't hold grudges because I made no formal complaint, which might have damaged you, and I have almost never had recourse, on principle, to making ANI/AE reports to settle disputes by getting someone who disagrees with me banned, a practice that is of chronic here, one used against me with unusual frequency. I exercise care in the words I use. 'atrocious' per Merriam-Webster means 'extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel: barbaric.' You're entitled to that view of me as someone displaying exceptional brutality and cruelty on wikipedia. But you should quietly ask yourself, because I don't report insults, how that squares with the content evidence of my creation of 1,000 plus articles as varied as Kaifeng Jews, Gadubanud, Joseph's Tomb and Irvin Leigh Matus.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Swatjester That incident occurred 17 years ago, when I was new to wikipedia, and, faced with an inexplicable administrative punishment (technically) I made the inferences one can see. I wouldn't do that now. What you don't deny is the gravamen of those two incidents (a) you used your administrative tools to unblock a sanctioned Israeli user after he talked to you privately (invisibly, without even examining the relevant pages where he broke 3R to verify his narrative) and (b) denied my own unblock request when, given the circumstances, you should have stayed out of this and left the decision to any other admin who was uninvolved. I gave all the relevant links, to allow editors to draw their own conclusions. Archaeologists of wiki disputes can judge for themselves. Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Sean.hoyland. Thanks Sean. That is precisely the kind of empirical data we desperately need to as a work basis to get out of the suggestive/insinuating/subjective gossip mode often prevailing on wiki when it deliberates on core issues like this.Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@User:CaptainEek. You write:

The world's mostmost intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem.

It is not an intractable problem on wikipedia, despite incessant rumour-mongering. It is, an enduring premise of mine, politically intractable, but not descriptively so, taking in both an Israel (semi-)official POV and the scholarship, to the end of achieving NPOV. To the contrary. We can draw on one of the richest WP:RS highbar resource bases existing, for the simple reason that:-

The Israel-Palestine issue has a strong claim to be the most closely studied conflict on earth. 'Voluminous' does not even begin to capture the sheer quantity of the material about it'.(Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-241-00443-2 p.8 )

A very large number of positions assumed to be contentious here are not so in that scholarly literature, where a large consensus on the historical realities exists. These however are relentlessly challenged by editors who don't care much for the ivory tower, but care deeply about a country to which they feel a profound emotional attachment (again, understandably, but love of country is not coterminous with love of any one particular government and/or its worldviews). To respin the disputes that arise as an irremediable clash between nationalist POVs is nonsense, but that is the temptation here. And, if this goes to ARBPIA5, the outcome is predictable. There will be two parties identified (regulars and nationalists/socks), and a number from each will be sanctioned, for wikipedia must not give the impression, particularly under the pressures over the last year, of siding with one 'side' or t'other. And why have we got to this? Because an innonative reading, impeccably 'behaviouralist' now takes all reverts, regardless of the rationales, to be on the same footing, and any series of reverts by different editors, regardless of the talk page or the RS literature (the contexts), as evidence of mutual tag-teaming. of course, there will also be a further tightening of the screws on 'behaviour', since everything else is considered a 'content issue' where it is presumed there are a variety of POVs that are, in any case, not up to admins to read up on or make judgments about. Nishidani (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And yes, seconding Zero, I really would like to see a minimum of evidence that the place has deteriorated to the point of requiring executive re-examination. What evidence we have is that there has been a massive investment of editors, a great many new, creating and working hundreds of articles since Oct.7. Personal experience is risible as evidence, but it was hell for the first decade of my working here, and I don't think growing senility accounts for my impression that over the last several years much of that heat has been significantly lowered, thanks to ARBPIA3. The only change I have witnessed is the sharp rise in newly registered accounts that behave oddly - my list has over a score, since Oct.7. That issue was what Levivich tried to address, and his reports somehow got transformed into assertions that they weren't the problem, the 'regulars' were, all based on hearsay circulating for at least a decade, hearsay drummed up by new off-wiki attack sites with a clear nationalist brief to go for wiki's IP jugular.Nishidani (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep. Just out of curiosity, if Arbcom opens a case, who are the editors whose behaviour is to be examined. The list given by Red-tailed hawk, or is it larger? I say that because there is a massive imbalance in the people singled out, according to the usual perceptions of the IP area's POV-stand-off.Nishidani (talk) 21:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Jéské Couriano. As far as I can see, your statistics do not note a deterioration over time of editing in the IP area. They only indicate that roughly half of the cases brought there are IP related, and that AE has efficiently sanctioned a large number of the editors reported. I could make many other inferences but leave a proper analysis to those competent in these matters.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • BilledMammal BilledMammal I second Sean Hoyland’s remarks on your page. That is an excellent tabulation. I don't think it demonstrates anything of the sort, that 'pro-Pal' editors dominate the IP area. What it does show is that several editors you would include under that description devote more than half, or indeed in a few cases, most of their attention to the topic area. Greek studies are 'dominated' by people who've mastered the topic- That doesn't mean they are 'domineering' as the rumour-mill here is suggesting. Perhaps I'll have other observations later (here because I won't be participating in any Arbcome process)Nishidani (talk) 10:15, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nableezy. The instance you provide, of BilledMammal classifying you as a supporter of the term 'massacre' when you did no such thing, confirms my wariness about drawing any conclusions from broad statistical charts like that. In the example where you are said to push 'massacre' (which is a reasonable preference anyway), what was going on won't be evident to the birds-eye perspective. The name-change was pushed by an old throwaway account by a NoCal sock User:Izzy Borden subsequently blocked on 21 July 2023. His view was supported by a suspected Icewhiz sock, User:Seggallion (38,036 edits). Another successful sock tagteaming operation since they did manage to change the name before being caught out. I don't know if it is proper to call this misrepresentation 'lying'. It is nonetheless the kind of error which can easily insinuate itself when one is applying to a massive data field algorithms that have no feel for context. Note that Icewhiz/User:Seggallion is missing from BilledMammal's chart unaccountably., comfortably slipping through the tool net despite 38,036 edits. Nishidani (talk) 12:38, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't some pleas for myself, but a note to explain something about why the widespread enmity against 'longterm editors' who, several seem to believe, should be TNT'd so that the area can be rebuilt effectively, is a simpleton fantasy that can do enormous damage if taken seriously. Apart from the accrued area familiarity with its vivacious theatre of new editors who sound like oldtimers, and the RS literature one acquires, there is a dimension of experience, of what Polanyi called tacit knowledge that is wiped out by such bulldozing. Let me illustrate. I had a note on my page posed by an unfamiliar editor, Annette Maon. My instincts told me immediately that there was some echo in that voice I recognized from the past, and a few moments of thought prompted me to associate it with a prior editor, highly intelligent and articulate, very pro-Israel, but utterly unfamiliar with any of the scholarship. The name that popped up was Monochrome Monitor, with whom I engaged in at considerable length around 2016. But I had no, and do not have, and don't care to have, any proof that this intuition might be correct and indicate a dual account. What I did was reply alluding to the possibility the editor had a prior account. Whatever the truth, that editor desisted from further editing IP articles. Go figure. But only deep editing experience will give one the kind of informal knowledge (often subjective, but not infrequently spot on, though never mentioned) that helps one to assess things, beyond the issue of RS etc. If my informal hunch had been true, what followed would never show up in a statistical analysis like BM's. Nishidani (talk) 16:23, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As to the requested 'pro-Pal POV', that is inane language. I could give a long essay on the roots of my general outlook, from family tales of Irish dispossession (the genocidal consequences of (a) Cromwell's conquest (b) and the effect of the the great famine on our emigration to Australia; to the unusual circumstances of having a father and mother each with a very odd, in a racist Australian world, tradition of sympathy for Zulus and aborigines; to having a Downie as our youngest sister, to an adolescent reading of Holocaust memoirs; to reading Tsepon Shakabpa's political history of Tibet at 17; to specializing academically in the concepts of nationalist exceptionalism -all underdog stories and therefore a sense that any judgment must be grounded in universalist principles or logic. When I started reading wiki IP articles, Palestinian history was absent from most (so I rewrote Hebron) - there was a bias to just an israeli narrative of Jewish traditions there. So 'pro-Pal' is risible. Indeed, if I have an intellectual challenge reflected in my work here, it is to read to the end of trying to grasp how the universalism of the haskalah could morph into the nationalism of modern Israel, In that sense, Palestinians are incidental, to a much broader point-of-view. And lastly, there was this vast disparity between the cusp of scholarship and mainstream reportage, and editors were basically drawing on the latter, which is no way to write anything encyclopedic.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Billed Mammal.

looking at the top 20 editors at activity statistics, I believe that 13, collectively making 75,383 edits to the topic area since 2022, generally align with a pro-Palestinian position. I believe two, collectively making 5,832 edits, generally align with a pro-Israeli position.

Look at it from another set of angles. What is the proportion of Palestinian (zero) vs (pro-)Israeli/Jewish editors in the IP area, for example? Or what is the proportion of bias in the mainstream sources we almost invariable regard as core RS. E.g.'33,000 news articles from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005 the article shows that anti-Palestinian bias persisted disproportionately in the NYT during both periods and, in fact, worsened from the First Intifada to the Second.' (Holly M Jackson, New York Times distorts the Palestinian struggle: A case study of anti-Palestinian bias in US news coverage of the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas Media, War & Conflict Volume 17, Issue 1 pp. 116-135)
There is an extensive literature on this, not well covered in Media coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and sometimes it may be quite disconcerting for those whose general information on the conflict comes from TV and mainstream newspapers to find that there is another, equally valid, perspective on events, and we must balance them for NPOV. There is absolutely no problem in finding massive coverage of events from a pro-Israeli perspective, but you have to frequently go to the scholarship to see the other side. And much of that scholarship comes from places like TAU and diaspora Jewish scholars (many also Zionist). 'Pro-Palestinian' implies 'anti-Israel' and that is why the term is totally unacceptable.Nishidani (talk) 21:01, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Arkon. Whatever the outcome, I think this lengthy exchange of views, explorations of so many standard terms used to (mis)characterize what goes on in the putatively 'toxic' IP area, has been very useful. Instead of the intrinsic litigiousness of standard AE/ANI reports, this has been a productive (?hmm many will think TLDR perhaps) exploration in civilised dialogue, yeah with the odd edge of irritation or annoyance showing through, but that's picayune compared to the overall tone, of issues that we've never had quite the time to look into. The emergence of toolkit algorithmically generated evidence also was refreshing, an attempt, even if in my view, not quite as successful as one would like, to get a minimal empirical handle on what often is read as mere opinionizing. The rules of etiquette and strict topic focus all too often hinder discussions of what is really on editors' mind, before a community and its arbiters, and it is all to the good that we have been afforded this opportunity.Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The terms just means that the editor sympathizes with that side more than the other.

Good grief. What on earth has sympathizing with a 'side', presumably either collectively 'Israelis' or 'Palestinians' got to do with it. It's not a football match where people look on, 'rooting for' (that is extremely vulgar in Australia, where we say 'barrack') our side, and, in doing so, boo the other. Sympathy when partisan is tribal, and modernity teaches us that, though Hillel the Elder put it superbly in his dictum:'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn,' which we have now in the form, 'Do not do unto others what you would not have them do to you.' To empathize along ethnic lines is to sap the very principle that underwrites this as a human virtue. So, what befell Jewish israelis in the kibbutzim, and the fate of the hostages elicits the same pain as one should feel at what befalls Palestinians. I admit that there are very strong drifts in representation which retribalize our principles, demanding that we showcase the tragedy of Israeli hostages, each with a photo and lifestory, while the parallel hostage-taking of Palestinians ( of the 9,170 arrested roughly 4000 are in administrative detention, i.e. held without trial, lawyers or due process, and probably without a skerrick of evidence like Khalida Jarrar) is systematically ignored. To state that, given the disparity, is not to espouse a pro-Palestinian perspective. It is simply to insist that our civilization in its laws and ethical principles commends our sympathies to go out to whoever suffers, regardless of the mean divisions of politics and ethnicity.Nishidani (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

today, we've had an editor present evidence right here about the topic area and multiple others accuse that editor of lying about the evidence.Barkeep49

Translation: Billed Mammal presented a very abstract set of charts, and multiple editors stated that BM was lying about the evidence in them.

Your three interpretations are (BM) lied, by falsifying the facts; (b) that multiple editors replied by making personal attacks; (c) that bad faith is so deep that honest mistakes/normal editorial choices in summarizing information are read between the lines as malevolent.

I find that extraordinary, a wild caricature and misreading of several distinct reactions to BM’s chart. Perhaps that simply because I can't remember reading anything in a very long thread that might support it. Other than Nableezy’s use of the term ‘lying/dishonest’ – for which he said he would produce evidence if asked by ARBCOM, who are the multiple editors dismissing BM’s evidence as mendacious, as opposed to unconvincing, unfalsifiable, ergo to be interpreted rather than taken for granted as proof, of whatever?

It would take a very long time to work one’s way through that chart. Tomorrow I will be travelling for a month, so I won't be participating in the Arbcom deliberations, if they take place. But in a quick check in the little time I've had, I found that BM’s conclusion that there were only 2 ‘pro-Israeli’ editors as opposed to 13 aligning with a ‘pro-Palestinian’ position hard to reconcile with evidence on his chart of which makes him the lowest (10%) IP contributor - though he is the most familiar name to me on that list, - when it includes User:Marokwitz (72%); User:Tombah (53% permabanned); User:Drsmoo (48%); User:Personisinsterest (49%); User:Dovidroth (39% banned from IP);User:Mistamystery (70%, low edit count);User:XDanielx (89%);User:Eladkarmel (43%), User:האופה (43% low edit count); User:רמרום (76%, low edit count); User:טבעת-זרם (89% low edit count); User:Wagtail66, low edit count; User:Kentucky Rain24 (56%, NoCal100 sock); User:The Mountain of Eden (low edit count); User:Afdshah (63%) low editaccount; User:Bolter21 (69%); User:Greyshark09 (57% few edits); User:Onlineone22 low edit count; User:Izzy Borden, sock); User:Seggallion (sock) , to mention a few of the names I mostly recognize as coming under that kind of general category.But then, this kind of analysis is way out of my field of competence.Nishidani (talk) 03:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@*Barkeep. I had the distinct impression the line I quoted summed up (a) BM giving empirical evidence and (b) being attacked for doing so by several editors. My impression was that BM answered my solicitation for such evidence (on another page), came up with his charts and was immediately thanked by sean.hoyland and myself. Then Hoyland, Zero, with a professional competence in these things, questioned aspects of the chart, or the inferences BM drew from them as did SashiRolls. This was absolutely normal, consensual discussion. The only blip was Nableezy being upset at the way BM's chart distorted his comments. BM and Nableezy often collaborate and at times get annoyed at each other, but that is not 'multiple editors' getting at BM. What has been suggested is that his particular modelling of the data produces the kind of result he'd be comfortable with, and that is a point very frequently made of papers in population genetics and other fields. Confirmation bias works everywhere, but in no way implies duplicity.* Best Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though the query was twice raised with Levivich, the suggestion of using the Bible re Zionism was not shouted down, as implied, with injury to the editor making that proposal. The technical point is that such primary resources should be, where necessary filtered through pertinent high quality RS on Zionism. It would also help if commentators remembered that Zionism was proposed by someone unfamiliar with Judaism and Hebrew, and that the pronounced secular cast of the foundational movement horrified a large majority of orthodox Jews at that time. The bible arguably had a greater impact on the antisemitic Arthur Balfour's enabling of Zionism that it did on the founding fathers. Part of the ongoing problems in this area is reading back into the past, which is another country, perceptions and notions that consolidated themselves only much later.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

should not feel that doing so means crossing a red line if they cite sources on a banned list, or that if they stray from say the Journal of Palestine Studies on matters relative to 1948 that they are going to be topic-banned

Whatever the arrangements of the outcome, could some admin kindly write a short page (ARBPIA5 for dummies) so that people like myself who know little of these endless policy finesses can get their distracted heads around the practical results, with a few hypothetical examples illustrating what not to do, other than what one was obliged to avoid doing earlier? Thanks Nishidani (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
p.s.@Coretheapple.Just noticed this. A bit of ballistically mocking caricature is perhaps needed to lighten up the strange gloominess here. Since when has that journal, or its august Israeli counterpart, Israel Studies, counted much much generally for editors here, despite the efforts of a handful of contributors who advocate the use of both?(there is by the way quite a lot of overlap in many of their respective articles)Nishidani (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ARBPIA5. This is a hunch based on the ARBPIA1 case that had me permabanned in, was it, 2009. This invites the temptation to lay a bet on probable outcomes. Mine is that an equal number from the shortlist, 2 for 2, will be sanctioned, to underline the impartiality of judgment regarding the 'regulars', and the relatively new or resurfaced accounts (of which I have a list of over 50 with the same POV, all active in the last few months in the IP area). The 'balance' will totally ignore the massive discrepancy in the numbers involved. I hope I'm wrong, but this is my instinctive response to CaptainEek's extraordinarily dramatic language in their most recent comment. And all this will occur with the best of good faith and will, because the real underlying issues cannot be addressed within wiki terms, so perfect conduct criteria will as usual rule supreme.Nishidani (talk) 22:01, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll clarify with an anecdote why I am sceptical about the expectation that a functional fix to these issues can by the nature of our traditional approach achieve anything but damage. It's one that comes to mind whenever I'm dragged into these huge timewasting exercises. I first heard my father, a well-loved city figure, conservative, impeccably attentive to good form on any occasion, erupt with an angry 'Ah, for fuck's sake!!!,' when I was 14. A car swerved from behind us, trundling along at a moderate speed, overpassed and cut back in ahead of us just before the intersection of Burke Rd and Whitehorse Rd in Hawthorn. He had to brake hard to avoid a collision with the red-haired lout. Admins are like traffic cops, but the rules would say, adopting this simile, that two people were at fault: the larriken in his careering path overtaking us to gain a few seconds' edge, and my father for his incivility, esp. serious because the outburst occurred in the presence of impressionable boys. Both would be fined, as if cause and effect had nothing to do with, at least, my father's response. Worse still, had the speeder in the incident stopped to complain to a cop that he'd been yelled at abusively, my father, in an analogous wikipedia scenario, would have been proven guilty on his own admission and, were he to say, 'but the other chap caused me to lose my temper', he would be told, 'that is a separate issue. And you may take it up by opening a case for sanctions against that driver, where his behaviour will be examined.'
All technical infractions are not only placed on a par, but considered as putting the flow of edits at dire peril. It's not the meticulous traffic code memorizer and applier who is at fault: the lack of commonsense discretion in reading what constitutes a systemic 'danger' to wikipedia is. The aim of an encyclopedia is to get jobs done (articles) in a worksite where swarms of gaming slackers and urgently hyperactive kibitzers vie with people who, beyond their own personal views, have been trained long at a tech school, and know how to fix things and if they don't they stop work and consult experts or go to a library, to mug up on the needed know-how, and then return to the job to apply the remedy). Though favours are not permitted I'd personally appreciate a slight delay at the ARBPIA5 Tyburn Tree proceedings until I totter over the 100,000 edits threshold, which should occur in little more than a month or so.(:-) Nishidani (talk) 09:05, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(a) Arbcom can look at the totality of evidence when it comes to editor behavior, POV pushing, propagandizing, incivility, battleground editing, and all the rest and make a decision on what editors should and should not be editing in the topic area. . . (b) There are plenty of actions I could take if they wouldn't all involve hours of investigation to build the case
SFR. Anyonw can appreciate the high seriousness and intense scruple exercised by your extremely close work in the IP area. But if Arbcom or any other institution outside of God can 'look at the totality of the evidence' to make judgments about the elements that follow, I'll be a monkey's uncle, if only because of all those involved you are looking at over 500,000 contributions. Almost everything boils down to the single 'incivility' issue. As for hours spent, yes, but remember, just one poor edit involving the inclusion of bad sourcing, then vigorously defended on the talk page, can lead other serious editors, all the scumbags deplored in so many frivolous and (no doubt unintendedly) offensive characterizations in this massive conversation, to several hours of background reading just to get the text secured in excellent sourcing. Any one does that, day in, day out, for years, only to be told that one has an infractive 'battle-ground' 'POV-pushing' 'propagandizing' attitude. And I'm not speaking for myself here. The evidence mill here takes no account of the vast evidence about how 'regular' editors go to great lengths with huge expenditures in personal time to master the literature. All that is looked at is the niceties of their interactions with a mother-lode of new editors who show no such commitment, but an enormous earnestness.Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DMH223344

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Can someone explain to me what this is all about? Specifically, how is this AE related to the previously closed one? And what am I being asked to do here?

Statement by M.Bitton

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Statement by Buidhe

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I really don't want to be involved in this business, but while there is a lot of suboptimal behavior in this topic area, it amazes me some of what can be described as an "edit war" or sanctionable conduct. If these standards were enforced across the board to all editors regardless of their content contributions and all topic areas, I'm quite convinced that there would not be much of an encyclopedia. I realize that Arbcom tries to clinically separate content and conduct, but IMO one should not lose sight of the goal of the entire project. And while productive, good faith editors can be driven away from contributing due to battleground behavior and general nastiness, it's also true that they can be driven away by excessive rules and (the fear of) overzealous ban-hammers. I do believe that editors who actually work on creating an encyclopedia should be distinguished from people who just show up to revert or argue on talk pages. (t · c) buidhe 01:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vanamonde

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I saw several reports at AE that mentioned tag-teaming as a concern. I did not find anything actionable in the ones I investigated, but I agree with BK49 above that AE is less well-placed to investigate a sprawling multi-party dispute where the behavior of multiple editors may be of concern, than the behavior of a single editor. So I believe ARBCOM should look into this. In doing so, however, I encourage ARBCOM not to narrowly constrain which editors' behavior will be considered. AE is able to deal with the behavior of single editors. What ARBCOM needs to look at is whether the outcome of editors working together is actionably disruptive where any individual's actions in isolation may not be. I also encourage ARBCOM not to take a narrow view of what constitutes conduct. Mis-representing a source is, in my view, just as bad - and possibly worse for Wikipedia's long-term credibility - than any civility issue. It shouldn't be ignored just because it is easier to police language, though I am in no way suggesting that the expectations for collegial language be ignored. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • If this weren't very clear from my statement above, I don't think this ought to be handled by motion. The issues here aren't simple; they need to be disentangled with care. If civility and edit-warring were the only problems, we wouldn't need ARBCOM. We need an evidence phase, and for ARBCOM to dig into whether editors are editing within all the PAGs, not just the ones easy to assess. I also think it would be a mistake for ARBCOM to handle all the appeals. We shouldn't be spending the limited resource that is ARBCOM's time on appeals that aren't complicated. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fully endorse what Zero has to say about academic sourcing, but I disagree with the conclusion. There are editors here who are engaging constructively, and editors who aren't: and to determine who is in which category ARBCOM really needs to examine the content and the sourcing editors are discussing. There are previous cases - WP:ARBIRP and WP:ARBGWE come to mind - where ARBCOM needed to do something similar. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:52, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The motions being considered may provide useful administrative tools in some cases, but to my mind they do not touch the heart of the problem. We are at ARCA because the disputes are too involved for AE to separate good-faith content dispute from bad-faith editing. I don't see how we can reach any sort of resolution here without a thorough examination of the conduct of the principal parties. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Topic-wide enforced BRD is a bad idea. It is needed on some pages, and admins have the power to require it. Elsewhere, it just allows endless opportunities to stall constructive change. A hallmark of the ARBPIA disputes recently at AE is that editors were making reflexive reverts and not engaging substantively on talk pages. BRD cannot work when editors aren't discussing things in good faith. This is too much of a blunt instrument, and it does not get at the core issue brought here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:02, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Aoidh: and others: I think a case is the right choice and the only alternative to doing nothing. Contra Levivich, I see nothing wrong with the list of parties, as a case is an examination of conduct, not a presumption of sanctions. That said, there's a problem created by the procedural differences between AE and ARBCOM. Much of the disruption in this area comes from editors less active than the proposed parties. I can understand why you cannot lengthen the list of parties or sanction non-parties. But to avoid the undesirable outcome of sanctioning the regulars just because they are regulars, I suggest you need options to handle disruption by non-parties that may be identified in the evidence phase. One idea that occurs is explicitly empowering admins to act on conduct by non-parties that becomes evident during the case. We are theoretically empowered already, but it is likely that we will otherwise hold off on acting against anyone involved in this conflict during the case. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:25, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @ScottishFinnishRadish: ArbCom has in my experience avoided listing a lot of parties, and also has avoided adding parties after the evidence phase has begun. So we're in a bit of a Catch-22, wherein the evidence is needed to see which editors are involved, but once the evidence is provided, it is too late to add parties. I agree one possible solution would be to expand the list of parties after the evidence phase. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

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I generally avoid editing in this topic area, and my involvement in it has been fairly minimal. But the one instance when I did get involved with it ([24]), led me to find the editing environment disturbingly toxic, and not due to some simple problem with a small number of easily identified editors. Rather, it felt like a fairly large number of experienced editors, together, were acting in a way inconsistent with a CTOP subject. That strikes me as something that AE is poorly equipped to deal with. And it fits exactly with the concept that ArbCom should accept cases where the community has tried, but been unsuccessful, to resolve. So I recommend that ArbCom accept this case, and do so with a large number of named parties. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Added after some other editors have kindly said that they agree with me; I don't know if they will agree with what follows.) ArbCom should know that the problems with "the usual suspects" that cannot be handled by AE generally do not fall along the expected POV fault-lines of Israeli versus Palestinian POVs, or antisemitism or Islamophobia. (I'm sure there are POV pushers like that, but they can be handled at AE.) If anything, there's a divide between different lines of Jewish thought, with the most problematic editors favoring WP:RS-compliant scholarly work by largely-Jewish academics, but doing so with a massive-scale disregard for the ArbCom principle of WP:BRIE, and some other editors (sometimes more crudely) finding such source material to be contrary to popular political opinion. In my experience, getting caught in the middle of that can be quite unpleasant. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
About what ToBeFree said, I suspect that the information that would be made available to ArbCom via the case request page would look incredibly similar to what you already have here, so it would just be a bureaucratic waste of time to start over from scratch. And as for any aspersions that everyone should just be removed from the topic area, that's what the Evidence phase of a case is supposed to correct. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to that: Although numerous editors are asking where the evidence is, for starting a full case with multiple parties, the correct answer is that evidence will be presented, and critically evaluated for whether it is valid or not, on the Evidence page of the case. ArbCom should make it clear that being listed as a named party is not a predetermination of guilt, something that perhaps will be more important here than in many other cases. You have multiple AE admins telling you that a full case with multiple parties is needed, and they have given you a reasonable list of potential parties (including admins who are well-positioned to give useful evidence). This is not the time to get stuck on quasi-legalistic procedural details. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Responding now to Harry Mitchell's comment, I'm worried that ArbCom is starting to over-think this. Focus on conduct, not on which sources are definitive. Have an Evidence page. Editors will either provide evidence of misconduct, or they won't, and ArbCom can tell the difference. You've got enough people telling you here that there are conduct problems that have overwhelmed AE that you can be confident that it won't just be a fishing expedition, but it would just result in ongoing disruption if ArbCom punts for now. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tryptofish This would be fine, but it doesn't do anything about the topic area in general, and I'm not convinced that AE can't handle that. Possibly not as drive-by allegations in a thread about another editor, but if a separate complaint is filed with clear evidence on each editor for admins to evaluate, I have confidence that credible complaints will result in action and vexatious ones will be rejected. But if admins would prefer to refer a complaint against a specific editor to ArbCom, I'd be happy to hear that case. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:50, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm trying to convince ArbCom to do is about fixing the topic area in general. Among the multiple impasses in the discussion here on this request page is that AE admins are telling ArbCom that AE is not able to handle it, and you and maybe some other Arbs are saying the opposite. Handing the problem back to AE with an admonition to do it better is what will do nothing about the topic area. From my limited experience, bringing a case about one editor at a time to AE results in walls of text that include attempts to demonize the editor who first filed the AE report. After one such experience, I gave up on AE for this topic area, and I gave up on trying to edit in this topic area. (And I know better than to name names here on this request page, as opposed to on an eventual Evidence page.)
I agree with you that AE can handle stuff like sockfarms and newish accounts that POV-push.
I can appreciate that ArbCom must find it baffling that so many editors on this request page are asserting things about the real nature of the problem, in ways that contradict one another, and that cannot possibly all be true. If that means that ArbCom is having difficulty envisioning what such a sprawling case would consist of, and lead to, that reflects what a mess this is. But not knowing ahead of time what the outcome will be is a feature, not a bug, because obviously you shouldn't prejudge the case. Let the community give you evidence. And this is one case where you should not skip the workshop. Perhaps the evidence will end up surprising you. If so, again, that's a feature and not a bug.
I'm going to propose the case scope right here: "Ongoing disruption in the Israel-Palestine topic area, with a particular emphasis on factors that interfere with the ability of WP:AE to handle the topic area, and on ways to solve those impediments". Use Red-tailed Hawk's parties list, and make clear that, because it's a long list, being on the list is not a presumption of wrongdoing. Then do these three things:
  1. Focus on conduct.
  2. Focus on conduct.
  3. Focus on conduct.
I predict you'll end up finding that this has a lot less to do with POV than some editors are claiming. And you won't have to judge source material the way that it happened in the Polish Holocaust case. Personally, I expect to present some evidence in the form of:
  • "Brief quote from a source." ([link to source]). "What an editor put on the page." ([diff]).
(Although, in my case, it might not show what you expect now.) I'd suggest other editors, with more experience in the content area than I have, consider doing that, too. Arbs might want to click on those source links to check them for yourselves, but that's as far into source material as I expect you will need to go.
But the community expects ArbCom to solve the intractable problems that the community has failed to solve. ArbCom knows that this is one of them. To drop the ball on the basis that the request process wasn't good enough would be failing the community. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm gratified that Barkeep49 agrees with my idea about the scope, but I want to caution against narrowing the parties list too much. Barkeep49's suggestion definitely leaves out editors who need to be examined. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very skeptical that the proposed motions will have a positive effect on the topic area. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really think that ArbCom has an obligation to deal with these problems via full cases, and not simply motions. But if the difficulties of creating a named parties list are getting in the way of a single, large case, then the idea posed by several other editors, of having one case about the topic area and how it affects AE (but not getting ArbCom into reviewing source material!), followed by a second case focusing on editor conduct, might well be the most practical way to accomplish it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In response to the question about how to avoid making the topic-area case into a mudslinging contest, limit the named parties only to AE admins. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(Perhaps I'm posting here too much, but ArbCom's near-silence creates a vacuum.) ArbCom, don't get distracted by outside publications claiming bias in our content. It's special pleading, and ArbCom shouldn't end up with another Polish Holocaust case. We've got a problem, apparently, with a bottomless well of newish accounts that make life difficult for good-faith editors, which is something that AE should be able to handle. And I believe strongly that we have a problem with experienced editors who make it too difficult for AE to do its job. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My reaction to Motion 5, establishing a full case, is that I hope ArbCom will indeed go that route. About the parties list, I think it would be very helpful to clarify further how, precisely, additional parties might be added. Where I'm coming from is that I, personally, feel that I can provide evidence about two editors, one of whom is on the proposed parties list, and one of whom isn't. I'm extremely disinclined to name names before the time comes for posting evidence on the Evidence page, because I don't want to subject myself to the predictable complaints about casting aspersions. I'm weighing how I might present evidence about the editor who is currently a potential named party, in such a way as to make it apparent that evidence could also be in scope for the editor who is not currently named, but I'm unsure about how well that would work. I can envision a bad scenario in which editors provide evidence in that way, following what we think is ArbCom's instruction to propose adding named parties, and then find themselves admonished for having, in good faith, presented evidence about editors who were not named parties. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate Primefac's recent comment about adding parties based on evidence that supports doing so, where the documented content parallels that of already-named parties. Perhaps that could work, if ArbCom will not bend to retaliatory demands to add the editor who posted the evidence as yet another named party. It also occurs to me that some of the most active AE admins should also be named parties, not because they are being scrutinized, but because they are particularly well-positioned to provide evidence and should have more generous word limits. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the hopes of moving this very slow discussion forwards towards a case, I'll say that there should, indeed, be some revision of the parties list, and, for those Arbs who are still unsure of what a full case could accomplish that motions would not, I believe that if ArbCom, after fully reviewing evidence, will remove some experienced editors from certain kinds of discussions, that will lead to improvements in the editing environment (and in AE's ability to handle complaints), in ways that the motions will not. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know that this page is for dialog between the community and ArbCom, and not between editors filing statements, but I feel the urge to react to what Selfstudier addressed to me, saying that I'm prejudging the case. The answer is that I'm not on ArbCom, so I don't get to judge the case at all, but I do hope to present evidence that will help ArbCom reach a good judgment. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AirshipJungleman29

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I echo the comments of Tryptofish, Vanamonde93 and SFR. The topic area features a large number of experienced editors who have, whether consciously or not, decided to ignore CTOP protocols. This not only has the effect of turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be, but also negatively affects the experiences and habits of newer editors who follow the combative, actively hostile methods of those they look up to. Editors of all sides appear to have an unspoken agreement that civility shouldn't really matter when discussing such controversial subject matter (e.g. nableezy's statement above). This is unacceptable. I strongly endorse implementing the actions outlined by SFR as immediate remedies. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nishidani, while I don't particularly appreciate being snidely labelled a pro-Israel complainer, I do appreciate an immediate example of "experienced editors . . turning the entire topic into even more of a WP:BATTLEGROUND than it needs to be". So—on balance, notwithstanding its intention—I thank you for your statement! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Aquillion

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I do urge ArbCom to particularly investigate the accusations of misrepresenting sources (an extremely serious one that takes time and effort to get to the bottom of) and of people taking inconsistent policy positions (a key component mentioned in WP:CIVILPOV, which is rarely enforced) as well as the battleground / aspersion / WP:AGF issues mentioned above. The edit-warring is important and is easy to see (hence why so many cases focus on it), but if that was enough to resolve this then we wouldn't be at ArbCom. The root cause is battleground mentalities and civil POV-pushing; misrepresenting sources and taking inconsistent policy positions point much more directly to that problem. (And, of course, I also urge people to present evidence to those things in the evidence phase, if it gets to that point, because ArbCom needs that - my past experience with cases like these is that both editors and ArbCom tend to focus on the "easy" aspects of WP:CIVIL and WP:EW, ignoring the underlying causes or more complex aspects.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to second Loki's statement below that much of the problem is drive-by new editors or SPAs with few edits elsewhere - a lot of the other comments here have basically said "this is all about a few bad editors"; I don't think that's correct. In topic areas like this, where the disputes here reflect serious real-world divides, new / inexperienced users and blatant new SPAs are going to constantly flow into the topic area and require experienced editors who are willing to take the time and effort to keep an eye on a vast number of pages in order to maintain some semblance of balance or even just basic compliance with policy. We aren't going to solve the underlying A/I conflict on Wikipedia; the topic area is always going to be fraught. And the simple fact is that distinguishing between an experienced editor who eg. frequently reverts in a particular way because they're doing the necessary gruntwork of dealing with an endless tide of SPAs trying to blatantly add a particular bias an article, and an experienced editor who is performing WP:CIVILPOV-pushing themselves while WP:BITE-ing innocent new editors, is often not obvious. Part of the reason an ArbCom case is needed is because the community and AE aren't equipped for that; but this also means it's important to approach the case with an eye towards the drive-by / SPA problem, at least as context for the behavior of parties to the case, and not just "who are the bad people we can make go away in order to solve this." --Aquillion (talk) 18:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Going over the motions, I don't think that any of them are likely to help. The core problems in the topic area are sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, and canvassing, coupled with the scale and intensity of the underlying real-world conflict, which inevitably spills over into editing and leads to knock-on WP:CIVILPOV / WP:BATTLEGROUND issues; all of these are difficult to resolve in a single sweeping motion. But several of these are likely to actually make problems worse, not better.

  • Motion 1, Appeals only to ArbCom doesn't really address any of the core problems; it isn't like revolving-door appeals are the problem here.
  • Motion 2a / 2b, Word limits: Bludgeoning is certainly happening, so this is the one suggestion here that is at least aimed at what I'd consider the real problem... but it would probably be better to treat it as a WP:ROPE situation and just remove the people who are unable to stop themselves. Bludgeoning is a symptom of the real problem, not its cause. Also, it would make editing in the topic area even more stressful because you'd have to constantly keep track of your word count.
  • Motion 3, Involved participants: This would reward sockpuppetry and canvassing, and silence contributions from editors with the most knowledge of the topic and the underlying dispute. Beyond that it's just not practical - would every editor only get to weigh in on one RFC in the topic, ever, after which they're involved and can never contribute to another? How would this even work? We'd rapidly run out of people willing to respond to RFCs (non-sockpuppets, anyway. I guess it could serve as a honey-trap for them but it's not worth it.)
  • Motion 4, Enforced BRD: This would make editing in the topic area a glacial slog; it would also add a massive first-mover advantage to anyone who creates an article. Because the R in BRD can't be used to "uncreate" an article, someone could create a highly-biased article and then force extensive discussions on any attempt to balance it. And because events are moving quickly in the real world, this is a serious concern; there's constant new events that justify new articles, which often require fixes but which can't necessarily be summarily deleted. Beyond that, it's, again, not really aimed at the real problems here - revert-wars aren't the main issue (they're one of the things admins can easily spot and deal with.) I'm not a fan of enforced BRD in the best of times, but to the extent that it does work, it only really functions when there's a solid status quo and no need to update it quickly, which isn't the case during an active fast-moving real-world conflict like this one.

What we need are in-depth looks at individual editor conduct in order to catch sockpuppets / meatpuppets, identify canvassing, and remove civil POV-pushers. These things are hard, which is why they haven't been done yet, but sweeping from-above solutions aren't a substitute. --Aquillion (talk) 05:37, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Swatjester

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Tryptofish's experience here echoes mine. The tendentiousness, bludgeoning, and sealioning behavior from these battleground editors makes it exhausting and frustrating for non-battleground editors to participate. In any event, I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute, in contrast to the uninvolved parties saying, essentially: "It's you: you're the problem." I think that's rather telling. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 18:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Huldra: While my user page has remained remarkably free of vandalism I have received death threats and threats to my family, specifically targeting me as a Jew, through Wikipedia that were so bad that WMF Legal had to be involved at one point. I'm not the cat you're looking for; please keep me out of your metaphors, thanks. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 03:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Huldra: I appreciate the words written in support. With regard to the question of whether I think the "not so Israeli" side receives more threats than the Israeli side -- I don't know. I'm not sure how I *could* know as I wouldn't be privy to threats received in private much like you weren't privy to the ones I received. I'm also not sure why it matters -- neither side should be receiving death threats, but nobody "wins" by being more oppressed. As to my lack of having been targeted for on-wiki vandalism by one side or the other, as Nishidani pointed out, my "presence is very rare in the IP area" so not only would I have less visibility over other people receiving threats, logically I'm not going to be the target of abuse from that area either. And, I was considerably less active in editing from 2012 until 2023, which certainly bears on why my User Talk was not subjected to those kinds of attacks. Thus I believe I'm just not a good fit for your metaphor. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 23:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Nishidani: thank you for bringing up an example that I did not remember from nearly two decades ago of your atrocious behavior within this topic area, in which you became so infuriated that I denied an unblock request from you, that you went on a rant about how my military service in Iraq (miscategorizing me as a Marine, as well as not realizing I'd been out of the military for over a year at that point) categorically disqualified from participating in the Israel topic area; made the same argument about a British military admin; and then proceeded to imply that we were tag-team coordinating while admitting that you had no evidence whatsoever to make that aspersion and that it was unlikely to be true anyway, before accusing me of "partisan" and "political" motivations, while repeatedly threatening to quit the project if you didn't get your way. Are you *really* sure this is the example you want to bring up? You're making my point about "It's you: you're the problem" quite well for me. But sure, you never hold grudges... except for the one you've apparently held for 17 years. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 16:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to the proposed motions: I don't have confidence that they're going to fix the problem, but they're all pretty harmless so why not try them..... except Motion #3. That one seems quite dangerous to me, actually when read in conjunction with Motion #1. It creates the risk that an administrator who is not themselves involved, but who wishes to push their finger on the scale of the matter, could simply "knock out" any other admin (or non-admin editor) as being "involved" with the only recourse being (if Motion #1 also goes through) an Arbitration appeal. That seems highly unlikely to reduce the amount of heat on the topic, and I don't see how it leads to the goal of encouraging outside voices. If there's a concern over specific administrators taking actions while being involved, I think that should be raised individually on a case-by-case basis. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 00:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That said, Jeske+Barkeep's suggestion of splitting this into topic area and editor conduct halves I think merits further examination. Depending on how those two groupings relate to each other (e.g. if findings from the topic area can inform whether editor conduct issues exist), that could be a clean way of approaching at least part of this. It's at least the most workable suggestion I've seen thusfar. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 21:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Number 57

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I edit around the edge of this topic area, focussing on Israeli politics and civil society, and have had the misfortune over the years to have ended up in disputes with editors pushing both anti-Israel and pro-Israel POV on articles where our paths corss. I very much welcome the suggestion that long-term tag-teaming, POV pushing and the ineffectiveness of current tools to stop this should be looked at. From my nearly 20 years' experience, the main issue has always been that there is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV – anyone can look at their contribution histories and see that their contributions are primarily adding things that make their side look good/the other look bad and deleting information to the contrary; in discussions such as RMs, RfCs or AfDs, their stances are easily predicted based on their editing history. A further issue is that for most of the last two decades the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers and one side has been consistently able to push their POV through weight of numbers, either by long-term tag teaming or by swinging poorly-attended discussions (and in my view the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage). Number 57 19:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re LokiTheLiar's comment below that "a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users", I would say that is only partially correct. These users tend to be the worst in terms of edit warring and other more flagrant violations of Wikipedia rules. However, IMO the real issue here is the fact that the topic area is dominated by a relatively small number of long-term editors who rarely break rules such as 3RR etc, but (as said above) are purely here to push their POV and support other members of their group in doing so. They have been allowed to do this for years – the question is whether the community sees this as perfectly fine, or whether it wants to do something about it (which IO think can only be achieved by a mass handout of topic bans). Number 57 19:21, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A response to Bluethricecreamman's comments: NOTAVOTE (an essay, not a rule) is not really relevant; closes against the majority of views expressed only tend to occur when there is a clear right/wrong (e.g. alignment with a certain policy or guideline). In this topic area, most things are arguable, and therefore the number of attendees do swing discussion outcomes – while this isn't an issue as a one-off, when it is many discussions over many years, it is a problem.
Re my views on 30/500 – my concern is that it is a deterrent to new editors entering the topic sphere, which is one of the issues preventing an equalisation in the number of POV pushers on each side (as I've said above, I would rather they were all topic banned, but if Wikipedia is going to tolerate POV pushers in contentious topic areas, at least allow them to contribute in roughly equal numbers). I've been here nearly 20 years and the dominant personalities in this topic sphere have barely changed in the last ten. Number 57 20:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And re Nableezy's comment about me – disingenuous at best. For context, what I objected to was including the same paragraph of text about the legal status of Israeli settlements in the introduction of every single article on a settlement – my view was that everyone knows they are illegal and simply saying it is an Israeli settlement makes that clear. And for those who have been here long enough to remember, my RfA was disrupted by canvassing by pro-Israel editors who considered me to be a problem because I was doing things like removing articles on settlements from "in Israel" categories. Number 57 23:23, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nableezy, I had been calling people in the topic area POV pushers for years before the discussion you reference and my issues with you also started well before then as well. While I have been accused of bias, it has come from both sides, and that gives me reassurance that I must be doing something right. I was once even accused of being a friend of Nishidani, which I'm not sure either of us would agree is the case. Number 57 00:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For Huldra's information, unfortunately I have had numerous people wishing me death and other unpleasant things both on and off-wiki – most recently in June an IP left numerous edit summaries on articles saying I should be tortured, stabbed, beheaded, raped or "bullied to suicide". Number 57 00:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Huldra, I don't think it's appropriate to get into an argument about who has suffered the most abuse, particularly using a single metric like talkpage redactions – the fact is that no-one should receive any level of abuse for editing Wikipedia. And also worth noting that I have also been impacted as a result of removing "in Israel" from Israeli settlements (when I removed them all from "in Israel" categories back in 2007). Number 57 23:57, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Kip

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Not to sound repetitive, but I'll echo the comments of Tryptofish, AirshipJungleman29, and Swatjester. I dabbled in editing within the topic area some months back, but quickly opted to mostly stay away - since December or so, my related editing has only been in the Current Events portal/ITNC and various admin/arbitration noticeboards. This pivot was due to the absurd levels of incivility, condescension, POV-pushing, bludgeoning, edit-warring, hypocrisy, and virtually every other type of WP:BATTLEGROUND editing humanly possible, from a core group of editors that perennially show up to scream at each other in every discussion; there's a level of toxicity that just makes me want to ignore the area entirely. This BATTLEGROUND issue is only compounded by the fact that virtually all of the culprits are WP:UNBLOCKABLE - they wholly disregard WP policies and prior warnings/sanctions, as most ARBPIA sanctions for experienced editors have effectively amounted to slaps on the wrist. I'd also like to specifically emphasize the point made by Swatjester of I see the "usual suspects" attempting to downplay or deny that there's any dispute, as from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.

In short, I strongly endorse both an Arbcom case and SFR's suggested remedies. I will openly disclose that I openly endorse nuking the topic area's userbase via mass TBANs, as I don't think starting from scratch could make things any worse than they currently are - that said, I understand that's a rather draconian/heavy-handed solution. The Kip (contribs) 22:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • With regards to the core group/"usual suspects" claim, I'd also like to link this chart gathered by @Thebiguglyalien: some months ago for a different arb case. Some of the more active users noted on that chart are now TBANned, but it still serves as a solid chunk of data for the mass-scale POV-warring in the area. The Kip (contribs) 22:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd also like to say I politely disagree with Tryptofish's assessment of the main area of conflict; while that is a dispute in the area, and as they say, a particularly nasty one, I think the main issue is indeed the Israeli vs Palestinian POV-warring. While AE could in theory deal with that, in practice it's been reluctant to for one reason or another - many of the experienced editors in question often straddle a line of problematic behavior that AE has seemed unwilling to definitively bring down the hammer on (hence my WP:UNBLOCKABLE concerns mentioned above), and that Arbcom may be more open to conclusively dealing with. As a result of AE's apparent higher threshold needed for experienced editors, things like civil POV-pushing, bludgeoning, weaponization of process, less "blatant" incivility, and so on are difficult to definitively sanction - you have to badly cross multiple lines to receive anything more than a logged warning that is almost always disregarded by the receiver in the long run.
That's not even to mention the specific reasons why this case was primarily brought here (in my understanding), that being AE is mainly intended to be an A reporting B case forum. When the issue at hand is tag-teaming, multi-party edit warring, multi-party incivility, etc, AE's not too well-equipped to deal with a case where A and B want to report C, D, and E, except A and B have also been engaging in the reported behavior themselves, and F probably was too but wasn't brought to the case until later due to a variety of reasons. The Kip (contribs) 00:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@LokiTheLiar the problem is those new-ish users are fairly easily dealt with via AE, if they haven't already violated ECR. On the contrary, AE has shown itself to be reluctant to heavily sanction any heavily-experienced, long-term editors - see how some of those named in this case pretty much receive only logged warnings and/or minor things such as revert restrictions for substantial incivility, abuse of AE process, edit-warring, etc that would've gotten a newer user swiftly blocked. The Kip (contribs) 18:49, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • After further reading of comments here from multiple users on either side of the POV-war they either deny exists or insist it's mainly/only the other side that's toxic, I'd like to reiterate:
from both sides of the POV-war, there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine," rather than any introspection on the absolutely toxic environment created by nearly all participants.
WP:RGW, WP:BRIE, et al. This complete lack of introspection/acknowledgement that "hey, maybe I'm part of the problem too" is exactly why many in the area, if not all its experienced users, deserve sanctions. The Kip (contribs) 18:43, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to make something very clear, just so my position on the area doesn't get grouped in by one side with the other side of editors here and at large (which may already be happening):

  • Are there more pro-Palestinian problematic experienced editors in the area than pro-Israeli ones? Yeah, I kinda feel like that's an objective fact at this point - as berchanhimez or the aforementioned Swatjester have stated, just look at the number of experienced editors showing up to insist they're not the problem, everyone else is/"there is no war in Ba Sing Se"/their behavior is justified/etc.
  • Does that mean that the many problematic pro-Israeli experienced editors are any less of a contributor to the toxicity, policy violations, et al in this area, or that they deserve any lesser sanctions? Not at all (case in point) - I support coming down on them as hard as I do the former group, including more than a few editors in this very discussion whom I won't name. Hell, from the linked motion, part of the reasons one side is smaller in the first place is because many of the problematic users from that side already got themselves TBANned.

Some previous and later commenters seem to think that my idea of "nuking the topic area" means only mass-TBANning the problematic people from the aforementioned side with more editors (see there's a near-constant attitude of "my side is doing nothing wrong, if we just sanctioned the [pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian] POV-pushers everything would be fine yet again), thereby artificially enforcing "neutrality" by simply evening the numbers. That is not my view - mine is that all of the problematic editors be banned, POV be damned. The Kip (contribs) 23:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, with all due respect to @Sean.hoyland: - WP:SOCK will always be a problem in the area, nuke or not, but it's a problem that can be dealt with somewhat easily via SPI and sockpuppeteers having an almost comical tendency to accidentally out themselves. We shouldn't just put up with how much of a mess things currently are because there's the potential that it could get worse, and anyways, I disagree that the hypothetical "it could get really bad" is worse than the current reality of "it's a toxic disaster zone." The Kip (contribs) 23:25, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zanahary

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It’s a small group of editors making this topic area hell for editors and a headache (I’d imagine) for administrators. I used to involve myself heavily in this topic area, and it’s the only such area where I’ve witnessed personal attacks, bullying, glaring dishonesty and hypocrisy in defense of violation of WP policy, and an apparent policy of assuming bad faith from anyone whom you believe you’ve sussed out to disagree with you go totally unpunished and be downright normalized—and it’s mostly coming from a handful of dominant editors. Something’s gotta give, and if that’s a rain of topic bans, then so be it. I see a few names listed that I believe do little more here than worsen the project. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ravpapa

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Once an active editor in this topic area, I have for the last few years assiduously eschewed any involvement. But I would like, nonetheless to add this comment:

I think we are all looking at the wrong thing. We are discussing editor behavior, but we should be looking at the quality of the articles in the topic area. And, I think we can all agree, the articles are abysmal. They are bloated with polemics, they magnify ephemeral new items into international crises that change the course of history, they are often so full or quotes and counterquotes that they are practically unintelligible.

Will massive topic bans make the articles better? I doubt it. With the Middle East conflict, we have exceeded the limits of the possible with a cooperative open editing model, and we need to think of some other way to approach articles in this area. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SashiRolls

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ArbCom should be aware that the table BilledMammal has offered as evidence above (Bludgeoning statistics) is deeply flawed. Efforts to encourage him to include a disclaimer noting that his "methodology" does not control for the presence of bludgeoning sockpuppets in discussions (for example) were rebuffed. As a single example, Kentucky Rain24 made about 48 comments on Talk:Zionism#Colonial project? enticing several editors into responding.

Prior to my comments on the talk page there was no methodology section. Now, BM has added some clarifications, but as a quick roll-over of that link shows, he is controlling what page visitors are aware of.

I very rarely edit in this topic area and only looked into this table due to past experience with Billed Mammal and Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) working in concert here. This is also why I learned that 18% of BilledMammal's edits to mainspace have been reverted, which might be worth looking into. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 11:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record... after further research I have been able to determine that it was the decision to set the cutoff at 20 comments rather than at 18 which kept Kentucky Rain24 (NoCal100) from appearing on BilledMammal's list. That said, and as others have already said on the talk page (or when it is was brought to ANI as an attack page), showing that people engaged in discussion, provided RS, debunked silly arguments, responded to sockpuppet provocation, etc. does not show that people "bludgeoned" anything. As the explanatory essay says: Participating fully isn't a bad thing. If there were any utility to a page which simply counts the number of times someone's signature appears on a page, I would ask him to rerun the data based on 18 comments in 4 discussions so that NoCal100 would appear in his list. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 02:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is worth noting that the data BilledMammal has assembled here show conclusively that known sockpuppets have made more changes to PIA than any single named user.
This was determined by calculating changes to PIA made by those Billed Mammal listed in red, which is a partial list of sockpuppets in that table. My mentioning this in the methodology section bothered BM, who immediately deleted the mention of these 15,802 changes as being a datum apparently unrelated to disruption in the topic area. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 12:38, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Domedtrix

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I am relatively new to this topic area on Wikipedia, though I have read around the topic offline over a number of years.

I would like to echo the points of many editors above, that there is a culture of bludgeoning, tag teaming and tendentious editing, particularly of the Righting Great Wrongs variety. @BilledMammal illustrated this excellently here, though that is not to say the same behavious doesn't occur across more than the two editors singled out in that diff. Though I have seen tendentious editing multiple times, I am very reticent to call it out, in part because such accusations add more fuel to the fire.

What makes this topic particularly tricky to deal with, however, is not that editors in this space are typically new to the site (although as I know from editing in the WP:FOOTBALL space, any current event will draw large crowds), as is often the case when we see these types of issues. Instead, editors here are often incredibly experienced, incredibly knowledgeable of processes, and thus how to make a contentious change stick. This enables Wikilawyering on a scale that I've frankly not encountered anywhere else on Wikipedia in my history of making active edits, though I accept I am far below the median in this discussion by this metric. This, in combination with a format for resolving disputes that often seems to favour the most mobilised side, despite WP:VOTE expressly stating this shouldn't be a factor, has resulted in a topic area where, as @ABHammad observes, Wikipedia is out-of-step with a large number of the reliable sources that we rely on for other topics across Wikipedia. In my view, this amounts to an abuse of Wikipedia's voice for political ends.

The consensus process has broken down because too many experienced editors seem to have no interest in finding any consensus. I agree with @Zanahary that Badgering and Wikilawyering particularly scares off many that would like to approach the topic, so we're left with the same faces over and over again, and also the same problems. It is very rare in these interminable discussions that I see people give an iota. There is no end in sight, because it seems the desired state of the articles in the topic area from one (or each) 'side' of this conflict will likely not be content until 'perfection' is achieved.

We have been too slow to act here. It has been public knowledge for some time that Discord servers are being used to WP:CANVAS people with specific viewpoints. As this is done off-site, it is hard to know the scale of the impact, but that should not prevent the implementation of measures to guard against this risk.

The more I read in this topic area, the more disheartened I become by the state of our collective actions as editors, and the more I find myself aligning with @The_Kip's suggestion of nuking the topic area with mass topic bans. This is a WP:BATTLEGROUND, and it's hard to imagine whatever fills this void being worse than what is already here. As @Ravpapa stated, it's not like we're protecting much of value here - this process has resulted in articles of fairly poor quality, a result of incessent pointscoring within articles. --Domeditrix (talk) 11:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Number 57: A response to Bluethricecreamman's comments: NOTAVOTE (an essay, not a rule) is not really relevant; closes against the majority of views expressed only tend to occur when there is a clear right/wrong (e.g. alignment with a certain policy or guideline). In this topic area, most things are arguable, and therefore the number of attendees do swing discussion outcomes – while this isn't an issue as a one-off, when it is many discussions over many years, it is a problem.
History repeats itself. A contentious move is confirmed by @Amakuru:. The rationale? "from a rough count, I see around 22 !votes endorsing the closure and 15 saying to overturn. I also don't see any kind of slam-dunk argument in the overturn !votes". This is a repeating problem and is only leading to parties that are able to mobilise more effectively getting changes made. I'm not saying policy is being purposefully gamed here, but if it was, this is one way it might look. Tagging @Joe Roe: here as it would be rude not to, given I've mentioned one of their closes. For full disclosure, I opposed the original close. Domeditrix (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by LokiTheLiar

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As an occasional participant in this topic area, I'd like to second Zero's suggestion that mass topic bans are not likely to be useful because a lot of the worst behavior is from new-ish users. ArbCom already got a taste of this earlier this year when it banned a bunch of pro-Israel meatpuppets.

Speaking of which, I'd also like to encourage ArbCom that, when it looks at editor behavior, to actually look at the behavior of every individual involved and not assume "both sides are at fault" without evidence. Loki (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to say that my assessment of the behavior of established editors is notably less negative than many other people here. I basically agree with nableezy: it's inherently a contentious topic area and so disagreements are common and will always be common. It's also unsurprising that many editors take editorial lines that lean towards one side or the other of the conflict: editors aren't required to have no POV, only articles are. None of this is that surprising to me for editing in a contentious topic area and I don't think that any of this per se is a problem.
I do think it's a problem when editors edit war, or cross the bounds of civility, or bludgeon discussions, or bring your opponents to drama boards to try to get them removed from the topic area, or try to push a POV over what reliable sources support. And definitely some of that has been happening here, and I encourage ArbCom to look at the behavior of individual editors in this topic area. But I don't think this stuff coming from established editors is a systemic issue over and above the inherent fact that the Israel/Palestine conflict just is a contentious topic. It's fine to not want to edit in a contentious topic area but I don't think that a topic area being intimidating to edit in is by itself an issue. Loki (talk) 19:54, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thebiguglyalien

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Given the pushback from regulars in this area, I'll add one more voice from someone who's only edited at the edge of the topic area and have felt dissuaded from contributing further. I can't say it better than Swatjester: "'It's you: you're the problem'". Whatever excuses the entrenched editors might have, their behavior is the worst of any topic area on Wikipedia. Everyone here knows which users I'm talking about and which sides they fall on, but we have to pretend we don't so as not to be accused of casting aspersions. I see an Arbcom case as the only way to turn this years-old "open secret" into something actionable.

The habit of always !voting in a way that benefits the same nation is a problem, and it becomes obvious when someone uses one reasoning to come to one conclusion but then uses the opposite reasoning when it's the other side up for discussion. This is commonly answered with the contradictory ideas that "they're the POV pushers, our side is just correct" and that "users are allowed to have their own POV", with the latter suggesting that it's okay to let POV dictate editing and !voting instead of following policies and sources. Call it battleground, tag-teaming, CPUSH, whatever you like, but in my opinion it should be a major focus when considering whether the editors in this area are here to build a neutral encyclopedia.

Contrary to what other statements here are arguing, I believe there are legitimate issues about editors who are only here to edit PIA. This is a strong indicator of WP:ACTIVIST/WP:SPA/WP:NOTHERE style editing, even when they have high edit counts or several years of experience. This will always be a contentious topic, but it is possible to prioritize the sources over your own beliefs when editing in contentious topics. The current regulars have forced out anyone who might be willing to do this.

  • I like ScottishFinnishRaddish's suggestion that everyone who participated in an ARBPIA AE discussion since last October be considered involved.
  • I agree with Ravpapa's points about low article quality, but these issues plague most current events articles (another area that could use cleanup, but it's not analogous to PIA).
  • BilledMammal's list does produce some of the most active editors, and while there's plausibly a strong correlation, it doesn't prove bludgeoning on its own.
  • Not only do I agree with The Kip and Zanahary that a significant number of topic bans should be on the table, but such bans are the bare minimum of what's necessary. At this point, topic bans aren't a drastic last resort. They're the first step of a slow, painful remedy.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In response to the link provided by Nableezy: a reminder that WikiProjects cannot enforce their local consensus on articles. Conclusions reached by a WikiProject are recognized as essays. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:46, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

HJ Mitchell, replying more so to you because you've provided the strongest argument against my own and have convinced me to some degree. The most critical issue, in my opinion, is tag-teaming. Which regular editors in the area are working together to !vote lockstep, always in a way that favors the same cause? Especially when they apply different rationales depending on which side benefits (articles making Israel look bad must always be deleted and making Palestine look bad must always be kept, or vise versa, even if they have the same merits).

Your definition of "behaving tendentiously" would be a huge step in the right direction, but we'd need to flesh it out in a way that might be impossible. I've raised the issue at AE before, but no one could provide an example of what diffs are necessary to demonstrate this. Even though—if we all choose not to insult each other's intelligence—it's public knowledge who the most prominent tag-teamers are.

Regarding the academic "baseline", I don't believe there is one on most aspects. The controversy and disagreement are inherent to the subject area, including academia and history studies. The standard to declare something as a baseline fact should be overwhelming agreement in reliable sources. People who assert academic consensus on a subjective controversial topic are at best victims of confirmation bias and at worst maliciously misrepresenting. The people who insist that it's "correct vs incorrect" as opposed to "pro-Israel vs pro-Palestine" should be given additional scrutiny here.

Encouraging people to avoid the use of news media and primary reporting in articles on current events is something of a pet cause of mine in general (that I've elaborated upon in an essay), and such avoidance will almost always produce better results.

I see the sockpuppetry issue to be a red herring. That's not to say it's not a huge problem, but the current focus is established users, and there are factors that make this more urgent:

  • The opinions of less established accounts are taken less seriously in discussions relative to more experienced users (this probably should be the case, but that just means it's all the more important that experienced users are above reproach on POV issues).
  • ECR significantly increases the investment to create sockpuppets.
  • ECR makes it easy to see who's acting in bad faith via EC gaming.
  • Once discovered, a sockpuppet account is automatically blocked.
  • AE can't address coordinated action nearly as well as it can address individual problem users (which is why we're here).
  • Administrators don't give a second thought to blocking or tbanning newbies, while they often shrink away from sanctioning entrenched editors who do much worse much more often.
  • Any administrator with the resolve to take action (or even mention the possibility) is hounded and abused by the user's tag-team buddies.

To stretch the cat analogy that's been raised, we're trying to build a home for mice. We've known the dangers of cats for a long time. Keeping entrenched editors to protect us from socks and newbies is like keeping cats to protect the mice from kittens. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:24, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that HJ Mitchell is doing what we elected him to do and trying to get solve the problem. With that said, I'm also not a fan of these proposals. They seem geared toward the "loud" disruption, when the accusations of "quiet" disruption are why it got referred to Arbcom. Just a few days ago, Arbcom reaffirmed Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles#Presumption of coordination. I would like to see a case in which the most frequent participants in the area are scrutinized, and that this will be proposed as a principle to guide any and all remedies. The repeated insistence from frequent participants that only newbies and socks are the problem has further convinced me that this is necessary. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:23, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by xDanielx

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Number 57's point gets at the heart of the issue: the two sides have been seriously mismatched in terms of numbers. This often leads to situations where there's an apparent consensus which goes against (the natural or customary interpretation of) our content policies. The result is passionate edit warring, with one side righteously enforcing consensus, and the other righteously enforcing content policies.

The Zionism edit war covered at AE is one example - there's an apparent consensus to state in wikivoice, in the first sentence, that Zionism is colonization. It's frankly very hard to see how such an unequivocal statement could comply with NPOV, given the long list of scholars who take issue with the characterization. But it's difficult to enforce policies against a majority, and four editors have been brought to AE for attempts to do, with another threatened.

Another example is Gaza genocide. If that isn't a WP:POVNAME, I don't know what is. Some editors argued that titles do not imply statements, effectively saying that POV names do not exist. Such arguments tend to be invoked selectively. The move received significant press ([25], [26], [27], [28], etc), damaging Wikipedia's credibility.

I don't think word count limits would help. A bright-line rule against bludgeoning might help avoid lengthy discussions filled with redundancies, but that isn't the core issue. Enforcing behavioral policies more rigorously might help attract a few more neutral editors. The real solution would be to warn or sanction editors who repeatedly promote unreasonable or inconsistent interpretations of content policies, but of course that's difficult since such policy matters aren't black and white. — xDanielx T/C\R 01:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for Radical Change by Ravpapa

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So long as we remain in the realm of editor behavioral change, we will get nowhere. What is required is structural change. In this topic area, we need to abandon the open consensual editing model that has been at the heart of Wikipedia since its inception. Here is what I propose that we do:

We recruit a committee of five to ten senior editors, who have never edited in the topic area, who have no identifiable bias, and who are equally unacceptable to both sides. Only members of this committee will be allowed to edit in the topic area.

The committee will be charged with reviewing the entire corpus of Middle East articles, and making any editorial and structural changes that they see fit, including:

  • deleting duplicate articles about the same topic, or merging articles closely related.
  • drastically trimming down articles of marginal importance that have become bloated with polemics.
  • rewriting main articles to present conflicting views in a concise and intelligible way.

The committee should look not only at individual articles, but at the corpus in its entirety, thinking creatively about the best way to present information. I give examples and suggest such structural changes in my essay User:Ravpapa/The Politicization of Wikipedia, which I wrote 15 years ago but is just as relevant today as then.

The committee will have the power to delete, merge and rename articles by consensus within their own group, without having to go through the regular article deletion. merge or rename processes. Anyone can, of course, comment on the talk page and make suggestions. But only the committee can actually edit. This proposal preserves the heart of the consensual editing model (though not strictly open), but eliminates the possibility for contentious editing.

It is a huge task. I am not volunteering. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:12, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

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A PIA5 case has the possibility to go completely FUBAR if it attempts to litigate the entirety of the topic area and regular editors in those areas. This is a stupidly contentious topic and I suspect if we looked at the complete records of every regular editor a well-meaning member of ArbCom could probably go all Portals on us and find a spurious reason to ban them. No, my idea would be to concentrate on the three areas which appear to causing the most issues at the moment.

  • Sub-5000-edit accounts which are basically SPAs on the PIA area, some of which will inevitably be socks but even if they're not are equally disruptive
  • Those attempting to weaponise AE by bringing multiple threads against ideological enemies
  • Those holding up progress by causing endless circular arguments on talk pages (I'm not going to say "bludgeoning" because people may look at BilledMammal's subpage which IMO has a wildly flawed methodology for assessing this). A lot of these people are, again, new-ish accounts.

Also, per Rosguill below. That particular shambles of an RfC is quite revealing. Black Kite (talk) 14:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rosguill

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Based on my vantage point of having only really participated in I/P topics by way of RSN and AE discussions, I am perplexed by various assertions made in this clarification request. Reading through discussions like the recent ADL RfC, the recent Al-Jazeera RfC, a recent discussion of +972 a recent discussion of general Israeli sources, there is a consistent group of editors that repeatedly accuse a list of sources they have deemed to be "anti-Israel" while also defending-ad-bludgeon advocacy sources like the ADL and categorically defining Israeli news media as reliable. These discussions do not display the converse: there is no bloc of editors that rejects Israeli sources out of hand while categorically insisting that pro-Palestinian sources are reliable (for further evidence, see the recent Electronic Intifada RfC). We do occasionally see editors pop up who reject Israeli sources out of hand on talk pages (usually alongside US and potentially even European sources), but I don't see anyone named in this report that exhibits this behavior. Such editors are shown the door. signed, Rosguill talk 14:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by Huldra

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  • PROBLEM: the cat-herding admins cannot manage herding all the cats
  • Solution: slaughter all the cats (<- I love cats, and would never support this option!)
  • Problem solved
  • alternative solution: better cat-herders, or better cat-herding rules, are apparently not on the table, Huldra (talk) 18:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • And then we have cat-herders who likes to play as a cat, at times,
  • As for Number 57 view: "the 30/500 restriction has actively worsened this situation by giving the long-term problematic editors an advantage" As an editor who has been "credited" by off-wiki web-sites and blogs with bringing about this rule, I can say: "credit where credit is due", namely with the more unhinged of Israels' supporters. It was their incessant rape- and murder- threats which brought about this policy. AFAIK, Number 57 has never been threatened with murder for editing wiki, or seeing his loved ones being raped (And I am happy -and relieved- he hasn't!), but I wish he would try to imagine how he would have felt.
  • As for Number 57 view: "is a core group of 10-15 editors in this topic area (many of whom have been with us for well over a decade) who are primarily on Wikipedia to push their POV I could also easily name such a group – but it would prabably be a totally different group from the one (I guess) Number 57 has in mind,
  • I agree fully with Zero0000's asseccment: "There is a reason why many editors who enter the I/P area quickly decide that it is toxic and controlled by a cabal. It's because they come along armed with nothing except strong political opinions and a few newspaper articles, and don't like it when they meet experienced editors familiar with the vast academic literature. The small fraction of new editors who arrive with genuine knowledge of the topic have a much better time of it", I have met people with PhDs in the I/P-area, who knows far, far less about the history of the area, than some of my fellow wiki-editors.
  • As for Guerillero' wish for better cat-herding rules; I was thinking of something like: scratch another cat's face: 1 month's automatic topic-ban. Of course "scratch another cat's face" has to be minutely defined ;/, I didn' think I scratched a cat's face here, but that cat apparently disagreed! Huldra (talk) 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, some cats have been more attacked than most, [29], [30],[31],[32], while others have managed to get by with hardly a single scratch; [33] [34] (and no: that isn't because our editing is that bad: some of the very worst abuse I have suffered was after I removed that the Western Wall was "In Israel" (It isn't, according to the International community.) Huldra (talk) 22:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not to mention that some cats are the subject of off-wiki harassment and outing-attempts, while others are not. I cannot recall in all my years here that there has been a single attack-page aimed at the pro-Israeli editors, while there have been at least half a dozen attacking those editor not deemed pro-Israeli enough. And outing: apparently you will "help the state of Israel" if you make public my RN. Gosh, this cat had no idea that she was that important! Oh well, on the internet nobody knows you're a ......dog, Huldra (talk) 23:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Number 57 and User:Swatjester say they have received death treaths, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, and I am very sorry they have done so, BUT: Do you deny that the threats against "the-not-so-pro-Israli"-editors is far greater than against the "pro-israeli" editors? After all, your talk-pages are blissfully clean of Wikipedia:RD2 and Wikipedia:RD3, after nearly 20 years each for both of you.
  • To re-iterate: some of the worst abuse I have recieved is over removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967. This should have been totally uncontroversial, but apparently isn't. Likewise, I sometimes have to undo edits which place Arab cities in Israel in "Palestine"[35] others do so rutinely as well, [36][37]. All of these edits should have been uncontroversial. But I know that when I do the former (ie.removing "in Israel" from places which have been occupied by Israel since 1967) I can expect a tsunami of insults and threats, while when I do the latter (ie: placing Arab cities in Israel), I have *never* recieved any such reaction. Why this difference, I wonder?cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments after reading some of the other comment here:

  • User:Thebiguglyalien: "Once discovered, a sockpuppet account is automatically blocked" No, they are not. I am 100% sure that a Tombah-sock is active at present, but he is still unblocked. And Nocal works in the tech/computer-industry and knows every trick in the book to avoid detection.
" Keeping entrenched editors to protect us from socks and newbies is like keeping cats to protect the mice from kittens" I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
  • User:xDanielx: "...s Gaza genocide. If that isn't a WP:POVNAME, I don't know what is." That is the problem; you think you know "the Truth", but you obviously haven't read what genocide scholars say. And the scholars call it a genocide. I was once accused by a off-wiki website of "undermining the factual history of Israel on Wikipedia by creating false documentation that shows nearly 400 Arab villages were allegedly depopulated by Jews and Israel." Well, guess what: even Israeli scholars agreee that it was Jewish military groups/IDF that stood for the vast majority of the depopulation.
  • AFAIK: only pro-Israeli groups actively recruits wp-editors, they have done so for at least 15 years, they come to wp. with lots of opinions and zero knowledge of scholarly work. And are bitterly dissapointed when they cannot convince others.
  • User:Jehochman: I have given no such advice!!!!! Quite the opposite! Huldra (talk) 00:10, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Try clarifying the first few lines. I obviously got the wrong impression. Jehochman Talk 00:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Arkon

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Seeing many comments that should be saved for the Arb case over the last few days. Is there some threshold that needs to be passed before this case is opened? Arkon (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closing in on two weeks since I commented the above, sheesh. Arkon (talk) 21:55, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
lol. But not really. Arkon (talk) 05:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I almost forgot about the nothing being done here. pokes with stick Arkon (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shushugah

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  • Enforcement in this area has been largely ineffective. The net result is a hostile/toxic environment. Remaining editors face a dilemma to either disengage (probably the healthier option) or furiously engage (also bringing the worst side of all parties involved). This does not mean someone who furiously engages is necessarily disruptive. We should be careful not to draw a false equivalence between the two. Especially when one side focuses on policy based arguments, namely summarizing inclusively pro Israeli and Palestinian sources while other sides are pushing for singular/nationalist narratives.
  • Cases are brought to ArbCom or ANI after obvious escalations, however what we need is stronger focus on preventive measures over enforcement after the fact.
  • On a practical note, reducing the ability of individual editors to dominate a conversation by instituting either a limit on word count or percentage, would allow more voices to sustainably opine with succint policy based arguments without having to compete for eyeball attention and save clerks more time when closing a discussion. More clerks would be motivated to join in too potentially.
  • The other thing that remains unacceptable is the presentation by some editors in this ArbCom request and general discussions as POV pushing by two sides, when the reality is it is POV pushing versus critically summarizing the state of different reliable sources. Having a much stricter enforcement of WP:SOAPBOX would clean up discussions.
  • These remedies would be easier to resolve than the (possible) allegations of tag-teaming and or gamification of Wikipedia which will continue to be contested and or repeatedly brought here ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    [@CaptainEek] On one hand, if this becomes PIA5, more people would have given commented (if they wished) and existing editors might have presented evidence differently. On the other hand, a lot of time is wasted going in circular questions about the correct forum, when many of the issues raised are the same. If it is possible to refactor/raise a prepared PIA5 instead of starting from scratch, I would support a separate venue. Everyone should have a fair chance to bring input, but for most editors (myself included) ARCA is incredibly confusing and bureaucratic. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by berchanhimez

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I haven't wanted to comment here because I feel that others are saying what I would have to say. But I feel it needs to be stressed that some editors are continuing to blatantly ignore policies and guidelines even in this request which concerns such behaviors. To quote The whole point of RSN deliberations, and you engage in them often, is to distinguish between narrow and wide bias in newspapers. A narrow bias doesn't imperil the general reliability of a source: a wide bias can lead to deprecation. This flat out contradicts the applicable PAG pages of WP:BIASED and WP:NPOV § Bias in sources. However, Nishidani is correct that a wide bias can lead to deprecation - I am unsure if this has actually happened (and if it has whether it's happened in the Israel-Palestine subject area), but it only takes a quick look through contentious topics on RSN to see that editors are engaging in civil POV pushing (and sometimes uncivil) through attempting to deprecate sources that have a bias towards opinions they disagree with. This is but one example of the experienced editors blatantly admitting to ignoring PAGs when they disagree with the inevitable outcome of them.

This gets at the root cause of the issues in this (and likely other) contentious topics. Those editors with experience have "practice" in using PAGs in discussions - which is great as discussions should be based on how to apply our PAGs to specific disputes. However, their experience also means they are good at abusing PAGs to further their point of view and ensure Wikipedia reflects what they think is "right". To be clear, I am not denying that contentious topics are likely to have more sockpuppetry or newer editors in the topic areas than a "tame" subject would. That does not, however, justify cherrypicking PAGs that support one side, and ignoring arguments to the contrary - and it especially does not justify bludgeoning discussions so that the closer has no choice but to find those arguments "stronger" simply because people either tire out of refuting the claims, tire out of pointing out the failures of the arguments made, or are threatened with administrative action by those who know they can be quick to take complaints to friends who are administrators or boards like AE without threat to themselves no matter what they did to fan the flames. Funnily enough, when one of these editors has their conduct called out, the others tend to show up and bludgeon that discussion - through deflecting focus on to the editor making the report or those supporting it, through calling into questions the motives of editors who are simply trying to remove bad behavior from the topic area, and ultimately through derailing any chance that the behavior is addressed. That is why this is back at ArbCom after what, 4 prior cases? And of course, many of the problematic experienced editors have already shown up to this request to bludgeon here with chants of "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" over, and over, and over again to try and deflect from and/or justify their own behavior.

A contentious topic does not need to have more heat than light in any discussion. I support this case being opened with a wide reaching list of parties - to the point that I would not feel it unreasonable for people like myself, whose editing in the area is limited to participation in a small number of discussions with a small number of comments. However, the root cause of these problems isn't the sockpuppetry (where it occurs), it isn't those who ask others to respond to their PAG based arguments, it isn't even bludgeoning or incivility by "one side". The problem is that experienced editors here (as elsewhere on the internet) tend to gravitate towards the same side, and via strength in numbers can continue to make systemic bias worse, silence opposition/alternative points of view, and ultimately control the topic area. One need only look at the significant number of experienced editors who are not a part of the "in group" who've commented here that they avoid this topic area because they have no hope of participating constructively against the other experienced editors - whether they're working in coordination or simply independently being disruptive. As such, I see the only solution being the indefinite removal (topic ban - not warning) of any and all experienced editors who have, even just once, turned the heat up.

There are more than enough editors who, if those whose only response to disagreement is to turn up the heat are removed, would be willing to contribute in the topic area to keep the encyclopedia running. The result of this case will determine whether I myself will feel like my contributions are welcomed in the topic area and that I won't have to spend time fighting bludgeoning from another side with no hopes of having my points ever refuted.

Since this ARCA has been opened, there has been at least two more AE requests related to this topic area. ArbCom would do good to actually state their intentions on this issue - either open a case (or voice your intention to do so more clearly) so that AE admins can focus on other topic areas (outside obvious socks/SPAs/etc that AE can continue to handle), or resolve the issues in this topic area by some other means. As it stands, editors on the side with more experienced editors can continue to weaponize AE to remove editors they don't like from the topic area since AE admins feel obligated to continue reviewing reports with what ideally should be an impending case - and as they've said multiple times, AE isn't the right place nor equipped to handle reports regarding conduct that crosses over a plethora of editors. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:07, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see all motions being proposed as merely kicking the can down the road. The problems in this topic area are those like Levivich who have taken to making threats (as Barkeep points out) to other editors because they seem to feel they're immune to sanctions. By resolving this without any sanctions against the editors making this topic area contentious, that is only going to give those editors more reason to continue their disruption and "civil" POV pushing behaviors. A full case, with evidence, should be opened. If after the full case, ArbCom still feels those motions are the best way to resolve this, well fine. But an ARCA is not the place to expect to be given all the evidence, so we will just end up with a case eventually. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to presume the evidence posted by Amayorov was something that would be best suited as private evidence in an ArbCom case. This is even more reason that a case should be opened rather than trying to dispense with this by motion(s). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on motions

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  • 1 - I haven't particularly seen evidence that there is an issue of AE time/capacity/capability being insufficient to handle the rare appeals made of AE actions in the area. However to quote HJ Mitchell if this takes some of the workload off of AE or gives admins cover to make unpopular but necessary decisions, and that sentiment is reflected by enough administrators who frequent AE in general (or in this topic area), then I have no problem with this being added to their toolkit. I am, however, skeptical that this will do much to improve the topic area.
  • 2 (generally) - I think limiting discussions from getting derailed is a good idea, but I don't think any of the current motions are the way to do it.
    • 2a - I have a couple problems with this. First of all, urged is toothless. If a word limit is going to be imposed, sanctions need to be authorized for violating it - whether it's a universal word limit in the topic area, a discussion-specific word limit, or an editor-specific limit. Secondly, I don't think a flat word limit is going to reduce disruption/work - all it will do is cause arguments over what counts for the word limit, and why certain things shouldn't count.
    • 2b - This is reactive which causes a problem. If an uninvolved administrator notices disruption that is in part (but not wholly) due to three users (A B and C), and A has already written 1000 words, B has written 2500 words, and C has written 4000 words, what is the administrator going to do? They could impose a "no further words" on all three, but that would be unfair to A who, even if their comments were partially disruptive, at least kept them concise. They could impose a blanket 1000 word restriction on everyone, but then how are B and C to be punished for not following a restriction that wasn't in place when they made the comments? They also wouldn't likely be able to come into compliance since removing/editing comments that have been replied to would be unacceptable. So that leads to the first situation - A is being restricted and B and C would not be penalized for exceeding it.
    • 2c - I don't think an automatic sunset is ideal. An automatic review of the current arbitration committee, sure, but if this is added for the topic area it should not go away until there is a clear consensus (either among arbitrators or AE admins) that it is no longer needed.
    • 2 (my proposal) - Rather than allowing word limitations or anything similar, administrators should be given increased "clerking" abilities for formal requests for comment in this area. As part of those abilities, they would be able to prevent future comments by an editor if that editor is no longer adding anything useful but is repeating themselves ad nauseum, would be able to strike through, hat, or remove off topic/useless comments, and as another alternative to impose reply-restrictions that amount to a discussion-specific interaction ban (i.e. if editor B and C are going back and forth, they are no longer permitted to reply to each other or to others questioning each other's comments, but they would still be able to reply to A on issues neither B nor C had raised/commented on). This would be difficult but not impossible to implement in my opinion.
  • 3 - I agree with those commenting that this should have no effect, since consensus is not based on bold !votes anyway, but on the strength of arguments. However, this does bring up a good point - contentious topics do somewhat frequently have to rely on !vote counting, because regardless of the strengths of the arguments, many users will be !voting based on their personal opinion. This can take the form of simply ignoring the PAG based arguments that others make entirely, or by claiming, without any logic/evidence, that the PAG doesn't apply/is being used improperly. This would also be resolved by clerking during the discussion - if an administrator observes a !vote or comment that disagrees with a PAG based argument by another and it does not actually explain why the user is of the opinion that the PAG does not apply, that comment can be struck through. That way the closing administrator doesn't have to sort through potentially hundreds or thousands of lines of text of opinion back and forth that don't have any helpful discussion on the why behind the reasoning.
  • 4 - I don't share the concerns about circumventing verifiability/onus/burden/etc, but I do have a potential solution to them - rather than it being any revert must be discussed before it can be redone, have a safety switch if need be. I'd like to recommend a couple alternatives:
    • 4 (suggestion A): If content is significantly changed, altered, or added to an article and that change/alteration/addition is contested, the change cannot be remade until a discussion takes place on the talk page. An exception will be made for an editor making one further change to return the disputed and surrounding content and context to a past version that is either supported by prior consensus or had not been in dispute for (time period) before the change was made, as well as for enforcing arbitration remedies such as ECR violations or editor topic bans. An editor wishing to avail themselves of the exception for returning it to the status quo while it is being discussed must clearly identify their edit as such using the edit summary, and must immediately support their view on the talk page by identifying the last time the status quo content had been significantly disputed or was added to the article originally if there was no dispute. Alternatively, if there was a prior consensus for the content, a link to this discussion will suffice. Any uninvolved administrator may evaluate the veracity of the claim of status quo, and if it is insufficient or in bad faith may recommend removing the disputed content altogether, changing it to a more-stable version, or a reasonable alternative. Editors abusing this exception may be sanctioned at AE from making any reverts under this exemption in the future.
    • 4 (suggestion B) - If content is significantly changed, altered, or added to an article and that change/alteration/addition is contested, the change cannot be remade until a discussion takes place on the talk page. An exception will be made for reverts to enforce ECR or an AE remedy. Editors who feel there is a significant concern over the changed/altered/added content remaining in the article while it is under discussion can request an evaluation of uninvolved administrators at Arbitration Enforcement as to whether the claim is valid enough to support removing it while it is under discussion. Only uninvolved administrators may reply to such a request, the request will be solely over whether the concern is significant enough to remove pending discussion (and not conduct issues), and if a decision to remove the content or return to a different prior status quo in the meantime is made, that decision will stand until a consensus emerges on the talk page.
  • Both of these suggestions would work similar to how full protection of an entire page works now - but with the added protection that it wouldn't be a unilateral administrator replying to an edit request or making the determination of which version to protect - as per policies on full protection this does not result in an administrator becoming involved simply by exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version, nor by avoid[ing] protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Both of these would also avoid administrators having to fully protect an entire page - it amounts basically to a portion of the page being "protected" against further changes if a change is disputed, while giving uninvolved administrators the ability to enforce prior status quo and remove policy violating content as they would have if the page as a whole was fully protected.
    In fact, the protection policy already allows fully protecting an entire page as a response to an edit war - administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits. However this is rarely used as it prevents edits to other parts of the page while the temporary full protection is in place, so perhaps this form of "partial full protection" may help.

Ultimately, I still think a full case would be ideal to determine if any editors need to be removed from the area altogether, and to evaluate the exact extra tools that will be helpful. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:59, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amakuru

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I don't have a huge amount to say about the general question here, although I do gravitate towards Buidhe's point of view above... while this is clearly a hugely emotive and contentious topic area for many and of course there are numerous disputes, my from-a-distance perspective is that conduct is actually a lot better than you might expect. While many editors fall into one of two "camps", the WP principles of compromise, respecting others and objective analysis still seem to be present in many debates. I'd urge ArbCom to be extremely cautious about imposing too many editing restrictions or topic bans in this area, on either side of the debate, I think that would lead to less good coverage of the subject rather than more.

Anyway, I'm primarily commenting here because I was mentioned above by Domeditrix, seemingly criticising my close of the move review for the Gaza genocide article. I'd like to know what I was supposed to do differently in that instance? Perhaps it could have instead been a "no consensus" close, but the effect of endorsing the RM close would have been the same. It's been long-established that consensus building on Wikipedia takes place by viewing comments through the lens of policy, but equally closers almost always find consensus for the majority vote if there isn't a lot to choose between the strength of arguments. Bluntly, there isn't an objective policy that says Gaza genocide is a disallowed title, the closer of the original RM found consensus for that title, and many seasoned editors agreed. If Domeditrix and others think we should be evaluating discussions in a fundamentally different way from how we've historically done so, for example by not counting votes at all, then they need to run that by the community and get some sort of procedural update in place so we know exactly how to assess these things.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Doug Weller

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I'm not here to comment on the case but to draw attention to a blog by a probably banned editor concerning this case and attacking a number of the editors here, specifically Number 57, Nableezy, Nishidani, Huldra, Black Kite, Sean.hoyland and Rosguill.[38] It also says "Only a technique called "semi-protection" (prohibiting people not logged in from editing) can stop crazy people from coming onto user pages and threatening editors. Huldra's Wikipedia user pages are not semi-protected." Doug Weller talk 14:54, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by Jéské Couriano

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Looking at my current group of AE archives (April 2024 - present)[a], of 75 threads (discounting the two duplicates) 38 of them are PIA-related. And of 94 threads from Oct. 2023 (and the Re'im massacre) to this past March, 41 of them are PIA related.

I get the sense that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is a major driver of the increased (mis)conduct in the area given its grossly outsized invocation at AE over the past ten months, and while I do agree that PIA5 is all but necessary at this point, I would handle it as a separate matter to this, akin to COL/AP2. Have one case to handle the editor conduct issues highlighted at the AE thread here (focusing on individuals) and then a second one to address the climate in the topic area writ large (focusing on policy changes to the topic). Trying to conflate the two a la The Omnibus Case is just going to be a bigger timesink than just doing them separately. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 17:39, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell: The Arab-Israeli conflict's Arbitration history well predates the first PIA case; PIA1 is simply the first time ArbCom turned its gaze on the situation as a whole rather than just hitting individual editors only. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 22:01, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ This figure does not count the (incomplete) Archive 339, nor does it count any unarchived threads at Enforcement, including the one referred here

Statement by RAN1

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Speaking of the AE request about האופה, there's also the AE request about PeleYoetz which was closed as moot because of this referral (diff), so that should be reviewed too. RAN1 (talk) 09:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hydrangeans

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Without the context, I'm not convinced BilledMammal's User:BilledMammal/ARBPIA_RM_statistics page is on its own illuminating. Contributing to discussions about moving articles intersects with the policy on titling articles which includes all sort of guidance about using a common name, neutrally naming articles with the exception of non-neutral common names, etc., and deciding how to note-vote ought to involve basing one's decision on what sources say. Without that context, it's presuming too much to look at information presented in this manner and conclude something about an editor's "pro"-ness of X or Y or what have you, which is implicitly assuming editors are contributing to those move discussions based on something like whims rather than on sources and PAGs. Looking at User:BilledMammal/ARBPIA_RM_statistics, if I see that editor A supported move B for an article about C, it feels a bit superficial for me to think, 'aha, editor A is a pro-C partisan' instead of thinking, 'I had better immerse myself in the relevant literature and see if I agree that the secondary sources support move B for topic C'. To the extent that POV pushing is the animating concern of this referral, it rather matters that we know what perspective is expressed by the highest quality sources. Otherwise we're just going by feel and will have every chance of producing a false balance.

And all that, the original request for enforcement is practically forgotten. Like, it's been two weeks. Seems like all that's left to do is dismiss in light of האופה not editing since the report. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 16:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chess: When the claimed media coverage ends on a culture war note accusing the Wikimedia Foundation of fiddling to the baroque tunes of DEI because they're funding progressive activism, I'm not sure why we should be more worried about the opinion of Pirate Wire than the academically published findings in the fields of history, anthropology, etc. Pirate Wire may dislike how academics define Zionism, but on Wikipedia we follow the best sources. Beyond the article author's decision to write about both the ArbCom case and the apparently now defunct TFP, it's not clear what the actual relevance is. The only person who has posted in this request that apparently overlaps is @Shushugah:, whose quoted material in the article seems to indicate having been skeptical of the TFP enterprise from the start anyway. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 17:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Personisinsterest

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[Replying to this mention. Reply moved from Statement by Nishidani.]

Don’t know what’s happening, but keep me out. If the argument is that I’m bias, true, but I try as hard as I can to be neutral, and I can provide examples of this. Personisinsterest (talk) 09:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Figureofnine

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More needs to be done to improve the civility of the I/P pages, because the current atmosphere in these pages is simply unacceptable. Editors and administrators both too often disregard that civility is not a suggestion, not a behavioral guideline, but is policy. Last month I proposed the revival of an intermediary civility board at the Village Pump. [39] The discussion is useful less for the particulars of whether such a board is useful than it is for the cross-section of attitudes on display, which vary from concern to not giving a damn about civility. Note also that some of the most active I/P editors involved in this discussion participated there and aired their views on the subject of civility.

Civility simply is not taken seriously anymore anywhere in the project, is lackadaisically and usually not enforced at all, and is a sad memory in the I/P pages. WP:CIVIL needs to be strictly enforced especially in contentious topic areas. If editors cannot show respect for other editors they should not be allowed to edit there. Administrators need to act and I believe that Arbcom has a responsibility in this area as well. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 23:13, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Motions: The recent motions are well-intentioned efforts to deal with the issues presented by this situation without dealing with the editors involved. While that approach is tempting and understandable, I believe that, as some have pointed out, that they might make things worse, promote tag-teaming and offsite canvassing, and constitute a failure to act if not worse. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Specific views on the motions:

1. Appeals only to Arbcom: I see some merit to this. It can prevent bludgeoning of administrators who venture into the subject area.

2. Word limits: On the surface it seems to address the problem that we face of repetitive discussions and "IDONTHEARTHAT" bad faith hounding that can drag out discussions. But it is a process answer to a behavior issue.

3. Excluding involved participants. Again, a process answer to an editor behavior issues. Not all involved editors are creating problems, tag-teaming and so on. This "throws out the baby with the bathwater."

4. "Enforced BRD" Another process answer to an editor behavior issue, and I don't believe that it would have any positive impact on the subject area whatosever.

---Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Biased by default? I think that Amayorov has come up with an intriguing solution below: label the articles in this and other contentious topic areas as biased and unbalanced by default, "explicitly mark them as such to readers with an appropriate banner," and so on. I agree insofar as this topic area is concerned. Others, I do not know.

We are here because of a widespread belief, both on and off-wiki, that these articles are biased. Let's tell the public: "In this subject area, neutrality is not a given. Enter at your own risk." I think that would restore faith in the project that many do not have, or have lost. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 22:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich: Yes, one can argue that all articles in controversial subject areas will be viewed as biased by both sides of the controversies. That is certainly true with these articles. It is also true that these articles have the potential for bringing the project into disrepute. Is an article too pro-X? Is it too pro-Y? Is there canvassing by editors for X? Is there canvassing by editors for Y? Let's not be naive or sanguine. Canvassing is the elephant in the room. There is canvassing, without a doubt, by all parties in this and other controversial topic areas no matter what they are, in which the off-wiki fighting is intense and Wikipedia is just one area in a wide-ranging conflict. Wikipedia is not equipped to deal with such situations adequately. Hell we can't even keep the discussions civil. We have failed at that. Administrators have failed. Arbcom has failed. We, the editors, have failed. We need to admit that we haven't done a good job of keeping these articles free of bias. We need to concede that in these subject areas we cannot prevent bias from creeping into and even overwhelming articles. We need to say that loud and clear, without being mealy-mouthed or equivocal. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:03, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amayorov

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No sure if this has been raised already, but there is evidence circulating online of potential WP:TAGTEAMing and WP:CANVASSing by bad-faith editors from both sides. (Redacted) Here’s one example. Amayorov (talk) 01:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The sources I previously posted, and which have since been redacted, reported that a group of editors had been coordinating using third-party tools (e.g. Discord) to fight “on the Wikipedia front the information battle for truth, peace and justice.” According to the articles, their activity included publishing how-to videos, organizing edits, and compiling lists of "work in progress" pages they aimed to modify.
As one published material that I referenced put it, "Wikipedia is not just an online encyclopedia. It’s a battleground for narratives." Amayorov (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A naive proposal: Would it be useful to treat all articles on specific contentious topics as biased and unbalanced by default, and explicitly mark them as such to readers with an appropriate banner? To remove this banner, we could introduce more stringent criteria requiring a wider consensus, including input from uninvolved editors. Articles that fail to pass these reviews would remain marked as "potentially biased". It would also be easier to re-introduce a banner if needed.

This approach would be less disruptive to the usual editing process, as the added rules would only relate to the article banner, while the content itself would continue to be edited according to the existing rules. Amayorov (talk) 11:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Springee

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I'm not active in this area but I do see some serious issues with the Gaza Genocide page move. Part of this is the issue associated with very close/questionable closes being hard to change. This was an example where the !vote split was near 50/50 between the current title which reads as genocide is given, and the two alternatives which both made it clear this was an accusation/disputed claim. This is the sort of situation where a closer, while acting in good faith, can create issues with a questionable close. In this case, editors had good reason to question the close of POVTITLE grounds. However, with a basically 50/50 split between editors who were happy/unhappy with the move the review was closed as no-consensus. I feel in cases like this if we can't endorse the close then the close needs to be reverted (perhaps for a panel close). Note that this isn't specifically a problem for this topic area.

I would also suggest that within contentious topic areas it would be good to rule that POV neutrality is more important than ever. If Wikipedia is seen to be taking sides it undermines the credibility of the whole project. It also is more likely to create fights etc. I would encourage the committee to look not just at editor behavior but structural ways we can try to avoid these problem in the future. There are many good editors on both sides of this topic and even more who likely aren't on either side but who just want to do good work in this area. I think some rules based reforms vs finger pointing at editors might be helpful here. Springee (talk) 12:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by starship.paint

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I wasn't intending to comment, but then I read #Motion 3: Involved participants as originally written by HJ Mitchell, which allows only uninvolved editors to vote. I believe this motion would greatly benefit sockpuppets and meatpuppets at the expense of experienced editors. starship.paint (RUN) 13:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A decision has now been rendered on the proposals (1, one of the 2s, 3 and 4). Shall we bring this matter to a close? starship.paint (RUN) 00:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vice_regent

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I'd like to request the admins below kindly consider "moderated discussion" as a way to achieve consensus, and consider Talk:Jerusalem/2013 RfC discussion as a good example. The pre-RfC discussion involved some very lengthy analysis of sources. This is unavoidable given the volume of scholarship involved. But it was largely kept out of the RfC (WP:RFC/Jerusalem) itself. The RfC itself was orderly. And finally, it was closed by a panel with a detailed rationale.VR (Please ping on reply) 15:01, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on motions (VR)

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Motion 4

HJ Mitchell and CaptainEek, with respect to Motion 4: Enforced BRD, I personally felt that this provision became fairly unworkable in the case of WP:ARBIRP. There was lots of very lengthy discussion on who reverted what (eg see this lengthy discussion and this request for clarification). In small discussions (2-4 people) this motion effectively gives every participant a veto, which leads to WP:STONEWALLING. Everything had to be resolved by RfCs, which take a month to discuss and then maybe another month to wait to be closed.

Can I suggest that this remedy be applied similar to 2b: i.e. imposed by an uninvolved admin on a particular article for a particular time period (eg. imposed on all edits to X recent event article for 30 days).VR (Please ping on reply) 15:36, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Motion 2

CaptainEek for motion 2c, can I suggest it only apply to RfCs for which a WP:RFCBEFORE has been given adequate time? I find most RMs don't have a pre-discussion done, so if a change is being proposed for the first time, it can take longer than 1,000 words to do sufficient source analysis.VR (Please ping on reply) 15:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Supreme Deliciousness regarding Motion 4: Enforced BRD

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This is a very bad idea because it will give editors the tool to lock out any material they dont like for any reason. They can then filibuster at the talkpage and make it virtually impossible to reinstate the material because "no consensus has been reached". Recently something very similar happened at the Golan Heights article where well sourced and relevant information was removed without any valid reason whatsoever. Certain editors will use this to disrupt articles within the area of conflict. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Super Goku V

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Regarding a potential Motion 3b, maybe it is better to split the negatives from the motion? Maybe something like: Editors may designate themselves involved in the entire topic area or a subset of it, or may be designated by an uninvolved admin (on a user's talk page / by being logged at the Arbitration enforcement log). Designations by administrators may be appealed in the same way as sanctions. (Self-designations may be requested to be reviewed for removal after a year.) Designation is not a suggestion that an editor's contributions are problematic. Then a potential Motion 5 could go into restrictions in place on those involved, such as unable to close discussions, only one new discussion a day, twenty comment limit a day for talk pages under ARBPIA, 1RR limit, must have 2.5k edits to participate outside edit requests, any and all other suggestions, etc. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:01, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49, Hydrangeans, L235, Nishidani, RAN1, and ToBeFree: Just to give a heads up, האופה (HaOfa) has resumed editing with 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike on the 29th and has submitted a statement above as of a couple of hours ago. (Pinging those who discussed האופה) --Super Goku V (talk) 09:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ToBeFree: Regarding Motion 5, I would be more disappointed in a lack of a case than a case that doesn't have solutions for the future. The AE thread and this discussion has shown that there are multiple editors whose behavior and actions should be looked into, regardless of the attempts to try to fix the problem. --Super Goku V (talk) 08:18, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chess: Pirate Wire looks a bit unreliable and there appears to be at least one false claim in that article as the March case they discuss was declined months ago for technical reasons, not 'still pending seven months later.' (Additionally, they seem to be very confused about how Arbitrators are elected.) Additionally, the Discord claims have been known for months now. That aside, any evidence of a group using Discord to coordinated edits should be brought to ArbCom's attention. --Super Goku V (talk) 09:07, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Coretheapple

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Seems that I've come here as this C&A is sunsetting. I am not sure about whether the motions will have an impact, but I imagine they are worth trying. Generally I agree with the comments made by Tryptofish, Swatjester and Number 57. I've reviewed the charts that have been proffered here, and I don't find them useful or probative of anything whatsoever. I suggest that the Committee go ahead, pass whatever you want to pass as motions, but also go ahead with a case as there is a need for one as the topic area needs help. I believe the source of the problems is that due to various reasons, the Wikipedia community as a whole has avoided this subject area. Thus the very basis of the project, which is the genius of crowds, has gone, and the result has been detrimental to both the community and the reader. These points were made early on by the three users I mentioned and others, but the point has been lost by the usual swamp of verbiage and deflection.Coretheapple (talk) 16:27, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Amayorov afraid what you're suggesting would take the project off the hook in not just this case but in scores of contentious articles on every conceivable subject, whether officially designated as "contentious" or not. The project is an ongoing effort, and surrendering on that basic principle is inadvisable. Coretheapple (talk) 19:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Supreme Deliciousness Not necessarily. If it has that effect, it can be put in reverse. I don't see the harm in trying to improve matters in these articles, even with a not-insignificant chance of failure. My guess is that the chance of failure if this BRD motion is passed is at least 50%. Coretheapple (talk) 19:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reading through the arbitrator comments, I may be wrong but it appears to me that a full case is not by any means off the table, and that the motions are not necessarily going to be a substtitute for a full case. It might be clarifying if the committee would formally vote up or down on that, with the arbs stating their reasons for or against the idea of opening a full case. Coretheapple (talk) 22:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek As I said above, I see the virtue of at least attempting to bring order to the subject area by motions, even though I don't believe most would work and some may acdtually be harmful. But I do think arbcom has to do something unless it's clearly a bad idea. I think that the RS proposal, with a carve-out for "recent" events, is clearly a bad idea. What makes it so is that the reliability of the sourcing itself is a matter of contention. In the Zionism article, "the Bible" arose in this discussion, the reaction to which was so vociferous that the editor who raised the issue was blocked. Not taking sides in that particular discussion, in which I was not involved, it's plain that what is and is not a reliable source was not really the issue in that discussion. The editor simply raised the Zionist roots as being in antiquity and that Zionism is implicit in religious observances and in the history of the Jewish people. Editors need some freedom and leeway in discussing these fraught subjects. Therefore I would point to that discussion not as a reason to impose an RS restriction but rather to not impose one. And the carve-out for recent events makes little sense. Coretheapple (talk) 16:30, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate Levivich clarifying what he means by "recent events" and his sourcing idea generally regarding use of contemporary newspapers etc. as pertains to historical events. This is I think not a constructive idea, and would unduly handcuff editors in sourcing articles. We have a fine array of contemporary sources available through the Wikipedia Library and we should use more of them, not less, subject of course to discussion as to their appropriateness, rather than hand down a blanket prohibition. Coretheapple (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nishidani, you may very well be right (re Balfour etc.) and I'm not going to argue the point here. But those who would (not here but in the relevant locations) should not feel that doing so means crossing a red line if they cite sources on a banned list, or that if they stray from say the Journal of Palestine Studies on matters relative to 1948 that they are going to be topic-banned. We simply can't have that kind of heavy-handed and unwarranted restriction. The idea is to bring editors into this topic area not to repel them. Now as for the editor in question, who I alluded to concerning that discussion, he was initially blocked for two months, which was converted to a block from editing the Zionism article or contributing to its talk page for two months. This is an extremely serious penalty, far worse than I usually see doled out on AE after lengthy discussions, and we don't even have the kind of restriction being advocated here. We don't want good-faith editors walking on eggshells. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Izno

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Motion 2b would be clearer if the two kinds of restrictions suggested there were sorted into either page restrictions or editor restrictions. Particularly, whether "all participants" is a page restriction as I believe is intended. Izno (talk) 22:03, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

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(Comment moved from below, regarding to motion No. 4) This appears to be functionally equivalent to the Consensus Required restriction that's already available. SPECIFICO talk 02:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Valereee

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I second Levivich's suggestion that a RS consensus required restriction would be a helpful tool. These weren't new editors trying to source to dictionaries, the Bible, and Wikipedia. All had thousands of edits; one had 100K+ edits. Valereee (talk) 12:41, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Ïvana needs to be added to any case. Valereee (talk) 18:23, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by isaacl

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Regarding word-limit restrictions: I think a limit per discussion will unduly hamper the ability for discussion to reach a conclusion. Earlier participants will no longer be able to work towards a greater common understanding as they hit their limits. For longer discussions, the set of editors able to comment will keep shifting. Also managing the word count would be time consuming. I suggest having a moderated round-robin discussion phase, possibly with word limits per contributor in each discussion round, would help manage discussions from being swamped by some editors and enable more people to be heard from, while still allowing earlier participants to continue to contribute. isaacl (talk) 22:03, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding suggestions from third parties: I don't know if the arbitrators have considered the idea of using round-robin discussion phases that I suggested. The obvious drawback of course is the need to have a moderator to decide when the next round starts and when the process can productively end. If this can be done, though, I think it has the potential to streamline discussion, thus making it more efficient and effective. isaacl (talk) 22:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon (PIA4.5)

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I have a nomenclature suggestion and some comments on the proposed remedies. I propose that the remedies that will be implemented, which are not a PIA5 case, but build on PIA4, be referred to in short as PIA4.5.

I haven't edited in the subject area, partly because it is so contentious, and I didn't comment earlier on the AE referral, because I thought that there were at least two reasonable alternatives for ArbCom, a PIA5 case, or guidance to Arbitration Enforcement administrators. I see that ArbCom is planning to give stronger tools to administrators, which I concur with. Proposal 1, appeals only to ArbCom, is a good idea. I would suggest that ArbCom strengthen it with advice that administrators use it frequently, and advice that administrators use the topic and site ban hammers frequently, with appeals only to ArbCom.

Giving administrators the power to impose word limits is an excellent idea, better than trying to have one size fit all.

I don't think that any rule against bludgeoning is necessary, because bludgeoning is tendentious editing, which is already sanctioned. However, guidance to administrators to use both word limits and the ban hammers against editors who bludgeon or filibuster is a good idea.

Ensure that administrators know that ArbCom will back them up, and that they are encouraged to deal strongly with difficult editors, as PIA4.5. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Chess

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I dislike broad word limits because they make it difficult to analyze sources in-depth. In the G&K paper on Wikipedia's (alleged) distortion of the Holocaust [40], word count restrictions made it impossible to quote sources and argue about what they were saying.

An editor can also say "this source says 'x'" in 4+ words and I might spend 50 words explaining exactly how it doesn't. I've had this happen to me in a recent WP:RSN discussion on The Telegraph, where I was both criticized for posting a wall of text in rebuttal to a much shorter !vote and commended for analyzing sources in a way the original comment didn't.

Hard word counts make it easy to waste someone else's word count on a rebuttal by throwing a bunch of sources into the discussion at once.

We should enforce stricter threading and discussion organization like how ArbCom splits evidence from proposals. Word limits can be applied to the main discussion and relaxed in ancillary sections related to sourcing. Alternatively an editor can be given the chance to hat/collapse sections of their own comments so as not to violate word count restrictions. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:47, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell: Do you foresee word limits being imposed before a discussion begins, or afterwards?
If word limits are expected to be justified by admins based on discussion, there's a first-mover advantage for those that get in a lot of words first. Administrative action could be seen as a punishment or advantage to a certain side.
Pre-emptive word limits would be more neutral. There's a trend on wiki towards having a WP:RFCBEFORE (pre-RfC discussion) for especially contentious RfCs, and the motion should be interpreted to make word count restrictions something that can imposed ahead of time. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This case is getting picked up by media outlets now.[41] It is shocking to me that there is documented evidence of off wiki coordination on Discord from pro-Palestinian editors and the "resident Wikipedia expert" is not being examined here.
ArbCom's mandate includes original jurisdiction over non-public evidence. You cannot delegate this authority to the community per foundation:Resolution: Access to nonpublic data. You need to hold a case to demonstrate that you've seen the evidence and are choosing to do nothing. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 16:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hydrangeans: I'm more concerned that editors not mentioned in this case have been linked to a Discord server where they coordinated editing. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:18, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Andrevan

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If I'm not allowed to leave this comment here, please remove it. The problem is not too many words, but which words. Civility is a first-class citizen in our policy and extends to insinuating a political motivation without evidence, something that happens all too frequently, not to mention other forms of WP:NPA such as questioning whether someone read the link, questioning their knowledge or credentials, or other types of ad hominem. Sadly, a low tolerance for this type of behavior is not enforced. Some editors and even admins at times, routinely get away with improper attacks, biting newbies and assuming bad faith. Wikipedia is emphatically supposed to be friendly and forgiving, but in this topic area that seems to be ignored. To quote a 2023 study in the peer-reviewed open-access journal PNAS Nexus, "Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia. The effects of toxic comments are potentially even greater in the long term, as they are associated with a significantly increased risk of editors leaving the project altogether. Using an agent-based model, we demonstrate that toxicity attacks on Wikipedia have the potential to impede the progress of the entire project. Our results underscore the importance of mitigating toxic speech on collaborative platforms such as Wikipedia to ensure their continued success." [1] Andre🚐 21:02, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the recent comments show the problems with accusations of bad faith, propaganda, WP:ASPERSIONs without diffs and so on that richly characterize this topic area, not to mention self-indulgent WP:TEXTWALL and substituting one's own opinion for a balanced, WP:NPOV of reliable source material, including Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent. Everyone has blind spots and makes mistakes, present company included, but some people have trouble moderating their worst impulses, which contributes to the inappropriate communication and WP:BATTLEGROUND environment. Anyway, since someone mentioned me, if you add me as a party I expect you to triple my current salary, and I want to be able to use the company car on weekends, and expense my Grubhubs. Also, regarding the HJ Mitchell suggestion: We may well end up removing some of the more prominent participants from the topic area but I don't envisage that having much effect—the most likely scenario is that they are simply replaced by other editors and everything continues much as it was because this is an emotive topic area not short of editors with strong, heartfelt opinions held in good faith but vehemently opposed by others with different opinions held equally strongly and in equally good faith. We can't solve the real-life Arab-Israeli conflict on Wikipedia I think this is an insightful point. We can't solve the problem, and if some of the worst repeat actors are dealt with, that conflict will continue to rage on. However, one person does make a difference. We all know those people who have an outsize impact on their work or their collaborators. If we actually dealt with and enforced the standard rules of decorum, while we'd still have plenty of agitation on each side, we could do it civilly and respectfully and actually create some amount of balance and fair play. I do believe it's not a pipe dream. So whether it's a long-time, magisterial 100k+ edits editor making personal attacks or a fresh new, maybe-sock account making a naive and good-faith comment, why can't we just enforce the rules and not grant infinite strikes to bad actors? Andre🚐 23:53, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I agree with Tryptofish. Andre🚐 23:31, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I saw User:Arkon asking if the case will be opened. It seems that the case request needs 5 support and it has 2, maybe 3 or 4, at most, so the case won't be opened and the request fails. IMHO, that would be a bad thing for this topic area and the project. Andre🚐 23:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree with Nableezy and Sean.hoyland and I agree with ABHammad that disruptive sockpuppetry is unlikely to make a huge difference in the area, but consistent incivility and bad faith does. Andre🚐 19:08, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Smirnov, Ivan; Oprea, Camelia; Strohmaier, Markus (2023). "Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia". PNAS Nexus. pp. pgad385. doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad385. PMC 10697426. PMID 38059265. Retrieved 2024-10-05.

Statement by Mikeblas

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 Clerk note: Split from § Statement by IOHANNVSVERVS above. Please remember to comment in your own section :) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1) This should be done site-wide. But who would review them? What happens when they're not accurate? What if there's a dispute about accuracy or interpretation?
2) Seems like this would lead to gaming -- racing to thirty by making trivial edits all over, cosmetic changes that are kind of disruptive and spammy. Build bots to do it, sell the pre-confirmed accounts at auction. This has happened with practically every other site with whatever "scoring" mechanism is used.
These don't seem like particularly helpful suggestions to me. -- mikeblas (talk) 02:49, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ïvana

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It has been brought to my attention that I've been mentioned here, directly and indirectly, so I think it's necessary for me to respond (not sure if this is the right place to do so, please remove this if I'm wrong).

I briefly joined an off-wiki group at the beginning of the year. I volunteered to help newcomers/people interested in WP, mostly answering basic questions. There are plenty of places that offer that kind of help, including WP itself (I usually just referred people to the policy or guideline related to their question, or to the existing tutorials uploaded here). These people were, again, just getting started, so they couldn't participate in the I/P topic even if they wanted to. I was never a recruiter, I just offered some guidance to whoever asked. I did that for a couple of months and eventually stopped because of time constraints. The project at that point was pretty much dead anyways since the person responsible for it was inactive due to family matters. It was closed shortly after I left (months ago) due to doxxing.

There is a table in WP (which I didn't create) showing precisely what kind of activities the group was involved with. It is not different from sections of any given Wiki project which are public calls for the creation of articles, to do lists, etc. The table just offered easy edits for newcomers. The vast majority of the items were non I/P; the few that can be considered part of the topic were just added as a sort of watchlist by the owner of the list (not sure why cause thats what the actual watchlist is for, but that was the explanation I was given back then). Some had notes referring to missing information that should be added, but nothing was done. There were no linked discussions or anything alluding to building consensus or artificially manufacture it, the entries were low level edits looking to add content to some articles like universities, BLPs, etc. Non ECR editors cannot edit in the I/P topic anyway, so what would sending them there accomplish? I myself constantly revert them from those pages all the time, whether I agree with them or not (as a side note, I don't understand why those pages are not automatically restricted). There was also a section dedicated to creating articles for books. All draft submissions are reviewed by an uninvolved editor anyway, I never used my privileges to move them to mainspace. I wasn't involved there apart from occasionally answering basic questions. I created some templates detailing policies and guidelines related to the creation of articles and deleted them later because of safety concerns; I didn't wanna have them here anymore opening the possibility of random people using them and discovering that they could email me/write on my talk page, because some threatened to and are actively trying to dox me and I received intimidatory messages.

Meatpuppetry and collaboration are two different things, and the latest is not against the rules. In all my years here I have never been accused of being uncivil, disruptive, etc. I have only received two (informal?) warnings relatively recently on my talk page when I inadvertently went against 1RR, and I self-reverted immediately. I make sure to participate in discussions whenever necessary to build consensus. Obviously I have a bias and so does everyone here; I never claimed to be objective. Still, I try my best to provide factual based perspectives backed by sources instead of relying on inflammatory comments, personal views, or doing a mere "I agree with x editor" and nothing more.

I would like to point out that the pro Israel bloggers, journalists, twitter accounts, etc are the ones blatantly demanding canvassing and mass edits against consensus (those articles immediately get vandalized, wasting everyone's time), on top of singling out and harrassing editors, saying anyone that doesn't follow their narrative is “pro-Hamas” (or in my case, a Russian asset) or talking about a “regime” controlling Wikipedia. It's hard to take these accusations seriously when they are prefaced with that kind of language. I'm not even offended by it anymore, I just think it's funny. Am I a pro Hamas agent backed by both Iran and Russia and part of a foreign cell looking to radicalize WP? Guess we'll never know!

Lastly, I will address the accusation that has been mentioned most often in connection with my name: tag teaming/canvassing. In a topic like I/P there are actually not a lot of editors that participate regularly. People come and go and maybe a couple dozen or so known faces remain. Overlaps are bound to happen. I have also noticed editors that seem to be drawn to discussions as a pair or group. Is that evidence of tag teaming/canvassing? Not necessarily. We all monitor the same pages. My watchlist is useless (+1.5k items) so I sometimes check out other editors' contributions to see if I missed something. I think it would be more suspicious to intentionally go out of your way to avoid interacting with someone, especially since we all pretty much rotate between the same pages. I have probably interacted with the majority of the people mentioned here at some point.

Not sure what else is there to say. Apologies for the length. - Ïvana (talk) 01:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Scharb

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Response to statement by Ïvana
Who else participated in this group? Scharb (talk) 20:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ivana's statement, I briefly joined an off-wiki group at the beginning of the year. I volunteered to help newcomers/people interested in WP, mostly answering basic questions. must be taken as a confession to a serious WP:STEALTH violation committed by a group called Tech for Palestine, and it corroborates the (biased but verifiable) infractions documented by Piratewires.
I hope the arbiters were able to see the Wiki for Palestine video before it was made private, as it was the strongest evidence. It instructed users how to game the system to acquire extended-confirmed and correct great wrongs, and was brazenly at odds with the spirit and mission of Wikipedia. It appears to be the project of limited-purpose public figure, [Avigail Abarbanel], a professional organizer for the activist group JVP ($3m annual budget) and contributor to not-RS Mondoweiss and [not-RS Electronic Intifada], whose talking points English IAP Wikipedia now more closely resemble than the similar articles on other languages of Wikipedia.
There is no reason why a group of 40 people should be contributing more than 90% of text to the vast majority of articles on a controversial subject, resulting in poor and biased content, and drowning out all other input. It's completely against Wikipedia's principles. Their collective one million contributions have made this part of Wikipedia worse, not better. There are many English-speakers who now use autotranslations of German or French Wikipedia articles to get their information about IAP, because the bias is so infamous.
If the statistical claims can be independently verified, indicating a major WP:STEALTH violation, then it must be acted on decisively to preserve Wikipedia's spirit.
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/CAMERA_lobbying sets a clear precedent. Scharb (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Implementation notes

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Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by an automatic check at 00:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Motion name Support Oppose Abstain Passing Support needed Notes
Motion 1: Appeals only to ArbCom 7 0 0 Passing ·
Motion 2a: Word limits 0 5 0 Cannot pass Cannot pass
Motion 2b: Word limits 8 0 0 Passing ·
Motion 2c: Word limits 5 2 0 Currently not passing 1
Motion 3: Involved participants 0 7 0 Cannot pass Cannot pass
Motion 4: Enforced BRD 1 5 3 Cannot pass Cannot pass
Motion 5: PIA5 Case 4 2 1 Currently not passing 1
Notes


Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Arbitrator views and discussion

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  • Thank you to the AE admins for submitting this referral. As a procedural note I would suggest that we limit the parties to this request to האופה and other users whose behavior is under consideration here (perhaps the editors listed under "Other editors whose behavior was directly mentioned in the AE thread", though even that list may be too long).
    @האופה: It would be quite helpful to have your perspective here. I would also appreciate hearing further from the uninvolved admins as to what you'd like ArbCom to do — I see two buckets of possibilities: (1) Hold a full case or case-like structure to resolve the complex multiparty questions here, and/or (2) Remedies that only ArbCom can impose (e.g. Maybe even everyone is limited to 500-1000 words in any ARBPIA discussion. as ScottishFinnishRadish suggests). Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:39, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • After reading the AE thread and the above statements, I think ArbCom will need to take some sort of action. I agree with L235 that I would like admins, both those involved in the AE and those that were not, to comment on whether it should be a full case or, if we are to resolve by motion, describe what ArbCom should enact to help admin find solutions to editor conduct issues. In response to how to refer a case to AE: instead of a magical incantation suggested by SFR, an admin can use a bolded vote at the beginning of a statement (something like "Refer to ArbCom", in bold) or as was done here, an uninvolved admin can determine that action as the consensus of the admin conversation. Z1720 (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Barkeep49: A bold vote isn't necessary, but it is an option. Since the question came up at AE here (in a humourous context that I chuckled at), and referrals to ArbCom from AE have not been common, I wanted to make sure there was clarification. Z1720 (talk) 15:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Barkeep49: Your answer was "correct" because it gave one path to refer an AE case to ArbCom/ARCA. My comment above was to highlight a second path to get the same result. Z1720 (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Support accepting this as a full case. Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Barkeep49: Sorry that I did not answer your question sooner, as the ping was lost on my end. As the instructions are written, the admin that closes the AE discussion determines the consensus of admin who commented on the case. If the closing admin determines that the consensus is an ARCA referral or a case request, it is the closing admin's responsibility to post the request at the appropriate venue. Bolded !votes sometimes help the closing admin determine the consensus. I would not rely on the clerks to open cases at ARCA because I am not sure how closely the clerk team is monitoring AE. Z1720 (talk) 18:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that action from ArbCom is necessary, and having reviewed everything over the past couple of days, looks like it may need to be a full case based on the complexity of the issue. - Aoidh (talk) 23:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This isn't much of an update, but I don't want to give the impression that this matter isn't being considered. I've been following the statements here and I am convinced a case is needed. At the latest, once the Historical elections Proposed decision is posted I intend to make this issue my primary focus as much as possible. I agree with User:Black Kite that the scope is important, though I'm not committed to any particular scope just yet. - Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @BilledMammal: To your first question, while I have a good idea of what these issues are based on the statements and preliminary examinations of some of the articles/talk pages, evidence that certain issues are substantially more common and disruptive than others would be helpful in determining the scope. To the second question, I'd like to see parties decided on case creation, with parties added in the evidence phase only with compelling reason to do so. - Aoidh (talk) 20:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm open to SFR's suggestion that ArbCom handle the appeals. As to the word limit suggestion, it would at minimum have to be reworded before I'd support something like that. Short of possible scripts or off-wiki websites (most of which give inconsistent word count results), there's no easy way for a reasonable person to tell if an editor has contributed a given percentage of a discussion, especially if they're using a mobile device. - Aoidh (talk) 00:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @HJ Mitchell: A more effective route in handling this may be to have a case that focuses specifically on resolving the complex editor interaction issues that caused this to become an ARCA referral rather than jumping to a broader case that goes beyond those issues, or motions that do not address all of the issues in that AE discussion. A case with a set number of named parties that led to this arriving at ARCA would allow us to more thoroughly examine those issues and determine if this is something specific to those editors that might require sanctions, or if there may be more general actions that can be taken, in which case we can do so with a more thorough examination of the facts via a case. - Aoidh (talk) 19:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That sounds an awful lot like "let everyone throw mud at the wall and see what sticks". The combination of that approach and ArbCom feeling pressured to be seen to be doing something has historically led to poor or ineffectual outcomes. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The reason this was referred here was because the interaction between a specific group of editors and any issues caused by this was deemed too complex for AE to examine and address. A proper examination is needed to adequately address any issues, and if we're going to make a decision based on this request, a more fully informed decision is going to be a more effective one. - Aoidh (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was hoping when I first joined ArbCom that we would not need to hold WP:PIA5, but it is starting to sound inevitable. Primefac (talk) 12:35, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding adding parties to a case already underway - I cannot speak for the drafters, but I suspect that if a reasonable amount of evidence is provided that includes a non-named editor, they should probably be added as a party if their behaviour is shown to the similar to other named parties goes. Primefac (talk) 12:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • We probably need to hold PIA5. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:08, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Huldra: I invented ECP, so I am 100% with rule changes to make the cat herding easier -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 06:48, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There has been an enforcement request against האופה / HaOfa, 2024-08-11, 20:50 UTC. The reported user has not edited since. During their absence, the report became a discussion about general behavior of multiple users in the area, then expectably too much to handle at AE, and now we're here with multiple arbitrators indicating an interest in opening a case. What I personally don't entirely get is how all this happened without a single statement from the single reported editor, and why ArbCom's task in this situation isn't to evaluate only האופה's conduct and close the original AE report with or without a sanction against האופה. If we aren't able to evaluate a single party's conduct, we aren't able to hear a case either. And if we are, a case can be requested at WP:ARC, with a list of desired parties, evidence of disruptive behavior of each, evidence of prior dispute resolution attempts about each, and without a general unenforceable aspersion-casting "we need to remove everyone from the topic area". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm very thankful for האופה's statement. As the discussion has moved completely away from האופה's individual behavior, I am also fine with none of the motions below being about האופה directly. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 09:55, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find SFR's proposals to be exciting ideas and suggest that at a minimum we propose them as structural reforms in the area, and pronto. I think there's an immediate problem that needs to be solved: this AE report. Resolving it is our necessary goal. I'm not opposed to holding a case here, and think that we probably should given that AE has done exactly what we told them they could and should do: refer cases to us. As much as I'm remiss to hold PIA5, it seems increasingly unavoidable. The world's most intractable problem continues to be our most intractable problem. Should this AE become PIA5 though? That's where I'm undecided and would be interested in more feedback on whether we can resolve the narrow origins of this AE report without also having to make it PIA5. It may benefit us to consider PIA5 independent of this AE request. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A good number of you continue to urge us to accept a case so as to hear PIA5. But I don't think we're in a great place to do that right now. With the loss of Barkeep, and generally low activity, I'm not sure we're cut out for the gargantuan task of PIA5. I think passing some motions at the moment is an effective stopgap measure. In a perfect world, I would have PIA5 be heard by next year's committee, as either its second or third case of the year. That way, the new members are seasoned enough to know the process and contribute, but we haven't yet lost participation to the mid-year slump. That also has the benefit of giving these motions a chance to work and see if that helps. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Levivich I like your idea for applying the RS restriction. But why a recent events carve out? And how would you suggest defining recent? Such a simple word, and yet now twice in one discussion we find ourselves having definitional problems :/ CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 15:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I apologise for the tardiness of my comments; I've been reading and thinking all along but I've had limited time to type out my thoughts, which requires a proper keyboard. I am reluctant to hold a PIA5, at least at this time and via this vehicle. I thought it was likely to come up and is one of the reasons I stood for ArbCom last year. It's likely we will end up holding it in some form but we need a clear scope and a clear question that ArbCom can answer. This is our most troublesome topic area and has already been through this process four times, so ArbCom may not have any tools left in its toolbox, having already created ARBECR out of whole new cloth. The Wikipedia dispute is a microcosm of the real-world dispute and a baker's dozen Wikipedia editors cannot resolve the entire Arab-Israeli conflict. On Wikipedia, the topic heats and cools with the real-world conflict and we are currently in a very large flare up due to horrific real-world events. I am sympathetic to the view that we have reached the limits of what can be achieved with the open, collaborative model given the proliferation of sockpuppetry in the area.

    A case with a sprawling scope and no clear question that ArbCom can answer is likely to be an enormous time sink and end up producing little long-term benefit. Instead, I think SFR's suggestions have merit for maintaining some semblance of order, even if it means ArbCom playing a more proactive role than it's used to and hearing appeals of CTOP sanctions or acting as AE admins en banc. I would also welcome direct case requests or AE referrals if there are allegations that a particular editor is behaving tendentiously (ie, the sum of their contributions is disruptive even if no one diff in isolation is sanctionable) and AE admins are unable to reach a conclusion. And something that stood out to me from AHJ (and which I've been reminded of, reading some of the comments above about how knowledgeable many Wikipedians are on their chosen subject) was the analysis of sources; I didn't think it was ArbCom's place to be doing that analysis itself, but but it could be valuable to have an agreed baseline of what the academic literature says, which (aside from being useful in itself) would then support (or refute) allegations of source misrepresentation. One final thing we could do is avoid the use of news media and primary reporting in articles on current events (this could potentially be done by consensus, or ArbCom writ, or part of the suite of sanctions administrators have available and applied article by article).

    Tl;dr: we need to do something, and we should welcome new ideas but a sprawling ARBPIA5 is unlikely to resolve anything satisfactorily. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:29, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral): Arbitrator motions

[edit]

Trying something different to see if we can break the deadlock without spending months on a case. I think we can have concise community feedback on individual motions to help with readability. These are all without prejudice to a case, now or at a later date. I'm also open to other ideas. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:20, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that I have seen these motions and am considering them along with all of the feedback from the community. Primefac (talk) 12:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Motion 1: Appeals only to ArbCom

[edit]

When imposing a contentious topic restriction under the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic, an uninvolved administrator may require that appeals be heard only by the Arbitration Committee. In such cases, the committee will hear appeals at ARCA according to the community review standard. A rough consensus of arbitrators will be required to overturn or amend the sanction.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. More than happy to give AE another tool in the toolkit. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 07:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I wouldn't support making all appeals to ArbCom by default, but if this takes some of the workload off of AE or gives admins cover to make unpopular but necessary decisions, I'm happy to take on some of that burden. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Okay. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:30, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. More options for AE, Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 2a: Word limits

[edit]

All participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 500 words per discussion.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
Oppose
  1. I don't think an automatic 500 word limit would be beneficial. - Aoidh (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. In favour of 2c. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. prefer 2c ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:29, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC) prefer 2b[reply]
  5. Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 2b: Word limits

[edit]

Uninvolved administrators may impose word limits on all participants in a discussion, or on individual editors across all discussions, within the area of conflict. These word limits are designated as part of the standard set of restrictions within the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic. These restrictions must be logged and may be appealed in the same way as all contentious topic restrictions.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. Seems reasonable. There is many a discussion where an editor goes on to bludgeon a conversation by dint of replying endlessly and exhausting a books worth of words. Since bludgeoning can be quite hard to handle, I think a wordlimit is a useful tool that can be imposed on editors for whom that has been a problem. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 07:06, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I prefer this slightly more targeted approach over blanket word limits. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:09, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:27, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. While I don't think a broad word limit that is implemented by default is the most effective way to deal with issues, there is benefit in allowing uninvolved administrators to implement this as needed. - Aoidh (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I think admin discretion is best instead of trying to preempt it. Some discussion might need more or less words. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain


Arbitrator discussion

Motion 2c: Word limits

[edit]

All participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion. This motion will sunset two years from the date of its passage.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. As I say below, given the alarm bells being rung above, and the threat of PIA5, I think we have to consider drastic measures. I have added a sunset clause because I really do think this is an extreme measure that shouldn't be in effect in perpetuity. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 04:07, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 07:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Okay, I think this might be the most useful proposal. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. WP:BLUDGEONing discussions with too many words helps nobody. And this is a topic area which is already drowning in excess words. Keep it concise. Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Even with a sunset provision, a word restriction across the entire area of conflict is not something that should be done by default. - Aoidh (talk) 23:45, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Prefer admin to set the limits, not us. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 3: Involved participants

[edit]

Editors designated "involved" in the area of conflict may not register a bolded vote in formal discussions but may offer opinions and are encouraged to offer sources. Editors may designate themselves involved in the entire topic area or a subset of it, or may be designated by an uninvolved admin. Designations by administrators may be appealed in the same way as sanctions. Designation is not a suggestion that an editor's contributions are problematic.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
Oppose
  1. While I understand the intention behind this, in practice I don't think this would improve anything in the CTOP area. - Aoidh (talk) 18:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Ideally, the bold formatting has no effect anyway and it's all about the arguments. Restricting the use of formatting does not reduce (but perhaps increase) the amount of words people use to explain their position. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. There is no register of whom is involved --Guerillero Parlez Moi 10:05, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. That would only drive away the existing editors, some of whom are quite valuable in the topic area. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:50, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. No. Editors who are involved need to voice their opinion. Otherwise, this will create more arguments, socking, and other concerns. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. per above Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 4: Enforced BRD

[edit]

Where a recent edit within the area of conflict is reverted for a substantive reason, it may not be reinstated by any editor until a discussion on the talk page reaches a consensus. Reverts made solely to enforce the extended-confirmed requirement are excluded from this requirement. This motion will sunset two years from the date of its passage.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 3 arbitrators abstaining, 4 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
I understand this will slow the topic area down and be a general barrier to editing. But given the alarm bells being rung above, and the threat of PIA5, I think we have to consider drastic measures. I'd also vote for a time limited version of this; i.e., with a sunset clause of a year, and we'd have to renew it or just let it return to the status quo ante. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n! ⚓ 03:57, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Worth trying for 2 years --Guerillero Parlez Moi 07:08, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that I will likely support any tweaks and changes to clarify "recent". Primefac (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Yes this will slow editing down (though I hope admins will exercise common sense when it comes to honest mistakes) but to a certain extent that's what we want. Reducing the urgency might help to lower the temperature. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:20, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN are important to me, and as "reverting" includes the restoration of content where verifiability is disputed, I can't support this. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. User:ToBeFree makes a good point. That this as written could be used to circumvent Wikipedia:Verifiability is a very valid concern. - Aoidh (talk) 23:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Agree with TBF. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. per TBF Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. Given that community voices strongly feel this is a bad idea, I remove my earlier support. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per CaptainEek. Primefac (talk) 13:05, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per Eek --Guerillero Parlez Moi 18:08, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 5: PIA5 Case

[edit]

Following a request at WP:ARCA, the Arbitration Committee directs its clerks to open a case to examine the interaction of specific editors in the WP:PIA topic area. Subject to amendment by the drafting arbitrators, the following rules will govern the case:

  • The case title will be Palestine-Israel articles 5.
  • The initial parties will be:
  • Aoidh will be the initial drafter
  • The case will progress at the usual time table, unless additional parties are added or the complexity of the case warrants additional time for drafting a proposed decision, in which case the drafters may choose to extend the timeline.
  • All case pages are to be semi-protected.
  • Private evidence will be accepted. Any case submissions involving non-public information, including off-site accounts, should be directed to the Arbitration Committee by email to Arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Any links to the English Wikipedia submitted as part of private evidence will be aggregated and posted on the evidence page. Any private evidence that is used to support a proposal (a finding of fact or remedy) or is otherwise deemed relevant to the case will be provided to affected parties when possible (evidence of off-wiki harassment may not be shared). Affected parties will be given an opportunity to respond.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 1 arbitrator abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. Having looked through what has been discussed so far, this seems to be warranted. - Aoidh (talk) 19:51, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 12:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. With the caveat that I think the party list could be improved, and that the timing could be better (a thing partially in our control), per all my other statements here I think a case is necessary. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:25, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. I don't think a case would be likely enough to have a more helpful result than the motions above, but it is almost guaranteed to require the parties and the committee to spend an unreasonable amount of time on reaching that result. And at the end of the case, the committee would be investing a lot of thoughts and discussions into presenting something else than "we didn't find a real solution" to the community, mostly unsuccessfully. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I'd like to see how the motions above work out before diving into a case. Cabayi (talk) 14:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I am genuinely not sure what new remedies can come about from PIA5 that have not already been tried, or proposed above, but there is clearly an appetite from the community to hold a full case. I will of course participate if a case is run, but I do not feel strongly enough about not holding a case to stand in the way of my colleagues and the opinions of those who have commented above. Primefac (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator discussion
  • This is being proposed as an attempt to directly address the issue that brought this here: the interaction between these editors was a complex issue that could not be handled at AE. AE turned to us to address this specific interaction issue and it would behoove us to examine it in detail rather than passing broad motions that do not address the substance of the referral. PeleYoetz was not part of the initial AE discussion but was the subject of the secondary discussion that was closed because it was seen as a companion thread. - Aoidh (talk) 19:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Levivich: The referral came to us because the interaction between a group of editors was deemed too complex for AE to properly address. This list is the result of those users discussed. As to your second question, RFAR would have also been a valid approach. However, this was brought to us via ARCA to refer the dispute to the full arbitration committee for final decision. I do not believe the other motions will adequately address the reason for the referral and a case would allow for the opportunity to make a more fully informed decision. I don't think a case was ever a foregone conclusion just because the issue was referred to us, but in this circumstance I think it's the better option we have in terms of examining and attempting to address the dispute AE referred to us. - Aoidh (talk) 17:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Levivich: It was deemed such by the administrators at AE, with comments by Barkeep49 on 13 August, SFR on 13 August, and RTH on 16 August as examples. A lack of sanctions does not preclude involvement in a potential ArbCom case, especially in a situation where the interactions between these editors were deemed too complex for AE to address. I also echo User:Vanamonde93's comments about the proposed named parties. - Aoidh (talk) 18:44, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Selfstudier: The proposed list was based on a reading of the discussion and is not intended to preclude others being named parties, including administrators. - Aoidh (talk) 02:48, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was also leaning towards a case, and had in fact written up an accept of the case but hadn't posted it yet. My thoughts are slightly different than the motion though, so below is my acceptance as previously written. I think the key difference is that I would want the case to open in like a month, so that we could stretch it into next year and gain the double committee bonus. Also, I'd want to probably see a bigger party list.
    All of what follows is what I previously wrote: Accept, insofar as this is a de facto case request. SFR's latest comment reflects and refocuses me on my earlier musing that there is an immediate issue to resolve. It is clear that AE has run out of steam to handle the morass of editor conduct issues in PIA. Of course, the committee seems to have run out of steam as well, since we are now down to a paltry 12 members, and 10 active. That is what led me to say that we aren't in a good place to accept right now because, well, we aren't. But doing nothing isn't helping either. PIA is a Gordian knot; and AE has run short of knot detanglers. I think many will be unhappy with our Alexandrian solution though.
    Above I said that this would be best as a case heard early next year. But there is one other solution. If we open the case before the year is up, and it runs into next year, the outgoing members can stay on the case, thereby swelling the number of members who can address this gargantuan task.
    As an additional logistical matter, I would have us open a fresh case request at ARC under the name PIA5, and solicit new statements, so as to focus discussion on who should the parties should be. I will volunteer to draft.
    I still want the reform motions to pass, and think that they will be helpful nonetheless. But the real issue before us, the one we are elected to hear, is of chronic editor misconduct. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In case folks didn't see my preamble, this was previously unposted because it was not my final thought on the subject; I was still ruminating. I wrote up an accept to see if I could make a strong argument in favor, and indeed I could. But I was sitting on it because I wasn't sure that was the right path. I know it's rare to post a "draft" vote, but given that my idea of a case didn't quite align with the motion, I wanted to put it out there as part of the conversation. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 23:37, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Levivich You question why this is being brought at ARCA and not ARC. This is coming to us as a referral, and I want AE to feel like they can refer cases to us. We said we were willing to take AE referrals, so this is a test of our commitment. But I agree that this referral as brought has not created a particularly thorough list of parties. My thought on how to fix that would be to say okay, well how about we as ArbCom open an ARC based on an AE referral, and we call it PIA5, and aim it at soliciting thoughts on parties. That avoids one of the real issues that ARC has: it's a thankless and unforgiving task to start a case request. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:22, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there is to be case, I'd be willing to be a co-drafter. My main concern is that I'm still not convinced that there is a lot that ArbCom can do that will actually improve editing conditions in the topic area. Some of the motions I proposed above might go some way to alleviating some of the problems, but a case is likely to take several months and produce tens of thousands of words. We may well end up removing some of the more prominent participants from the topic area but I don't envisage that having much effect—the most likely scenario is that they are simply replaced by other editors and everything continues much as it was because this is an emotive topic area not short of editors with strong, heartfelt opinions held in good faith but vehemently opposed by others with different opinions held equally strongly and in equally good faith. We can't solve the real-life Arab-Israeli conflict on Wikipedia—that will continue to rumble on with occasional spikes in activity (like the one we've been experiencing for the last year) until the politicians decide to do something to fix it—we can only attempt to enforce site policy and maintain some sense of order. That said, a case with a scope like Aoidh proposes might strike the balance between major time sink and producing actionable evidence of long-term misconduct (and alleviating some of the problems at AE), so I'm undecided at present. I'll wait a few days for feedback from the proposed parties, AE admins, and any third parties who have helpful suggestions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am leaning no. Has there been a major change in this topic area since the motions above have been posted? Z1720 (talk) 00:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't believe the issues have become stale or that the motions will substantively address the reasons this request came to us from AE. I initially wrote this motion around the time the other motions were first posted and wanted to post it at that time, but have only today confirmed that I will be able to dedicate the time required to be a drafter in this. I agree that something like this should have been posted sooner and for that I apologize, but I didn't want to volunteer to draft without being able to fully commit. - Aoidh (talk) 00:13, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wouldn't extended-confirmed protection be more fitting for a case in this topic area than semi-protection? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:10, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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