Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:21, 9 December 2024

Target dates: Opened 30 November 2024 • Evidence closes 21 December 2024 • Workshop closes 28 December 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 11 January 2025

Scope: The interaction of named parties in the WP:PIA topic area and examination of the WP:AE process that led to two referrals to WP:ARCA

Case clerks: HouseBlaster (Talk) & SilverLocust (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & HJ Mitchell (Talk) & CaptainEek (Talk)

Misplaced Pages Arbitration
About arbitrationTalk Arbitration policy (CU/OS) Guide to arbitration Noticeboard + Talk Search archived proceedings Ban appealsReport
Open proceedings All open requests Case requests Clarification and Amendment requests Arbitrator motion requests Enforcement requests
Active sanctions Contentious topics (Log) General sanctions Editor sanctions
Arbitration Committee Discuss+ Contact Members Procedures ElectionsTalk History Clerks+ Talk Clerk procedures Conflict of interest reports
Audit Talk StatisticsTalk Reports (pre-2016)
Track related changes
v t e

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Misplaced Pages in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

Submitting evidence

• Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
• You must submit evidence in your own section, using the prescribed format.
• Editors who change other users' evidence may be sanctioned by arbitrators or clerks without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the arbitration clerks by e-mail or on the talk page.

Word and diff limits

• The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee.
• If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page.
• Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Supporting assertions with evidence

• Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
• Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

Rebuttals

• The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page.
• Analysis of evidence should occur on the /Workshop page, which is open for comment by parties, arbitrators, and others.

Expected standards of behavior

• You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
• Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
• Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
• Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Evidence presented by Zero0000

About me

I have been an editor since 2002 and an administrator since 2003. I believe I have had no sanctions, blocks or formal warnings for 15 years.
I specialise in historical topics within ARBPIA and mostly stay away from contested current events. For example, since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, less than 1% of my article edits and 2% of my talk page edits have concerned that war.
Why am I a party?. Red-tailed Hawk added me to one ARCA case because I had pointed out a typo in a table at AE and was thanked for it, even though I had not commented on the merits of the case and nobody commented on me. Barkeep added me to another ARCA case because ScottishFinnishRadish had suggested a 0RR restriction due to a single revert (not a 1RR violation) in an article I have only edited twice since July 2022. I do not believe that this is sufficient reason to make me a party. If there is a better reason, please tell me, otherwise please remove me. I will continue to participate. Zero 10:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

A historical overview of ARBPIA

As an ARBPIA editor for 22 years, I believe I am well qualified to place the current status in perspective.
In the early days things were far more dispute-ridden than now, with almost the entire topic endlessly on fire. The maturing of key articles, the raising of sourcing standards (for which I claim a lot of credit) and then the introduction of 1RR and ECR led to a major reduction in tension.
A sea-change occurred when Hamas invaded Israel in October 2023. See data here. The number of distinct main-space editors in the first year after October 2023 jumped by almost 70% over the previous year, while the number of main-space edits increased over 3 times. However, despite the fact that 2/3 of the editors were non-EC, and despite the fact that there is a war on, multiple statistics indicate improvement:

• The fraction of edits which were reverts dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of edits which were reverted dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of reverts by EC-editors which were themselves reverted (a crude measure of edit-war frequency) dropped below 1% for the first time in at least 4 years (a 39% reduction).
• The average number of talk page edits for each article edit was the highest for at least four years.

None of these statistics support the claims by some that the topic is in crisis. On the contrary, I challenge anyone to identify a period in the past when ARBPIA was in better shape than it is now. Zero 11:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Other comments

User:FOARP's massacre list illustrates how this case is severely distorted by having an unbalanced list of parties. In all of these examples there are plenty of sources using "massacre" and plenty of sources not using "massacre", so the policy of following sources doesn't give a definite answer. The best way to resolve such issues is to have an RM, which is exactly what the participants did. Without examining the participation of others and the quality of the arguments, little can be inferred. It may also be relevant that the use of "massacre" in the titles of ARBPIA articles related to the Israel-Gaza war is biased 8:2 towards events where Israelis were killed, even though the number of dead Palestinians is far greater. So even though it looks from FOARP's list that the non-pro-Israel group is dominating, the hard data shows the exact opposite. Zero 09:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

User:ScottishFinnishRadish lists criticism of an administrative action as an example of "battleground". On the contrary, it is the absolute right of every Wikipedian to hold admins to account and this is entirely different from attacking an editing opponent. Zero 02:22, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Boomerang for Andre. Is writing blatant untruths on this page cause for sanction? It should be. I have never once, in my entire Misplaced Pages career, dismissed sources "simply because they are Israeli historians". Reading Andre's example shows that it was Andre who introduced their nationality and that I didn't mention it. What I actually relied on was the rule to prefer detailed sources over passing mentions.
In this example, Gilbert's 11 words in passing without citation appear to be wrong in one respect and misleading in another when compared to a very detailed source (De Felice) that quotes original documents. That should have been the end of the debate but Andre doubled down by finding another author (RI) who repeated an almost identical 11 words without citation in several books. The content comes nowhere near satisfying WEIGHT anyway. I called RI polemic because that's what he is famous for; the Anti-Defamation League called his work "hateful rhetoric" and I can provide plenty more evidence on request. As for "pogroms that never happened", I refer to this contribution to article quality. I plan to continue my well-known personal discipline of not citing academic historians at either extreme of the political spectrum. Zero 13:00, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Now Andre decides to remove a key part part of my sentence "Charges of antisemitism are always opinions, even when they are opinions that every reasonable person would agree with." That's because I regard antisemitism to be the state of mind behind an action and nobody has perfect knowledge of the state of mind of another. Too subtle? Zero 01:48, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

One thing that ArbCom can do

Even though all ARBPIA articles come under ECR, fully 1/3 of edits there are made by non-EC editors. About 1/3 of the non-EC edits are reverted and some fraction of the others cause disruption. This nuisance could be eliminated by EC-protection, but the admins at RPP usually refuse to apply it if they can't see "ongoing disruption". As a result, few requests are made at RPP and the problem continues. I propose that the committee consider mechanisms to have more ARBPIA articles EC-protected. Zero 04:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Selfstudier

A party -

Due to this AE case, together with this related AE case, being referred to Arbcom. Admin, @ScottishFinnishRadish: (SFR) made comments in the first case that I contested. Admin @Theleekycauldron: (Tlc) subsequently suggested I be warned for tag team editing (amended to edit warring), that I also contested. Then at the referral of those cases, admin @Barkeep: (BK) said "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" presumably referring to one or both of the admin comments above.

Origin -

This farrago originates with editing at Zionism producing an earlier AE case, closed by SFR on 11 July with "A bunch of socks/compromised accounts blocked. Further action related to anything here will need a separate report" and which is where the idea of an ARC(A) was first raised by SFR. Myself and others also considered the idea of filing for an ARC at that time. A number of the parties here were involved in that case including myself, Nableezy, BilledMammal, IOHANNVSVERVS, Levivich, Zero0000, Iskandar323, SFR, and tlc, This case highlighted the underlying tensions and the impact of socking in the topic area. With hindsight, matters perhaps ought to have been referred to Arbcom (by whatever method) at this juncture.

Conduct -

I do not consider that my conduct rises to a level that justifies sanctions, if a sanction for edit warring was justified, then that could have been done at the AE case in question or even outside of it for that matter. SFR asserted that their comments were not intended to lead to any sanction. I do not know if BK had anything else in mind when making their statement at referral. Nevertheless I am available for questioning in this regard, should anyone wish to pursue that.

Solutions -

Although I think the situation has become, willy nilly, rather overblown, I have some thoughts on how matters might be improved and may present them later in workshop. Selfstudier (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Genocide of indigenous peoples/SFR evidence (22 diffs) - Summary Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Gaza_Health_Ministry_qualifier/SFR evidence - RFC was proposed here, immediately endorsed by myself as well as by Levivich and SFR was asked to open it. Selfstudier (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ScottishFinnishRadish

Long-term edit warring, and edit warring to game STATUSQUO/ONUS is common. Stonewalling and multiple attempts at dispute resolution exhaust the community's will to engage

Genocide of indigenous peoples

1. Israel/Palestine added 31 March 24.
2. Immediately challenged 31 March 24.
3. Now it's an edit war 31 March 24.
4. Expanded section 31 March 24.
5. Removed again 23 May 24.
6. Restored again 23 May 24.
7. Removed again 24 May 24
8. RFC started 24 May 24.
9. Restored again 27 May 24.
10. Removed again 27 May 24.
11. Restored 27 May 24.
12. Removed 27 May 24.
13. Restored 27 May 24.
14. Full protected 27 May 24.
15. RFC closed as no consensus 21 June 24.
16. Removed per no-consensus 23 June 24.
17. Restored per no consensus 23 June 24.
18. Removed 23 June 24.
19. Restored 23 June 24.
20. I'm tired of listing these individually .
21. New RFC less than 2 months after previous 6 August 24.
22. RFC closed with roughly half the !votes of the earlier RFC 25 September 24

Very long term multi-party edit war that included trying to retain content in in order to set the status quo to leading to arguing after a no consensus close that since the immediately challenged material was in at the start it gets to stay in. Clear battleground, gaming STATUSQUO, violating ONUS, and with behavior that was complained about by other parties on other occassions, e.g. opening an RFC shortly after another RFC was closed. The community has limited energy to continuously engage with dispute resolution in this topic area, so frequent RFCs tend to draw diminishing returns until only invested editors remain. This leaves us with a LOCALCONSENSUS of the most invested editors.

1948 Arab-Israeli War diff formatting stolen from Barkeep's post at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive343#Nableezy

1. 01:54, October 21, 2024 IOHANNVSVERVS removes
2. 02:00, October 21, 2024 Andrevan restores
3. 02:12, 21 October 2024 IOHANNVSVERVS opens talk page discussion
4. 13:48, October 26, 2024 Nableezy removes
5. 14:18, October 26, 2024 Alaexis restores
6. 03:45, October 27, 2024 Zero0000 removes
7. 04:19, October 27, 2024 Andrevan restores
8. 12:23, October 27, 2024 Makeandtoss removes
9. 21:17, October 27, 2024 Snowstormfigorion restores
10. 21:40, 27 October 2024 Andrean opens RFC

List of genocides It took an admin to step in and perform the difficult task of opening an RFC, which didn't end the edit war. Same issue as above where it is clear editors are trying to edit war to change the status quo.

1. 4 July 24
2. 8 July 24
3. 8 July 24
4. 8 July 24
5. 8 July 24
6. 18 July 24
7. 19 July 24
8. 19 July 24, I had to open an RFC, rather than any of the experienced editors involved
9. 23 July 24
10. 24 July 24
11. 25 July 24
12. 25 July 24, me hatting a tangent explicitly about gaming status quo through edit warring
13. 26 July 24
14. 26 July 24, reverted by me as an Arbitration enforcement action.

POV forks are created and maintained, stonewalling contributes

Articles are created as quickly as possible in the topic area as an affirmative consensus is needed to change the title once the article is created. This has led to POV forks. In this situation we have two articles created ~8 hours apart, one calling the event a rescue operation, the other calling it a massacre. Two months ago there was a consensus to merge. There were some edits made to merge, and the merge tags were removed, then reverted back. The other article was redirected and reverted as well, saying there needed to be discussion on the merge. After nearly two months this is the entirety of that discussion, and there has been no movement on eliminating the POV fork. Currently there are two articles on the same event, one calling it a rescue and massacre, the other just calling it a massacre. This had been remedied, but it was reverted with no specific reasons. Included below is the textdiff of the pertinent sections of the forks to demonstrate the similarity of coverage between articles. We're now six months into having this fork. This also gets at the issue of people rushing to create articles to provide framing from their POV.

Involved editors shut down good faith formal discussions and edit war over it

Gaza genocide RM

Gaza genocide RM part deux - - There was an explicit consensus against a moratorium on move requests.

Israel–Hamas war RFC - closed with the edit summary no discussion has taken place about these points, violating WP:RFCBEFORE. Questions in the RFC were Should the figures be attributed? Should the number of militants that Israel has stated they have killed be included? Should we describe the number of women and children killed as:... Should we describe those killed who are under the age of 18 as... This editor opened a discussion about including the number of militants the IDF says they killed, took part in a discussion about including the number of women killed in the lead, opened a discussion about including the proportion of women and children killed in the lead.

- reclosed as no RFCBEFORE

WP:BATTLEGROUND

Along with the constant tag-team edit warring, involved actions that amount to stonewalling, and actual stonewalling there are constant assumptions of bad faith and aspersions. It's bad on article talk pages, but extends to AE/ARCA. Because of the BATTLEGROUND, editors show up to take pot shots at each other whenever an opportunity presents itself. You'll notice that people of all POVs accuse those with other POVs of doing the same thing their POV's side is being accused of. That's because it's true. It's the definition of battleground editing. See the above involved closure evidence for both sides doing the same thing and then doing that spiderman meme where both spidermans point at each other. It's also why the party list is a problem in this case, the problem behavior is incredibly widespread. Because it is difficult to take action against many of the editors, and because many admins are hesitant to sanction we're left with BATTLEGROUND being acceptable behavior, rather than you must edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and: adhere to the purposes of Misplaced Pages; comply with all applicable policies and guidelines; follow editorial and behavioural best practice.

• I think there is a strong case that Levivich should be prohibited from bringing users to AE until a case on those issues is held at ArbCom. They are wasting administrator and other user time at this point.
• But Levivich's participation in this topic area at this point and especially in AE regarding this topic area is no longer beneficial or constructive - and it's been that way for quite some time.
• People who apparently support Israel's current military actions keep forcing us to vote over and over and over regarding the same topic, with very brief breaks in-between, until they get their desired result
• Will point out the obvious hypocrisy by BilledMammal for forgetting that opening an RM a week or so after move review closed with your team losing is anything other than POV-pushing in the process.
• Effectively, these editors are saying that discussions that propose a change in favour of their POV are allowed, while discussions against their POV are not - and they are using tag-teaming unilateral involved closures and AE to try to enforce this.
• 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.
• Yes, I already saw your feeble excuse.
• I very rarely edit in this topic area and only looked into this table due to past experience with Billed Mammal and Kentucky Rain24 working in concert... This is also how I learned that 18% of BilledMammal's edits to mainspace have been reverted, which might be worth looking into.

This is just a small sample from a single AE report and the ARCA that preceded this case. It's so commonplace that it doesn't even elicit a shrug when it happens.

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Gaza_Health_Ministry_qualifier

• 15 July 24 - I created an RFC because of numerous arguments across many pages, no involved editors escalated to higher tier DR
• 19 July 24 - removing a personal attack.
• 22 July 24 - moved to subpage
• 22 July 24 - requesting editors disengage, immediate pushback because someone else asked to disengage made more comments.
• The RFC continued constructively after that request, except..
• 15 August 24 - Series of edits showing further battleground and arguing unrelated to the outcome of the RFC.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Gaza Health Ministry qualifier#Responses to FortunateSons vote, moved down - includes 82 comments and ~4500 words from 7 editors about a single !vote out of 55. Includes gems like this constructive exchange, calling Germany's newspaper's behavior facist and pitiful (that editor later reported another for calling sources antisemitic propaganda), and a tangent hatted here.

Evidence presented by Nableezy

Editor behavior at Use of human shields by Hamas

An article was spun out of Human shield#Israeli–Palestinian conflict focused solely on accusations against one party. When I first arrived at that article, it was in this state. I found the article, and the lead especially, to be both distorting the overall balance of sources and just poorly written. After beginning a discussion on the talk page (here), AndreJustAndre replied to an editor both "refrain from personalizing the dispute" and making the outrageous attack that they "clearly sympathize more with Hamas' POV". That in response to attempting to follow sources like Amnesty International. I rewrote the lead entirely (here), and another editor added material that was indeed reliably sourced but was also false. I attempted to show that it was false on the talk page, Andre's response was it's false according to you, and nobody else. The editor who previously inserted the material engaged in good faith with my argument, and analyzed the source themself and came to the same conclusion, that we were stating something in the lead that simply was not true (see their analysis here and them removing the material from the article here.) A week later, BilledMammal blanket reverted all the changes that had been made, saying simply new lead not an improvement. They never engaged on the talk page, despite my raising the issue in the section I had opened. In sum, AndreJustAndre made a series of pedantic claims without engaging in the substance of the argument, and a personal attack about another editor supposedly "sympathiz more with Hamas' POV", though to their credit they did not directly place false material in to the aticle. BilledMammal completely ignored the discussion and issues raised to make a revert that reinserted both POV issues and false statements into the lead of the article. Im sure somebody will claim my rewrite introduced POV issues, but I feel confident in my editing on this topic in that I yes removed things that did not belong but I also am the one who added material that conflicts with the supposed POV of "sympathiz with Hamas' POV". Eg here or here.

Socks of banned users

Socks of banned users continue to have an outsized influence on the topic, both in raising the temperature and in content discussions. For example, two Icewhiz socks are responsible for 30% of the content at 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike and one is responsible for 60% of Palestinian suicide attacks. The 2021 RFC that temporarily deprecated Counterpunch had participation by 5 IW socks and a NoCal100 sock. A series of compromised accounts lobbied for sanctions against a long time IW target here. Yes, we are all responsible for our reactions to provocations, but I cant seriously believe that anybody cant see that over and over editors who never actually face any sanctions because they just make a new account and start up again are antagonizing editors and attempting to bait them into a response that will generate a sanction. You can look at the archives of both the NoCal100 and Icewhiz SPIs to see the series of editors that have started fires and then tried to have somebody banned for getting too hot under the collar.

RM evidence

Regarding the claim of POV warrior behaviour by FOARP, I think that is an incredibly tendentious reading of the pattern. Seeking an equitable standard is not POV pushing. When the standard being used for "massacre" is based on the number of Israelis killed, and that standard is followed repeatedly when Israelis are killed, I voted to maintain that same standard for the killings of Palestinians. When later that standard was rejected for Palestinians, despite repeatedly being used when Israelis were killed, I sought to follow the standard imposed for Palestinians killed for articles on the killings of Israelis. FOARP's evidence demonstrates one thing, that we have one standard for calling something a massacre when Israelis are killed and another for when Palestinians are killed. And that editors are perfectly fine with that standard, so much so that an editor who wants a uniform standard is called a POV warrior. I reject that claim outright, and further the POV pushing is coming from those seeking to impose two separate standards. When 20 Israelis are killed, oh of course it is a massacre. When 100 Palestinians are killed, dear no, can't have that.

Response to evidence by Eladkarmel

I admit there have been times I have responded in a way I wish I had not, and I apologized for the grammar is garbage line, and I withdrew the comment to the admin on pretending to give a shit. I was sanctioned for my tone last year and Ive attempted to moderate that since. Im not sure what else I can do other than to say I will continue to do my best to not fall in to similar behavior in the future. But I do think that evidence demonstrates another issue here, that users back up sockpuppets when they agree with them. There isnt a single user who questioned the block of CarmenEsparzaAmoux or attempted to deflect from the fact that they were a sock of a blocked user. But in this very submission we have Elad arguing that multiple socks of banned users should not have been blocked. The same is true at SPI, where ABHammad repeatedly attempts to distract from the purpose of an SPI investigation, eg here or here. NoCal100 SPIs are routinely disrupted by involved users backing up an editor they agree with, for example this one needed a CU to hat off-topic bickering. Sockpuppetry is bad and we should all be opposed to it, but that does not seem to be the practice when it comes to at least those two banned users and their socks.

Evidence presented by FOARP

Some of the parties repeatedly take opposing positions on whether an article should be titled "massacre", seemingly dependent on which "side" the term favours

In identified I-P RM discussion involving the term "massacre", the !votes of the parties were:

Netiv HaAsara attack → Netiv HaAsara massacre RM (10 Oct 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - oppose

Nahal Oz massacre → Nahal Oz attack RM (6 November 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support
• Selfstudier - support

Nirim massacre → Nirim attack RM (14 Nov 2023 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support(nom)

Nir Yitzhak massacre → Nir Yitzhak attack (10 Jan 2024 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support

Holit massacre → Holit attack RM (10 Jan 2024 - I):

• Iskandar323 - support
• Nableezy - support
• Selfstudier - support

Kissufim massacre → Kissufim attack RM (8 March 2024 - I)

• Iskandar323 - support

Engineer's Building strike and massacre → Engineer's Building airstrike RM (7 April 2024 - P)

• BilledMammal - support
• Iskandar323 - oppose
• Nableezy - oppose

Nir Oz massacre → Nir Oz attack RM (1 June 2024 - I)

• BilledMammal - support
• Iskandar323 - support
• Nableezy - support
• Selfstudier - support

Nuseirat refugee camp massacre → Killing of civilians during Nuseirat raid and rescue RM (12 June 2024 - P)

• Selfstudier - arguing oppose

Al-Tabaeen school attack → Al-Tabaeen school massacre RM (10 Aug 2024 - P):

• Iskandar323 - support
• Ïvana - support
• Selfstudier - support
• Makeandtoss - support

2024 Nuseirat rescue operation → Nuseirat rescue and killings RM (12 Oct 2024 - P)

• BilledMammal - comment opposing "massacre"
• Ivana - support "massacre"
• Selfstudier - support "massacre"
• Makeandtoss - support "massacre"

Tel al-Sultan attack → ? RM (3 Nov 2024 - P)

• Ïvana - support massacre
• Selfstudier - arguing "massacre"
• IOHANNVSVERVS - arguing "massacre"
• Makeandtoss - support massacre

This shows a pattern of POV-warriorism. Whether or not the article will be a "massacre" depends on whether it's an "I" article or a "P" article. There's only one instance of a party voting against "their" camp (Billedmammal in Nir Oz).

For Iskandar323, in Netiv HaAsara it mattered whether reliable EN-language sources used the "Massacre”. In Hollit they condemned "arguments on independent reasoning over the nature of the event, not the sourcing". But in Kissufim/Engineer's Building they engaged in independent reasoning. In Al-Tabaeen they're citing Mondoweiss/Middle East Monitor. The pattern that emerges is POVwarriorism, the only thing consistent is the party to the I-P conflict they favour.

For Nableezy, in the Holit it’s based on WP:COMMONNAME, but in Engineer's Building it's based on the number killed. In Nir Oz saying "This system in which arguments that are at odds with each other are accepted depending solely on the ethnicity of the victims is horseshit". Again, this is the editing of a POVwarrior seeking to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.

For Selfstudier, in Nahal Oz it's about the sources. In Nir Oz they say "If it were down to me I would do away with "massacre" terminology altogether... The exception should be only when the weight of sourcing actually names it as massacre", but then in Nuseirat/Tel al-Sultan they abandon that "weight"/"naming" standard and !vote based on statements by officials and the fact that the "M" word is being used by sources at all. They're facially civil, but still POV pushing, engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour in order to "score points". (talk) 12:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Butterscotch Beluga

Stonewalling, edit warring, & general long-term issues - Zionism talk page

I'm not a party to this case, however I believe the Zionism talk page should be given particular attention as a potential microcosm of the topic at hand.

Note: This only covers talk page issues & only those that stuck out to me personally. Listed users are those who are parties to this case or were blocked as socks, other users participated in all listed disputes.

June

• "Colonial project?" - A several month long thread involving 9 parties to this case along with 4 blocked socks.

(Selfstudier, האופה, Iskandar323, Zero0000, Levivich, Nableezy, IOHANNVSVERVS, Makeandtoss, & AndreJustAndre) + (Kentucky Rain24, Galamore, 916crdshn, & O.maximov)

July

• "Apropos this revert and accompanying threat" - an edit war involving 6 parties to this case along with 4 blocked socks.

(Selfstudier, Iskandar323, Zero0000, Nableezy, IOHANNVSVERVS, & Makeandtoss) + (Galamore, O.maximov, Kentucky Rain24, & Icebear244 - )

August

• "Revert" - A revert by a blocked sock (O.maximov), causing discussion for ~3 days involving 4 party members.

(Selfstudier, Levivich, Nableezy, & IOHANNVSVERVS)

September

• "Language in the lead - Consensus??" - ~6 days & 3 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "NPOV balance issue in lead" - ~14 days & 3 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Best sources" - ~13 days & 3 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

October

• "The rest of Line 1?" - ~3 days & 5 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000, Nableezy, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Is zionism "considered" settler colonialism, or is it "criticized" as such?" ~3 days & 4 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000,, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "The lead?" - ~11 days & 3 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "NPOV tag dispute" - ~12 days & 3 party members

(Selfstudier, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "Scope" - On & off for ~a month & 4 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000,, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

• "WP:SYNTH in lead" - On & off for ~a month & 5 party members

(Selfstudier, Zero0000, Nableezy, Levivich, & AndreJustAndre)

Current - There are several ongoing sections on the talk page as well

I hope this compilation can be at all useful. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 23:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Aquillion

POV forks

Numerous POV forks and articles with obvious POV problems have been created:

• Calls for the destruction of Israel, created here; AFD, RM
• Denial of the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, created here, no-consensus deletion discussions here and here
• Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza (since deleted)
• Use of human shields by Hamas, created here; AFD, RM1, RM2
• Kissufim massacre, created here. RM

External coverage

These are what I found going over Google News for coverage of Misplaced Pages + Zionism, Israel or Palestine, looking for articles that seemed to either be describing or pushing for factional editing on Misplaced Pages. Note that none of these links are endorsements (some of these are clearly not RSes, and a few are even deprecated); they're intended to show the sorts of things editors who end up on these pages are often reading. I've included some more out-there ones because people are almost certainly reading these and then coming to Misplaced Pages and because the fact that such sources may be directing people here is significant. Also note that these lean towards representing one side over the other; that's just what I found and I'd presume it represents English-language bias more than anything else.

• The Guardian:
• AISH: , discussed on-wiki here.
• JNS:
• Jerusalem Post: (opinion),
• Jewish Insider:
• Haaretz:
• Informed Comment:
• Almayadeen:
• Times of Israel: (blog)
• Algemeiner:
• Jewish Journal:
• Mintpress:

Also see the {{Press}} and high-traffic templates on Zionism and Israel-Hamas War.

Problems with new / inexperienced users

While discussion naturally focuses on the most active users, significant disruption in the topic-area comes from editors who have only recently passed the 50/300 threshold, or ones with few edits in the topic area otherwise; and many of the edits reverted under ECR were non-constructive or had serious problems.

Edit-warring

Personal attacks / unconstructive WP:FORUM stuff

Evidence presented by Eladkarmel

Until recently, I was very active on English Misplaced Pages, but the distortions, bullying, endless personal attacks, constant scrutiny of every edit and every word, and nitpicking led me to take a step back and focus on Hebrew Misplaced Pages (where I recently became a "Patroller").

Evidence

I experienced attacks on Misplaced Pages and witnessed attacks on other Israeli editors.

• Nableezy in edit summary: grammar is trash
• Nableezy: "you just added that bullshit"
• Nableezy: "Maybe you can get somebody to write the report for you in impeccable English again"

Even admins are treated with disrespect. Which erodes trust in the system.

• Nableezy: "if you want to pretend to give a shit about the things that matter here"
• Selfstudier: "please find another rabbit to hunt"

I was accused of sockpuppetry and saw that many editors, both new and veteran, who added content supporting Israeli perspectives were similarly accused.

• SPI against me and Atbannett In general, I recommend delving deeper into this page. Look at the people who were suspected of being Tombah and review their edits in other languages – there's absolutely no chance it's him!
• Another case
• Makeandtoss wants to block someone solely for being a librarian at the National Library of Israel. here
• Generally, over the past six months, there has been a wave of complaints against new Israeli users. Some of them I have also seen active on Hebrew Misplaced Pages, including user:Galamore, user:מתיאל, user:OdNahlawi, User:Owenglyndur, User:Dovidroth, and many are now topic banned. The complaints were varied: sometimes copyright violations, sometimes sockpuppetry, and others. The result – there are hardly any Israeli editors left in the space. Hebrew Misplaced Pages is one of the most developed Wikipedias relative to the number of native speakers. There are excellent editors. Is it possible that when they transition to English Misplaced Pages, they suddenly become bad or violators? To me, that seems highly unlikely.

There are also aggressive remarks often coming from just one side of the debate, making people like me who are identified as Israeli, or generally don't agree with what some very dominant editors here believe, feel unwelcome here:

• Nableezy with inflamatory comments: 1, 2, 3
• M.Bitton it's not like the Zionists don't have a very long history of lying
• RolandR: "I do wish for the end of Zionism and the dismantling of Israel's colonial settler society"
• Nishidani: "religio-fascist landgrabbers"
• Nishidani: "lebensraum"
• Trillettrollet Zionism is the cult of death
• Levivich last gasps of Zionism
• Valjean rabid Zionists
• Selfstudier another 7 october branding, turn October 7 into a brand

It's time to address this issue and stop giving undue consideration to the seniority of editors, especially if they are obsessive and create a hostile atmosphere in the space. Even if this requires tough decisions, it’s worth it. Eladkarmel (talk) 14:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Response to Nableezy

Your statement "arguing that multiple socks of banned users should not have been blocked" is false. In no way do I support sockpuppetry. I'm saying that Israelis are overtargeted and discriminated against, even in the SPI process. People were accused in the past, including myself, for violating things, without real evidence. I find it deeply problematic that almost every Israeli here faces intimidation, accusations, and gets banned.

I'm against sockpuppetry just as much as I am against assuming bad faith by asking every new pro-israeli editor: Have you used any other account on Misplaced Pages?

Evidence presented by Andre🚐

Response to Nableezy

The diff is from a year ago. Subsequently I served a topic ban; did not appeal, served the whole duration and more before returning. I admit the statement from 2023 is inartful at best. What I meant was that the editor was taking a sympathetic stance toward a POV of one of the actors in the conflict relative to a question of substance of content. I did not intend to accuse them of being a "sympathizer" and can see how that might be inflammatory, raising the temperature. Since returning from the ban, I have tried not to raise the temperature. Andre🚐 03:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Nableezy fails to grasp that others might disagree rationally

Nableezy assumes bad faith and believes that others interpreting things differently must be invalid/problematic:

• Accused me of gaming, disruptive and TE. There is no evidence; I simply started an RFC as was prompted by SFR.

• Nothing exists in parity with both "sides" here, because the people arguing here are not each arguing from the opposing viewpoints. One group is, across a range of articles, pushing nationalist, revisionist in some cases, denialist in others, talking points. Nobody is even attempting to push the opposing nationalist viewpoints. Nobody. And thats part of what makes His Adminship SFR's peculiar understanding of what is battlegrounding so silly. He seems to think calling tendentious, mendacious bullshit out for being tendentious, mendacious bullshit is "battlegrounding". He thinks that means my interest is "beating" whoever...

• lol yall wild. Nish, if this is enough to say fuck this place for good I get it, feel similarly tbh.

Andre🚐 05:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Zero0000 replaces reliable source with cn tag

See , Zero0000 argues that Martin Gilbert, a famous historian is unreliable, due to his own research or opinions, and that Yegar and Israeli are polemicists simply because they are Israeli historians, stating:

There is lots and lots of arrant rubbish copied from polemic book to polemic book, and it is our job to weed it out, not to force it into articles on the excuse "so-and-so is a reliable source" or because lots of polemic authors have repeated it. I can show you lists of pogroms that never happened and more

Andre🚐 05:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Perhaps "Israeli historians" is not accurate and I should write "pro-Israeli historians," but the material has sufficient WEIGHT. Zero0000 also claims that Efraim Karsh another reputable Israeli and pro-Israeli historian, is FRINGE. What is fringe about him? Andre🚐 20:10, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• I fail to see the relevance of the list of pogroms to removing Martin Gilbert due to one's original research and replacing with a cn tag, then rejecting all of the additional sources writing about the same thing as polemical due to their politics. I also do not see how the ADL, a source unreliable for antisemitism, relates to the question of whether Gilbert is acceptably enough true or whether removing a reliable source is merited. We agreed Felice was the best source, by and large supported Gilbert, so how is it reasonable to remove this, replace with a cn tag? Had I not restored the citation and did a search for sources, that material could be removed at this point, even though Felice supports the description except for a slightly different dating. Andre🚐 21:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, the topic is 19th century, but pertains to antisemitism in the Arab world and Jewish refugees, the topic on the 1948 dispute. "Pro-Israel" applies to Karsh, if you don't think it applies to Yegar/Israeli, pro-Jewish then, or anti-Arab? I'm not engaging in "deception," I'm saying that on the basis of their credentials, they are reliable for facts, yet have a political position on antisemitism and the Jewish people in the Arab world. "Pro-Israel" may not be the description, but is not "deception." This is related, and doesn't explain how we got "list of pogroms that didn't happen" which is inappropriate, since these events did happen. Andre🚐 00:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• Zero accuses me of lying instead of interrogating a disagreement of interpretation or a misunderstanding. That is endemic to this topic area, and inappropriate/problematic for several reasons. 19th c. burning of synagogues is related to the refugee crisis and settlement from North Africa in Israel. Zero states elsewhere they believe any usage of antisemitism is an opinion and should never be stated as fact in Wikivoice. Someone with such a strong belief that differs greatly from the mainstream should only be editing controversial pages with extreme care. Andre🚐 23:03, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Levivich will consider Alam, etc but not Dershowitz

See , . Levivich considers Alam, economist, law school deans reliable sources on Zionism and history of democracy respectively, despite not being historians of Middle East, Zionism, Judaism, Arab World, the Arab-Israeli Conflict (or American history in the parallel conversation). Yet, he rejects the use of similarly but reverse-polarized activist academic author Dershowitz out of hand with the statement, "Oh hell no." Andre🚐 05:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• I consider neither a best source on Zionism. Andre🚐 22:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight

Despite a move review inconclusive, and an RM inconclusive, another RM was filed despite nothing changed, resulting in a different result (WP:CCC). Later, relitigation is complained of. Andre🚐 14:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

trims

Evidence presented by Chess

Ivana operated an offsite influence campaign

In addition to private evidence, three news articles have acknowledged Ivana's role in an offwiki group that promoted pro-Palestinian points of view on Misplaced Pages.

Evidence presented by Crossroads

The little I have waded into this topic has been strange and off-putting. At Talk:Zionism I commented what I felt was a helpful critique of the lead and its phrasing and gaps in coverage. Selfstudier curtly dismissed it. Levivich dismissed it by saying that I should have to read all the sources cited first before commenting, a standard they did not see need for when themselves commenting on an unrelated topic and its lead.

See also this diff by Levivich, where they invent a bizarre parable equating Israeli Jews to future "Martian Ukrainians" claiming a right to Crimea and calling it fucking crazy. They then assert that peace and reconciliation in the Israel/Palestine conflict will not occur until the diaspora demands it, thus holding Jews in general responsible for the policies of the State of Israel. Scholarship has identified this as a form of antisemitism. Also, the agency and responsibility of groups such as Hamas are entirely erased in this prescription. Crossroads 00:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.