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Some of the behaviour described in an enforcement request might not be restricted by ArbCom. However, it may violate other Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines; you may use administrative discretion to resolve it. More than one side in a dispute may have ArbCom conduct rulings applicable to them. Please ensure these are investigated. Closing a thread: Once an issue is resolved, enclose it between {{hat}} and {{hab}} tags. A bot should archive it in 7 days. Please consider referring the case to ARCA if the outcome is a recommendation to do so or the issue regards administrator conduct. You can use the templates {{uw-aeblock}} (for blocks) or {{AE sanction}} (for other contentious topic restrictions) to give notice of sanctions on user talk pages. Please log sanctions in the Arbitration enforcement log. Thanks again for helping. If you have any questions, please post on the talk page.

Plebian-scribe

@Ymblanter: Just a quick clarifying question on your close: the talk page is currently semiprotected until May 5, as the result of an RfPP request. Do you just mean there's no consensus to change or extend that existing protection? GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: This is indeed what I mean. After May 5, if disruption continues, a new RFPP request can be filed.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:50, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

François Robere

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

Request concerning François Robere

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

GizzyCatBella (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 00:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

François Robere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Sanction under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision - interaction ban with GizzyCatBella

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

1- Referred to me in their post on the Arbitration page --> (...in June another one was blocked (the imposing admin, who was knee-deep in the TA, has since been desysopped... in August an I-ban was imposed between three editors...) diff -

2 - Furnished within a new text and restored my prior removal - - please notice Szarek is affiliated with PiS.. - notice young historians changed to young missionaries, restoring the exact citations (see Behr Valentin 2017-01-02 Historical policy-making in post-1989 Poland), etc.

Explanation and additional information:

On August 9, 2020, a two-way interaction ban was imposed on François Robere and me. (important - please note that the two-way ban is of no fault of myself but François Robere and another participant; the reason for imposing two-way interaction ban was the fact that one of the assessing administrator's didn't like one-way interaction bans One-way interaction ban have initially been proposed,,,)

On April 18, 2021, François Robere referred to me in their post on the Arbitration page and included link to my talk page despite the fact that interaction ban forbids to make reference to or comment on each other anywhere on Misplaced Pages, directly or indirectly.

This latest development prompted me to bring this to the administrative attention; however, I was also surprised to see that François Robere (after modifications) also commenced restoring my removals on one of the articles despite the precise instructions per WP:IBAN that editors under interaction ban can not - undo each other's edits to any page, whether by use of the revert function or by other means.

François Robere restoration of my prior removal furnished within a new text -

My prior removals - - please notice Szarek is affiliated with PiS.. - notice young historians changed to young missionaries, restoring the exact citations (see Behr Valentin 2017-01-02 Historical policy-making in post-1989 Poland), etc.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. edit war block
2. personal attack block

Warnings:

1. warning
2. warning
3. warning
4. warning
5. warning

I’m going to add BANEX rules for everyone to see easily with related underlined.

Exceptions to limited bans

An important note to all administrators for future actions

Failure to note in closing that results in two-way interaction bans and not mentioning the fact that one side is of no fault may result in denial of the guilty party of responsibility (as we can see in the statement of user against whom this enforcement is requested) or confusion. Just as I was worried about during my closing.,

Quote of one of the involved administrators involved in my case --> (they allowed me to quote them on that) -

..Indeed, my recommendation for a one-way IBAN was unfortunately not accepted. But all that remains at the discretion of the closer. I certainly will oppose any attempts to use that sanction against you when your appeal is submitted, since this was a bogus report whose closure should have made clear you were not at fault. I think the fact that the closing failed to note this is not to the credit of the AE process. Feel free to quote me on that.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Please note - François Robere has not been notified about this complaint since it's not clear to me if that's allowed - see WP:IBAN - Editors subject to an interaction ban are not permitted to edit each other's user and user talk pages. Please advise if I can notify or let the user know. Thank you. I believe I can do that under the circumstances --->

Discussion concerning François Robere

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

Statement by François Robere

Background

1. The ban between the OP and myself was imposed as part of an AE request filed by a third editor.
2. It wasn't clear that I should be party to an I-ban, but one was enacted anyway; along with another between the OP and the filer. Both were "no fault" bans.
3. During the discussion I've shown that the OP was following my activities on Misplaced Pages, including my "sandbox", mainspace edits, and correspondence with at least one admin.
4. Soon after the ban was imposed I stated that it makes me uneasy, since it can be "weaponized" against me.

The diffs

1. Diff 1 complies with WP:BANEX, as well as the imposing admin's instruction that the ban isn't retroactive.
2. Diff 2 is unrelated to the OP.
   1. I've edited Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) before, including on Szarek and the ref to Goddeeris.
   2. On March 3rd I mentioned the IPN in a comment.
   3. On March 4th I mentioned Szarek.
   4. On March 5th the OP made her first edit to Institute of National Remembrance since January the previous year. Later that day she removed a statement regarding Szarek.
   5. On the same day I posted a long analysis of the changes made to the article by other editors. I did not mention the OP nor her edits.
   6. Point #22 in the analysis refers to the IPN's budget. An hour and a half after it was posted the OP removed a mention of the IPN's budget.
   7. The discussion evolved throughtout March. On March 29th I collected quotes from several sources and posted them to Talk. This is my work, it has several new sources and perhaps 80-90% new content.
   8. On April 14th, seeing as no substantial objections have been raised, I added the content to the article.
   9. The edit was soon reverted, and we went back to Talk.
   10. After I replied to the reverting editor, another editor voiced their support for my edit.
   11. The OP then made an off-topic comment about an edit that editor made three weeks earlier. She then inserted an opinion that pertains to both our edits, potentially complicating the discussion for me.

Another incident

1. On February 3rd I commented on Talk:Bogdan Musiał.
   1. 2.5 hours later the OP made a large removal of content added by Buidhe.
   2. On February 4th I posted a question on Musiał, Israel and religion.
   3. Three minutes later the OP deleted the content on Musiał, Israel and religion.
   4. Prior to this the OP had last edited the page on June 2018.

François Robere (talk) 12:43, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

• @Rosguill and Newslinger: I object to the change in the sanction as proposed, and would rather you didn't support it if, as you say, you're not familiar with the history that precipitated it. François Robere (talk) 13:08, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @Newslinger: Thank you for your analysis. Could you please opine on my own diffs, as well as on JzG and Nsk92's comments? I find it difficult to believe that the OP would edit a specific statement within three minutes of me mentioning it - in article she hasn't touched in 2.5 years - a sheer coincidence. François Robere (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (uninvolved) RandomCanadian

"interaction ban forbids to make reference to or comment on each other anywhere on Misplaced Pages, directly or indirectly." - making a long-winded AE request about it seems about as clear cut of an infringement as I could imagine. Making an AE request is also very much against the purpose of an IBAN, which is to avoid confrontations between two editors - WP:BANEX also seems to suggest you'd have better done to ask an uninvolved editor about it before making a report here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:48, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• As to the evidence presented, referring to the interaction ban itself (one amongst a chronicle of other sanctions imposed in the area) within an ArbCom request for clarification () does seem to be a perfectly allowable course of action. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
  • The history of Institute of National Remembrance seems more complicated; though I note that the removal of dead link source by GCB (apparently reverted by FR, along with a much larger change - not sure if this was just lack of attention and forgetfulness) appears to be incorrect per WP:LINKROT. Other changes seem much more minor; though they might be violations as understood under the guidelines. Of course, two editors under a mutual IBAN editing the same page is obviously recipe for disaster and the wiser recommendation to everyone would be to avoid it if possible. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
    • @Volunteer Marek: Linking to the discussion announcing the IBAN (as part of a reply which does appear to contribute to the discussion, by arguing the case that there is still disruption and need for enforcement actions) can hardly be construed as violating said IBAN, unless we're in lawyering territory. Of course entirely ignoring this has gone to and been amended by ArbCom so many times the whole area seems to be irreparably prone to WP:DRAMA. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:59, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
      • @Volunteer Marek: I do not see such a link in the evidence presented by GCB here. If there's something I'm missing point it out, but the supposed link to their talk page is a diff of an edit (block notice) by Rexxs, not by FR. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:25, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• On further look, agree with JzG and Paleo that this appears to be entrapment over what are, in essence, very minor details (a few words here and there, an incorrectly removed source, on an article FR edited first). As to VM's comment, the ArbCom discussion is clearly BANEX, I've also had a further look; so that's end of argument as far as I am concerned. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @VM: You seem to be arguing over technicalities. ArbCom IS, by default, an appropriate forum to talk about sanctions related to ArbCom cases and ArbCom enforcement actions. Everyone in this tense topic area could use more WP:AGF and less technicalities, me thinks (otherwise, the IBANs and other sanctions would not have needed to be imposed, ...). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:16, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
    • The more I read into this issue; the more I look at prior parts of ArbCom case; the more I look at all the WP:DRAMA (including the absurd quibbling over BANEX), the less inclined am I to think that there's any solution to this but a permanent topic ban for many of the involved participants - Misplaced Pages is a collaborative project, and if editors can't agree to collaborate on a topic and are instead perpetuating a long, entrenched, dispute, the solution would be to remove the problem (the editors) and hope that new faces bring new looks. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by PaleoNeonate

Since both users are involved in that amendment discussion, wouldn't this be somewhat unevitable? It also appears that Robere first participated before GizzyCatBella joined the discussion. One could argue that Bella should have avoided that thread to avoid involvement, but this is ARB related. Why not try to endure eachother, at least on that page (encouragement to both to avoid trying to trap the other)? —PaleoNeonate – 02:12, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

In this comment, aside from making personal attacks and false accusations against other users and administrators, FR gratuitiously referred to GCB ("in June another one was blocked") and linked to one of GCB edits. The comment in general adds nothing to discussion and is not even on topic - it does not address the use of sources in the topic area. It's just an unnecessary griping about other users, including one that he is interaction banned with - GCB. There was a hundred different ways that FR could've said the same thing without violating the IBAN, or, just not make the comment altogher. Yet, they chose to do that anyway. As such, that one is a clear cut IBAN violation. Volunteer Marek 02:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

User:PaleoNeonate - GCB made a comment on a request for clarification and amendment concerning an area they're active in. In that comment GCB made no reference, direct or indirect, to FR. GCB was one of ... 29 (?) editors to comment at the request. It was a general discussion. This is completely, 100%, different from FR's comment, which specifically refers to GCB and links to one of their edits. It should also be noted that the IBAN was put in place due to FR following GCB around, not vice versa. Only reason it was made mutual is because admins believe that "one way interaction bans don't work" so they said "might as well make it mutual" even though it was FR who was at fault. Volunteer Marek 02:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian - FR didn't just "link to a discussion announcing an IBAN" (there's two links related to GCB in their comment). He also linked to GCB's talk page. FR's comment is basically the standard griping and attacking of GCB, precisely what and why he was IBAN'd for. Volunteer Marek 03:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@RC, there’s nothing “supposed” about FR linking to GCB’s talk page. It’s right there in FR’s comment at ARCA: it’s FR’s 18th line here in this diff . And yes it’s to a comment by Rexx (and that part of FR’s post is also problematic, especially since Rexx isn’t around anymore to defend himself against FR’s false accusation) but the point is that FR is clearly breaking his IBAN by commenting on GCB and making it clear their comment refers to GCB by linking to their talk page Volunteer Marek 05:03, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

“Bob not Snob” account, the least you can do is remove the absurd “uninvolved” from your comment heading. Volunteer Marek 04:07, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

User:JzG Item #1 is most certainly NOT covered by WP:BANEX. FR was NOT "reverting vandalism". FR was NOT "addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum". There was nothing "legitimate" or "necessary" about FR's comment. If he hadn't made it, nothing would've happened. If he had made it but left GCB out of it, nothing would've happened. He could've also made it without all the personal attacks against several users. FR's comment has nothing to do with the I-Ban and it's in a forum where the subject of discussion is sourcing restrictions and NOT any I-BANS. To claim this qualifies under BANEX is frankly absurd (otoh, this request by GCB clearly DOES qualify under BANEX, contrary to Random Canadian's assertion, since it involves "asking an administrator to take action against a violation of an interaction ban by another user").

As far as the IPN article goes, FR might have edited it before GCB, but the difference is that GCB's edits were to different parts of the article and did not revert or edit anything FR put in. However, FR DID revert (with some rewording) GCB's edits. Editors under an I-Ban are in fact allowed to edit and comment on the same article as long as they don't revert or edit each other's text. FR violated that.

And frankly Bob not snob's "evidence", which is stuff they already posted to the ARCA page where it was rightfully ignored, is just an attempt to deflect the discussion from Francois Robere's very obvious violation at ARCA to "other stuff". Volunteer Marek 15:15, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

There was absolutely no reason for FR to mention GCB or link to GCB's edits or talk page on the ARCA discussion. NONE. It had nothing to do with the discussion. It had nothing to do with the proposal. It was just gratuitous sniping at an editor FR doesn't like. That he's under an IBAN with, for a good reason. BANEX simply does not apply. Not even remotely. Volunteer Marek 17:47, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@User:RandomCanadian - these are not technicalities. This is a user under an IBAN bringing up (even attacking) the user he's not supposed to mention or interact with on a Misplaced Pages page. WP:IBAN explicitly says: Editors subject to an interaction ban are not permitted to make reference to or comment on each other anywhere on Misplaced Pages, directly or indirectly It's a pretty straight up violation honestly. The only Wikilawyering here is by the editors who want to pretend that it isn't by invoking WP:BANEX without bothering to explain why FR's comment was "necessary" or how it "referenced the IBAN itself" (because it wasn't, and it wasn't). IBANs are made for a reason. In this case it was imposed after a long history of warnings to FR to stop bothering GCB. Since FR hasn't bothered to heed these warnings, the part of the notification about IBANS that they received, the part that says "If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions." should be put into force. Volunteer Marek 15:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

User:François Robere - you say: "Diff 1 complies with WP:BANEX, as well as the imposing admin's instruction that the ban isn't retroactive"

• Can you explain how your comment at ARCA (Diff 1) was "addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum"? Because that's what it takes for BANEX to apply. Did your comment even refer to the IBAN itself? Was it made in an "appropriate forum"?
• Can you also explain what you mean by "retroactive"? Usually "retroactive" means you cannot get sanctioned for edits you've made before the ban was imposed. Are you saying your comment was actually made before August 10, 2020, even though the date says "April 18th 2021"? This is a strange claim to say the least. Volunteer Marek 12:56, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

User:François Robere - in addition to explaining how your comment concerning GCB at ARCA supposedly falls under "BANEX", can you explain why you are claiming that GCB removing text inserted by a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT editor (indef banned Icewhiz) is supposed to be an iban violation with YOU? I know there's lots of Icewhiz socks around, but I'm pretty sure you are NOT one. So why are you claiming that a revert of Icewhiz, is an IBAN vio with you? You also didn't mention Szarek on the IPN article page until AFTER GCB's March 5 edit (your first mention of Szarek was March 23 ). It seems you're trying to flip or confuse the timeline here so let's get this one clear - Icewhiz adds stuff on Szarek before he was banned in 2019. In early March 2021 GCB removes it. In late March 2021 you bring up Szarek on talk. If there's an IBAN vio here (and personally I'd give this one a pass) it's you violating the ban not the other way around. Volunteer Marek 19:43, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Nsk92 and User:JzG - I don't know why you're bringing up a completely irrelevant AfD here, but it seems quite ridiculous to argue that someone should be sanctioned for disagreeing with you on an AfD. I voted to delete that article as well. Why? Because the subject is not notable!!! The article was started by indef banned Icewhiz, it's on a topic that was reported in the news briefly at the time but then hardly ever again and one which simply does not meet notability criteria. Trying to drag an AfD disagreement into this AE is... I'm not sure how to put this politely, but "bad faithed" and "disruptive" come to mind. Especially since this Whataboutism, as unbecoming as it is, is also combined with this bending over backwards to pretend that Francois' very clear and straight forward topic ban violation at ARCA qualifies under "BANEX". Neither of you, nor FR< has actually bothered to address how BANEX would apply here - what portion of FR's comment "addressed the IBAN itself"? What portion was "necessary"? You're just slinging Misplaced Pages acronyms around in a fairly transparently biased manner (you like one editor so they get a pass for harassing another). It's kind of depressing to see actual Misplaced Pages policies get thrown out the window so quickly under flimsiest pretexts. Volunteer Marek 19:31, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

@Piotrus:, I think that removing the IBAN is a bad idea. It was put in place after years of User:François Robere bothering and following around GCB as noted in the AE request which led to it. At one point FR even stated that he was "policing" GCB's edits for which he got, rightfully, reprimanded by admins (this was before the IBAN). Furthermore, removing the IBAN would also reward FR for violating it, just creating the wrong incentives (it would encourage the bothering to resume). Note that FR hasn't even managed to acknowledge that they violated the ban, but rather has tried to WP:WIKILAWYER it by claiming absurdly that their edits are okay under "BANEX" (they're not). That kind of shows that they haven't learned anything from this experience or from the fact the ban was imposed in the first place. Volunteer Marek 14:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (uninvolved) Bob not snob

Statement by Piotrus

Whether there is a technical violation here or not, I don't have a strong opinion (as I don't feel like reviewing the diffs in detail). In general, I find such remedies to be producing more harm / noise than good, not to mention they can encourage battleground mentality (more diffs to save/report, sigh); vacating it may be a simple solution but I really don't have a strong feeling here. It would be interesting to hear from both parties (GCB and FR) whether they think the remedy was necessary and whether they think it still is. The main reason I am posting here, however, is to just comment than in one of the recent comment submitted as a diff here , FR incorrectly claimed I was blocked. I was not. Please WP:REFACTOR this. TIA. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC) PS. The above error has now been fixed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I had the time to look at the diffs and read the comments here and I certainly think the i-ban should be removed. It does nothing but encourages battleground mentality on both sides. As for any new restrictions, there is no evidence that any party here is disruptive; their edits seem fine (not particularly controversial or edit warred by others) - the only problem is that they both share similar interests and occasionally overlap. It's really hard to judge whether it's intentional or not, reverting stuff from years ago, or making an edit in an article another one commented on not that long ago or whatever. I say unmuzzle both of them and see what happens, if they start edit warring and fighting, then we will have evidence to consider more restrictions. For now let's AGF and hope they can behave themselves, after the lesson of how annoying it is to operate under various half-way bans. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:05, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek, I certainly agree that if the i-ban were to be removed, François Robere should confirm they no longer are planning to "police GCB". My point is that this entire report seems to be making mountains out of molehills. Yes, he skirted the i-ban, maybe violated it once or twice (no, I don't think BANEX applies to his recent edit, there was no need to mention GCB, it's as simple as that) but I'd rather see a warning than any block. I never liked the use of excessive force to drive some point, American-police-style, although I do know that I am in a minority when it comes to this. That said, this would be helped if François acknowledged they got a bit zealous recently and apologized, instead of trying to counterattack. Blocks should not be needed if one acknowledges their mistake and promises to be better (yes, I know, another notion that is not very popular here). Call me naive, but I still believe that forviness, and building bridges, rather than blowing them up, would be a better mindset, given we want to reduce any WP:BATTLEGROUND.

Thinking about this a bit more, if there is no support for removing the i-ban (I don't think anyone else here besides me expressed support for this), how about this: perhaps a better remedy would be to change the full i-ban into a simple ban for both from reporting one another to AE/AN(I)? My point is that they should not be prevented from regular interaction with one another in the mainspace, particularly as when they edit the same articles, sometimes months apart, and perhaps innocently change content that another one added before, this creates a very technical i-ban violation that is really not a violation of the spirit (being arguably accidental, not intentional, but that's hard to verify). On the other hand, the existence of the i-ban encourages both to collects diffs on the other, and encourages borderline violations such as reports here, or worse, the usage of meatpuppets or worse (see Bob's section, now indef blocked). Also the "first mover" advantage, which i-bans encouage, is ridcolous. One edits an article, the other one is banned from it for life? And they are supposed to check edit history to make sure that sections they edit were not, by any chance, added by the other one? That's a nightmare. The fewer bear traps, aka "remedies", we have, the better for everyone. If our main concern is that those editors were making too much noise at AE/ANI about one another few years back, just prevent this from happening, no need to also prevent them from commenting in the same discussion or make them look for "gotcha's" in obsure edit history ("I edited this first 5 years ago, he violated the i-ban fixing a typo there now"). Love and peace, guys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Piotrus (talk • contribs) 03:57, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by JzG (GCB/FR)

Item 1 is clearly covered by WP:BANEX.

Item 2 invites us to look at Institute of National Remembrance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) in the context of an IBAN enacted on 9 August 2020. FR edited that article before GCB did, FR was also the first of the two to edit the article after the IBAN. GCB's first edit to the Talk page was both after the IBAN and after prior comments by FR. If an IBAN violation exists here, it is GCB. This looks like an attempt to abuse of Misplaced Pages process to remove an opponent, and is, at the very least, a vexatious filing.

As to the content matter, GCB's edits seem to me to be tendentious, adding WP:MISSION statements and uncritical discussion of figures identified by RS as controversial. Taken along with this vexatious filing I would argue that a TBAN may be indicated. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:21, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• This is reinforced by the prior TBAN, thanks Nsk92, whic I had forgotten. This is textbook recidivism. The ban should be reinstated. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:06, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Nsk92

Regarding JzG's TBAN comment, GCB was under a Poland-related TBAN in the past, but it was lifted here at AE in December 2020, see the relevant thread at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive276#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by GizzyCatBella. The closing statement for that appeal request reads: "The appeal has been accepted, with the understanding that if the user resumes problematic editing, more severe sanctions will be swiftly imposed." Nsk92 (talk) 12:23, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

This AfD, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference) (which somebody should really close by now, as it has been resisted three times already and has been open since March 7) may also be tangentially relevant here. The AfD, where CGB is the nominator, concerns a page about a Holocaust conference in France in 2019 that was disrupted by an anti-semitic attack by a group of Polish nationalists. Apart from !voting twice (as the nominator, and then again as a participant), there is nothing overtly disruptive about GCB's participation in this AfD but the choice of the topic is indicative and it does overlap with the topic of GCB's prior TBAN . The Institute of National Remembrance was one of the bodies that criticized the conference. The page New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference) and its talk page had been actively edited by François Robere; the first edit by GCB appears to be the AfD nomination itself. Nsk92 (talk) 18:54, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Err, sorry, Guerillero, but I don't think it's an acceptable approach for the AE admins to declare that they have "no appetite" for enforcing WP:ACDS in an entire area for which discretionary sanctions have been authorized. And I don't think I've seen AE wash its hands off from dealing with an entire area of discretionary sanctions before, no matter how unpleasant. Develop some appetite. If necessary make a post at WP:AN and ask for extra admin participation. But do something. Nsk92 (talk) 02:16, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by BMK

How very exciting to see all the same names once again! Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

The comment by FR on ARCA (diff #1) seems to be an obvious IBAN violation by the letter. The comment was made when FR was already under the editing restriction, and this is not "a legitimate concern about the ban itself". However, I do not think his comments were such a big deal to deserve filing this AE request. I would suggest a closing without action or a warning. No need in Arbcom or anything else. My very best wishes (talk) 14:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning François Robere

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

• I suggest that the people involved here take this to arbcom, because I don't see that there is much appetite among AE admins to get involved in this area --In actu (Guerillero) 17:18, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @Nsk92: Admins are volunteers and work on what they want. This has been open for more than a week and no other AE admins have commented on this issue despite a number of other threads getting a wide variety of comments. --In actu (Guerillero) 18:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• Having briefly reviewed the report, I think I'm most sympathetic to Piotrus's view that the IBAN is counterproductive. I'm not particularly familiar with the history that precipitated the ban, but this report appears to have devolved into sniping at each other over technicalities, rather than providing a way for editors to continue to contribute constructively. _signed, Rosguill 20:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• I support a modified version of Piotrus's suggestion, which would rescind the two-way interaction ban and replace it with an editing restriction that disallows GizzyCatBella and François Robere from filing or participating in conduct disputes against each other on any noticeboard, while still allowing participation in conduct disputes involving each other. This change would hopefully encourage future interactions between GizzyCatBella and François Robere to be content-oriented, rather than conduct-oriented. — Newslinger talk 06:38, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Examining the presented evidence:

  1. Special:Diff/1018499331 in Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment § Clarification request: Antisemitism in Poland

     François Robere's comment includes two relevant links:

     • https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:GizzyCatBella&diff=964681750&oldid=964628379&diffmode=source – which shows GizzyCatBella receiving an arbitration enforcement block (26 June 2020 AE discussion) for violating a topic ban that was issued as the result of a 25 June 2018 AE discussion
     • https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&oldid=972053194#GizzyCatBella – which shows the 9 August 2020 AE discussion that resulted in two-way interaction bans between François Robere and GizzyCatBella, and between Notrium and GizzyCatBella

     The clarification request is regarding article sourcing expectations that were implemented on 22 September 2019. Because neither the 26 June 2020 AE block nor the 9 August 2020 interaction bans is related to the article sourcing expectations, I consider this comment a violation of the interaction ban. However, the fact that the clarification request concerns a provision in a discretionary sanctions topic area (antisemitism in Poland) that is a subset of the topic area under which the 26 June 2020 AE block and the 9 August 2020 interaction bans were implemented (Eastern Europe or the Balkans) is a mitigating factor.

  2. Special:Diff/1017768220 in Institute of National Remembrance

     François Robere adds a large amount of content, including the text:

     Idesbald Goddeeris writes that the law "changed the rules of the IPN administration council, abolishing the influence of academia and the judiciary. A week later, the Polish parliament elected four PiS candidates for the new kolegium, and in July, it voted Jarosław Szarek as the new IPN director. Szarek was affiliated with PiS... One of his first measures was to discharge Krzysztof Persak, the coauthor of the authoritative and two volume 2002 IPN study of Jedwabne."

     GizzyCatBella had previously removed the text Szarek is affiliated with PiS, and in his campaign to be elected said that "Germans were the executors of the Jedwabne crime and that they had coerced a small group of Poles to become involved". in Special:Diff/1010514365. François Robere had participated extensively on Talk:Institute of National Remembrance prior to the edit, and had discussed the sourcing for their edit beforehand in Special:Diff/1014929504. Given the negligible overlap ("Szarek affiliated with PiS" is four words in a 6,738-character addition) and the background of the content addition, I do not consider this edit a violation of the interaction ban.

  The interaction ban violation in #1, in my opinion, is not significant enough to issue any type of sanction. The current AE request is not a very good use of editor resources, and it would be beneficial to direct the attention of editors in this topic area toward resolving content disputes and away from initiating conduct disputes. — Newslinger talk 16:41, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Primefac: Could you please clarify whether Bob not snob (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of another user, or evading a ban or block? The {{ArbComBlock}} block log entry is unclear. — Newslinger talk 16:49, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  I believe you will find that both of your possibilities are in fact that same thing. I am also not entirely sure why the specifics regarding the block are relevant, as the entire point of an ArbCom block is to block a user based on private or otherwise confidential information. Primefac (talk) 18:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, I'm interpreting that as a "yes" and will collapse the section. — Newslinger talk 18:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  @François Robere: Many of the other diffs in the discussion were evaluated above, but I will take a closer look at two other incidents:

  1. Special:Diff/1004836057 on Talk:Bogdan Musiał and Special:Diff/1004836571 on Bogdan Musiał

     GizzyCatBella removes text regarding Bogdan Musiał's views regarding the Israeli reaction to the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance that was cited to Commentary, wPolityce.pl, and Polonia Christiana. Three minutes prior, François Robere commented on the talk page regarding Musiał's views on the Israeli reaction, quoting an academic source that was published in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. There is some overlap between the content that GizzyCatBella removed ("According to Musiał, the exaggerated complicity of Poles in the Holocaust has become part of this religion, and therefore Israelis are outraged over the Polish Amendment on a basis of emotion rather than of historical facts.") and the text quoted by François Robere ("According to Musiał, the Israeli reaction to the Polish law is a result of recognizing the memory of the Holocaust as a form of religion, in which emotions play a crucial role at the expense of facts.").GizzyCatBella's removal prevents François Robere from quoting the specified text from the academic source in the article, as doing so would be a violation of the interaction ban. While GizzyCatBella's removal by itself is not technically a violation of the interaction ban (since it prevents the implementation of a proposed edit instead of reverting a preexisting edit), GizzyCatBella's removal is against the spirit of the interaction ban and this type of edit, if repeated, would be a form of hounding.

  2. Special:Diff/1010778379 on New Polish School of Holocaust Scholarship (conference)

     GizzyCatBella nominates the article for deletion. François Robere is the second-most prolific editor of the page, having written 10% of the article. The top editor (Icewhiz), who GizzyCatBella named in the deletion nomination, wrote 64.5% of the article. The deletion discussion was closed two weeks later, resulting in no consensus. GizzyCatBella's deletion nomination is the equivalent of starting a discussion on the talk proposing the removal of a section that contains content that François Robere had added. I consider the deletion nomination a violation of the interaction ban, although the "no consensus" result of the deletion discussion is a mitigating factor.

  Looking at the bigger picture, most of the edits reported in this discussion would be policy-compliant if it were not for the interaction ban. Interaction bans are intended to reduce the burden of handling conduct disputes between the affected editors. However, since GizzyCatBella and François Robere are highly-active editors who frequent the same pages, this particular two-way interaction ban has become a high-maintenance sanction that engenders conflict and encourages territorial behavior.Articles in this topic area would be better off if the effort put into the comments and the reviews of this AE report were redirected to resolving content disputes. That is why I would like to see the interaction ban rescinded. The proposed editing restriction (against conduct disputes) might not even be necessary, since removing the interaction ban would eliminate discussions such as the current AE report. However, this means any future conduct issues in this topic area will likely be responded to with full topic bans. — Newslinger talk 18:27, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Maudslay II

Buidhe

CutePeach

Sources for any content related to medical aspects of the disease are expected to adhere to the standards laid down at WP:MEDRS. Since this is a rapidly evolving area with instances already documented of poor or fraudulent research, preprints and other non-peer-reviewed sources should not be used.

Terjen

TopGun1066

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

Request concerning TopGun1066

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

FDW777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 10:29, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

TopGun1066 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

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

1. 09:29, 16 November 2020 Adds unattributed claim that a living person is a terrorist, in violation of MOS:TERRORIST
2. 16:51, 24 November 2020 Claims that describing McMahon as a convicted terrorist is totally within Misplaced Pages's fair use policies, and also follows precedents of retroactive application of laws created by the Nuremberg trials. The whole discussion at Talk:Thomas McMahon (Irish republican)#Bias is worth reading
3. 08:58, 10 March 2021 While I would agree with the majority of the edit, they obscured the fact that two members of the Scots Guards were convicted of murder for this specific incident. In particular note the changing of the reference, this is changed to one that was before the trial took place making it much more difficult for editors/readers to obtain the fuller picture.
4. 09:20, 26 April 2021 Unexplained removal of my talk page post
5. 09:33, 26 April 2021 Unexplained removal of the murder conviction information, instead thinking Scots Guards were involved in contentious shootings, including that of Peter McBride tells the full story
6. 07:40, 26 April 2021 Adds unattributed claim that someone is a terrorist, in violation of MOS:TERRORIST. Considering two soldiers are presently on trial for his murder (trial started today), I believe that's wholly inappropriate
7. 08:38, 26 April 2021 Repeat of previous edit (since self-reverted)

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

None

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

Notified

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

At User:TopGun1066 the editor admits to being a member of the British Armed Forces. The above edits are the totality of their edits in the Troubles area, there are no positive edits to mitigate the disruption.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning TopGun1066

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

Statement by TopGun1066

1. 09:29, 16 November 2020 FDW777 is incorrect and their bias towards showing IRA members in a positive light is blatant. Living people are described as Terrorists on Misplaced Pages: Ted Kaczynski.

2. 16:51, 24 November 2020 Desribing McMahon as a convicted terrorist is totally within Misplaced Pages's fair use policies, as per Ted Kaczynski and Murder_of_Lee_Rigby, and also follows precedents of retroactive application of laws created by the Nuremberg trials. As stated, although McMahon was not convicted under any Terrorism Laws in the Republic of Ireland, the sources cited from the Guardian refer to him as a terrorist.

3. 08:58, 10 March 2021 The Scots Guards edit was tidying the text up. The fact that they were accused of murder was irrelevant as they were also re-admitted back into the Army.

4. 09:20, 26 April 2021 I didn’t remove this.

5. 09:33, 26 April 2021 The text describing the Scots Guards were involved in contentious shootings, including that of Peter McBride is an appropriate level of information to include. It doesn’t hide the incident.

6. 07:40, 26 April 2021 It is more inappropriate for FDW777 to slander people who have not been convicted of any crimes by describing them as ‘murderers’. Joe McCann was however, appointed commander of the Official IRA's Third Belfast Battalion. On 22 May 1971, the first British soldier to die at the hands of the Official IRA, Robert Bankier of the Royal Green Jackets was killed by a unit led by McCann. Describing McCann as a Terrorist is consistent with Misplaced Pages labelling other people (alive and dead) as terrorists. TopGun1066 (talk) 12:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

References

1. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/nov/24/archive-thomas-mcmahon-ira-bomber

Statement by PaleoNeonate

This is not about the editors or this particular instance but I would like to mention that I opened a thread at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch § Widely vs in text attribution. This is also the style guide, that sometimes can conflict with policies. This source for instance doesn't attribute it and it would be difficult to know who to attribute it to, yet it's obvious to that article's editor(s) and likely to many. —PaleoNeonate – 11:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning TopGun1066

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

• Having reviewed the provided diffs and the discussion at Talk:Thomas McMahon, I think that a logged warning to remind TopGun1066 to only add contentious labels about living subjects when widely supported by a consensus of reliable sources may suffice. Having reviewed the discussion at Talk:Thomas McMahon#Bias, I think both TopGun1066 and FDW777 derailed into arguing over legal technicalities; while the lack of a conviction for terrorism can be considered, it is not the be-all end all of arguments, and could be refuted by a demonstration that RS widely describe McMahon as a terrorist (n.b. such evidence has not yet been provided). I'm not terribly impressed with TopGun1066's justification for their edits at Scots Guard (both the explanation included in their response to this report and the one on the talk page; I would like to see a review of relevant RS, not just a bald assertion that something is or isn't a sufficient description), but as TopGun1066 has raised the issue on the talk page and there has as yet been no discussion, I think that AE is premature with respect to that dispute. _signed, Rosguill 20:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• I am not impressed at all with TopGun's edits, their edit summaries, or their comments here. Addressing a concern about "terrorist" as if it's simply a matter of whether someone is alive or not shows either ignorance or incompetence, and neither are good at this forum--or a lack of care, possibly POV-driven. That recent Scots Guard edit, unexplained and pretty much inexplicable (their talk page post is just completely insufficient), suggests that POV may actually be the problem. I do not think that this editor should be editing in this still-contentious area. Drmies (talk) 01:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Race and Intelligence

Springee

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

Request concerning Springee

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Dlthewave (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:16, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Springee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Discretionary_sanctions_(1992_cutoff)

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

Arguing for inclusion of unreliable sources:

1. 22 March 2021 Pushing Daily Caller syndicated content (later reaffirmed to be unreliable at RSN)
2. 25 April 2021 After the flaws of LaCorte News are pointed out, Springee argues that a questionable source is fine as long as we can fact-check their claims. This logic was recently rejected at the Daily Caller RSN linked above.
3. 26 April 2021 When asked to stop wasting others' time pushing unreliable sources, Springee points out that editors can simply choose not to reply and suggests four more unreliable sources — Daily Caller, Daily Wire, "PM" (Post Millenial?) and "WesterJournal" (Western Journal?) — in an attempt to establish due weight.

Rejecting opinion pieces published by reliable sources

1. 14 April 2021 Claiming without evidence that The Intercept "isn't a RS opinion".
2. 14 April 2021 Characterizing the reliability of a Washington Post op-ed as similar to a self-published source.

1. Springee opened a discussion in November 2020 claiming that Bellingcat's reporting on Andy Ngo was unreliable based on his own interpretation of the facts. When his assessment did not gain traction among other editors, Springee repeatedly removed the content (1 December 2020, 12 February 2021, 18 April 2021) and reopened the discussion multiple times over a five-month period before finally bringing it to RSN. This violates the Disruptive Editing policy section WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT as well as WP:REHASH.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

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

• ]

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I realize that all sources are open for discussion and nothing is universally reliable or unreliable, but constantly challenging reliable sources while pushing unreliable ones is a form of tendentious editing per WP:SOURCEGOODFAITH. Springee's rationale for assessing sources often does not seem to be based on any discernable guideline, for example they argued that an opinion in The Intercept is unreliable because "the person offering the opinion/commentary is just a reporter, not some sort of expert." This is becoming a huge time sink as editors are expected to explain basic sourcing practices over and over, and content is kept out of articles per NOCONSENSUS when Springee cannot be convinced, leading to whitewashing and NPOV concerns. This is not conducive to collaborative editing in a contentious topic area. I encourage folks to look over the talk pages at Talk:Andy Ngo and Talk:Tucker Carlson to fully understand how tedious these discussions have become due to Springee's participation.

Springee, don't lie to Drmies, you knew damn well that the Daily Signal source was syndicated Daily Caller content. I clearly mentioned that fact when I removed it on 19 March and you even referred to it as Daily Caller when you first discussed it on 20 March. –dlthewave ☎ 04:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Springee, I can see how you could have made a careless mistake and confused Daily Caller with Daily Signal if you overlooked my edit summary and just looked at the URL instead of actually reading the source. However, you knew it was Daily Caller when you argued for its inclusion: "I think this would be a reasonable time to use the DailyCaller since we can verify the claims via CSPAN and the congressional records." –dlthewave ☎ 05:00, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Springee I'm surprised you didn't vet the author of that piece right away (you clearly didn't; if you had, you would have seen the big Daily Caller Syndicated Content disclaimer) since you always have something to say about the author when it's a source that you don't like. –dlthewave ☎ 05:16, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate Springee's pledge to refrain from inserting content without consensus that the sourcing is reliable, made on the good advice of Awilley. However, I don't think this will solve the problem, since it still leaves the door open to interminable talk page discussions about sourcing. –dlthewave ☎ 05:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you all for the various perspectives on this. I appreciate the concerns with using a series of "news bites" and agree that it it would be ideal to write higher-level summaries of what reliable sources have to say about these BLP subjects.

Springee and others have mentioned that we shouldn't be overly reliant on opinion pieces and should carefully assess whether or not they have due weight. That is certainly something that we should be discussing on talk pages, however Springee has specifically challenged the reliability of opinions published by The Washington Post and The Intercept without giving good reasons (beyond the fact that one was written by a journalist) why these normally-reliable sources would be unreliable for statements of opinion in this specific case. This feels more like an effort to build a "we can't include this because there's no consensus for inclusion" case than an earnest reliability concern.

Editors mentioning WP:NEWSORG have omitted a key part, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." No reasonable case has been made for why these sources would be unreliable for an attributed opinion which is what we're discussing here. Perhaps this is just a question of semantics but if the concern is due weight, then we should go straight to discussing due weight. Springee's constant questioning has led to a situation where we must have drawn-out discussions about the reliability of first-rate sources such as WaPo before we can even begin to discuss theit weight. This feels like a filibuster and could be viewed as a bad-faith effort to win an argument by exhausting those who disagree (see the "if you feel this isn't worth your time you can always choose not to reply" comment.)

Folks have also raised the topic of civility. I would agree that at first glance, Springee's comments generally come across as polite and civil. I do have to give him credit for avoiding personal attacks. However, "civil POV pushing" is still POV pushing. I don't think it would be appropriate to excuse the behavior outlined above just because the editor said "please" and "thank you" while doing it.

Editors have come forward as character witnesses for Springee's willingness to work with others to build consensus. I would dispute this, as an important part of consensus building is knowing when to accept that one's viewpoint does not have consensus. The long-running Bellingcat discussion is one example of Springee refusing to drop the stick and acknowledge that their objections have not gained traction among other editors.

Building on Aquillion's statement, Springee doesn't seem to be trying to expand our coverage to include all viewpoints. Instead, many of his comments in the Andy Ngo Congressional Testimony focus on repeating Ngo's statement verbatim while removing (or insisting that other editors do the work of rewriting) any sort of secondary analysis. I'm unfamiliar with the idea that we should be avoiding sources that do more than just report the bare facts; I believe that secondary analysis is an important way to place an event in the proper context. We shouldn't be covering Ngo's questionable or demostrably false statements about Antifa from his point of view with no fact-checking. This would favor the subject's own views over those of reliable sources and could lead to the same "sound bite reporting" issue that Springee is so concerned about.

There seems to be a misconception that if a source says something negative about a person, then they must have a bias against them. I do agree that practically all sources have some sort of bias, however we generally trust high-quality sources (WaPo, NYT, CNN etc) to report on events and apply labels accurately. Our writing should reflect the general mainstream view of the topic and in the case of some of these BLPs, the mainstream view is often quite negative. It seems that reliable sources just don't have many good things to say about Carlson and Ngo. We can certainly include positive coverage if it can be found, but we absolutely shouldn't be looking to bottom-tier sources for the sake of "balance". WP:IAR does not function as a veto or override to our sourcing guidelines; if an editor believes there is a special case where a generally unreliable source should be used, they should come with a strong argument for why an exception should be made and be prepared to accept that it may not gain consensus. The fact that Springee continued to use the same arguments to include a questionable source regarding Ngo's testimony, after a different unreliable source was rejected for the same reason, shows that he either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore this standard.

I'm very concerned about the double standard that Springee seems to be applying to content. As his statements here show, he insists on establishing very strong due weight for content that he disagrees with and will often drag out discussions about minor points, such as whether we can use two sources that say the same thing to establish due weight. At the same time he argues that a person's Congressional testimony is inherently due or "something that people would want to read about" with no regard for due weight. I really struggle to see good faith when an editor expects others to meet certain high standards while ignoring those standards when it comes to their own edits. Springee has been around long enough to know better. –dlthewave ☎ 14:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning Springee

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

Statement by Springee

I'm not really sure how to reply to Dlthewave's arguments here. This feels like weaponizing AE to solve content disputes, and not even content disputes based on edits to the article. Rather cases where Dlthewave doesn't like that I don't agree with their POV on the talk page.

We have 3 examples where Dlthewave feels I was defending poor sources but they fail to provide any context and totally ignore a critical part of WP:RS, the part that says context matters.

22 March, I was actually defending material Bgrus22 added last July that was cited to The Daily Signal though they were republishing a Daily Caller article. At the time the Daily Signal was not declared unreliable and the very factual claims in question were not contentious and supported by the second citation, a congressional record. When it was recently removed I challenged the removal on the grounds that the Daily Signal was the source and since we have a record of what was said, per WP:RS-context matters, the source was sufficient for the claim. I asked RSN if, in a case where one source runs an article written by the other, which source is considered the publisher. In the end it consensus was the source was not reliable. Since I never added nor restored the source to the article what is the issue?

Another editor found The LaCorte as an alternative source for roughly the same content, again backed by congressional records. Dlthewave seems to suggest I was the only supporting this new source but it's clear other editors also supported it ]. As before, I did not add the source nor did I restore it to the article when challenged.

The final case where I mentioned several RSP red sources is falsely presented by Dlthewave. I was making a logical argument, not suggesting their inclusion. My argument was to include any information in an article we need to verify that it is reliable and it has weight. The reliability of "Person said X before congress" is established by a primary source (the congressional records). As for weight, my feeling is that for most individuals, testifying before congress is a significant event and in most cases should be DUE in their own biography. We have a reliable source for what was said (the congressional record and C-span videos), the question is weight. My argument was if a large number of right sources, even unreliable ones, are saying "Person testified to this" then it probably is something that is important to at least some readers. Again, this was an argument for why such content should be in the article, not which source should be cited. Again, no edits were made to the article.

When Dlthewave says I'm questioning RSs, they fail to say my concern is opinions contained in RSs. WP:NEWSORG specifically notes, "News sources often contain both factual content and opinion content. News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact." In both cases on the 14 April the discussion is opinion/commentary published in normally RSs. I stand by my view that we don't automatically assume the contents of a RS op-ed article have weight for inclusion just because the parent publication is generally reliable. This is especially true when they are being used to make contentious claims about a BLP subject. Spudlace, while agreeing that the 14 April source was reliable in general, noted the gossipy nature of the claim that was being disputed ].

The point of talk pages is to discuss sources and sourcing. This certainly isn't the first time Dlthewave and I have debated content, in fact we have a long history of disagreeing on several topics ]. But this isn't even a slow edit war. This is a civil talk page disagreement about sourcing. Springee (talk) 05:54, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I think it is worth noting that a number of editors have expressed concerns with the state of the Andy Ngo article since 2019. The primary concern is a balance between including many negative things said about Ngo by sources that are typically politically opposed to Ngo and IMPARTIAL. As Blueboar said, the real issue with the article is SUMMARIZATION ]. I think a number of editors have tried but in the end most just give up or in a few cases get frustrated, say the wrong thing then get topic blocked. Sadly, content is more often than not decided based on head counts. I work hard to be civil even when I disagree ] and when possible seek consensus even with those whom I don't agree. For example Bacondrum and I collaborated on an intro section rewrite]. As for Noteduck's comments, it is worth noting that Noteduck was warned by AE for civility just over a month back]. Since that time they have made 46 edits. Only 3 were unrelated to me. Those related to me range form joining new topics to oppose my edits/comments, canvasing other editors against me and cataloging my perceived sins. Thus far I have tried to ignore the behavior.Springee (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

starship.paint, please note I was making that in context of an IAR type argument. That is allowed. It hasn't gained consensus and I haven't put the content into the article as it doesn't have consensus. I do think that it's a blind spot of how we handle sourcing that in my time here we seem to have moved away from an emphasis on context matters in sourcing to strict adherence to the RSP list regardless of context. At the end of the day that is a civil content dispute. Springee (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Drmies, I will say that I didn't realize the Daily Signal article was a syndication of a Daily Caller column when it was in the Ngo article. That said, I agree with DDG, almost no source is 100% unreliable nor 100% reliable. We really should spend a bit more time asking, is this a reliable source for the specific claim being included. The sort of source we need to make a contentious claim about a BLP needs to be much stronger than the sort needed to say, "In this written (and available for review) statement the person said X". In this case I don't think a single editor claimed the content in question was factually incorrect nor that it's validity couldn't be verified. Anyway, my thinking is similar to 力's, too often we are trying to classify sources as always reliable, always opinion, always unreliable when the reality is far more mixed. Certainly we should be able to discuss sources in this context in order to get (or not) a consensus on the matter. Civil discussions about content are what the talk pages are for. If my arguments don't convince others that is too bad for me so long as I don't try to presume consensus and reinsert disputed content. Sometimes we can actually make progress on issues this way. It's like a brain storming session, the original idea may not fly but sometimes a compromise comes out of it which is better that either pure exclusion or the original idea. Please don't assume this is a case of just jamming claims supported only by questionable sources. That is not my intent. Springee (talk) 04:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Dlthewave, do not accuse me of lying. I recall seeing that content a while back and saw that it was from the Daily Signal, not the easy to confuse name, the Daily Caller. I skimmed your edit summary and saw Daily Caller but saw the source said Daily Signal and assumed you had simply confused the two. I didn't notice that I had missed that until after I posted a request that you use a CN tag instead of simply stripping out the text. Springee (talk) 04:35, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Dlthewave, as I said, I saw that you removed a big block of text. I skimmed the edit summary and saw DC but the HTML tag was DS. I didn't reread your edit summary (my mistake) and quickly posted a request that you restore the text and include a CN tag. After that (perhaps after your first reply) is when I saw the DC note at the end of the article. I had dismissed the DC image a few lines down as an ad, not the source of the content. I'm happy to admit I missed that at first but the accusation of lying was uncalled for. Springee (talk) 05:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Dlthewave, why would I recognize the author? At the top of the article it didn't say it was DC syndicated. What I did verify was that the WP article claim was supported by the DS article and that was supported by the copy of the written testimony. Since that checked out I didn't scroll to the bottom of the article to see the syndication note. If this were an OpEd being used to support a potentially contentious claim about a BLP subject then I would check the author to see if their opinion would be notable for such a view. Springee (talk) 05:23, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• General comment: I did not and will not insert content into an article without consensus that sourcing is sufficient for the material. If the source is clearly reliable then such consensus may be assumed. If the sourcing is marginal then I have and will seek community input/consensus to verify in this context the sourcing is sufficient for the claim in question before it will be inserted. Springee (talk) 04:24, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by 69.158.90.121

Springee also has a habit of blanking complaints of "POV pushing." They have done so to my talk page, in addition to blanking complaints from myself and another "IP editor" on their own talk page. They have taken to citing conspiracy theories on Talk:Andy Ngo, including about Hunter Biden. It should be noted that Springee has a history of canvassing and of deleting warnings on their talk page. Springee has also faced previous criticisms of "POV-pushing" with regards to right-wing pundit Douglas Murray, indicating that there is a method to Springee's actions. It's no coincidence that they keep getting these accusations with regards to activities on multiple pages for specifically right-wing media. 69.158.90.121 (talk) 05:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Springee has since made two different (and baseless) accusations of being a sockpuppet. Springee complains of "AE" being weaponised, but seems to have little concern with trying to address my criticisms in good faith. I am also extremely perplexed by suggestions that the actions of numerous editors are "questionable." I'll admit that my actions probably do not conform to the culture of Misplaced Pages, it is because I do not regularly edit Misplaced Pages. I tried blowing the whistle on extremely blatant attempts to discredit reliable sources elsewhere, and have been reprimanded accordingly. Bellingcat was not the only reliable source targeted, Alex Zielinski has also been derided in Andy Ngo's talk page. What is even more absurd is that Springee used the Post Millennial, a site known for misrepresenting its critics, as a source to discredit Zielinski. As stated prior, Springee has a history of canvassing and votestacking. Their discouragement of participation, not just of myself but of dlthewave too, suggests that they are once again abusing the editing process to make disputes a matter of attrition, wearing down participation from other editors as a tactic to push Springee's own POV. With any luck, they discourage enough participation to manufacture the appearance of a lack of consensus.

Kyohyi, policy on reliable sourcing does not constitute a "loophole" that subverts Neutral Point Of View (thank you Google!). Articles on Holocaust denial and deniers do not cite unreliable sources potentially engaging in Holocaust denialism in the name of "neutrality." The primary issue with Springee is a recurring pattern of pushing unreliable sources, the underlying commonalities between them being their editorial stances and similar reputations for peddling false information. However, this user has repeatedly acted dishonestly, even going so far as to repeatedly blank criticisms from other users. Springee's new accusation of multiple users being "canvassed" against Springee's edits only reinforces my position that they don't have any interest in objectivity. 69.158.90.121 (talk) 21:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I am frankly exasperated with there being little to no comment on Springee's violations of process, nor their citation of Hunter Biden conspiracy theories that have drawn scrutiny over the New York Post's reliability. DGG's hysterics of "liberty" and "free expression" ring hollow to someone whose talk page and criticisms have been constantly reverted or blanked by Springee. Springee has been demonstrated to utilise multiple tactics for votestacking, and has censored past warnings (ostensibly to feign ignorance). It's clear that there is a contingent of Misplaced Pages users intent on pushing far-right POVs, and that contingent has become increasingly agitated over having propaganda from their favourite conspiracy rags excluded from the project. It's one thing to introduce reliable right-wing sources (which Bellingcat is), and another to cite Post Millennial and the Daily Wire. Another glaring issue is that there has been a constant complaint of "left-wing bias" and denouncement of centre-right news sources (Bellingcat, Oregonian, Portland Mercury). Are libertarians like myself now the "left?" These are rhetorical tactics designed to condition users to the censorship of critical voices, and to gaslight the public by projecting their bias on to other editors. 69.158.90.121 (talk) 00:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Springee has now blanked multiple past warnings. As I understand, Misplaced Pages policy is that users control their talk page. However, it should be noted that Springee has a record of deleting previous warnings and feigning ignorance. This is not normal behaviour. 69.158.90.121 (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (Noteduck)

If Springee is simply being cautious and acting in good faith, why are their edits almost entirely (more than 95% by my estimate) related to right-wing political topics, exclusively skewing in one ideological direction, and always preoccupied with blocking the inclusion of unflattering material? Cedar777 and Shadydabs have summed up the repeated problem with Springee's editing: Springee reverts whole blocks of new material on a page related to conservative politics (I've alerted Springee to WP:ROWN repeatedly, apparently to no avail) claims the source is not DUE, claims the source is not an RS, misrepresents the source's contents, and if this all fails Springee then claims there's no consensus, essentially demanding a veto, ensuring WP:Stonewalling is the result and keeping the page purged of unflattering material.

Springee's name appears on the WP:AN noticeboard a jaw dropping 97(!) different archive pages, usually many times over. Springee is highly litigious and recently commenced an arb request action against me, partly on the false basis that I violated the 1RR on the Andy Ngo page due to Springee's seeming inability to understand the difference between "reverts" and "edits" Shortly after this complaint closed, Springee made a separate accusation against SnoogansSnoogans on the basis that they had violated the 3RR policy, apparently on the same basis of a misreading of the term "revert"! This was particularly galling given Springee's decade-long experience on Misplaced Pages, and I believe Springee weaponises Wiki policy to spook other editors, particularly newish editors.

A recent example of tendentious editing: Springee apparently has made a unilateral decision that no sources marked "op-ed" or "opinion" can be used in BLP pages. On April 13 2021 alone they reverted a flurry of material on pages related to controversial right-wing topics:Tucker Carlson, Andy Ngo and Douglas_Murray_(author) When Dlthewave brought this up on their talk page, Springee blanked it all without discussion.

On the PragerU page, Springee invoked WP:RECKLESS when I suggested material related to PragerU's well-established climate change denial based on more than a dozen RS's, essentially demanding a veto on new material, as well as crying "poor sourcing" on a suggested header with two dozen sources. Springee also invoked poor sourcing on material on the Douglas Murray page based on more than a dozen academic sources, seemingly on the basis that "open access" journals were invariably poor quality. Springee seems to have a particular fixation with whitewashing material on climate change denial. Firearm pages and far-right shootings have also drawn attention from Springee, while there are many more, I'm all out of diffs.

It's worth noting that Springee does not always act alone and seems to have many editors sympathetic to them. For those who know Springee socially, try to put those ties aside when considering this pattern of editing. It's alarming that Springee is currently deleting huge volumes of material from their talk page archive, an ongoing pattern that I think shows a lack of integrity. It's only because of the 20 diff limit that I haven't included more evidence - I've been compiling examples in my sandbox and you are welcome to have a look Noteduck (talk) 03:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Bacondrum

I've had run ins with Springee's dubious and often tendentious views about sources at Andy Ngo, Quilette and other articles associated with far-right American politics. I think a look at their editing history demonstrates a civil POV pusher at work. I think they routinely make unreasonable objections to reliable sources regarding claims that are not favorable to far-right article subjects. I am bias though, this editor has rubbed me up the wrong way more times than I can count, often over citations for fairly uncontroversial claims about far-right figures and media outlets. The ridiculous argy-bargy in post truth American politics at it's finest, IMO. Bacondrum 07:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by starship.paint (2)

diff My concern here is that a number of right leaning sites did report on this (Daily Caller, Daily Wire, PM, WesterJournal, the site discussed above) We also have left leaning sites saying Ngo is going/did testify (Meaww Oregonian ). Even if we don't see the sites who reported on the testimony as reliable we clearly have a number of sources that think this is important ... If the statement can be verified is that particular claim still unreliable?

diff My argument was if a large number of right sources, even unreliable ones, are saying "Person testified to this" then it probably is something that is important to at least some readers.

Not impressed by the arguments being put forth by Springee here. I wouldn't argue to include content because unreliable sources think it is important. Likewise I wouldn't argue to include content just because some readers (who follow unreliable sources?) would find it important. We have standards here and that is adhering to reliable sources.

Furthermore listing Meaww above smacks of desperation - - a media company from India which doesn't have weekend business hours, and has only two people on its masthead. The Meaww article in question is written by an "entertainment journalist" whose specialty is apparently reviewing TV/films. Shows cause for concern about Springee's judgment, unfortunately. starship.paint (exalt) 14:32, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Kyohyi

I'm going to pose a question to the Admin's below. What impartial (preferably also non-circular) mechanism do we employ to determine whether a source is reliable? Are we really suggesting that the editor Consensus model (E.G. RSP) is actually impartial. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:23, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

The crux of this case is the allegation that Springee wants to use unreliable sources and questions reliable sources. This pre-supposes that our method of determining reliable sources (E.G. RSP) is actually consistent with our NPOV policy. If it isn't, then we've created a nice loophole to subvert NPOV through manipulation on what sources are reliable. Which we can then use to remove people from topics since those sources are of-course not usable. Which is all one nice positive feedback loop that reinforces one particular POV. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:55, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not here to re-hash policy. I wanted to know how you were interpreting it. My follow up response was to answer why I thought it was relevant to the case. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

To the IP, what subverts NPOV is the lack of impartial methodology in determining what classifies as a reliable source. The consensus model at RSP is vulnerable to small groups of people, and their biases. An editor who is sympathetic to one point of view is going to overlook factual inaccuracies that conform to their ideological bias. Further they are going to be harsher on factual inaccuracies that go against their ideological bias. That's simple human psychology. If you read WP: IMPARTIAL it tells us that inappropriate tone can be introduced by how we select our facts. Well this is how we select our facts so we need to make sure that it is impartial. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Gorillawarfare I'm talking about reliable vs. unreliable, not just deprecation, how many discussions get the same level of participation as the Daily mail RFC? Further, I think the IP themselves shows us the problem. Particularly their naming the Portland Mercury as a center-right publication. A cursory look the portland mercury's things to read tab gives us news, music, food & drink all of which are non-ideological. Then there's I, anonymous which is an anonymous rant and confession page, would have to go through that specifically to get any ideological bias. And finally you have savage love, and cannabis. Those two subjects are pretty solidly on the left. So, you have three non-ideological topics, one which would require further analysis, two which are political left subjects, and that's "center-right". --Kyohyi (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jzg I'm curious, how can a media organization be popular, and fringe simultaneously? The opposite of mainstream is not fringe. Mainstream means dominant, the opposite of dominant is not-dominant. Which includes minority, which is not fringe. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Willbb234

Firstly, Springee is correct in saying This feels like weaponizing AE to solve content disputes. The articles on which Springee edits are highly controversial and there are, naturally, many disputes and debates regarding content. Springee always goes about these discussions in a civil manner and is willing to listen to others, and allowing discussions to be resolved (for example, Talk:Odal (rune)#RfC CPAC stage Odal shape).

Springee is correct to be cautious of Op-Eds and Springee's beliefs are often supported by others, see Talk:Tucker Carlson. Some editors want to shove every opinion and statement from reliable sources onto articles relating to the American far-right, and these should only go ahead following discussion and consensus. Springee often facilitates these discussions and actions by performing reverts where appropriate and participating in talk page discussions. Springee has been accused of not following common source guidelines such as WP:RS and WP:RSP, but I think that their comment This article might have a NPOV issue but if everything in it is sourced to RS the its not due to a sourcing issue. Instead you might look at how much weight is devoted to various aspects/topics and if any particular one is getting too much emphasis. (at Talk:Tucker Carlson) sums up their actions; they are not here to kick away RSs, but rather to add and remove information based off WP:DUE, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:OPINION. This may involve approaching, discussing and gaining consensus on the use of less reliable sources, or even those that are considered unreliable such as The Daily Caller, in order create well-rounded article that covers aspects of an article which the mainstream media can't be bothered or does not want to cover. Springee always explains their objections to the addition of content and is willing to follow up with more evidence, and, as such, it would be unfair to say that they are unreasonable as it seems those with problems with this are more WP:IDONTLIKEIT rather than genuine concerns.

As for the reopening and repeated removal of content, I would be much more concerned if this was performed several times in the span of a few weeks, but over five months, community consensus and coverage by sources can change hugely. Kind regards, Willbb234 (please {{ping}} me in replies) 18:33, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by PaleoNeonate

Adding the Talk:PragerU archives to the to-read list, that wasn't mentioned above, —PaleoNeonate – 19:04, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Thomas Meng

I actually was the one who inserted LaCorte News as secondary source for Andy Ngo's congressional testimony and first deleted the Intercept's derogatory claim about Ngo, while most of Springee's actions are on the talk page, which do not warrant this AE report.

Springee is not pushing any unreliably sourced content, contrary to what the OP claimed. The content under question is whether including the info that Ngo testified before Congress on June 29 is WP:DUE. Dlthewave thinks that it is not due since no "reliable, secondary source" covered it. But it's also no secret that WP:RSP consensus has declared most conservative sources as "unreliable", while left-wing mainstream media do not think covering Ngo's testimony advances their cause. That's why I went to look for alternative sources and found LaCorte News. But a left-leaning editor promptly deleted it, saying that LaCorte News has not "established any reputation for fact-checking", and is therefore "unreliable". As such, left-leaning users have created a Catch-22 scenario where a significant congressional testimony (that says much about a person's reliability) can't even be included in a journalist's WP bio, and when Springee goes to defend LaCorte News for such verifiable content, he gets reported to AE, smh.

Springee is also NOT pushing to remove RS material. The material under question is whether we should include an Intercept journalist's claim that says to the effect that Ngo's congressional testimony in August was a "total farce" and that Ngo shamelessly omitted something he should've said. But this is completely biased opinion rather than news. And according to the Intercept's RSP entry, there is consensus that The Intercept is generally reliable for news, but it doesn't say its hostile aopinions are either reliable or due. Therefore, we cannot say that this is RS material.

I also notice a shocking double standard here. Left-leaning editors can go to Ngo's page and carelessly remove reliably sourced and objective info from Reason, despite objections from Volteer1, while Springee gets reported to AE when he removes biased opinion from the Intercept.

As North8000 noted, Andy Ngo's article is comprised of 90% biased opinions against him rather than encyclopedic content. I very much agree, also with admin DGG here. This is a situation where some editors are using WP's DUE policy for censorship of objective, verifiable information. Thomas Meng (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Thomas Meng, that's not exactly what I said. I don't want us to remove all mention of unreliable opinion also, or mention it only in terms of the attacks on it, because so large a portion of people in the world think its reliable, and rational people have to deal with them. The first step in dealing with them is to know what they say. DGG ( talk ) 23:44, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by North8000

I've seen Springee at work and they are one of the most polite, careful cautious editors I've seen who is willing to work on contentious articles. IMO at contentious articles there is too much viewing someone as an opponent based on which "side" they are on and even trying to deprecate them or use the system to do so. IMO the current article has too much of being a "hit piece" with cherry-picked narrow negative material having been argued in. I think that Springee has been trying to encourage having less of that and more informative encyclopedic content and has encountered a rough reception there accordingly. IMHO nothing Springee has done is even near requiring sanctions. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by PackMecEng

Yeah I have to say, I am little surprised by the accusations here. I am not really seeing much wrong on Springee's side. Everywhere I see them working it is always trying to build consensus even if it does not always favor their point of view. I will have to echo those above in that it is a little disappointing to see an attempt to weaponize AE like this.

I would also like to register my total shock at seeing GW list themselves as uninvolved in pretty much anything AP related. But especially something related to right-wing politics. I mean just take a quick look at their recent AE and ANI filings. Every single one is basically targeting someone they see as right wing. PackMecEng (talk) 00:03, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

IP 69.158.90.121 I have to ask. What is your thing with Springee? At this point you have already been blocked for harassing them. I think you should just let it go. PackMecEng (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Atsme

I agree with North8000, and will add that I never imagined Springee being named in an AE case. Editors are expected to present substantive arguments in a civil and reasonable manner during the consensus building process, especially when trying to comply with NPOV. Of course the opposition is going to object to it and present their own argument. How is civil POV pushing not an oxymoron? A proper debate to reach consensus is, in its simplest form, civil pov pushing. Are we going to start topic banning all editors for doing their job? Unless one side is being uncivil, I see no cause for any admin action here. I'm also of the mind that these value-laden labels need to stop, because I've seen them being misapplied, or purposely used in a derogatory manner in noncompliance with WP:PA, and/or being attached to people who reject such a label. I don't think it is either accurate or proper for editors of an encyclopedia to publish in Wikivoice the contentious labels used by clickbait online news sources. We can use intext attribution and quote the source but that should be as far as it goes. Those types of labels can be just as derogatory and insulting as any other contentious label, be it motivated by gender, race or religion. If my memory serves, I can vaguely recall a time when we didn't even mention a person's political party in the infobox. As for sources, Jimbo summed it up quite well. Atsme 💬 📧 02:00, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• I find that some of the reasoning behind the source disagreements among our admins rather interesting because it appears source bias might have been overlooked. A source can be reliable and still be biased toward a single POV and that doesn't resolve the NPOV issues associated with that bias. What DGG is suggesting is quite correct in that in order to achieve NPOV, we need to present all substantial views, and we cannot accomplish that if we're only going to use biased RS. Speaking of consensus, and how we determine what sources are or are not reliable, let's take a closer look at WP:RSN. First of all, how can an "opinion" be unreliable in the encyclopedic sense? It's an opinion and everybody has one, so we simply use intext attribution if we're going to include that opinion. WP:RS is a guideline that clearly tells us context matters when determining reliability of a source for inclusion of specific material. If V and OR have been satisfied, we cite the source and use intext - it's really a simple process. I find moving away from that process rather disconcerting. WP:IAR, NPOV, V and OR are all policies and take precedence over a guideline. I'm also concerned that there is far too much emphasis being placed on the reliability of biased sources which tends to be used by political ideologues when pushing their POV. News sources are not medical journals, and we don't have a MEDRS-style sourcing requirement for news sources - what we have to rely on is WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NEWSORG, which are being discounted with more emphasis being placed on the guideline WP:RS. We have become a mirror of biased media which threatens our encyclopedic diversity and neutrality as pointed out by Bloomberg. There also needs to be much wider community input regarding the process we use at WP:RSN as it relates to WP:RSP which is a process that has not been vetted by the wider community; therefore, it ranks as an essay. It can be helpful when the material to be added is not challenged, but material in AP is almost always challenged. There is an article titled The Limits of Volunteerism and the Gatekeepers of Team Encarta that speaks to the consensus issue. Quoting an excerpt relative to consensus: Since decisions are by those who participate in a localized discussion, leaving cedes the decision-making power to those willing to engage in the least logical and sane response. This incentivizes not just obsessive but also belligerent behavior and even harassment, and empowers those privileged with the time and resources to engage in this behavior. Minor quibbles about grammar is one thing, but these techniques are frequently used by political ideologues, ethnic nationalists, and conspiracy theorists. Professor Bryce Peake called this the “hegemony of the asshole consensus.” Let's not forget COI among competitive sources, particularly those online and on cable TV, all of whom are competing for the same advertising dollars in our highly competitive online environment. WP:NOTNEWS tells us While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Misplaced Pages is not written in news style. In addition to writing in encyclopedic tone, events must be put into encyclopedic context. I think more emphasis needs to be placed on NOTNEWS. Masem's comment about RECENTISM is on target . Atsme 💬 📧 20:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by The Four Deuces

Re: Rejecting opinion pieces published by reliable sources. In this case, Springee is correct. Dithwave accuses Springee of "Characterizing the reliability of a Washington Post op-ed as similar to a self-published source." But News organizations says, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." IOW, it has to be assessed on a similar basis as Self-published sources. Note also that this is a Biography of a living person, which requires strict adherence to content guidelines.

User:JzG wrote, "if you remove opinions, you're left with the inescapable conclusion that Ngo isn't actually important at all." That seems to be the problem. The subject is of marginal notability and details are being filled in with otherwise unreliable sources. I would suggest to both sides that if we don't have reliable sources to have a detailed article, the cautious approach is to have a stub article with well sourced material.

TFD (talk) 02:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by 力

Lacorte News appears to clearly not be a reliable source; if Springee were tendentiously claiming otherwise there would be course for action. I don't see any diffs remotely along that line or that justify any action.

More broadly: the community and ARBCOM probably will BOTH have to have a serious discussion of how people are mis-using WP:RSP. That page was established informally based on the Daily Mail RFCs and as an index of WP:RSN threads, but has led to a flood of RFCs where the opinions of a few people allow editors to view news sources as "always reliable" or "always unreliable". This is, in many situations, appropriate. We do not want people citing The Onion or http://diply.com (a clickbait site once in the Alexa top 200). We also don't want black propaganda (aka "fake news") (white propaganda is in some situations fine) or sources that regularly intermingle fiction with fact.

However, bona fide news outlets, even those with a clear house political bias, are primary sources. WP:PSTS states "it is easy to misuse" primary sources. I find that many of the editors active in American politics will not agree that contemporary New York Times is even a primary source, so am skeptical that consensus to improve will be found quickly. But the idea of a regime of GOODSITES and BADSITES and an implied suggestion that editors should not use their own reason and expertise to determine how sources are used ... User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich

First Law of AP2 Sourcing: There exists no fact X that (1) should be included in an encyclopedia article about American politics but (2) cannot be sourced to any book by any reputable publisher, any non-predatory academic journal, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, NPR, PBS, C-SPAN, CNN, CNBC, Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg News, Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Politico, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Star Tribune, or any leading media outlet in any of the 50 United States. Levivich /_hound 06:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Aquillion

I feel that some people are missing the real issue here. It is one thing to argue for universally looser sourcing requirements in order to represent as many points of view as possible, or to argue for universally tighter sourcing requirements and less reliance on opinionated or low-quality sources - I try to lean towards the latter, but both are certainly defensible positions.

The problem is that Springee is tendentiously arguing for extremely loose sourcing requirements for things he agrees with, while arguing against even comparatively high-quality sources for things he disagrees with. He is hardly the first editor to do so, and if we removed everyone guilty of that I doubt the AP2 topic area would have many editors left, but this seems a particularly stark example.

More broadly... every editor has biases or opinions, especially in topic area like this. We work past them and manage to collaborate by sticking (as much as we can) to strict definitions of reliability, balance, and due weight. It is one thing to argue over the reliability of a source, or to argue for using a source in specific contexts according to exceptions such as WP:ABOUTSELF; but if an editor acknowledges that a source is unreliable in the specific context where they want to use it, yet argues that it should be included anyway because it establishes what they consider some vital truth or essential point, then what they are actually saying is not simply that we should WP:IAR, but that we should override the rules in the service of producing an article that advances their personal view of the world.

I am certain that anyone who makes that argument doesn't see it that way, because to them their personal view of the world is simply the truth and any article that fails to reflect that is unfairly biased or woefully incomplete. But the whole reason we have the rules on sourcing that some people in this discussion are arguing we should selectively ignore is because we're trying to produce an encyclopedia that is more than just the opinions of its individual editors - that is, one of the core principles of Misplaced Pages is that we can produce a useful, worthwhile encyclopedia by adhering, as much as we can, to WP:V.

I have no doubt that the editors arguing for special exceptions to our sourcing rules believe that they are doing so in pursuit of the truth and that an article without those exceptions will be unjustly biased; but it is nonetheless tendentious editing. --Aquillion (talk) 07:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by OID

DGG: "there are few RS on the right. But we need to hear about their view anyway". Actually no we dont. This is not according to our rules on reliable sources and is essentially how racists, misogynists and other right wing extremes seek to convince people their views are valid (not that those views dont appear on the left wing as well, its just not as formally enshrind in policy). We are under no obligation, nor is there any policy backing for that standpoint. It is perfectly acceptable to use an unreliable source on an article about themselves (then we line up the 15 reliable sources saying why they are wrong) but we have no need to use them in any other venue. Eg we quote the Daily Mail in an article about the Daily Mail, but we dont use it elsewhere. Your view is essentially 'every view has equal weight and deserves to be heard' which is amoral, dangerous, and a threat to Misplaced Pages's integrity. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

There is definitely a problem. I am not sure if the problem is Springee, specifically. Here is the issue:

When multiple reliable independent sources describe a figure popular with one political extreme or the other, in terms that their supporters dislike, they will expend enormous amounts of energy trying to "balance" the consensus of reliable independent sources with pretty much anything that challenges it, in the name of NPOV.

But NPOV is not the average between mainstream and hyper-partisan sources. NPOV is the average of mainstream sources. The opposite of mainstream is not conservative, or liberal. The opposite of mainstream is fringe. The fact that the majority of popular right-wing media is now fringe and not reliable is a problem for us, but it is not our problem to fix. Misplaced Pages editors are not supposed to mine unreliable sources, decide which nuggets are reliable anyway, and use them. We can report on what the right thinks from reliable sources that report on what the right thinks. God knows there have been enough New York Times interviews with the same three "women for Trump" in a diner in Pennsyltucky.

There is also an appalling tendency to use WP:RSOPINION to justify the inclusion of any primary-sourced opinion from anybody who has a blue link. "X said Y on his blog, source, X saying Y on his blog". We should never do that. I don't care if X is Alex Jones or Noam Chomsky. Opinions are like arseholes: everybody has one, and we can only distinguish notable opinion by seeing if it's reported in reliable independent secondary sources.

The solution, in my view, is to reduce the amount of blow-by-blow coverage, reduce the reams of verbiage about Twitter spats and other things, and edit the article down to what reliable, independent, secondary sources say, directly about the subject. I believe that 90% or more of these intractable disputes would be solved by doing just that.

And if that leaves you with nothing to say? Perhaps the subject is just not that important. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:16, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

(Not directly involved but would feel wrong to be included in "uninvolved" due to past participation at BLP/N + NPOV/N)

I was going to write something longer on my usual NOT#NEWS/RECENTISM issues related to how we cover contemporary alt/far-right people and how Springee is at least appealing towards that, but I think its easier to simply point to what Four Dueces and JzG have written - the solution that needs to be done across the board is to significantly trim down these laundry lists of every slight reported in the mainstream RSes about these people or groups, and instead write at a high-level about these individuals, which would avoid the need to try to balance with poor RS; these need to be written from the ten- or twenty-year out POV, and not the Wikinews POV. We (Misplaced Pages) need to be far far less vindictive about writing towards these people or groups than the media does per NPOV, though we still certainly be able to summarize the broad opinions of the media about these people and groups. This may require a wholly separate centralized discussion to consider but that's beyond the scope of AE here. --Masem (t) 15:47, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Bgrus22

• General comment: Hello Bgrus22 here, thought I would add, since I was mentioned, that Springee described his interaction with me correctly to the best of my recollection and that in those early days of my editing I saw, and still see him as, a well intentioned, rule following, user who was educated someone learning how the site operates. Bgrus22 (talk) 05:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Crossroads

This very much looks to me like an attempt to take down an opponent. I have always found Springee to be both exceedingly civil and making an utmost effort to be balanced in some very difficult topic areas. I don't see serious problems warranting a topic ban above at all. For example, he is absolutely on good ground in rejecting a Washington Post op-ed, and especially on a WP:BLP. The Four Deuces covered this. And that is the sort of thing being presented as grounds for "enforcement"? I agree with 力 (power~enwiki) that there needs to be a major discussion on the ideological misuse and distortion of WP:RSP, which has gotten worse and worse in the time I and it have been around. I've read and participated in enough discussions at RSN to know that they are little more than a popularity contest, and double-standards are rife. Things that would get a right-leaning source marked as unreliable or deprecated (which in practice is treated the same anyway) are waved away for left-leaning sources. Look at the WP:RSP entry for HuffPost, for example. It openly admits that it uses clickbait headlines which are unreliable and is generally biased. Would a right-leaning source be listed as green/yellow for "politics" if it did this? Would that not be taken as evidence of general unreliability or of falsehoods? Many other outlets that are heavily or entirely opinion and are openly biased are green if left-leaning, red if right-leaning, even if otherwise comparable. Yeah, yeah, asymmetric polarization and all that. That may explain the phenomenon somewhat, but not entirely. Editors' own feelings about what is True and Righteous will have an impact.

The above is why statements about "the sourcing rules" are problematic. The WP:CREEP in AMPOL has been incredible, and the NPOV of these "rules" (as refracted through a thick lens of interpretation by individual editors) is very questionable. I am all for MEDRS, the SCIRS essay, and the preference for scholarly sources as specified at SOURCETYPES and defend those often. But when it comes to mass media sources, our "rules" seem to be going astray. And people are afraid to suggest this or prevent POV railroading of BLPs, lest they get labeled, explicitly or implicitly, as far-right/racist/sexist/transphobic/white supremacist.

I want to emphasize that, regarding Springee, I see nothing but a run of the mill content dispute above, one that is well within even the current rules. Crossroads 22:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC) edited Crossroads 02:32, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Statement by MJL

I went back and forth on commenting here, and that's mostly because I respect a lot of the people who have commented thus far on either side of the issue. I also don't want to make a trivially short post nor repeat things that have already been said. Therefore, I am going to try and come at this with a fresh angle in order to make sense of my own thoughts on the matter.

It's pretty much widely understood that Springee holds minority views and dissents with some current established consensus as it regards the AP2 topic field, interpretations of the reliable sourcing policy, and how best to portray articles neutrally. If that is not the case, I do hope someone will correct me if that is not the correct understanding of the situation.

The basis of this report is whether or not Springee can be considered disruptive due to his:

1. (Point A) Arguing for inclusion of unreliable sources, and
2. (Point B) Rejecting opinion pieces published by reliable sources.

Of the diffs provided to support both claims, 6 diffs occur in talkspace and 3 diffs occur in mainspace (all ranging from a 6 month period). All of the mainspace diffs regard Point B.

I don't think that Point A in itself is a sanctionable offense. Merely arguing that we should include a source of questionable reliability is not an inherently disruptive act, but there are times when doing so repeatedly could be seen as disruptive. However the three diffs presented do not support that here, so I think we can throw out Point A as it relates to conduct problems (people are free to debate the underlying content dispute there, but I'm going to ignore that).

Now, Point B is a sanctionable offense in my opinion.. except when it comes to WP:BLPs. We have a higher standard for inclusion of material regarding BLPs for legal and policy reasons, and I have not seen enough evidence that Springee was removing these sources in anything other than good faith. I mean.. we aren't talking about news reports here from reliable sources; he was removing opinion pieces, right? Opinions on a BLP are going to inherently be contentious, and that is going to be double the case if said opinions are negative. Editors should be encouraged to freely debate said topics and discuss article inclusions standards on a case-by-case basis.

Don't get me wrong; there might be a reason to sanction Springee. I'm just not seeing it here with this specific evidence nor this exact reasoning. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐ 22:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Nsk92

Both WP:V and WP:NPOV are fundamental tenets of Misplaced Pages, but between them WP:V is by far more important. The matters of bias and neutrality can and should be mitigated in the way we present the information. But mitigation won't help if the information we present is factually inaccurate. We are not fact-checkers and we have to depend on reliability of the sources that we use. That's how Misplaced Pages works. That's why it is a cardinal sin on Misplaced Pages to push the use of a known unreliable source. Pleading for balance cannot be accepted as an excuse or an explanation. Just a few days ago the New York Post published a doozy of a fake news story about VP Kamala Harris. Even when caught, they didn't fully retract the story. Now, compared to the Daily Caller, the New York Post is a paragon of journalistic integrity. We should still try to avoid using the NY Post as a source for anything other than sports scores and the weather (and try to find better sources even for those). More broadly speaking, I agree with JzG that we should also be trying to limit quoting opinions (whether from the left or from the right) unless those opinions are themselves widely reported upon. Nsk92 (talk) 15:55, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Mr Ernie

The problem with this blanket source deprecation is that it limits the availability of information to create an encyclopedia to a certain handful of sources and what they choose to write about. If Levivich's First Law of AP2 Sourcing is true, Mr Ernie's corollary holds that those sources don't write about everything encyclopedically notable, and not everything they write is notable either. An interesting and tragic example is that The Daily Caller ran a story about Cuomo's mishandling of nursing home COVID information in May of 2020, something the NYT didn't report until a few days ago. Either the NYT journalists deliberately ignored the Daily Caller article back in May or perhaps worse, decided not to investigate it due to Cuomo's status as a heroic foil to Trump, but regardless here's a clear case where "conservative" readers were better informed than others. Misplaced Pages editors should have the freedom to use that factual information where appropriate, instead of having it blocked on grounds of source deprecation. Mr Ernie (talk) 17:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Springee

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

• No source is completely unreliable. I think we can include material like this, and clearly indicate where it came from, and let the reader judge. A variety of views is essential to NPOV. I certainly know that being aware of the opinions I disagree with is essential to maintaining my own POV, and enabling me to support it in arguments.I may be upset that others hold views I thing wrong, but that's what the world is like. If we refuse to include information material like this, those publishing it have won.-- they've forced us to hide under the covers. I do not think Springee is being a nuisance, but rather those trying to remove him from the field might be the ones whose actions are questionable. NPOV is not defined as MyPOV. DGG ( talk ) 15:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• Note: I edit within similar topic areas (American right-wing/far-right individuals/groups/etc.) but I put my comment down here as I am not involved with respect to Springee, and I don't believe I have substantially edited any articles that they actively edit. I went back and forth on where to put my comment, and in the end put it here just to pick a spot. Either way, I intend to offer my views but not levy any enforcement actions of my own.@DGG: I'm a little shocked to see this comment, which I'm hoping I am misunderstanding. You are saying we should include statements from sources that the community has agreed are unreliable and even deprecated? NPOV requires us to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic", not to throw out WP:RS. Or are you referring to some other material?More generally: Repeatedly basing arguments in sources the community has agreed are unreliable, or insisting that community-designated reliable sources are not reliable, is disruptive. Claiming that this argument is some kind of IAR frankly does not hold water–if a source is generally unreliable or deprecated we should not be citing it articles nor should we be basing content decisions in that source.The whole point of WP:RSN and WP:RSP is so we don't have to keep having these discussions over and over and over again on every page that wishes to use common sources. Springee has been around long enough by now to know that if they disagree with the community's evaluation of the reliability of a given source, they should begin a new discussion at RSN, not engage in crusades to either use unreliable sources or not use reliable ones on individual talk pages. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I certainly am saying we should include in a very limited way content from unreliable sources in order to maintain a NPOV. Deprecated means we are careful to use them only when necessary; unreliable means we need confirmation especially for negative BLP. This is in contrast to our usual overly optimistic assumption that sotherspources are reasonably sure to be reliable. It's important to designate some sources this way in order to 1/prevent their casual use when better sources are available 2/discourage including the sort of unencyclopedic gossip that some of these sources are notorious for 3/prevent overbalancing the encycopedia in their extreme direction, as some encyclopedia articles have in the past been biased. But the principle of nPOV is that we include the full range of sources in a proportional way. Otherwise we'd be misusing WP:RS for censorshi[p. We need to to include sources that are unreliable (indicating their nature) so they can be intelligently refuted. Otherwise we are blinding ourselves and our readers to reality. We cannot present only the correct side of a argument. Various religions did that when the destroyed heretical books. Various dictatorial regimes did that and still do when the suppress opposition books. I need hardly point out the danger of a list or proscribed sources when we see the 2nd most powerful country of the world trying to do that--and banning WP. . If we start following them example, it play into the hands of censors and bigots. It is extremely important for bigotry and ignorance to be opposed. How can one oppose what they cannot see?
  • GW, I doubt you're really shocked, because you know my view on this well enough. It's been consistent not just on WP but all my life. My father was a zealot in a far left organization. The organization said it supported free speech. When I grew up enough to see the inconsistencies, he finally did have to sdmit that he supported free speech--except for the views he regarded as harmful to the progress. of society. He was rather disappointed when I did not become politically active in his organization, despite my agreement then and now with many of its goals. I never could explain it to him--one cannot explain liberty to true believers in a doctrine. I'm not going to try to explain it to you.
  • The reason we have these discussion on individual pages is to deal with cases where otherwise dubious cases should be used. It's the way we ought to proceed--not here. To bring it to a place where arbitrary action is common and therules oriented to encourage and protect one-sided decisions is an attempt at misuusing our processes for promulgation of a POV. DGG ( talk ) 17:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I certainly know that you are concerned about left-wing POV on Misplaced Pages, as I've seen you say as much at AE lately. But I am genuinely shocked that you think NPOV means we should incorporate material from unreliable sources. If reliable sources have described unreliable sources' reporting, for example as many did with the New York Post's reporting on the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, then we should absolutely include and refute it as you say. But the idea that we should be "balancing" reliable sourcing with unreliable sourcing in order to try to get a balance between left- and right-wing POVs is contrary to some of our most fundamental policies, and that is why I am surprised to see you support it.As for your commentary on "destruction of heretical books", "dictatorial regimes", "playing into the hands of censors and bigots", this is unhelpful hyperbole. No one is banning entire sides of arguments or "blinding people to reality" here; editors are simply expecting that their colleagues respect the long-standing, fundamental policy of avoiding sources with poor reputations for fact-checking. There are plenty of reliable media sources with centrist or right-wing points of view that can be readily incorporated into articles (The Wall Street Journal (RSP entry), Bloomberg (RSP entry), The Daily Telegraph (RSP entry), and Reason (RSP entry) are a few right-leaning sources that come to mind). GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
      • you are then saying you don't want to provide any information from anything further to the right than these relatively mildly right wing sources. . There's a large part of the world out beyond them (unfortunately, in my political view, but it's there none the less). You are proposing we provide the material for readers to judge them only from their enemies, and then you call that NPOV! There seem to be two sorts of people on the left: those who want to take on their opponents, and those who want to pretend they don't exist. DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
        • @DGG: No, I am saying that Misplaced Pages articles should reflect significant views that are represented in reliable sources. This is a fundamental policy that I certainly didn't expect to find resistance to. I am neither trying to "take on my opponents" nor pretend they don't exist; I am trying to write an encyclopedia. If you think more right-wing sources ought to be designated as reliable, that's another discussion, but the fact that few sources farther right than the WSJ manage to maintain high editorial quality does not mean we should throw out our RS and NPOV for the sake of "balance". GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
        • DGG, "reliable sources" shouldn't have anything to do with left versus right. Reliable sources are those with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, independent of any particular point of view. Please don't conflate verifiability with political rhetoric. – bradv🍁 23:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

          I strongly agree with Brad --In actu (Guerillero) 15:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

          👆 This. ~Awilley (talk) 22:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

    • I think that's a little naïve . From my political perspective, at any rate, there is a very clear reason why there are few RS on the right. But we need to hear about their view anyway, using what sources there are, but alerting the users. In further reply to GW, that the Post removed the lie made me think there might be some chance for it after all. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• @Kyohyi: I'm not sure what your question has to do with this AE request, but reliability of sources is, like nearly everything on Misplaced Pages, determined by consensus. It certainly isn't impartial; I'm not sure there exists a way to evaluate sources that would be truly impartial. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @Kyohyi: If you would like to revisit our community's entire process for determining source reliability, that is a much larger can of worms than can or will be handled at AE. WP:VPP or WT:RSN is probably the place for that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
    • @Kyohyi: While I maintain that your general concern is not something that can be addressed at AE, I do feel that I should point out these were not RSN decisions made by "small groups of people". To take for example The Daily Caller, WP:RSP records eight different discussions at RSN in addition to the 2019 RfC, which was well-attended by editors expressing diverse views. Regardless, if an editor believes that an reliable source designation (or unreliable source designation) is the result of POV-pushing or some other malfeasance, the solution is not to just continue editing as though it doesn't exist. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
      • @Kyohyi: Please re-read what I said. I am referring to and linking to discussions about The Daily Caller, which is one of the sources at the center of this dispute, not The Daily Mail, which is unrelated. As for the IP's evaluation of source bias, I also disagree with it, but that is only indicative of their personal opinions and not a community-wide decision. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• @PackMecEng: I have not "targeted" anyone. AP, BLP, and gender-related topics are the only areas covered by DS where I edit, so it tracks that I would only file requests in those areas. If anyone here thinks my comments should be moved up, I have no objections; as I already very clearly stated I edit in these topic areas and have no intention of trying to levy sanctions here. I simply did not want to imply I was a party to this dispute, as I am not. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • ^^Clash of the Titans!^^ (And by "clash" I mean a free exchange of ideas...) El_C 18:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• Having reviewed the evidence presented in the initial report, I don't see anything immediately sanction worthy. The slow motion edit warring over Bellingcat comes close, but given that it wasn't a pure one-against-many dispute, I find some fault with the editors advocating for inclusion of the content for not centralizing the discussion (via RSN, RfC, or some other method) in order to achieve a firmer consensus earlier on in the process, and thus am reluctant to suggest sanctions. I think that there is a broader pattern of what could be considered civil POV-pushing, but in the absence of clear-cut bad faith argumentation or editing I don't think that a sanction will be imposed at AE. _signed, Rosguill 21:26, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• I'm having a hard time understanding some comments here--like, "why are we here?" Some sources are indeed never to be trusted never to be cited on Misplaced Pages--I think that should be obvious. The Daily Caller is one of them, and Springee, I am more than a bit surprised to find you somehow accepting that website and others. These are indeed "right-wing sources", but that doesn't mean "sources acceptable on Misplaced Pages". They are not news sources--but I have the feeling we've covered this ground before.

  An editor with this much experience and this much good will should not be making these mistakes (because that is what they are unless they were not mistakes and simpley made in bad faith), and in the context of AP2, it quickly becomes disruptive. We should not be having interminable discussions about what sources are and are not acceptable when, at least for some sources, it's quite obvious. If we want to maintain neutrality, surely we can do so with sources that may be biased this way or that but are, at the least, somewhat trustworthy. Sorry Springee, but I am not feeling you here--and DGG, I'm sorry, but whatever is on the right needs to be reliable before I'll entertain the thought of reading it--hey, same with what's on the left. You seem to suggest we should read them because they're on the right and we are thus obligated to entertain their opinions because of an ethical stance, no matter how unreliable they are. Essentially this is very much like what we saw in the gun control case, where RS was very much at stake. Drmies (talk) 01:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  • This seems to be saying as justification that we have a policy to be ignorant. This would seem a confusion between repeating dangerous falsehoods, which is evil, and reporting on them using whatever sources are available along with a warning, which is responsible writing. To avoid telling people of danger is almost as wrong as perpetrating the danger. I cannot believe you understand the implications. I'm not going to respond further; if thinking about that doesn't convince people, nothing will. DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Atsme, I fully agree that we should pay no attention at all to clickbait online sources. Thank you. I just saw that the headline for The Daily Caller tonight is about Hunter Biden and a Chinese equity firm--not Covid or infrastructure or whatever. Drmies (talk) 02:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)