Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Proposed decision

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Active:

1. Aoidh (talk · contribs)
2. Cabayi (talk · contribs)
3. CaptainEek (talk · contribs)
4. Daniel (talk · contribs)
5. Elli (talk · contribs)
6. HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs)
7. KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs)
8. Primefac (talk · contribs)
9. Sdrqaz (talk · contribs)
10. Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs)
11. ToBeFree (talk · contribs)
12. Worm That Turned (talk · contribs)
13. Z1720 (talk · contribs)

Inactive:

1. Liz (talk · contribs)

Outgoing arbitrators, active on this case:

1. Guerillero (talk · contribs)
2. Moneytrees (talk · contribs)

Recused:

1. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs)

As noted in the ACN announcement of the 2025 Arbitration Committee, Outgoing members are eligible ... to remain active on cases accepted before their term ended. Outgoing arbitrators Guerillero and Moneytrees have opted to remain active for this case, and incoming arbitrator ScottishFinnishRaddish has recused himself. - Aoidh (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Excellent work getting this up in schedule, and there are some great ideas here. I'm a big fan of the SPA sanction, but it might be worth having a couple more versions with different thresholds to vote on, e.g. 50% and 66%. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Would the SPA topic ban be indefinite, or time limited? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've gotten some grief from Barkeep for referring to warning at AE as finger wagging, and this is an example of why I use that language. Using Nish as an example, aside from the recent topic ban they were warned in Feb 24 for inappropriate commentary and Aug 23 for fostering a battleground environment. Makeandtoss was warned for slow motion edit warring and given a very final warning for battleground editing in 24, both after a block in Oct 23. Other parties have logged AE warnings and sanctions after ARBPIA4. Were these logged arbitration enforcement actions taken into account? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Valereee, I think that the 1000 word limit is a pretty strong weapon against sealioning. There's also the issue that it's fairly difficult to prove that something is sealioning rather than just discussion, especially when there is no clear consensus. You also have to balance sealioning against stonewalling, which are same branches on the same bush. We can't say that successfully stonewalling means that the other party is blocked for sealioning.

Another tool to keep this minimized would be for admins to just close discussions with WP:RFCBEFORE has been met. to stop the discussion the let them know to just start an RFC rather than arguing when it's obvious no consensus is forthcoming. People like to argue at length,^{(832 comments by 121 people, with over 425 comments by just 10 editors)} so saying that one person spilling a bunch of words is indeffable and someone else spilling a bunch of words is fine is a tough call. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Valereee, in the discussion I linked five parties to this case were responsible for around 200 comments. They were the ones dumping all that text, which would make them the ones cause[ing] their frustration to spike out of control. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the subcommittee is a bad idea, but I also think that if there were 10 admins looking to do that type of work then there would be a lot more participation at AE, and I wouldn't have 80 percent of the logged ARBPIA editor sanctions last year. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

On the topic of helping out AE, maybe a rule against making comments. Non-parties can only provide evidence pertaining to the report, and any commentary can be removed by an admin as a clerking action. Repeated addition of commentary would be considered disruptive. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Note I've added something along the lines of this, thanks SFR. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 03:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As far as the probation goes, it doesn't really add anything to the admin toolkit. Admins can already place that topic ban, and after the ARCA, I believe an admin can force any appeal to go through arbcom. It's basically just admonishment+. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:02, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

RoySmith, the balanced editing sanction. Sorry about not being more clear. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Moneytrees, that could work, but it opens a can of worms dealing with onus and status quo, so that would probably need addressing as well. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Coretheapple, I'm recused on the case, so there's not much I can do. I think the RFC/U idea probably wouldn't work because of the general battleground, and I'm up in the air about the balanced editing restriction. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Coretheapple, gotcha. I have to be honest, I haven't been able to come up with any ideas that seem reasonably likely to succeed without having severe drawbacks or other issues. It's especially difficult since there are multiple severe issues at play, and addressing one can make the others worse. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Arbcom will establish a very dangerous precedent if it's a bannable offense to make corrections referenced on offsite material, even if one applies independent thought and sometimes does the opposite of what offsite material may suggest to do, and the edits themselves are not disruptive. The current policies on this carve out a clear exception for independently determined, useful edits that can be defended on their own and don't specifically state that offwiki resources cannot be consulted. The fact that some arbitrators think it's inherently disruptive to consider what is written offsite and consider whether the encyclopedia should incorporate some version of those changes would theoretically prevent edits from being made based on Wikipediocracy, other 3rd party material about Wikipedia such as the Holocaust in Poland concentration camp papers (which arbcom themselves used to start a case), and other things. It's not canvassing or influence peddling to read offsite material and consider whether a true error has been pointed out, as the relevant behavioral guidelines say, and as was discussed. Arbcom would effectively be making new policy since the current policies don't cover this. It doesn't make sense to me that making corrections based on public postings in media is some form of votestacking or campaigning unless that can be shown, nor has it been shown to be MEAT or PROXY. Andre🚐 20:20, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with what Coretheapple has written on this. I don't see that the canvasssing guideline as I understood it was violated by reading a blog and determining to correct the errors that were pointed out or in at least one case support the existing article text contrary to the blog. That would be a significant broadening of what I understood to be canvassing, which is detailed and with bright lines and exceptions and principles outlined. The blog was a public, transparent treatment of Wikipedia topics without advocating any specific participating in consensus-based process or any specific edit, it was, as Coretheapple writes, a bunch of complaints, some of which I deemed actionable, some of which I did not. I don't see how Wikipedia is improved by banning the action on offsite complaining. And while if this is the policy I will certainly follow it, I don't see how I should have been expected to see my actions as willful violation of any previously-understood idea of canvassing. Andre🚐 23:26, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

At the risk of WP:BEANSing, which could be avoided by laying out reasonable limits on this, consider a thought experiment, which you may call Andre's Basilisk if you wish. A vandal, hoaxster, or subtle POV pusher could introduce deliberate errors or distortions to Wikipedia, and then write offsite blogs asking people to correct those errors. They could publicize the blog to mimic canvassing. The editors, seeing the blog, would then be enjoined against correcting those errors, because there is no exception for independently standing by edits. In short, they would, by virtue of having read the blog, be forced to let the bad edits stand. Andre🚐 23:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Re: to CaptainEek, could you please cite the specific diffs that you say I was POV pushing? Andre🚐 23:59, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I thank Beeblebrox for the message and acknowledge that despite our past disagreements, and while that may not exactly mean burying all hatchets, we can try to move on or at least be unemotional and rational and collaborate toward our common goals of improving Wikipedia and sane governance thereof. I also apologize to Beeblebrox for headaches I may have caused him in the past. I have apologized to him before but it can't hurt. Speaking of the past, while I normally wouldn't bring up stuff from years ago, CaptainEek wrote in 2022 of an RFC I had started to downgrade Fox News that, "I think this RfC is POV creep and am not fond of it." Then, as now, I don't think I am POV pushing, and you'll note that Fox News was finally downgraded a year later (2023). If someone can show me diffs where something I did was sanctionable to the level of the topic ban proposed, I will certainly commit to considering that and being introspective, as I always have been willing to do. Nobody previously has brought a specific claim of POV pushing. I have abided by the consensus and our community norms and policies and guidelines even when I might have opinions that differ from the ultimate consensus. I have sought to follow the community guidelines on dispute resolution and limit my participation to avoid overdoing it. To my knowledge, the complaint in Smallangryplanet's evidence is simply that the offsite blog talked about things and then I later edited similar things - not that I made the exact edits proposed or copied the arguments, or that I was pushing any POV. I believe my comments on talk pages and my edits are defensible on their own and not sanctionable, except for the proposed expansion of what is considered canvassing. I will of course consider if someone thinks my edits are POV pushing but they didn't need to wait until the proposed decision to tell me or sanction me if that were the case. Regardless of outcome, I'd like to know what specific diffs are POV pushing and what they actually consisted of and how it was violating, otherwise I don't see how I can commit to learning and improving my behavior if I were to appeal the topic ban if it ends up being imposed. Andre🚐 01:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I assume it's somewhat redundant to defend myself against claims already discussed in the evidence and the workshop phase. But let me just state that I strongly don't agree with CaptainEek's description of those pieces of evidence. Nableezy's example predates a topic ban that I already served out, and I wouldn't say I was being aggressive per se - certainly not compared to the egregious civility violations that CaptainEek already said were minor by other editors, so that's a ridiculous double standard. Yes, "sympathizer" is an unfortunate turn of phrase but I explained what I meant. I didn't "protect a sock," I assumed good faith (sometimes good faith assumptions are wrong!) and tried to give productive advice, I didn't "turn a blind eye" to newbies, I tried to help a newbie get on the straight path and I failed in doing that, but other editors were harassing and provoking him simply because of his choice of editing topics. Neither is a policy or guideline violation - this is exactly what editors should do: help people and assume good faith, rather than dogging ideological opponents and instantly being suspicious. I did not "twist the truth" and in fact Zero0000's evidence shows the opposite, that Zero0000 was incivil and acted with bias and I attempted to straighten things out and hold him accountable. Please explain what "twisted truth" is there. Please look more closely at the evidence and the characterizations before accepting without any critical thinking the claims made on ideological grounds that do not hold up. If those pieces of evidence were critical, why weren't they in the original draft of my remedy, rather than the spurious canvassing allegation? I'm not perfect, but it's clear that an even standard isn't being applied by CaptainEek if my conduct is sanctionable but the other parties except for BilledMammal all simply deserve a slap on the wrist. Andre🚐 21:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for providing an admonish alternative remedy. That addresses part of my concern in the previous message. Andre🚐 21:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The two prior cases against me are mentioned, even though they don't relate to conduct in this case. However, I'll just say that I've apologized for the case against me 7 years ago in several places, such as User:AndreJustAndre/2018, my talk. And as far as the January arbcom ban, which I also privately apologized regarding, I have endeavored to avoid the conduct and the actions that led to that, and I don't think anything's been presented to the contrary. I don't see that the case 7 years ago, in which I resigned my admin and bureaucrat permissions under a cloud, should reflect poorly on me in 2025 since I've learned from and haven't repeated those activities. And while I can't speak openly about the January arbcom ban, it was also a misunderstanding and one that I regret, and have endeavored to avoid repeating. I'm not sure what the value was of mentioning them, since they don't directly relate to this case, topic area, or conduct therein. Andre🚐 21:44, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Civility is not a minor infraction. It's disappointing to see pillars of the community handwave away civility. Andre🚐 21:46, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm also very disappointed that AGF or the bad faith that many people show in this topic area is not a bigger issue, as this is one of the foundational principles of Wikipedia. Andre🚐 01:08, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have been an editor since 2003, a former admin and bureaucrat, I took a lengthy break after the case in 2018 and returned in 2022, with 8500 edits in 2022, 6600 edits in 2023, and 6000+ edits in 2024, 442 in 2025 so far, and in 2024 alone after returning from the arbcom ban, I created 5 DYKs that appeared on the main page and a number of other articles. I always seek compromise and reconciliation and try to preserve civility. I served out a topic ban imposed by SFR and have endeavored to avoid any sign of testy or edgy comments. I'm not perfect and I've made mistakes and have attempted to own up to them. I also take exception that a comment was made about another editor being someone who always brings sources to the conversation or takes feedback well. I challenge anyone to find edits of mine that don't rely on extensive source research, or feedback I don't take. I've added hundreds of reliable sources to articles and even collaborated with those on opposing ideological lines on disputes, seeking compromise. It's disappointing that this isn't extended to me. Andre🚐 21:56, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I find Guerillero's proposal quite perplexing since no evidence has been presented of similar behavior to the Arbcom block or of any issues in any other topic areas. I will maintain that the evidence against me doesn't show that I am a net negative in any area. I am surprised that it's acceptable to make essentially accusations without evidence. Andre🚐 19:51, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As Elli points out, CaptainEek's vote (these are Votes not !votes, right!) on BilledMammal appears to conflate issues in the evidence presented by FOARP. Evidence was not presented by FOARP for BilledMammal's non-neutral editing. Perhaps separate evidence exists. It's true that BilledMammal does have a POV as we all do, but this remedy appears to rely on evidence that wasn't presented, and as Berchanhimez points out, while similar findings of fact were found for other editors, CaptainEek opposed the similar remedies in their cases. This raises the question as to what evidence was used in BilledMammal's case. In fact, CaptainEek so far has supported an indefinite topic ban for two editors more on the pro-Israel side of the dispute, despite issues with the evidence, while opposing any remedy other than a warning or admonishment for the others, despite apparently no issues with the evidence against them. Andre🚐 22:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Eek's amendment does somewhat address my comment here. I didn't evaluate those other batches of evidence closely enough to comment on their validity. Andre🚐 23:28, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with what berchanhimez has written about the BilledMammal evidence being borderline, and the possible chilling effect of calling his good-faith filings "vexatious." I don't think it's been at all proven that his filings were "weaponizing" process or were "vexatious," and I share concerns of allegations being taken at face value without being analyzed. Andre🚐 00:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

CaptainEek makes mention of something that happened 15 years ago, but that isn't the most recent action on Nishidani. I do want to note that Nishidani was last topic-banned about 2 and a half months ago: User_talk:Nishidani#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_sanction. Andre🚐 02:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for amending this portion. Andre🚐 21:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Agree with what SFR wrote about toothless logged warnings that weren't taken into account. He mentioned a few editors, but the FoF/remedies also omit the topic ban that Nableezy received in 2023. This follows other sanctions and warnings going back years. Andre🚐 23:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've already written some words as have others and I thank those such as Vice regent, Tryptofish, Coretheapple, and others who have written in my defense and I really appreciate that. Everyone has a POV and I've always tried to consider others' POV as well. I've made no secret of who I am or where I come from, and the same can be said of many of our colleagues in this area. I realize that we cannot separate our perspective and unique life experiences, and I try to be self-aware of my innate biases, which we all have and all of us should strive to do. Yet I do not think evidence or any specific diffs have been furnished that show that I allow my opinions to inappropriately color my editing. I'm really not sure what the point was of the lengthy evidence and workshop sections if decisions can be made basically on handwaving and on preconceived notions. NPOV means allowing a minority non-fringe POV to be expressed, but I always try to abide by the consensus and achieve a workable compromise to improve the encyclopedia. There is a pendulum that swings and it may swing too far in a specific direction based on current events and emergent matters. If someone could provide me specific diffs of my alleged POV pushing I will commit to considering them and improving regardless of the outcome of this process. It has never been a violation on Wikipedia to edit according to one's interests and predilections so long as that self-awareness is applied. I find it honestly a little mindboggling that I'm supposed to apologize or own up to this without knowing when and where I might have slipped or not been sufficiently self-aware. I acknowledge that it's possible and may have happened, but I'm going to need a little more actual evidence to go on to reflect on it. I will also point out that Wikipedia's justice system has always been preventative and not punitive. After the arbcom block was lifted with no formal preconditions, I have avoided the circumstances that led to that block, and I have made 10s of thousands of edits with nobody specifically complaining or any major issues. Nableezy's evidence predated not only that block but a topic ban and I've not repeated those instances. I haven't shied away from contentious areas because when arbcom lifted the block they did not impose any suggestion or condition to do that. I offered to be unblocked with a topic ban or a voluntary topic ban and that wasn't requested. I would argue that it wasn't necessary either because I do not think I've been inappropriate or disruptive. I would ask that all arbitrators consider whether the evidence has actually been provided that shows this. Andre🚐 21:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I must say I find it rather remarkable that HJ Mitchell believes I am a "hostile" person or editor yet opposes any sanction on Nableezy whose messages are demonstrably more hostile. Please name the top 3 hostile messages from me post-dating the arbcom block or the SFR topic ban. I also find it surprising to see the arbcom block again mentioned since that wasn't in this topic area, and I haven't repeated that or anything similar to that. I can see how it's indirectly or perhaps you want to say directly related, but I certainly haven't repeated the behavior. As you know, I am not supposed to provide details on that. However, I have given apologies and explanations for that in private which is why I was unblocked. I don't see what evidence given by anyone in this case changes that, since none of my actions since then relate to it and I have studiously avoided that topic. So it's a bit unfair to bring it up knowing I can't rebut it or provide any counterevidence, but suffice it to say it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, and one that hasn't been repeated in any shape or form.

In fact, I don't think any evidence of my supposed hostility has been given except for Nableezy's evidence which predates the arbcom block. In terms of Zero0000's evidence, I accused Zero0000 of biased editing and being biased against certain sources, particularly pro-Israeli sources. Literally removing good sources and replacing with CN tags, this is mentioned in the tendentious editing guideline explicitly. As far as whether that should boomerang: my understanding is that this form of evidentiary generalization is permitted in an arbcom case. I didn't just show up on Zero's doorstep accusing him and threatening him. I did not say anything hostile there about Zero0000 as a person or his admin conduct. While he has occasionally protected articles in the topic, they were against reasonable unproductive edits and vandalism. So I don't think that plays into it; he wrongfully accused me of lying and then edited his message, and he still accuses me of "twisting the truth" according to CaptainEek: I did not. if there is a belief that I was hostile, I really do think the committee has to be a little more specific about which diffs of mine supposedly were hostile. I continue to believe it's quite problematic that Zero0000 stated that any charge of antisemitism must be treated as an opinion, and discards apparently reliable sources like Gilbert based on original research, or discards sources for reasons like close paraphrasing. Those aren't reasons to discard sources. Further, sometimes it's a fact that SOMETIMES something or someone was antisemitic, I don't think we have to reach far in history to find historical examples of this.

Anyway, this will probably be my last message as I've made my points in depth, and I don't intend to respond every time an arb votes. I remain disappointed in all this process and bureaucracy when it seems a lot of the evidence wasn't really weighed, the principles are being loosely applied, and there isn't a strong burden of proof or any kind of questioning of the parties. It does feel that there were simply some foregone conclusions that were held based on social capital as Tryptofish terms it, and personal feelings that some arbs have about who should be given leniency and who not for that vague ball of largely unexamined evidence and workshopping, or largely, past events and impressions. If everyone or some of the parties got topic banned that would be a fine outcome based on probability and statistics, but I remain dissatisfied that a fair, thoughtful, equitable, and judicious process was followed. No, Wiki is not a court and doesn't guarantee any rights or any rules of decorum or evidentiary procedure about what evidence is admissable or anything like hearsay. But Wikpedia has a different principle which is that we need to show prevention of future harm and willingness to accept feedback. It's frustrating and frankly, a little Kafkaesque (saw that word used recently on an Icewhiz SPI) that I'm being cast as uncooperative when I've asked for the evidence for claims of my supposed POV pushing or hostility and none is forthcoming: it does feel that perhaps some arbs are subconsciously allowing their own opinions to color what should be a logical and unemotional exercise. It also strikes me as farcical that the committee admits Nableezy was casting aspersions, the reason why I opened one of the AEs that led to this case, and instead we're talking about my supposed hostility. I have endeavored to show restraint and I think that was borne out, so it's not being uncooperative to simply ask to see what diffs supposedly were recidivist. If not given I must make the conclusions that I make, as the tank of good faith is certainly out for this procedure at least that it will be deeply considered. Andre🚐 02:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I know I said I wasn't going to reply anymore but I have one more reply to add. Not sure if anyone is reading, but at least external observers and posterity can understand my consternation. I'm very willing to take any feedback but the communication here for a long-term, good faith contributor leaves a lot to be desired. Nobody has communicated with me privately or otherwise from the committee to negotiate a tailored sanction or offer specific diffs of allegations or any feedback. The evidence by Nableezy I acknowledged was problematic and apologized for and haven't repeated since the SFR topic ban. No evidence has been presented of recent similar conduct. The evidence by Zero0000 entirely rests on the statements made within this case; I don't see how that can be reasonably extrapolated to my general behavior because I only made that evidentiary argument for this case which I thought was permitted and not a personal attack. Everyone else seems to be able to speculate on possible non-neutral editing patterns in the case; I didn't personally attack Zero0000. No evidence was provided by Zero0000 outside of the case evidence itself. I would not and have not speculated on possible non-neutral editing outside of the case. I believe there's a case to be made there but I've respected Zero0000 as a person and editor, and I believe unconscious biases and blind spots can happen even in good faith. I already offered a rebuttal to the Bluricecreamman and Smallangryplanet evidence, and I don't see them as related at all to any other events or evidence. I'm not aware of that being sanctionable. So in summary, the evidence against me is 1) a sanctionable event that took place before the arbcom block/topic ban, which I've apologized for and haven't repeated, 2) the arbcom block circumstances themselves which I have privately apologized for and haven't repeated, 3) a vague allegation of POV pushing which I will be happy to consider if diffs could be given for this, 3) evidence that isn't related to the above or not sanctionable. Do I have it wrong? I'm happy to apologize for recant for anything if please, diffs could be given that contradict the aforementioned. Andre🚐 00:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

This isn't a negotiation. You don't get a lesser sanction because you horse trade with us. My mention of POV was in regards to the Wikipedia Flood edits; my point being that even if we ignore the canvassing aspect, you were advancing its anti-Wikipedia, pro-Israeli POV. But that's only one of the several reasons noted finding your edits problematic, not least of which is your previous ArbCom block. Instead of engaging in self reflection here, you've spent nearly four thousand words to lash out and build up walls of text. You've certainly had some good points, and I've implemented a number of them in this PD. But I'm hard pressed to see contrition or understanding here. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 01:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry if you or the community feels that the edits I made arising from situations brought to my attention by the Wikipedia Flood were advancing a POV. As I said, I saw that as correcting errors and defensible edits. I'm genuinely trying not to lash out but to understand. I didn't mean to imply that this is a negotiation, but from what I understand there is a desire to help the members of the community who are a net positive continue to contribute in the bounds of what wouldn't be problematic. That is extended to others but not to me, If you could provide the specific edits you feel were inappropriately POV, I will reflect on them and most likely I would say you know, I get that and I'll try to avoid that in the future. That hasn't been extended to me. Andre🚐 02:09, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I fully intended to leave this alone and let it stand, but this should most likely really be my final note here before the case closes. I feel somewhat compelled to respond to the new stuff added, although, I do wish that these things could have been added during the evidence/workshop phase as it's not really fair to do it like this with the case ending and me responding to the proposed decision to things that weren't in evidence. One of the many problems with this proceeding. But, regardless.

• It seems that now, some arbs support sanctioning me for the difference between my treatment of Irtapil, a 6-time sockmaster, and Steven1991, an inexperienced user lacking clue. Yes, I do assume good faith as we have no evidence that Steven1991 was socking, and while his SPI was meritless, that is very different coming from him than from a confirmed sockmaster. Those situations are not equivalent. I wouldn't support sanctioning a user for a meritless SPI alone, but for a sockmaster it shows a lack of remorse. I do not believe there is an inconsistency or lack of neutrality with my different treatment of these disparate situations. I support leniency for clueless well-meaning newbies but not so much for 6-time sockmasters.
• Now, as for the AE Archive343, which wasn't cited in the evidence against me but was a referral that led to the case. It's true that the admins there believe my 2 reverts over a longer-than-24h-period restoring the status quo mention of the Jewish exodus from North Africa pending an RFC, are technically taking part of a multi-user edit war. I must say I find this to be a broader and stricter definition of edit warring than one that is conventionally used, but I can learn and adjust my behavior. This is the single instance AFAIK of me edit warring or doing anything "disruptive" in the topic area since the block, and I don't see how that one instance couldn't have simply led to an uninvolved admin warning, pblock, block, or AE topic ban; the fact that I filed an AE was actually a response to Nableezy's aspersions and incivility which the committee admits are a problem. The RFC I opened was one suggested by SFR and SFR confirmed that the prior RFC on another article didn't pertain to the different article. So, this overall incident while you can say my toe was over the line, I cannot see how this incident is at all similar to the arbcom block incident. I was not picking on Nableezy, Nableezy was picking on me. It's not fair to cast aspersions of gaming, TE, and disruptive editing without evidence, and those allegations remain unproven aspersions. I will accept the responsibility for the 2 edits in a multi-user edit war situation and adjust my understanding if in fact I have any future editing. That being said, our norms are pretty clear that RFCs apply on the article they are on, the status quo remains during RFC/discussion, and normally 2 restores over a week-long period or whatever it was can be considered reasonable and not sanctionable, at most a warning or if it was so clearly edit warring, I don't see how it's cause for a full ban. Other users have done much worse things and found leniency for being a net positive and being willing to discuss and listen to reason. That isn't extended to me.
• Which brings me to the arbcom block and appeal. Fraught because most people cannot view the private correspondence or private information, but as I've stated several times my arbcom block was for editing not in ARBPIA. It's true that in my appeal I promised to stay clear of trouble in this area. I was offering conditions to arbcom to seek an agreement for unblock. Avoiding the area altogether was a suggestion for a condition of an unblock, one that arbcom didn't take up. My offer to the arbcom to unblock me with a topic ban or a suggestion to avoid this area was just that, an offer and a suggestion. Arbcom chose to state that I was unblocked without any formal conditions, and they made one suggestion. That suggestion I have pretty much honored, not perfectly perhaps but I've shown considerable restraint, and it wasn't to avoid editing in ARBPIA. It's been several months since that unblock and since arbcom unblocked me without any formal condition, I determined that I could edit neutrally in the ARBPIA area so I did so. And I don't see how any evidence shows otherwise. If there were, it would be a different discussion. At any rate, I do not see how the Archive343 situation relates whatsoever to the conditions of the arbcom block. As I said, I was targeted by unfair aspersions, that is why the AE was opened, and why I am a party to the case. I don't see how being a party is automatically an indication of disruptive behavior, since I was the one opening the AE due to the aspersions, and as I said at most what happened there was 2 reverts in a week's time. I suppose a 0 tolerance policy could justify a topic ban there, but I really do think the full ban is punitive and draconian and not the same standard that other users on the other side of the dispute experienced. Andre🚐 22:07, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

P.S. the FoF about me is not accurate since the Nableezy evidence predates the block, not comes after the block. Andre🚐 22:36, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

P.P.S. I agree with Tryptofish and I am also appalled at Bradv's comment. I accept the topic ban decisions including mine, and I also thank the many arbitrators who did consider the evidence and who tried to make a good decision to clean up the topic area. I think this will certainly do that. Andre🚐 00:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Congrats to AE for their hardwork, and thank you for tackling all this and the mountains of evidence. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

agree with Barkeep49, ArbCom should consider 500/90 rule seriously for the topic area, or at least as an additional protection tool for admins to consider in this area. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Mostly just extending the thinking from CaptainEek but, high criteria for bans on regulars creates a survivorship bias where good faith editors who are banned or afraid of bans will stay away, while those willing to sock just cycle through accounts after bans.

mistakes are weaponized by both sides, but is barrier to editing so high that all regulars in I/P are destined to eventually be banned? yes this is CTOP so standards should remain high, but this conflict has produced significant material to process, debate, and create into articles in short periods of time. The patterns of "increased incivility" may be due to having to deal with 10x more info about conflict than in a normal year.

anyone spending significant time in I/P will make human mistakes. what % of IP editors have never made any mistake in the area by these criteria? Is a new criteria for bans in CTOP areas that:

• for any of the dozens of RFCs during the past year that you must always have consistent logic? If there is 1/2 RFCs where the logic isn't consistent, ban?
• avoid aggravation/bait from the umpteenth editor on the "other side", or else face ban? If you lose your cool for a second after spending hours on this area, even in the smallest way, ban?
• singular, easily corrected mistakes in a process? and accepting you were wrong and made mistake, but still facing ban for it?

Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:58, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Minor comment: I notice that there are disconnects between the FoFs and the proposed remedy/remedies for editors:

• BilledMammal: edit warring... and consistently non-neutral editing. Only proposal is an indefinite topic ban.
• Levivich: consistently non-neutral editing... inconsistent standards of behavioral expectations... and incivility. Proposals for an admonishment, 1 year topic ban, or indefinite topic ban.
• Nableezy: consistently non-neutral editing... incivility... and aspersions. Proposals for an admonishment, 1 year topic ban, or indefinite topic ban.
• Selfstudier: consistently non-neutral editing... and edit warring. Proposals for an admonishment, 1 year topic ban, or indefinite topic ban.
• Makeandtoss: non-neutral editing... and stonewalling discussions. Proposals for an admonishment, 1 year topic ban, or indefinite topic ban.
• Zero0000: incivility. Proposals for an warning, or an admonishment.
• Nishidani ongoing pattern of incivility. Proposals for a warning, (no admonishment), or an indefinite topic ban.

While some of these discrepancies in proposals may very well be explained by the differences in severity, frequency, history, or other factors, the reasons for the differences in the proposed remedies are not clear in the proposed decision. As an example, both BilledMammal and Selfstudier have the same wording in the FoF - just in reverse order, yet the proposals for handling those editors are entirely different. So I disagree with CaptainEek's statement Perhaps we played our hand here by not proposing any other remedies, but we just didn't see another path out. - there obviously was another path out for an editor with a virtually identical finding of fact.

I would encourage the drafting arbitrators and those voting on the remedies to consider why there is such a difference between especially the remedies proposed for BM versus those proposed for an editor with such a similar FoF. And at a minimum, either a second finding of fact that explains why BM's behavior was so much worse as to not even propose more limited sanctions, or correcting it by at least proposing the lesser sanction(s) for BM to be voted on. Otherwise, it will appear as if a sanction was decided in advance for BM, thus making it moot to even propose others - while Selfstudier was not a "given" to be topic banned. I'd also encourage the arbitrators to make a clear statement (whether in a principle or a FoF) as to their view on the "general severity" of conduct issues. Is edit warring more severe than incivility, generally speaking, if all else is similar (ex: number of times done)? Are they equal? Where do the other conduct issues identified (such as inconsistent [application] of behavioral expectations) fall in comparison to incivility, edit warring, etc?

I would personally like to see arbitrators acknowledge that incivility, even if minor but repeated or "one sided" (i.e. incivility only against some opinions/editors), is often times even more damaging than edit warring - because it demotivates neutral/differently minded editors from engaging in discussion in the topic area at all. I'm undecided whether this would do better as a principle or a finding of fact, or both. But the current proposals and especially the current votes by arbitrators (however few they may be) do not address this, and in some cases seem to ignore it entirely (commenting on an editor's other conduct being useful, while ignoring how their incivility reduces willingness of others to participate). Principle 18 is the closest to addressing this - by identifying that the goal isn't just to prevent damage to the encyclopedia, but disruption to the editing environment and to the community, but then it is not addressed any further just how damaging some of the parties' behavior (such as incivility, stonewalling, and inconsistent behavior standards) have been to this topic area.

I thank the arbitrators for their careful consideration of this case to try and improve the topic area for all. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Continuing on this issue of whether incivility is being let off easy here, I second everything Tryptofish said in his most recent comment/reply to himself.

I would also like to address the new BM FoF - obviously private evidence is not something the public can comment on, but does the evidence really show vexatious filing of complaints? Or does it simply show concern that there are rule violations in a contentious topic, and taking them to the appropriate place to be discussed? The two examples of vexatious filings were both borderline at best, and I don't see any suggestion for how BilledMammal should have gone about discussing them/reporting them for discussion other than to go to AE. Is the goal here to create a chilling effect where editors are scared to report/discuss potential rule violations for fear of being accused of being "vexatious" or "weaponizing"?

I'm also going to say that I disagree with the statement "misrepresented sources".

• From the evidence, "minors" and "children" is an editorial decision (and pushing for "children" can be a form of POV pushing by trying to pull at heartstrings, so something that definitely needs considered)
• Casualty figures are ultimately from the Gaza Health Ministry in most cases, and at the time the sources identified them as such.
• Those figures are disputed or at least not taken as the most factual possible due to the conflict of interest of the Gaza Health Ministry. Furthermore, multiple sources that supported them being in dispute were added with this edit
• Having read through the source regarding the damage/destruction of heritage sites (this source, no longer present), at the time it did not specify that Israel destroyed any or all of them.

In other words, these claims of misrepresentation are, at best, more nuanced than the evidence will have led the arbitrators to believe based on the evidence report. And in some cases (such as the heritage sites) the edits were completely in line with the sourcing present at the time.

I do not mean to accuse any arbitrator(s) of not looking carefully at the evidence... but it does certainly appear that the evidence about "misrepresenting sources" is being taken at face value rather than being corroborated. And that doesn't even begin to identify that in most (if not all) of those cases, BM remained completely civil, and if a discussion was in progress or started on the talk page, BM participated in it. And combine this with the fact that the two "vexatious" AE reports are two out of 3+ years of reports that, on average, are more likely to result in action than no action? This appears like a witch hunt against BM by people who would prefer to see BM sanctioned while the "other side" is given warnings.

And I worry that the Committee is falling into said "trap" - excusing the extreme civility problems, many of which BM has complained about repeatedly, with little or no action by AE or elsewhere (see Nableezy and Selfstudier AE complaints being used as evidence against BM). This even though incivility and inconsistent standards are the most truly harmful to collaboration, while bringing the hammer down on BM for rarely responding with complaints that amount to a misunderstanding at best. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I anticipate this is likely to be my last comment here, because they're falling on deaf ears. I find it appalling that at least one arbitrator has admitted here that they aren't (at least yet) commenting on the merits of the multiple people here who have been pointing out the discrepancies in how BM is being treated versus other editors. And equally appalling is the fact that multiple arbitrators have continued placing their votes without addressing the fact that even the new FoF regarding BM contains, at best, a major overstatement of how "damning" the evidence was for at least the "misrepresentation of sources".

There are no other words for this than what Eek alluded to in her initial vote - the decision to (topic) ban BM was predetermined and there will be no consideration of whether the evidence is actually legitimate or not. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 23:56, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've edited this comment to correct the pronoun I used for Eek originally. My apologies for unintentionally misgendering you, Eek. Normally I try to use gender neutral pronouns when I'm unaware of someone's preferred pronouns, but I failed to do so here. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Historically, PD proposals have been predetermined. The drafters choose the sanctions they think appropriate and that might pass. Sometimes that means a range because there is no clear agreement. Here, the drafters saw the evidence (including what we know privately) and suggested a topic ban. That approach was the case with the rest of the PD. In a somewhat unusual fashion, the PD was generally expanded after its initial drafting by non-drafters to include a matrix for essentially all other parties. Not to say that hasn't happened before, but no other Arb suggested a lesser sanction for BM. Perhaps that was due to BM's absence, I'm not sure. Or perhaps because it did not seriously merit consideration. At any rate, we acknowledged that the initial BM FoF was incorrect, and I quickly amended it. I'm sensitive to your suggestion that the source misrepresentation prong could be inaccurate. But that doesn't mean it is inaccurate, and that doesn't mean you're being ignored. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:35, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The amended FoF is even more inaccurate, in my humble opinion. The claims of "misrepresenting sources" is demonstrably weak at best, relying on things that are nowhere near the level of misrepresenting sources that would be sanctionable. In fact, one of the edits presented, BM was actually fixing a misrepresentation (the source did not say Israel destroyed anything, but the article did). That evidence, including that glaringly obvious (it's a 10ish page PDF, when not considering whitespace/intro/etc) false accusation of that edit, should've been given significantly more scrutiny before being treated as fact.

There's also a discrepancy between opinions - one arbitrator (HJ Mitchell) has stated: Not necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather complaints go to AE than lengthy procedural/interpersonal discussions derail discussions. - and that is something that I think everyone should agree with. So why is BM being faulted as "vexatious" for doing just that - for reporting complaints in the topic area about things that, at least at face value, could be violations to AE? That evidence was incredibly weak - two examples of "vexatious" filings that BM filed, out of 20+ examined total (most of which did result in sanction). And in both, what I can see, BM quickly admitted their errors after they were pointed out during the AE discussions.

I won't continue belaboring this in this reply to you, I've made my points. But you can see the poor optics of arbitrators continuing to vote on remedies when the evidence being summarized is clearly vexatious itself, and in many cases (if not all), is blatantly incorrect. Especially when I'm not the only one who's not a party to this case who's pointed it out here. I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me here, it at least confirms that at least one arbitrator has seen and is considering the comments on the talk page here. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to say I'm shocked that the new BM FoF and topic ban are passing without any response to the completely valid concerns over the validity of evidence being presented here on the talkpage... but unfortunately that's not even shocking. The result is a FoF passing (as of now) that is demonstrably false in at least one aspect (misrepresentation of sources), and makes the remedy proposed look even more like a predetermined outcome that isn't based on the evidence at all. Disagreeing with the arguments presented on the talkpage here is fine. Ignoring them entirely and not even commenting on them (whether here or in the votes) is not. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:28, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I do not see this proposal as a content dictation at all. This is merely a reinforcement and formalizing of the article titles policy, especially the POV titles part. It further reinforces the immediate next section - non-judgemental descriptive titles by requiring that the name used be as non-judgemental and NPOV as possible until a consensus emerges otherwise. In fact, this remedy only makes enforcing the current policy, as written, an arbitration enforcement procedure. It is not dictating any new policy whatsoever.

The one thing I'd change about it is, rather than requiring a consensus of administrators to authorize a RM on a title, allow any editor to start a RM at any time (as is normal now), but require that articles remain at the least contentious title as determined by an uninvolved administrator (as the enforcement action above) until a clear consensus emerges for a different title. In cases where a contentious label is clearly supported by the article titles policy, it should be no trouble for editors to come to a consensus on that issue, and editors should be allowed to continue normal consensus making procedures (ex: in this case, a requested move) even while a more neutral/less contentious title is temporarily enforced as an arbitration enforcement action.

AE should further be empowered to restrict RM discussions if they are being used as disruption or repeatedly opened to "wear out" those opposed to a move. This, however, conflicts with the AE report restriction of one filer and one editor - encouraging "tag teaming" (whether intentional or not) where editor 1 opens the first RM, it results in no consensus to move, and then editor 2 opens another RM shortly thereafter with no new information. In such cases, an AE report should be allowed against the talkpage of the article with the remedies - where a consensus of AE admins could restrict a new requested move from being opened for a period of time by any editor, if disruption is evident and there is unlikely to be any productive discussion in a new RM.

But ultimately, while ArbCom does not dictate content, something needs to be done about editors steamrolling in contentious labels for things - not just in article text, but especially in titles - and creating POV forks when they fail to steamroll their desired contentious label into an article. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 22:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is a false dichotomy. There are not two groups of editors (the regulars most of whom are named parties here /and/ the socks). There are at least four groups of editors:

1. The regulars, many of whom are headed for reprimand or removal from the area in this case due to their incivility.
2. The socks, most of whom are quickly removed from Wikipedia as a whole.
3. Other neutral editors who tried to contribute constructively to this topic area but were put off by the regulars' behavior.
4. Other neutral editors who refuse to touch this topic area because of the behavior they observe the regulars engaging in towards those they disagree with.

Group 1's contributions to articles may be great, but their contribution to the topic area as a whole is damaging to the project, because they drive groups 3/4 to not participate in the topic area. Wikipedia works best when there are a wide-reaching set of opinions (on content, not on real world issues) able to be presented and debated between editors.

To make the claim that "the socks are the problem" is missing this bigger picture. The problem is that, even though there is no evidence that the regulars coordinate with each other, they effectively operate as a gentlemen's club (not the synonym for "strip club", the other one, which I linked to). Many of them support each other without fail, or only very very rarely calling out each others' bad behavior, thus being complicit in each other's behavior.

The socks will always be a problem. They will be a problem no matter who is removed. As someone else said here (paraphrasing) - it's trivially easy to create a sock if someone's determined. What would help with that problem? Having more independent editors feel comfortable contributing to this topic area without being dragged to SPI on very borderline at best evidence, for example. And for them to be able to see that editors being uncivil, rude, and belittling in this area are not given a free pass just because sometimes they're right about there being socks. An easy solution if there ends up being a legitimate problem would be an ARCA to come up with other solutions (such as an topic ban exemption for legitimate SPI cases only for one or more named parties in this case). But the only thing that will increase groups 3/4's participation in the topic area is removing the bad behavior entirely. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 03:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Of course there are more than two camps of editors. But nobody is accusing groups 3 or 4 of being the problem. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

But the problem involves groups 3/4 being discouraged from editing. So to treat it as a dichotomy of "the regulars" and "the socks" is ignoring the fact that what is desperately needed is more editors in the topic area as a whole. But those potential editors are discouraged from even trying to contribute, or have left the topic area entirely, because of group 1. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 03:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that people are saying you should be ashamed of yourselves for your opinions, for example. But I do think a good place to start would be for arbitrators to respond, whether collectively or individually, to the legitimate concerns brought up and spelled out diff-by-diff as to why some of the evidence is misleading at best, and outright false in at least one case. Yes, I'm specifically talking about the evidence for "misrepresenting sources" being used to support the BM FoF. And that doesn't even address the WP:UNBLOCKABLES problem.

I don't think the evidence was submitted in bad faith - I am doing my best to assume it wasn't. But not all good faith evidence pans out as legitimate problematic behavior. I am doing the same for arbitrators - I am hoping that all of the arbitrators are acting in good faith and simply missed the evidence, or perhaps they looked at it and then eventually forgot what it actually was before they voted. That gets harder to do the longer this goes on - and the more arbitrators vote without any comment on the concerns here - anywhere. And please remember, I'm not the only one who has brought up the as-yet-unanswered (by most arbitrators) concerns regarding the civility being let off easily - even when you exclude named parties (on either "side"), there are at least three other editors who have done the same: Coretheapple and Thebiguglyalien and Tryptofish.

If the Committee wants to say enough is enough and just be rid of anyone problematic, fine - topic ban everyone as a blanket remedy for all of them (rather than individual ones). But please do not do it based on false/misleading FoFs that state someone engaged in a behavior that there is no (public) evidence for them doing. The (non-party) members of the community shouldn't have to go through every piece of evidence themselves - we should be able to trust that arbitrators have done so and have come to reasonable conclusions about that evidence (even if we disagree with their conclusions). But it seems like it's necessary to do so when something so demonstrably false makes it into a FoF that is passing with flying colors. In other words, how can the community trust that the drafting arbitrators (and to a lesser extent, those voting and who have proposed alternatives not in the original PD) have combed through all the evidence at this point?

I don't think you (personally or as a whole) need to respond to every single comment made on this talk page. But please encourage your fellow arbitrators to explain their views further (again, whether collectively or as a whole, and whether on the talk page or in their votes), and to reconsider all of the evidence now that it's been pointed out that some of it was mistakenly taken at face value. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 03:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm happy to see that at least two arbitrators appear to have read the concerns regarding the new BM FoF being, at best, unintentionally inaccurate, and at worst, based on fabricated/misleading evidence. I am still concerned that over half of the Committee voted on the new FoF without any comment regarding these issues, and how, aside from a couple, have not interacted with the feedback here or given any indication they've considered it in their !votes. Normally I would be happy to give benefit of the doubt that arbitrators have carefully considered their votes - but when something as blatantly false as "misrepresented sources" is passing in a FoF based on misleading/fabricated evidence (at best)... it's hard to believe that it was actually considered.

The entire point of me pointing out the disconnect originally was so that the evidence would be reviewed and a finding of fact be presented. Not for the drafters (or others) to add anything that "sounds good" to justify the fact they only proposed an indefinite topic ban for BM but everyone else got multiple proposed remedies. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 19:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

At best, Eek's recent explanation supports "non-neutral editing" as was used for others, who have engaged in similar and in some cases more cherry picking of sources, and removing information pending discussions on talk pages. The bottom line is that there is no misrepresentation - perhaps cherry-picking, but even that is borderline at best (there is no obligation that any one editor look for all sources available before posting on a talk page). If BM is going to be called tendentious/vexatious, others need to be re-evaluated for those labels as well, because others engaged in virtually identical behavior - sending editors they don't like to AE, or in some cases SPI that Barkeep even called unsubstantiated, and cherry-picking of sources. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 20:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Anyone arguing "we shouldn't topic ban editors because that's what the ADL wants" needs to be sanctioned for the exact same POV pushing and canvassing that other editors are being sanctioned for here. Using the ADL as a scapegoat for the POV pushing some here want to do (i.e. anti-Israel POV pushing) doesn't make that POV pushing better - it makes it worse, because it's POV pushing to fight what they perceive is a wrong in the world. I'm quite surprised to see so many people openly admitting their goal isn't a neutral encyclopedia, but to "fight the ADL". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:54, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Andre's statement above. The finding of fact, relating to an offsite blog, is very troubling. Nothing coming close to WP:CANVASS was proven or even stated in the evidence at 19.3, other than a bald accusation which is not backed up by a shred of evidence.

Let's back up for a moment and look at the "evidence" that is being relied upon here. While the subject header states "AndreJustAndre Canvassing," there was no canvassing shown in the evidence.

The evidence says "Andre has been canvassing for an off-wiki pro-Israeli blog for months. This blog has published guides explicitly requesting people to canvass for them, singled out numerous editors, including some of the current parties, and highlighted articles demanding specific changes be made." The words "explicitly requesting people to canvass for them" hyperlink to a July 17 post on the blog "Wikipedia Flood" at https://thewikipediaflood.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-only-way-to-fight-wikipedia-flood.html

If you go to that link, you can see that it contains a general guide to editing Wikipedia and contains no specific requests for editing. I see no "requests for people to edit for them." Andre's points are correct re the general implications of the finding, but I think that as a threshold issue you have to look at what evidence there is of canvassing, and there is absolutely none. Nor is there evidence of any other policy or guideline violation in that evidence section, which this entire finding of fact and severe punishment hang on. Coretheapple (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I also wanted to draw the Committee's attention to the substantive discussion of that evidence in the Workshop phase in which I think it is fair to say that no policy violations were specifically cited by any of the participants. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nor have any specific requests by the blog to perform X edits been pointed out in the evidence or in the workshop phase, nor are evident in a skim of the blog, which is a general "bitching session" about Wikipedia, a theme that can be found in a large number of articles and websites. Yes, Wikipedia is "grown up" and yes it is widely criticized. This FoF and penalty in effect states that if an external website or news article or anything points out something problematic on Wikipedia, that is "canvassing" and that questionable content must remain for all eternity. Coretheapple (talk) 23:03, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I agree with Berchanhimez re the somewhat arbitrary character of the punishments being dished out and not dished out, and also am discouraged that so little attention was paid to incivility. The Article Titles Restriction is a good idea, and as of now it has no support. It's very well thought-out, makes good sense, and reasons being given in opposition I feel are totally inadequate. The Committee can and should take steps to ensure NPOV and the failure to do so would be disappointing. I urge the arbitrators to think again about that remedy and to think creatively. Right now we are on track for PIA6.Coretheapple (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• The Levant Subcommittee is interesting, but I think that it would need a large membership to be effective and its membership should consist of admins who have not been editing in the subject area. In the past there have been discussions as to whether admins are considered "involved," but I think that definition is insufficient in this area. Total non-involvement I think is imperative. Coretheapple (talk) 19:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I realize this is terribly late in the process, but I just thought I'd throw this out here: Many years ago there was something called a "request for comment on user conduct." It was discontinued in the Village Pump discussion that can be found by clicking on the link I just posted. Perhaps something of that kind can be revived for this topic area to address tendentious editing etc. as correctly pointed out by Aquillon and the civility issue correctly pointed out by Tryptofish? It only just occurred to me, so my apologies that I'm putting this forward now. Just a thought. Coretheapple (talk) 23:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Before the case is closed, I wanted to throw in my two cents on the "balanced editing restriction." I think it is a very good idea. I don't believe the pessimism and skepticism concerning it are warranted. I also believe that, if it works, thought should be given to extending it to all editors in this subject area. SPAs are I believe the source of the problems here. This is one way of addressing it. If an editor finds it impossible to edit outside this topic area, if their purpose is to push a particular narrow agenda reflecting their POV in this area, perhaps this is not the place for them. Coretheapple (talk) 23:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ScottishFinnishRadish: I neglected to tag arbs concerning my suggestions above. I don't know how to tag all the arbs, so I will take the liberty of tagging the only one I've interacted with. Coretheapple (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ScottishFinnishRadish: Yes I realize that the suggestion phase of this case has long passed. These ideas are for the future. Coretheapple (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm dismayed that some editors on this page are citing the ADL's reaction to arbcom's actions in this case, and doing so to take potshots at certain actions taken here. At the time ADL was the subject of a community discussion at RSN, and external websites reacted negatively, the community was cautioned not take such views into account. Jimbo said at the time[1] that "liking or not liking, agreeing or disagreeing, is really a terrible way for anyone to decide whether a source is reliable, and not the way that Wikipedians approach it." I think the same general principle applies here. That is, whether a specific organization or website outside Wikipedia likes or dislikes what is happening here is not a reason to adjust what we do. Just as I was deeply troubled by one of the early proposed decisions (fortunately not accepted by arbcom) that made far too much of what an external website was publishing, we must guard against overreacting to external criticism or approval of the decision here. Best to ignore it. Coretheapple (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with the comments characterizing the above behavior re the ADL as WP:BATTLEGROUND. Coretheapple (talk) 15:48, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I second Berchanhimez's comment. I came here to say the same thing, but they beat me to it and said it better than I could. If "Enough is enough" passes, then I'd expect topic bans to be front and center for all named parties besides Snowstormfigorion, as well as several other people active in the area. As it is, this proposed decision is toothless and all but guarantees that many of the same names are going to be back here for PIA6. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:29, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thoughts on specific remedies:

• I find 17) "Balanced editing restriction" interesting, but I foresee admins being just as hesitant to use it as they are with topic bans. The disincentives to use it—expense of political capital, backlash from the user's friends, and long-term enemy-making—remain the same. And if I'm reading it correctly, this restriction would also create a variant of EC gaming where editors pad their non-PIA edits to decrease their percentage.
• I strongly support 18) "Article titles restriction", not only for PIA but across topics. But I agree that it's beyond the committee's remit to impose a policy-changing rule like this. A few editors uninvolved in this topic (or any other topic affected by this issue) should be recruited to put together some ideas for an RfC on this issue.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I endorse 14) "AE topic bans". It's often quite apparent when an editor is incapable of editing neutrally. It would be one thing if AE admins were careful in applying this, but they often refuse to even consider it and shoot it down when it is raised, which is a massive failing on the part of AE. See also: WP:INSCRUTABLE and my own When interest compromises neutrality to hopefully put this disingenuous "everyone is biased" excuse to bed.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:36, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I notice that the individual actions are being scrutinized in committee members' votes, but not so much the collective ones. Although it's not a listed principle in this case, I think it would be worthwhile to acknowledge Presumption of coordination: When a group of editors consistently and repeatedly participate in the same discussions to support the same point of view — especially when many or most of the members of that group had little or no prior participation in the underlying dispute — it is reasonable to presume that they could be coordinating their actions. Evaluation of consensus in particularly divisive or controversial cases need to carefully weigh the possibility and avoid ascribing too much weight to the number of participants in a discussion — especially when policy enforcement or sanctions are considered. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the "AE topic bans" remedy: I see that some of the opposes/abstains are because admins can and should act on their own discretion, or some variation thereof. My worry is that if it doesn't pass, that will be interpreted by some admins as effectively striking this down, and the committee will inadvertently create a chilling effect on exercising this. My first choice would be for the abstaining/opposing arbs to consider supporting with a rationale similar to ToBeFree or Primefac. Alternatively, the committee might consider the addition of a remedy 14b to omit "and encouraged". Would this satisfy the concerns of those opposing or abstaining? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Thebiguglyalien I personally don't think that's a reason to support, because I think it's explicitly not what we're saying there, and I don't see any admins thinking that we're saying that (if I'm understanding what you're saying correctly?) But it's not a super big deal to me, and I'd be fine with a 14b if another Arb proposes it. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 03:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The "ECP by default" remedy appears to directly annull the consensus found a month ago at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 215 § Q3: If this proposal does not pass, should ECP be applied preemptively to articles under WP:ARBECR topics?. I don't have anything to say about the underlying merits of the remedy, and am not accussing the committee of overstepping their bounds, but I think that at least one arbitrator who supports the remedy ought to explain why it is justifiable to disregard existing consensus. Mach61 21:38, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Barkeep49 I don't doubt that the committee can enact that remedy, but I presume that it is unusual for them to override a recently formed consensus directly, and think that at least one arbitrator ought to comment on why they are ok with that (beyond why they support the remedy on its own merits). This isn't some trick demand, there may well be a very good explanation. Mach61 18:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I noted then, Adopting PCECP for ARBECR is certainly something ArbCom could do. But I'd ask the community to consider the broader structural problems that would arise if the community adopted it on behalf of ArbCom. I think the issue is more that the community was attempting to do something that arbcom should do, and I think that's the reason that particular proposal failed. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can appreciate as much as anyone just how hard it is going through evidence as lengthy as this case was and so I write these comments really trying to avoid "backseat arbitrating", especially as I have not read all the evidence. I want to give plaudits to the drafters for delivering the decision on time. I also give plaudits for attempting something new. I think the SPA remedy hones in on an important element going on in this topic area and applaud the out of the box thinking. If it passes I would encourage it to be amended in some way to evaluate its effectiveness after a reasonable amount of time. And if Arbs agree with Eek (the only vote on it as I write this comment) that it's got too much overhead I hope they'll consider other ways of addressing the issue. Speaking of I'm not sure I really see any remedy which addresses patterns of behavior expressed in FoF 2 (1RR not always effective), 3 (First mover advantage), or 5 (Involved closes). If the issue is really with specific editors, especially if it's just the named parties, perhaps they don't need to be separate Fof and should instead just be reflected for the named parties. And if the issue is beyond those editors - which is my understanding - I hope some remedy or remedies will be offered beyond a "community encouraged" which we know historically have resulted in nothing and which we don't even have at this moment.

In terms of the AE limits, it's a reasonable response to the evidence I presented. The one tweak I would suggest is giving AE admins explicit permission to "split" an AE report into multiple reports while staying uninvolved. This then gives AE admins three options when a report sprawls to multiple editors: shut it down (the default response and likely the response mostly appropriate), permit it, or consider the behavior in its own report, in parallel to others.

Finally, I would encourage ArbCom to consider if it makes sense for certain named parties that it acts as AE. I am in particular thinking about Nableezy who has been unfairly targeted with reports multiple times but who has also been warned multiple times. The multiple "nothing here" reports are unfair to Nableezy and upsetting to a group of editors, while the multiple warnings upset a different group of editors. If Nableezy ends up with another warning here arguably the only difference being that the warning is coming from ArbCom this time and so figuring out what to do next might be best coming from ArbCom as well, especially as it being before ArbCom will (I expect) offer a gentle deterrence from some of the reports that might have unfairly targeted Nableezy. This approach might also make sense for some other parties.

I hope this is helpful and I express my gratitude for all the time that the arbs going to spend evaluating the evidence and discussing this lengthy and thoughtful proposed decision. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think Mach has it wrong above - ArbCom is WP:CONEXEMPT and one reason because the community can't be expected go to through 175k+ of evidence to make a decision. And ArbCom may decide that a particular remedy is appropriate in this topic area without being appropriate in all ECR topic areas. But I do think ArbCom will need to reword Remedy 15 "Changes to extended confirmed". ArbCom may not write policy and as such may not change what extended confirmed is from how the community has defined it. ArbCom may, instead, choose to fork it so that it is no longer ECR but imposes a 500/90 restriction in the same way that extended confirmed started as a 500/30 restriction. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:55, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Mach61 this most recent reply reads to me like you are saying the committee is overstepping it's bound. FWIW, I gave you two reasons: the community said "no" to all ECR topic areas, but it might be appropriate for this one of them. And the community didn't have the 175k+ of evidence about disruption in this topic area to consider when forming that consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Worm That Turned (and any other arbs who may be leaning to vote against it) I understand your reluctance with the sub committee idea. However, for certain hard cases - I think we're talking 2-4 a year - I think both AE and ARCA have shown themselves inadequate. I think this can be seen clearly by the 3 (or was it 4?) cases that were referred and ultimately spurred this case. So if trying the subcommittee is the wrong thing, I would encourage you (and other arbs who will vote against it) to think about what might help ARCA handle those handful of referrals more effectively so that when a referral happens there's an idea or plan in place. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Kenneth Kho: I don't think it's true that ArbCom has turned over the Extended Confirmed Restriction to the community. As I understand it, ArbCom has turned it over to the community to decide what counts as extended confirmed (currently 500 edits and 30 days). But the restriction itself remains part of the Arbitration Committee procedures. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:07, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

SFR: I think AE admins can already do that. But clerking is its own work and given the limited number of admins working it, it seems like admins are far more inclined to try and solve the problem than to clerk it. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:32, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

If I saw this comment by Sean.hoyland made basically any other place on wiki (the exception being other places under direct ArbCom control meaning case pages, WP:ARC, WP:ARM, or WP:ARCA with WT:ACN intentionally not included since far more regular adminning happens there) I would be issuing a logged warning for BATTLEGROUND behavior. There is a difference between describing how things are (this topic is certainly a battleground as multiple FOF in this case affirm) and how things should be. This comment suggests we should not only accept that it is a battleground (while realistic that we may never be able stop it from completely being a battleground it does not mean we have to accept) but should make new actions to continue the battle. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Elli, since you seem to be taking the lead on this proposal: I think the idea of the balanced editing restriction is great, one of the first fresh ideas we've seen in a while in a topic area where clearly standard sanctions haven't been enough. However, I think it suffers greatly from not explaining how the implementation would actually work. These are the sort of boring, unsexy details that often get left out of proposed remedies because they weigh them down, but whose lack confuses things for admins down the line, and, as here, make some arbs rightly hesitant to support.

It sounds like what would be needed here is, extrapolating from what you've said:

• {{pp-extended}} is given some parameter like |ctop=, which could take a value like a-i. Someone will add that en masse at time of enactment.
• Some bot ensures that that parameter is present on any subsequent ECPs that are logged as ARBPIA, and ensures that {{Contentious topics/talk notice|topic=a-i}} is present on all such pages' talkpages. (I think most have it? But I don't think all. And I don't think the filter can read the protection level of the associated content page.)
• A filter logs edits that are made to any ECP'd mainspace or talkspace page with the former template, or any talkspace page with the latter template.

If this is the idea, it should be explicit in the remedy. A remedy that invokes a technical implementation that's not specified anywhere would be no remedy at all. Some elastic language could still be put in saying that the clerks have discretion to modify technical implementation as needed. And I would hope this would address both @ToBeFree's concern, and make clear, pace @CaptainEek's concern, that the administrative overhead is no higher than any other restriction. In fact, by my reading it would be lesser, as it would be possible to have a bot auto-report any edits that violate the 33%-in-30-days restriction.

I'd also suggest adding Draft and Draft talk both to tracked namespaces and TBAN-exempt namespaces, but if that overcomplicates things, well, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and it would definitely not be good for this case to close without any new options added for admins. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Zero0000: Violations would be hard to detect without some sort of tool, as active editors make hundreds of edits in 30 days. ← The manual way to check would be to sum the length of main+talk in the past 30 days to draft+draft_talk in past 30 days (both doable as single Special:Contribs queries) and divide EF hits in the past 30 days by that. For less active editors, I imagine that would often be quite simple, just some two-digit numbers. But you're right that for more active editors it could be tedious to compute, and difficult for people to keep track of whether they're in violation themselves. So, here ya go, a working prototype of a tool to check the rate of hits of a specified filter across specified namespaces in a specified period of time. To demonstrate, I've used my hits on 1254 in the past year.

import datetime as dt

from mwclient import Site

site = Site('en.wikipedia.org', clients_useragent="EF hit rate checker v0.0.0 YOUR EMAIL HERE")
days_back = 365
start = dt.datetime.now(dt.timezone.utc) - dt.timedelta(days=days_back)
namespaces = '0|1|118|119'  # Article, Talk, Draft, Draft talk
filter_id = '1254'  # Broken harvref filter for testing
target_user = 'Tamzin'  # For testing

qualifying_edits = site.usercontributions(target_user,
                                          start=start,
                                          namespace=namespaces,
                                          prop='ids',
                                          dir='newer')
ef_hits = site.api(
    action='query',
    list='abuselog',
    afllogid=filter_id,
    afluser=target_user,
    aflstart=start,
    aflnamespace=namespaces,
    afldir='newer',
    afllimit='max'
)
qualifying_edits_length = len(list(qualifying_edits))
ef_hits_length = len(list(ef_hits))

print(f"{ef_hits_length / qualifying_edits_length * 100:0.2f}%: {ef_hits_length} hits of filter "
      f"{filter_id} out of {qualifying_edits_length} edits to namespaces {namespaces} in past "
      f"{days_back} days")

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 16:22, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As proof of concept, I've just made https://n-ninety-five.toolforge.org/. If the remedy passes, happy to hand that over to any arb or clerk. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 01:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with ScottishFinnishRadish that counting to 10 might be hard here, but for what it's worth, as someone only intermittently active at AE, I would serve on the subcommittee if ArbCom would have me. If ArbCom can't make it to 10, the wording of the remedy looks flexible enough that it would still be easy for the Committee to work around that, e.g. by relying more heavily on arbs. But I think we might be surprised at the sort of people who might show up. Or not. But we won't know unless we try. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Remedy 11b should not be part of this case, it should be a separate motion. Changing basic committee procedures seems well outside the scope of this case. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 22:03, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Remedy 17 requires too much monitoring to be useful. This is a large complicated problem, but the purpose of the committee is to find simple, "back-breaking" solutions, not artful complicated ones. Trying to force users to edit different topics without an actual topic ban has traditionally not been effective. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 22:07, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Remedy 15 is a policy change. The committee is not authorized to change site policies.

While I am aware that a prior committee invented what eventually became the extended confirmed user right, I can't see how it can still feel it is under their direct control and they can just change the requirements. I would expect that the community would gladly support this proposal, were it brought to them. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 22:23, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• For the record, Andre and I have had some serious past disagreements, including me filing the case that led to their resignation of advanced permissions. So I am certainly not someone inclined to just jump to his defense.

So perhaps it is surprising, or maybe not, that I think Andre makes a strong point when saying It's not canvassing or influence peddling to read offsite material and consider whether a true error has been pointed out. I briefly looked at the website in question, and I found it to be incredibly biased and didn't read much of it, but that does not mean there is no possibility that they identified real problems.

I was on the committee during Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland, and we certainly considered the validity of off-site criticism when deciding that case, even if we did reject a good portion of it.

I've personally made at least several hundred edits that improved content here in direct response to valid criticism of WP content on other websites. Many others, including those that are just "lurkers" on these websites do the same. The net effect on WP content is overwhelmingly positive and should not be discouraged.

All that being said, I've not seen the specific post that supposedly canvassed these edits, the kind of posts I've replied to are generally "look at how bad this is" not "please make these specific edits on my behalf" and there is at least a bit of a difference between the two. Perhaps the committee could be more clear about which was the case here. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 00:13, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Tamzin seems to have made the case that this can be done, but has the case really been made that it should be done? Does trying to force editors to make edits they don't really want to make seem like something that is going to improve the encyclopedia? The committee is charged with adressing behavioral problems, but it should always keep the integrity of our content in mind as well, and I don't think I can really see how making people make a bunch of edits outside of where the prefer to edit is likely to be a good thing. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 21:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

By that logic why even topic ban people and force them to work outside of their favored subject if they want to continue to edit. I haven't decided to support it yet, but I don't think this is a great argument -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 22:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A topic ban is "get out, you can't seem to edit productively in this area". This is "you can edit this area, but you have to make token edits elsewhere as well". I just don't see it ending well. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 00:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd put it out there again that rule change for all AE cases seems like a change in Arbitration Committee/Procedures and should be handled as a seperate motion from the case. I see this fell on deaf ears regarding 11b so I guess ya'll don't agree, though nobody has said why.

Also Non-parties are expected to only provide context and evidence and avoid opinions or remarks on other editors is going to bite you in the ass, or more specifically is going to bite the admins who are still willing to handle AE requests in the ass. If you want repeated arguments about the distinction between presenting evidence and having an opinion, this will surely do that. If that isn't waht you are looking for I don't think this a good idea. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 23:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe I might be missing something obvious, but which part of the Procedures are being amended by this case? Primefac (talk) 13:09, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps it is a matter of perspective, but adding a new rule that applies to all AE cases, regardless of topic area, strikes me as adding a new procedure outside the scope of this case. Beeblebrox ^Beebletalks 19:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I object to the finding that I have engaged in "consistently non-neutral editing", and the evidence for that is incredibly thin. You are going to base a claim that I have engaged in "consistently non-neutral editing" on a handful of requested move votes, and even ignoring the why of those votes? What about the editing that shows the exact opposite where I for example offer a title away from massacre? What about the edits where I add material opposed to that supposed POV? Or change Israel claims to Israeli accusations? I have an editing track record going back over 15 years of doing my best to edit neutrally. Back in 2010 when I appealed a sanction SlimVirgin said that I am somebody "who tries hard to be neutral, which includes making edits that I'm pretty sure he doesn't personally agree with" and then gave such an example. The claim that I have edited with a consistent bias is one that is not substantiated by FOARP's handful of cherry picked !votes that, crucially, does not consider the context of those votes. You want to ban me for incivility or whatever else by all means, Im not going to pretend that I have been a paragon of civility, and if you all feel that merits my removal from this topic or this project then thats fine, but the claim about "consistently non-neutral editing" is completely unjustified. nableezy - 22:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since this is going to be ignored apparently, FOARP's evidence for me is based on this vote at Talk:Engineer's Building airstrike, where I wrote per Talk:Netiv_HaAsara_massacre#Requested_move_10_October_2023 where editors successfully argued that the killing of a much smaller number of civilians meant that the article should be titled "massacre". Netiv HaAsara massacre had 22 people killed, here we have over five times the number of civilians killed. The idea that only when Israeli civilians are indiscriminately targeted and killed is what is a massacre is what is "far too POV". As a descriptive title, this is as neutral as any of the articles in Category:Massacres during the Israel–Hamas war. That I directly compared the proposed move to another article that had its page moved for reasons that applied to this one is being used as the basis to claim that I have engaged in consistently non-neutral editing. And all of my other editing is seemingly being ignored. I didnt exactly have a ton of confidence in this process to begin with anyway, so guess theres no reason for me to be surprised. nableezy - 17:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I know the axiom to avoid sanction is to shut up and show contrition, and for the things I recognize that I’ve done wrong I certainly agree with that. I have been more aggressive than I should be, there are times where I have been less civil than I should be. I don’t really agree with the claim of aspersions, I made accusations of disruptive and tendentious editing and I gave the reasons for them in the AE thread that Andre brought, the pre Nableezy et al referral. But I certainly have been more aggressive than an editor should be even editing a topic as heated as this. And each time something like that comes up I recognize it and I try to adjust, but it’s clear that adjustment has not been sufficient in the past, so honestly I don’t have an issue with a sanction for it. But the claim of persistent POV editing is not something I am going to pretend to be contrite for, it is a spurious charge based on a spurious and cherry picked reading of my contributions in this topic area. Not more than every editor, but more than most editors I edit to include material that goes against the POV that people think I have, and if we’re being honest here I think most people would be surprised at my actual POV on how the real world issue should be resolved. Yes, I very clearly have a personal perspective on these topics, but I maintain that if you compare my article edits to nearly any editor who is active in these topics you will find that I consistently cite a range of sources and edit with the aim of ensuring that all significant views are included according to their weight in the sources. I have my faults, I get heated and there are times my heat to light ratio is higher than it should be, and for that I certainly will aim to improve in whatever topics I am free to edit in at the conclusion of this case, but I do not believe that I have anything to apologize for regarding my commitment to editing with a NPOV. nableezy - 15:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yall should probably modify the bans from Palestine-Israel conflict to the same area of conflict as the past cases, the Arab-Israeli conflict. Good luck with these articles tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. nableezy - 20:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wrote like four different sarcastic messages about how thankful I am for the arbs engaging with me and taking into account my arguments and showing that they gave due consideration to them and for being so thoughtful in their votes and justifying them when challenged. But I settled on this. You all are making claims about editors based on flimsy arguments, and those claims are being broadcast, literally to the world, as several editors being banned for "spreading antisemitic rhetoric, misinformation". Editors who have volunteered years, and in some cases over a decade, to this project have been completely ignored (though I do sincerely thank Moneytrees for at least reading my argument about the FoF, I cant even be sure if any of the others arbs did that though). I really dont care about being topic banned or site banned or whatever else might happen, I know what Ive done on this project and it is not, nor has it ever been, spreading antisemitic rhetoric or misinformation, nor is it a pattern of non-neutral editing as the final decision is going to say. And you certainly have the power to ignore me or any other user here, but in doing so you have convinced me of the futility of even attempting to engage with this process. The result of this case was always obvious, you all think "the community" (really a handful of users) demanded action, so act you did. But since that was always going to be true, we really did not need to waste this much time and energy on a process that seems to exist only so that somebody can point to it and claim that this was a carefully considered decision. nableezy - 16:54, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I support ECP by default, 500/90 EC, balanced editing restriction, and general lack of bans (please also don't ban Billed and Andre).

My 3 cents:

1. FoF 3 "First mover advantage" has not been addressed. Could be addressed with "72-hour moratorium on breaking news page creations" (Guerillero workshop).

2. FoF 5 "Involved closes" has not been addressed. Could be addressed with "Panel closure" (Vice_regent workshop).

3. FoF 7 "Sockpuppetry" has not been addressed. Could be addressed with "SPI clerks encouraged to dig deeper into allegations where initial evidence is insufficient but has some basis" (Aquillion workshop).

I also want to highlight insight from isaacl workshop talk page. It contains FoF "How much progress is made depends highly on the cooperation of the participants, but it is practically impossible to have a sustained participation over an extended period of time." Could be addressed by "Some form of delegation may be needed to resolve complex disputes, the involved parties could agree upon a person/group to which the decisions at the determination step are delegated." Kenneth Kho (talk) 22:50, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would like to notify everyone here that I started a community discussion WT:BAN#Include reverting ECR violations to exceptions of limited bans on whether reverting ECR violations is an exception to topic bans. ArbCom has determined that ECR is in the hands of the community, so I believe the appropriate venue is that talk page. Kenneth Kho (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Barkeep49 That makes sense, but topic ban itself is still defined by community, for example ArbCom can't remove vandalism exceptions from the scope of limited bans. Kenneth Kho (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it is reasonable for ArbCom to dish out topic bans as part of its solution. But it is far from enough, I urge ArbCom to also dish out a sufficient number of systemic remedies lest we are back at PIA6 in no time. Kenneth Kho (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I suggest that everybody here propose reasonable carveouts for narrower topic bans for @BilledMammal, @Iskandar323, @Levivich, @Nableezy, @Selfstudier, @Makeandtoss, @Nishidani, @AndreJustAndre, such that we may still benefit from their expertise in the carveouts where they are clearly net positive. Kenneth Kho (talk) 12:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support for more probations, echoing @Vice regent and @Moneytrees. I am in favour of indefinite probation with 1-year tbans each time probation is violated, this has tooth since if they just wait out the tbans, they can only edit shortly before getting the tban again. I'm also thinking of reviving time-limited bans such as those 1-year tbans, by attaching the indefinite probation clause after the ban has expired to it, this seems to address its pitfalls. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I propose adding this to the remedy:

PIA editors thanked

14) The Committee recognizes that editors at PIA, sanctioned or not, are unpaid volunteers. We thus extend our appreciation to the many editors who have volunteered countless time and effort to put their expertise into Wikipedia.

Reason: The Committee has come to a consensus to ban prolific editors to improve the topic area, but I think a platitude is well deserved, these editors sometimes work more than AE admins or the Committee, coming up with scholarly sources, with 50K edits on average, and 100K edits for Nishidani, spanning over decades. This should also lessen the name calling they will receive from external sources, such as CEO of ADL (per link in Huldra's comment).

Wikipedia:Zeroth law of Wikipedia states "On Wikipedia, the zeroth law is that good editors are the most valuable resource. Some would say the articles – but it takes good editors to write articles." Kenneth Kho (talk) 09:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I worry about the lack of community buy-in with these topic bans, it is not ideal to have such a disconnect between the will of the community and ArbCom. It is not too late to listen to community concerns and discuss whether it is false alarm or not. Kenneth Kho (talk) 19:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

On 20 January 2024, The Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel have piled on the celebration of having our editors topic banned.[2] But does the Wikipedia community celebrate it? Kenneth Kho (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would invite several editors to assume good faith, the reason ADL is so concerning is not because of content, but of conduct attacking Wikipedia and the named editors.

External threats: We recognize that volunteers may experience threats from outside the Movement based on their participation in our knowledge projects. We take seriously our responsibility to minimize and mitigate risks faced by those who contribute to and interact with our projects and operations, and to defend them from direct threats to the best of our abilities.

— Foundation:Policy:Wikimedia Human Rights Policy#Movement Volunteers

Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:10, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Miscellaneous comments from someone who occasionally closes RMs in this area:

• Elli is correct that BilledMammal was opposed to "massacre" across the board, including when it wasn't consistent with a pro-Israel POV (see this RM cited in FOARP's evidence).
• The evidence for non-neutral RM participation by Selfstudier, who was generally uncomfortable with "massacre", is also less compelling than it looks: this !vote, described by FOARP as "support 'massacre'", actually didn't support including it in the title (just as an alternative name in the lead), while Selfstudier didn't cast a bolded !vote in this or this RM. The only RM where Selfstudier actually !voted for a massacre title (in FOARP's evidence, anyway) was [3].
• While these RMs have drawn a lot of suboptimal participation, closers have consistently been very careful about looking beyond the !votes and closing in accordance with policy: see [4] (endorsed at MRV), [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], etc. It's therefore not necessary to deploy drastic steps like remedy 18.
• I'm really uncomfortable with the balanced editing restriction—partly because it's easily gamed, partly because it has strange consequences (if I make 30/100 edits in the area on weeks 1 and 2, 35/100 edits in the area on weeks 3 and 4, and then go on vacation for a month, then I've seemingly followed the restriction but suddenly come into violation halfway through my vacation), and partly because it can be imposed without actual evidence of disruption. It is unlikely to help and would be a wikilawyer's dream.

Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I will add that if you're going to sanction Nableezy for non-neutral RM !votes, you do need to address the explanation he gave: that he only changed his standards in response to RM results. That concern with neutral/consistent outcomes does at least line up with what he said at the time ([10][11][12]). More generally, I think the non-neutrality line of argument is not the most fruitful one: it's very difficult to prove that people's arguments are insincere. If you're going to do it, it requires a pretty granular examination of the actual reasoning—not just an inference that someone must be !voting the party line too often. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm also surprised that (as Barkeep49 notes) there's no remedy related to the 1RR: if 1RR restrictions are often an ineffective mechanism for preventing edit wars (FoF 2), surely it's time for a change? There are plenty of options (BRD, consensus-required, applying restrictions per-content rather than per-editor), and while none is ideal, I think there's a strong argument for trying something new, even just for a trial period. We have plenty of narrow remedies for specific parties and plenty of creative swinging-for-the-fences remedies, but maybe what we need is options that fall somewhere in between. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:36, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Moneytrees, I can't really speak to what particular sub-topics could benefit from a restriction—maybe SFR or someone has an opinion. Full consensus-required can be pretty burdensome (especially on pages with few watchlisters), so I'd be thinking something along the lines of enforced BRD applied per-content, I guess. But it's hard to know how things like that would work in practice. One alternative might be to just put it in the toolkit and encourage admins to experiment with it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Extraordinary Writ @ScottishFinnishRadish BRD won’t prevent some of the cited edit wars because of the 24 hour limit, if I’m correct. But like you say, CR could be pretty laborious if applied over several articles. I think something along the lines of, ”Admins are encouraged to apply BRD/CR on a per-content basis in lieu of 1RR…” would satisfy that? (SFR and other admins can comment here in reply) Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:22, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• To editor CaptainEek: "amending benign comments into personal attacks" — is that in reference to my evidence or something else? What comments? Zero^talk 00:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  You have already identified it: Special:Diff/1243039935. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:38, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• ScottishFinnishRadish's evidence is cited as showing incivility in the area. However, the only example is actually a mild criticism of an administrative action. In particular, it is not "in the PIA topic area" per its usual meaning. All wp editors have the right to criticise administrative actions. Zero^talk 00:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  Incivility and "criticism of an administrative action" are not mutually exclusive; one can be critical of administrative actions in a civil manner. Your comment at the PIA-focused AE referral to ARCA is well within the scope of edits relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to pages and discussions in all namespaces with the exception of userspace. - Aoidh (talk) 05:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  @Aoidh: Red-tailed hawk listed me as an "involved AE participant" in an ARCA case merely because I had asked a question, then refused to remove me when I asked politely. I should have used a word other than "feeble", but the best would have been a gentler word with much the same meaning. I removed it altogether after a few days. As a meta-comment, my philosophy has always been that taking criticism on the chin is one of the obligations of an administrator, especially myself. Zero^talk 10:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• The meaning of remedies 11a-b is unclear. All three of the AE reports leading to this case had only two parties. HaOfa Nableezy1 Nableezy2. They only became multi-party affairs when they were referred to ARCA. Does the committee intend that other editors cannot be mentioned in AE cases? That evidence against other editors can't be mentioned at AE (by the handling admins, or by anyone?)? That other editors can't be added to ARCA referrals? I wouldn't know how to interpret this as an admin at AE with the current wording. Zero^talk 03:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Remedy 17, balanced editing restriction is an interesting idea but implementing it would be tough. One unintended consequence would be that editors under this restriction will avoid talk pages so as to not use up their allowance. We should be encouraging them to use talk pages. Violations would be hard to detect without some sort of tool, as active editors make hundreds of edits in 30 days. Zero^talk 05:06, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• To editor HJ Mitchell: "involvement in multiple multi-party edit wars". Where does that come from? The only example on the Evidence page is one revert listed by SFR, that I mentioned in my own evidence. I was not involved in any of the other edit wars mentioned by SFR, nor those mentioned by FOARP. Nor by anyone else, if I'm not missing something. Zero^talk 11:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  @Zero0000 You may be correct, my apologies. I was conflating Butterscotch Beluga's evidence with SFR's. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:06, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  Thank you. Zero^talk 10:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• To editor Elli: Jerusalem Talmud is not an ARBPIA article. It has nothing to do with the Israel-Arab conflict. The name "Palestinian Talmud" is often preferred in the scholarly literature because the work was not written in Jerusalem; it has nothing to do with Palestinians. I always go to RPP if I want an ARBPIA article protected. Zero^talk 10:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

To editor ToBeFree: Jerusalem Talmud doesn't have a single word about the Israel-Arab conflict, so it is quite wrong to call that an involved protection. I am not invoking the "any admin would do it" excuse, because I don't need an excuse. I was exercising my discretion to semi-protect a non-ARBPIA article that was subject to slow-motion disruption. Zero^talk 06:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

My message wasn't about the case's scope, it was about your repeated substantial reverts of non-vandalism ([13] [14] [15]) followed by a protection based on the removal of sourced content ([16]), practically hindering those who had a content disagreement including a talk page discussion with you from continuing to edit war against you. You should invoke the "any admin would do it" excuse. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:34, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• The Israeli press revealed last October that funds were allocated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry "to an organization called National Vision ... designed to highlight the Israeli government’s narrative on the English Wikipedia". A few weeks ago, it was reported that the Israeli government would increase 20-fold, to about US$125 million, the funding for "consciousness warfare", including "research activities and PR firms, social media initiatives, campaign management", etc. Even more recently, an American organization with a $100M budget declared a war on Wikipedia that would include "curated sock-puppet accounts" and multiple dirty tricks for doxing editors. Everything points to the coming year being one where the integrity of ARBPIA will be sorely tested and in danger of permanent damage. The assault has already started, but it's going to get much worse. Zero^talk 02:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  The reason why this is relevant right now is that the editors whose knowledge, skill and stamina best equip them to hold the fort against this type of externally-led campaign include those slated for topic bans. Some of the same editors are those whose record for detecting socks is the best. Zero^talk 11:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• The nature of the evidence.
  (1) Since the Israel-Gaza war began, each of the editors proposed for topic-bans have made between 2,200 (Levivich) and 9,500 (Selfstudier) edits in article and talk space in the PIA domain. Yet the overall quality of their editing is judged on the basis of a mere handful of edits. Doing this even on the basis of a random sample of that size would be statistically unreliable (an opinion within my professional expertise). Doing it on the basis of a small hostile sample is just begging for a bad conclusion. Any regular editor of contentious articles could have that type of case made against them.
  (2) The worst example is the claim of "consistently non-neutral editing" based (according to how it is written) on FOARP's evidence. But FOARP's evidence, which relies entirely on several RMs, shows nothing of the sort. Given the extreme bias towards one side (more than 100 to 1 in terms of dead civilians per "massacre" title), these editors were consistently pushing in the direction of neutrality. Why is that irrelevant? Also, nobody asks why different circumstances require the same arguments. If FOARP's evidence demonstrates anything at all, it is that these editors are subject to confirmation bias like everyone else on the planet. Zero^talk 11:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Balanced editing restriction. As other people have pointed out, the proposal as written produces anomalies. The most extreme example is someone who makes a single edit in a month and it happens to be a PIA edit. They will be in breach, but would we really zap someone for one edit? Overall, I can't see any point to the proposal except as a punitive measure. It says to someone "now it will be three times as hard for you to edit in your preferred topic". That won't improve anyone's editing. Those who aren't driven away entirely will make useless edits in topics they don't care about, and focus their PIA edits on article space instead of discussion. Zero^talk 04:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

First, I want to thank the drafters for having had to deal with an overwhelmingly complex case. I'm still absorbing everything posted here myself, but I have some initial reactions.

Like others who have commented above, I feel like I'm seeing a strange disconnect in the PD votes so far: incivility, no big deal, but everything else, very big deal. If ever there has been an ArbCom case where Enough is Enough, this is it. The community made it very clear to you that nobody wants PIA 6–1000. If you were considering site-bans for experienced editors who have content skills, I'd be opposing those site bans. But you should be going more in the direction of topic bans, which can be appealed after some time. Excusing significant and ongoing incivility on the basis of... what? erudition?... is not going to solve the problem. On the whole, we are past the point where warnings and the like are appropriate any more.

Also like other editors, I'm uncomfortable with how some of the Arbs seem to think André had allowed himself to be canvassed. Before you make a final decision about that, please re-read the Analyses of Evidence on the Workshop page. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think the movement on the PD page in the time since I posted the above is likely to be in the right direction, thanks. But, after further thought, I really want to emphasize how strongly I feel about the civility issue. It would make a mockery of "being right isn't enough" to take the attitude that editors who are experienced and thoroughly aware that PIA was already a CTOP before this case started, but who nevertheless made a habit of turning discussions into places that were unfriendly to other experienced editors who were coming in good faith to the topic from RfC/RM-type notices (my evidence and others', notably Crossroads'), should get a pass because they also have content skills and, perhaps, social capital. To be blunt, I've been getting the vibe ever since the very-long period during which the Committee was trying to make up its mind about whether or not to accept the case, that some members have been squeamish about subjecting such editors to scrutiny. I continue to believe that ArbCom has a responsibility to "break the back" of this dispute, not to nibble around the edges. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I said this on the Workshop page, but I'll repeat a version of it here. With regard to the proposal by one Arb to site-ban André, I mostly agreed with André in the one dispute where I was a participant, but I can see the reasoning behind reading the evidence as showing him as taking a somewhat partisan approach to editing, and I've made it very clear that I support taking a no-half-measures approach to this decision. But his civility was way better than most of the other parties facing sanctions. And if any whiff of this is about the allegation that he allowed himself to be canvassed (or, per the wording that I see, that he must be guilty because he was made a named party here), then I am going to propose site bans for everyone who was on ArbCom at the time of the Polish Holocaust case. After all, ArbCom saw an offsite source, the now somewhat discredited G&S paper, and ArbCom made themselves the filing party of a full case in order to consider carrying out what G&S said Wikipedia needed to do. If he was "canvassed", then so was ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

When I see this: [17], I feel that we are absurdly past the point of let's just see if there is one more AE complaint. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I want to respond to what CaptainEek posted in their own section, below, but what I'm going to say should be relevant to all of the Arbs:

• It's good to interact with the community. I'd like to see more Arbs do that. I'm sorry that it can get demoralizing, but these are difficult issues that require clear and even blunt talk. Thank you for engaging.
• There are problems with sockpuppets and meatpuppets, and there are problems with experienced editors. These problems need to be fixed, and it isn't an either/or situation. It's not a matter of doing just one or the other.
• Regarding the problems with experienced editors, WP:BRIE really matters. It should not be conditional. I've been trying to make the case in my evidence and in the workshop, that problems with civility make it too difficult to get more experienced editors to provide "fresh eyes" – and getting more "fresh eyes" is the best solution to any supposed vacuum that would result from topic bans, the best solution to the risk of socks and the like filling that vacuum. Experienced editors knew that CTOP were already in effect, and should have been trying to behave appropriately. The burden should be on them to demonstrate that they have taken the feedback and have learned to do better. That shouldn't be assumed.
• Myself, I'm against site-bans for any of the experienced editors. But I think indefinite topic bans are the best way to go, not one-year topic bans, not narrower-scope topic bans, and not lesser sanctions. As Arbs know, "indefinite" does not mean permanent. And such bans obviously allow good work in other areas to continue, in the mean time.

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I see some editors continuing to argue on this talk page that we will have a lamentable vacuum of experienced editors in the topic area, after the topic bans. So I'll continue to say that it will be easier now to get "fresh eyes" on the topic pages, and I think things will work out alright. And topic-banned editors will be able to appeal in due time; my guess is that some will be able to appeal successfully.
• I've seen on the talk pages of some of the named parties that they have questions about my evidence, like they aren't sure what was so incivil about it. I don't want to intrude if I'm unwelcome, but if you want to ask me at my talk, or ping me at your talk page, please feel free to ask. Only if you want to. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I avoid getting into back-and-forths with other editors on this talk page, but I'm going to make an exception for what Bradv just posted, partly because he is someone I hold in very high regard, and partly because I'm appalled by what he says. At a time when ArbCom is rightly recognizing that Wikipedia needs to be cautious about making decisions based upon outside pressure, it would be wrong for ArbCom to back away from making a good decision just because the ADL is praising that decision. And as for excusing obvious incivility just because it masquerades as a request for sources is a slap in the face to WP:BRIE. It looks to me like ArbCom is about to get this Final Decision right, so good for you for that, but I hope there won't be any last-minute second-guessing that would mess that up. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Valereee: The right way to communicate, especially under CTOP, with editors who haven't read the sources: "If you look at (link to source), page 25, it says "(quote)". (In fact, I pointed this out already, above.) That addresses the concern you brought up, and supports what I have been arguing for."

The wrong way: "You remind me of a school child who hasn't done the assignment. You should stay out of this discussion if you haven't done the reading."

Even worse: saying that to (among others) me, when I had just demonstrated that I was reading the sources, because I was correcting overly close paraphrasing of the sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

And I guess I now need to address that @Primefac:, too. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll admit that I logged on today, fully expecting that I was going to strike-through the part of my comment above, where I said "so good for you for that" to the Committee. Happily, I don't have to. And I think the most recent votes in Remedy 4c, by Daniel and Z1720, are impressively thoughtful, thanks. I also see the reply to me and other editors by Primefac, and for what it's worth, ArbCom's role is to deal with conduct, and not just with conduct as a function of content area; if you regard bad conduct as beyond ArbCom's reach if it is not "because of this topic area", then you really are excusing the behavior. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A question.

• There is a statement "Ïvana (talk · contribs) was banned from editing the English Wikipedia by the Arbitration Committee on 9 December 2024 for off-wiki misconduct relating to the PIA topic area"
• There is a statement about AndreJustAndre, "...including making specific edits after an off-wiki blogger requested those edits be made..."

Can ArbCom confirm that the same decision procedure with respect to responding to specific off-wiki requests is being used in both cases? The reason I ask is because distinguishing between correlation and causation can be difficult without something very specific in the request/task, like a matching URL that you can see in this recent example from the Zionism page where there is an exact URL match between a task assigned off-site and the on-wiki action or request. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sean.hoyland If I understand what you're saying correctly, did the different Andre fof/remedy clarify this? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Moneytrees, not really unless I'm missing something, which is very possible. First, I should say where I'm coming from. I would like to completely break any links between what happens off-site in the media, social media, advocacy sites etc. and on-site actions in the topic area. Obviously, I'm not talking about innocuous things like fixing errors, I mean external attempts to influence content by assigning tasks and employing resources within Wikipedia to execute those tasks, including using a "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" approach. Maybe I'm in a minority on this, but either way, I think there is a lack of clarity in the rules. I'm not sure people know where the lines are, or whether there actually are lines, or whether reliable/repeatable methods are being used to figure out when a line has been crossed. Breaking those links doesn't necessary require sanctions in my view, maybe clarity is enough, at least for experienced editors acting in good faith. What I do know, because I asked, is that Ïvana does not believe that ArbCom definitively established that they responded to specific off-wiki requests i.e. that ArbCom did not distinguish between correlation and causation, and Andre does not believe they did anything inconsistent with the current rules. For the sake of consistency, I'm interested in whether in both cases ArbCom definitively established that the parties responded to specific off-wiki requests, but I am much more interested in the misalignment between what the parties appear to believe and ArbCom's view on these kinds of issues. This misalignment seems like a signal that editors need clear guidance so that they know what is expected of them and will at least understand remedies related to connections between off-site things and on-site things. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:26, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sean.hoyland Okay, I think I have a better understanding of your question. I think there's a distinction between the sort of canvassing that Andre and Ïvana are accused of. Ïvana was accused of having an account in an opaque offsite Discord group coordinating edits in PIA and proxying for a banned editor. Andre has admitted to acting on off site complaints, but there isn't any evidence that he is part of a "secret" group and proxying for a banned editor (as far as I have seen at least). From what I saw, Ïvana denied association, and speaking for myself I did not find the explanation convincing. I do not feel like these things are equal, which is why I voted to ban one but not the other. It does feel like there's a bit of a slim distinction between things (especially for someone who can't see the "private evidence"), but I think that might be more of a community policy question regarding the definition of CANVASSING/PROXYING versus something that Arbcom can clarify as a body, if that makes sense. I hope that made things a little clearer? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:12, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Moneytrees, thanks for the reply, but this includes other matters that I deliberately excluded. I have asked elsewhere whether the "banned editor" part was confirmed, but didn't receive a clear answer, and I don't know whether the person who writes the blog Andre reads is a banned editor. It's possible. Perhaps they could tell us in their next blog post. And I know that it is usually not possible to prove that a person knows that someone is a banned editor and that this may be factored into decisions about sanctions. I'm aware of the important differences between the cases, but I was hoping they weren't relevant to my question. I was trying to focus on the single common feature in isolation, responding to or executing specific off-wiki requests to try to get some clarity on the issue. And my potentially false premise was that it would have no dependency on other factors like whether the source is public/transparent or secret/opaque. Slightly counterintuitively, it seems it is better for parties who want to a) influence content by assigning tasks and employing resources within Wikipedia to execute those tasks and b) reduce the risk of sympathetic editors who might execute their tasks from being blocked, to work out in the open rather than in secret. And it is better to ensure that you can't be connected to banned editor account. Actually, what I think would really help a lot is if people were just open about it, just say "I made this edit/request because of this post offsite". Sometimes I ask people, new editors making a request that matches an offsite discussion etc., what led them to request the edit, but I think I've only had one straightforward answer. So, it seems that people are reluctant to talk about it, which is quite interesting in itself. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding Tryptofish's "The community made it very clear to you that nobody wants PIA 6–1000."...if that is the case, I don't think I'm part of that community. There is nothing inherently wrong with having PIA cases. They generate evidence, discussions and may produce incremental improvements. Obviously, no single case is going to produce some kind of dramatic phase transition to an ordered state, or a skewed state that favors people who advocate on behalf of individuals or organizations that engage in mass violence against civilian populations etc., especially cases that focus on individual editors rather than systemic things.

On bans/topic bans, I don't think there is convincing evidence that these have been effective in the topic area, presumably in part because they are largely unenforceable/have a dependency on the target's willingness to employ ban evasion. I wonder how much more ban evasion it is going to take before other methods are tested to see whether they might help, whatever they might be. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding Aquillion's concerns about the impact of tbans on the sock population, I don't really share this concern because I don't think the sock population is particularly sensitive to current population control measures. Creating socks is frictionless. Multiple tools are available to help people rapidly obtain extendedconfirmed grants. Disposable ban evading accounts are better adapted to the hostile PIA environment where the risk of sanctions is elevated because the people who operate the accounts are unblockable. Only their accounts can be sanctioned or blocked. Disposable ban evading accounts have a fitness advantage in the environment so they will presumably continue to flourish and out-compete legitimate editors in many areas. The appealingly simple celebrity culture-like way of thinking about the problems of the topic area popularized by partisan actors both on and off-site helps to keep the focus away from disposable accounts that can fly under the radar for long enough to have an impact. And the community already accepts and rewards their presence by retaining the content they create. So, there is a pretty healthy market for ban evasion and its products in PIA and I imagine it is likely to continue regardless of this case. Sean.hoyland (talk) 19:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the notion that there are groups of editors. There are thousands of unique editors active in the topic area. They don't need to be classified or grouped. The classifications will be wrong. There is optimistic talk of breaking the back of the problem. I think this is unrealistic. The topic area is like a forest. If you cut down some of the prominent trees poking through the canopy, remove a few elephants etc., what will happen? Nobody knows, but the forest will still be there, and it will very likely continue to function as it did before or thereabouts. The problems are autocatalytic. Whatever happens in this case, the topic area will likely carry on roughly as before, in good ways and bad ways, because it is complicated and diverse with thousands of moving parts, new editors joining all the time (it is more attractive than Wikipedia in general), external events poking the system etc. Individual editors have limited impact. Here are the figures for the 2023-10-07 to 2024-10-06 period for editors in the proposed decision. It is quite a small footprint. I think people who are hoping for easy solutions/improvements by cutting a few trees down and trapping a few of leopards are probably going to be disappointed.

Sean.hoyland (talk) 19:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

ProcrastinatingReader, for interest, I understand there are many views on this issue, but I don't think admins should have the discretion to not protect pages in scope based on some black box decision procedure. The amount of disruption depends on the scale used. Is it disruption events per week, per month, per year? And admins can't see all events that violate rules so they can't reliably measure it. A throwaway non-EC ban evading account making an edit at an unprotected page does not look like disruption, it likely won't even be noticed, but it violates the rules. I see these events quite often when I look at my watchlist because the use of disposable low edit count accounts to edit in the topic area is a common MO for certain sockmasters. It is an effective strategy too. My view is that discretion should be minimized in the topic area. There is no reason to expect the discretion of an admin will produce the optimal decision based on a single sample, a page, when it is often part of a larger process that they don't consider, a ban evading actor moving through the system. I think it is better to let uncaring machines handle things as much as possible especially when there are clear simple rules. One of issues in the topic area is existing rules not being enforced, fuzzy decision boundaries. Selfstudier is the topic area's most productive EC enforcement resource, and the topic area has just lost that resource. Congrats on their promotion. People can't police EC violations. There are too many. I think it is better to try to enforce rules, and if that is not possible in practice, change them or just abandon them. Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A question about BilledMammal if anyone cares to answer. There is a statement in the BilledMammal behavior (alternative finding) section that I have just noticed - "They have weaponized reporting systems against perceived ideological enemies (David A evidence, private evidence)." What makes privacy necessary in this case? I see that they wrote "Can I be provided with the private evidence of this, so that I can reply in the same manner Ïvana etc were able to reply to the private evidence I submitted?" Has this reasonable request been granted, and if not, why? Sean.hoyland (talk) 19:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Re: "looking forward to this lowering temperatures in the area rather substantially"...I wouldn't get your hopes up, there are fires being lit all around the topic area and the volunteer fire department has been downsized. There is a firestarter at AE right now. How that case is handled may give some indication of what is to come. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe one alternative to things like balanced editing restrictions that might also work as a more nuanced approach than bans might be to just use simple day or date-based limits as a way to adjust the amount editors who want to work in the topic area can interact with the topic area and its editors. A kind of 'no soup for you' today approach. So, if an editor who has been found to fall below a certain standard like failing to put as much effort into acquiring synthetic civility skills as ban evading actors (Georgia Tech finding) or being overly focused on fanciful objectives like trying to achieve consensus through discussions that quote reliable sources, they could be assigned a regular time-out, no editing on Mondays for example. If there is recidivism, it could be increased to time-outs on Mondays and Tuesdays and so on. You get the idea. That way, editors could see their ban coming in higher resolution. It's gradual and undramatic with many opportunities to change course and it might reduce negative unintended consequences of sledgehammer usage. It may also give people more opportunity to think before they act. Maybe this kind of thing has been tried before, and it didn't work or was hard to police. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I like the 'PIA editors thanked' suggestion but I don't think it is likely to lessen the name calling. External parties targeted specific editors, specific articles etc. etc. Some of those editors were blocked. The obvious conclusion that will be drawn by many is that external pressure works. It doesn't matter whether it's true. So, the pressure campaigns will obviously continue. It's not all bad news because the outrage can be monetized, so all the good work has helped some people out there. A single data point monetization rate can be estimated by reading the comments of this video 'Wikipedia is BROKEN (Hacked by pro-Palestinians)', a video that has produced some activity at the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and 1948 Palestine war articles. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The Brazil nut effect - I think one of the many lessons of this case might be that the Brazil nut effect applies to the topic area. If you shake the system made of thousands of parts by repeatedly poking it with dramatic external real-world events, inject enough biased disposable ban evading accounts and inexperienced/clueless new partisan users, vibrate it with plenty of media/social media disinformation, some of the 'big' users will rise to the top attention-wise and some of them will be held responsible for the state of the system. All parties are acting good faith from their perspectives. Another lesson might be that collaborative/adversarial systems like Wikipedia can have autoimmune disorders. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

But FOARP, the "Hail Mary" theory is an example of not assuming good faith. What are the alternative explanations that assume nothing? Is there incomplete information e.g. what if you include the fact of the matter that editors were advised/encouraged to file SPI reports when they suspect ban evasion in recent discussions? If you cast a wide net, you will likely catch some socks. That's just a feature of the topic area that has no dependency on intent. People see patterns everywhere. Anecdotal evidence is selected to fit the theory of the case. Much of this ArbCom case is based on that approach in my view. Sean.hoyland (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Evidentiary standards - In the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_5/Proposed_decision#Makeandtoss_behavior section there is a statement

• "including non-neutral editing (FOARP evidence)"

The evidence consists of 12 samples. 9 of the samples appear to be null results for Makeandtoss. The 3 samples are 3 out of around 30,000 edits by the editor. 2 of the 3 include an argument based on sources. What is editor's objective function in these cases? Nobody knows except the editor, and it can't be reliably established using these 12 samples. The non-neutral editing argument also requires a selective suspension of AGF for these 3 samples. It doesn't seem reasonable to apply a "non-neutral editing" label to this editor based on this dataset alone. They clearly have biases and preferences, but that is not a distinguishing feature in the topic area. It would a great if there were a way to discourage biased editing and advocacy, but I don't think this approach is how to do it. It's trivial to find examples of apparent asymmetries in editor's revisions, especially if you only need 3 samples. It's another example of where cycling through disposable low-edit count accounts provides a fitness advantage by reducing the size of the revision history. Weak evidentiary standards may set a precedent, may be transferable to AE where they may be weaponized. Maybe that's a good thing, I have no idea, but it might be an unintended consequence. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is nothing stopping someone from posting positive evidence about a party to a case; in WP:HJP there were a half-dozen editors who had such evidence given about them, and it did help the drafters when creating the PD. Primefac (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Saying nice things about people? Let's not go crazy. Being nice is a bridge too far. One reason not to do that for me is the same reason I didn't provide any evidence about individual editors. That would mean signing up to an anecdotal evidence game and I don't think that approach can produce good decisions or significant improvements to the topic area, unless you adopt a utilitarian objective and try to maximize happiness using the time-honored tradition of human sacrifice.

Anyway, I'll have a go at saying something nice. Based on the evidence presented, Eladkarmel's incivility evidence and Andre's aspersions evidence, we can say that Nableezy has a combined incivility-aspersion rate of (7+11)/56197, which is 0.032%. This is presumably an undercount because of sampling issues, but by how much? Nobody knows.

On a less cynical note, I think a good question to ask might be whether an editor's objective to a first approximation is public good, are they trying to build an encyclopedia, do they pass the WP:NOTNOTHERE test? I think all of these editors pass that test. I might be biased through exposure because I've interacted with countless editors that have passed through the topic area over the years, and very many of them make the editors facing sanctions look like part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I think the optimistic idea that I have seen around that new neutral editors will flow into the topic area to fill the gap is not supported by what we know about how the topic area works and the kinds of editors it attracts.

And talking of objective functions, it seems to be a bit poorly defined for the topic area. Is it building an encyclopedia or a quiet neighborhood? Having both doesn't appear to be possible, and there seem to be many people out there who will make sure that can never happen. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

On the ADL view. According to them

• "Iskandar323, Selfstudier, Nableezy, Levivich and Nishidani" are "anti-Israel editors" who "spread misinformation and hate across the platform", "malicious, false and biased information about Zionism and Israel" and "literally have wreaked havoc across the platform, causing untold harm."

I agree that this should not have any bearing on internal things. But it will. There are many credulous people who do zero due diligence, and they will believe it. Some will come here. Editors will have to deal with them. It will be expensive. It produces workloads like this where we can observe "disruptive" "non-neutral" editor Selfstudier patiently explaining the EC rules. It's easy to say things like best to ignore it, but these things impact the topic area and its editors. Wikipedia is a battleground, so complaining about BATTLEGROUND behavior/wishing it wasn't, probably isn't going to help. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Barkeep49 your interpretation below is not quite accurate.

• "accept that it is a battleground (while realistic that we may never be able stop it from completely being a battleground it does not mean we have to accept) but should make new actions to continue the battle".

My position is not that we have to accept reality as the only possible state of affairs, join yet another futile battle over territory in information space etc. it's that we are apparently unable to do much about it, and it has costs. I don't take the position that we "should make new actions to continue the battle" because that is a death spiral, a race to the bottom. We don't need to play the game that partisan actors seem to want us to play. My position is that we should try to break the link between what happens off-site and what happens on-site because it destabilizes the topic area and impacts editors. I think I said that here somewhere. I don't know how to do that. Wikipedia is currently under attack. Editors are under attack. There are doxing threats. The topic area is becoming more hostile. It's natural for some people to go into counterattack mode but it won't do any good. The better reaction in my view is to keep your eye on the ball, building a rules-based encyclopedia, and not play the game. Sean.hoyland (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC) And the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#שלומית_ליר case is where we can observe Wikipedia in action trying to find a solution to the off-site <--> on-site conundrum.Reply

Again, thanks to everyone working on this case to reduce tensions in the topic area, which is clearly a very lengthy and complex case. I wanted to point out to two issues relating to the section on my editing behavior, which cites non-neutral editing (FOARP evidence) and stonewalling discussions (ScottishFinnishRaddish evidence).

1- FOARP's evidence: does not support the claim made against me that I base my contribution to a move discussion based on the victims. They had cited three instances where I supported a move to massacre when the victims were Palestinian, but provided no instances where I contributed to a move discussion when the victims were Israelis. Also their evidence misses out on my initial vote at the Tel al-Sultan attack where I had supported the move for Palestinian victims from massacre to attack. So two-fold issue: limited choice of evidence that does not support the claim made.

2-ScottishFinnishRadish evidence: Relating to the incident in which I had unfortunately closed a RFC, it was a singular mistake in a decade of editing. I had already clarified the circumstances at the related AE report relating to this incident dating back to May 2024 and apologized for it. I already received a warning at AE for it, so I am not sure why this has been reopened, since ARBCOM relates to what AE hadn't been able to solve (I have not repeated this behavior since).

Pinging @CaptainEek: and @Elli: who had already checked my section for their kind notice. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

While I understand that the case may be complex and that arbitrators are genuinely trying to implement remedies to improve conduct in the topic area, I believe that the defenses presented by editors should be carefully considered to uphold the highest standards deserving of this case. As I have outlined above, the first set of evidence does not demonstrate any inconsistent voting patterns, and the second set concerns a recent singular issue of closing an RFC in a decade of editing for which I had never done before, was already warned about, and accordingly have never repeated.

To drive my point further, I don't think that being described as having stonewalled discussions in relation to have closed that singular RFC is accurate, especially when I am a communicative editor. For example, I am the sixth most active editor at the Talk:Israel-Hamas war where I had contributed to 8.9% of its text and currently have seven ongoing discussions that I have initiated there. ([18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]). Not to mention the examples I had cited at the evidence page showing how extensively and patiently I tried to initiate discussions with now-banned socks. With that in mind, I kindly request the following for all the current parties in the case: 1- A careful examination of our defenses and editing behaviors. 2- Consideration of our actions within their broader context. 3- Ensuring sanctions do not duplicate previous ones. 4- Avoiding punitive rather than corrective sanctions. 5- Ensuring that non-sock editors are not held overly responsible when sock accountability is difficult given their recurrent appearances. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:19, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Moneytrees: Thank you for acknowledging my defense. Could you please reference which other evidence shows my non-neutral editing? I would really appreciate the opportunity to examine this evidence like everyone else. That aside, I am concerned that the proposed remedies are not proportional to the supposed misbehavior, for example how sanctions jump from admonishment to a year topic bans. I think the proposed one third of edits pertaining to the topic area for a certain period of time is a creative idea that would allow editors to cool down. A long-awaited ceasefire appears to be coming in the next few days, hopefully, which will definitely also help cool down emotions and tensions.

Also, another concern relates to how the proposed remedies might be putting good faith rare editing mistakes and misbehavior on the same level of long-term bad faith manipulation. For example, earlier last year, a number of editors were indefinitely topic banned for canvassing and proxy editing, which are far more egregious violations of WP's policies. This will inevitably drive away productive good faith editors as elaborated by @Bluethricecreamman:, and create a vacuum that will be filled by the omnipresent sock networks as argued by @CaptainEek:.

It is understandable that the seemingly two diametrically opposed viewpoints being presented here will cause frustration, this is why we should give a lot of time to discuss and carefully consider all the different viewpoints and options here. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Moneytrees: Thank you for specifying the evidence. The AE report of January 2024 does not necessarily relate to non-neutral editing, as this would involve misrepresenting sources, which I have no interest in doing.

To cite only a few examples to demonstrate my neutral editing (against the POV people think I have) on the ledes of the topic area's most prominent articles like Israel and the Israel-Hamas war from the middle of 2024, I have:

• trimmed Hamas justifications for its 7 Oct. attack
• trimmed Houthi justification for its attacks
• removed Hamas justifications for hostage taking
• trimmed details about Palestinian casualties being underestimated
• removed POV phrasing that Israel was committing "scholasticide"
• removed POV phrasing saying Israel's conduct was "genocidal"
• removed material saying Israel weaponized starvation
• removed material highlighting Israel's intelligence failure.
• removed phrasing that Israel committed ethnic cleansing in 1948

For a decade of editing, I have had a clean record until the start of the war, which sent tensions soaring. Even in a tense atmosphere, I did my best to maintain neutral editing. A ceasefire has been finally announced, and this will inevitably reflect positively on WP for all parties involved. I hope our arguments and evidence are kindly given due time and taken into consideration by the arbitrators who are undertaking a massive and important task. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was taken aback by the recent comment describing my decade of constructive editing as a “toxic” track record. This feels both inaccurate and unnecessarily hostile, which runs counter to the talk page’s guideline. I kindly ask for a more respectful approach, even when discussing controversial options such as the “nuke” proposal. Makeandtoss (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you @ToBeFree: for your thoughtful vote. I really appreciate your careful examination of the evidence and defenses, hoping that arbitrators take another critical look at everyone's evidence to ensure the process has positive outcomes. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  Clerk note: moved to own section; was originally in reply to Special:GoToComment/c-Primefac-20250121151100-Makeandtoss-20250121143400 HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 18:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC) Aside from the balanced editing restriction, a topic ban that by definition includes filing SPIs will lead to negative consequences. For example, in the last few months, Levivich and I have separately filed multiple SPIs and complemented each other’s with evidence, which successfully caught no less than a dozen socks (more credit is due to Levivich, who has been a master at this for many years). To cite a few examples: [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]. Adding to the critical view of the evidence submitted, I think preventing us and others from filing SPIs if extensive topic bans goes through will only encourage and lead to a proliferation of sockpuppetry, at a time when we have evidence saying these sock networks are going to have generous annual raises. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems that our input on the talk page is not affecting the case much, nevertheless, I feel obliged to make several points for the historical record.

Intent: Look, most of us can agree that there are issues in the topic area, and mistakes have been made by experienced editors. On the other hand, seeing how this case has proceeded, it appears that a purge is partly based on a belief that a power vacuum will be filled by new experienced editors. But that is not true as the root problems are not being fully addressed, in what is arguably the world’s most contentious topic area during the most critical moments of its century-old history.

Political involvement: Wikipedia has long been under attack by pro-Israel parties due to its coverage, with the past year seeing this effort dramatically intensifying. Don’t take my word for it, take it from high-profile statements in the past few weeks, from Israel’s president Isaac Herzog who called the site “a key battleground area,” and ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt who called the site “a front” in an information war. In a recent Israeli parliament meeting, Greenblatt went as far as taking Israel’s boobytrapped pagers attack as an inspiration, in which he likened “pushing extremists off WP” to pushing militants away from Israel’s borders, and the effort in “capturing TikTok!” Also, in a recent interview, Greenblatt mentioned that this is why they are taking on WP, including tactics like “naming and shaming editors.”

External influence: These are not only words, but also actions. I have already outlined how extensively sock networks have caused chaos in the topic area and detailed how Israeli ministries are involved in operating sock networks which will soon see increased funding. Others have pointed out to the exposed doxing campaign by the Heritage Foundation, which involved using provocative behaviors by socks as one tactic. All these trends points out to one fact: the topic area’s problems are not going to be solved with these remedies, as more can be done towards dealing with serious disruptive behavior such as sockpuppetry, canvassing and doxing. There might be a decrease in emotions in the upcoming period, which confirmation bias will attribute to the passed remedies rather than the ceasefire, but there will certainly be an increase in disruption: As one anonymous editor told a newspaper that if the topic area keeps having cases where the “six worst” “anti-Israel editors” and only two “pro-Israel editors” are topic banned, it should be "a good resolve" for "pro-Israel editors," to "learn from all of this and not give up.”

Acknowledgement: Well, let’s assume for the sake of argument that a purge is necessary and a potential remedy, the least that could have been done here is giving a word of appreciation for the editors instead of implicitly depicting case parties as being the main problem. Personally, I have been editing extensively on the site for a decade with a clean record until the war started, and I feel like I have been discarded. But an acknowledgement by some fellow editors has thankfully lessened my disappointment. Interesting to note here that the writer of the pro-Israel Wikipedia flood blogspot, who identifies as a long-term editor, seems to have taken things personally for some reason, attacking the process as a kangaroo court, and attacking CaptainEek on X. Again, despite my reservations, I personally think arbitrators have done god's work here.

Topic bans: If the indefinite topic bans move through, I will still be editing WP, and I have plans for example to move Jordan to featured article, somehow minus the PIA content in it. Also, I will be unfortunately deprived from editing in my favorite topics, like the History of Palestinian journalism and Al-Asma'i (magazine) which I have recently written completely from scratch in a high quality, not to mention Black September and Battle of Karameh as well as parts of Hussein of Jordan which I developed to GA status many years ago. This applies also to the other case parties here. The proposed sanctions will only deprive WP from positive contributions rather than addressing the root problems.

I am an optimistic person, and I still believe there is time for the case to change course. If not, my words will remain here for future reference. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A big thank you to the arbitrators who have worked on this: It's been a massive timesink and, I think, a clear illustration of why ARBCOM intervention was needed.

That said, I find myself bothered by the wording of Proposed remedy 14, AE topic bans. "editing in a consistently and blatantly biased manner" is, with all due respect, too woolly. Does it mean "editing in a manner that violates NPOV"? Does it mean editing with a bias in the statistical/scientific sense, of applying different standards to different parts of the dispute? Does it mean "editing in a manner that makes your biases on the subject obvious"? Does it mean "editing to always support one side of the dispute, even if those edits are individually justifiable"? In my view the first two examples are already covered by NPOV, but the second two interpretations would be entering new territory in terms of policy, and not in a good way.

If the intent is to encourage admins to examine and act on potential NPOV violations, rather than just behavioral expectations that are easier to legislate, you should just say that - that is already within our remit, but firmer guidance would be useful. If, on the other hand, ARBCOM is encouraging us to remove editors who very clearly have strong views on ARBPIA disputes, this is dangerous. We have many excellent editors with strong RL opinions who have been role models for how to edit contentious topics by setting aside those biases when writing content, and removing them based on biases they have disclosed - for instances - in talk page discussion or off-wiki discussion, would be unprecedented. Our expectations currently include neutrality in content, as we define it, and collegiality toward other editors, as we define it. Many things that could be considered "bias" broadly construed are not covered. I strongly feel that remedy could use additional clarity. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

We went back and forth on the wording. Originally, it said non-NPOV, then POV because non-NPOV seemed hard to parse, then it became what it is now because there were concerns that POV editing itself isn't bad. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@CaptainEek: I can see that simply saying "editing in a manner that violates NPOV" isn't enough, because that's already obviously within our remit. But the current wording is ambiguous, and I suspect it will lead to more dispute than it will solve. The more I read it, the more I think it needs revision: I think it's meant to say that a consensus of admins at AE can apply a TBAN in response to such behavior, but at the moment it allows an individual admin to do so in response to evidence filed at AE. It's a bit of a grammatical mess, too (sorry!).

Am I correct in thinking that this is coming out out of some of the FoFs of non-neutral editing, in the sense of taking inconsistent positions on similar questions in service of a POV, as you note here? In that case, might I suggest something like the following? "If evidence is presented at AE of an editor shown to be editing in a manner that consistently introduces bias into PIA content, AE admins are encouraged to consider, and empowered to levy, a topic ban. Admins are specifically empowered to sanction editors whose edits taken in toto show a lack of commitment to NPOV, even where individual edits may be justifiable."

Many other means of clarification exist, but as things stand you haven't clarified if, and how, this is different from regular NPOV enforcement. And most importantly you haven't clarified how this is not encouraging us from topic-banning every named party in this case, because all of them very clearly have bias with respect to this topic, even if many of them are able to set that bias aside and edit constructively. Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well I certainly agree with you there, I think its too vague to be useful, and that's why I opposed it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• FWIW there is already the suggestion at AE that this principle empowers us to sanction behavior we previously could not. I don't see how it is reasonable to support this principle by saying it reflects the status quo; it is patently unclear whether it does. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of a Levant subcommittee. There is considerable cost in a request for arbitration, but there are also matters that are too hefty for AE. That said, what we want with the membership of such a committee is tricky. Experience and expertise in CT administration are essential: but we also don't want the same people who are regularly staffing AE to all become subcommittee members, because that would expand the responsibility of those admins without increasing capacity, and AE is already stretched for admin time/effort. I would in principle consider volunteering, but that would probably come at the expense of time at AE, and certainly at the expense of time on PIA cases at AE. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Having taken the time to read evidence, I have to agree with Bradv below about the topic-wide indefinite TBAN for Levivich being too harsh. Their conduct has fallen below our standards, but there is a qualitative difference between Levivich's conduct and that of others for whom equivalent sanctions are being considered. I also don't see the sort of history of warnings and sanctions I would expect prior to an indefinite topic-wide TBAN, in marked contrast to several others, and I see a lot of constructive engagement with content dispute, again in marked contrast to several editors on both sides of this dispute. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Again, after having seen the evidence here, I don't see how it justifies a site ban by itself. Reading between the lines a little bit, I am guessing a lot depends on the interpretation of off-wiki and/or private evidence - but if there is anything in there that justifies a siteban, ARBCOM should at least say so, without making the evidence itself public. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the "editing in a consistently and blatantly biased manner" wording in section 14, that is WP:TENDENTIOUS editing, right? I noticed CaptainEek's statement that AE already topic bans those who can't edit neutrally and, well, I'm not sure that's true (here we are, after all!) My experience is that tendentious editing is by far the hardest thing to enforce, partially for reasons that the problems with wording this finding of fact makes clear - simply having a perspective isn't tendentious editing and isn't something we want to or can prohibit. It's very hard for administrators or even arbs to untangle whether someone is trying in good faith to correct what they see as an issue across the entire topic area, whether they're blindly trying to push it towards their preferred point of view regardless of what the sources say, or whether they're standing up to the latter efforts. Figuring out which is which requires in-depth knowledge of the topic in order to understand what a reasonable or unreasonable weighting is, detailed analysis of the sources to understand what's a reasonable and unreasonable interpretation, and so on - or really blatant behavior where someone is obviously contradicting themselves. Even with blatantly tendentious editors, AE and ArbCom usually end up removing them for civility problems instead, because that's just much easier to prove. I don't know if there's any solution (and I assume that what CaptainEek really means is "they're supposed to be doing this anyway and us encouraging them to do it harder isn't going to help"), but in retrospect perhaps analyzing how AE handles such accusations might be useful. It might be nice to have an essay on "how exactly do you prove this?" - proving that someone is uncivil just requires slapping some diffs together; proving that someone is tendentious is much harder. --Aquillion (talk) 22:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks like things are leaning towards topic bans for almost everyone involved. While most or all of those may be necessary, this is going to empower the socks when they inevitably return (as well as the WP:MEAT issues of people being directed here to push articles), since there will be fewer experienced editors to spot them or to push back against them. I don't really know what can be done about this, or if it's something ArbCom can do vs. something that will have to be done elsewhere, but it's important to keep an eye on the problem. And few of the proposals (at least the ones that can pass) really do anything about it - not that I know what that would be; it's not like ArbCom has a magic wand; the proposals that are failing are failing for very good reasons. But I'm concerned that a month from now the topic area is going to be much more heavily dominated by socks and meatpuppets. --Aquillion (talk) 18:07, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hopefully the always-on ECP will help with this, as they will not be able to participate except to make edit requests. Primefac (talk) 18:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hopefully, but people gaming the 30/500 restriction has been a serious issue for a while, and while it presumably slows them down it hasn't stopped the sockpuppets until now - many of these sockpuppets were extremely, aggressively active for over a year before getting caught. And of course spotting people who have gamed the restrictions requires experienced editors. The editors that ignore 30/500 are a problem, but most decisions are only made by a dozen editors at most; just a few determined sockpuppets or meatpuppets without anyone opposing them could have a drastic impact on the topic area. (Part of the problem with the POVFORKs is that they also tend to have fewer eyes on them to begin with.) Having ~8 fewer experienced editors doing these things will have a major impact unless other editors step up. One vague possibility that occurs to me is to allow any topic-banned editors in the topic area to bring cases in the topic area to WP:SPI, and maybe even WP:AE as long as they behave themselves enough there to not get barred from it specifically (ie. any admin at AE could revoke the AE exception for them if they misuse it and are uncivil there or are bringing obviously spurious cases.) --Aquillion (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Belatedly, I noticed that the balanced editing restriction will, if I am reading it right, strictly topic-ban affected editors from filing SPI and AE reports. IMHO this is a mistake (per my suggestion above) - if anything those (filing your own, not commenting as a third party on others) should be the one thing that is allowed if anything is, at least until / unless an uninvolved admin tells them to stop. Yes, sure, it's possible to file frivolous reports, but doing so is obvious in a way that invites being shut down, and I don't think any of the evidence or findings-of-fact have found that it's actually a problem. Someone who has trouble editing collaboratively is still capable of pointing out obvious socks or misconduct by others. I know it's too late to change it at this point after everyone voted on it, but it's something I'd put forward as a possible future amendment, especially if sockpuppetry continues to be a problem - I particularly don't see much harm in allowing them to raise SPIs. And especially for the people affected by this sanction, who will still be allowed to edit and participate on talk pages - we should want people to take concerns to AE or SPI; otherwise they tend to fester on talk pages and result in WP:ASPERSIONs. --Aquillion (talk) 13:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  Generally speaking, if an individual is topic banned from a subject, they would not normally be able to file SPI or AE reports in the topic area. I believe that any BANEX exemptions are implied, but filing reports is not one of those exceptions. Primefac (talk) 14:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but my point is that the balanced editing restriction, in particular, will allow people to continue to participate on articles and talk pages (at least in a balanced manner), but will ban them completely from SPI and AE in the topic area (because they're fully topic-banned from everything other than Article, Talk, Draft, and Draft talk.) This seems backwards to me and is likely to encourage WP:ASPERSIONs and the like, since normally the response to concerns on talk is "take it to SPI / AE". Filing SPI and AE cases is, to me, "safer" than editing articles and talk pages, where the vast majority of misconduct in the evidence here occurred. It is harder to file such reports in a tendentious manner without it being obvious, because everything goes directly in front of uninvolved admins who will quickly notice if the reports are all frivolous. (And one concern a lot of people have raised is that banning regulars might make it harder to catch socks - allowing people to file SPI reports would help with that. Creating an entire category of people who can edit articles and talk pages but cannot report any socks they see seems like the precise opposite of what we ought to be doing.) As I mentioned above, I think making filing reports an exception (though with the caveat that it can be closed for a user by any uninvolved admin) would be a good idea in general, but in this case in particular the fact that the balanced editing restriction prevents them from filing SPI / AE reports seems undesirable. --Aquillion (talk) 14:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

How is an SPI in the topic area defined? Also, Aquillion's concerns are pretty justified, here is an example from a talk page discussion dating back to September 2024, in which I had correctly identified two socks and was dismissed as casting aspersions, only to have the two later confirmed as socks in an SPI (PeleYoetz and ABHammad). Makeandtoss (talk) 14:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I will see if I can come up with something to mitigate this. Primefac (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just spoke with Elli who wrote that motion; this is a feature and not an oversight. Primefac (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

May I ask the arbs, did you consider only the evidence posted at /Evidence, or did you consider evidence given in preliminary statements too? In prelim statements, I recall BilledMammal's provided evidence generated lots of discussion. But BM has went inactive, so didn't repost it in the evidence stage.

I don't have an opinion on its content, but it was the best attempt at something quantitative evidence I've seen in this case, or any case (having been built from Quarry queries and whatnot), and I'd have liked to see what the arbitrators thought of it. Pinging @CaptainEek as you seem to be the active drafter here :) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

We did not consider it, no. Folks were welcome to have resubmitted items from the preliminary statements, but nobody did re: BM. Nor did BM discuss that with us despite having previously telegraphed his pending inactivity. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:44, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

---

Remedy 20 is too complicated to work IMO. And IIRC, ArbCom subcommittees in the past seem to have inactivity problems. The workshop idea of 'AE referral to ArbCom mini cases' was actually a good one, though. Cases which are heard before the committee itself. I think it should be considered. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@L235: I don't like the idea of extending ECR. That admins have discretion to not protect an undisrupted page has (ime) prevented totally unnecessary protections. I recall editors mass requesting pages to be protected simply for being in scope; regretfully I must say I've done this in the past too. These days, I think it's totally counter-productive. It limits editing without limiting disruption. Additionally and frankly, I don't think FOF 9 actually leads to Remedy 1, and at minimum FOF 9 should be elaborated. Maybe there are within topic pages that aren't ECP protected. Is this because admins are systematically refusing to protect them (on the basis of 'no prior disruption'), or that an admin just hasn't been notified of such a page? I'd really suspect it's the latter, in which case Remedy 1 does nothing to help, and takes away discretion for no reason. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Let's get real here: The parties are long-standing editors, some of them have been editing for decades, they know our PAGs, they don't need to be reminded of them. For those whose behaviour is found to be disruptive, admonishment with no other sanction is just going to be seen as practically an endorsement of that behaviour.

As well as the update that Nishidani has been recently TBanned, can I draw attention to what's been going on at Nishidani's talk page, where this supposedly retired editor is on their 5th or 6th wall-of-text response to proceedings here?

UPDATE: Make that 7th response. All of which behave as being loftily above the proceedings here, "declin[ing] to participate", whilst running a virtual play-by-play liveblog commenting on minutiae of the case (did you know that "regulars" also has military connotations!?! Did you know that if you say people are editing to "right great wrongs" that means you are admiting that there must be great wrongs?!?). And whilst their *somewhat-unique* writing-style may bury or deaden the impact of some of their comments about these proceedings, it is none the less worth listing some of them:

• "When the ARCA discussion opened, I noted, while objecting to be sucked into it, that 10 contributors drew dire pictures of utter chaos in the IP area, all of which struck me (impression) as uniformly ill-informed" (dif)
• "I see no evidence there, unless for what looks like settling an old score/sore dating back to 19th of August 2023" (dif)
• "Once this nonsense is wound up that's it." (dif) - this response is worth noting for a range of reasons, including the admission that they haven't engaged with this process because they can't keep their responses within the word limit (which seems pretty WP:CIR to me), and the patent lack of any actual meaningful commitment to actually retiring. Additionally they claim that they are only responding to the notices on their talk page, but they have clearly been reading proceedings here and responding to what is said here in the case in great detail and length.

I included all votes by all parties to the case at massacre RMs to avoid the accusation of cherry-picking. BM's votes were therefore included. As noted in the evidence, BM did vote against "massacre" in at least one case where the terms was favourable to his "side". I take no position on whether any of the rest of the evidence provides grounds for sanctioning BM - as I said earlier they seem not to know where to stop in some circumstances which is not constructive.

As the evidence shows, Selfstudier said they were uncomfortable with the term "massacre", but then went on to support it being used as a descriptor where it was favourable to do so for their "side". This is exactly the behaviour that is an issue here - quibbling whether it was a bolded vote, or trying to interpret their earlier hesitancy (where that hesitancy was favourable to their "side") as a principled objection, hardly impacts that.

Nableezy complains of "cherry picking" in my evidence of their behaviour. This evidence was exactly the opposite - I included all the votes of all the parties to this case in "massacre" RMs since the 7 October attack. If anything, rather than being overly-selective, this cast the net too broadly. They say they changed their !votes in response to RM outcomes, but the evidence shows that RMs went their way (e.g., the Holit and Nir Oz "massacre" discussions) where they argued based on COMMONNAME so abandoning that standard for a "It's a massacre because I think it was a massacre" standard (where doing so was favourable to their "side") does not make chronological sense. FOARP (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@CaptainEek: - Where I'm at on this is that once you've stated that it's "Not enough to be right", that "Enough is enough", and that an editor has been "disruptive", then the analysis about what to do about that editor is pretty straight forward. Picking and choosing disruptive editors to rescue from the consequences of their disruption on the basis of quality of their editing just isn't in the brief - indeed you risk saying that it "could be enough to be right" and that "enough ain't necessarily enough". FOARP (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since a number of Arbs were involved in this Sockpuppet investigation I thought perhaps it was not necessary to raise this issue here, however, I think perhaps it is since it hasn't been mentioned in this process.

Put simply, an SPI was requested by I.M.B., a user who was later found to be a sockpuppet of Irtapil, which named a large number of users as potential Icewhiz socks, including BilledMammal. Levivich then filed evidence in support of this claim against BM, which, to be very charitable, was not evidence of anything, and Levivich was then asked to file more evidence, which they said they would do, but ultimately did not do.

I cannot stress enough how unseemly it is for an editor facing sanctions at ARBCOM to make what appears to have been a desperate "Hail Mary" effort against another editor who they were in conflict with like this. How little it reflects good judgement and ultimately goes against the need to assume good faith even in a world that has Icewhiz in it. Barkeep's close of the discussion was putting things very mildly in this regard. FOARP (talk) 10:39, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I feel like one of the biggest problems in this article space is the combination of bludgeoning and civil POV pushing that we describe as sealioning. (And apologies that callling it that feels like an attack on ArbCom, not what I'm intending.) I feel like this is the root of the problem, with incivility by experienced editors who just get frustrated only a symptom. And as I mentioned in my evidence, it's incredibly tedious both to prove and to assess sealioning, or get attention to it, which is even more frustrating.

I'm not seeing anything that directly addresses this. The incivility isn't the major issue here, but most of the remedies so far are to punish people for incivility. These are experienced editors we're talking about, and I strongly suspect most of them don't really care about someone being slightly uncivil to them except that it gives them evidence of rulesbreaking by someone they disagree with. They're not running away in tears. They're thinking, "Gotcha!"

I wish we'd stop focussing so hard on this minor symptom and actually deal with the problem, which in my opinion is the sealioning. Valereee (talk) 10:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Valereee how would you address it if you had a magic wand? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

If I had a magic wand, I'd make sealioning by an experienced editor anywhere an AE issue and subject to a full indef by any uninvolved admin as an AE or individual action only appealable to arbcom. I've seen it by experienced editors -- ones who are otherwise well-intentioned, but who in this case have a strongly-held opinion and know exactly what they're doing -- multiple times, including in non-CTOPs. I've only seen it by inexperienced editors in contentious topics, usually doing it rather incompetently and where I sometimes suspect they're either being coached or are copying a strategy that looks successful. Inexperienced editors could just be pblocked from an article, but an experienced editor doing it? No. I'm not usually a throw-the-book kind of gal, but I've seen this, and it's absolutely a war-of-attrition strategy that works most of the time. Valereee (talk) 15:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll add that where it is somewhat less successful is at CTOPs, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to the other editors, which IMO is why it brings out the incivility in normally civil editors. Valereee (talk) 15:19, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ScottishFinnishRadish, I hope that'll help, too, but if so we should probably give it a chance before we tban some of the most experienced editors in the topic area for the symptom. Or at least considering only those civility offenses that happened after that was implemented. I truly hate seeing people banned for incivility -- a pillar, btw, I personally consider possibly the most important -- if we've already solved the problem that caused their frustration to spike out of control. Valereee (talk) 16:06, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

SFR, yeah, I do get it. I just feel like we may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Valereee (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Would someone be willing to add a 21b that applies to all of AE? Irrelevant comments are not a major problem with every case, but they are at best always unhelpful, and I get the objection to making special rules just for PIA reports.

@Parabolist, one of the biggest problems at ANI is sections so long and full of irrelevant comments and sniping and 'what about x' and long back-and-forths and bludgeoning that admins coming in to try to drill into, give an opinion on, and resolve the actual issue are daunted by the sheer amount of reading they need to do. One of the reasons AE works better than ANI is the required sectioning helps prevent a lot of that. The proposed remedies are intended to help even more with sprawling cases.

Requiring less reading for admins is not the goal. The goal is effectively using admin time. Making an issue at an article/topic easier to understand, assess, and resolve is helpful in improving articles in a topic. Valereee (talk) 11:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have to admit I'm a bit discouraged. In my evidence I said "I disagree that there are clear editors to blame. In my opinion the issues are systemic and not related to particular editors. And we absolutely do not want everyone left editing in the topic to be ECR but otherwise inexperienced." And it looks like that's pretty much what we're going to have. I'm not sure I can face Talk:Zionism again. And I'm wondering how many experienced + knowledgeable re: sources editors are out there who are willing to work in articles so contentious that they can get them indeffed from the entire CTOP. I guess we're about to see. Valereee (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@The Kip, like I said, I guess we're about to see. Valereee (talk) 16:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've already mentioned that I think we're stripping this topic of some of its most knowledgeable editors, but I want to go on record agreeing absolutely with bradv about Levivich, in particular. The evidence against him shows him, after literal months and sometimes years dealing with editor after editor coming in with opinions not informed by actual knowledge, expressing mild frustration as he tells people to read the sources.

I'd like to ask anyone who has voted to tban him for this to ask themselves how exactly we can ask people who haven't read the sources (but repeatedly reject or even misstate those sources they haven't read) to read the sources? How does one do this without that demand being apparently inherently uncivil -- so inherently uncivil in fact that it merits a tban that isn't appealable for a year? Is telling people to read the sources an inherently uncivil behavior? Valereee (talk) 11:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Incredibly minor point, but ScottishFinnishRadish is spelt as "ScottishFinnishRaddish" on six occasions throughout the text. I shouldn't edit as a non-arb so I said I'd mention here. — ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 11:55, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for that, have fixed all iterations I could find. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 12:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I've been unable to find it detailed, or to deduce it from previous cases, what does an "admonishment" actually entail when handed out by ArbCom? -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

See WP:ADMONISH, which was recently added as a shortcut. Primefac (talk) 13:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since it now seems that we are as good as at the end, I can only say that the loss of most of these editors is a sad state of affairs for the topic area. I look forward to when we are back here for the inevitable occurrence of PIA6. Lastly I can only say, that I sincerely hope to see the editors filing their appeals in 12 months time. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 20:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AndreJustAndre:, @BilledMammal: didn't realise you two were engaged in "anti-Israel editing behavior" per All Israel News. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh, someone has corrected the All Israel News article. Here's the archive for posterity. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:56, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think there should be diffs in each of FoF sections. For example, Makeandtoss points out that FOARP's evidence section doesn't appear to have any example of Makeandtoss !voting inconsistently depending on the "side". FOARP, is that correct? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Vice regent Arbitrators are expected to read the evidence for themselves and decide whether it is sufficient to support the FoF. While we occasionally add extra or specific diffs, that is very time consuming and not general practice. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@CaptainEek thanks. Would it be reasonable to ask the committee to indicate whether the FoF refer to behaviour before or after the latest sanction the user received (Oct tban for Nishidani, June warning for Makeandtoss)? Only post-sanction misbehavior should result in further sanctions IMHO.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 18:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I said above, to avoid accusations of cherry-picking, I included all the votes of all the named parties in all the "massacre" RM discussions. This means that some of the people whose votes were counted were not, in my view anyway (the arbs can of course come to their own conclusions), arguing inconsistently. The people who I think were arguing inconsistently were the three people I identified as doing so in my evidence. FOARP (talk) 20:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, that helps.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Guerillero please consider this discussion. Clearly, I have strong disagreements with Andre, but in the end Andre was (and I was) able to collaborate, compromise and reach a consensus. I think sitebanning Andre would be a net negative for wikipedia.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 18:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I urge the committee to consider a narrower tban Makeandtoss. They have done prolific work[30][31][32][33] on Jordanian and Palestinian history. The committee should consider ScottishFinnishRadish's idea of tailoring their tban to the post-2000 A-I conflict. Makeandtoss has made thousands of edits (including bringing important articles to GA status) that could reasonably fall within the broader A-I area but their troubles are mostly limited to the current war.

The arbitration committee has done this before. In WP:ARBIRP, Primefac and CaptainEek supported a narrower tban for Mhhossein (limited to their problem area), who has since remained a productive editor without any issues AFAIK.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@HJ Mitchell, just saw your comment "a topic ban of some description seems necessary". Maybe a narrower tban would maximize benefit and minimize disruption for wikipedia.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Vice regent Thank you for your comments. I'm trying to work my way through all the existing proposals before proposing any more but I have some thoughts. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:57, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Great, thanks for your consideration.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Aoidh, re[34]. I know your comment was about Levivich, but just wanted to point out the above evidence that IMHO would support a narrower tban for Makeandtoss.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 06:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Moneytrees and theleekycauldron you have commented specifically on Makeandtoss's behavior. Would you agree with me (above) that their problems are limited to post-2000 I-P conflict and they don't have problems with the thousands of edits they've made to various articles on Jordanian history? For example, consider their GAs: Jordan, Abdullah II of Jordan, Hussein of Jordan, Battle of Karameh, Black September. Or consider their contributions to Jordanian culture (Theeb, The Jordan Museum, Al-Maghtas etc). Because of Jordan's proximity to Israel, every single one of the preceding articles could be reasonably construed to have some degree of overlap with the I-P or A-I conflict (indeed most articles do mention Israel, some >40 times). Once again, it would be great to carve out a narrower tban similar to what Primefac, CaptainEek, KrakatoaKatie, Worm That Turned supported in 2021. Prohibiting Makeandtoss from contributing to Jordan, assuming there's no evidence of misbehavior relating to Jordan, would be a net loss for wikipedia. Thanks for your consideration.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 18:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC) Pinged a couple more arbs who were on the previous case.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  The Kip The whole point of a tban vs ban (which seems to be rightfully opposed even for Nishidani and Andre) is the recognition that the user has potential to be net-positive for wikipedia, but has trouble with certain areas, from which they should be tbanned. That a siteban is not proposed for M&T is a recognition of this potential. The question is what are the areas in which they are a net-negative and in which are a net-positive? That question should be based on M&T's editing behavior. If M&T has troubling behavior in pre-2000 Mideast history, by all means tban them from that area too; but do they? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:24, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  The_Kip can you cite problematic editing in pre-2000 Jordanian/Palestinian history? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

When it comes to tban on Levivich, the question the committee should ask is: will this help or hinder wikipedia? I have no doubt that Levivich is a net positive and below are two exceptional things Levivich did that I don't see others doing:

• Levivich is very consistent. Back in 2019, Levivich proposed criteria for classifying incidents as terrorist. 4 years later they applied that very criteria to defend a pro-Israeli position. This commitment to consistency and neutrality is pretty rare.
• Levivich conducted this very insightful analysis on how to organize an extremely important article in accordance with WP:DUE. He then assisted me in applying this methodology elsewhere. While many use DUE to determine which POVs should be prioritized, using DUE to determine section sizes is rare and shows just how deeply Levivich understands (and applies) our policies. The two articles mentioned above are not in A-I, strictly, but not far from A-I either.

Levivich's harsh comments towards those who don't read sources are unfortunate, but if Levivich apologizes and commits to change, then keeping them around is clearly in our own interest.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:07, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I urge the arbs to please not close this until the Levivich part is sorted out. The indef tban is currently only passing by 1 vote, of which Daniel and Z1720 have expressed unease about about this remedy.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 12:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Edited. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 13:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • How I have expressed unease? I indicated it was a tough decision and a narrow call but felt it was the right one, in the absence of an apparent alternative. That isn't "unease", and I believe describing it as such misrepresents my position. Daniel (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
    • @Daniel:, apologies, didn't mean to misrepresent you nor Z1720. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 13:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

• @Vice regent: My vote is based on the comments I saw in the discussions. While I do not like timed based exclusions from a space (I'd rather that an editor be allowed to return when they have demonstrated that they know what they did wrong and will avoid the same behaviour in the future) I think this remedy is the most-correct one of those proposed. I'm happy to provide more comments to Levivich if they email me, but I don't think I will comment much further on a public forum about this editor's behaviour as it would be inappropriate. Z1720 (talk) 14:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

  FWIW, @Z1720, the gatekeeping comments by Levivich that editors must read a bunch of sources before commenting or editing articles is not accurate. Here are the diffs for convenience: Special:Diff/1181046254, Special:Diff/1181046254, Special:Diff/1181857165. I never said that editors must read a bunch of sources before commenting or editing articles--that's much broader than what I actually said, which is that editors should read the sources before making claims about what the sources say, or participating in a discussion about what the sources say.

  I said that in response to people who either admitted to not having read the sources, or who misrepresented what those sources said (e.g. they don't include "Palestinians" despite sources being quoted using that exact word), in discussions where the relevant source material was right at their fingertips, in the form of quotes on talk pages and quotes in citations in the article. Only in those narrow circumstances, and I said this in two discussions over two years.

  I also never did any gatekeeping--I never reverted anyone, never closed a discussion, never one-clicked archived a discussion, based on "you didn't read the sources." I expressed opinions on talk pages -- a correct opinion, that editors should read sources before making claims about those sources. This is not disruptive or uncivil, nevermind TBAN-worthy. This is a principle arbcom should be making in this case: editors should read sources before making claims about sources. (Also to respond to something else on the PD page, though it's a minor point, I never compared editors to "naughty schoolchildren". The word "students" does not mean "naughty schoolchildren." I had university students in mind when I wrote that.) Levivich (talk) 14:57, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for proposing the probation, Moneytrees. Is it true to say that the way this differs from tools the admins already have is that this allows the administrator to impose a topic ban without waiting for any sort of consensus at AE, and ensures noone can second guess that tban except the committee itself? If so, I think this proposal has teeth. I have felt that sometimes admins (such as ScottishFinnishRadish) wanted to take action against users but got bogged down in AE.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that's mostly the intention. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the comments from CaptainEek, Moneytrees, and others regarding the definition of sealioning: please don't use the current all-caps shortcut if it doesn't accurately reflect your intent. For clarity, I suggest describing the behaviour as you intend using non-jargon terms, and then if desired, linking to the Wikipedia article in parentheses (perhaps to a specific version). isaacl (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly @Isaacl, Primefac changed the wording of the relevant finding to link to the mainspace article, which I think resolves this problem. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:30, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sure, if that's what the committee feels best expresses their intent. (My personal preference is to avoid cultural-specific jargon, but of course that's up to all of you.) isaacl (talk) 02:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding Valereee's comment on the systemic problem: during the workshop I wrote about the underlying problem of the content dispute resolution process. Relentless requests while feigning ignorance is one vulnerability of English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision making procedure. While I understand why the arbitration committee's proposed remedies have continued along the usual approach of defining rules to try to filter out uncollaborative participants, I had hoped that the committee might look for ways to improve the content dispute resolution process itself, as a "last resort" when the community itself cannot agree upon process improvements. But true enough, deciding on a content dispute resolution process is nominally a community responsibility. The best way to reduce non-collaborative approaches is to design the process to make them ineffective. isaacl (talk) 18:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the proposal for an uninvolved administrator to request an early review of the balanced editing remedy: I suggest the scope of involvement be more clearly defined. I think it would be reasonable for an administrator involved with enforcing the remedy to be able to request an early review. isaacl (talk) 01:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

While I appreciate the reasoning behind the balanced editing remedy, I don't like the precedent of disallowing users from editing within their area of interest. I think our processes should foster collaborative behaviour, rather than diversity of topics edited. isaacl (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

First, apologies for my unavailability. I’ve offered to provide ArbCom with details and proof that this is genuine and not ANI flu, and provided details to CaptainEek at their request.

Second, I want to address the evidence presented against me while I have a little time to do so:

including edit warring (ScottishFinnishRadish evidence)

This is accurate. At times, I have been too quick to revert, although I try to open discussions and RFC’s instead. It is an area I am trying to improve in.

They have made vexatious reports at AE

I have previously had two reports closed as vexatious; one inside the topic area, one outside.

The first was three years ago, made after following Nableezy suggested I was a sockpuppet without evidence, and refused to retract it. It was a mistake, made when I was inexperienced, although I think it is relevant to note that a couple of days prior I had defended Nableezy at AE.

The second, outside the topic area, was more recent, but I note that my approach - taking concerns of canvassing of wikiprojects to the appropriate forum, with evidence - was endorsed by several editors in a synchronous village pump discussion.

It was a mistake, but I hope an understandable and forgivable one, and as it was outside the topic area I believe unrelated to this case, and doesn’t support sanctions within the topic area.

Outside of these, only a couple of reports I made have been closed as unsuccessful - I disagree with Smallangryplanets characterization of several of my reports as unsuccessful, such as the reports that were archived without closure.

As a general rule, I don’t believe that successful reports can be classified as vexatious.

misrepresented sources in the topic area (Smallangryplanet evidence)

changing killed Palestinian children into “minors”

[35]

This is a dispute over language. My position was that children can be interpreted as meaning those under 13 - it is how I interpret it - while minors is clearer that this includes those under 18. Minors is accurate, and doesn’t misrepresent the source.

I note after this edit was reverted I tried to open an RFC on it, but it was closed by an involved editor.

attributing the Palestinian casualty figures to Gaza Health Ministry

[36]

Almost every source - including the sources we use - attribute the casualty figures to the Gaza Health Ministry. In such circumstances, it is appropriate and required for us to do the same.

inserting controversial claim that accuracy of Palestinian casualty figure is disputed

[37]

With this edit, I provided several sources that support it. Editors can argue that this is WP:UNDUE, but they can’t argue that this is misrepresenting sources.

removing mention of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian heritage sites

[38]

The source provided doesn’t say who damaged them, just that they were damaged.

removing mention of discovery of Palestinian mass graves

[39]

My argument was that it was WP:UNDUE for the main article on the war, and didn’t accurately reflect the source - it claimed that the bodies had their hands and feet bounds, but that claim was nowhere in the provided source.

removing reliably sourced content referenced to Forensic Architecture

[40]

This is a WP:BALASP dispute. I considered this material, which including in the lede meant a minority perspective was given space equal to the majority perspective, as an NPOV issue. It remained in the body of the article.

removing reliably sourced content referenced to The Guardian

[41]

I removed this content as it was about an unrelated incident, and didn’t consider it appropriate to include in this article - particularly given the lack of context about the culpability for that unrelated incident.

removing reliably sourced content referenced to CNN

[42]

I changed On 15 April, medical crews stated they had found a mass grave near the hospital with the bodies of 15 people in it to On 15 April, medical crews stated that they had recovered 15 bodies from around the hospital as while the source said they were searching for mass graves, it didn’t say these bodies came from one.

I don’t believe any of these examples include misrepresenting sources; several of them even involved correcting issues of source misrepresentation.

They have weaponized reporting systems against perceived ideological enemies (David A evidence, private evidence).

Can I be provided with the private evidence of this, so that I can reply in the same manner Ïvana etc were able to reply to the private evidence I submitted?

It’s also unclear to me which aspect of David A’s evidence supports this claim, so I will reply generally:

The vast majority of my AE reports have been for 1RR violations. When I see a 1RR violation, I first ask the editor to self-revert; I have done this both for edits that are aligned with the Palestinian POV and with the Israeli POV.

I do find 1RR violations more frequently in edits that are aligned with the pro-Palestinian POV, but I believe that is a result of two factors. First, the topic area is dominated by pro-Palestinian editors (see my preliminary evidence). Assuming pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli editors violate 1RR at equal rates, there will be more violations by pro-Palestinian editors than by pro-Israeli.

Second, I do have my own biases, though I try to recognize and control them. I look at edits I think there is an issue with in greater detail than edits I think are fine, meaning I’m more likely to notice 1RR violations in edits I disagree with.

If the editor refuses to self-revert, I typically spend considerable effort trying to convince them to do so; in one instance I spent considerable amounts of time trying to convince them, to the extent the SFR recommended I take them to AE faster in the future, and another I offered to reinstate part of their edits, even though I disagreed with them.

Only if they didn’t self-revert did I take them to AE; while as far as I know this didn’t include pro-Israeli editors, that is only because they self-reverted their violations. Further, I have made dozens of reports privately to ArbCom of violations by pro-Israeli editors.

When I make reports, I’m not trying to sanction one "side"; I’m trying to make sure both "sides" abide by our policies and guidelines, and the results of these efforts are not one-sided - both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli editors have ended up sanctioned.

@CaptainEek, Guerillero, Moneytrees, Daniel, Primefac, Elli, and HJ Mitchell: Notify arbs who have already voted on the relevant FoF. BilledMammal (talk) 18:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

We were advised of BM's absence, and we agreed that we would not hold it against him. I don't believe it was ANI flu based on what I know; I think BM was being genuine. No merits comment at the moment. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you; I hope to return later this year or early 2026. BilledMammal (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you to the Arbs for your work on this. I have questions over remedy 11b, currently unanimous in support as of writing, due its broad scope encompassing all AE reports.

Specifically for this example we'll say a fictitious editor, User:Sealion69420, becomes the subject of an AE report by User:Reporting User1, but that user only participates in editing Articles A, B, and C. Sealion69420, however, also edits articles X, Y, and Z with the same behaviour patterns which lead to the report over Articles A, B, and C and Reporting User1 does not see this when filing their report.

If I am witness to the patterns at X, Y, and Z, my understanding is that if this remedy passes, I would be restricted from responding to the report to add this information and would therefore need to either 1) file my own, new report on Sealion69420 or 2) rely on either patrolling admins or Reporting User1 to find it themselves

Am I correct with this understanding? This should perhaps be dealt with separately due to the broadness. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 19:06, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Fully agree with The Kip re: Levivich, especially since principle 18 ("enough is enough") has already passed. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 02:28, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Adding further (as a general point, not just Levivich) that if people are found to be wrongdoing and enough truly is enough, why is anything less than a TBAN even an option? If time-limited sanctions are a concern, pair them with editing requirements, such as at AE/Southasainhistorian8 2, which resulted in a 6 month/500 edit TBAN from India-Pakistan. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 07:37, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just from my own perspective, we do have the "AE admins can ignore this" clause, so if the filer only knows about A, B, and C, and you can make the argument that the same behaviour is at X, Y, and Z, the AE admins will likely not ignore it simply because you are not the original filer. Primefac (talk) 10:30, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with PF, fwiw. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 22:29, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you both for the answer ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 02:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks to arbs, old and new, for their efforts.

Lessons learned 20:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on and for the bold action to remove partisans from the topic area. Jehochman ^Talk 21:09, 13 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not much from me here, just two points:

1. I'd like to thank the arbs for putting their time and effort into handling this case. PIA5 is/was badly needed, but the mountain of evidence/accusations/etc made it an absolute morass to take on.

2. I don't understand why a simple "admonishment" is even being considered for any of the parties to the case - based on their behavior as demonstrated by evidence, and as justified by the "Enough is enough" provision, it should be one-year TBANs at a minimum, and ideally indefs. For instance, Makeandtoss has already received a "final warning" for BATTLEGROUND conduct at AE, and I recall BilledMammal receiving a warning against "further vexatious filings" at AE. What do we really think another "you've really done goofed now!" warning will do? The Kip ^(contribs) 00:15, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A specific note on this - CaptainEek's current justification for supporting only an admonishment for Levivich, but opposing a topic ban, effectively boils down to "aside from the persistent incivility they're really quite a good editor," which effectively makes them a WP:UNBLOCKABLE because it's been clearly stated by an arb that their civility issues can be partially excused by their quality of edits. That's, in my opinion, an awful precedent to set, not just for ARBPIA but for enwiki as a whole. The Kip ^(contribs) 00:50, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

And now with Selfstudier’s proposed TBAN, the very similar “we can’t ban them because things could get worse!” defense comes out. All this does is set up a protected class of unblockable editors who are effectively allowed to get away with any and all poor behavior just because their replacements could hypothetically make the area even more toxic than it already is. It’s abandoning the mere possibility that things could get better out of the fear of an unknown, which has been a problem that’s repeatedly dogged AE/etc in this area - for some reason, admins/arbs/etc seem much more content to live with the devil they know and let the area remain an open disaster as a result.

The “enough is enough” provision has already passed - why are we so hesitant to use it? Why are we still assuming that this warning will finally be the one that puts someone in line with PaGs when the many received beforehand haven’t? With all due respect, I am genuinely at a loss as to how one can believe that BilledMammal and Andre (who, don’t get me wrong, wholeheartedly deserve their incoming TBANs) are the only ones here that deserve TBANs, unless we’re just unilaterally overturning WP:BRIE here and declaring that one is allowed to be as uncivil and toxic as they want provided it’s occasionally directed at socks/bad actors on enwiki.

These sorts of toothless warnings are exactly how we end up with many of the same parties here in six months at PIA6. Please don’t make the same mistake AE’s made for years.

Pinging @CaptainEek: to allow a response to what’s primarily been a criticism of their rationale. The Kip ^(contribs) 00:40, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I already explained on my vote on the Selfstudier tban, the idea that the named parties are The Problem in the topic area is a popular one, but one I don't think was necessarily borne out by the evidence. There were also many folks who pointed out that continued meat and sockpuppetry is the true driver of conflict in the topic area, and that by banning all the regulars, we'll just empower the socks. Clearly, not everyone agrees with me, but that's why there are so many members on the Committee: a range of opinions are represented. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 01:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I suppose I respect your commitment, but

the idea that the named parties are The Problem in the topic area is a popular one, but one I don't think was necessarily borne out by the evidence.

I firmly disagree with this assessment of the evidence. That’s all I can really say.

by banning all the regulars, we'll just empower the socks.

Alternatively, we’re tossing out BRIE and creating a new class of UNBLOCKABLES, thereby empowering users as a whole to flagrantly violate PaGs, all due to the actions of a few sockmasters incompetent enough that they’ve been caught and reverted repeatedly.

Overall I find myself greatly disappointed. I respect your contributions as an arb but in the long run this line of logic is fundamentally far worse for the project than the risk of Icewhiz sock #135 getting caught in four weeks instead of two. The Kip ^(contribs) 02:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

So who exactly would you like me to vote to tban? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

To be honest? Every named party to which a TBAN is proposed, which I felt was mostly an adequate list. Putting aside any of my ideological biases, those who’re up for TBANs are those who’ve caused a massive amount of toxicity via some form of flagrantly violating WP:CIVILITY, repeated blatant and/or subtle POV-pushing, and abusing site policies in an attempt get their way, among many other issues. Many of them have already received their “final warning.”

And it’s not like their loss will leave the area some sock-populated ghost town devoid of good content - as an example, Sean.hoyland is (justifiably) not a named party, is not facing any sanctions, and is an extremely productive editor - sometimes with a POV, as we all have, but he’s consistently able to communicate his rationale in a civil and calm way without resorting to utter toxicity. FortunateSons (immediately below me) is a similar case from generally the opposite POV of Sean’s. Those are just two of many other examples.

And none of that’s to mention Sean’s generally quite good at sock-busting in ARBPIA, so again, I don’t think we’d be empowering Icewhiz any worse than he already is unless he somehow un-learns most of his “tells,” which he hasn’t in the many years prior to this case. The Kip ^(contribs) 02:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unrelated - @Aoidh, I think you’ve left a malformed/incomplete “support” vote under proposed remedy 7b. The Kip ^(contribs) 01:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@The Kip: I did indeed, thank you for pointing that out. - Aoidh (talk) 02:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also want to say I fully endorse @Moneytrees' new proposed remedy 21 - draconian, maybe a little, but it'd keep ARBPIA AE reports from spiraling into toxic mud-slinging as they often have in the past. It effectively constrains it down to "make a legitimate contribution to the case or get out," which is more than appropriate at this point (especially under the "enough is enough" provision). The Kip ^(contribs) 04:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

A final note of sorts:

• I can’t believe it’s actually happening, but the passed remedies thus far are a partial nuke to the area’s user base as I’ve been calling for for roughly a year now. Never thought this day would come but I’m happy it has - looking forward to this lowering temperatures in the area rather substantially.
• The “me? Do something wrong? Never! It’s all the other side’s fault” utter lack of introspection on this talk page from nearly every party facing a TBAN, and some others among their “friends,” is disappointing but not even remotely surprising. Thankfully those TBANned will have at least a year to sit and think about amending their behavior, but they’re obviously and unfortunately not the only ones in the area like that.

Overall, a massive thanks to ARBCOM for ultimately doing the right thing (at least in my opinion) and bringing the hammer down. Enough is indeed enough, and it obviously won’t be a perfect solution, but to be honest I was worried it���d be a bunch of slaps on the wrist. The Kip ^(contribs) 14:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Valereee I have to say that I fully disagree with the premise that everyone left after these TBANs (which are well-deserved) is inexperienced; just from those who’ve commented on this talk page alone, I recognize Coretheapple, Sean.hoyland, Vice regent, FortunateSons, Chess, and Huldra as experienced editors in the ARBPIA area that’ve managed to (mostly) interact without the toxicity of those getting booted from it. That’s not even to mention the numerous names that haven’t commented here I can pull up, nor the fact that Zero is merely being warned for their conduct rather than TBANned, nor the fact pointed out above that the absence of some of these editors and their incivility may encourage experienced editors from other areas of the project, that’ve thus far stayed away from ARBPIA, to start contributing.

There’s a massive gulf in between leaving the area a ghost town and booting a few problematic individuals that’ve substantively violated PaGs on numerous occasions. Let’s not act like we’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. The Kip ^(contribs) 15:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sean.hoyland might just be my reading, but that AE case seems fairly open-and-shut. Even if not, though, there's still quite a lot less mud-slinging in the comments than the average ARBPIA report prior to this case - there's just a single angry comment by the accused. The rest seems to be straightforward context/further evidence and civil addendums. The Kip ^(contribs) 16:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Vice regent:, I'm not either of them but figured I'd respond. I see what you're saying, but it's countered by three factors:

1. Anything less than an "enough is enough"/all-or-nothing approach here risks defanging the "final warning" for the area at large Makeandtoss already received some time ago, which clearly did not rein in their behavior. The followup to such a warning being "okay, here's a punishment but it's got a very wide exception to it" makes AE/Arbcom look toothless to the wider community and sets a poor precedent.
2. No editor is irreplaceable. Yes, Makeandtoss' contributions to Jordanian articles have been good, but there is nothing to say other editors with a less-toxic overall track record could not pick up the slack.
3. In a fusion of YANI and WP:BRIE, and as I already said w/r/t Levivich's TBAN, good contributions are not an excuse to violate PaGs, particularly WP:Civility. Establishing the precedent that an editor's quality contributions can override/cancel out their policy violations is, similar to my first point, an awful precedent to set, and effectively turns such editors into WP:UNBLOCKABLES. The Kip ^(contribs) 19:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

   @Vice regent I again see what you’re saying, but like Levivich, the issue is that the area in which they are productive is (at least related to) their problem area - it’s not quite like Andre where the siteban is partly opposed because there’s an acknowledgement of other areas wholly unrelated to ARBPIA where they’re a net benefit (Nishidani’s is moreso opposed by the idea that they’re retiring anyways, so an enforced retirement seems like overkill). At the absolute most, I could get behind a carve-out for non-controversial Jordanian topics (culture, sports, pre-Arab/Israeli conflict history or internal history unrelated to the conflict, etc) - however, given their prior behavior, I can’t imagine their current style of behavior would be any better on articles such as Nakba, Oslo Accords, or Yom Kippur war than it’s been on post-2000 conflict articles. The Kip ^(contribs) 20:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

   @Vice regent I’d have to go digging and I’m currently time-limited, but all I’ll say is that I’m sure we could make similar carve-outs for virtually every editor here facing a TBAN and we won’t because nobody wants to end up back here in six months when the BATTLEGROUND behavior just finds a slightly different arena.

   To put it bluntly, I also just don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who already received a final warning for behavior in the area. Makeandtoss knew getting booted from Jordanian articles by proximity to ARBPIA was a risk as soon as they received the warning months ago, and it clearly didn’t faze them into changing their behavior in the slightest. I’m fully against giving them a mulligan on the grounds of ignoring the consequences of their own actions until it was too late. The Kip ^(contribs) 21:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Primefac with all due respect, I’d like to know how “they only have conduct problems with other editors” is justification to retract support from a TBAN when the entire initial premise of the case was that there’s severe interaction issues between editors in the area.

And again, as I’ve said above, setting in stone that good contributions give a pass to be repeatedly uncivil to other editors is an utterly terrible precedent to set, and severely outweighs any supposed benefits one singular editor brings to the area. Why do we continue to wholly disregard BRIE, which itself was an Arbcom decision? Why do we still think what amounts to a strongly-worded warning will ward off Levivich from further bad behavior, when said warnings have generally proven to be toothless/not taken seriously in the area? The Kip ^(contribs) 20:50, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

As everyone else is giving input on the ADL kerfuffle:

"Wikipedia’s project, including admin and arb decisions, should operate on its own internal judgement, without considering or caving to off-site input and/or influences."

"Anyways, arbs should overturn their completely reasonable and well-thought-out decisions because a controversial off-site advocacy group happened to like some of those decisions after they were made."

Anyone spot the issue there?

TL;DR the ADL’s happiness about some of the TBANs here (I imagine there’s two they’re decidedly unhappy with) should not be some get-out-of-jail-free card for legitimate, continuous, and severe issues among those editors facing TBANs. One does not and should not cancel out the other, especially when it was a reaction to something that already occurred via a rational and transparent process rather than some sort of pre-process pressure campaign. The Kip ^(contribs) 04:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

All I’ll say as a closing message of sorts, now that a majority of arbs have moved to close the case:

You have made the correct decision on all of the TBAN motions. I encourage you to stick by those decisions and not waffle or second-guess yourself at the last second. Don’t set the precedent that BRIE is toothless in the face of contribs. The Kip ^(contribs) 13:29, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks to the Arbs for all the work! Having said that, I'm seconding the concerns regarding the (lack of) destinction between canvassing and fixing externally mentioned issues expressed above. If such a remedy is imposed, I would strongly ask that clear rules are put in place: it seems unreasonable to sanction editors for correcting an error pointed out in a newspaper of record or an off-wiki forum, while it's reasonable to sanction editors for the kind of conduct that got Ivana banned. I think it's reasonable (but wrong) to put those on the same category, but if there is a line in the sand somewhere, I would really like to know where it is. FortunateSons (talk) 10:50, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh, and if I could make an additional request: I think 'AE bans' requires some clarification or guidance, it seems excessively broad (and not in line with what the enforcement looks like in other CTs). It is (or was?) my interpretation that editors are allowed to edit with their own biases, as long as no specific edit violates a specific policy, in line with the comment made here by @Vanamonde93. FortunateSons (talk) 11:03, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to add my voice to those worried that civility/incivility isn't being treated with enough concern here. While I'm not one to worry too much about incivility in a one-off situation, in a contentious editing area such as this, it just exacerbates the highly charged editing environment. Add in the bludgeoning and other POV-driven editing problems and it just makes the area difficult.

I also have concerns with the "they do good content/source research/etc so they shouldn't be topic banned" things I'm seeing - if civility/POV-editing/battleground behavior is bad for one person, it's bad for anyone.

Frankly, if an editor has been reminded/admonished/warned/final warned at AE, I'm not seeing why any admonishment here would get any improvement - if they have a record of warnings/short topic bans at AE, and they are continuing the behavior, those warnings/topic bans from AE SHOULD be taken into account, and if they aren't, well, it's not exactly encouraging to admins at AE to bother to try if their warnings/topic bans aren't considered "good enough" for ArbCom to consider.

One thing I'd noticed in my small forays into ArbEnforcement is that long-term editors who should know better are often excused for various reasons. No one admin wants to act unilaterally in this topic area, so it turns into a consensus-building exercise, which often gets derailed by the pile-on effect from editors weighing in to buttress "their side's" editors and to try to pull down the "other side's" editors. Hopefully the "AE reports limited to two parties" will help with this - is the intent to be that only the two editors involved will comment or is the intent that only the two editors involved can bring up evidence, but anyone else can weigh in with "Editor A is a great/terrible editor in this area"? I'm hoping for the first, but fear that it's a bit unclear on what is expected and we may just get the second, which is pretty much the current system but without the ability to bring in evidence on Editor C. Ealdgyth (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

First of all, I appreciate the sincere efforts being made here for the good of the project. I am aware that it is not a simple or easy task to wade through reams of presented diffs. At the same time, I am a little surprised at these proceedings, since I have had relatively little issue with any other editors over the last year, either in terms of intractable content disputes or serious behavioural spats. I was brought to AE by BilledMammal on 22 November, but that was after this ARBCOM case had already been set in motion. Even that was a surprise, since before that I had had fairly little interaction with BM outside of talk page discussions and one swiftly resolved issue raised by them on my talk. And I had thought of ARBCOM as a last resort, not as a seemingly first resort, but here we are.

To address the issues raised – since this appears to be about the RMs, or what is being referred to as the FOARP evidence – then for what it is worth, I am sorry for the instances where my input unduly wasted community time or fell short of the project's values – at no point was that my intention. I do feel like some context may perhaps have gotten lost along the way, and perhaps it is my mistake for not attending these proceedings and providing input at the evidence stage, but it is what it is. I see that my own language is being quoted back at me to point to inconsistencies in how I tried to get my point across. I have no doubt that I am inconsistent at times, but without malice and I do not believe in a way that has ever hurt the project. In most of these RMs I have both referenced sources and also reasoned. It is ever a balance between the two. The full comment from which the FOARP excerpt is being taken was: "The clear majoritarian language for this event in the sources aligns with the proposed move. The arguments against it appear to rely more on independent reasoning over the nature of the event, not the sourcing." This is not quite the same thing as me "condemning" "arguments [based] on independent reasoning". as was extracted. The context here was in fact that the sourcing was already more than clear, so a discussion tilted more in the direction of other merits was unwarranted. But instead, my comment on the interplay of different considerations was transformed into something resembling a polemical mantra. Beyond this, RMs are part of the process of checks and balances. In all four RMs highlighted by FOARP as involving perhaps less-than-stellar logic on my part, my comments ultimately carried little weight in the discussion in the eyes of the closers, who weighed against them. My comments were checked and balanced. The system worked. RMs can often be a learning experience with regards to the community's expectations and standards, and as individual editors we don't always get it right. Duly noted and learned.

Since "massacre" titles loom large in this case, I would finally highlight that in an unmentioned RM on the October 7 festival massacre I suggested two alternative titles including the word massacre. This bucks the "pattern" that is being asserted, and, I would suggest an alternative: that I have actually been more consistent in my dual respect for both sourcing and honest accuracy in page titling than the selection of evidence that has been presented might suggest.

On a small note on my prior TBAN in 2021, I would note that this came when I was only recently past 500 edits, didn't understand 1RR and subsequently misconstrued "broadly construed". The TBAN was commuted after six months of good behaviour. I have since made 45,000+ edits without any issue, which I think is possibly a more useful indicator than the passage of 3 years itself.

Again, thanks to all the arbitrators for their efforts, and sorry for the trouble. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Given the merited concern around RMs and naming, remedy 18 was onto something, but the jurisdiction that it laid out and the options that it presented to administrators were too broad. For events or incidents within the context of a broader conflict where the community has struggled to reach consensus, administrators should be given the opportunity to replace the title with exactly one word – "incident" – in a manner otherwise compliant with WP:NCWWW, so [DATE, LOCATION, "incident"]. This is already what tends to happen with most unclear maritime and aerial engagements, which often end up defaulting to "incident". Iskandar323 (talk) 07:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Theleekycauldron: Perhaps you can elaborate on your point about "righting great wrongs", because I am the only party to this case that has had this particular shade cast on them, so I'd appreciate it if you could explain that a little more fulsomely. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, I wouldn't say that it's a special kind of shade, or that I'd only reference it in your case in particular. I see RGW as relevant here because, like sealioning and battleground behavior, it's a manifestation of editing with ideological interests above the project's interests. Those terms refer to pretty closely overlapping sets of behavior. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe I've engaged too much with folks here, but I'm trying to genuinely talk with folks and make this the best outcome that it can be. With that said, I feel like there are two wildly different worlds that the commenters on this page are living in, and I'm having a hard time reconciling them. Some folks are telling me that there isn't any evidence to support anything, and that we should be ashamed of ourselves. Other folks are telling me that the evidence is overwhelming, we should tban everyone, and that we should be ashamed of ourselves. Aside from this being very demoralizing, I'm hard pressed to make heads or tails of what folks really want. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:26, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Congrats to the arbs for really lessening the workload of the AE admins, which seemed to be the major goal of this case. The quality of our articles, of course, who can say? Not really the concern when we can stop bothering admins with pesky reading. Parabolist (talk) 03:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Respect to the Arbs who have bothered explaining their votes and all, but if Levivich's capital crime is but what landed me here was the gatekeeping comments by Levivich that editors must read a bunch of sources before commenting or editing articles. I have a dire feeling about the future quality of our articles about the genocide. And yes, when large organizations on one side of an issue are proven to be acting against editors here, and then their allies celebrate those editors being topic banned, it's worth looking at how we got here. Doing something for something's sake isn't value neutral. What is being protected here by removing editors who have actually read the sources and request that of others from this area? Parabolist (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Start an RfC instead of recommending one to the community. Part of the implied dispute resolution powers many of you have as admins is the ability to mediate. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 12:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

To the arbs, the proposed decision uses the term "Palestine-Israel conflict" when discussing topic-bans except in the context of the balanced editing restriction. This reads as narrower in scope than "Arab-Israeli conflict". Is this intentional? If not, I believe ArbCom should use consistent terminology with previous topic-bans and decisions.

Likewise, the admonishments use the wording "Palestine-Israel topic area" which is wider in scope than "Palestine-Israel conflict". Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 14:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

This isn't a nitpick, CaptainEek voted against an indefinite topic ban for Makeandtoss because they would prefer a version that makes it clear they can continue editing about Jordan and related topics. Does that mean that a ban on the "Palestine-Israel conflict, broadly construed" could extend to all edits to countries in the Middle East?

Right now, my interpretation is that the topic ban would encompass editing to the section Jordan#Post-independence when it relates to conflict with Israel, but not something like Jordan#Science_and_technology which doesn't relate to conflict. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with your interpretation: PIA would include Jordan#Post-independence, but not Jordan#Science and technology, and does not extend to everything about a country. But it still does encompass quite a lot of the history of most middle eastern countries, which is exactly the issue imo. I don't think we need to ban Makeandtoss from what could be a rather wide amount of Jordan content. We're using a sledgehammer where a regular hammer might do the trick instead. I'm also concerned about the chilling effect; Makeandtoss might be unclear about the bounds of the ban and just decide to not edit about Jordan, so I'd also be fine if we provided some helpful clarification about the scope. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Would the creation or editing of a userspace draft be considered t-ban evasion under the balanced editing restriction? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 14:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

No. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Remedy 1 ("ECP by default") may add to cruft in the PIA remedy space. If the Committee wishes to be more explicit about this kind of thing, I would suggest adding it directly to the definition of the extended-confirmed restriction. One way to do so would be to change this text:

If a page (other than a "Talk:" page) mostly or entirely relates to the topic area, broadly construed, this restriction is preferably enforced through extended confirmed protection, though this is not required.

To read as follows:

To enforce this restriction, a page (other than a "Talk:" page) that mostly or entirely relates to the topic area, broadly construed, shall be extended confirmed protected [by default] (without requiring prior disruption on the page) [except in unusual circumstances].

This avoids the accumulation of special rules that are hard to find spread across a number of different cases, and the possibility that the extended-confirmed restriction will mean different things in different topic areas which could itself be confusing and difficult to enforce. (One way to view it: With the current text of Remedy 1, to those who aren't as deeply read in, will ARBPIA be the "super-extended-confirmed" topic area, while others will just be normal-extended confirmed?)

Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would note to the Committee in response to @ProcrastinatingReader's comment here that not protecting a page on which the ECR fully applies is a worse user experience than protecting. By the terms of WP:ECR, if a page is covered but not protected, any edits by non-EC users are subject to automatic reverts by anyone who wishes to enforce it. That's a worse outcome than knowing ahead of time that one can't edit.

What ProcrastinatingReader really appears to be asking for is a version of ECR that is more discretionary than it is currently written. Given that the Committee does not appear to be headed that way, it should attempt to prevent this change from creating new special topic-based changes to established procedures that people will have a hard time following. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 13:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Extraordinary Writ, I think the consensus required/per-content suggestion is interesting to me; I'm thinking of something like mandating it to content in the topic area relating to death tolls (or other things that are frequently edit warred over). I think that would stop the multi-party edit wars that SFR noted (I would think the Death toll noted in the genocide article would fall under it), and I think that it doesn't stray into us ruling on content. Is that along the lines of your thinking? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 04:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I hope it's alright to make a copyediting suggestion about the PD here. In FoF #4, it looks to me like there's an extra instance of POV forks - it currently reads ...and attempts to change it are reverted, POV forks new articles describing the same subject from a different point of view ("POV forks") are often created. I think either the first instance of the phrase should probably be removed, or else the sentence should be reworked to remove the parenthetical. Opus 113 (talk) 05:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Now that I've made this section, one substantive comment: I have some of the same concerns that Extraordinary Writ mentioned about the balanced editing restriction - specifically, that the rolling 30-day window could lead to unintuitive results in practice, where periods of little or no editing can put a user over the 1/3 threshold for the past 30 days. I don't have a better alternative in mind at the moment, though. --Opus 113 (talk) 06:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

To try to mitigate that, we clarified that it applies only at time of edit, so if an edit was in compliance when it was made, going on vacation won't change that. Elli (talk | contribs) 16:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm a bit late to the party, but I am travelling, with bad/no internet access. I have seen a lot written about socks, and the bad behaviour among "the regulars" in this topic area.

My 2-cent story: When I saw a new editor last year starting an article called "Muslim migrations to Ottoman Palestine", it raised a few red flags with me. Growing up in a Christian Zionist environment, I was well aware that one of the "credos" there is that all/most Palestinians were recent immigrants to Palestine (another "credo" is/was that most of the refugees in 1948 left due to "Orders from the Arab leadership").

In both cases, we are talking about a few percentages (2-5%) of the population, which Zionist history-telling (as I experienced it) give out as 100%.

So I gave the editor an IP alert, further warning them that they should not be editing the IP area until they had 500 edits.

When they continued editing the article I issued a warning "Expect to find yourself at WP:AE, if you continue to break your restriction", at which they replied: "Wow, such aggressiveness!!! This article has no connection to any conflict. It is about Ottoman era history in the Levant. What is this all about?".

As short time later, a discussion was going on at ARCA, and I made a light-hearted reference to that discussion [43], which Anomalocaris saw, and commented: "Even if EliasAntonakos's two edits to Muslim migrations to Ottoman Palestine violated 500/30, which is debatable, I think the edits were benign, and especially for that reason, I would encourage you to WP:Assume good faith and WP:Don't bite the newbies. I think you could have made your warning more gently, including a gentler heading, such as, perhaps, "More on contentious topics""[44].

I must confess, I felt more than I little bit guilty then. Especially as far as I know, Anomalocaris is a good and decent editor. And yes; Anomalocaris was absolutely right: I could have made the warning more gently, instead of the curt warning I gave them.

Then fast forward to December, when the editor in question .....is blocked as a sock.. of Galamore/Icewhiz

WP:AGF and WP:Don't bite the newbies is loved by socks. Of course we should all follow them in any case, but if you edit in the IP area, expect to get slapped in the face when you do. That is an experience we who edit the area all have had, multiple times. Huldra (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Congratulations to Wikipedia from Jonathan Greenblatt, of the ADL: ADL calls on Wikipedia to immediately begin undoing harms by rogue editors — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huldra (talk • contribs) 00:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is not only Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL who have reason to celebrate; the ones who have the most reason to celebrate are Icewhiz and Nocal. Especially on the banning of Nableezy and Levivich. A pro-Israeli "outing"-website "The israelGroup" said it best about Nableezy and Nocal (this was back in 2021):

• "63 pro-Israel accounts from the West Coast have been accused of being NoCal100 sockpuppets.
• 36 of the 63 accounts (more than half) were submitted by Nableezy.
• 31 of the 36 submitted by Nableezy were blocked" (link)

I have't always seen eye-to-eye with Levivich (he reported me to AE once), but I have become greatly impressed with his research, including on socks. Ok so he made mistakes (I never thought BM was Icewhiz), but that is so damn difficult with Icewhiz-socks: I was just asked to watch over Vandalism by Shoogiboogi of Palestine related pages...just to find that Shoogiboogi was already blocked as an Icewhiz sock. Icewhiz socks vary from the banal vandal (Shoogiboogi), to the “innocent bystander” (EliasAntonakos) to the serious editor (Eostrix)

Anyway: congratulations to Nocal and Icewhiz: the true winners of PIA5, Huldra (talk) 04:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Typo: "Selfstudier was warned for "removing an RM when involved" as a result of an October 2024 AE report (Barkepp49 evidence)" Should be Barkeep49. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Fixed by Moneytrees, thanks. SilverLocust 💬 19:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support the topic ban for Levivich for everything related to Palestine, Jews, Holocaust. Levivich is so deep inside the topic that it is not helpful any more, contrary, it disrupts and demoralises normal editors. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

@ScottishFinnishRadish: could you clarify what you mean by "the SPA sanction". When I first read this, I assumed it meant "sanction of the user whose name is abbreviated SPA" and wasted a bunch of time trying to figure out who that was. Then I realized you probably meant "Single Purpose Account", but I'm still not sure which sanction that is since the only place that term appears is "Levant Subcommittee". RoySmith (talk) 23:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Without commenting on every participant in this case, I will say that the topic ban on Levivich is far too harsh. He is one of the best researchers in this topic area, and has proved a valuable asset in fending off many of the bad actors. The fact that ADL is celebrating his (and others') ban should give the committee pause.

The evidence given for Levivich does not rise to the level of a topic ban. From what I can see, every diff cited as evidence is of him asking others for sources, or asking them to read the sources, neither of which are considered disruptive on Wikipedia. Here they are: [45] [46] [47] [48]. (It is also worth noting that only one of these is from the past year).

At most I would recommend passing the admonishment instead of the ban, at least for Levivich, and attempt to rely on warnings, coaching, and structural changes as a way to calm down the topic area rather than removing its most accomplished editors. – bradv 23:16, 19 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've struck my comment about the ADL, as this really isn't relevant to the issue at hand. We need to do what's right and justifiable by the evidence, not what's considered fair or popular by outside organizations. And, unless I've missed something huge, this decision simply isn't justified by the evidence. – bradv 01:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nuking the topic area's user base in the hopes of somehow alleviating tensions is, imo, problematic. This approach seems to advocate for broadly applying topic bans to all users, without considering the severity of individual conduct and overall behavioural history, which risks being unjust and disproportionate. Consider a historical parallel: the US' experiment with prohibition. While notionally well-intentioned, it led to the rise of black markets and the policy was eventually repealed. Similarly, blanket bans could inadvertently fuel sockpuppetry and other disruptive behaviours.

The idea of imposing broad topic bans is also currently being celebrated by the Anti-Defamation League, which has slandered editors for allegedly spreading hate and negatively influencing articles on Israel. They have also called on Wikipedia to "immediately begin undoing harms caused by rogue editors,” which will undoubtedly increase the presence of disruptive editors POV-pushing as well as the influence/frequency of sockpuppets in the area, rather than bringing in new good faith editors.

There are already concerns about external campaigns targeting Wikipedia editors. The proposed remedies involve the complete sidelining of the area's most productive and dedicated editors and should be reconsidered. Shorter and proportionate topic bans and more restricted ones like "post-2000..." are important to acknowledge and encourage these editors' constructive editing. The arbitrators should carefully reconsider the long-term implications of this strategy. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Edit to add on 2025-01-23: Have arbitrators considered shorter or more restricted topic bans? Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes - there was an alternative proposed for a one-year topic ban for all editors that had an indefinite topic ban proposed, and every single one-year topic ban was resoundingly opposed. Plenty of comments on the PD page outlining why, from numerous members of the Committee. Daniel (talk) 13:38, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for the late addition, but I ultimately decided it was better to get my comments on the record than stay silent and only complain after the fact.

First, I am concerned about indefinite topic bans of good faith users, in particular Levivich and nableezy who in my experience are net positives to the encyclopedia. In practice, a user seeking to get a t-ban removed has to show contrition which is hard to do if one sees oneself as more sinned against than sinning. Given the reality of disruptive socking, it would be a shame if good editors are kept out of the area because of their refusal to say certain 'magic words'. I agree that there is evidence of disruptive behavior (by all sanctioned editors including the two I singled out above) that needs to change, but worry that indefinite bans will lead to more problems than they solve.

Second, I am concerned that the balanced editing restriction will create perverse incentives. In most cases we encourage people to edit in the specific topics that they are interested in and knowledgeable about. Forcing them into other topics seems a recipe for frustration and poor edits.

Third, I think it is a shame that the article titles restriction is failing. I believe that ArbCom has the authority to dictate the process of determining consensus for disputed content in cases where ordinary wiki-processes have failed. Punting to the community is not a substitute. If the community could handle the disruption, they presumably would have already. I'd personally prefer a more draconian version: "All articles about events of the last 30 days in which people were either injured or killed will take the form of 'Occurrence of [Date] at [Place]'. They may be moved to another title once the event is 30 or more days old and a consensus for the new title has been established."

Lastly, thank you for taking on this difficult and often thankless job. There is simply no way to please everybody here. The peanut gallery, like the community, and indeed the world is sharply divided as to what the proper balance is in this area and how to achieve that. I see evidence of thoughtful deliberation, appropriate modesty, but also determination to make hard choices even if I don't always agree with the majority of the committee. Eluchil404 (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Arbs, you need to get those guys back in the effing room now. Levivich, Nishidani et al do a massive job of work in an area that most editors have neither the time, inclination nor frankly, the balls to do (totally including myself). I actually think Bradv's (now stricken) comment was valid enough; if you want to give the ADL a new years' gift, you couldn't have done a better job. This is a case where the level of their discomfort is a barometer to our standards. If these lads are fucking them over PIA, then they must be doing something right. I hope you got a battalion of volunteers queuing up to take their places. Oh, you haven't? Shame. Serial (speculates here) 14:43, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Love the balanced editing restriction. Kudos to whoever had the guts to float it in the proposed decision, the arbs for supporting it, and Tamzin for helping to make it actionable.  s all around. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:36, 21 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think several editors here could do with a reminder that the purpose of Wikipedia is not about combatting the ADL. I keep seeing comments along the lines of "You're handing the ADL a victory" as if saying that wasn't a textbook example of battleground editing behavior based on a POV-preference of which external group's views you support. If we were serious about dealing with the intractable problems here, we'd make all those folks named parties and sanction them for battleground behavior. Oh well, there's always ARBPIA 6. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 01:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

An editor who thinks avoiding giving the ADL a win is a goal of ArbCom’s, to be balanced against avoiding disruption to the encyclopedia, is exhibiting textbook BATTLEGROUND mentality. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

When this case was opened, my hope was that ARBCOM would actually conduct a thorough investigation of editing in the topic at-issue. It is clear that this never happened beyond reading the evidence that others sent to them, as is evinced by missing even incredibly obvious details like parties' recent AELOG entries in the first draft of the proposed result. Consequently, the selection of parties was arbitrary, the receipt of evidence was arbitrary, and the results can thus be nothing but arbitrary. The standards of neutrality in !voting that editors are being indefinitely banned for are not something that we have generally sanctioned editors for in CTOPs, and a significant amount of the incivility-related evidence are similarly minor infractions, magnified out of proportion due to the method of evidence gathering. Frankly, I'm used to doing a more thorough investigation job at AE than what appears to have taken place here. At best, this will have been a show trial to establish new stringent standards of conduct that can then be enforced.

(I had intended to submit a review of relevant RSN discussions but I ran out of time before I was able to complete it; I don't think anything I had in the works would have shifted the proceedings--most of what I found was noise--but it bears highlighting the amount of effort that an actual investigation requires). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply