Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive142

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Երևանցի ^talk 22:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Yozer1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement

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

Most of these edits are pretty self-explanatory

• in Ottoman Empire article

1. Oct. 29 removed "massacre" from the paragraph about the Armenian Genocide; edit summary: "Removed reference to massacres by government as this is false"
2. Oct. 29 changed "Genocidal acts were also committed against the Greek and Assyrian minorities" to "Many Greek and Assyrian minorities were also killed during internal conflicts in the hinterland" and removed the citations; edit summary: "Corrected historic events"
3. Oct. 29 added "eventhough Abdulhamid II was not involved in such events" to the sentence about the Hamidian massacres when it is widely accepted that the Ottoman government organized the massacres

• in Hasan Cemal article

1. Nov. 1 he added "His human rights record is unapologetic..."; edit summary: "Added unapologetic human rights violation". The source does not state in any way that his human rights record is "unapologetic". This is a major WP:BLP violation and clear WP:OR. He edit warred over this for a couple of days and threatened User:Proudbolsahye with an administrator intervention "for deleting of sourced material"

• in Erzurum article

1. Nov. 18 without adding any sources he changed "they began calling it "Artsn Rum" (Arzan ar-Rum, meaning Arzan of the Romans) in order to distinguish their former residence from their new one" to "they began calling it "Artsn Rum" (Arzan ar-Rum or Ard ar-Rum, meaning Land of the Romans in Arabic) in order to distinguish their former residence from their new one". FYI, there is a lengthy discussion over this issue and during the period of two days he made 4 reverts and refused to discuss anything. When I asked him to provide sources he responded in the edit summary: "The sources are easy to provide". And when after several reverts User:HelenOnline opened a section about his problematic edits, Yozer1 blanked it 4 times in a course of 24 minutes: [1] [2] [3] [4] He was then blocked for 24 hours for edit warring

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on May 20 by Sandstein (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This user does not seem to care about the basic rules of Wikipedia as demonstrated in his comments, such as "The sources are easy to provide". In response to HelenOnline's comment to read WP:BRD and User:Toddst1 "strong recommendation" to follow her advice, Yozer1 replied "I am entitled to my point of view, supported by evidence, as you are to yours"). As we can see, he prefers to edit war instead of being involved in talk page discussions. He showed a highly disruptive behavior by deleting other users' comments (like my question on User:Sandstein's talk page ([5] [6] [7]) and HelenOnline's comments on the talk page of Erzurum (see above).

I suggest a topic ban from everything related to Armenia and Turkey.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• notification

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

Hello User:Yerevanci, I do not beleive you are neutral towards any subject related to Armenian issues. In fact, your contribution and edit history shows you are biased. I suggest you do not fill Wikipedia with your hateful rhetoric. Anyone in their right mind will see what I mean upon investigating your record.

As to your claims, please find my answers below:

"Most of these edits are pretty self-explanatory

in Ottoman Empire article 1.Oct. 29 removed "massacre" from the paragraph about the Armenian Genocide; edit summary: "Removed reference to massacres by government as this is false"

The Armenian Genocide is a contested issue by historains and academics. I for one, deny it the way Armenians such as yourself describe it. Many references are avilable outside of Wikipedia. Just because someone has not added them on Wikipedia does not mean the events took place the way you described them.

2.Oct. 29 changed "Genocidal acts were also committed against the Greek and Assyrian minorities" to "Many Greek and Assyrian minorities were also killed during internal conflicts in the hinterland" and removed the citations; edit summary: "Corrected historic events"

Correct. Armenians were killed during WWI, but so were other Ottoman citizens of the Empire, such as Turks and Kurds (whom you despise by the way), Arabs, Laz, Circassians, Greeks, Jews, Assyrians, Bulgarians, etc. Why not add them as well? Because Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians are hateful of their former rulers and have an agenda today...

3.Oct. 29 added "eventhough Abdulhamid II was not involved in such events" to the sentence about the Hamidian massacres when it is widely accepted that the Ottoman government organized the massacres

False. From an Ottoman perspective, Abdulhamid II did not have a role in the so called Hamidian massacres. The Young Turks along with their Committee of Union and Progress supporters, who were the de-facto rulers behind the scenens, ordered the deportation of Armenian citizens to other areas of the Empire, for cooperating with the Russians, rebelling against the government, and causing an internal chaos. This was not always the case, as Turks and Armenians have been historic friends.

in Hasan Cemal article 1.Nov. 1 he added "His human rights record is unapologetic..."; edit summary: "Added unapologetic human rights violation". The source does not state in any way that his human rights record is "unapologetic". This is a major WP:BLP violation and clear WP:OR. He edit warred over this for a couple of days and threatened User:Proudbolsahye with an administrator intervention "for deleting of sourced material"

Yes, he apologizes for an event that did not take place, yet refuses to recognise the rights of women in Turkish society. Thus, he may be called unapologetic. In any case, I warned him for reverting my additions.

in Erzurum article 1.Nov. 18 without adding any sources he changed "they began calling it "Artsn Rum" (Arzan ar-Rum, meaning Arzan of the Romans) in order to distinguish their former residence from their new one" to "they began calling it "Artsn Rum" (Arzan ar-Rum or Ard ar-Rum, meaning Land of the Romans in Arabic) in order to distinguish their former residence from their new one". FYI, there is a lengthy discussion over this issue and during the period of two days he made 4 reverts and refused to discuss anything. When I asked him to provide sources he responded in the edit summary: "The sources are easy to provide". And when after several reverts User:HelenOnline opened a section about his problematic edits, Yozer1 blanked it 4 times in a course of 24 minutes: [51] [52] [53] [54] He was then blocked for 24 hours for edit warring

The discussion over the issue has not been concluded. I am a fluent speaker of Arabic. The root of the word Erzurum is Arz (or Ard) ar-Rum. Rum implies Romans, specifically New Romans, as in Greeks. Why deny this linguistic reality? User:HelenOnline did not give me the chance to add my source, and displayed aggressive behaviour. See link http://www.erzurumluyum.net/index.php?q=node/37 which I was going to add later. I am also a ten-year contributor to Wikipedia. Please remember that Wikipedia does not belong to you. You are not the only voice out there.

I was blocked when Yerevanci should have been blocked as well, but you conspired with HelenOnline and made less than four edits

Thank you for stating, "Now I agree that "vandalism" is not the best description of his edits. My mistake. --Երևանցի talk 17:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)"

I think we can get along and find common ground.

I would like to respond to accusations made against me by Yozer1:

• "User:HelenOnline did not give me the chance to add my source, and displayed aggressive behaviour": I have not prevented Yozer1 from adding a source, and request they provide evidence for accusations about my personal behaviour in line with WP:NPA.
• "I was blocked when Yerevanci should have been blocked as well, but you conspired with HelenOnline and made less than four edits": I have not conspired with anyone. Offhand, I don't recall any dealings with Yerevanci prior to this issue so there is no personal connection. When more than one editor objects to another editor's edits, that does not mean there is a conspiracy. It only means Wikipedia's fundamental consensus model is working. My interest in the Erzurum article stems from a desire to protect an investment of my personal time to resolve a previous dispute about the exact same section of the article.

I see we did comment on the same Erzurum talk page thread once but we were not talking to each other (not that I would have been able to interpret and recall his signature). HelenOnline 09:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have explained the situation to Yozer1 point by point on my talk page. HelenOnline 09:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear User:HelenOnline, I see that this subject has gone off on a tangent. I do not want to waste my time either on such trivial matters, especially one related to a mere history of a city name. With all due respect to your work, I am also adding of my knowledge to improve Wikipedia. By aggressive behavior, I meant you were too quick to act and revert my contribution without waiting for a source to be added. I should know by now that an addition without a source would be challenged by other editors. We might have differences of opinion on various subjects and will discuss those later on Talk pages. Let us all take lesson from this incident. Good luck.Yozer1 (talk) 17:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see the need to be banned at this point. You allow tendentious editors such as Yerevanci (talk · contribs), yet think I should be banned? Poor old Wikipedia is becoming a gathering of partial views then. Yozer1 (talk) 16:36, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

If they last long enough to have an AE action decided upon, I would support a topic ban at this point. The record is clear, the abuse (both on topic, and against editors protesting their edits) is serious, and ongoing without having improved after many prior warnings. They just came off a block and seem to have stopped for now, but that does not mean a topic ban is not appropriate. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed.  Sandstein  20:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with an indefinite ban of Yozer1 (talk · contribs) from all topic areas covered by WP:ARBAA2. EdJohnston (talk) 02:53, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing. User:Yozer1 is indefinitely banned from the topic areas covered by WP:ARBAA2 on all pages of Wikipedia including talk. EdJohnston (talk) 20:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Sepsis II (talk) 22:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

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

1. 31 Oct Three counts of removal of the word Palestine without any reason - "Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi" changed to "Arab historian Walid Khalidi". "It is during the rule of the Ottoman Empire over Palestine that the form Kafr ʿInān (Kafr 'Anan) first appears." becomes "The village began to be called Kafr ʿInān (Kafr 'Anan) during the rule of the Ottoman Empire." and "During the period of Roman and Byzantine rule in Palestine, it was a Jewish village..." becomes "During the Roman and Byzantine era, the Jewish village of..." I'd really like to hear why she made those three edits.
2. 29 Oct Cuts out all criticism of the pro-Israeli MEMRI from its lead despite large portions of the MEMRI article focusing on criticism.
3. 14 Nov Makes the Prime Minister of the State of Palestine into the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority - a position that ceased to exist in January.
4. 14 Nov Removes information of the depopulation of Arab villages.
5. 11 Nov Article is about an Israeli settlement - edit removes statement of illegality of such settlements from the lead.
6. 4 Nov An article about a man described by David Rieff as a "pro-Israel polemicist" becomes significantly more positive about the man.
7. 6 Nov "The moshav was founded in 1949 by the HaBonim movement on land which belonged to the depopulated Arab village of Kafr Lam." becomes "The moshav was founded in 1949 by the HaBonim movement."
8. 29 Oct Read the changes to the lead, effectively, Israeli occupied becomes disputed, international rejection of Israel's annexation is completely cut out, written as fact that the area is "a rear base for Palestinian attacks on [[Israel]"
9. 7 Nov "Below is a list of Israeli museums. Some of them are located in the Israeli-occupied territories." Becomes "Below is a list of Israeli museums." Museums in the Occupied Palestinian territories such as Siebenberg House are on the list.
10. 24 Sept (to show this behaviour is standard for Gilabrand, not new) Mohammad Bakri goes from being Palestinian to being an Israeli Arab, cuts out lots of info on the Jenin massacre, removes the fact that Jenin, Jenin's Executive Producer was murdered by Israelis shortly after making the film.
11. 5 Nov Cuts out that the previous Palestinian residents had all fled their town due to an Israeli military attack.
12. 31 Oct"During the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, Saliha was the site of a massacre carried out by Israeli forces shortly before the village was completely depopulated. The built structures in the village, with the exception of an elementary school for boys, were also destroyed." becomes "During the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, Saliha was depopulated and many buildings were destroyed, although the elementary school for boys remained standing." Read the well sourced Saliha article to read about the massacre that Gilabrand doesn't want people knowing about.
13. 22 Oct Neve Yaakov is an Israeli settlement, there is no question about this. The guardian article used to source the fact it's a settlement states "Though these areas are defined as settlements by the international community, Israel views them as neighbourhoods of Jerusalem"[8]. It it clear that Gilabrand is here to further the Israeli view and cut short the international community's view.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

He's been blocked twelve times before, I think he knows about the sanctions.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I had removed some obvious foruming by an IP, who has been warned for soapboxing at Talk:Eurabia and Talk:Anti-Zionism, when Gilabrand decided to restore the rant - [[9]]. I tried talking with Gilabrand on her talk page but she wouldn't listen. I then looked at her edits and saw that her primary goal on wikipedia, as seen by the above diffs, is to further the same POV the IP was soapboxing in favour of. It is not these particular edits for which I think Gilabrand needs to be removed from the topic area, but what these edits show; her steady pattern of pushing bias into wikipedia.

Nice rant Izak, I especially enjoyed the person attacks, presenting Gilabrand as a victim, the mindboggling assertion that bringing this case here is a "violation of WP:NOTCENSORED", the statement that we need more "loyal Israelis expressing the standard Israeli view", I'd love to "debate her point by point" as you suggest but I don't get paid to edit here; we block editors who vandalize wikipedia because it costs too much time to follow them, reverting their edits everyday. The same goes for editors who are here to push their bias into articles, it costs too much to keep an eye on them and revert them all the time.

Gilabrand's statement shows she does not understand why pushing her bias into articles as shown here by myself and others is wrong. It is safe to say that if she is allowed to continue editing IP articles that she will continue to bias wikipedia.

The manner in which Gilabrand "explains" the reasons for her edits shows that she is well aware that she is actively installing bias in wikipedia.

For example, when explaining why she changed Walid Khalidi from Palestinian to Arab she states that he is infact Arab, well okay, he is Arab, but why did you change it? Is he not Palestinian? The same goes for Mohammad Bakri. She must be hoping we gloss over the lack of explaination for why she rewrote two sentences for the sole purpose of removing the word Palestine from them in the same provided diff.

She deletes information from leads as "unsourced" even though in both cases (my diffs 2&6) the parts deleted are clearly a summary of extensive and well sourced text found in the body.

So you removed the statement that Habonim is built on the ruins of Kafr Lam because it was unsourced. Odd isn't it that you didn't remove the statement from Kafr Lam that Habonim is built on it? Why didn't you? Is it perhaps because it is not only obvious but also because it is well sourced there? Why didn't you think of using the same sources that are present at Kafr Lam?

She "can see no problem whatsoever" with how she cut out in entirety the massacre that occured to the village upon whose ruins were build Avivim. I find it truely disgusting how she can use the term depopulated to refer to what is by no means an exaggeration to call a massacre.

I guess she just wants to avoid diffs 3&9; just couldn't spin those. Sepsis II (talk) 00:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While the turnout here, and many other places, indicates off wiki emailing by someone, there is no proof that Gilabrand has taken part in this. Sepsis II (talk) 01:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please get a close on this; we have three admins in favour of a topic ban, plus one who commented without looking at Gilabrand's editing, one who dislike's Sandstein's reasoning but like's Ed's reasoning - without actually stating what should happen here, and one who sees her editing as coming from a single POV, though does not think her editing is terrible enough for a ban.

Also, two dozens editors have joined this discussion, while some brought valuable comments, half did not. Half of the commentators remarks were purely distracting such as Epeefleche's obvious strawman, Izak's rant and canvassing, or littleolive oil and Ykantor's comments which stem from unrelated issues. I ask that an uninvolved admin is brought in and that any one judged to have been wholly disruptive be banned from AE.

If admins believe a full topic ban from Israeli-Arab articles is too much, I would be willing to accept that she still be allowed to edit talk pages in the IP area as this should still protect wikipedia from her. Sepsis II (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

done

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

The only explanation I can come up with after looking at this new set of allegations is an acute case of tone deafness. Since when is it okay to fill Wikipedia with tendentious, repetitious, aggressive and unsourced statements while efforts to tone down sensationalism, reduce redundancies, remove tangential original research and introduce new information based on solid sources are not okay? Have you lost all sensitivity to language and forgotten what neutral writing sounds like? A cherry-picked handful of edits has now been presented here, gleaned from my 49,492 edits on Wikipedia, that supposedly shows “bias.” If people actually read the material in question, instead of relying on the “testimony” of Sepsis (who in the one year he has been around, has acquired a nice little history of blocks and warnings for edit warring, tendentious editing and personal attacks) , they would see that there is not a single violation of Wikipedia policy. On the contrary, the articles in question have all been improved, and I see no evidence of my work having been challenged by anyone until Sepsis crept out of the woodwork. I will now respond to these allegations, point by point: 1) Walid Khalidi is indeed an “Arab” historian. According to his official biography, is the scion of a prominent “Arab family.” 2) Beit Guvrin is an Israeli moshav established in 1949. Information about the prior history is amply provided on the Beit Jibrin page. 3) Mohammad Bakri is indeed an Israeli Arab filmmaker (this is referenced). The article about him is biographical. The place for detailed information about his movie Jenin Jenin and any statements about the fate of the movie’s executive producer is that page. 4) The statements removed from Habonim are unsourced. 5) The statements removed from Zisr az-Zarka are not about Zisr az-Zarka. 6) To the article on Goldhagen (mistakenly identified by Sepsis) I added sourced data from the New York Times and removed unsourced commentary from the lead. 7) MEMRI – The paragraph I deleted from the lead was not sourced. I did not know that Ravpapa was the author and I’m sorry to have pissed him off. Next time he should leave his initials. 8) I can see no problem whatsoever with my copyedits to Avivim. I added a photo and a fact tag for a statement that does not appear in the cited source. Everything you ever wanted to know about massacres appears on the Saliha page. 9) Shani-Livne - I created a history section and all the information was moved there. It was later replaced in the lead and I did not contest that. 10) Shebaa farms – I added new information with references and deleted statements without a source. The article was subsequently edited by Zero and there was no further action on my part.

As you can see, the edits cited by Sepsis consist of linguistic copyedits, removing off-topic material that is covered on a different page, and the addition of text, references and images. If you would like to hear explanations for any other of the other 49,492 edits, I will be happy to provide them. --Geewhiz (talk) 08:23, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, you might actually have to find a reliable source for all the original research and figure out how to write English--Geewhiz (talk) 09:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC).[reply]

After she was unblocked, (in spite of her rather obvious false claims of not breaking her ban ) Gilabrand has continued to be among the worst offenders in the whole I/P area. Typically, she removes/downplays Palestinian history, like here, where she moves pre-Ottoman history to "Etymology". And here: where she simply removes the whole Arab history from the caption. Occasionally she simply fabricates history, like at Hittin, she inserts in the lead that: In the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the village was conquered by Israeli troops without a fight. See Talk:Hittin#1948-war

Or here, where Two residents who had remained behind were executed by Israeli soldiers. In December 1948 the army evicted about 40 "old men and women" … becomes: Two villagers were killed in the operation. In December 1948, 40 "old men and women" were transferred….

And occasionally, she removed perfectly good sources, if she doesn´t like them, like Benny Morris here, where The kibbutz was established on the land of a depopulated Palestinian village named Burayr.<ref name=Morris#6>Morris, 2004, p. xx, settlement #6.</ref><ref>Khalidi, 1992, p.92</ref> becomes: According to Arab historian Walid Khalidi, it was established on the land of a depopulated Palestinian village named Burayr.<ref>Khalidi, 1992, p.92</ref>

And then she googles up garbage sources, like here, see Talk:Al-Bireh#not_WP:RS.3F. And this, see Talk:Al_Qastal,_Palestine. Gilabrand can do good copy-edits, but for the Palestinian articles she is a disaster. Huldra (talk) 22:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• To Ravpapa: I think you missed the point: Gilabrand changed the article from: The kibbutz was established on the land of ... to: According to Arab historian Walid Khalidi, it was established on the land of... The first was as an established fact (sourced to two independent first-rate WP:RS sources). After she has finished with the article, the Morris-ref. has disappeared, and the whole fact (which Gilabrand does not like, namely that the Israeli kibbutz was founded on the land of a depopulated Palestinian village) becomes, instead of an undisputed fact, just something attributed to an "Arab historian". I fail to see how this can be a "good faith" edit. If she had wanted to name both sources, she could have written: According to Israeli historian Benny Morris and Arab historian Walid Khalidi... ...and kept the Morris-ref. She didn´t. Huldra (talk) 10:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• And Gilabrand did not move the fact that Habonim is built on lands of the former Palestinian village of Kafr Lam from the lead of the article, to further down: she removed it completely. Instead she inserted that the "medieval" Cafarlet fortress is at the same location: thereby neatly erasing a millennium of Arab history at the place. (This is especially misleading, as the picture of the fortress shows the rounded corner towers: to quote Meron Benvenisti, who has a picture of it in his book "Sacred Landscape" (fig 18 ), with the caption: "Although the round corner towers are from the Ummayad period (tenth century), the Israelis identify them as Crusader, since this period does not contradict the Zionist narrative".) Huldra (talk) 13:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I stated elsewhere: this report is about an editor who removes/falsifies/distort/ anything she thinks represent the "Palestinian perspective". So how can you discuss wether or not Gilabrand should be topic-banned without looking at the diffs that Sepsis, Nishidani, Zero & myself have given you? (And please don´t tell me that falsifying history is the same as "representing the Israeli POV") Cheers, Huldra (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It looks as if Gilabrand is canvassing other editors via emails to help her in this case. Apparently she does not want people to know. Huldra (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Noted: this, this, and this. Huldra (talk) 02:43, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It has been said that most of Gilabrands worst POV-pushing soon gets reverted; alas, this is not alway true. The complete fabrication she inserted in Hittin was there (in the lead!) for more than a year. And note these edits back in 2010 on Israeli settlement: she first removes a picture with the (false) edit-summary: "copyedit; remove photo not related to settlers", then she reinsert the very same picture, but now with a new, and completely fabricated caption: "IDF soldiers and settlers guarding a settlement"! The source is on commons, taken from here, and it was clearly marked "Settlers and Soldiers attacking demonstrators in Iraq Burin". Now, we can discuss whether or not to include the picture: I am open for such a discussion. But to just make up and fabricate a caption? No, no and no. And this Gilabrand- fabrication was in the article until a few minutes ago, (when I changed it). Huldra (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

to Sean.hoyland: I absolutely agree with you that it should have been "according to ISM", (hence I have added that to the article). (And, to repeat: whether or not to include the picture: I am open for that discussion.) But there is a difference between just making something up, and referring it to a (partisan) source. I´ve seen Gilabrand make things up too often to trust her. If RavPapa had suggested that she discussed all of her changes on the talk-pages before editing, then I could agree with him. However, most of her distortions happen in the "body" of the articles: having to use the talk-page only for lead-changes hardly changes anything. It has been virtually impossible to engage Gilabrand on talk-pages: when challenged, she just walks away. Forcing her to use talk-pages first for all edits in the I/P area could teach her some "good working-habits", which she so far has not learned. Huldra (talk) 08:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just a passing comment from an uninvolved admin: either you've made a big error with your 11 Nov diff, or I've overlooked the problem despite reading the diff several times. As far as I can see, the edit started with an article that was entirely in one section and added a header to some of it, without touching the bit talking about the settlement's legality. You need to explain why this specific edit was problematic in this way, unless of course you didn't mean to include it for that reason. Nyttend (talk) 02:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That sentence which Gilabrand placed under the history heading appears in the lead of all Israeli settlement articles, in the end Frederico1234 did put it back into the lead. The conformity of all settlement articles to have that same sentence makes me believe there is a consensus to its inclusion. If someone knows more about this and could inform us about it that would be great. Not all edits are as bad as others but when the smaller ones such as this are seen along side more severe edits such as the pair on Oct 31st it helps to show a steady pattern of pushing bias into articles. Sepsis II (talk) 03:01, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I have found it now, the consensus for placing that sentence in the lead, if not also the body, of all Israeli settlement articles; Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues/Archive. Legality of Israeli settlements#Settlement illegality text. Sepsis II (talk) 03:48, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gilbrand is a skilled writer; if she only edited away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict she would be a valuable contributor. Alas, whenever the topic is of I-P relevance her bias takes over and her edits can't be trusted. I use these words advisedly; as well as a persistent pov in her choice of words she regularly engages in serious distortion. The complainant lists several examples. As an illustration that this is a long term problem, I'll mention an older edit [10] [11] in which she changed

"an IDF patrol seized two Arab villagers, Abdullah Ahmad Dagash and Ibrahim Khalil, in a field 300 metres inside Jordan",

which exactly matches the source, to

"an IDF patrol seized two Arab infiltrators in a field near the armistice line"

(my emphases; the incident is notable because the villagers were murdered). Another similar example occurred at Jish where a well-documented massacre was reduced to "killed in the fighting". Unfortunately nothing has improved since the incidents mentioned. These examples and multiple other examples impressed on me that all of Gilabrand's edits need to be checked for bad faith. This is a chore that should not be necessary. Zero^talk 04:48, 16 November 2013 (UTC) [reply]

@ Georgewilliamherbert: I wish I wasn't "involved" in this case so that I could reply to you in the administrators' section as an administrator of many years standing. I am actually quite shocked by your statement, which is nothing less than a claim that policy allows edit-warring provided, finally, the article becomes balanced. It most certainly does not!! According to your logic, when an article is unbalanced because a pov-pusher has visited, that is the fault of other editors for not pushing the opposite pov. Preposterous! There is only one excuse for an editor to present a single pov in an article, and that is that the article under-represents that pov. Nor does policy allow distortion of sources under any conditions whatever, such as my two examples and some others on this page demonstrate. Zero^talk 08:48, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

About Policy (not a comment on this particular case). The solution to the policy debate is fairly simple. We all agree on what the ideal state of an article is. Inter alia it should be well sourced, report the sources accurately, and it must fairly represent the different POVs. An editor whose edits push articles towards their ideal states is in conformity with policy (even if all they ever do is look for one particular bias and correct it). An editor who strives to push articles away from their ideal state is in violation of policy (which will in practice include many editors who are here primarily for a political purpose). Every edit should leave the article better than it was before. Zero^talk 00:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive_7#Motion_regarding_Gilabrand.27s_AE_Block_for_WP:ARBPIA is relevant here, specifically "Gilabrand is further reminded that any future problematic editing following the removal of editing restrictions will be viewed dimly" and that she said "If I am unblocked, I will do my best not to disappoint them.--Geewhiz (talk) 07:25, 5 July 2011" here. A review of the provisional suspension of the AE block is probably merited, but the majority Gila's edits, edits that stay away from contentious issues, improve the encyclopedia. The blunt tools available here to deal with problematic editing are not ideal. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

<- The IP 174.44.174.192 appears to be intent on bringing conflict to Wikipedia and attacking contributors. Admin User:GraemeL warned them on 24 October 2013 "If you continue to post to talk pages in a manner that is considered uncivil by community standards I will block you without further warning". They need to be shut down. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@IP174: I can't help you see. It's too late for that. From my perspective you are just like this guy. Neither of you should be allowed to edit. Editors should not be exposed to these kind of editors and the contents of their minds. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, having edited in the ARBPIA topic area for many years, a topic I have near-zero personal interest in, wouldn't edit if editors were neutral and the topic area wasn't under constant attack from nationalists/advocates, my view exactly matches Quadell's statement that editors "must not edit in a way that, in the aggregate, consistently favors one side of a controversial issue" and "that doing so is worthy of sanction that can include a topic ban" and "it has to be applied fairly to all who edit articles on controversial topics". I also think, unlike Georgewilliamherbert, that individual POV is a crime here and should be treated as such in this topic area if it leaves a footprint on the content. I edit in the topic area precisely because this approach is not in place and there are many things I would rather be doing here. There's a widely held belief that it is okay to be biased and it's okay to consistently favor one side of a controversial issue in a way that is detached from the way a representative sample of reliable sources handle an issue. It's not just editors in the topic area who think it's okay to POV push (let's call a spade a spade), governments and all sorts of organizations connected to the conflict think it's okay to exploit Wikipedia for what is in effect propaganda purposes. Agada says "A pattern of adding pro-Israel (or pro-Palestine) material is a bad reason for a topic ban". On the contrary, I think that is an excellent reason for a topic ban, one of the best reasons. It sends a clear message that it is not okay to use Wikipedia to support a cause. WP:NOTADVOCATE is policy. It should be possible to bring an editor here to AE and topic ban them for violating that policy based on evidence of a long term bias, which would require a substantial amount of evidence. That's not to say that I think Gila should be topic banned. The difficult bit is, of course, actually measuring bias from edits and deciding when a fuzzy line has been crossed. Nevertheless, in my view, it's the widely held belief that it is okay to advocate and emphasize particular narratives rather than simply writing an encyclopedia based on representative sampling of sources that causes most of the intractable problems in the topic area. People genuinely seem to believe that it's okay to be pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian here and edit accordingly. Many people, long term editors and new editors, in the topic area genuinely seem to believe that employing sampling bias in terms of sources or language itself is a legitimate method here. Editors routinely sample information to makes things they have presumably been taught to like look good, and things they have been taught to dislike look bad. It takes years to make people to think a certain way and there's nothing Wikipedia can or should do about that. But I think there needs to be a clear message that biased editing is not okay and that people must stop editing that way or else they will be topic banned. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Ravpapa, in the last 500 of Gila's edits, 103 have been to talk pages

• 7 to her own talk page
• 82 were adjustments to article talk page project or header information (edit summary usually but not always=wp)
• 1 to restore someone else's abuse of WP:TALK via soapboxing that had already been removed twice[12]
• 8 talk page renames associated with article moves
• 1 vandalism revert[13]
• 1 message to a new editor[14]

So, in the last 500 edits Gila has used article talk pages for discussion 3 times. Here they are.[15][16][17]

So the evidence confirms what anyone who edits in the topic area already knows, that Gila very rarely involves herself in talk page discussions. I don't blame her for staying off talk pages as much as possible but in many cases her edits to controversial issues are inexplicable, at least to me, and I would like to know what was changed and why e.g. why was mention of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories removed from the lead of the Refusal to serve in the IDF article here when it's the main theme of the sources cited (which were dead at the time so Gila clearly didn't look at them) and it's presence is consistent with WP:LEAD given the rest of the article content. Or why did "160,000 Palestinians and 500-800 Israeli settlers" become "Arab and Jewish residents of Hebron" in Israeli–Arab conflict in Hebron here ? It's not wrong but it's a very bizarre way of describing the situation and it's still in the article. Changes like these, whether it's to the lead or the article body need to be explained, at least in the edit summary and preferably on the talk page. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, recently said "Our goal is to provide neutral, reliable information for our readers, and anything that threatens that is a serious problem". Does this statement apply in the WP:ARBPIA topic area ? And if so, what follows from it ? Many things, I think. AE certainly needs to be able to establish whether an editor's behavior constitutes a threat to neutral, reliable information by looking at evidence. But it seems to me that AE is not able to do that because there is a belief that sustained biased editing does not constitute a threat to neutral, reliable information. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Huldra, but that photo was produced by the International Solidarity Movement. The image and the caption "Settlers and Soldiers attacking demonstrators in Iraq Burin", just like images produced by the IDF, can I think be objectively described as propaganda (and that isn't meant as a criticism or a statement about it's veracity or taking sides in what is essentially a matter of perspective regarding attacking vs guarding). It's not immediately obvious which is the more problematic approach, re-captioning it "IDF soldiers and settlers guarding a settlement" (which retains some ISM information and but removes/replaces other ISM information using an unspecified criteria) or using an ISM caption, in both cases without attribution and presented in the narrative voice of the encyclopedia as a statement of fact. The most important point for me in cases like this is that the decision procedure that was used is opaque/hidden from other editors. Someone reviewing the edit actually has no idea at all how Gila made the decision but you can be sure that their mind will automatically make one up to explain it, which may or may not be accurate. On the other hand, people could disagree with your edit here because it presents ISM information without attribution, but at least they know from the edit summary how you made the decision. Things like this make a big difference in the topic area I think. Editors need to explain what they have done and why (and sometimes they are sanctioned for not doing that e.g. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive93#Reenem). Gila does not do that enough, which takes us back to Ravpapa's proposal. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:47, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@ZScarpia, I think the problem with accepting a situation where it's okay for editors to try "to present one side's position as well as possible" is that it inevitably results in the emergence of camps. If those were large camps with many editors perhaps things would be better. But they aren't. The population size of editors who stick around is rather small. New editors and socks who pass through, oddly, are often nationalistic, misguided, misinformed, indoctrinated, belligerent, sometimes apparently sociopathic or on the wrong side of the curtain of sanity in some way etc, at least in my experience much of the time, sadly. Articles tend to drift away from neutrality like this where n is small. They have to be carefully monitored and forced back on course, but there aren't enough people to do that. I think allowing editors to consistently favor one point of view when the population size is small is asking for trouble. Actually we already know it doesn't work because the topic area is broken and has been for years. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@ZScarpia, thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response. I think you might have left off the word not from the end of "they are correct in their judgement that the mere fact only one point of view is being written about is". Sean.hoyland - talk 14:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As one who personally finds Gilabrand's political opinions repugnant, I feel pretty bizarre coming to her defense. Nonetheless, I think this complaint raises an issue of principle that needs to be stated. The knee-jerk, pro-Israeli narrative has pretty much been discredited here at Wikipedia, and, in my opinion, rightly so. But it is still a point of view that has considerable, if dwindling, weight on the outside. In this adversarial, pluralistic editing world of Wikipedia, it is, in my opinion, not a bad thing that Israel boosters keep trying - within the rules of the game - to leave their imprint on IP articles, even if they are pretty consistently shot down.

Reviewing the edits by Gilabrand cited as violations of the discretionary sanctions of 21 July 2013, I can read them as either sly efforts to introduce Israeli propaganda into the Wikipedia, or as good-faith edits by a sincere editor who views the world through a pro-Israeli Weltschaum. Take a couple of random examples of the edits cited above: Walid Khalidi is indeed an Arab historian, even if he prefers to be called Palestinian. One could question if the fact that Habonim is built on lands of a former Palestinian village needs to be in the lead of the article, or is better placed further down. And so on. The edits are almost universally ones of spin, not of factual inaccuracies.

Please don't misunderstand: I think it is a good thing that, in almost every case, Gilabrand's pro-Israeli edits have been rejected. I am especially pissed off about her attempt to remove criticisms of MEMRI from the lead of the article - that lead is the outcome of a compromise that I personally worked hard to achieve. But I don't think that, prima facie, her behavior merits sanction. Ravpapa (talk) 06:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You argue passionately for neutrality by editors. But the question of neutrality, especially in the IP arena, is not at all clear. For example: is it neutral to include in the lead of an article on an Israeli town or village the name of an Arab village that was destroyed there before 1948? The fact that Kafr Lam once stood where Kibbutz Habonim is today is certainly notable, and should be in the article. But should it be in the lead? Mind you, I think it should be in the lead; but I am, I think, sanguine enough to understand that that is my own point of view, it is not a "neutral" presentation of things. I contend that the only way to get close to neutrality is to keep the editing floor open to all viewpoints. Insist on discussion, demand respect for the rules, but don't kick out the editors - from either side - because they believe passionately in one thing or another.

I am Israeli, but not necessarily agree with all of Gilabrand opinions. Looking at #4 Diff (which is not the mentioned one) , Gilabrand deleted indeed the " information of the depopulation of Arab villages" (other than Jisr az-Zarka) and her reason was:" article is about Jisr az-Zarka". What is wrong with this deletion?

I encounter a lot of similar pro Palestinian UNDUE and POV pushing. Actually, The Arab Israeli conflict articles are full of anti Israeli POV (e.g. [18]). Even a simple factual sentence ("The arabs rejected any form of partition") was repeatedly deleted , and those editors fought against it in the DRN until, eventually a similar sentence was accepted. Bear in mind, the this sentence had plenty of supporting RS, while there is no RS supporting the opposite view.

Even if Gilabrand was not right in some of those points, please keep in mind this general situation. Ykantor (talk) 11:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The view that every post should be neutral leads to a built in absurd.. Suppose that the best Wikipedia editor is editing a group of biased articles. He is doing a great job and the articles become neutral. The editor should be banned because every single edit (as well as the pattern of edits) is biased toward the other side. ! Ykantor (talk) 12:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am chipping in simply to note that this complaint allowed us to enjoy a reminder of Ravpapa's wonderful substitution of the expected Weltanschauung with the deviously subversive Weltschaum in his generous remarks above. The first time round I just squeaked with private delight. Today, it lead me back to a train of Buddhist thoughts, well captured in H.W. Bailey's remark about his life being 'a faint streak on the surface of the tossing world of Samsāra'. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, OUP, vol.10, (1954) p.16 n.2. To speak of a 'a pro-Israeli Weltschaum,' rather than a Weltanschauung is to dismiss it as 'froth', and froth by definition cannot be 'deeply ingrained'. But even Bailey had his lapses: 'toss' in 'the tossing world' is deliciously vulgar, and cannot have escaped the sensibility of a man who knew about 50 languages that he thought our existence as a dab on the froth of existence a bit of a wank. A 'faint streak on the tossing world' reminds one of this.Nishidani (talk) 12:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Debresser. No one doubts Gilabrand is an excellent copy-editor with a real sense of encyclopedic style. However, on the few pages which I have on my watchlist where she occasionally turns up, the style is also one of hit-and-run edits which often need to be reverted. Hit-and-run because (this is memory, I hope not playing me false) if reverted she rarely returns to the talk page. If one makes an edit and it is challenged one should argue for it. I now see her contribs shows a commendably high level of on-article edits, with little talk page discussion (most of us sigh with envy, bogged down in absurd talk page justifications as we are). In copyediting she goes through a page in one edit, often, which throws out the baby with the bathwater. I.e.,

• here at Sykes-Picot Agreement massive removal on the grounds it was ‘off-topic’. Well, actually it was well sourced material contextualizing the agreement in period negotiations that lead to that agreement. Technically all 'background' sections in all I/P articles would have to be removed if she was correct policy-wise in her edit summary.

• here at Negev Bedouin, an article which historically underplays drastically any serious indication of the problems. Again good copy-editing, but a large amount of material relevant to the subject was dropped in one huge edit.

She often elides material without even checking what the sources say. E.g.

• here, at Shuafat. Again there is the unnecessary removal of documented material regarding damage done by Israel. She didn’t check Morris, the source, in copyediting. That is shown by the fact that note 22 lacks pagination to Morris. Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge UP, 2004 p.237,345-6 gives the details which, if checked, would have lead to a better reformulation (including the destruction the Palmach visited on the village) of the sentence. One should never copyedit without checking a source. Source-control is one of the things that makes many of us very slow sometimes unproductive editors volume-wise, but it is a sine qua non of any rewriting of an article. Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DeborahJay:'I'm deeply concerned about the integrity of all WP EN articles about Israel, certainly NPOV'.

I don't include your thoughtful post among several here that rumor-monger about a clique out to get at 'Israel' or 'pro-Israeli editors'. This has often been insinuated here, and the only effect is to make me careful about not joining every AE complaint, if only to forestall an unwarranted perception that a 'pro-Pal' group is gaming things here. But it does share with many the idea that this is 'about Israel'. I can't speak for others, but I have always thought the job I took on in this area concerned the elephant in the room, Palestine/Palestinians. Very few of those who are worried about this complaint think that it's also about Palestinians: they are worried about Israel being correctly interpreted.

When I began, this area had two editors of Palestinian descent, and the situation hasn't changed (well, one retired: the other has thankfully purely cultural historic interests in the Arab world) That was anomalous. Obviously as an editor I tend to see the overall picture as many Israelis from Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, Avi Shlaim to Yehuda Elkana and hundreds of others in the Israeli commentariat interpret things. This doesn't translate into being 'anti-Israel'. As to editing, my rule is very simple: cite what Israeli mainstream papers report, or what the industrious academic industry from TAU to Yale and Harvard peer-reviewed works report. What is intensely disliked here or dismissed as 'anti-Israeli' in many cases is a dislike for one side of an infra-Israeli/Jewish debate, as duly cited in articles.

And, as for Gilabrand, I think several of us open acknowledge her value to wikipedia. I hope Sandstein's suggestion is modulated, so that she can stay on board. One solution is that she should promise never to edit out material or euphemize facts concerning Palestinians given in RS. Tag it. Ask any number of editors to look over it, esp. if she does a large scale rewrite,etc. Nishidani (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A confusion seems to be developing in which the 'pro-Israel'/'pro Palestine' breakdown of editors is taking shape. Taking care that one side or another is not improperly represented does not mean necesarily that one edits in a partisan fashion, or pushes a POV. Quite simply, we have a conflict between two nations, and the variegated realities of that conflict are to be represented neutrally. Neutrality does not mean however that must find some facts to justify one side or another. What neutrality requires is that all the relevant facts in the available RS be given their place with due weight so that readers are not reading a screed that tilts their opinions one way or another. When I dropped that note to Zero, who was commenting on one of Gilabrand's edits, and which was collapsed (quite correctly) as out of its proper place, I was linking him to a page that had further details which might, if researched more deeply, show that the two Palestinians were killed in a retaliatory raid for the rape of a Jewish woman in Jerusalem and several murders. If Gilabrand falsified the data there would be no excuse. But had she looked more deeply, she might have found material like this, and, while keeping the language of the citation she erased, contextualized it in conformity with both RS and an Israeli perspective. NPOV is broken, in my view, when, in making edits, one consistently ignores all the relevant detail in the sources one cites. Good sources are often more comprehensive than the edits we make from them.

There are many pages which by their nature give one side of the picture. Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and all its year by year subpages (9 of them) are such (attempts to balance that perspective by creating parallel pages for IDF attacks on the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank have all suffered almost immediate deletion because reliable sources that cover that side are, to make an understatement, totally inadequate, though we have a lone List of Israeli attacks on Gaza, 2009. List of Israeli price tag attacks was forked off from Price tag policy because it was a list, by an editor who did not appear to think that leaving the main page as basically profiling Israeli condemnations of those events was as problematical as the list of facts themselves. If one edits these kinds of pages one should, but editors rarely do (often because the work load if you do this is enormous, and time-consuming), give any further relevant context provided by sources. In reading of the last price tag attack against a Palestinian village, one can see that its perpetrators were apparently responding to the murder of a younng IDF soldier. Both should be added. If some of the Israeli-Arab activist Juliano Mer-Khamis's students ended up as suicide bombers, that must be put in, though some might think it stains his record. But if the circumstances are known that some of the bombers decided to act as terrorists after their mothers, or acquaintances were killed, that too goes in. The more detail, the closer to NPOV, because reality is invariably too complex to allow of simple partisan judgements. At Ezra Nawi, editors critical of the man pressed for the inclusion of details of his pedophilia conviction; other editors, many of them often identified as pro-Palestinian, citing WP:BLP reverted material including it. The answer was simply to thoroughly research the topic and give it complete coverage.

NPOV means surely, hewing precisely to everything RS provide, and, in general articles, complying with the obligation to see that the narrative vectors of conflicting POVs are balanced towards neutrality, and not cherrypicking stuff, or euphemizing, to write up an account that makes one or another party feel happy. Just forage for the facts and to hell with the POV consequences, is usually a good rule of thumb.Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Georgewilliamherbert

Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another. As such, the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view, but including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight.

No one is surely arguing editors do not have a right to a POV. What policy says is that editors are under an obligation to provide complete information. Copyediting that consistently elides relevant information that can be verified in sources used on a page, or by a simple check one or two clicks away, so that a particular POV is advanced, is a violation of policy. If there is a consistent pattern in any editor's work of repressing sourced or easily verified material about one side in a two-sided conflict, so that only the other POV emerges, then the editor is failing his or her obligations.Nishidani (talk) 08:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Georgewilliamherbert

I'd prefer to work under Sandstein's interpretation, even if the immediate consequence were that I might be permabanned (I write that knowing that it is an open invitation to try for the nth time to get me banned.). Since this area attracts intolerably bad editors, it can only improve if the standards are strict. I don't think half of Sepsis's diffs convince. But several do, and you really have to know the subject to see why. Before commenting I went into them, and decided not to comment, except on Weltschaum, but lapsed. But I think you are looking at this unaware of the hardship of daily maintenance here, - several editors just stick round to rever the nonsense of patent POV pushing. What you miss, I'll cite just one example, the first, is things like this.

I said, and gave an example above, that Gilabrand copy edits often without even consulting the source. That clearly is destructive because we are honour-bound to base everything written here on reliable sources.

(1) here at Kafr 'Inan. Look at the second para of that diff. Gilabrand’s edit does not remove the information in Morris 2004 p.517 for she conserves what is written in the body of the article. Her principle is WP:LEDE summary style, which can justify the simplification. That could tell in her favour. But

(a) Morris uses a variety of words expelled, moved, transferred, scoured, emptied, evictions.

Of these *‘transferred’ is Gilabrand’s option, but she also elides any mention of the agent who ‘transferred’ the villagers, drops the reference to ‘Israel’ as a site of Arab villages. You can transfer or 'bus' refugees, football teams, etc. The word 'transfer' in this historical usage means 'relocation' of a population by political means. It was long discussed in that sense before the events described. The lead is thus emptied of the facts which are given down in the page.

(b) The lead had (i) ‘with settlement persisting through to the Byzantine period, existing again in the Middle Ages and the modern era.(source Leibnerp p.130). Gilabrand rewrote: (ii)‘was inhabited by Jews through the Byzantine period. It was resettled in the Middle Ages and the modern era.’

• This is not what Leibner (not Leibnerp) writes on p.130. He writes:-

The study also showed that the settlement was founded during the early Roman period and continued until the Byzantine period and existed again during the Middle Ages and in modern times’.

Leibner does of course go on to document Jewish remains there, synagogues and pottery words mentioned in Jewish sources.(i) got the source wordperfect, Gilabrand inferred from it a Jewish presence (which however does not exclude other populations) and highlighted that. To eyes familiar with the Galilee (to editors who work these pages) that village is well know as one of many examples of how the sanctification of Jewish holy sites, esp. the ‘graves of the righteous’ (kivrei tzadikim) went pari passu with the razing of all evidence of Muslim graves around where the former were found. The national policy was to make all traces of Jewish roots prominent, while demolishing any Arab presence in the landscape. (Doron Bar, ‘Wars and sacred space: the influence of the 1948 War on sacred space in the state of Israel’ in Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, Leonard Hammer (eds.) Holy Places in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Confrontation and Co-existence, Routledge 2009 pp.67-90 p.78 ). Gilabrand’s second adjustment uncannily repeats the pattern which informed that national policy. After suppressing the source-based if nuanced details about the nature of the Palestinians' eviction, she highlighted the Jewish historical presence. The overall effect of that one edit, in just these two moves was to downcase the Arab historical presence, and showcase the Jewish presence. That is thus impeccable editing - 'Zionist in nature' - as described here and many other public sources. There is place for both in a neutral encyclopedia. If there is a pattern discernible in any one's edit record of consistently altering language to remove negative information re one side, falsifying sources, in order to privilege one narrative, it constitutes editing against NPOV. Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This has turned out a defense of the person (or, in an adversarial perspective, an attack on an editor) rather than a clarification of the rules. Since administrators can't agree on the simple interpretation of core policy that's been referred to endlessly for a decade (itself an astonishing reality), whatever the outcome, it deprives the few editors in the I/P area of a sure guideline against the harassment of clear POV pushing, since it is proven that Gilabrand does remove sourced material to favour one side. So are we to presume that this is okay? Can we give the green light to the practices several edits (no one has refuted them) where she is doing this, and set a precedent for the future? Nishidani (talk) 12:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bull. This discussion has centered on the rules as well as the person. Look again! Debresser (talk) 15:05, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that other admins, apart from Ed Johnston, read Sandstein’s summation of policy and challenged that. I can’t see any substantial evidence that the challenging admins went through both the diffs, and the evidence later provided by Huldra, Zero, Sean.hoyland etc., closely. The result of their discussion is that they disagree theoretically on policy interpretation, irrespective of the pros and cons of the actual evidence given, which has been basically ignored. Zad68 'I haven't even looked at Gilabrand's edits'. Quadell asks what we should do with a civil editor willing not to remove sourced content in the face of evidence that this is precisely what Gilabrand has done. Georgewilliamherbert remarked:'As long as Gilabrand is engaging constructively with feedback and corrections to their contributions, and not making a pattern of actually bad edits, there is no case here' but it has been shown that she doesn’t engage with feedback at all, and there is a pattern of bad edits suppressing a side. There's a total disconnect, and all oversight is on the theory, not the evidence. I have personally no problem with people bringing a POV to the area: anyone can add evidence for or against one of the parties to the conflict, as long as they do not engage in suppressing on one pretext or another countervailing material, which however is the problem here and with many editors not mentioned here.

My conclusion is that a precedent is being set, and it threatens to triple one's workload. Dismiss the case by all means, but after a decade of normative applications to have an admission that we don't really know how to apply NPOV is pretty depressing. Nishidani (talk) 15:57, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein. I'll call bullshit on this one as each and every singly commentator here can be banned based on your outlined reasons. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. Debresser (talk) 12:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Now that Gilabrand has posted her response, we can have a good impression of what the future holds if action is not taken per this request. In a nutshell: much more of the same. I do hope that she is not given a green light to carry on in this mode. Given the prior history, Sandstein's perspective is the right one. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Quadell: your view is quite dangerous, I think. If widely adopted, it would mean that the POV of our articles would boil down to the relative proportions of active editors on opposing sides. Now, you might think that that's how things work it practice -- but it is highly undesirable to take the view that this is how things should work. Things really ought to work the opposite way: we should expect each individual editor to contribute to the process of bringing articles into line with NPOV. I think it's quite evident that Gilabrand does not contribute to such a process. If the same can be said for other editors, then they too should be dealt with. To do otherwise is to issue an invitation for endless competition and gaming. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Iric2012: whose sock are you?? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Hmm. It appears that a couple of admins are content to have Gilabrand carry on editing in the mode we have seen. That's fascinating. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First of all let me state that even though Gilabrand and I have had our differences, I have found this editor to be responsive to reasonable argument on talkpages. Therefore I would in any case argue for discussion, rather than measures.

As to the diffs provided by the editor who opened this complaint:

Diff number 3: It may very well be that Gilabrand was not aware of the change in title that tok place in January. I also wasn't.

Diff number 5: The legal status of Israeli settlements is a complex issue, and I have mostly seen it treated in a separate section with the lead of the article mentioning no more than that it is "a matter of discussion" or something like that.

Diff number 9: Where these museums are located is absolutely not relevant to that line. If anything, it should be no more than a side mention.

Diff number 10: If he has Israeli citizenship, then he is an "Israeli Arab". That is the official term. He can also be an ethical Palestinian, but in the context it makes more sense to mention the first, and in any case it is true.

It is not hard to find diffs from editors who regularly edit in this controversial field, that show a POV. The question is whether that POV leads to intentional disregard of Wikipedia rules and guidelines. This collection of diffs shows a POV, but no disregard for Wikipedia rules and guidelines, and I am confident that discussion on talkpages would have been enough to reach consensus with this editor. Debresser (talk) 10:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Spesis II's call on November 25 for a close is a lousy example of POV. He says 3 admins were in favor of a ban, and forgets to mention those who were against. He conveniently also forgets that the first admin to strongly argue a ban later admitted that the discussion here shows there is no consensus for that. Not to mention that the non-admin editors mostly strongly oppose the idea of a ban. Calling their comments here "non-related" is a gross PROV expression for "Why do so many people disagree with me?". I see clearly that there is no consensus for a ban whatsoever. Gilabrand should be asked to discuss potential POV edits on the talkpage before making the edits. After all, this discussion shows at least that there is a POV problem, and she as a conscientious editor should not ignore that fact, but learn to work with that. Debresser (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In a nutshell User Gilabrand (talk · contribs) is being subjected to not so subtle WP:WIKIHOUNDING and WP:CYBERBULLYING by editors who express a POV that can be summed up as waving a little flag called "WP:IDONTLIKEIT". The accusations against her are also a violation of WP:NOTCENSORED as well as an abuse of WP:LAWYERING.

There are so far few eloquent English speaking Israelis and Jewish editors to do the tough job that Gilabrand does -- to give an alternate explanation and defense to too much blatant pro-PLO, Pro-Arab anti-Israel pushing on WP that is mind-numbing and boring if not outright stupid in its results.

Bottom line: This entire debate is too hilarious for words because of course every editor has a personal POV but as responsible editors we adhere to WP:NPOV as best we can. There is no denying that User Gilabrand (talk · contribs) works to present an Israeli perspective but it is within acceptable bounds. It is absurd to accept that "all" editors who edit I-P topics should sound and act as if they are working for Al Jazeera (hey guess what guys, this may come as a shock to you, but: Wikipedia is NOT Al Jazeera  !) or as hired PR flacks for the PLO or Hamas or Hizubbullah or the Ayatolas of Iran etc.

Editors such as Gilabrand are obviously loyal Israelis expressing the standard Israeli view on these subjects cited by the complaint and they will always exist. Duh!!! Just as they cannot be dismissed or ignored or exterminated in the real world by Israel's enemies, they cannot be dismissed or ignored by punishing good editors on WP who come on board who should be debated but not crushed as this complaint is trying to do.

WP cannot be "holier than thou" than the real world by trying to crush any editor who comes along wanting to insert a healthy debate and alternate views that exist out there in the world, that no amount of WP:WIKIHOUNDING and WP:CENSOR will achieve.

It only cheapens WP to crush and humiliate Gilabrand rather than discussing points rationally. And it is a cop-out to take this short-cut rather than debate her point by point, that comes across as a "cyber thought control policeman" acting to enforce "UN resolutions" when WP is neither part of the UN nor does it belong to any majority or minority be they Arabs or Jews. WP has to be fair to all because it is an online ENCYCLOPEDIA and it is not a place to wage WP:WAR. Yes, editing WP takes skill and it is a tough job, but to take out the hatched and try to proverbially "kill off" your opponent rather than engaging in proper intellectual debate and work on the technical and policy aspects of WP editing is disgusting to watch, and soon there will only be anti-Israel editors running what is already a pretty well-known debacle and degradation as more and more (like a doomed sinking Titanic of verbal huckstering) WP takes on the default role as a front for the delegitimization of the Israeli POV (yes it's a POV, just as the PLO has POV and Hamas has a POV).

Okay, so let's imagine, tomorrow Gilabrand is banned or blocked forever. Does that make WP a better place? Will all the critics be happy talking to themselves now that political correctness and groupthink are enforced? It would be yet another Pyrrhic victory that only silly small-minded people could enjoy. Gilabrand is not an "ogre" -- she is a friend of WP as hard to believe that some here may find that to be, and she can be engaged on equal terms. She is smart and knows her facts, and just because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT it is no reason that she should be taken down. WP needs Gilabrand and more editors like her. IZAK (talk) 21:16, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Izak, who is well aware that I disagree with him on many related issues, asked me to come here. If anyone therefore wants to move my statement out of the uninvolved category, they are free do do so, but I never edit in this area, and never intend to. I agree with the criticism of most of the specific edits by Gilabrand referred to in the complaint--they do represent an attempt to affect the wording in a particular direction. In the context of all of her edits, and in the context of the sharp disagreements in this area, the question is whether they represent a trivial or a significant violation of neutrality. Looking at all of her contributions, there are a great many excellent ones related in some degree to Israeli affairs not involving directly events in the conflict, but essentially any topic in the geographic area is related in some indirect way, if only in the question of geographic names. Indeed, some of the edits complained of were of this nature. The argument that others editing in this area have to some degree a bias in the opposite direction and cannot avoid demonstrating it in subtle ways is correct. Some of her recent edits, such as those on Murder of Hatuel family seem to bring the balance back to neutrality, rather than away from it. I know that in principle we do not try to attain NPOV by balancing opposite biases but by NPOV writing, but I doubt that anyone working in this field can avoid being affected by their POV. (This is one reason why I do not edit here.) The question is the overall contributions made, and I do not feel we can afford to lose her work entirely. Any topic ban enacted in the broad terms that Sandstein proposes would affect too much of her work, and very possibly would lead to bias in the opposite direction. I do not think on balance that her editing is disruptive, and I do not think her editing is beyond her ability to self-correct. DGG ( talk ) 23:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My experience with Gilabrand is limited to articles about Jerusalem neighborhoods, but on those pages I have seen nothing along the lines of what Sepsis and others are claiming. Gilabrand provides balance and neutrality to these pages, in contrast to the POV diatribe posted by the vociferously pro-Arab, Israel-bashing editors that haunt Wikipedia. On the Neve Yaakov page in particular, I see her consistently revert POV statements[19] and provide citations for challenged material[20]. Rather than topic-banning Gilabrand, I think you should go after the anonymous and not-so-anonymous editors who are doing everything they can to blacken Israel's name without any concern for neutrality or out-and-out libel. Yoninah (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's noticeable in the tension between the two sides, that the encyclopedic quality of much of the Israeli oriented WP editing is lacking - while editors on the other side often demonstrate far better understanding, skill and ability to remain within WP guidelines. There have been far too many seemingly young impetuous editors who make no secret of an emotionally driven purpose to try to defend Israel, while perhaps not realizing they often compromise some of the basic tenets of the project.

Gila Brand is not one of these, however.

Most of the editors on the other side work well together (as this complaint shows) and are far better at making a case that behooves the spirit of the encyclopedia. The Arab-Israeli conflict on WP resonates with this imbalance of editorial skill. On the one hand, it's resulted in a somewhat pro-Arab view that dominates many of the articles dealing with the conflict, which may be desired for the sake of neutrality and balance. On the other, it seems important to try to keep this thrust in check, so the encyclopedia can remain as close to neutral as possible - and avoid veering too far to one side.

Sandstein does a fine job here, but we can all jump the gun sometimes and not give enough consideration to some nuances. It doesn't seem possible to achieve balance through an absolute neutrality of all the editors. Wikipedia seems to rather reflect a tug-of-war that strives for that elusive center, which is perhaps how it should be. Seems that it's this tension that has made the encyclopedia what it is.

Gila Brand's contributions to the subject area, her skills, knowledge and goodwill for community, that come from a visible high regard for the project, cannot be overstated.

It seems reasonable to reconsider the suggestion for an indefinite ban. MichaelNetzer (talk) 01:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The best way for Gilabrand to defend herself would be to produce some examples from her thousands of edits which show her striving to produce neutral text.
Looking through the preceding statements, there are a couple of aspects which I find striking. It would have occurred to an editor who was making an effort to appear neutral that the unqualified use of a term such as 'infiltrator' might be seen as a bit POVish (in the same way that terrorist, freedom fighter etc. are) and that it would be a good idea to provide explanatory detail in the article and, perhaps, on the talkpage. On the removal of text in the Lead of the MEMRI article, Gilabrand justifies it on the grounds that it was unsourced. An experienced editor should know that uncited material in the Lead may actually be sourced in the body of the article, which was true in that case.
It's been a long time since Gilabrand's editing of articles has coincided with mine, but something that sticks in my memory is how her signature used to read Nopleezy, one of the most juvenile attempts at baiting another editor that I've seen on Wikipedia.
    ←   ZScarpia   20:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah - Yoninah, in Gilabrand's edit of the Neve Yaakov article that you're referring to, she used a Guardian article which refers to Neve Yakkov, a place whose history as a settlement is elucidated in the body of the Wikipedia article, in the context of extra settlement houses being built there, to replace the use of the word settlement, which had been previously sourced to another Guardian article, with the word neighborhood. I think that the edit tends to show the opposite of what you claim, that it represents a good example of Gilabrand's consistent removal of point-of-view statements. Gilabrand obliterated justified references to Neve Yakkov as a settlement by calling it a neighbourhood, when it can clearly be simultaneously both of those: in this case, they're not mutually exclusive. There is nothing neutral about that. The edit is, of course, the last one on the list supplied by Sepsis.     ←   ZScarpia   02:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC) (extended or amended: 15:15, 29 November 2013 (UTC), 17:43, 29 November 2013 (UTC))[reply]

The request to amend Gilabrand's topic ban, which concluded in August 2011, terminates: Gilabrand is further reminded that any future problematic editing following the removal of editing restrictions will viewed dimly. I should think that some of the examples of editing cited here would have been seen as problematic by the arbitrators who handled the request. Presumably, they hoped that Gilabrand would edit more cautiously, but caution isn't very evident in some of the edits, nor in Gilabrand's canvassing of other editors during the course of this request, nor in Gilabrand's making of snidey comments (1, 2) about editors involved with this request during the course of this request. At the very least, I would have thought that Gilabrand should be reminded about the warning attached to the modification of her topic ban.     ←   ZScarpia   02:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There has been a debate here about what neutral editing consists of and what the obligations it puts on editors are. At least to some degree, I think that editors have been arguing at cross-purposes. Quadell raised an objection to Sandstein's statements that "all editors are required to edit Wikipedia from a neutral, rather than a particular point of view" and "a pattern of conduct that consistently favors one point of view is not reflective of an effort in favor of neutrality," that "it's a misreading of our NPOV policy to say that editors are violating that policy when they contribute only to one side" and "articles have to reflect a neutral POV, giving all sides due weight, but a given Wikipedian's edits do not have to reflect all sides equally." Questions begged are what does consistently favouring one side mean and when does it become blameworthy. Quadell raises a particular type of situation, where editors have tended to split into two diametrically opposing camps, each trying to make the best case for its position as it can. When does behaviour become disruptive in such a case? Merely trying to present one side's position as well as possible, when there is a group of editors trying to do the same for the opposite one doesn't do it, so long as points of view are presented as points of view, due weight is given and unreasonable attempts to foil the same being done for the opposite point of view are not being made. In the more significant of the cases listed here, though, Gilabrand is not tending to favour one side by editing material pertaining to that side, she is actually editing or removing material pertaining to the unfavoured side. Thus:

• Diff 13: Sourced references to a neighbourhood of Jerusalem being a settlement are removed. Under neutral editing, the furthest justified change, if it could have been sourced, would have been to note that it is not a settlement in Israeli eyes, Jerusalem being seen as being Israeli territory.
• Diff 8: Despite the fact that the occupied nature of the Shebaa Farms area, at least as seen by the international community, is sourced and detailed in the History section of the article, a reference to it is completely removed from the Lead. At the same time, Myths and Facts, a pretty dubious source, is introduced as a source for the statement about the area being annexed by Israel and a trivial statement about the area being known as Fatahland is introduced to the body of the article and the Lead.
• Diff 7: An unsourced statement is removed, but by applying a small amount of effort and following the deleted link, it would have been found that the statement is well sourced in the Kafr Lam article. A more cautious editor, particularly one trying to show they were making an effort to edit neutrally, would probably have inserted a citation needed template instead of instantly deleting the statement.
• Diff 4: The article explains, citing a source, why the arab population of Jisr az-Zarqa remained while other similar towns or villages were depopulated. Half of the explanation was removed on the false grounds that it was irrelevant, leaving what looks like a more favourable sentence, showing rashness, poor judgement or both.
• Diff 2: Removal of material from the Lead on the grounds that it is original research when it is well-sourced in the body of the article, again showing rashness, poor judgement or both.
  

    ←   ZScarpia   15:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC) (Extended: 03:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC))[reply]

@Sean - Note the context of what I wrote: When does behaviour become disruptive in such a case? Merely trying to present one side's position as well as possible, when there is a group of editors trying to do the same for the opposite one doesn't do it, so long as points of view are presented as points of view, due weight is given and unreasonable attempts to foil the same being done for the opposite point of view are not being made. The gist of what I was trying to say is that what really matters is that an editor's individual edits change content neutrally. By changing content neutrally, I mean, for example, that points of view are represented as points of view, that appropriate weighting is given and that loaded terms are avoided. Recently, SJ wrote in the Results section: "Articles need to be neutral; individual editors do not." I find the second clause a bit strange and I'd prefer the whole to be written something like: Articles need to be neutral; individual editors, in the range of views they describe, do not, but each edit does. As an example case, some editors have said that their purpose here is to make sure that Israeli positions are properly represented. Ideally, they would be interested in ensuring that all relevant positions are represented, but that's the ideal. A couple of administrators have interpreted Sandstein's position as being that such editors should be sanctioned unless they make an effort to represent other positions besides Israel's. Though I suspect that they may have misinterpreted what Sandstein wrote, I think they are correct in their judgement that the mere fact only one point of view is being written about is not problematic in itself. It would become problematic if that point of view was not being described neutrally or if other points of view were being removed, diminished or distorted. With the diffs presented which are actually problematic, it is the removal or diminishment of other points of view, or the imposition of the Israeli point of view, which cause the problem. As far as the polarisation of the IP area is concerned, it isn't so much that some editors only want to write about one side that it is the problem, it is that some editors, perhaps because they they are so thoroughly convinced that one side is 'correct', in effect, want only one side to be shown, one side to be over-emphasised or one point of view to be presented as fact.     ←   ZScarpia   02:12, 6 December 2013 (UTC) (correction made in response to suggestion by Sean: 15:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)) (last modified: 15:58, 6 December 2013 (UTC))[reply]

While my field of expertise is Holocaust history (and I'm a professional editor and translator for an Israeli museum archives), as a naturalized Israeli since the mid-1980s I'm deeply concerned about the integrity of all WP EN articles about Israel, certainly NPOV. I'm also an inclusionist. That being stated: the description above by User:Nishidani and others of Gilabrand's "wholesale" editing, removing sourced material and removing unsourced material rather than tagging it for citation and/or bringing it to the article's Talk page, seems to be improper WP editing practice. Pace Gilabrand's quantity of editing activity and undisputed writing skills, the selective rewriting and excising of content written properly by any editor strikes me as unacceptable bordering on disruptive to this collaborative encyclopedia project. At worst it's intellectually dishonest. A writer and editor conscientious on matters involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict can uphold the principles of balanced copy (e.g. the media's use of "militant" rather than "terrorist/freedom-fighter"). I ask whether there might be an interim phase before the proposed topic ban, to obtain Gilabrand's good-faith agreement to adhere to the slower but fairer and accepted editing practices of (a) not removing sourced material, (b) requesting citations for the unsourced, and (c) challenging questionable content on the article's Talk page, soliciting a response from that content's editor, enlisting knowledgeable editors' input, etc. -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following valid points raised above were not addressed :

1. It doesn't seem possible to achieve balance through an absolute neutrality of all the editors. Wikipedia seems to rather reflect a tug-of-war that strives for that elusive center, which is perhaps how it should be. Seems that it's this tension that has made the encyclopedia what it is.
2. A pattern of adding pro-Israel (or pro-Palestine) material is a bad reason for a topic ban.

AgadaUrbanit (talk) 14:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the diffs are largely a function of interpretation. Gilabrand is a knowledgeable editor contributing valuable content to a topic—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—in which WP:NPOV can be found within an unusually wide margin of possible acceptability. The arguments that arise are not necessarily limited to the support found in reliable sources but rather the language used to express in our own words what those sources say. WP:NPOV is a concept that we aspire to. But WP:NPOV is not 100% defined down to the umpteenth degree. There is no mechanical way to say that the wording chosen by an editor is right on target for WP:NPOV. I think Gilabrand tried her best not to be in violation of WP:NPOV but of course counterarguments can be made. I think we see those counterarguments being made here. Should Gilabrand be prevented from participating in editing within the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" area? I don't think so. I think that would be a step in the direction of eroding Wikipedia's knowledge base in this area. Bus stop (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@ Sepsis II—I don't think you should be agitating for us to get a quick close on this. You are saying "Can we please get a close on this"? (22:04, 25 November 2013) Also I don't think you should be suggesting that any editors participating in this discussion "have been wholly disruptive". You are not taking a disinterested position in regard to such a question. You initiated this discussion here pertaining to Gilabrand who happens to be a knowledgeable and productive editor contributing to the knowledge that Wikipedia makes available to the reader. Your argument, if I can grossly paraphrase, is that you feel that the language and terms used by Gilabrand project a perspective that is supportive of the "rightness" of the Israeli side in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. I am stating your complaint this way because your diffs do not claim that the material added to an article by Gilabrand is original research. Your only claim is that a "spin" is put on Wikipedia's assertions in article space which you feel unfairly represents your own views on the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. But you can't claim that a productive editor be less productive. I don't believe Gilabrand is in violation of WP:NPOV simply for being productive and choosing wording which is wholly supported by reliable sources. Sourcing is the final arbiter of what wording gets into our articles, and you are not accusing Gilabrand of not following sources. Bus stop (talk) 01:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is excessively optimistic: "Failing to edit in this fashion is precisely why we have battleground topic areas: editors range up in sides to promote their own point of view and refute the "opposing one". It may be understandable but it is not for the good of the encyclopedia in the long (or even the short run) to institutionalize and reinforce this approach."[21] Sorry but this is unrealistic and even counterproductive. Sources do not concur on the points of contention, and this is an area of exceptionally wide contention. How can it be that "it is not for the good of the encyclopedia"[22]? I would think that the reconciling of editorial differences is good for the encyclopedia. This takes place generally on Talk pages and in our various dispute resolution processes. How is this accomplished? It is accomplished by hammering out wording acceptable to both sides and supported by sources that often do not concur with one another. It is fundamentally counterproductive to remove an editor representing a point of view. It is unrealistic to think that editors are not drawn to source material deemed more accurate. We are largely discussing the reconciling of source material that uses different terminology. This is an editorial process. It is not facilitated by removing a participant. Bus stop (talk) 23:53, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Content should not be a point of discussion in an AE, so I'm surprised to see reams of discussion on content.

I am also shocked to see a position which judges edits as either one sided or another, as POV or NPOV, and that this idea has become entrenched in the thinking of many. This is problematic on many levels.

• This kind of judgement requires that the middle ground of neutrality be first established by the editor making judgement. They too have POVs and any judgements they make as to where this centrally-located, neutral line is depends on their own POV. Decision on where neutral lies in content is a content decision and requires an in- depth knowledge of the material and content. In my experience, most enforcers do not have this kind of information and why should they. Further, they shouldn't be judging content which again takes in depth knowledge of the material.
• Once this personal bright line has been established, the judgement of what are NPOV edits is skewed per the already established neutral position. This again becomes personal and depends on who is making the judgement and how they view the neutral position. This layers one mistake on top of another, one POV decision on top of another.

• Right now AE decisions are made by one editor, so the NPOV version of the content which should be based on the collaborative process, a process which can help ensure NPOV is established since many editors with multiple POVs are making the content decisions, is instead overridden by one editor, one POV.

• This means injustice is written into the system, and may be one reason Arbitrations and AE should not be judges of content.

• Finally, in my opinion, such as it is, most definitely, no AE enforcer should be making sanctions based on what they consider to be POV edits.

I would just like acknowledge what Huldra has shown above that the user Gilabrand has been shown intentionally canvassing users, here. If that is true, one can imagine how many times this user has intentionally done the same on article edits in contest in the PIA area. From previous experience I know that administrators have a no tolerance policy on canvassing, as I was three month topic banned for unintentionally canvassing in the PIA area. I think the combination of charges already stated above along with the recent addition of intentional canvassing warrants some type of sanction, I would recommend anywhere from a half year to an indefinite topic ban in the PIA area. Lazyfoxx (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Once we start banning editors for having a personal POV -- even if they edit within wp's rules -- there are a few Red Sox fans I would like to have banned.

Oh -- and then I would like to move on to certain editors who consistently !vote keep at AfDs -- even if they are largely in line with the consensus close.

And then of course to certain editors who consistently !vote delete at AfDs ... again, even if they tend to be in line with the close.

Seriously???

Anyway, I find the comments by Quadell, George, and Zad to be compelling on this point.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sepsis says my above comment is "purely distracting."

I indicated above that I find the comments by sysops Quadell, George, and Zad to be compelling on the point I discuss above.

Apologies to Sepsis for distracting him by commenting on a central point under discussion, below. And for indicating my agreement with the sysops by using the method of communication known as reductio ad absurdum, which seeks to demonstrate that a position would lead to an untenable or absurd result.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have a suggestion that might be a way to resolve this dispute without sanctions and without determinations of wrongdoing:

Suppose we were to ask Gilabrand to post all her suggested changes to leads of IP articles to the talk page, before going ahead and making the changes in the articles. Moreover, Gilabrand is certainly smart enough to know which of her edits to the body of the articles are likely to arouse controversy. Suppose Gilabrand were to agree to discuss those edits on the talk page, as well, before making them? Gila can continue to make editorial changes (in the body of the article - not in the lead) that are not controversial without discussing them first.

If Gilabrand agrees to do this, is Sepsis II willing to withdraw his complaint? And if Gilabrand agrees, but continues in fact to make tendentious edits, we can always return to this page and propose sanctions.

Discussing things on the talk page before bombing ahead with controversial edits is, in any case, the way things should be done. So I don't think Gilabrand should have a problem agreeing to this, and Sepsis shouldn't have a problem with accepting this solution, without resorting to disciplinary action. Ravpapa (talk) 15:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Her statement here made it clear she does not see her edits as wrong and as such I do not believe she has the ability to judge whether her edits are likely to arouse controversy. I would be willing to consider a ban from all IP articles though still allow her to contribute to IP talk pages as I believe if she was forced to rationalize her edits she would be unable to do so for many of them and only her neutral edits would be adopted into the articles. Sepsis II (talk) 16:30, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bad editors are endemic here, esp. IP reverters or POV pushers, but also people who hang round just to push one key line or phrase of bias into several articles. Gilabrand is a good copywriter whose talents should not be denied to wikipedia, and a way must be found for her to be retained. I don't think the admins who see nothing wrong here have done their homework -looked closely into the evidence -, or know the subject, or indeed the area: her edits are often suppressive of the Palestinian side, and boost the Israeli side, and this, as Huldra and Zero showed in clear evidence shouldn't be in dispute. I was permabanned, and I owe my return here to Ravpapa, but it is not only out of regard for his kindness that I second his proposal that some restrictive or prophylactic measure be devised to stop her from the temptation of messing with sources. I don't know exactly if his solution is the adequate, but if she is going to keep editing pages, edits that might be challenged, esp. when she proposes changing leads and significant information about Palestinians should be subject to talk page notification. It would help if, instead of making large-scale rewrites of what she thinks inadequately sourced material, she use the citation tag more frequently. Nishidani (talk) 17:16, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Sepsis, perhaps "ask" was the wrong word. Gilabrand's agreement to post all edits to leads on talk pages first would be a binding commitment - breach would mean return to this page. Would that satisfy you? Ravpapa (talk) 04:49, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome the AE-decreed policy/guidelines for Wikibattle, formerly known as Wikipedia, where it is now admitted that editors can be as biased in their contributions as they want. As long we get enough opposing biases, NPOV shall result--if these zealots don't edit war each others' writeup out. And if not? Someone not using his real name (talk) 22:15, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

The evidence that has been submitted, as well as a review of Gilabrand's contributions, is indicative of a sustained effort by Gilabrand to make Wikipedia's coverage of issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict reflect a particularly Israeli point of view. This violates the core policy WP:NPOV in its aspect as a conduct rule ("all editors and articles must follow it"). All editors are required to edit Wikipedia from a neutral, rather than a particular point of view. While there may be legitimate disagreement about what is neutral in any given case, a pattern of conduct that consistently favors one point of view is not reflective of an effort in favor of neutrality. There may well be good reasons for many of these edits considered individually, and some of them may well have been improvements from a neutrality or other editorial point of view, but this one-sided pattern of conduct as a whole is not conducive to making Wikipedia in its entirety more neutral, but rather the opposite. In other words, the neutrality policy does not accept that Wikipedia articles are the result of a tug-of-war between ideologically opposed camps that sometimes find a grudging compromise; rather, the policy expects neutral conduct from each and every individual editor. – Considering Gilabrand's very long block log for topic-related misconduct, which dates back to 2008, I think an indefinite topic ban from everything related to the Arab-Israeli conflict is indicated.  Sandstein  15:02, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this assessment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little concerned about this. Our NPOV policy is non-negotiable, and we're all expected to adhere to it, but that doesn't mean an editor is violating the policy if he only contributes to one side. For instance, I am fully convinced that global warming is a real phenomenon that is at least partly caused by human action, and I recognize that there is a significant, notable group that claims the opposite. If I consistently add sourced content to articles that promotes one side (consensus statements by climatology groups, for instance), and I leave it to the denialists to add RSes that support the other side, I'm still contributing positively to Wikipedia. Now I'm not saying that Gilabrand's edits have all been so constructive, but I am saying it's a misreading of our NPOV policy to say that editors are violating that policy when they contribute only to one side. Articles have to reflect a neutral POV, giving all sides due weight, but a given Wikipedian's edits do not have to reflect all sides equally. Ideally they will, and I try to do this myself, but it's not a valid reason for a topic ban, as I see it. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: It occurs to me that the reason I rarely edit contentious areas (such as Israel/Palestine articles) is that it can be extremely unpleasant; just the amount of verbiage to dig through can be daunting. This is why nearly all editors of these topics tend to have a clear bias (e.g. "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestine"): it's often the only motivator powerful enough to make it worth the hassle to edit in these areas. (Even editors who believe they're being "neutral" are often fooling themselves here.) The beautiful thing about the NPOV policy is that it often makes the end result NPOV, so long as the editors involved are willing to abide by the rules, despite their POVs. (I'm not saying anything new here, of course.)

So what do we do with an editor who is willing to be civil, not remove sourced content, etc., but still has a clear and consistent bias in the information they add? (I've no opinion on whether Gilabrand falls into this category; it's more of a "best-case" scenario.) If we topic ban people for this, which is I think what Sandstein's result would call for, then to be fair, we'd have to topic ban 95% of the people who actually edit in these controversial areas. In some ways that might seem like a pleasant outcome, but there are a lot of repercussions to consider. To require that every edit (or series of edits) be balanced from both sides is not a standard I've seen consistently applied, and if we start to attempt to enforce this standard, I think it would create a lot more problems than it solves. – Quadell ^(talk) 21:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quadell, I understand your concerns, but our job here is to enforce the conduct policies as they are written, and WP:NPOV pretty clearly requires every individual editor to edit neutrally. We can't condone editors misusing Wikipedia to promote their particular point of view, even if they do it politely and through superficially unproblematic edits. If that means that we need to topic-ban a majority of editors now active in the topic, then so be it; their removal may give other, less partisan individuals, who may now be intimidated by the aggressive editing environment, more room to work and to improve the articles rather than pushing them back and forth between competing ideological perspectives.  Sandstein  19:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We may have a fundamental disagreement about what WP:NPOV requires of editors (rather than just what it encourages editors to strive for). And it's okay for us to disagree; but I'd like to understand exactly what your position is, since it seems to have some support. Are you saying that editors must not edit in a way that, in the aggregate, consistently favors one side of a controversial issue? And that doing so is worthy of sanction that can include a topic ban? If that's the route we want to take, it has to be applied fairly to all who edit articles on controversial topics. (Please note: I'm not claiming that this is the only problem with Gilabrand's edits. I haven't examined them as thoroughly as EdJohnston recommends below. I just want to understand your position on this question, so that I'm not misinterpreting you.) – Quadell ^(talk) 21:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My view is this: If editors consistently edit to promote only one side of a controversial issue, then that is evidence of intent to make Wikipedia as a whole less neutral, and that is misconduct that can result in a topic ban depending on the length and intensity of the misconduct as well as prior sanctions.  Sandstein  09:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My own view of Wikipedia policy is closer to what Sandstein said than to Quadell. But I don't think we need to resolve that here. Admins probably have to look at the 13 diffs supplied by User:Sepsis II in enough detail to see if there is a problem of tendentious editing by Gilabrand. I've examined diffs 7-13 in detail and looked briefly at 1-6. At least 80% of what is stated in Sepsis II's high-level summaries appears to be correct. I reached no conclusion about diff #6 because it's a judgment call on whether the change to the Goldhagen article makes it slanted and I think diff #8, Shebaa farms, has been changed by Gilabrand only to add more negative information about the Arab side but it's properly sourced. So I would not count diff #8 in our analysis.

What do we think about the set of 11 surviving diffs, and are they a case for tendentious editing by Gilabrand? Here's what I conclude:

1. Gilabrand has never posted on the talk pages of any of these articles
2. She has made changes of Israeli settlement wording with no evidence of consensus. Settlement wording has been the topic of many past disputes, and if I recall an RfC on the subject (closed by User:Sandstein), there is supposed to be a new talk page consensus on each article on how to describe settlements in the lead.
3. She makes individuals described as Palestinian into Israeli Arabs with no understandable rationale. (I don't know which is correct in these cases, but I imagine that's a subject of dispute)
4. She has removed wording about bad things that happened to Arab villages on land which is now occupied by Israelis.

I hope that other admins or uninvolved editors will take at least a quick look at the 13 diffs to see what they conclude. Since Gilabrand has answered this AE and seems to be completely confident about all of her changes, if this AE is closed with no sanctions or advice we can probably look forward to more edits by Gilagrand of the same kind. Her edits (at least in the diffs submitted) always leave the article more favorable to one side of the dispute than it was when she arrived. EdJohnston (talk) 00:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that policy and precedent are being woefully misstated here. The NPOV policy focuses on the communal end results of editing process, and with individual editing to minimize POV issues. It does not require that individual editors edit in a neutral manner, and provides specific examples for how to edit from one point of view without damaging the coverage of another one.

It is important that no editor grossly abuse POV - we have WP:SOAPBOX and WP:BATTLEGROUND for those. But we do not and should not expect each individual editor to act in a neutral manner here. Nobody can attain that, realistically. It's a goal I personally strive for, on intellectual rigor grounds, but our system here is designed around typical editors and eventualistic balance in articles.

I do not see any claim or evidence Gilabrand rising to the standards we normally set for SOAP or BATTLE.

I agree that given prior arbcom findings, a heightened scrutiny may be applicable here. I don't see any dispute that Gilabrand is editing this topic with a single point of view. But are the edits bad? No. Some of them appear to have been reversed or incorrect, but they appear so in an ordinary manner, not an abusive or disruptive one.

NPOV is not a crowbar to beat off opposing viewpoints. As long as Gilabrand is engaging constructively with feedback and corrections to their contributions, and not making a pattern of actually bad edits, there is no case here. Individual POV is not a crime. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree here. Your assertion that editing articles with the intent or effect of promoting a particular point of view is not misconduct is merely an assertion, unbased on policy, and directly contradicts the wording of WP:NPOV that "all ... editors are required to follow" that policy. Based also on EdJohnston's analysis, if there are no further admin objections, I intend to impose an indefinite topic ban. For clarity, any editors from the "other side" of the geopolitical dispute should be sanctioned likewise if evidence of longterm one-sided editing coupled with a lengthy sanctions log is submitted to this board.  Sandstein  09:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the NPOV policy does say that all editors "must" follow the policy. But that policy only says that articles "must" represent all points of view, "must not" take sides, etc. It does not say that editors "must" represent both sides in their edits, and historically we haven't required that of editors (although we certainly encourage it). Sandstein, you've been very clear and consistent in your interpretation of NPOV policy (and I thank you for that), and there's been one uninvolved admin who clearly concurs with your assessment, along with one has stated that his/her view on the policy is closer to yours than mine. But there have also been two uninvolved admins (including myself) who clearly disagree with your interpretation of policy, and who think a topic-ban of anyone on that basis alone would be a bad idea.

I think it's a better idea to take EdJohnston's approach and make a ruling based on whether the evidence shows a pattern of problematic editing worthy of sanction, without having to make a widespread ruling that will affect many editors of controversial topics based on a contested interpretation of policy. – Quadell ^(talk) 16:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, you are assigning your own new novel interpretation of NPOV. NPOV has *never* been interpreted as to require editors to be individually neutral in all things, in the PIA area or any other. You're conflating NPOV and SOAP/BATTLE, which cover excessive biased viewpoint, not normal opinions. Your statements above do not amount to a legitimate cause for imposing a topic ban. If this is the basis for your claimed topic ban then I will appeal such a ban to AN immediately.

Again - if you have specifics that rise to the level of SOAP/BATTLE, a pattern, even assuming heightened scrutiny per the prior case and unblock conditions, please lay that case out in a better manner. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re to Nishidani up in the other parties' area - I understand your point. But the edits pointed to above don't make the case.

An editor who only edits to promote the particular POV and without regard to the good of the encyclopedia is violating SOAP/BATTLE and is damaging the encyclopedia.

The edits displayed above all have a creditable justification / edit comment, all on first inspection appear to be done in agreement with some policy (be it source verification, source quality, whether particular information is relevant to the particular article, etc). That does not mean they were correct - a number were correctly reversed or subject to new consensus.

If every edit - or a dominant pattern of edits - in the trouble area by the editor all "just push" the POV, then that's a problem. That's SOAP/BATTLE. If there's a distinct pattern where they're making excuses to remove or alter content with some thin veneer of policy compliant cover, then that's a disruptive editing pattern. But what I've seen called out here seems to be ... 1%? 2% of their edits. It's consistent, in that I think Gilabrand "breaks towards" the pro-Israeli side if other considerations are about equal. But they're operating in the grey area where it's at least credibly policy compliant.

If it were 10% or 25% of their edits in this area doing something to slant the encyclopedia, or more edits that were not policy / content improvement compliant, then we'd have a clear problem. That has not been demonstrated.

I am on initial impression convinced I could find an equivalent percentage of edits by the "other side" which made similar policy/content improvement value judgements about changes, which "broke" towards the Palestinian position instead of towards true neutrality. If that is truly to be the new standard, by which we judge all the participants equally and fairly, I would then insist that we ban pretty much the lot of you all from the topic area.

I do not believe that to be constructive for the encyclopedia content, nor supported by policy. I don't want that to happen.

I have not spent several hours staring at Gilabrand's contributions to try to find more. I remain open to the possibility that there's a case to be made here. If there is more than a slight tendency to make decisions towards the Israeli side then show the diffs, make the case, show how many of the total in-topic-area edits it is.

If you can make the better case, please do so. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Along with Quadell and George I also have concerns about the proposed closure. I don't believe I have ever edited in the PI area and have no interest in doing so, and I haven't even looked at Gilabrand's edits or done more than skim the discussion, although I'm basing my comments on the idea that we're talking about an editor who generally adds well-written, well-sourced content that accurately represents good sources. While I find the ideal Sandstein is driving toward laudable, I'm not sure it's realistic. In particular I agree with George's comments of 09:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC), which sum up my own view pretty well.[reply]

Be careful about a statement like "must present both sides" because that's not in line what WP:NPOV says (in WP:DUEWEIGHT, the relevant topic here): for editing to be compliant with WP:NPOV, the editing must show that the edits aim to give emphasis the significant views found in reliable sources in proportion to the prominence found in them. If the reliable sources support View X and View Y equally, then an editor who adds View Y to an article that only has View X is complying with WP:NPOV. If the reliable sources present View X as fringe, but overwhelmingly support View Y, then an editor who cuts back on or removes View X from articles (per WP:FRINGE) is complying with WP:NPOV. In these sorts of scenarios, technically it is the editor consistently adding View X to the articles in a disproportionate manner that is editing with an NPOV problem, and the editor dealing with View Y isn't.

Consequently it is much more complicated to assess whether an editor is editing with an NPOV problem as compared to many other problems. It's easy to see when one particular edit is vandalism, or is unsourced, or is sourced to something that is clearly not WP:RS, or doesn't represent the source cited accurately. It's just about impossible to tell whether one particular edit complies with WP:DUEWEIGHT because you have to have a complete working knowledge of a broad overview of all the available sources, including their biases, quality and relevance. If the edit is adding one piece of information, and accurately representing a good source, you can't tell whether NPOV is satisfied just from that one edit.

I take a pragmatic view: In the long run, will the proposal result in better or worse articles? A big piece of the issue here is that we're dealing with an unintended consequence of Wikipedia's open editing model. It works great for many things but not for topics that have entrenched camps using Wikipedia as a proxy battleground for real-world ideological differences. A very real danger of Sandstein's application would be that the battleground would be turned into a war of attrition, where the side with more editors (or at least the ability to create more accounts) will eventually "win" by getting more of the other side topic-banned. This will result in worse articles. Don't get me wrong, it sure feels like 95% of the editors in the PI area should probably be topic-banned based on WP:BATTLE and WP:TE, and I would actually love to see the results of that experiment if it could be run somehow (maybe implement it on a small subset of articles, see what happens after 6 months?). But, as awful as the PI area is right now, and as much as I respect the ideals being pursued, realistically I don't think Sandstein's approach will make things better in the long run. Zad68 16:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I see my approach to applying NPOV won't find consensus here. That's regrettable, as we won't be able to effectively deal with persistently tendentious editing otherwise. In this instance, after a brief look at the merits of the edits, some appear problematic from a content neutrality point of view, while some appear justified on the basis of removing unsourced text, but on the whole the edits each reflect a content dispute, which this process can't adjudicate. And so, if we don't want to sanction Gilabrand (and very many others like them on both sides) for a pattern of one-sided editing alone, I don't see much else that we can do here.  Sandstein  19:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you to an extent, Sandstein, for what it's worth. I also agree with GWH to an extent. As encyclopaedists, we should strive to edit from a neutral point of view, but realistically, we all bring our own biases and perspectives (conscious and sub-conscious), and it is the editing process that makes articles neutral.

Having said that, we should all try to limit the effects of our biases, and we should certainly not try to give our own views more weight or our opponents' less through our editing, and that's the pattern I see in the diffs presented above. Gila repeatedly removed material unfavourable to Israel, removes mentions of the occupied territories (which I'm sure she knows to be a hotly disputed topic, both in real-life politics and on Wikipedia), and removes the words "Palestine" or "Palestinian" in an apparent attempt to diminish the Palestinians' claim to the disputed territory. Wikipedia's purpose is to present the facts as they are (including the dispute), and the pattern of Gila's conduct (as others say, each edit may be valid in its own right, but the pattern in them is concerning) in the diffs presented appears to be detrimental to that purpose. Thus, I endorse the proposed topic ban, but I would suggest it be construed so that Gila can continue making contributions to articles about Israel and the Jewish people that are not directly relevant to the Arab-Israeli conflict without having to worry about frivolous AE reports. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:38, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with HJ Mitchell's summary of this situation and proposed topic ban. Our NPOV policy is quite clear that "This [NPOV] policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it. The policy also acknowledges that we all have POV but that all editors should nevertheless "strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another." (my emphasis) Failing to edit in this fashion is precisely why we have battleground topic areas: editors range up in sides to promote their own point of view and refute the "opposing one". It may be understandable but it is not for the good of the encyclopedia in the long (or even the short run) to institutionalize and reinforce this approach. When an editor shows an ongoing and consistent pattern of promoting one perspective (whether by removing, adding, or changing material) most especially in a highly volatile topic area under arbcom sanctions, we have to consider that this is disruptive to the building of an encyclopedia. Slp1 (talk) 03:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with GWH and Zad68: editing in a constructive and thoughtful way is fine, even if you are always focused on a specific perspective. Someone who only ever edits tendentiously may need sanctions to help them be a constructive community member; but not someone who edits prolifically in all sorts of ways, including from a single point of view on one topic. Articles need to be neutral; individual editors do not. Specific flamebait articles might need protection from all-but-neutral editors; but not entire topics.

@Sandstein: yes, we could make for a better community of practice, if we could accurately and promptly give guidance to everyone who edits persistently from a single point of view. There are "very many others like them on both sides" [of many hot-button issues]. I don't see sanctions as a way to give this sort of large-scale guidance. (Too slow and inefficient: look at a how much time and text have been spent on this one section alone; and Gilabrand is hardly the most difficult or stubborn editor in this regard). If you have a proposal for rechanneling the efforts of all singleminded editors in a controversial topic area, I'd like to read it. But I see no benefit to singling out one editor, and it has the detriment of encouraging others to shop content disputes to this board. – SJ + 01:09, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing. There is consensus of not entirely neutral viewpoint, but not that the bias is sufficiently off-center to be actionable. Gilabrand will be notified that their edits are under heightened scrutiny due to their personal opinions and editing trends on these topics, and that moderation and neutrality will be helpful to avoid further investigations as to whether their edits are becoming single purpose, soapboxing, or battleground type edits and subject to the Arbcom sanctions. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

- MrX 16:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea Party movement#Arthur Rubin topic-banned

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

1. 1 December 2013 Attempted proxy editing in violation of WP:PROXYING.
2. 5 December 2013 Talk page comment about the reliability of a source.
3. 6 December 2013 Further talk page comment about the reliability of a source, after being warned about the TBan restriction.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required - not required, but included to demonstrate that a good faith effort was made to avoid this forum)

1. Warned on 1 December 2013 by RL0919 (talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 5 December 2013 by MilesMoney (talk · contribs)
3. Warned on 6 December 2013 by MrX (talk · contribs)
4. Warned on 7 December 2013 by MilesMoney (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The attempted proxy editing speaks for itself. Arthur Rubin's comments at Talk:Political activities of the Koch brothers seem to be prohibited by the ARBCOM sanction in the Tea Party Movement case. The article falls within the scope of "all pages relating to the Tea Party movement, broadly construed" inasmuch as the article contains cited references to the Koch's involvement with the Tea Party (here; second paragraph; two citations) and here ("An organization with ties to the Koch Brothers,[36] Freedom Partners, gave grants worth a total of $236 million to conservative organizations, including Tea Party groups like the Tea Party Patriots..."; three citations. In the past, Arthur Rubin has been involved in talk page discussion in which the connection between the Koch's and the Tea Party movement were discussed, for example Fred and the John Birch Society. There are reliable sources that clearly make a connection between the Koch's and the Tea Party that are not currently cited in the article.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification

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

My apologies. Although the paragraph in question has no connection to the TPm, the article does, so I shouldn't be making comments about it. I'll keep that in mind in the future. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Georgewilliamherbert - There are no other articles or cases that I am aware of, nor should that be a requirement. I am very concerned that an TBanned editor, admin and ARBCOM candidate would ask Arzel, who was involved in the same (Tea Party Movement) ARBCOM case, to edit by proxy in violation of WP:PROXYING. Note also that Arthur Rubin seems to have ignored all four warnings, and only acknowledged the violation after this enforcement request was opened. A simple "official warning" is necessary, but far from sufficient given his transparent attempt to GAME the system.- MrX 17:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@A Quest for Knowledge: This is not the venue for appealing an ARBCOM decision. Perhaps you should open your own request so that you don't inadvertently disrupt this very specific request for enforcement. Thanks. - MrX 04:15, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe the Political activities of the Koch brothers article falls entirely within the scope of the Tea Party arbitration case as their political activities predate the Tea Party. That said, although the talk page comments in question do not explicitly concern the Tea Party, the fact the Koch brothers were funding Tea Party candidates in some fashion in2012 probably means details about any activities during the 2012 election should be generally considered within the scope of the discretionary sanctions. Since it is a bit on the edge, I do not think there should be any action taken against Rubin for those comments. As to the proxy editing, he did pull back from that so I think it should not be considered either. He should be strongly advised against further such actions in the future but that is all.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:33, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

AQFK, only ArbCom can lift an arbitration remedy. The AE admins can only review sanctions imposed through AE.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The decision explicitly says the topic ban is to be appealed to ArbCom. Generally, only discretionary sanctions are appealed at AE. I am not sure of any case where arbitration remedies can be appealed to AE.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be helpful to take a step back and re-examine why the sanctions against Arthur Rubin were enacted in the first place. ArbCom found that this editor had "repeatedly edit warred". However, they only found 4 diffs([37], [38], [39], [40] spanning the course of 5 months (February 17, 2013 to July 16, 2013). In what crazy, bizarre world are 4 diffs over 5 months considered edit-warring? That's less than one revert per month for heaven's sake. If we sanctioned every editor who ever reverted another editor less than once a month, there would be precious few of use left to edit. Never mind the fact that many editors consider WP:BRD to be a best practice.
I opened an RfC regarding this crazy decision and not a single member of the community agreed with it and not a single member of ArbCom was willing to defend it.[41]
Therefore, I respectfully ask that AE re-examine this sanction, do the right thing and remove it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@MrX:@The Devil's Advocate: ArbCom sanctions can be appealed at AE per the AE header instructions: "Arbitration decisions may provide that appeals against sanctions imposed under the decision are to be appealed to this noticeboard or to another community forum." These particular sanctions imposed by ArbCom have absolutely no basis in policy and fly in the face of community consensus. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Broadly construed is right...perhaps overly broad. While the evidence posted by MrX indicates Arthur isn't following the Tban remedy perfectly, it's still a stretch to say he is actually in violation. So is Arthur and the others that are Tbanned supposed to avoid all articles that have even the most peripheral mention of anything related to the Tea Party? In essence that appears to be the case. So that would mean all alleged members of the Tea Party, any group or entity that has ever had any affiliation like fund raising or open support of the Tea Party and even persons and groups that are opposed to the Tea Party...maybe had the arbitration committee been a lot less vague on this matter, it would have been a lot clearer to all when a real violation has occurred.--MONGO 06:19, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think its important that Arthur and all those that have been topic banned from anything "broadly construed" to the Tea Party movement should now know that this means more than 500 articles are off limits...articles such as Morgan Freeman (since he thinks the Tea Party is racist[42], nevermind that they have Herman Cain and endorsed Tim Scott [43]...Arthur, big no-no to edit those articles as a heads up!), Ronald Reagan, Immigration reduction in the United States and United States House of Representatives elections in North Carolina, 2012 to name but a few. While the actions of the Koch family and their conservative sponsorship has been well known for years, the Tea Party movement is but the latest of a long list of conservative causes they have sponsored and endorsed....so what. Should Arthur stay away form anything broadly construed to be even tangetially related to the Tea Party movement...yes, looks that way and I'm sure he will do that within reason, but that really narrows the pot and if sanctioned here, then that opens up doors for even more peripheral rationales to implement sanctions.--MONGO 16:22, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added the discretionary sanctions boilerplate to the Political activities of the Koch brothers article just now [44], but I'm not an admin so I don't know if I can do this. That boilerplate is now on the page, but it would be pretty easy to miss it....as dense as I am I would want the thing to flash red lights or something.--MONGO 21:09, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I tried advising Arthur that he was playing with fire (one diff is in MrX's report, here's another), but he kept at it. He clearly knows, and knew at the time he made some of the edits, that he he has been doing things that could be subject to enforcement action. Not acting will simply tell him to keep going. Not acting because he is running for ArbCom would be even worse, since it would announce to other sanctioned editors that a run for ArbCom provides a free window (of over a month) for ignoring their sanctions. Count yourselves blessed that the election ends minutes from now, so you can avoid the issue of disqualifying him during the vote. As for any election steps after that, there are others who can figure out what the impact is if 1) he meets the voting threshold, and 2) any block is still in place when results are announced and/or he would have to take office.

@A Quest For Knowledge: The decision in the relevant case specifically says that the topic ban "may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee after no less than six months have passed from the closing of this case." I don't see anything to indicate the decision allows for appeals here, and certainly not for this particular sanction at this time.

@MONGO: For the sake of argument, let's say the topic ban does affect over 500 articles. That leaves over 4.4 million non-redirect articles, and millions of other pages, on which Arthur can fully participate. If it were plausible that he didn't know a page he edited was connected to the topic, I would be sympathetic, but that isn't the case here. --RL0919 (talk) 23:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Back in September, Arthur Rubin stated that "...part of the problem with this article is certain editors state that topics are related to the TPm without credible evidence."[45] [46] [47]
• He also edited Political activities of the Koch brothers on Sept 14 and 16, once to revert a banned editor and once to replace material removed from the article.[48][49] — goethean 18:53, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

Are there any other articles or incidents related to the ban? This by itself seems like it's about worthy of only an official notification to confirm Arthur's acknowledgement that the article should be off limits going forwards. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2013 (UTC) Striking, recusing - possible appearance of involvement or conflict of interest with another Arbcom candidate in this election. Forgot temporarily that he was running. My apologies. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:14, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Arthur should be reminded that edits like this one to User talk:Arzel are forbidden by the language of WP:TBAN, since he is saying that his ban prevents him from editing the article but he wants someone else to do it. It would also make sense for us to add the banner {{Discretionary sanctions|topic=tpm}} at Talk:Political activities of the Koch brothers, to be sure that people know it is in the scope of the Tea Party sanctions. EdJohnston (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm disinclined to let Arthur off with a slap on the wrist. He fails to address all the issues raised by MrX, and the request to another editor to theoretically circumvent his topic ban should not be excused.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm inclined to agree with Bbb23 here. The request for proxy editing was a blatant violation, as a topic ban forbids all editing regarding the topic in question in any namespace, except for a few limited exceptions. Requesting that someone else make an edit is certainly not one of those exceptions. Given several violations and repeated warnings, I think a stronger measure than yet another warning is in order. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC) Just saw GWH's edit, and I forgot that too. I'll recuse from this one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I also think that enforcement action would be appropriate. Arthur Rubin's acknowledgment of his error in his response might allow us to overlook the edit of 5 December, but not the attempt at proxy editing of 1 December which makes mention of the topic ban, and also not the talk page comment of 6 December, which occurred after he was warned about his ban. Considering that the enforcement provision allows blocks of up to a month for first infractions, and that we face two (or three) cases of wilful violations of a sanction, I think that a two-week block is appropriate.  Sandstein  19:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• @Sandstein: I'd rather avoid the complexities of blocking a current Arbcom candidate. Since the election is over at 23:59 on December 9 maybe we can postpone any decision till then. Arthur's edits are unlikely to create havoc and chaos in the intervening time. EdJohnston (talk) 20:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The results are not out until a week later, however. --Rschen7754 21:46, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Does that mean that if we wait until after the election, GWH and Seraphimblade can unrecuse themselves?--Bbb23 (talk) 20:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ah... I would think it cleaner to stay recused, just on general principle. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:43, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with GWH. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:44, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• What would be the repercussions of blocking Arthur before December 9? What would be the repercussions of blocking Arthur after December 9 but before the results are announced?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought Arthur might perhaps be let off with a warning on this occasion, since he appears to be contrite, but if there's a consensus to block, I don't see why the fact that he happens to be a candidate for Arbcom should be considered an obstacle. Gatoclass (talk) 05:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't think the election matters here; it's not as though there is any rule that candidacy provides immunity from sanctions. In reply to A Quest for Knowledge, AE may under certain circumstances hear appeals against sanctions enforcing a Committee decision, but the decision itself is not subject to appeal, as the Committee is the final dispute resolution authority (see WP:AP). As concerns whether the article Political activities of the Koch brothers is related to the Tea Party movement, "broadly construed", a Google search for "tea party koch brothers" yields some 1 million results, and it's apparent from the search results that the political activities of the Koch brothers are related to the Tea Party movement in some way.  Sandstein  08:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked people can't run for Arbcom. The question is whether the closing admin's decision here might affect the outcome of the election. ("An editor is eligible to stand as a candidate who: ... is in good standing and not subject to active blocks or site-bans... "). EdJohnston (talk) 18:47, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Sandstein and with Gatoclass about the ArbCom issue. Arthur met the criteria for running at the time he submitted his candidacy. If he is blocked, I suppose it would be up to the Election Committee whether his candidacy must be withdrawn. Even if he is blocked later but before he took office (if elected), it could be a problem that someone would have to sort out. Putting aside the procedural complexities, I think it would be wrong for us not to block him or to delay blocking him if there's a consensus for the block. It's not whether there would be further disruption. There are issues of transparency and trust (not that I'm claiming any "bad" motives on Ed's part as I understand this is a complicated issue, just expressing my views).--Bbb23 (talk) 18:56, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein has asked for a two-week block. Though I'm neutral on that, if it's a block that also prevents him from succeeding as a candidate, then it's a bigger sanction. EdJohnston (talk) 19:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you neutral on the duration or the block itself?--Bbb23 (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This has turned into a sort of ethical dilemma. Some admins appear to believe that any consideration of the effect of the block on the election might be considered to be improper. Since I can't say whether I agree with that or not, I won't comment further. EdJohnston (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since the voting has now closed in the Arbcom election, I suggest that the admins here can go ahead and close this however they prefer. Due to the passage of time it now seems unlikely that a block would be seen as disqualifying the candidate. Simply being a candidate for office should not be a protection against sanctions. Since Arthur is an admin you'd think he would know the rules about topic bans. EdJohnston (talk) 02:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The issue now is whether there is a consensus for a block. Two of us, Sandstein and I, favor a block. Just so it's clear, the two-week block suggested by Sandstein is fine with me (I might have been amenable to a shorter block had Arthur returned after his one short statement to address some of the stated concerns). No one has opposed a block. I don't see Gatoclass or EdJohnston expressly opposing or supporting a block.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:18, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that's not really the issue, as AE actions don't require consensus. It's just that I haven't had the time for the AE block paperwork yet, but anyone is free to go ahead if they do have the time.  Sandstein  23:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a block also. Whichever admin closes this will hopefully summarize the grounds for the block. EdJohnston (talk) 02:17, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would not support a block. The apology is enough for the edits of December 5-6, and I think a simple warning about disengaging from the topic area fully would suffice to take care of the violation in the December 1 post. NW (Talk) 02:46, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Taking NuclearWarfare's comment into consideration, I'm closing this request with a one-week block. Because Arthur Rubin's statement does not address the attempted proxy editing of December 1, I believe that a block rather than a warning is required in order to effectively deter Arthur Rubin from future noncompliance of that kind. Furthermore, the enforcement provision does not mention warnings, but allows blocks up to a month for first infractions. I understand this to mean that the Committee considers a mere warning to be insufficient by way of an enforcement action.  Sandstein  13:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]