Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

Arbitration​Committee

A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Wikipediocracy-related conduct		21 October 2024	4/3/2
Marine 69-71	Motions	26 October 2024	0/0/0
Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area		6 November 2024	0/0/0

[edit]

Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	10 Oct 2024	24 Oct 2024

[edit]

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	Motion	(orig. case)	17 August 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Current requests

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and footnote quotes

Initiated by RedSpruce (talk) at 10:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Alansohn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• RedSpruce (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]
• [2]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Talk:Annie Lee Moss#Footnote quotes
• User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )#Discussion
• Also several RFCs, including: [3], [4]

Statement by RedSpruce

This Arb Request has to do with a seemingly minor issue of style, but one that is being repeated so often, on so many articles, that the cumulative effect is a notable detriment to Wikipedia.

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ('RAN') is an extremely prolific editor with over 47,000 contributiions.[5] A great many of his contributions are in the form of adding references to articles. When he adds reference footnotes, he usually makes use of the "quote =" parameter available in citation templates. Unfortunately, in most of these edits, the quote parameter is used for no good purpose; he simply takes a quotation from the source without considering whether that quotation adds information to the article or simply repeats information already in the article. At times his quoted text is completely irrelevant to the footnoted portion of the article.

This use of quotations--where the quotation adds no significant and relevant information to the article--is not in keeping with standard citation practice, and to my knowledge it has never been used in an article that has achieved Featured Article status. Since I consider these edits of RAN to be detrimental, and since I have had no success in reasoning with him about this issue (see Talk:Annie Lee Moss#Footnote quotes and User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )#Discussion for two of many examples). This has been the cause of endless edit wars between us. RAN's contributions are usually to obscure articles, and in my dealings with him it has often been impossible to get anything more than a fleeting and disinterested "drive by" comment from outside editors.

Here are some illustrative dif.s:

Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text:

• [6], [7], [8]

Quote repeats information in the article:

• [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]

Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text and repeats information elsewhere in the article:

• [14], [15], [16] , [17], [18]

Given the number of RAN's edits, it would be possible to list literally thousands of examples like this. Each one is only a minor dis-improvement to its article, but taken as a whole, they represent real damage to Wikipedia. Furthermore, this damage is happening because of a single, relatively isolated lack of understanding on RAN's part.

If the ArbCom could make a ruling that directs RAN to use quotations in footnotes correctly, then Wikipedia will greatly benefit. Alternatively, if the ArbCom can show me in what way my reasoning about this issue is incorrect, then I'll stop making this objection and a longstanding dispute will be settled.

I'm including User: Alansohn as an involved party because he has a pattern of supporting RAN in this and other edit conflicts. He generally does this with little or not participation on an article's Talk page.

Mea culpa

My first encounter with RAN was at Annie Lee Moss. In the discussion there, he persistently refused for long periods to respond to my comments, and when he did respond it was with a bizarre series of off-topic comments. See Talk:Annie Lee Moss#Pointless. This caused escalating frustration on my part, and I insulted him. [19] Since this time RAN has gradually improved his responsiveness to calls for discussion, and our interactions are at present tolerably civil. Nevertheless, I'm sure that RAN will use this ArbReq to complain about my "long term civility issues".

Statement by User:Alansohn

This is a very simple issue. User:RedSpruce has taken WP:OWNership of a series of articles related to Joseph McCarthy, the Army-McCarthy Hearings. Efforts to expand, improve and source these articles have been met by unexplained reverts and gross incivility. The quote feature is a widely used function within Wikipedia, and is intended to provide documentation of the specific material being cited within the reference. While there is ample room for quibbling about the specific text to be included, there is no argument as to its intended purpose. RedSpruce has turned his own personal battle on content and extended it to beselessly impose his personal preferenece that quotations should never be used under any circumstances.

RedSpruce is free to argue what should be included in reference quotations, yet his near exclusive respone has been to remove quotations or references in tehir entirety, regardless of their clear relevance to the points being supported. The only variations on User:RedSpruce's part have been whether abusive statements have been included.

The solution here is clear. A content ban should be placed on User:RedSpruce on articles related to the area of Joseph McCarthy and the Army-McCarthy Hearings. Warnings on further incivility on the part of User:RedSpruce should be included with any actions. It may be possible for RedSpruce to make productive edits where his strong personal biases do not manifest themselves as violating WP:OWN and WP:CIVIL when editors stray from his demands. Alansohn (talk) 15:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/3)

• RedSpurce, I see that you both tried the AN/I multiple times but I see no diff related to the several Rfc's you are referring to in your statement. Have you tried to consult a third opinion beforehand? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 11:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added links to 2 of the RFCs. I think there was at least one other, but I couldn't find the dif. We haven't tried a third opinion. I'm reasonably sure that another 3rd opinion would make no impression on RAN; other editors have disagreed with him on this point before [20] with no effect. As for myself, it would take a well-reasoned argument to convince me that I'm wrong here. RedSpruce (talk) 13:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• Before voting, I'd appreciate the parties' thoughts on whether a user-conduct RfC and/or mediation (formal or informal) might be helpful here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Although RAN has doled out a series of insults to me, I don't care about that, and since he is currently making an honest effort to engage in discussion I have no real complaint about his user conduct as such. Apparently quite a number of people have had complaints about Alansohn's conduct (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Alansohn), but that's not my issue here either. When RAN was refusing to discuss edit disputes I opened an ANI about this, but it came to nothing. At best, mediation would convince RAN to stop his dis-improving edits on a single article, and I doubt he would agree to participate in mediation.RedSpruce (talk) 00:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm troubled by some of the allegations here. Alansohn, do you have diffs for the behaviour you mention? Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

---

User:William M. Connolley

Initiated by User:HooperBandP (talk) at 09:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• HooperBandP (talk · contribs), filing party
• William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• I Write Stuff (talk · contribs)
• FellGleaming (talk · contribs)
• Jtrainor (talk · contribs)
• Ultramarine (talk · contribs)
• John Smith's (talk · contribs)
• Giovanni33 (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`

• [[21]]

See clerk notes below John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• [22][23][24]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• This is a request for removal of adminiship powers, and as such does not go thru other steps, though examples of his actions being brought up and discussed ([25]) ([26]) ([27]) , and RfCs (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley), (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley 2) have been done. It is also evident that the party is aware of all previous incidents and keeps a link to them in his userspace ([28]).

Statement by User:HooperBandP

The user in question, User:William M. Connolley, is an administrator on Wikipedia. The conduct in question is possible improper protecting of articles, followed by edits that may not be NPOV. ([29]) ([30]) ([31]). Additionaly, it may be possible that he has blocked or threatens to block any objective editors ([32]) ([33]). He has been asked about his faith and intentions when doing this ([34]), even by other administrators([35]). Three administrators have even found him in violation of blocking policy ([36]). History has shown on wikipedia that administers found to have violated the blocking policy less than William was found have lost their Admin privelages ([37]). Even on occasions where the article in question is not protected, he has possibly used excessive force in editing without consulting the talk page discussion which is usually debating edits at the same time ([38]). He has been warned on this issues many times ([39]) but appears to continue to work in the same manner. As an editor, I feel as though William is very knowledgeable in the areas of Wikipedia he spends most his time in, and has the best at heart for articles, but his admin powers have allowed him to improperly circumvent the proper channels in article content disputes. I feel as though if he did not have these powers, and continued to be an editor, he would have to follow procedure and his input in content discussions could lead to much better articles overall.

Statement by User:William M. Connolley

I encourage the arbcomm to take this case. Its up to the arbcomm what to make of it. If its me, then fine. I suggest it should be Allegations of state terrorism by the United States and perhaps broadened to User:Raul654/Civil POV pushing (even if civility has been lacking at times).

I stand by my actions at Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. They were firm but necessary. Indeed, more is needed. That article desperately needs someone to help sort it out, and ignore the whining. There is too much wikilawyering going on here and there, both by people using it to push their POV and by people with nothing better to do with their time.

User:I Write Stuff seems to come into this category (over at Theodor Landscheidt, he is busy demonstrating a lack of understanding of WP:RS [40] [41] [update: and at Fred Singer too! [42]). IWS is *still* complaining about me blocking User:Supergreenred and appears to be unable to understand that the user was being disruptive and needed a block. Happily (so to speak) SGR turns out to be a sock, making the block obviously sensible in retrospect. User:Giovanni33 was also suspected of being a sock [43], though was later unblocked. I think G33 is a waste of space (or, more politely, a net detriment to the project) and we should stop giving him 2nd chances and indef block him (prev arbcomm refers [44]). There are various other sock/meatpuppet problems that may be worth looking at (DrGabriella springs to mind).

HooperBandP's only real contribution seems to have been to blunder in, break 3RR [45], and get the article protected (again); although he seems sufficiently naive not to know he broke 3RR [46]. IMHO he should be advised to get back to useful editing and stop wasting time on process.

William M. Connolley (talk) 23:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:I Write Stuff

You can see the current RFC on William Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley_2 this information is a step by step guide through it:

1. Violation of Protection Policy
   • William protecting State terrorism and the United States now titled Allegations of state terrorism by the United States: [47]
   • Removing large instances of content which is not BLP or Copyright violations: 15K in text all together. [48]
   • William then reduces the protection to semi-protection: [49]
2. Violation of Blocking Policy
   • William later removes over 30% of the article [50]
   • The information was readded since William never attempted to seek consensus, the revert was by Supergreenred: [51]
   • William then blocks Supergreenred: [52]
   • To be fair, I will note later Supergreenred was found to be a sockpuppet, however William was not aware of this at the time, making it a blocking violation. The exact reason given is "tendentious editing" and the post on Supergreenred's talk page never mentioned him being a sockpuppet: [53]
3. Violation of Blocking Policy #2
   • Following Williams removal of over 60K worth of additional text, other editors began reverting in protest
     • RedPenOfDoom: [54] with the edit summary: 1 protest reversion -William Connely's edits were not concensus (and were not for POV)
     • BernardL: [55] with the edit summary: reverting once, in protest (as per talk)
     • Travb\Inclusionist then commited 3 reverts: [56] [57][58] in his third revert he is stating he will seek page protection.
     • William then blocks Travb\Inclusionist: [59] which is clearly against the blocking policy. [60]
       • Another issue comes up related that may be a violation, or is obviously not a fair method. The page is protected by a 3rd party admin [61] due to Travb\Inclusionists request, however William then removes the protection: [62]

Just to add a brief point. In the RfC I was seeking some kind on injunction against William from editing this particular article as his abuses, as far as I knew, were just in relation to this article. Williams reply to the RfC was actually gross misstatements. For instance:

• "Blocking supergreenred, an abusive sockpuppet, was obviously sensible."
  • However he did not block Supergreenred for being an abusive sock, nor know Supergreenred was one at the time.
• "And - gasp - I unprotected the page when it was on my "favoured" version. Obviously grossly promoting my own POV by, err, allowing other people to change it."
  • However the issue was never protection, it was editing the article while it was protected, and not within the permitted confines, to remove a BLP violation or a copyright violation. He also blocked 2 of the 4 people who later reverted him, apparently not allowing other people to change it.

Final point, there are over 14 instances posted by another user of William blocking people he was in disputes with, I am still sifting through this to present a cohesive list showing Williams edits to the articles in question, the blocks, and other relevant information such as warnings from other admins, blocks being overturned etc. They are noted in the RfC. So far I started to go through the blocks Travb listed in the Arbcom dispute to see if William was in fact editing the articles at the time actively. I discounted anything simple such as if he only protected the page and did not edit again, or anything that did not seem like a continued participation. The list as I will be updating is: User:I Write Stuff/For Arbcom

Response to Bozmo by IWS

It is correct that some admins have agreed with the blocks, however they have not agreed with William abusing his admin rights:

• Coren: Wrong person, good block. I've reblocked for 23h (the original 24 minus the one hour already blocked).[63]
• Viridae: ON the basis of that evidence I have unblocked Trab. WMC was in now way in hell an unimvolved admin. [64]
• BlackKite: I would still be interested in an explanation by User:William M. Connolley as to why he made POV major edits to an article after he protected it. This is certainly not advisable, if not unacceptable. [65]
• JTrainor: The block was clearly legit-- Travb was edit warring and reverting to the preferred versions of sockpuppets. Perhaps this specific admin shouldn't have done it, but the block certainly was well-deserved. [66]

Those are all from the Travb incident. For more:

• Chaser warning William that he blocked while in an edit conflict: [67]
• FeloniusMonk: [68]

I do not see anyone making claims of cabal, simply claims that William has violated his admin privileges repeatedly.

Response to JohnSmith by IWS

John Smith claims the Arbcom is because the RfC did not "gain some sort of consensus" however the breakdown is as follows:

• Supporting William: Ultramarine, Vsmith, Jtrainor, JzG, John Smith's, Merzbow, Bozmo, DHeyward
• Supporting complaint: Giovanni33, Travb/Inclusionist, UBeR, TheRenPenOfDoom
• Neutral but concerned about contents: Silly Rabbitt, RegentsPark, Biophys

Of people not involved with the state terrorism page, which everyone wants to make this about, one, Vsmith supported William, and the other 3 were all concerned with what was noted in the RfC. However as pointed out above, the issue stretches multiple months, multiple blocks, and multiple articles. Further RfC is not a venue for removal of admin tools, which after Travb's presented information, and it happening multiple times, seemed to be the required venue. Also, according to Arbcom, a dispute resolution is not required for: Reviews of emergency actions to remove administrator privileges

Response to CWC

The list may incorrectly label edit disputes as edit wars, however it still does not excuse what are violations of blocking policy as you yourself stated they were: However, I continue to request an unblock, so that my block log will have at least some indication that WMC's blocks are contrary to multiple Wikipedia rules ... CWC 23:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[69]

Response to William

It seems even on an Arbcom page William can not stick to the issue. How is anyone to believe Williams edits to the article after his protection were not PoV, he exudes it here with his personal opinions of all who told him he was wrong. As for my lack of understanding, you can review the 20 articles I have written and the sources used in them. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with COI, putting an article up for AfD because you had a previous personal issue on an online forum some time ago is clearly not appropriate. Its amazing that William can claim all of his blocks were necessary. What is stopping him from going to AN/I and making a post, like every other admin on Wikipedia is asked to do. WP:IAR is an essay, and after reviewing Williams blocks, he would be citing IAR over 10 times this year alone, as almost all of his blocks take place on articles he edits. There is one set of rules and William is required to follow them.

• Comments regarding Hooper: Seems William ignores of course his own 3 reverts on the article, [70] [71] [72] I believe its frowned upon to engage in a revert war then report the one you are warring against. And why does William believe Hooper doesn't have many edits other then those 3 reverts? Because Hooper actually uses the talk page to find consensus: [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] instead of just doing as he pleases and blocking those who oppose. --I Write Stuff (talk) 00:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
• Comments regarding Giovanni33: More mudslinging and falsehoods. Seems the blocking admin had doubts in the block and so he unblocked Giovanni. [80] but why mention that when you are attempting to muddy the waters?
• Comments directed at me: Apparently William can only engage in ad hominem attacks, apparently me debating a WP:RS source means William can violate blocking policy, or its just more attempts to muddy the waters and attack those who disagree with his violations.

Apparently pointing out a violation of admin tools is "wiki-lawyering." Telling William his edits were against consensus and the rules is "whining" that needs to be ignored. And the final attempt to muddy the waters is that participants on the page who do not agree with William are there to "push their POV" or have "nothing better to do with their time" Further "waste of space" is not appropriate language but is a clear indication of the type of attitude and behavior this supposed "uninterested admin" has been showing while editing that particular article.

Comment by User:Coppertwig

New user Lawrence Solomon, who was writing a series of columns in the Financial Post about Wikipedia and Global Warming (Wikipedia's Zealots:Solomon and Hide your name on Wiked-pedia), asked me a series of questions on my talk page about how Wikipedia works, as I had invited the user to do. Two of those questions [81] [82] concerned an edit during page protection by William M. Connolley to the Naomi Oreskes page, the page about which Lawrence Solomon was writing the newspaper columns. Without judging whether the edit conformed to policy or not, I will state that I felt I was in an awkward position having to explain it. Coppertwig (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Ultramarine

Just pointing out that the issue has been discussed on WP:ANI here. An independent administrator reviewed and reblocked Travb/Inclusionist.Ultramarine (talk) 16:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In regards to the comment by User:Ultramarine, this user sees the linked item as just one issue, not as the entire problem. Hooper (talk) 16:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Why a In regards to the comment by User:Ultramarine? That is obviously the case. Several of the alleged issues were discussed. There is also an ANI discussion regarding canvassing for this RfA here.Ultramarine (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments by JzG

The assertion that a demand for desysopping does not require prior dispute resolution, appears to be founded primarily on the complainants' consistent failure to recruit meaningful numbers of people who think William is doing anything wrong here.

Take this supposedly abusive edit, for example: [83] includes seven intermediate diffs, where William takes an article subject to endless edit warring and POV-pushing, protects it to halt the edit war, removes some redundant and contentious material for which consensus clearly to include clearly does not exist (see WP:ONUS for my views on that), fixes some refs, and then reduces to semi-protection.

In contrast to William, the other parties show strong evidence of commitment to a POV on that article, and have edit-warred prolifically there. Examples include the blatantly revisionist inclusion of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were self-evidently an act of war, conducted by the US but with British and Canadian involvement before, during and after the fact - an Allied operation against an enemy combatant, in other words; a small number of sources use the term war terrorism to describe acts against civilian populations in time of war with the aim of destroying morale, but this is also essentially revisionist, in that it did not exist as a term at the time and has grown up largely as a result of the previously unimaginable levels of destruction that were inflicted by all sides in World War II, including the bombings of Dresden and Coventry to name but two. Consensus to include this section is manifestly absent, but people keep putting it back in.

I'd look at the other examples, but frankly I can't be bothered, because the whole thing has the look of a laundry-list of past grudges dragged up to try to gain some kind of advantage in a long-running content dispute in which William is only peripherally involved, and then in the role of janitor. The article in question has for a very long time been one of the worst on Wikipedia, and the people who WP:OWN it are incredible resistant to allowing it to be anything else.

For the avoidance of doubt, I would be more than happy to see this case taken as Wikipedia/Requests for arbitration/Allegations of state terrorism by the United States, with a very rapid outcome of rigorously enforced article probation and topic bans for the worst offenders, but as it's a content dispute that may be considered out of remit, and in any case I suspect the admin community could simply agree to to that anyway, as it seems to be the current standard for handling long-running content disputes. Guy (Help!) 20:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

---

In response to comments by User:JzG, as Arb policy asks for responses when warranted, the User admitted to not looking into it enough to understand that consensus was being worked on with multiple users at the time of this particular incident. This one article though is not the extent of our problem with the abuse of admin powers. In continued response, this is about possible admin abuse, not one particular article. If the user has an issue he may follow the proper procedures to deal with stated article soley. Hooper (talk) 20:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Your comments go in your section, not mine. This is not yet another venue to spin out the POV-pushing in respect of that most atrocious of all articles. Guy (Help!) 20:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments by BozMo

I find it difficult to make any comments here whilst avoiding breaking WP:NPA because the conduct of some of those involved has been so poor. A series of complaints against WMC have been repeated by a small group of editors (mainly ones with a short time history on WP and a narrow spread of article involvement) all over the place on user talk pages, AN/I etc including all sorts of claims of CABAL etc. I have been slightly involved because I blocked one user for NPA violation against WMC (that block was appealed and was upheld) and this seems to have been pulled into the "whole issue" here but I think the only whole issue is "whole concerted campaign against WMC". Several times these complaints have been looked at and other independent admins have agreed with the actions taken by WMC but however patient we have been in trying to explain this the complaints go on and on. The main root seems to be over misunderstanding (wilful or otherwise) over what an "uninvolved admin" is and whether WMC was uninvolved when he got stuck into disputes. Also whether other admins pulled in were uninvolved. Perhaps the only positive thing which could come out of this is to get this explained more clearly (your first action when you arrive to help with an edit war doesn't instantly make you a party to the dispute. It would also be positive if some people learnt to complain or appeal once and accept the decision given without spending forever discussing history. --BozMo talk 21:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments by UBeR

I've never been involved in an ArbCom before, so I'll be brief.

To be blunt, during my tenure as an editor at Wikipedia, my involvement with William M. Connolley has been less than exceptional. I find him to be very rude and uncivil. I've witnessed him make many, many personal attacks (all of which have gone unpunished), several of them directed at me. This is, by far, his biggest issue. He has a hard time acting collegially.

To be sure, his actions as an administrator have been suspect and contrary to Wikipedia's policies regarding administration. He has a history of blocking users with whom he has a dispute rather than allowing an uninvolved administrator to take a look and edits protected articles inappropriately (or protects/unprotects them inappropriately).

As Kendrick7 states below, "[I]t would be nice if Mr. Connolley apologized and promised not to do it again." ~ UBeR (talk) 22:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Kendrick7

It seems there has been rather obvious abuse of the mop here; however, it would be nice if Mr. Connolley apologized and promised not to do it again and saved the committee the trouble of opening a case. I'm sure Guy is correct that there a great deal of disorder in the article, but that doesn't excuse tool misuse. I'm reminded of the words of Mayor Daley in responding to criticism of his handling of the 1968 DNC riots: The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

reply to Jtrainor: Perhaps this does happen all the time, Jtrainor, that doesn't make it right. It's not the job of the administration to use their tools to circumvent the WP:CONSENSUS process. Clearly at the point when multiple editors reverted William -- adding back in such controversial sources as the Britannica, for example -- it should have dawned on him that the consensus he thought he was enforcing did not in fact exist. But then he instead brazenly blocked one of those editors, to make an example out of him I suppose, and that's just really bad. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by John Smith's

This is a completely inappropriate arbitration request. As far as I can see the complaining users are bringing this because their RfC did not gain some sort of consensus to censure William for his actions. They should have known it would be highly unlikely any real sanctions would be implimented against him as the result of a RfC, so why did they bring it - as a means of "justifying" an arbitration report? I don't know, but it is a suspicion of mine. At the least they could have waited a month or so to see what happened. But bringing an arb-comm report just because they didn't get their way would seem to be an abuse of process.

However, there is certainly a long history of edit-warring at the Allegations of state terrorism by the United States that needs attention. I believe that it would be more appropriate to open a new arbitration report on the editors who have fought over the page, not just one admin who in my view tried to interject some proactive change into the page without everyone involved being article banned/blocked. And on the matter of protection, William did remove the protection not long after he made his edits. So he couldn't have been abusing his admin tools - the advice for admins not to edit through protection is to ensure they don't keep a page locked for a real period of time and turn it into what they want. John Smith's (talk) 22:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

IWS, I did not use the word "traction" once - please do not put words in my mouth. I said "consensus to censure William". That is quite different. John Smith's (talk) 23:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

IWS, please restore your comments and strikethrough so that people can see what I was replying to. John Smith's (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Now that the scope of the arbitration request has opened up, I would say that this case should be heard. I had hoped mediation could have resolved many of the issues but this was not attempted before matters came to a head here. John Smith's (talk) 21:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Lawrence

Please pick this one up. It should be a case about this entire shithole of an article that is making otherwise rational admins and editors do stupid things for apparently years (move wars, multiple admins editing through protection, incivility being the norm, etc.). Lawrence Cohen § t/e 23:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Black Kite

I don't agree with Lawrence here. If you're going to have a case about William Connolley, then fine. If you're going to have a case about the article, then also fine. But don't conflate the two, or you're going to have a confusing mess, and the completely predictable result will be, well, nothing much. Black Kite 23:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Merzbow

It took years of trench warfare surrounding this article for an admin to volunteer to come in and help clean it up, and I thank WMC for it. Although I do not deny I've had editing differences with him in the past on other articles, I've never seen him abuse the tools. What we have here is an extremely narrow definition of "uninvolved admin" being put forth; please see User:Raul654/Civil_POV_pushing for a discussion of how the misuse of the concept can be wielded as a weapon to calcify problem articles. And boy did AOSTBTUS have problems; I encouraged people to peruse (not read through, heck no) the 163k version of the now circa-60k article for an example of perhaps the worst POV-pushing mess this project has ever seen. Luckily now some of the page's editors seem to be reaching agreement on the scope of the newly-shrunken article (unfortunately with problem editing having moved in some cases to lesser-policed subarticles), but it took WMC's decisive action to reach that point.

Comment by User:Bigtimepeace

There are two separate issues here as others have mentioned: 1) William M. Connolley's possible misuse of administrative tools in a content dispute (and, arguably, the behavior of those who have complained about what WMC did) 2) The general problems on Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. If the committee is going to deal with one or the other or both they should keep some sense of separation between the two issues.

Is WMC's conduct problematic enough for an ArbCom case? I'm really not sure, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can honestly say it was not problematic at all. An admin who edit protects a page and then deletes massive content without discussion (incredibly questionable in and of itself given the overall lack of BLP concerns) cannot then turn around and claim non-involvement to the point where they block two editors who revert their changes. I was recently up for RfA, and had I endorsed that kind of behavior in an admin there is no way my RfA would have passed. Again, I don't really have an opinion about whether it's worthy of a case or not, but it's hardly something we should be endorsing as several editors above seem to be doing.

I've been as involved as anyone with the "US State Terrorism" article (though not so much right now thank god) and damned if I know what to do about it. I think it's still basically a content dispute, and I'm not sure it's worth it for the ArbCom to wade into it at this point. A number of folks had expressed interest in mediation, so if editing is really at an impasse right now that might be a better first step. The problem is that this article has always had one side of promoters and one side of detractors (with changing casts, like a Broadway show!) who are utterly convinced that they are right and most everyone on the other side is a POV-pushing (insertyournegativelabelhere). If I had a good answer I'd suggest it, but as of right now I'm not sure that ArbCom is the right place to be discussing the problem.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Sceptre

A few things are absolute and non-negotiable, though. NPOV for example.

— Jimbo Wales, November 2003

Accepting this case to sanction WMC would be undermining the entire encyclopedia. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Restepc

It seems to me that there are two entirely separate issues, WMCs behaviour, and the state of the state terrorism article. I feel very strongly that these should be kept separate, the fact that the article was in a state shouldn't excuse any theoretical misuse of admin tools, likewise the behaviour of some of the other editors involved shouldn't.

In my dealings with WMC, and much moreso my viewing of WMCs past and current behaviour, two issues come up. One, regular incivility/rudeness...but I don't think it's anything to get too worried about.

Secondly and importantly, it's my view that he enforces his own view of how each article should be, which is not necessarily always the consensus view, and that he regularly ignores wikipedia policy and sometimes uses his admin powers to do this. It is obvious that WMC has good intentions, and feels that his actions are for the best. In my view, his actions definitely break the rules, but there is a rule on wikipedia somewhere that says something like 'ignore all rules if following them wouldn't be best for the article'.

I think the issue here is whether his actions broke the rules and he should have his powers revoked or at least told to stop, or whether he justifiably ignored the rules as per the 'ignore all rules' rule. It seems extremely likely that many of the instances of this behaviour fit in with the ignore all rules rule, but I'm not convinced they all do, and I don't know wiki policy well enough to know if 'ignore all rules' applies to using admin powers in this way at all. Restepc (talk) 19:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jtrainor

This is, essentially, a classic case of gaming the system-- WMC came to help clean the article up (and has made good inroads in that direction), while the people causing problems have done everything they can to obstruct and nullify his efforts. This whole fracas over the block is a classic case of the following method of gaming the system:

1. Uninvolved admin shows up at problematic article and attempts to start fixing it up.
   
2. People causing problems attempt to stop him.
   
3. Admin thwacks them.
   
4. People causing problems run to WP:ANI and other places and claim that said admin is misusing his tools in an article he's involved in.
   

This happens routinely on controversial articles and needs to stop. Jtrainor (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:R. Baley

Just dropped by to endorse the above statement by Jtrainor. A classic case indeed. R. Baley (talk) 15:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Biophys

I too agree that many problems are bogus or content disputes. The most important claim is the alleged violations of blocking policies by William, supposedly supported by evidence. I can not judge this issue. But this is a serious accusation. I suggest ArbCom to take this case and clarify the matter, as has been suggested by William himself. If he is a defender of wiki, he must be encouraged to continue everything exactly as he does. If something should be corrected, let's identify and state a problem. No doubts, there are also WP:DE problems with editing of terrorism and climate changes articles. And I strongly agree with statements by Chris and Raymond below. Biophys (talk) 16:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Chris Chittleborough AKA "CWC"

We have far too many ugly, dispute-laden articles in our encyclopedia. Often the best way to fix them is for someone to take charge, forcefully excise the cruft, explain how Wikipedia works to those who haven't Got It, and let those who cannot—or will not—work within the rules get a clue or get blocked. The "Allegations of state terrorism by the United States" article is a classic example, especially since we've lost MONGO, and it seems to me that WMC is doing exactly the right thing. I strongly believe that Wikipedia needs to give some extra latitude to experienced editors cleaning up nasty messes, even if it's hard to codify rules for such situations.

(BTW, on checking the list Biophys links to, I was surprised to see my name in the first item, and disappointed by the way it overstates WMC's [mis]behaviour. For one thing, there was no edit war. This does not inspire confidence in the rest of the list.) CWC 15:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Raymond arritt

Allegations of state terrorism by the United States is one of the very worst articles in all of Wikipedia, a festering boil of POV-pushing, lousy partisan sources, and everything else that makes for a wretched article. The atmosphere scares away most editors. Admins willing to fix such embarrassments to the encyclopedia deserve support and reasonable latitude to get the job done. User:Jtrainor's summary above is spot on. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Jtrainor

I would like to suggest that users Ultramarine, John Smith's, and Giovanni33 all be added to the case as parties. All of them have been involved with the current mess in one way or another. Jtrainor (talk) 20:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Note by Jehochman

I've looked at a few sock puppet cases stemming from this dispute. Per Jtrainor's request, I have added the names he mentioned to the parties and notified them. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It seems there will be a case, so we may as well convene those who have knowledge of the situation and ask for their comments. Jehochman ^Talk 20:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Note by User:Giovanni33

Thanks. I was planning on commenting. I'm surprised that Guy is not formally listed, yet. He is definitely involved and abused the tools, similarly to the WMC.Giovanni33 (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

• This cases started as a sandbox, and the named parties were all notified of it. The named parties, except for FellGleaming (talk · contribs) and William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) had already commented at the sandbox, and William M. Connolley has added a statement now that this rfar has "gone live".
  I have just now notified FellGleaming that this request is now underway. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  Jtrainor added themself as a party at 15:00, 27 April 2008 after the request went live.[84] John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/1)

• Accept. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
• Given the somewhat confusing RfC pointed to (deleted but still running in userfied form), wouldn't it be better to allow that some time? I can tell you that the low level of support there for the more serious allegations of abuse weighs with me. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept, to consider the use of the tools, but, since it is patently obvious that the tools were being employed against real and significant problems, to consider the history of editing at Allegations of state terrorism by the United States too (and any other related articles or editors that bear considering). --bainer (talk) 02:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept to look at all involved parties. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Kirill 13:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Request to lift article ban

Initiated by Guido den Broeder (talk) at 16:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Davidruben (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`

• Informed Davidruben: [85]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Link 1
• Link 2

Statement by Guido den Broeder

David Ruben has served me with an article ban on Vereniging Basisinkomen.

The ban was given because I removed the COI template, which I did because the user who completely rewrote the article does not have a COI (but could not untag himself). I.e., I acted in good faith, but the ruling admin apparently believes otherwise.

No dispute resolution has taken place on this matter. I found that a mention was added to an older dispute resolution that I was no longer following, without informing me.

I kindly ask the ban to be lifted, since there was no malintent on my part. What we have here is merely a different interpretation of the text of the template, where my arguments remain unaddressed. I suggest that the text of the template is to be reconsidered, as it should not be open to multiple interpretations. In my opinion, this template serves no purpose once the article has had a major overhaul by another editor, and is misleading the reader.

Please note that the content of Vereniging Basisinkomen is discussed in a normal fashion.

Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Davidruben

Issue is over WP:COI which advises that "COI edits are strongly discouraged. When they cause disruption to the encyclopaedia in the opinion of an uninvolved administrator, they may lead to accounts being blocked". Following discussion on Vereniging Basisinkomen article's talk page and WP:COI/N#Guido den Broeder vs. others, I informed Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs) that he should consider himself banned[86] (seems no ideal WP:UWT for partial bans, unlike a variety of block templates), when WP:COI indicates that he could have been blocked entirely from WP - a single article ban seemed more proportionate.

This article was created by Guido den Broeder, who is apparently the organisation's treasurer, and he repeatedly removed a COI tag despite consensus of opinion at Talk:Vereniging Basisinkomen and at WP:COI/N#Guido den Broeder vs. others. He sought to excuse himself from needing to adhere to community consensus by not listening to it (removing COI/N from his watch list)[87], but that cannot be an excuse for then acting against consensus. Of course fair notice of a discussion about a user must be given to the user in question, but failure to at least then read a discussion does not separate one one from still being in the community.

The suggestion of fellow admin User:EdJohnston at the COI/N [88], was to consider blocking Guido den Broeder but to warn him first. To me this seemed therefore to serve notice of a ban before imposing a block. In hindsight I suppose this could also have been issuing a final user warning template (? {{Uw-tdel4}}), although I chose instead {{uw-own3}} and added additional comments to it.

As I understand bans, this is a consensus view of the Wikipedia community that an editor should withdraw from some (or all) of article space. WP:Banned suggests discussion at WP:Community sanction noticeboard, but that is now closed down. The question then is what constitutes a "community ban" decision. I accept this might have been an issue to bring up at WP:AN/I, but I took the decision (rightly or wrongly) that the article's talk page and COI/N were sufficient community input in deciding that Guido den Broeder, notwithstanding his own repeated denials, has a COI in the Vereniging Basisinkomen article, and that COI tagging therefore should remain. Furthermore, as I understand things, a user may be banned from an article without enacting the enforcement of blocking (which may be done if the user ignores the ban). Hence WP:Banned states in its lead-in "A ban is a social construct and does not, in itself, disable a user's ability to edit any page." yet in the Wikipedia:Banned#Decision to ban section, first and least "bureaucratic" option, notes "If no uninvolved administrator proposes unblocking a user" - but surely that implies a ban exists if the user has already first been blocked - surely this is the situation not of "Decision to ban", but the later policy section of Wikipedia:Banned#Evasion and enforcement ? The more I re-read WP:Banned, the more this seems poorly worded. Nevertheless, clearly if I have over interpreted WP:Banned then my apologies are due to the community and of course Guido den Broeder.

This RFAR thought does not seem warranted, as no dialogue has occurred since I suggested to Guido den Broeder that he should consider himself banned from the article. Options might have included:

1. Discussion at the Talk:Vereniging Basisinkomen, which I had specifically mention was not off limits to him
2. Discussion on either his or my own user talk pages
3. Seeking opinion of other editors and admins at WP:AN/I - on both the issue of whether Guido den Broeder has a COI issue and my own actions/handling of situation.

I think given Guido den Broeder's previous rejection of the views of others at Talk:Vereniging Basisinkomen and COI/N, that resolution is unlikely with the first two of above options, and that AN/I would have been the more appropriate next step. I'm unclear whether, given this RFAR has been initiated, I can now seek independent views at AN/I, or if this needs to await ArbCom instruction on this. David Ruben ^Talk 00:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Response to Davidruben

I see a lot of statements without any attempt to provide proof. I can therefore only conclude that Davidruben has not actually done any form of investigation. He may further be confusing this article with another article, the one that led to the old dispute resolution that I mentioned. Let me state clearly that:

• I have not denied COI with the topic, in fact I have openly declared it on my user page.
• I have not edited the article against oonsensus.
• No disruption whatsoever has taken place with regard to this article.

I am furthermore entitled to have my own opinion just like everyone else, and find it appalling that an admin speculates that I will behave badly just because my opinions are different. Meanwhile I should remind admin that my opinions found enough support to prevent deletion of the article.

It is amazing that admin admits that no dialogue has occurred yet sees not that he should be the one to initiate a dialogue, before making a decision or drawing conclusions.

Finally, I am now confused with regard to the nature of Davidruben's intervention. Did he impose a ban or did he only make a suggestion? I'd like to see that made clear. If it is only a suggestion, than this procedure can be closed, blocking me for editing the article is out of the question, and I can work together normally with second editor to improve it. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

As stated above

• I felt suitable dialogue had already been had at article talk and COI/N to take the action that I did.
• The options I list above were those you could have sought as alternatives to immediately stepping up to this the highest rung of the dispute ladder (or that I could have initiated on your behalf if you challanged my action).
• That a topic is agreed as being notable, does not in itself allow continued consensus-objected-to COI editing (to reiterate, this is then disruptive/ownership etc and as per COI/N finally risks being blocked).
• I stated "you should consider yourself community WP:Banned", trying to both word this as pleasantly as possible and trying to imply that I thought you should accept & agree to abide by this (given how you had rejected consensus views at Talk & COI/N).
• Finally "blocking me for editing the article is out of the question" is not the case. Where others feel you have a COI that interfers (or appears to) with impartial editing of articles, then you should not work on the artice itself (except obvious vandalism reverting or copyediting) but instead propose changes on the talk page and let other editors decide whether to edit the article or not; i.e. what the COI tagging and WP:COI/N, that you ignored, were trying to advise you... and led to COI/N opinion to just outright block you (which I held back from). David Ruben ^Talk 12:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Either a dialogue took place, and it is a case for arbitration, or it didn't, and you bypassed due process.
• WP:Banned clearly directs here, and only here, for appeal. Note further that so far you are unresponsive on both user talk pages. A ban should not be discussed on an article talk page.
• You seem unwilling to clarify the nature of your intervention.
• You are still not providing any evidence whatsoever. Let me stress again: I have not acted against consensus. Your insistent failure to address the actual facts is quite disheartening.
• Nobody has claimed that my edits to the article are partial. Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Dialogue was Wikipedia:COI/N#Guido_den_Broeder_vs._others (which you chose to walk away from) and Talk:Vereniging_Basisinkomen#COI and your acting against consensus was removal of COI tag as per #1-13:12, 23 April 2008 (reverted) and #2-16:58, 23 April 2008 (reverted).

Your editing needs to be impartial to follow NPOV, editing partially with a POV is not acceptable.

Anyway ArbCom have declined this RFAR and suggested taking to WP:AN/I, which I shall now do. Thank you ArbCom. David Ruben ^Talk 22:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Please take note of the chronological order of events. There was no consensus on the template at the time of my edit.

Nobody has claimed POV on my part. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

@FayssalF: thanks. I'm getting quite a runaround for my money: helpdesk sent me here (I asked twice to make sure!). Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0)

• Decline. As you say, "No dispute resolution has taken place on this matter". --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Decline at this time. This should be raised at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for input from other administrators. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Reject. Premature. More members of the Community need to review the situation before the Committee gets involved. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Decline as premature. Guido, you can follow Newyorkbrad's suggestion. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 19:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Reject per above. --bainer (talk) 02:09, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

---

CAMERA lobbying

Initiated by Lawrence Cohen § t/e at 16:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Lawrence Cohen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Zeq (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Isra-pedia member
• Gni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Isra-pedia member
• Dajudem (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Isra-pedia member
• Jersmum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)[89], Isra-pedia member
• Number 57 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Bangpound (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Screen stalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Moreschi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Note: Any editors identified as belonging to the Isra-pedia mail list should be probably added as parties.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles
• ANI incident with CAMERA, 24 March 2008
• COIN report, 25 March 2008
• Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_23#Edit_warring_on_CAMERA_sourced_to_CAMERA.27s_office
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby campaign is the latest, but as Wikipedians now have access to the entire Isra-paedia mail list archives, and plan to publish them more users will be revealed as belonging to this cabal that aimed to violate WP:CANVASS, meatpuppetry rules, and WP:NPOV to follow a pro-Israeli agenda. One admin has in turn threatened to block anyone who does so. Unlike the Durova/!! private mail scenario, these cannot be considered good faith emails in any capacity, but as evidence of planned assault on WP:NPOV. As this information is likely to published somewhere imminently, a lot of Wikipedia editors may be implicated here shortly. This needs review on this level now.

Statement by Lawrence

As was discovered yesterday, and fully detailed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby campaign, Wikipedia has been targeted by an off-site astroturfing campaign, to get stealth administrators in place to manipulate encyclopedia content.[101][102][103] Zeq (talk · contribs), now banned a year as a result of his actions in this, and previously before Arbcom a lot apparently, was a major ringleader of this organization. Allegations of Israeli apartheid, recently before Arbcom, was also targeted by the group, which includes other Wikipedians. It's rather frightening, that a subversive band like this (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) was caught via leaked emails. At least three users there have been sanctioned already for participating in undermining Wikipedia encyclopediac content:

• Gni (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned; user is listed above Gilead Ini, leader of subversive organization from CAMERA.
• Zeq (talk · contribs) banned 1 year by Moreschi, indefinite ban from Arab-Israeli conflict topics.
• Dajudem (talk · contribs) banned 1 year from Arab-Israeli conflict topics.

As noted above under the Confirmation that other steps section, all the email archives are going to be released today. This will include still more Wikipedians who worked with this group to negatively affect our neutral interests. It may or may not included admins. Given that this group targeted such articles as 2006 Lebanon War and Allegations of Israeli apartheid, which had an RFAR of it's own involving many admins and even pro-Israeli ex-arbiters, this is potentially very bad. This email archive is not a good-faith thing by people that care about Wikipedia, but concerted activities to harm Wikipedia's NPOV to achieve their own ends. Users have been banned and restricted over this. Private evidence is flowing all over--for example, apparently several admins now have private evidence that User:Zeq is indeed zeqzeq2@yahoo.com that helped orchestrate all this trouble. From http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml they wrote (bottom of page/PDFs):

On the other hand I would encourage all of you to become admins. If we have several admins on our side this will be great. Admin are expected to be impartial so be carefull how you edit and how you will conduct yourself as an admin. There is a 3rd route: Voter. All you need to do is make 100 edits and be registed with wikipedia for over a month (this is why you should register ASAP) from that point you don't need to edit much (do edit once a week or every two weeks) and we will call upon your help t participate in important votes: about content and about running for office (admin is an elected position - we need people who will vote fro our admins) Most wikipedia cotes there is a need for 80/20 majority ("consensus") so do behave nice with others to gain their trust and try to have as many as 100-200 voters (those who don't edit much but only called to help in votes) btw, wikipedia ballots are usually open for a week so being a "voter" is really good for those who have very little time on their hands.

We have some troubling questions here that would merit a full case before the AC:

1. To what degree can or should the community respond to orchestrated attacks like this?
2. Is using their own communications viable evidence?
3. Are bans or sanctions for this acceptable? Have people in the past--more important, as precedent matters--been banned for orchestrating off-Wiki trouble like this? When?
4. This is not the first time and certainly not the last time this will come up as Wikipedia grows more popular by the year. This is just the first band of trolls like this we've caught. We need to establish what the proper response to this should be, before we lose to every nationalist, religious, corporate and troll interest out there.

Please accept, to address these four questions, and for the Committee to investigate the remaining evidence in private--other known Wikipedia users violating our norms with this egregious NPOV assault will need to be addressed, so that the community is aware of them, and to monitor them going forward. This will likely hurt the "good name" of some editors, but you don't mess with the NPOV like this. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 16:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Question to Charles

So the Arbcom has no problem with the searches and sanctions underway, and that is all fine? I'm baffled by the rejection in the face of private evidence of wrongdoing that is coming to the Committee from a group of administrators shortly, along with everything thats already happened. Perhaps a less binary monocular view of the duties accepted as AC members is needed. Admins already are in possession of the entire archive, as seen here. Have we or have we not sanctioned users for off-site activity of this nature under arbitration in the past? Is the Arbcom signing off on a purge of all CAMERA/Isra-pedia members? Lawrence Cohen § t/e 21:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

CAMERA ban/sanction update

Additional editors have been banned/sanctioned as detailed here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/Statement_re_Wikilobby_campaign#Sanctions. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 23:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Avruch

Until I have time to write a complete statement, I'll reproduce comments I've made elsewhere about this case. I think the Committee should take this case as well, if only to review the actions of the folks on the Board so that it can be pointed out where they are (I think) misguided. Avruch ^T 16:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'll say again that I think the meager efforts of amateur sleuths above to connect editors to e-mail addresses, and to ban individuals because of an unproven association with an activist group like CAMERA, is disturbing and problematic. I'm as interested as anyone in keeping the Israel-Palestinian conflict articles neutral, but banning editors from one POV based on the "outing" efforts of an outside group and editors from the other POV doesn't seem to be the way to go about it. I'm sure that the efforts above represent a sincere and zealous effort to protect Wikipedia, but I think it is being done the wrong way. I invite anyone sanctioned on this page (now and as the hunt for perpetrators proceeds) to appeal their restrictions to the Arbitration Committee. Avruch ^T 15:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sure, I'd like to see more eyes to evaluate the truth of this comment: Shocking McCarthyism. Where does one go for a hearing? I did not verify anything except that I was a member of this group that the Electronic Intifada has dug up some emails. As I said, as far as I know it was not a CAMERA group. But that aside. I thought in America we were all allowed to join any groups and were responsible only for our own words, not the words of others in a group. Ditto with our actions. I deeply resent and dislike this situation. I am being judged not for who I am or what I have written, but by people I don't know and for my membership in a group and for words that did not get written here. I have not tried to push any "agenda" but to see that my side is fairly represented. I don't know zeg and who he is, but he seems to have been banned for a year for something that he apparently denies. Now you people want to ban anyone who was a member of this group. Talk about unfair. Juanita (talk) 22:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC). I'm tempted to agree, just scanning through that long page. The siege mentality and the 'thrill' of the investigation displayed by some of the editors in that conversation is worrisome to say the least. Avruch ^T 23:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• You reposted it here, and here it is. I think we judge each and every editor based on their actual actions on-wiki, not what we think they might have tried to do, assuming its them, off-wiki. If there is absolute proof that Zeq was orchestrating an "direct attack on Wikipedia" through "stealth admins" then maybe a topic ban is in order, but an indefinite (or equivalent) ban? How much of this "direct attack" actually made it on-wiki? Any evidence to suggest there is such a thing as a stealth admin? Moving past the Zeq block, the discussion is now all about ferreting out and blocking anyone else that might be involved - based on the "outing" done by a pro-Palestinian (and importantly - anti-Israel) web site. The search for clues to see who wrote some of the e-mails is creepy, and I imagine if you connect more editors to e-mail accounts there will be yet more calls to block or topic ban people without so much as a cursory evaluation of their actual edits. Avruch ^T 23:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Attack as in, maybe, taking Wikipedia down? Hacking the pages? When you say attack, do you mean something like that? Or getting a group of like minded editors together to edit a particular group of articles with the idea of changing the POV? The second isn't a good idea, but I'm not sure I'd call it an attack - Zeq's ridiculous phrasing of it as a war and an army notwithstanding. I'd be more comfortable with this if there were a long list of Zeq's edits saying "This one, this one, this one and THAT one violate this, this and that policy" rather than "See how it sounds like he wrote these emails where he organized a stealth attack against the home base and a sneaky infiltration effort to get enemies behind the front lines in positions of authority. We must circle the wagons and protect the fort!" Avruch ^T 00:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Moreschi

All that is needed here is clarification from the arbitrators that if we discover clear evidence (for the "Israpedia" emails are almost indisputably authentic: if it's all a fix, it was thought up by a genius who did a perfect imitation of Zeq's writing style) of attempting to subvert the purpose of Wikipedia off-wiki, we can take action against the Wikipedia accounts of the persons involved.

If such clarification is not forthcoming I should be desysopped for poor judgment. But I stand by my blocks of Zeq (talk · contribs) and Gni (talk · contribs): their actions were appalling and the evidence against them clear-cut. Some people need to remember that morality is vested in the intent, not the deed. The recent hysterial contributions of Dajudem (talk · contribs) spoke for themselves. As far as I am concerned I have applied discretionary sanctions correctly, but if the Committee finds otherwise the desysopping of yours truly is the only route to take. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 17:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• No, there's no need for arbitration here. I've just been reading through the almost-complete list archives and can confidently say there's only a couple of loose ends to tie up that do not require ArbCom assistance. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 13:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • A couple more meatpuppets have been blocked: Jamesegarner (talk · contribs) indefinitely by yours truly (mentioned in the emails and clearly part of the same crowd), and Judadem (talk · contribs) for a week by Fut.Perf, who does not come up in the Israpedia archives but, judging from his contributions, is obviously another disruptive meatpuppet. ChrisO, Fut.Perf and I will shortly be publishing a joint statement summarising our concluded findings. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 09:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Bangpound

I have the mail archive, but I will not post it publicly yet. I've read the messages from User:FT2 and others about privacy and transparency. Bangpound (talk) 17:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I've compiled the full archive that I have of the Isra-pedia group. I'm sharing it with these admins:

User:Moreschi, User:ChrisO, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise

This is the course of action advised by FT2.

Bangpound (talk) 19:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Stepping away I've passed the information to the 3 above-named admins. I will leave it with them to exercise their judgment using the evidence to do what's best for Wikipedia. If they feel the need to reproduce the material for greater scrutiny, they will need to be responsible for scrubbing personal details. For the record, I included a full MBOX file of 138 messages with all mail headers, including domain key signatures and received headers. Bangpound (talk) 21:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Screen stalker

Hello, everyone. I can see why I would be suspected of involvement in this group. My edit in the 2006 Lebanon war does coincide very interestingly with groups activities. But this is very circumstantial, and anyone familiar with this article knows that there have been many attempt to change its name.

There is so much being written every hour on the subject of this controversy, and I don't have the time to go over it all, so forgive anything I may miss in my rebuttal.

First, allow me to note that almost all of the editors involved in this controversy are experienced editors, who have been involved in wikipedia for years, and have made many thousands of edits. The documents provided as evidence are very recent, so I don't see how one can say that they could explain these editors' edits.

Second, allow me to note that Jersmum (an exception to the above rule) has only made two edits, neither of which was Israel-related. Can we really establish guilt based on that? Even if we could, surely we would be willing to assume that someone who has made only two edits is somewhat unfamiliar with Wikipedia policy. I think we may have scared off this new (and probably innocent) editor.

Third, allow me to note that this has turned into a grand prosecution reminiscent of Maximilien Robespierre's List of Traitors. The list always grows, and even the loosest connection qualifies as evidence. At times of great concern and crisis, people often overreact. But let's get a hold of ourselves and take a deep breath.

Fourth, allow me to note that I do not believe this RfA was requested as a last resort. Discussion on this has only been open for roughly three days, and is still humming with activity. Multiple sanctions have already been issued. This RfA is being filed not for lack of choice, but as part of the vendetta that has been so characteristic of this dispute.

Fifth and finally, allow me to note that the evidence against me is so circumstantial as to prove nothing. That tends to be a trend with these accusations. Screen stalker (talk) 18:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Merzbow

It is worth noting that still, as of yet, I have seen no evidence of any actual on-Wiki activity resulting from this alleged off-Wiki conspiracy. I see two questions that need to be answered here:

1) Should Wikipedia users in good standing be banned not because of anything they've done on-Wiki, but because they discussed, off-Wiki, plans for coordinating on-Wiki activities against policy?

2) If so, how wide do we extend the net of sanctions to other users connected to those users?

I can see a case being made for the ringleaders of such a conspiracy being subject to on-Wiki sanctions, at most. If Zeq and Gil can be judged as such, then perhaps they should be banned. But I see users losing all perspective here and suggesting that a witch-hunt be conducted, emails be trawled through, and that any other editor connected in any way to said group or ringleaders be banned as well. This, my friends, cannot stand; the potential for baiting and abuse here is substantial if such a precedent were to be set.

I remind everyone, for the nth time, of the Rama's Arrow incident, in which three users in good standing were indef'd based not on any on-Wiki evidence, but on a bunch of ambiguous emails. This case is not directly analogous to Zeq and Gil in particular, for if the emails already reproduced are valid, their words were anything but ambiguous. I bring it up to pre-empt any attempts to ban other editors whose names are now being thrown about as candidates for termination because of tenuous connections to the whole mess (as tenuous as the evidence Rama's Arrow produced against the users he banned). Given that, again, no evidence has been produced that said conspiracy resulted in any actual on-Wiki activity, I submit that any attempts to extend the net wider would be a hysterical overreaction.

Reponse to Charles

I think Charles has missed the point in his rejection. Three users have already been banned, and certainly their banning, an on-Wiki action, is under ArbCom's purview. - Merzbow (talk) 23:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ChrisO

I honestly don't see anything to arbitrate here. The matter is clear enough, it has been dealt with expeditiously and the actions taken have been well within the discretionary sanctions already agreed by the ArbCom. I can't see any benefit to this being reviewed at this stage by the arbs. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• Following up Moreschi's comments, I have also blocked User:Screen stalker for soliciting votestacking via the mailing list, and extended the sanctions on User:Zeq to an indefinite ban for flagrant violations of policy. More details to follow. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign‎ for the assessment of User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, User:Moreschi and myself concerning this affair. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Folantin

I agree with ChrisO. I don't see what there is to arbitrate here. Some editors got busted for a blatant attempt to manipulate POV. The rules on WP:SOAPBOX are quite clear, if all too rarely enforced. As the policy says, there's plenty of opportunities elsewhere on the Net for this kind of thing: "You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views". So off you go. --Folantin (talk) 19:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kendrick7

I find highly disturbing the call by CAMERA to create "sleeper" administrator accounts. On page 6 of the leaked PDF, the organization explicitly sets out to WP:GAME the existing ArbCom sanctions (Wikipedia:ARBPIA) on Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict ("additional restrictions") by encouraging their recruits to remain "uninvolved" in the topic, and "interact in a positive way with 100 wikipedia editors who would later be used to vote for you as admin." The ArbCom should consider whether the current sanctions need to be modified to address this. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

I also agree with ChrisO - although arbitrators' guidance as to how to handle these kinds of matters in future may be helpful, as well as the points highlighted by Kendrick7 and others above. This seems a major organised threat to our community which fails any good faith test one could possibly set, and especially with sensitive articles or topics that ArbCom has already felt the need to rule on, these areas are problematic enough without the injection of offsite ideological warriors trained in the peculiarities of Wikicombat. Admins are trusted with the tools in order to protect the site, the blocking admin acted after considerable airing of community views, their decision in my view was in the spirit of protecting the site, and I think the decision was sound. In response to Merzbow, better to nip it in the bud while it's still fresh rather than allowing it to grow into a much larger problem later. Orderinchaos 20:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Haemo

The ArbCom can't ignore this — concerted attempts to use Wikipedia as a POV-platform organized by external groups designed to subvert and corrupt the community-based procedures on Wikipedia should not be waved off by claiming ArbCom shouldn't be looking at these kinds of off-site organizations. Ultimately, the behavior in question is on-Wikipedia behavior, and the conduct of these editors is fundamentally in disagreement with the purpose of Wikipedia. I strongly urge to acceptance of this case. --Haemo (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved MickMacNee

Arbcom needs to review the actions of one or more admins here. This was a case of wikipedia acting on evidence from a NPOV site in the name of upholding POV, an absurdity. And specifically banning before concrete evidence was given.

On the ANI sub-page, in the absence of specific neutral discussion of specific on- wiki actions, there was lots of rambling talk of threats, with no actual evidence presented that the conspiracy achieved anything, or a serious analysis even that there was a threat. It was a witchhunt, which end-runned the ban process, and was ultimately counter productive to upholding NPOV in the long run. And now we have our very own witchhunt template as a result. It looks as if somehow normal procedures and calm neutral discussion wasn't appropriate in responding to these serious allegations, and it was fine to throw around accusations of conspiracy on the basis of hunches and circumstantial evidence alone, before confirming one way or another if an offence had occured, and launching some sort of NPOV campaign, such as this arb case filing.

In the specific cases, the user zek was banned for a year [104] before it was anonymously confirmed (presumably beyond doubt, but not confirmed by anyone not involved as yet) that there was an email address link to this user committing him as the conspirator. Prior to this, his block notice above says he was charged with a serious breach sockpuppetry, which if before this email link was confirmed appears to have no basis that was shown. Further it refers to such ephemera as the articles he edits, a previous arbcom of unclear relevance to which offence accused, his writing style? and most shockingly, for apparently not submitting to a repeated interrogation which was a clear breach of WP:HARASS and WP:POINT.

The people claiming to have protection of wikipedia NPOV at heart on that sub-page, have used language just as POV and dare I say defamatory as those they accused. This was most definitely not a case of transparent even handed evidence based judgement, and the formatting and summarising of the discussion left a lot to be desired for anyone arriving late, as I think the arbitrators are going to find when looking at the sub-page, which is being given in reference in its entirety when explaining the background of the block of zeq, when by now that has been subsumed by the general hysteria and how to organise the campaign to destroy the campaign talk. MickMacNee (talk) 22:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, I think the arbitrators need to study the fall out from this poorly handled issue, namely the creation of a POV talk page template being defended in a Tfd by some on the basis of a previous arbcom precedent for such a thing. Also, the use of the ANI thread's existence to add POV material to both CAMERA and Electronic Intifada, see [105], on the basis of the evidence in the ANI thread and the primary EI source alone. MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved SilkTork

The disruption and loss of good will that would be generated by strip-searching and breathalyzing everyone entering Wiki from the direction of the pub because somebody smelled alcohol over there would be out of all proportion to the effort involved in clearing up the vomit of the occasional drunk. I understand Lawrence's concern, but I don't think potential arbitration is within the committee's care. And I'm uncomfortable with email evidence. SilkTork *^YES! 23:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Dajudem

I have so many issues on this it isn't even funny and I hardly know where to begin. I have edited wiki occasionally for several years now based mostly on my area of interest and expertise, and for which I have an obvious & acknowledged bias, ie the middle east conflict. I have not got involved with personalities on wiki because I really believe that wiki is not about personalities, but to get valid information and facts on wiki regarding the conflict. Obviously it is very much about personalities. Because suddenly I find myself in a brouhaha that has nothing to do with my edits here but everything to do with personalities.

Obviously there is propaganda on both sides, as this conflict is one of words as much as of actions... Those who would deny it haven't been paying attention, or mistakenly believe that not acknowledging the propaganda war demonstrates a neutral POV. Propaganda in itself is not bad -- in fact one definition of propaganda might be the propagation of one's own POV. What is bad is fiction posing as fact, whatever side you are on. Facts can be fictionalized a number of ways, including perversion of context, false or unverifiable references, or simply by omission of a different POV.

Anyway, I initially forgot that the email went out at least appearing to come from CAMERA. I belong to a number of web groups. Of course for all one knows it's possible that it was a fraud perpetrated by the Electronic Intifada on CAMERA stationary. Someone from EI apparently joined the group. This person obviously had motivations never conceived of by CAMERA, so clearly neither wikipedians nor CAMERA know what each of our motivations were for joining, except and unless they scan our private emails and determine guilt or innocence based on our leaked and private emails. Which apparently is what has been done in the case of Zeg.

I honestly can't understand the enormous mountain that is being made out of a small effort to recruit some pro-Israelis editing and even administrating on wiki. Surely there must be one or two or even quite a few Palestinian partisans writing in the Israeli/Arab conflict section?

Anyway, the call for an editing group at CAMERA went out very respectful of wiki. That can be seen by anyone who reads the letter with an open mind. A number of people signed up. I don't know how many actually signed up and from that group how many actually edited anything. As I recall there was quite a limited response and most people there had never edited a thing themselves, though there were a number of people who were professors and instructors at universities. I brought up the possibility of using members there as a resource, to have use of their libraries and what they had read, to do some fact-checking -- which indeed I did do. One of the people on this list had a Uri Milstein book and checked a quote for me. The university has research resources that the average person cannot access. It seems to me that fact-checking is something really positive for wiki. That of course is down the tubes now thank you very much fellow wikipedians. "Assume good faith"

As one can see from reading the emails (if they are all there at EI, I have been too busy to check), a few people were more into discussion and guidance than others. I don't pretend to know the motives of others. Editing wiki is not an easy matter and takes a lot of practice to learn the language. I am still very bad at it and some of the college professors were lamenting how hard it was to make even the smallest edit.

I didn't read every email from the group because I already knew how to edit and because I am a busy person that cannot read every non-personal email that comes across my desk. Then suddenly the list gets shut down and within a day or so I am banned from wiki! LO!

Up til now, hardly anyone has made a negative comment regarding my edits... BUT NOW! I get suddenly a note on wiki that to answer charges about belonging to this subversive list. Here it is:

Please review this, and weigh in here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby_campaign#New_evidence_surfaces Lawrence Cohen § t/e 19:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The subversive part had already been assumed by most editors on this wikilobby page and by the time I weighed in, they had already feathered and tarred Zeg, claiming he was Gilead or Israguy or someone at this list, and an evil being.

Under the section under my user name I read this, for starters:

Yes, that seems correct. Further, I'd be interested in finding out who this I <3 (email yonathan@ou.edu) character is. Seems like he's been at this game for a while. What, then, do we do about Dajudem (talk · contribs)? Moreschi (talk) (debate) 19:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the "assume good faith" part of wiki anyway?

In fact, prior to editing for 'clarification' after I took offense, one wikipedian referred to pro-Israelis as "like terrorists" and "like criminals justifying their crimes."

"Won't there be that much more ammunition on the pro-Israeli side for screaming "oppression!" and for using even more underhanded methods" Couldn't disagree more, they will always scream oppression, they (edit added later for clarity; they includes ALL POV warriors of ALL races, religions, group or creed) will use any method to push their POV. Just like terrorists they need to justify their crimes by claiming it is legitimate resistance against a superior force, they believe they can do what they want. Since the start of the year i've been called anti-american, anti-semitic, islamophobic, too right wing and too left wing when i have dared to disagree with a POV warrior,Bored Now!. (Hypnosadist) 02:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

later he claimed it that I made it up:

"One of the editors on this page called supporters of Israel "terrorists" and criminal."NO but keep pushing that LIE, it might eventually become a BIG LIE.

CAMERA was reviled and it was suggested that it was taken off the 'reliable source' list. Others added their comments on my talk page, exhorting me to have the proper wiki spirit etc and apologize, etc etc. They are there to read.

Then I get this on my talk page:

Per WP:ARBPIA you are banned for a year from all articles relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The length of this may be reduced if you show conclusively that you really understand the principle that Wikipedia is not a battleground. Please note that this topic-ban will be enforced by blocks if necessary. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 08:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

So my sin, then, is one of not understanding a certain principle which in fact I believe I understand quite well. I did not get to discuss it with anyone prior to being told I didn't understand it and being banned according. I reiterate: I am not here to do battle but to make sure that the Israeli side is fairly represented. There are Palestinians on wiki making sure that their side is fairly represented as well. Perhaps even some that are disruptive and push their POV, whether or not they are part of an email list for possible or would-be editors and administrators.

I say it is a witchhunt, sheer McCarthyism, Big Brother, guilt by association, collective punishment... That I have done nothing wrong and that I am being persecuted for my POV. I think the whole business of banning in these conflict areas ought to be looked at very closely. It becomes a weapon to be used by others who are --in fact-- using wiki as a battlefield. Juanita (talk) 06:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Response to Lawrence

Just looking at your first link from Electronic Intifada[106], and see that you have accepted their thesis which is:

A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.

That is a totally false spin to begin with. First of all, the originating letter from CAMERA said nothing about 'secret'-- It merely said not to forward to the media. Anyone who is a 'member' of CAMERA knows that it alerts members to issues and encourages letter writing and activism on issues that it feels are unfair. A typical alert brings up an unbalanced issue, presents the balance as CAMERA sees it and encourages letter writing. It invariably says not to copy and forward to the press, but to write one's own letter. Being asked not to forward something to the media is not proof of a "secret" long-term campaign. The word is negative spin, meant to imply something sinister.

Lawrence, you and others here seem to have accepted EI's contention that CAMERA's offer to help people learn to edit wiki is a matter of "infiltration" as opposed to a basic right that wiki offers to everyone-- except of course those who have abused that right through their actions on wiki. "Infiltration" is simply used along with "secret" to put a sinister spin on an innocent enterprise. Of course if you accept, as Electronic Intifada apparently does, that the purpose of the group was to "rewrite Palestinian history" and "pass off crude propaganda as fact," I can appreciate your concern. However, as a member of the group I saw nothing at all about rewriting Palestinian history, only about making sure that information on wiki was factual and fair. Have you got any real evidence at all that CAMERA's intent was to re-write Palestinian history or pass off crude propaganda as fact?

Finally on this: "...to take over Wikipedia administrative structures 'to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." Becoming administrators is not the same thing as "to take over administrative structures." The emails encouraged people to become administrators so as to ensure fairness. I got the impression from the group that there were a number of administrators on wiki that were of the pro-Palestinian 'persuasion' and that those on the Israeli side felt they were not getting a fair hearing. And in fact I am becoming convinced that there is probably (more than a little) truth to that allegation. At any rate, I am sure that it is virtually impossible to become an administrator or to stay one for long if one is re-writing history, passing off crude propaganda as fact etc. If it were so, it would indicate a serious flaw in the wiki philosophy and structure. It is more than clear that there are enough editors here sympathetic to the Palestinian cause that there is no chance at all that these changes would "go either undetected or unchallenged."

I hope I have demonstrated that this Electronic Intifada spin is just that, ie battleground spin, false propaganda in their own intifada against CAMERA. By accepting it at face value and banning me and other editors for our membership in it, you are merely pushing your own perspective and cleansing wiki of editors who 1)have done nothing wrong, and 2)who have a certain perspective antithetical to that of Electronic Intifada.

A couple of other points. If the intent of one or more individuals in the group was to undermine the original purpose of CAMERA, then I agree that those people should suffer consequences. One caveat -- one would need proof that the emails are valid as presented and have not been manipulated by EI. After all, there is no doubt that EI has an agenda and is not a neutral source. Juanita (talk) 13:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to punish people for "undermining the purpose of CAMERA"?? Very odd...Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess you misunderstand my point. CAMERA's intentions in relation to this email group were completely honorable as can be seen from their original email to members. If members of the group undermined the original intention of CAMERA via their emails by suggesting things such as getting other wiki members with differing points of views banned (as some have claimed is in the emails) , then punish the editors who wrote the offending emails if you know who they are. Is that clearer? Juanita (talk) 16:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

And the users who participated in such actions. Which is, as far as I can tell, exactly what is happening here. Any time you suggest creating "uninvolved admins" in order to intervene on your behalf, I think the word "banhammer" should apply. CAMERA apparently has a history of acting in a biased, pro-Israeli manner as far as I can tell from the Wiki article, and their behavior in this case should not come as a suprise to anyone. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

"and the users who participated in such actions." You have evidence of users from the Israpedia group who participated in an action to get other members with a different POV banned? That's news. On the other hand, I wonder whether the Wikipedians for Palestine have any voice in this current action ? We already know that Electronic Intifada does. Juanita (talk) 07:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

just a couple responses to Hypnosadist

By the time I reached the wikilobby page there was all sorts! of information on it. Frankly, enough to make my head spin. I should have read it all before I responded but I didn't. Frankly I still have not read the emails on the EI site as I have simply been too busy. In fact, I have company coming from the other side of the country this week and this may well be my last post here for a while. As I said earlier I don't read every email I receive and sometimes I don't read my group mail for days or even weeks. I "refreshed my memory" when I saw the original letter and remembered that that group was supposedly a CAMERA group.

You said: "except and unless they scan our private emails and determine guilt or innocence based on our leaked and private emails" So now its your real private emails, please make up your mind." I have acknowledged writing posts to this group, but not having read them on the EI site, I cannot say if they are real or not, though obviously they are not private any more!

You said: "(leave it out its a three letter name no-one buys your so unfamiliar with it you can't spell it) was proved to be Israguy." I would suggest that this sarcastic comment is in violation of the "assume good faith" part of wiki? You speak for everybody, btw?

You said: "First of all, the originating letter from CAMERA said nothing about 'secret'-- It merely said not to forward to the media" No see the quote above it says don't mention the group to other editors, that is Secret. The quote above is from EI, not CAMERA. What the CAMERA letter says is this: "Do not forward to other members of the media"

Finally you say: "...to take over Wikipedia administrative structures 'to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." This quote says it all." The trouble is that that quote comes from Electronic Intifada, not CAMERA or from the group emails. I really don't think that Electronic Intifada speaks for wiki. Juanita (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Reality Check

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wikiforpalestine/?v=1&t=search&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=group&slk=1 Juanita (talk) 15:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the editors who have banned Israpedia members are in violation of wiki's guidelines and can be considered 'harassing' Israpedia members including myself.

Posting of personal information defined as Harrassment:

Posting another person's personal information (legal name, date of birth, social security number, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media. This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor. It also applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives.

&

Publishing of Private correspondence defined as Harrassment:

There is no community consensus regarding the posting of private off-wiki correspondence. The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, which has no standing to create policy, once stated as an editing principle that "In the absence of permission from the author (including of any included prior correspondence) or their lapse into public domain, the contents of private correspondence, including e-mails, should not be posted on-wiki" and in a second principle that "Any uninvolved administrator may remove private correspondence that has been posted without the consent of any of the creators. Such material should instead be sent directly to the Committee." See related rejected proposals Wikipedia:Private correspondence, Wikipedia:Correspondence off-wiki and Wikipedia:Confidential evidence.

Juanita (talk) 17:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Any chance you could point to a diff that shows where your private correspondence and/or email address was posted on Wikipedia? cheers, Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

cheers to you. I have no idea what a 'diff' is.Juanita (talk) 21:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This was exactly the sort of scenario those of us who fought against WP:PRIVATE and in favor of WP:COFF envisioned, FWIW; a closer reading of the non-bolded portions of the above should make it clear there was never any consensus on posting so-called "private correspondence" one way or the other. Nice try though. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't make the claim that there was consensus. But it does say that there was a precedent re the Wiki Arb Com for an 'editing principle' that the contents of private correspondence should not be posted. Make of it what you will. Juanita (talk) 21:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Response to Dajudem by Hypnosadist

"Anyway, I initially forgot that the email went out at least appearing to come from CAMERA" Perhaps, but why did you not say so when you were reminded by me and others?

"Of course for all one knows it's possible that it was a fraud perpetrated by the Electronic Intifada on CAMERA stationary" So now its a fraud, you just admitted that you joined this group and were emailed from a camera.org web address. See this quote from the email

You will soon get via email an invitation to join a Google Group entitled Isra-pedia. Itis there that we'll discuss problematic Wikipedia pages, and how to improve them.

(page 3 of the second email page 4 of the pdf)

"except and unless they scan our private emails and determine guilt or innocence based on our leaked and private emails" So now its your real private emails, please make up your mind.

"Anyway, the call for an editing group at CAMERA went out very respectful of wiki" Not according to the emails, heres some quotes.

This encyclopedia is intended to be written and edited by individuals -not

by groups -- and that's what we'll do. At the same time, by having discussions within our group, we can learn about, discuss, and figure out how to overcome the challenges we each encounter as Wikipedia editors.

There is no reason to advertise the fact that we have these group discussions

(page 3 of the pdf)

We will go to war after we have build our army, equiped it, trained right now we do not have the needed number of people who have enough Wikipedia expiraince and deep knowledge of Wikipedia policies to use for articulating out oint from a "policy" precpetive. We also don't have any admins. admins can "close" a vote and declare a result. (Not as stright forward as it seems. I know alefty admin who wait until his bodies vote and close the vote soon after ) so please if you want to win this war help us build out army. let's not just rush in and achieve nothing or abit more than nothing.

(page 11 of the PDF)

"The subversive part had already been assumed by most editors on this wikilobby page and by the time I weighed in, they had already feathered and tarred Zeg, claiming he was Gilead or Israguy or someone at this list, and an evil being." No i read the evidence (the emails) from start to finish, then decided it was a subversive group. Also Zeg(sic) (leave it out its a three letter name no-one buys your so unfamiliar with it you can't spell it) was proved to be Israguy. For the information of the arbs Zeq is a shortend version of the name Issac, like Bob to Robert, people don't missspell Bob that often.

"First of all, the originating letter from CAMERA said nothing about 'secret'-- It merely said not to forward to the media" No see the quote above it says don't mention the group to other editors, that is Secret. See yet another quote and judge for yourself.

key is that being orgenized can be a big advantage but this advantage does not need to be seen as cordination.

(page 11 of the pdf)

"Infiltration" is simply used along with "secret" to put a sinister spin on an innocent enterprise" See the quotes about going to war etc.

"...to take over Wikipedia administrative structures 'to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." This quote says it all. Now its up to you Arbitrators to protect wikipedia. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 18:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sm8900

One thing needs to be noted here. It appears to me that there is and was no conspiracy here by CAMERA. If there were, would they have assembled it by sending a mass email to their members, asking for volunteers, instead of gathering a few of trusted activists to do this? This has all the hallmarks of the ideas and initiative of one person, to do a pet project which went mosntrously awry. So all this talk of a CAMERA conspiracy seems extremely skewed. By the way, additionally, if this were a conspiracy, it would not have begun with a single editor editing the CAMERA entry from a CAMERA IP address, as it did. it would have begun with a whole group immediately. so this to me seems like one volunteer's brainchild and project, which went hugely awry. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 12:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Note re Dajudem by uninvolved party Nagle

Note that Dajudem (talk · contribs) and Wikipedia signature "Juanita" are the same editor. This causes some confusion, especially when searching with search engines. --John Nagle (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Note by uninvolved party Titanium Dragon

I feel that the action of banning the people involved in this, particularly its perpetrator, was entirely justified. I have no issue with banning any member of CAMERA who was involved in such a campaign, just as I would advocate the banning of anyone who was involved in meatpuppetry, encouraging meatpuppetry, encouraging a group of users to become admins in order to damage the integrity and neutrality of Wikipedia, and similar things. The primary user involved in this refused to deny his involvement, he was later confirmed to be the same guy who authored the message attempting to recruit people to become "uninvolved admins" who really existed in order to perpetrate a pro-Israeli POV, and the only defense I've seen of these people is "But the pro-Palestinian people caught us!" It doesn't work that way; it doesn't matter WHO caught you breaking the rules. If you engage in such activities, regardless of who you are or who caught you, you should be summarily banned. This is a clear case of a fallacious ad hominem argument against their accusers.

This behavior is intolerable and I think the summary bans were very appropriate given the circumstances and the evidence. There was nothing unfair about it. I don't really know what exactly you guys are going to be resolving, here, though; it appears it has already been taken care of, and unless you are thinking about making it harder to do this in the future/finding more CAMERA meatpuppets (or the meatpuppets of other organizations) I'm not sure what you're looking at doing here. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by DGG

I would have no problem at all banning those active in such an off-wiki group. The statement that one intends editing from a strongly limited POV in order to establish NPOV is not something to be taken at face value. DGG (talk) 18:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by involved (but unlisted) party User:Eleland

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign

This matter has been investigated thoroughly, and, in my view, resolved. EI's selection of emails and appended commentary were accurate as to the intent of the campaign but misleading as to the extent. The Isra-Pedia folks were not very wiki-savvy and didn't accomplish much of anything. The offending users have been banned, blocked, or warned in proportion to their offenses. The curtain has come down, the drama is over, and we can leave the theatre now. <eleland/talkedits> 00:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party User:Avraham

First and foremost, Wikipedia's collaborative editing process requires, nay demands, openness and accountability. Off-line communication about wikipedia exists, and will continue to exist as long as any two people have the ability to communicate with one another, be it by voice, phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail, telex, telegram, ham radio, satphone, etc. However, there is a distinct difference between a communication that could have (and should have) been performed on wiki, and a calculated effort to manipulate the wikipedian process. The ultimately sad point about this debacle, in my opinion, is that I believe some of the editors responding to this call had their hearts in the right place, and wanted to work to build a more neutrally-based encyclopedia (as per WP:NPOV). However, the methodology selected was inappropriate. Furthermore, suggestions such as specifically targeting the RfA process to build a cadre of like-minded admins who would then inappropriately use the bit is completely and totally unacceptable.

While in my opinion it is highly likely that alternate, and opposite, minded groups perform the same activities, complete with off-wiki canvassing and private messageboards informing people about various RfA's or AfD's and how to opine, that in no way shape or form excuses the activities here.

I also believe that there has been some evidence of a lynch-mob-mentality here, and I believe that everyone involved in the process and procedure needs to take a step back, and separate the part of themselves that is interested in protecting the transparency of the project as best possible vs. the part of them that may be engaged in schadenfreude. -- Avi (talk) 06:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Relata Refero

I hope that the Committee is aware of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign. I strongly urge those members of ArbCom who have already expressed a desire to hear this case to consider what the utility of going into this again would be given the actions that have already been taken. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I have not much to offer to the proceedings, as I don't have access to the mail list evidence (and should not as a non-admin), but the actions and proceedings already under way need probably an official endorsement or the opposite given the scale, scope, and nature. Even if it's a fast open-shut case, this will provide tools and guidance for the community when the next group like this is found. This won't be the last time. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 15:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer to suppose that ArbCom will only be required to sanction it if it is first challenged by anyone, which does not appear to be the case.

I confess that the prospect of another ArbCom case with a convoluted and snappy workshop page ending in trite pleasantries all round leaves me cold. It is time that ArbCom realises that the negative act of not dealing sanctions out to those disruptive editors they are supposedly examining as has the positive effect of emboldening them; but since they as a body seem to still be some distance from that realisation, I would prefer that they stay out of it, as another quick in-out case in a contested area is unlikely to improve matters. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Dajudem has been loudly challenging this all over, as have other editors. The Arbs, in taking this on, need to do what they were elected to do, which is dealing with hard and difficult matters decisively. If they don't, and pass the buck here as have happened on other recent extremely difficult cases, I'd say it's no-confidence time. We need clear, up-and-down resolution (i.e., the arbs weigh in with a Proposed Decision that has balls), not milquetoast. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 15:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/2/0/0)

• Reject. No diffs, no case. Arbitration is led by evidence of onsite bad editing behaviour, not perceived "threats". Be assured that with diffs, we would not be slow to act. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • To clarify: a fresh case is, in my view, not required to review the application of existing sanctions; and is not required simply to evaluate off-wiki material. Everyone should appreciate the need for calm application of basic standards on Wikipedia. Those who rush to "assume bad faith" put themselves in a false position. The ArbCom may end up looking at the situation, and this should be a factor in the thinking of anyone inclined to act precipitately. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. After listening to the reasons give by other arbitrators (on the mailing list) about why the Committee should accept the case, I'm going to vote to open a public case. Parts of the case may need non-public discussion, and parts of the situation will be handed back to the Community, but I think the Committee getting involved now will bring final closure to the situation sooner and get a better outcome for all involved parties. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept to look at all aspects of conduct. Adding a request to the clerks to remove from the evidence page any arguments about Israel/Palestine which are not directly relevant to Wikipedia editing; I hope this will not be necessary. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept, and second Sam's request. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept per Flo. --bainer (talk) 10:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Reject as per the closure of the recent case and its remedies which are still valid. There are enough administrators dealing with this issue and it seems that there are no major disagreements between them. I would advice all people dealing with this issue to remain calm and act normally as we usually do when dealing with meat-puppetry cases. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 06:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
• Accept to consider the behavior of everyone involved in this affair. Kirill ^(P) 00:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

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Clarifications and other requests

For clarifications and motions in prior cases, including appeals on enforcement, please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Clarifications and motions.