User:Cinteotl/scratchpad

Discretionary sanctions at Historicity of Jesus
Initiated by  Fearofreprisal (talk) at 09:46, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Involved parties

 * , filing party


 * Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


 * Diff user 1
 * Diff user 2
 * Diff user 3
 * Diff user 4
 * Diff user 5
 * Diff user 6
 * Diff user 7
 * Diff user 8
 * Diff user 9


 * Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

This is a long-term user conduct issue, involving a large number of users editing a controversial article. Dispute resolution attempts addressing individuals are ineffective.

Statement by Fearofreprisal
I started editing the Historicity of Jesus article not because I had a strong viewpoint on the subject, but rather because the article was so screwed up and contentious, I was curious if it could be fixed. My curiosity got me topic-banned. . (This is not an appeal of that topic-ban.)

The term historicity refers to the quality of historical actuality (or “facticity”) of persons or events in the past. It has only to do with “what actually happened back then.” The Historicity of Jesus is about history, not theology.

Because the title of the article includes the word “Jesus,” it attracts editors who have a strong interest in Christian themed articles. For lack of a less polarizing term: Christian apologists. These people tend to be journeymen editors, who know how things work around here, and they've been very successful at injecting theology into the article.

This is a link to a table that shows the top 10 editors, based on their number of talk page posts (as of October 10. Only recently active editors are included.)

There are a few interesting things to note in this table: The table demonstrates something that is obvious to anyone who reads the talk page: the article is dominated by a group of persistent, outspoken, and experienced editors who represent a single ideologically-based viewpoint.
 * 9 our of 10 of these editors (in other words, all of them except me) appear to be Christian apologists.
 * 4 of these editors have made few, if any, meaningful contributions to the articles. Their involvement has been limited to reverting article edits, and writing walls of text in the talk page (much of which attacks those who hold differing viewpoints from theirs.)
 * Another 2 of these editors have made some contributions, but have still spent about half of their edits in reverts.
 * The editor responsible for most of the recent changes to the article ultimately tried to kill it by blanking almost all of the content, and pointing readers to Christian articles on Jesus (the resulting shit-storm is what lead to my being topic-banned.)

Because of the majority position they hold, and their experience with WP policies and guidelines, these editors often push the bounds of WP policy and guidelines.

As a practical matter, this situation can't be changed. While the article's topic is a matter of history, it also happens to be the foundation of Christianity. It's natural that it attracts the editors it does. And it's natural that those editors use their experience and knowledge to support their strongly-held point of view. It has been this way for the 11 years the article has existed, and no amount of RfC, DRN, RfM, ANI, bans, or blocks are going to change it.

For this article to have any possibility of being fixed, its chronic POV imbalance must be managed for the long term. The only tool you have that can possibly do that is discretionary sanctions.

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Discretionary sanctions at Historicity of Jesus: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/0>
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)