User:Volunteer Marek/Sandstein


 * User:Sandstein made an accusation of anti-semitism against User:GizzyCatBella here in a WP:AE request filed by User:Icewhiz, and proposed a "long block or topic ban" as a consequence.

The justification for this accusation was based on the following:

1. GizzyCatBella restored an older, stable, version of the article here. This is NOT "GizzyCatBella's version" but rather a version that existed for six years, with most of the text inserted by some user long gone from Wikipedia.

2. In that version the text "Ethnic Polish families were being rounded up by newly formed Jewish militia" appears. Sandstein comments: " Icewhiz appears to be correct that Rossino, the source cited by GizzyCatBella (however reliable it may be - a web archive of a blog copy of a copyvio?) does not appear to mention anything of the sort"
 * The Rossino source does indeed discuss the issue, contra Sandstein and Icewhiz:
 * "Musiał found that in many cases Jewish militia members directly participated in mass arrests and deportation actions. "
 * "Dov Levin has similarly concluded "the labeling of the Soviet administration as a 'Jewish regime' became widespread when Jewish militiamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles into exile.""
 * "in isolated cases of Jews in militia uniform assisting the NKVD"
 * "Yitzhak Arad, for one, writes of extensive arrests by the NKVD in his hometown of Swieciany: "although there were also thousands of Jews among the exiles [who were arrested], Jews played a relatively large role in the Communist Party apparatus that was behind the action.""
 * "Jan Gross himself wrote in 1983 that "Jewish collaboration" with the Soviet authorities was behind the sudden upsurge of anti-Semitism among the non-Jewish population in eastern Poland."
 * Musial is a Polish historian, Levin and Arad are Israeli. Rossino is a research historian at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. While the link is to a blogspot page, the actual source is a journal article as can be easily seen at the top of the page (see also ) While one can quibble about details here it is obviously not true that this info "does not appear to mention anything of the sort". Rather, Sandstein failed to actually read the source.
 * It's true that the specific town - Stawiski - is not mentioned in this context. However, the author is discussing "small towns west of Bialystok". This includes Stawiski and anyone familiar with the topic and geography would immediately be aware of this.

3. Worse for Sandstein, GizzyCatBella herself actually removes this text, just a few edits (minutes) later. In the same edit she adds information about a pogrom perpetrated by Poles. Is this the "anti-semitic propagnda" Sandstein is referring to???
 * Sandstein appears to have missed this subsequent removal. This appears to be because Icewhiz dishonestly only presented the initial restoration of a stable version of the article and not the subsequent edits. A quick look at the article's edit history would've made obvious that GizzyCatBella removed the passage herself. Sandstein appears to have failed to even look at the edit history of the article

4. Sandstein accuses GizzyCatBella of "remov(ing) an apparently reliably sourced mention of an anti-Jewish pogrom in WWII Poland"
 * While the initial restoration of the stable version from August 2017 did remove this pogrom, GizzyCatBella restored the information to the article herself just minutes later.

5. User:Ealdgyth brought up the sentence in the article " the local administration was abolished by the Soviet NKVD and replaced with Jewish communists" which is indeed problematic.
 * But this too was fixed by GizzyCatBella here with the exact same rationale used by Ealdgyth!

Summyary: What actually happened here is that GizzyCatBella objected to some edits by Icewhiz. She then restored an older stable version from August 2017 (a version that has been in place for approximately six years), and then proceeded to work on it. The August 2017 version did have some problems (as noted by User:Ealdgyth). But GizzyCatBella fixed some of the worst ones - as noted above - and was working on the others when Icewhiz rushed to file the WP:AE report. When he filed his WP:AE report, Icewhiz presented the diff in which GizzyCatBella restored the stable version but did not disclose that most of the objectionable material was removed in follow up edits soon after (he did mention in plain text - unlike in bold which is what most of the rest of his AE report consists of - that "User made some additional edits after this"). Sandstein (and another admin) fell for this trick and took him at face value. While it's understandable that an admin forms a "quick impression" based on faulty evidence and then takes the time to carefully examine it later, it is NOT OK for an admin to accuse someone of anti-semitism just because they haven't bothered to actually verify the diffs. This is conduct unbecoming and is a grounds for desysoping, if left uncorrected.

6. Sandstein has repeatedly refused to strike the accusation and has asserted his right to make these kinds of attacks on editors "in his capacity as an administrator". From my reading of his comments it appears that Sandstein is confusing "as an administrator I have the right to sanction users" with "as an administrator I have the right to cast WP:ASPERSIONS against users". The fact that Sandstein has self-selected himself as an enforcer at WP:AE does not exempt him from the rules he enforces against others.

7.

As far as Icewhiz goes, he filed a spurious WP:AE request and misrepresented the evidence, by failing to note that GizzyCatBella made additional follow up edits after her initial restoration of an older version. What makes his behavior even worse though is that he clearly knew GizzyCatBella was still working on the article, that she had fixed many of the issues herself and was planning on continuing to work on it.
 * Here GizzyCatBella tells Icewhiz that she is going through the sources and checking them and to give her "hour/day" to work on it
 * Here Icewhiz demands an immediate self revert and threatens to go to AE. The time stamp on this threat is 10:08. In subsequent 20 or so edits GizzyCatBella restored most of the material from Icewhiz's preferred version, effectively self reverting. He ran to AE anyway.
 * Here GizzyCatBella asks Icewhiz "will you please let me work on it?" She also says " I started already and I would really welcome your input and help. Can you work with me to improve the article please? ". This request for input and help went unheeded and instead Icewhiz went to file his dishonest WP:AE request
 * It's obvious from the above exchange and from Icewhiz's actions that he wasn't actually interest in improving the article, and even when GizzyCatBella did most of what he wanted, he filed an WP:AE anyway. This shows that Icewhiz's primary motivation was WP:BATTLEGROUND attempt to get a user that he has had disagreements with sanctioned. Gizzy asked for help and input. He could've offered it. Instead he made threats, demands and then went block shopping.