Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive218

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

Request concerning Playalake

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 14:20, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture:


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


 * 1) 15:00, 4 January 2017 1st edit here; a talk page comment: he Change.org petition lists the many problems with this article. I come here and see you editors locking discussion about it. Now NICE is being accused of being problematic. NICE is made of scientists who the NHS takes recommendations from. If you editors want to be on the opposite side of scientific officials, and pretend to have a scientifically backed article, shame on you..
 * 2) 4 January 2017 opening 2nd thread after first one was closed. You editors prefer to censor questions than answer them. I won't bring up other websites, but my questions remain unanswered. How did Wikipedia cover NICE before they updated? And why is everyone here quick to update based on NICE, but not care to update many Cochrane Reviews?
 * 3) 4 January 2017 Response on their talk page, when I tried to explain what article Talk pages are for: You locked my questions then you deleted them. Everything I saw on the Change.org petition is correct. Not only do Wikipedia editors censor studies beneficial to acupuncture, you also censor discussion on talk pages. You tell me to add what I believe is correct to the article but there is no edit button for me to make changes. This is obvious. Only select editors like you with an obvious censorship problem edit the article, nobody else is allowed to edit. Shame.
 * 4) 6 January 2017 Thank you for this. These editors are very bad and you give good advice. I will set up my email..  This was Playalake's response to LesVegas' terrible initial welcome message (diff).
 * 5) 14 July 2017 Reverting an edit, with edit note: why does Wikipedia remove all positive statements on acupuncture? This is exactly what change.org accuses you of. Now you do it? Unbelievable
 * 6) 15 July 2017 reverting, with edit note RACIST EDITS! On talk page admits it's being removed because Wikipedia says if authors are Taiwanese then they are not following scientific proofs! RACISM!
 * Oh for pete's sake. Jytdog (talk) 23:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above and diff. 18 January 2017


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Account is pure SPA. From their 1st edit here, this person made it clear that they had no interest in editing Wikipedia per the policies and guidelines, but came here to WP:RGW driven by a petition at change.org. They have never attempted to understand WP nor the policies and guidelines, and they are now just all-caps yelling personal attacks.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :


 * notice provided.

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

Statement by Playalake
All positive statements about acupuncture are removed from Wikipedia and only insults remain. They remove everything! Studies from great journals are deleted because they say the authors of those studies are Taiwanese! So any Asians are problems for Wikipedia? Asian scientists are incapable of proper science? I am Asian American and Wikipedia now wants me to be internment it seems! That is how you deal with all of us, by deleting all of us from your encyclopedia. I am offended by your policies and will fight to expose this. I found the unjust article from change.org where it is shown that Wikipedia doesn't follow its own policies because they want to hurt acupuncture. We will create many more petitions now!

Result concerning Playalake

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


 * A glance at Playalake's contributions show that they are a WP:GREATWRONGS WP:SPA here only to promote their point of view, and in a highly confrontative manner. Without admin objections, I intend to block them indefinitely per WP:NOTHERE as a normal admin action, which probably obviates the need for AE sanctions.  Sandstein   14:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree with an indef block. The editor is practically waving a flag with WP:NOTHERE on it. EdJohnston (talk) 16:11, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I was just about to either block or topic ban this account the other day after I saw the edits made yesterday to this article and talk 1, 2, 3. This disruption wouldn't be tolerated on any article let alone an article under AC/DS... I agree that an indefinite block is justified here.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   19:05, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * . We have had more problems with Acupuncture as of late, and this SPA is raising some serious red flags.  Otherwise, I agree with with Sandstein's solution, but I think a Checkuser should at least look at this and decide if the CU tools would be beneficial and justified here.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 18:19, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, Playalake is now indeffed. Waiting for checkuser response before closing this.  Sandstein   19:06, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming I'm checking Playalake, not comparing the user to any other user/account. If I'm wrong, someone please ping me and let me know. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Playalake is ✅ to . Blocked and tagged.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Debresser

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 23:43, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles :

tl, dr: Debresser calls me (and Nishidani) anti-Jewish, i.e., racist. He does not retract this, even when asked multiple times.


 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * 1) 21:47, 12 July 2017 I suggest naming a period Hellenistic period
 * 2) 21:52, 12 July 2017 Nishidani agrees
 * 3) 16:26, 13 July 2017 Debresser writes:  "I would have no problem with that suggestion, but only if there would be some more input from editors who are not necessarily in the anti-Jewish camp."
 * 4) 16:35, 13 July 2017 Nishidani writes: "I'd appreciate you striking out your remark above about 'editors who are not necessarily in the anti-Jewish camp.' Contextually this says the two other editors here discussing this issue are in an 'anti-Jewish camp', i.e. their contributions are being read as motivated by anti-Semitic hostilities."
 * 5) 16:42, 13 July 2017 Debresser strikes: who are not necessarily in the anti-Jewish camp
 * 6) 16:13, 14 July 2017 Debresser restores: "but only if there would be some more input from editors who are not necessarily in the anti-Jewish/Israeli camp."


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 3 April 2017 last block


 * Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 18:14, 13 June 2017.

After 16:13, 14 July 2017 Debresser has had several requests to strike the anti-Jewish comment. He has not done so. I consider this extremely insulting, in my country to call someone anti-Jewish  is basically saying that they are racist. I ask that Debresser either
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * 1. show how I am anti-Jewish, or
 * 2. strike the comment and apologise, Huldra (talk) 23:43, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

User:GoldenRing: Your statement: "anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli are regularly conflated by both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute,"  (My bolding) is simply not correct. Only one side conflates, or try to conflate, "anti-Jewish" with "anti-Israeli" and/or "anti-Zionist". Huldra (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Debresser: You have no reason to blame this AE report on Nishidani, Nishidani actually advised me to "sleep on these things overnight and reconsider"  when I said I would bring this to AE if you didn't retract your words. I thought you has been given plenty of chances already, therefor this report. Huldra (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

User:No More Mr Nice Guy: Whaw, finding a 3 year old edit from me, proving ...what exactly? The sources given were  Source 1, Source 2 People can check for themselves if they think I did a good summary, or not,  Huldra (talk) 21:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :
 * Noted

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

Statement by Debresser
Nishidani is only back from his latest month-long ban since July 12, although he had promised to retire,I'll retire from Wikipedia.Waiting for it to be archived so I can put in a permalink, and then goodbye and already he has managed to escalate what has been a very quiet WP:ARBPIA area for the last month. I will not hide that I am less than thrilled about his return, and for good reason. That, however, is not a crime, and should not be held against me. This post is likely some kind of payback for that ban.

Regarding Huldra. She can hardly be said to have clean hands herself, see this WP:ANI thread, where she was shown to hide POV edits behind the innocent "ce" edit summary. If that is bad editing in general, in the WP:ARBPIA area this is reason for sanctions. Please also see User_talk:Black_Kite, where Black Kite mentions that this is indeed a WP:AE issue. Per WP:BOOMERANG, Huldra should be sanctioned for making such misleading and POV edits in the WP:ARBPIA area, and then having the gall to report me.

What it is I am being accused of precisely? I saw 6 edit summaries above, of which the first is Huldra's, and another two are Nishidani's. By the way, I already stated more than once on the talkpage, that I have no problem with Huldra's proposal.

All I said which seems to have struck the wrong note with Huldra, is that the agreement of only a few editors is too feeble, and that I would like some outside input. Seeing the same group of editors time and time again, and noticing that they always agree with each other, makes one suspicious of team work, and so I felt that asking for outside input was the right thing to do. Surely that is reasonable. Regarding team work, please notice this, and see also the comment of another editor here, so I think some suspicion is not out of order, and asking for outside input is always a good idea. Debresser (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Additional comments by Debresser
Based on Huldra's "additional comments", I now see that she has taken offense to the fact that I asked for input from editors who are not "anti-Jewish/Israeli". Contrary to what she claims, I did not call her "racist" or "anti-Semite". All I did was notice, that her stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is such which shows her to be on the Palestine side of these political matters. As a matter of fact, I have not mentioned any editor by name, and she has decided herself that the shoe fits.

As a matter of fact, I had first written "anti-Jewish", and when Nisdani asked me to strike that, I did so, precisely because I meant the political side of things and "anti-Jewish" has another connotation than the one I had in mind. When I later had time for further consideration, I added "/Israeli", to clarify that I meant the political issue only. I am surprised that Huldra has ignored that clarification of mine, and is using the old version as an excuse to open this WP:AE post. I think that my subsequent commentaries on the talkpage in that section make it sufficiently clear that I had only the political issue in mind, nothing more. Whether Huldra has misread om good faith, is anybody's guess, although I think that in view of the WP:ANI thread just a few days ago in which I showed her to be hiding POV edits under misleading edit summaries, there is place for doubt in this regard. All cries here and elsewhere as though I called somebody anti-Semitic, are baseless and obvious attempts by the usual editors at discrediting me. Debresser (talk) 01:23, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Sandstein I struck out "anti-Jewish, as soon as Nishidani pointed out to me the problem with that term. How many more times do I have to say that? I changed it to "anti-Jewish/Israeli", because in the framework of the political situation in the Israel-Palestine area, the problem is between the Jewish Israelis and the Arab Palestinians. In other words, I made it unequivocally clear that I was referring to the political issue only. See also admin GoldenRing's comment to your post. Debresser (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Nishidani I never "followed" you to Shuafat. That article is on my watchlist since May 2016. Please do not demonize the enemy. Debresser (talk) 14:30, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@All Regarding my edit with the edit summary "The source does not say "no longer", just states a different opinion." All editors who are crying to high heavens how this was a mistake, conveniently ignore that I was the first to acknowledge the mistake in my following edit: More true. So let's simply ignore all those who raise that issue (like Nishidani and Johnuniq). Debresser (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Seraphim System
this basically amounts to "I would have no problem with that but I can only reach consensus with people who are pro-Jewish"—after that stunning admission, I think a significant TBAN would be appropriate, as it pretty clearly indicates an unwillingness to collaborate with editors who he perceives have a different POV from his own, the only "acceptable" POV. I would at least want to see a statement from the editor acknowledging that the he understands why this is a problem, and a commitment to sincerely engage the consensus process with all editors and not canvas for editors with a particular POV. (Posting to Wikiprojects seeking expertise is OK, but I don't think posting to Wikiprojects looking for editors with a particular POV is ok.) Seraphim System  ( talk ) 01:54, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

asked me to strike the above statement and I agreed. I should not have used quotes as this can easily be misinterpreted by those quickly scanning the page (even though I qualified it with "this basically amounts to"). However, I disagree that this casts the evidence in the worst possibly light. In my opinion, the language I used was more favorable then the language used by the editor ("anti-jewish") and I used quotations only as a convenience to summarize my understanding of the evidence - but the best thing would be to let the editors words speak for themselves.

It would have been better to say that my understanding of the evidence taken as a whole is that Debresser's approach to this was not conducive to collaborative editing. I also very much do not think that striking out anti-Jewish and replacing it with anti-Jewish/Israeli was helpful, since the content dispute is about what language to adopt for a periodization question, adding anti-Israeli here could be interpreted as an escalation. I don't believe the editor was unaware of how this was received, because this was the response when it was brought to his attention: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Shuafat&diff=790724768&oldid=790603758]. I don't really find the explanation that "POV considerations" are excluded from WP:NPA acceptable. I will add that these disputes should be resolved based on current academic sources, and not religious "truth" or religious literary traditions.

I would note that AGF runs both ways. As Debresser notes here [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Shuafat&diff=790415504&oldid=790415309] Hellenistic Period covers a shorter period, and allows for more precision, and it is also used more by academic sources. This comment POV attempts of editors to remove all mention of things Jewish from articles as much as possible escalated to an out right personal attack ("anti-jewish") for editors who are trying to introduce academic precision and update articles to reflect current scholarship. I disagree with characterizations that this is a "minor" issue. There are significant advantages to being as precise about dating as we can be [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Shuafat&diff=790417576&oldid=790417506]. Representing a religious/nationalist POV is not a factor that should be given equal weight in these discussions, and to accuse those who disagree of being anti-Jewish/Israeli is way over the line. It would not be tolerated in any other topic area (including Turkish history, Ottoman history, Chinese history, American history...) To me, this incident is part of a pattern that is not conducive to improving the encyclopedia based on academic sources, that accurately summarize the available, current scholarship for readers, students, professors and others who make use of this encyclopedia. It certainly does not help to assume that editors trying to make this improvements are motivated by nefarious intentions. Seraphim System ( talk ) 22:49, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I think this is an important point so I want to respond to it. I reviewed both of the sources used in her copyedit. The NY Times source says ritual baths were found in private dwellings, but it does not identify a source for this statement. More importantly, it contradicts the Haaretz source, which identifies the director of the dig (Debbi Sklar-Parnas) as the source for the statement that no ritual baths were found. This pretty clearly shows the problems that arise when non-academic sources are cherry-picked for statements that do no clearly identify a source. I would also note that this "The main indication that the settlement was a Jewish one is the assemblage of stone vessels found there. Such vessels, for food storage and serving, were only used by Jews because they were believed not to transmit impurity. Archaeologists believe stone basins discovered at the site were used to hold ashes from the destroyed Temple" is a direct copy/paste from the article, and Huldra was correct to remove it (and she should have removed the entire thing, not only that one sentence.)  Seraphim System  ( talk ) 01:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what those edits are supposed to show, other then an unwillingness to respond productively to an issue that you raised about another editor. It seems WP:BATTLEGROUND to dig up ancient edits which are not even peripherally related to what is being discussed here. What exactly are edits adding Sabra and Shatila to the lede of Ariel Sharon, or a long list of references in a discussion about eunuch slave trade on the Harem article supposed to show? The slave trade was kept in the article by Eperoton after I stopped working on the article, btw. I suppose you think it's somehow significant that I added a quote about Zionism from Mein Kampf to an article about Zionism. I didn't really fight over this quote, but when I added it, I didn't even know what WP:OR was, El_C told me, and it was removed for WP:OR not for any nefarious reason that your post strongly implies (and somehow connecting it to a post about Sabra and Shatilla, which the MacBride Commission said was genocide, makes it difficult to extract anything of significance from the random diffs you just posted)- I'm still not 100% sure it is OR - I think inferences can be drawn from it without secondary source analysis, but I didn't really go looking for secondary sources to try to add it back in, and it still isn't very high on my to do list. I still think the claim that Eichmann was a "major organiser" of the Holocaust needs a citation, and I have since found citations for this in law review articles. This seems like an obvious point, but sometimes we don't remember that it was disputed at the time. Eichmann, compared to others who were punished much more lightly then he was, does not really stand out - especially as some of those people (there were many) were found guilty of directly committing significant atrocities, but were punished very leniently. Hannah Arendt goes through a lot of them, and instead of bludgeoning others will ill-informed accusations, I would suggest reading her work carefully and making up your own mind. But these discussions would be more suitable for article talk pages (that is, if they weren't ancient and stale) Seraphim System  ( talk ) 02:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Another note about the Eichmann article, I made exactly two adds: The first was to make sure that Rafi Eitan's own recent public comments about Mengele/Eichmann were represented in the section about Eichmann's capture, and the second was to add the following quote from Arendt: "this case was built on what the Jews had suffered, not on what Eichmann had done." When I added the citation needed tag, I was still completely new and did not really know about FA criteria. I was satisfied with resolving this by adding the quote from Arendt, because I think her view is significant enough that it should be (briefly) represented in the article. So, again, I don't really appreciate the sarcastic comment about WP:RS, I think my edits did improve the articles I was working on. Maybe we can get back on track with the current discussion now? Seraphim System  ( talk ) 03:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I think the idea of an Aspersions restriction is not a bad one, as so many discussions in this area do seem to focus more on the alleged POV of an editor, then the content of the edits or WP:RS. But there are a few problems - how would it be enforced? Tying it to allegations of Nationality would not seem to address the particular problems in this area where so many of the aspersions are worded as "anti-Jewish" or "anti-Zionist" or "anti-Israel" — I'm not sure if this is different from the Pakistan/India area, but in ARBPIA we don't really see aspersions about actual nationality as often as we see aspersions about alleged political or ideological POV (anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel) — calling someone "anti-Jewish/Israeli" is not a statement about their nationality. This would really have to be specific to the problems in this area, which may not be identical to problems in other area ("Indian nationalist POV" etc.) It would be like, if one side were saying "You are an Indian nationalist" and the other was saying "You are anti-Indian nationalist" — if this proposal isn't worded precisely, it would go from being potentially beneficial to an absolute disaster that could exacerbate systemic bias in the area over a semantics issue - for example most Wikipedia editors are male, most are from Christian-majority countries, most are English speakers - so a Muslim woman's POV, for example, would be a net benefit to Wikipedia, because this group is severely underrepresented. In the India/Pakistan section, our own figures show participation is quite healthy due to the English language education in those countries. But this is not the case most Muslim majority countries, so we have to consider that those who are trying to improve content related to Palestine are usually engaged in a good faith effort to balance the encyclopedia. I would recommend broader discussion about the specifics before something like this is implemented, and not simply leaving the implementation open to interpretation. Seraphim System ( talk ) 04:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Power~enwiki
Regarding the specific content dispute: I'm not sure that this neighborhood should be portrayed as having an independent history from East Jerusalem. Regarding the editors involved; they might all need a topic-ban based on the continuing hostility at Talk:Shuafat. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I note a recent AN/I thread involving these editors that had no action. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

User:No More Mr Nice Guy has taken offense to my reversion of one of his edits here that was clearly in violation of Arbitration rules and had already been reverted once. Power~enwiki (talk) 03:22, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Nableezy
That a user takes a request to strike a baseless personal attack, that one is antisemitic (and yes Debresser that is generally taken as a synonym of anti-Jewish) to continue with another personal attack that they are anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, is somewhat bizarre. That this very user has repeatedly complained about personal attacks and civility, including recently at this very board, in which he said of Nishidani that he has a habit of putting down his fellow editors, making denigrating comments about them, makes that a rather blatant example of cognitive dissonance. Debresser repeatedly denigrates other editors, and he routinely fails to abide by the basic principle of WP:NPA that one comments on content, not on the contributors, and he does this on talk pages and it disrupts good faith editing. Debresser has requested others be banned for much less blatant personal attacks than calling one an antisemite, what's good for the goose ...  nableezy  - 04:18, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Nishidani

 * I have come back after a month’s suspension to edit the I/P area after this judgement, brought by Debresser. While surprised by that judgement, as is my rule, I did not contest it. On returning I undertook to strictly conform to the rules I was judged to have violated.


 * Stating I intended to resume work here immediately generated a comment by Debresser, itself innocuous.noting my return as though it were newsworthy, he then added that I had failed to live up to my word not to return. This elicited a sneering comment by the editor he linked to. That is the background.


 * (1) I started to work on the article on Shuafat. Debresser immediately took my presence there as evidence I was angling to clash with him. Apart from the needless WP:AGF violation imputing to me that I was seeking a pretext to attack him, the assertion is demonstrably counterfactual. Since 2008, I have edited the Shuafat  page 23 times  whereas Debresser  has made just 6  edits since May 2016. Likewise  I have made 67 edits to the talk page  (42.14% of the total) and Debresser only appeared there after I  advanced a proposal.  If one must make an inference it would be that, upset by my return, Debresser followed me to that page and sought a confrontation, accusing me of seeking one. He repeats this in his first reply above, accusing me of doing what I think he did, 'escalating' things. Indeed.


 * I made a single edit, introducing the most recent scholarly source I could find to clarify an issue and Debresser immediately rewrote my wording, in a way that was openly provocative. I can take any amount of niggling, but I am extremely impatient with source falsification. His edit  summary falsified the facts, since it denied the source used the words ‘no longer’. The source uses those words twice. Falsifying a source is a very  serious thing, or used to be considered so. Interfering with my first edit on blatantly false grounds looks provocative.  I raised the issue of source falsification on the talk page,  asking D for an explanation.


 * Debresser answered with a personal attack accusing me of engaging in WP:DRAMA, and he ignored clarifying the point and simply told me to to shut up (‘be quiet for a while!.’.


 * (2)I went to the Archaeology of Israel page. There was an old problem there. 2 editors, myself and User:Poliocretes were in favour of mentioning a third of the artifacts dug up in that field annually are Christian. Debresser alone has reverted all efforts to add the item. To resolve this old problem, I set up an RfC for external comment. I noted – it is verifiable on the talk page – that despite 2 editors being in favour and only Debresser opposed – he kept reverting it off  the page. Hence my request for  external imput. Debresser’s reaction was to personalize this,also here andhere by citing a statement regarding the edit on this by User:GoldenRing at AE which earned me a suspension, as if that remark evened opinion to 2/2. I put  up an RfC to resolve a conflict, and Debresser kept on referring to that AE suspension, as if it invalidated my proposal, and the RfC.


 * (3) Soon after, as I tried to keep the argument focused, Debresser expressed diffidence about my whole outlook as an editor by insinuating I and the other editor were anti-semitic. That is one strong implication of referring to an 'anti-Jewish camp' on that page. It cannot refer to anyone else.


 * This was duly retractedat my request, signifying D realized it was inappropriate. A day later however, disconcertingly, he retracted his retraction here andfinissed it with a variation adding anti-Israeli as a further innuendo. For the record the article on Antisemitism uses the word ‘anti-Jewish’ as synonymous with anti-semitic.


 * I asked the editor to strike out the offensive smear again. I also held off from Friday to late Saturday from raising this issue in consideration of the Sabbath, intervened to ask Huldra to give Debresser more time, and requested an indisputably neutral and level-headed I/P hand, Kingsindian to put in a word with Debresser to erase the offensive remark. Unfortunately, as I discovered this morning, it was too late.


 * To sum up, Debresser, challenging my return, followed me to Shuafat and falsified the source I used while messing up the text and (2) started baiting me about my putative 'anti-Jewish' attitude, admitted it should be retracted, then reinserted the offending words, and added 'anti-israel' as well, and refused to budge on the issue when asked to cancel the offensive language. It is, in both cases I believe, evidence of the WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT approach identified by Lord Roem a year ago. Nishidani (talk) 09:52, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 'anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli are regularly conflated by both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute.
 * @GoldenRing.This is wildly inaccurate. You are saying those who are critical of Israel's policies regarding Palestinians confuse 'anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, and anti-israeli'. That is not their language at all. To the contrary serious critics are pertinaciously exact in distinguishing Jews, Zionism, and Israel, whereas their opponents conflate them.
 * I'd like some explanation as to why being defamed as hostile to Jews and to Israel is a piffling offense. Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @Sandstein. I have difficulty in seeing how a denial a given source has two words, when anyone clicking on the page can see that the source repeats those two words twice, is a content dispute. Debresser can dispute the content of the article. Disputing the known, independently verifiably content of the source page is not a content dispute. It is falsifying the evidence. In the old days, editors were banned at sight for doing that.Nishidani (talk) 12:50, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Icewhiz. Please focus. The material you cited confirms that conflating 'anti Jewish', 'Anti-Zionist' and 'anti-Israel' is what one side, pro-Israeli, does. GoldenRing was making a different claim, that both sides do this. As all close readers of the topic know, this is not correct. It is a highly political and rhetorical stratagem to conflate criticism of Israeli policies (not Israel) with being anti-Jewish and/or anti-Israeli and/or even anti-Zionist (I can name off the cuff many Jewish Zionists who are critical of those policies. Please don't add to the initial confusion.Nishidani (talk) 14:29, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * NMMGG. Your ideas about anti-Zionism don't jell with the evidence at Anti-Zionism or better still  Timeline of anti-Zionism. It has a long and very intricate history within modern Jewish thought, and violently  'dismantling' Israel has nothing to do with its maincurrents. Just to clarify since there's a lot of confusion around here on terminology.Nishidani (talk) 19:58, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As to a bunch of editors trying to disconnect 'ancient Jewish heritage from today's Jews', don't blame editors for trying to keep Wikipedia updated on contemporary scholarship, in Israel or elsewhere, by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars. No one I know here who might be put in that dock cites anything but the technical literature, which, unfortunately is generally ignored in the public sphere, and therefore, to those unfamiliar with, can seem disconcerting.Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * NMMGG. Since you apparently (a) have dozens of examples of how a 'group' of editors secretly remove and meddle with texts (suddenly this secret is revealed) (b) and you anticipate that your interpretation of what I might say regarding any one example will take it as mere 'spin', it is pointless answering, except in these terms: if you look at the last thousand edits of any of that 'group', you will find an extremely high percentage of the edits are reffed and linked to academic publications. If you look at what other editors -the revert and tweak school- are doing, this use of high RS plummets. But this is wasting AE time. I have stated my views sufficiently.Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq
I confirmed that Nishidani's claim of "source falsification" is correct. Debresser changed the meaning of Nishidani's edit five minutes after Nishidani made it, using edit summary 'The source does not say "no longer", just states a different opinion'. The source uses "no longer" twice in the first paragraph, and it unequivocally sums up current knowledge, overturning an earlier finding from 1993 that was based on "general information". Describing that merely as a "different opinion" is highly misleading, and summarizing the source as "Others do not consider" falsifies what the source said. Standard procedure would be for Debresser to ask at WP:RSN about the reliablity of the source, a scholarly overview published in 2013 by Brill Publishers and written by Professor Rachel Hachlili from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa. Moreover, Talk:Shuafat shows unacceptable aggression from Debresser. Johnuniq (talk) 11:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Malik Shabazz
GoldenRing, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried. Only one "side" of the dispute regularly conflates criticism of Israel or its policies or actions with antisemitism. If you don't believe "anti-Jewish" is the same as antisemitic, I recommend you read an encyclopedia article about antisemitism or consult a dictionary. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 13:16, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Kingsindian
I think Debresser did not mean to accuse Nishidani or Huldra of anti-Semitism, and most likely referred to a political POV. But their choice of words was bad and clumsy, and they should have struck it out when asked. I think Debresser doesn't realize even now that their usage was inflammatory. It might be simply be a language issue.

Leaving aside anti-Semitism issue, the charges about personal attacks are correct. As I said in the last AE request, some amount of heat is to be expected in this area (and other political areas). The questions which should be asked are the following. Does the overall discussion concentrate on the content? Are the participants trying to argue in good faith, and are amenable to compromise? I believe this is true (this was true of the last request as well, but the admins thought otherwise). This matter should simply not have escalated this far.

I don't think an indefinite ban would be proportionate to the offence. Something milder should be pursued first.

Finally, a word about the "source misrepresentation" issue. Debresser is clearly wrong in their edit summary. The source clearly uses the words; Debresser either didn't read carefully or didn't care, and didn't accept their error. They, however, did edit their own text in the article to mitigate some of the error (which is still not enough) Anyone can make a mistake, but one hopes that they accept it if it is pointed out. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 13:57, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Icewhiz
Conflation of anti-Israel or anti-zionism with anti-semitism is a widely asserted claim. Various books (e.g.   ), and even the president of France today - Macron: Anti-Zionism Is a Reinvented Form of anti-Semitism, Jule 16 2017. Conflating the two is a legitimate political viewpoint. The specific content dispute regarded redacting ancient Jewish (more than 2,000 years ago) history of a modern location in the land of Israel - which would be hard to label as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist as Israel did not exist back then. It seems Debresser's use of anti-Jewish was intended to label this action of redacting ancient Jewish history (which was not Zionist or Israeli) - an action not limited to the Shuafat article.Icewhiz (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity
It is totally scurrilous to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. The main difficulty here is that there is no evidence at all that the editors in question are anti-Jewish. More broadly, the equation is illegitimate insofar as it suggests that Jews cannot be critical of Israel (when in fact many Israeli Jews are very critical of their own country/government). In any event, this way of viewing/treating other editors is poisonous and completely unhelpful in this topic area. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken
Since making pronouncements ex cathedra seems to be the order of the day, I'll make a few of my own for the consideration of the assembled AE admins.

"Anti-Jewish", "antisemitic", "anti-Israel", and "anti-Zionist" are not all exact cognates. Of them, "anti-Jewish" and "antisemitic" are equivalent, and "ant-Zionist" and "anti-Israel" are very close in meaning, but not exactly the same. It is true that many who oppose Israel do so from antisemitic motivations, but one can oppose the policies of that state, or even, in extremis, its very existence, without being anti-Jewish or antisemitic. In the real world, though, given the close correlation between them, it's no wonder that "one side of the debate" would see them as equivalent.

All of which is perhaps interesting, but also probably irrelevant. Debresser used "anti-Jewish" (meaning antisemitic), and struck it out, only to return it connected to "anti-Israel". Even if one wishes to be tolerant of the strong feelings in this area and issue a pass for "anti-Israel", "anti-Jewish" (antisemitic) was never permanently struck out. Since that is the case, Debresser is guilty of a personal attack in calling another editor a racist without evidence of such.

In the examination of the various words involved, one should not lose sight of the fact that "anti-Jewish" remained on the table, and was apparently a deliberate choice, as it was returned after having been struck out. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by No More Mr Nice Guy
First of all, "anti-Zionism" is not "criticism of the Israeli government", it is a movement to have Israel dismantled, violently. Very few Jews support it and many Jews and non-Jews alike find it to be based on antisemitism or antisemitic in practice. Let's try not to obfuscate that point.

Second, what Debresser was probably trying to say here is that there's a group of editors who methodically attempt to disconnect ancient Jewish heritage from today's Jews. They try to dilute ancient Jewish connections to the Land of Israel, and the connection between today's Jews and ancient Jews. I can easily support this with diffs if anyone cares (I know. Nobody does). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Nishidani, that self-serving description does not jive with the actual practice of the aforementioned group. Let me give you an example (just one out of literally dozens I can provide) that's relevant to this case. In the Shuafat article we're discussing, Huldra, the editor who submitted this AE, made this edit with a "ce" edit summary (ie, it's just a copyedit). She moved two large chunks of text, while surreptitiously removing "Archaeologists believe stone basins discovered at the site were used to hold ashes from the destroyed Temple" and adding "However, no remains of ritual baths were discovered, therefor doubts remains about weather the inhabitants were Jews. The baths were probably used by the Romans". Feel free to explain how this is "trying to keep Wikipedia updated on contemporary scholarship". I look forward to seeing how you spin this. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Nishidani, you made a claim. I posted proof that your claim is self-serving falsehood. You decline to refute my proof. I'll call that case closed. By the way, the above is just something I happened upon while looking at the history of the article this AE refers to. It's quite easy to show much worse abuse of academic sources. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Seraphim System, thanks for the ping. It reminded me I wanted to address your "a pattern that is not conducive to improving the encyclopedia based on academic sources" above with these few examples of your edits (just the tip of the iceberg):. That's some high quality improvement of the encyclopedia using academic sources right there. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by K.e.coffman
I followed the link provided by Debresser, and the full statement (after revision) was: ...but only if there would be some more input from editors who are not necessarily in the anti-Jewish/Israeli camp. That's not only accusing fellow contributors of being anti-semites, but also of belonging to a "camp" of such problematic editors. Debresser's explanations on this thread have not been satisfactory, and I would support AE sanctions in this case. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:27, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning Debresser

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


 * The request is actionable. In calling another editor "anti-Jewish", which means the same as "anti-semitic", Debresser has personally attacked them, without providing, even when challenged here, appropriate evidence for such a charge. In addition, by insisting here that they meant to accuse the other editor of a political bias against Israel (for which they also do not provide evidence), they conflate opposition to Israel and opposition to Jews. Editors must comment on content, not on the contributor (WP:NPA). Such conduct is not acceptable, particular in this sensitive topic area. Considering Debresser's long list of blocks in this topic area, and a previous topic ban in July 2016, I intend to impose an indefinite topic ban. - As to the "source falsification" issue, the discussion at Talk:Shuafat indicates that this is probably more of a content dispute than a conduct issue, but there also Debresser uses a dismissive, aggressive tone ("be quiet for a while!"), which is also entirely inappropriate for a collegial, collaborative scholarly project such as ours.  Sandstein   12:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm more inclined to believe Debresser's explanation - anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli are regularly conflated by both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute. It does still represent a beach of NPA - the comment is on editors and not on edits - but I don't think it necessarily amounts to the same as "anti-semitic". I'm still thinking about what is an appropriate response; the history is long, but the offense, to me, seems relatively minor. GoldenRing (talk) 12:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I would also remind editors commenting here that they are expected to assume good faith and edit collaboratively and constructively, even at AE. Recasting the evidence in your own words with the worst possible interpretation is a transparent assumption of bad faith and does not help your cause. GoldenRing (talk) 16:04, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm concerned by the fact that Debresser wrote "All I did was notice, that her stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is such which shows her to be on the Palestine side of these political matters" as an explanation for calling an editor "anti-Jewish/Israel", as if this were a zero-sum game between two sharply delineated parties. Such black-and-white thinking (no matter which side is black) is not only far from a useful characterisation of the conflict, it also makes it very hard to edit cooperatively with editors who do not share his position exactly. For me, this suggest a (temporary) topic ban. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is actionable. While this topic area is rife with poor behavior on all sides (which Debresser is not innocent of), I'm inclined to believe the statement that Jew, Zionist and Israeli are often conflated. It is a personal attack, for sure, but I don't think an NPA block is warranted. This topic area is an inherently polarizing one, and accusing somebody of being against one partisan side is poor behavior, but hardly an uncommon offense in these parts. If we sanction for this case, we should also sanction the majority of contributors to the topic area for making similar accusations at one point of another. The Wordsmith Talk to me 03:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * We have an "casting aspersions" restriction around the ethnicity/nationality of editors, including using their own self-declared status in arguments around the Kashmir conflict, enacted here after discussion -- Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive196. Something like that could be implemented here too. I believe it's helped in that area and could be beneficial here too. In this particular case I share ' opinion. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  03:54, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sandstein. This is actionable. It is more than reasonable to assume (given editing history) that Debresser understands the whole meaning of the term "anti-Jewish". You would have to be completely ignorant of 20th century history to not understand it. Accusing someone of being anti-Semitic (which is an equivalent term) without evidence, is a bright line, even in this disputed territory. Given the opportunity to strike it, they did at first, then ante'd up, parsing slightly, but confirming their original comment was fully intended. I think an indefinite topic ban is appropriate. Per some other comments, if this sort of comment hasn't been properly policed in the past, it is high time it was. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:10, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Debresser
''Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).''


 * Appealing user : – Debresser (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Sanction being appealed : Topc ban from IP-related articles, see section above


 * Administrator imposing the sanction :


 * Notification of that administrator :

Statement by Debresser
I would like to see this sanction lifted for six reasons: 1. The main reason for the topic ban was "Seeking input from a wider group of editors is good; classifying the input of those already involved based on their perceived politics or ethnicity is not." When an article relates to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and all editors commenting are members of WP:WikiProject Palestine, then it makes imminent sense to ask for input from editors who are members of WP:WikiProject Israel, and forbidding to do so is neither in the best interest of creating good articles, nor is it fair. 2. The admins who stressed that I had previously written "anti-Jewish" have not sufficiently paid attention to the fact, that I struck that later and replaced it by "anti-Jewish/Israeli", which is clearly and only a political distinction, since the conflict is between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. See the "Jewish Israelis"? Therefore, Sandstein is mistaken when he says I called another editor "anti-Jewish", because I struck that, and rightfully so. Likewise Peacemaker67 is wrong when he says that the later edit is "confirming their original comment was fully intended". How can he even say that, when I have explicitly stated and explained so many time the precise opposite. 3. The reporting editor came with unclean hands, since she herself was reported just a few days before for hiding POV edits in the IP-area behind misleading edit summaries, and has herself violated 1RR in the IP-area just today:, for which she should be sanctioned herself. Or is the unclean hands doctrine not applicable on Wikipedia? 4. None of the admins related to my accusation that Huldra was just trying to get back to me for my report of her (as mentioned above), and she and Nishidani are just trying to get back to me for having Nishidani topic banned for one month (see Nishidani's talkpage, where he keep extensive records regarding my edits). 5. I think that the decision in the WP:AE case was made too early, within less than 48 hours. I think that more admins would have added their input, with some likely agreeing with the point of view of The Wordsmith, that this is not actionable. I myself would have reacted to comments by admins, and possibly been able to make them change their mind. Pressures from real life have prevented me from going online regularly, but less than 48 hours is not enough to fully discuss issues which, as the admins section itself clearly shows, are not unequivocal. 6. From the notification on my talkpage, I understand that my edit was perceived as WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Although I do understand where that comes from, please also see my edit in context. Huldra's edits, like and, are systematically trying to remove anything related to Jewish history from as many Israel and Palestine-related articles as possible. In view of such blatant POV-violations, how can one not acquire somewhat of a battleground attitude? And again, I think Huldra should be sanctioned for her editing. Debresser (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity I was at the time of that edit not aware of the ban. As you can see, I made that edit a few minutes before I noticed the notification on my talkpage and replied to it. In addition, if I had added a category, that would have been POV-pushing, but adding a See also is not. See also the stated rationale in the edit summary. Debresser (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by GoldenRing
I'm just off to bed, but here are some quick notes:
 * Putting other editors into camps based on their politics, ethnicity, nationality, religion or whatever and refusing to accept consensus until particular factions are represented in a discussion is simply battleground behavior and this is what convinced me to sanction Debresser.
 * I don't think that the behavior of others justifies battleground behavior, and IIRC WP:BATTLEGROUND spends some words making that point. However, I do find the behavior of others involved here troubling and I did consider other sanctions as well. In particular, I find the insistence that "anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli" necessarily means anti-semitic, after Debresser has repeatedly explained exactly what he meant, troubling, and I see here more repetitions of the same. Debresser has apologized for giving the impression that he meant anti-semitic, clarified that he did not and explained what he did mean. What he did mean it's still a policy violation, but IMO it should be left at that. Debresser's diffs presented here are a mixture; one replacing "Arab" with "Muslim" seems to me unambiguously misrepresenting a source, however arguing from two relatively benign diffs that someone is "systematically trying to remove anything related to Jewish history from as many Israel and Palestine-related articles as possible" is drawing a very long bow. If anyone feels inclined to hand out additional sanctions out of all this, they should not consider my close an impediment.
 * Regarding the timing, I thought the report need closing as it was descending into considerably more heat than light.
 * Regarding the input of other admins, while it's true that one admin argued for no action, is also true that another argued for an indefinite topic-ban. I remain opposed to an indefinite ban; I don't think the offense warrants it. Frankly, if this was a first offense, I would probably have let it go, too. It is not. I therefore also remain opposed to no action. GoldenRing (talk) 22:40, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Huldra

 * I have never objected to anyone asking any for more input from any Wikiproject, anyone reading my AE report will see that.
 * My report was because off one word Debresser used about me, and one word only: "anti-Jewish", and using that together with "anti-Jewish/Israeli" does not make it better. "Anti-Jewish" is another word for "anti-Semitic", i.e., a racist.
 * Debresser and I, like many old timers in the IP area, have a long  history.  (e.g. ), but I am not here in order to make AE reports, Im here to write history of the places in Israel/Palestine. If Debresser, or anyone else, thinks my edits here are sanctionable, then please start a separate AE report, otherwise I will not spend time on it.
 * Debresser: you are so wrong if you think that my report was some kind of revenge report. I would have reported anyone who called me "anti-Jewish".  Anyone.  Huldra (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * To Goldenring: my replacing "Arab" with "Muslim" ..that is according to source. When I first started editing here, the only data available for the  Village Statistics, 1945   was Hadawi. 2  or 3 years ago the original data was made available, through http://web.nli.org.il. (See references below.) Now, Hadawi joined "Muslim" and "Christian" into one group, called "Arab".  Whenever I update a  village article now, I add the original 1945 data, which specify whether the "Arabs" are "Muslim", or "Christian", or (more common): a mixture of both, Huldra (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As for that "anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli" not necessarily means anti-semitic, that is only a view from "one side of the divide." This is well known in the IP area. It is a bit as if I called an African American man for "boy", and then assured everyone that I had absolutely no insulting intention in doing so, Huldra (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2017 (UTC)



Statement by Nishidani
I had no intention of commenting here, but seeing the following obliges me to: "I do find the behavior of others involved here troubling and I did consider other sanctions as well. I find the insistence that 'anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli' necessarily means anti-semitic, after Debresser has repeatedly explained exactly what he meant, troubling," This contextually suggests that I for one, in asserting that '"anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli" necessarily means anti-semitic', displayed 'troubling behavior.' There are 2 points here.
 * (a)You are perfectly within your rights to think this, but it implies both User:Sandstein here and User:Peacemaker67 here exhibited 'troubling behaviour', for they said exactly what several editors argued regarding this usage. I'm sure that was not your intent, but it is a clear implication. Arbs and editors are not separate classes when it comes to 'behaviour'.
 * (b) All editors and admins are entitled to respect even if they do not accept another editor's specific claims though repeated. Repetition is not proof. Claims are one thing, evidence another. Personal explanations of what one means by a word don't prevail over established usage (I'm a philologist, and this is known as the Humpty Dumpty view of semiotics) If we introduce a rule of evidence saying that anyone who repeats what (s)he says (s)he meant to mean must be believed (on pain of doubters being considered liable to sanction if they remain sceptical), then arbitration would be automatically rendered otiose.Nishidani (talk) 09:26, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * ps.It was claimed I was a member of WP:WikiProject Palestine. I'm not. I've never in my life joined any association, group or collective, on principle. I have a peer-reviewed published record for criticism of the very idea of collective identity, and that is why any insinuation I am against an ethnic or national group troubles me, and having these incessant innuendoes thrown my way on Wikipedia appals me. Nishidani (talk) 09:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Debresser

 * Editing Cave of the Patriarchs to add a "see also" for List of World Heritage Sites in Israel doesn't seem like a wise first edit following the imposition of the topic ban.  (Key detail: Hebron is not located in Israel, so the edit seems like POV-pushing at best.)  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Debresser

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


 * To be fair, I will try to cover these point by point. Your first point is irrelevant, as you were not sanctioned because you sought a larger audience. It was how you did so that caused the problem. The quote you use was not used in the closing of the case. Your second point isn't convincing as an argument to reverse the sanction. Admin are free to interpret your actions using their best judgement, and the fact that you wrote something that you later had to strike tells me that any admin who saw a problem was being reasonable.  As for your third and fourth points, see WP:NOTTHEM, which talks about blocks, but the concept is still valid here.  As for point 5, let me explain something that is understandably misunderstood about this board:  WP:AE is not WP:ANI.  There is no requirement for consensus, there is no minimum time.  Admin are free to sanction without considering any opinions by anyone.  When an admin sanctions at WP:AE, it is not due to consensus. it is a unilateral action, even if they often choose to listen to others before taking action.  That portion of your fifth point is without merit.  As for Wordsmith's point, I actually agree with him that we have to be careful to not over-sanction because most of the players in the Arab/Israel area have a bias and it takes a lot of give and take to produce neutrality.  Had this been an indef topic ban, I might be convinced, but it isn't.  The purpose of the sanction is two fold: first, to allow editors who aren't causing problems to edit without distraction (it isn't just about the problem editor, you see), and secondly, to provide an incentive to problem editors to not cause problems in the future.  This makes it preventative.  That said, a two month topic ban is not extraordinarily long, particularly for someone who has been sanctioned for various infractions, more than a few times in the past.  After reviewing your claims and the evidence available, the actions taken by GoldenRing appear to be based on the merits and are clearly within administrative discretion. I would choose to decline this appeal due a lack of merit.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 21:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I would decline the appeal and would have imposed an indefinite topic ban for the reasons given in my comments in the enforcement request; and this should be considered as a result of this meritless appeal. That Debresser insists that they did not write "anti-Jewish" and that this does not mean "antisemitic" is disconcerting and another indication that this editor is not suited to editing this topic area. Debresser ignores that calling another editor anti-whatever personalizes a dispute that is supposed to be about content, and is itself grounds for sanctions, whatever the "whatever" may be. The complaints against others are irrelevant here, see WP:NOTTHEM. (There is no "unclean hands" defense in enforcement practice: that defense is used in civil lawsuits, whereas this is not a legal proceeding and if it were, it would be a criminal or administrative one, not a civil one. We are enforcing conduct rules for the benefit of the community, not for the benefit of any individuals.)  Sandstein   21:49, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Since you participated in the admin discussion, not sure you would be uninvolved for the sake of review, although I don't disagree with your logic. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 21:55, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Admins who have dealt with a matter only in an administrative capacity, as I have here in commenting on the original request, are not involved. See WP:INVOLVED.  Sandstein   05:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I think Sandstein pretty much nails my position on this. GoldenRing's actions were within discretion (as I belatedly wrote in the original case, I would have supported an indefinite ban), and I don't think this appeal has merit, and should be declined. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Decline. The comment, however intended, shows clear signs of an unfortunate battleground mentality. Further, although I would be willing to assume AGF that Debresser misspoke and meant "anti-Israeli", not "anti-Jewish", I note that he did not then: (a) apologise promptly; and (b) correct the latter to the former. Instead the amendment was to "anti-Jewish/Israeli", which I don't think makes it much better. It seems to me to needlessly maintain the originally problematic term in combination. Unless I have missed something, Huldra has still not received an apology for a post which she interpreted - and in my opinion reasonably interpreted - as an accusation of racism directed against her personally. The sanction appears a proportionate one in the circumstances. WJBscribe (talk) 14:26, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Consensus Required restriction in American Politics
Recently the remedies in place in the Arab-Israeli topic area have been modified to remove the following restriction: "In addition, editors are required to obtain consensus through discussion before restoring a reverted edit."

This was, I think, done because the restriction has proved more trouble than it is worth.

The American Politics case(s) have no such restriction imposed by the arbitration committee, however individual administrators have imposed this restriction on individual pages using their authority under discretionary sanctions. So far, 32 pages have been tagged so this year and another 14 last year in American Politics, and a single page in Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. These have been duly logged in the discretionary sanctions log.

I propose a wholesale conversion of these sanctions to a straightforward 1RR restrictions, for all the same reasons the same move has been made on the ARBPIA case - the restriction is confusing, easy to get wrong and too easy to game.

I think seven admins have imposed all of the restrictions of this type logged on individual pages:, , , , ,  and. Of those, at a discussion at Dennis Brown's talk page, Doug Weller, has indicated he has no problem with the removal of the consensus required provision for pages he has tagged and has indicated he has inherited Coffee's administrative actions and has no problem with this proposal. Of the remainder, I'm guessing Bishonen, Amanda and Ks0stm are unaware of the discussion and Laser Brain I understand has retired. To avoid annoying them all and chasing those who have retired, I'm proposing a bulk conversion through a consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE (though if those involved want to give their thoughts that would be helpful, too. GoldenRing (talk) 12:27, 21 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I believe that in every case, articles which have been placed under the "consensus required" restriction are also under 1RR. So when I say, "wholesale conversion" above, I suppose I really mean "remove the consensus required restriction."
 * I would be very happy to instead convert these to the restriction suggested by BU Rob13 below - I take his point that 1RR favours new content and his suggestion seems a more straightforward way to slow down edit wars and encourage discussion. GoldenRing (talk) 13:53, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Statement by The Wordsmith
I was pinged above. Yes, I promised Coffee that I would take care of things on Wikipedia for him, during his absence. I'm certain that if he knew how poorly things were working, he would endorse this proposal. I also endorse it, as this particular sanction has failed and we need to (ahem) Repeal and Replace.

However, given that I consider myself WP:INVOLVED on Trump- and 2016 Election-related articles (where the bulk of these sanctions reside), I'm not commenting in the uninvolved admin section. I'm also not sure whether Arbitration sanctions can be legitimately "inherited" by another admin, but I think there's a valid IAR case here. The Wordsmith Talk to me 14:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity
Please LOOK CLOSELY at Rob's point. A blanket 1RR is the wrong solution. The problem needs fixing, but with something more subtle/suitable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:24, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by SPECIFICO
1. Is this the right page for this discussion? 2. What typically happens is that tag-teams of shall we say "highly motivated" editors reinsert challenged content without violating 1RR. I thought it was a mistake to remove the the consensus requirement. It was done in the context of a flurry of dissent by a relatively small group of editors who felt that the majority and consensus mainstream views were "wrong." I'm not aware of this provision causing any objective dysfunction at the articles where it remains in effect. Or certainly nothing near the slo-mo multipartite edit-wars and interminable talk page horse-beating on the talk pages of articles where it's been removed.

How can any rule that depends on "consensus" be a critical problem? If we cannot define or apply "consensus" this entire project makes no sense. SPECIFICO talk  17:32, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Let's compare 2 articles. Donald Trump has the consensus restriction and runs pretty smoothly. Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections omits the consensus requirement and is mired in slow-mo edit warring, the threat of which leads to endless talk page tail-chasing. I understand what you're saying about diffs, but that puts the burden on other editors to collect evidence, articulate a complaint, and then defend themselves against the usual counter-accusations and whataboutism from the disruptive editor and cronies. Fed editors have the stomach to get involved in that kind of thing. It's easier to back away or stop editing altogether. Now, I understand that you and other Admins have chosen to volunteer an extraordinary amount of time and attention to WP but we need to retain the broader population of editors who participate less intensively. Equally as important, however, I believe that the consensus requirement encourages editors to be more careful about their edits.e an edit is challenged and a talk discussion is underway, what good reason is there for reinserting the disputed material? The consensus requirement helps the less disciplined among us to focus on talk rather than revert warring. And when it's 3-5 editors doing the reverting, it's extremely rare that an AE or ANI thread really sorts things out very well. If Admins were actively patrolling the ARBAP2 pages, that would be a big improvement. But for whatever reason we do not have much of that kind of oversight and so the consensus requirement reminds editors not to be disruptive, even if they technically do not violate 1RR. It promotes voluntary restraint. SPECIFICO talk  19:04, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I know that you have been one of the most active and energetic among the Admins in these DS. I hope that in the future more admins will actively enforce these things to save us all from enforcement threads. Thanks for your reply. SPECIFICO talk  22:31, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

The disagreement among Admins as to what constitutes a "revert" would seem to directly contradict any view that 1RR is by itself a meaningful way to ensure constructive editing. In fact, a lot of contentious nonsense can be found at this page and at various Admin's pages relating to denials that a revert is a "revert" and enlisting Admins of one view or another to support a number of conflicting views. Like the disagreement on "consensus" (if such disagreement exists) the documented inability of our most dedicated editors, the Admins, to agree on the definition of "revert" is a critical problem for WP today. SPECIFICO talk  19:05, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Sagecandor
Essentially agree here with that the prior practice was too nebulous. Agree with that it was too troublesome as well as difficult to understand. And agree with that this proposed change follows the KISS principle which would be helpful here. Sagecandor (talk) 17:38, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment by Newyorkbrad
Responding only to SPECIFICO's question 1: Yes, this is the best place to address this issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by JFG
While it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it sometimes worked to reduce slo-mo warring, this restriction has truly created a lot more drama than it has spared. Good-faith editors on both sides of an issue have sometimes spent more time bickering about who violated what and how than constructively working towards consensus. As the underlying content issues do not get resolved, they emerge again weeks or months later, sometimes prompted by a newcomer's edit, and the drama recurs. AE cases trying to enforce this rule have been mired in controversy, encouraging whataboutism from participants and surely frustrating for admins. 1RR is much simpler and can be adjudicated as a bright-line policy.

I would also approve a trial period for the suggestion by of imposing a 24h do-not-restore limit on top of 1RR. This would solve elegantly for the case where Editor A adds content, editor B reverts and editor A counter-reverts: technically editor A has not violated 1RR but they have managed to impose their content without discussion: this goes against the spirit of BRD. Same thing when editor A removes something, editor B restores it and editor A nukes it again. Rob's suggestion would encourage editors to move such cases to a debate, let them calm down and allow other people to voice their opinion. Perhaps this "extended 1RR" could even become the standard 1RR after some time of experimenting in the field. — JFG talk 17:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The "Current Consensus" mechanism
I would like to supplement 's observation that the Donald Trump article runs smoothly with the consensus-required restriction while Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections doesn't without it. The difference is not linked to having the special clause vs having standard 1RR: Russian interference used to be under the special restriction and that didn't help. reverted to a simple 1RR after witnessing a few trainwreck AE cases stemming from interpretations of that restriction-that-keeps-on-giving. I would point out that the Trump article used to be mired in endlessly-recurring debates in the same vein of what is happening at Russian interference, so what changed? The topic certainly didn't get less controversial after Trump took office. The stabilizing factor at Donald Trump is the "Current Consensus" mechanism.

Frustrated by litigating perennial issues over and over, a bunch of "regulars" at the article and an admin developed a mechanism to properly document the questions that have been settled by prior debates. Every time an RfC is closed or a discussion ends with near-unanimous consensus among participants without going through RfC, the outcome is documented in a special section Talk:Donald Trump pinned at the top of the talk page. Consensus items are linked to the archived discussions in which they were determined, and hidden comments in the article text warn editors against changing the agreed-upon text without discussing it first per WP:CCC. This avoids frustrating debates along the lines of "it's been settled, just read the archives / no way, you read the archives", by listing exactly what has been settled and where. Finally, a prominent edit notice encourages editors to read the current established consensus before writing, which is especially useful to people unfamiliar with article lore. I would strongly support the implementation of this mechanism on articles such as Russian interference and in other controversial places where the present restriction hasn't worked satisfactorily. — JFG talk 17:40, 22 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I can attest to the efficacy of this list, at least at Donald Trump. We have set a fairly high bar for inclusion in the list, including only the clearest consensuses (less than half in my estimation), and I think that has been key to avoiding another battleground. Per opinion by Coffee, which can be found somewhere in that page's archives, reverts to the listed consensuses have been exempt from 1RR, and no more than one revert has ever been needed (i.e., editors have respected the list once they were made aware of it). &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by MelanieN
I think scrapping the "consensus to restore" rule is good idea. It is hopelessly confusing. There was a discussion about this at my user talk page last year, inspired in part by a particularly contentious user who liked to delete longstanding content from articles and declare in the edit summary that people must not restore it without consensus. Under that rule, the default always favored the deleter. In discussion it turned out that there are strong differences of interpretation among administrators, about when something is an "edit" and when it is a "revert" (making a distinction between removing recent edits and removing longstanding content), so that it was unclear what kind of removal requires consensus to restore. Some people were hauled to AE for following, in good faith, one of the interpretations rather than the other. That guideline is never going to be clear. Just get rid of it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:58, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Doug Weller
I agree with the removal of consensus required but I'm concerned that its removal without any replacement of some sort might cause problems at articles such as Donald Trump. I like BU Rob13's suggested replacement "Editors cannot restore edits which they have introduced within 24 hours if the edits have been reverted." Including its addition to some articles under General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Doug Weller talk 12:54, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Bastun
Disclosure: I am not an admin (do I need to be to comment?), and edited American politics related articles some months ago, around the time of the US election, where I became aware of this and related issues. Prior to that most recent election, the "requirement for consensus" was used to effectively prevent addition of relevant, sourced, material, by the simple expedient of calling an RfC on its inclusion. This happened on several occasions on several related articles, to my knowledge. This had the direct effect of preventing inclusion of material for up to 30 days. This is a very easy system to game, to prevent inclusion of material unfavourable to one's preferred candidate, or politician, or affiliation, or position. I therefore support its removal. There is nothing so special about American politics that it requires different rules above and beyond normal editing standards, whether that's 3RR or 1RR. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 13:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning Consensus Required restriction in American Politics

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


 * Support - The "consensus" rule might be good in theory, but in practice, it is too nebulous in meaning. Two out of three can technically be a consensus, at least in their eyes.  Converting all those to 1RR (and not using any additional restrictions if they aren't needed) is much better.  For starters, it is way easier to enforce and the diffs tell the story.  Trying to decide what is and isn't consensus guarantees different results depending on who is arguing the case and which admin are participating, since we all see it a little differently.  I can list a dozen ways to game the consensus rule, and will if asked, but by now it should be obvious there are problems.  It was implemented in the best of faith, but it is time to change. The most fair thing we can do for editors is making this rule change, applied to any and all ArbCom restricted areas that ArbCom has not specifically add this provision to.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 13:33, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * , we have had this come up twice in the last two weeks. Things like slow motion edit wars are pretty easy to determine using diffs.  For me as an admin, having to judge if there is a consensus for a version, and what that version is, is problematic.  No system is perfect.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 18:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * , I can still block someone for WP:DE if they are forcing an edit against consensus, and in fact, I have often done just that, as a standard admin action instead of an WP:AE action. Done as a standard action, I can indef and the threshold is lower.  For other instances, using Arb restrictions is better, although there is a lot more paperwork.  There are so few articles affected, I don't think removing this problematic (and easy to wikilawyer at appeal) provision will hurt enforcement.  I imagine it would help if it simplifies things. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 22:28, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * as to inheriting, I see it as a giving "power of attorney" to speak on his behalf on those actions only, or as a proxy for him, so I agree under IAR you should be able to do so under those limited circumstances. I've seen this before and no one had a problem as long as it was limited in this fashion, and not the power to "vote" in a discussion.  And to  I have no issue with trying something new.  If it causes problems, we can always revisit it later.  Your restriction sounds well thought out.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 19:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. User:GoldenRing mentioned me as one of seven admins that have imposed the consensus restriction on an American politics page. Yes, I have, once, but soon regretted doing so, and withdrew the restriction in February 2017, as being too troublesome as well as difficult to understand. Please see my explanation, and my hopes that the template would be changed, here. I support removing the restriction altogether, and as Dennis says, from all ArbCom restricted areas. Bishonen &#124; talk 14:29, 21 July 2017 (UTC).
 * I would support changing "consensus required" on the articles I applied it to to the following: "Editors cannot restore edits which they have introduced within 24 hours if the edits have been reverted." This achieves the same basic policy goal while causing less problems. The issue with 1RR is that it inherently favors new content, not status quo, which is not intended. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:34, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * To be clear, if this closes with support not to use "consensus required", I intend to apply the above proposed sanction to all affected pages as a replacement that preserves the original intent of "consensus required" without the associated issues. ~ Rob 13 Talk 19:51, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Support per above - KISS principle applies to areas like this, and 1RR seems much much simplier to judge and review than the "consensus needed" statement. --M ASEM (t) 15:15, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with BU Rob13 here. The reason I applied consensus required was to favor the status quo. It has been wildly effective, from what I've seen, in keeping articles stable, since it prevents multiple single reverts over the same material by different editors. Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 17:28, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I've dropped a note at WP:AN asking for more input. I think we should leave this open for a while and get a broader consensus and/or other ideas. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 11:06, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As a supporter of the "consensus" rule, my instinct was to oppose this. That this rule creates so much trouble seems to me to show that slow motion edit wars have become the norm in sanctioned areas, and that editors have settled into a battleground mentality in relation to 1RR with each side squaring off with their personal 1RR "entitlements". The "consensus" rule is designed to break by requiring genuine discussion and consensus building. However, I cannot ignore the comments of so many - both those involved in the topic areas as editors and admins to whom it falls to police the rule - that, in practice, it has been a net negative. So with some reluctance, I would therefore support replacing the rule with that suggested by Rob13. WJBscribe (talk) 11:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This mirrors my thoughts very closely. I'm proposing my looser rule because I see the writing on the wall, but I find most arguments against "consensus required" to be unconvincing. If an editor claims you must get consensus when it was actually the status quo (and therefore has consensus via WP:SILENCE), get an admin. If an editor claims they have consensus when they don't, go to WP:ANRFC to get a close on the relevant discussion. Those things take time, but Wikipedia has no deadlines. When I've said these things in the past, the arguments have quickly boiled down to "But I want to revert now!" which is an edit-warring mentality. Slow rate edit-warring is the second most significant issue in discretionary/general sanctions areas behind sockpuppetry. ~ Rob 13 Talk 21:25, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This may need a larger discussion. Some believe (and have evidence) that "consensus required" works in a small number of places, but not everywhere it is used. ie: it is more complicated than I (we?) first thought, so a wide reaching consensus is going to be difficult to get here.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 13:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I support this proposal; let's give Rob's a chance. Drmies (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Icantevennnnn

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 08:30, 25 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons : Disruptive editing behavior on a BLP talk page (Talk:Linda Sarsour), to include unevidenced personal attacks and false accusations of a conflict of interest.


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


 * 1) 24 July — First edit to the talk page of a contentious biography makes the entirely-false accusation that at least two editors seem to have personal connections with this person — this is casting aspersions on those unspecified editors, claiming without evidence they are editing with an undisclosed conflict of interest.
 * 2) 24 July — When asked to clarify and explain their statements, specifies that the accusation of improper conduct is against me personally — You are one of the editors I mentioned. Again provides no evidence.
 * 3) 24 July — Refuses to either provide evidence for the statement at the proper venue or to retract the false accusation.
 * 4) 24 July — Repeats the false accusation in another venue, again without providing any evidence for their claim.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) Date Explanation
 * 2) Date Explanation


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

This is a fairly clear-cut case of an editor casting aspersions in an effort to gain the upper hand in an apparent content dispute; they have now repeatedly leveled the entirely-false accusation that I have a conflict of interest with regards to Linda Sarsour and thus am improperly editing the article. I have no such conflict and so, of course, this user will not and cannot produce any evidence to the contrary. Asking them politely hasn't worked, so my hand has been forced. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:30, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't necessarily think the user needs to be topic-banned or otherwise "punitively" sanctioned. But I do want it made clear to them, on the record, that what they're doing is unacceptable. If they retract their accusation and indicate an understanding of our policies, I'd be satisfied with that outcome. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Notified here.

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

Statement by Icantevennnnn
I have nothing personally against this user. I am not interested in talking with them at all. I am just trying to bring some neutrality to what I think is a deeply biased article which is protected from any disagreeing view. I request those who come across this comment to check the article in question. That is all that interests me.

Statement by Kingsindian
The content on Linda Sarsour falls under WP:ARBPIA3, and the editor in question does not satisfy 30/500. The whole page does not fall under ARBPIA3 (there are many sections which probably don't), but Sarsour is a decently well-known activist on Israel/Palestine related issues, and the edits in question (like the section on whether she is "anti-Israel"), obviously comes under the area. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 21:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning Icantevennnnn

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


 * Doesn't look actionable to me. Diffs 1 and 2 predate the DS notification and are therefore out of scope. Diffs 3 and 4 do not speak to sanctionable misconduct. They are perhaps unduly aggressive and personalized, but with new editors lower-lewel forms of dispute resolution should be attempted first, such as attempting to explain our WP:NPA policy to them. If you want to continue editing Wikipedia, we expect you to read and understand our conduct rules such as documented at WP:5P, WP:NPA and WP:AGF, among others.   Sandstein   08:39, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I generally agree with Sandstein. If the user continues this pattern of editing, there will be trouble, but I don't think it's something to worry AE at this point.  I've left a note/warning at their user page.
 * Having read most of the talk page where this happens, the whole thing seems pretty toxic and I think most people involved there need to rethink their attitude. There are a bunch of users, mostly new, who want to include material critical of the subject.  Their sources are rotten and a good chunk of what they want to add is unencyclopaedic; but the response could be broadly caricatured as, "No no no no no wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."  There is no patience or gentleness in the response, no advice on how the material they want to add could be brought up to scratch; they are treated, broadly, like scum.  The arguments presented to them must seem like sophistry: first material is not reliably sourced, but when they find a reliable source for it, it's UNDUE.  On the one hand quoting someone on twitter is using a primary source and should be avoided, but on the other hand a direct quote is preferred to a statement by a secondary source (reliable or not).  Policies are confused (eg confusing notability with reliable sourcing).  Sources are regularly dismissed as partisan, yet repeated questions about use of the Huffington Post are simply ignored.  When someone says, "at least two editors seem to have personal connections with this person," retraction is demanded because casting aspersions is "strictly prohibited", but when someone else says "clearly notability is a challenge for some folks here," the self-same editor has only criticism for the editor who calls it out.  This is not a run-up to dishing out sanctions (not yet, anyway).  This is a plea:  Please be gentle with each other, and especially with new editors.  Try to be helpers, not gatekeepers; I don't doubt that your intentions are good, but that is how you're coming across.  GoldenRing (talk) 10:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Icantevennnnn does have an issue with civility. At this point it hasn't risen to the point of sanction (yet) but if they don't stop casting aspersions, some kind of sanction is on the horizon.  Certain claims (COI and sockpuppetry specifically) are claims that aren't tolerated unless you are going to belly up to the appropriate admin board and present evidence.  Otherwise, keep it to yourself and follow Sandstein's advice.  I breezed through the talk page and generally agree with GoldenRing that the environment isn't particularly collegiate and suggest everyone following his advice.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 12:58, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * All the diffs are from the talk page and the remedy you refer to has an exception for talk page comments, so long as it's constructive - so I don't think this adds anything to what's already been said. GoldenRing (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning JFG

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 07:53, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:AC/DS (post-1932 US politics and Eastern Europe both apply to this article's topic):


 * Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions: Block, or topic ban, at discretion of administrators.


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


 * 1) 22:09, 22 July 2017 - Violation of WP:SYNTH, adds info not explicitly stated in source, with "but provides no example of use from that period." (Noted by as editorializing at DIFF) Adds another source that does not explicitly mention subject of article, to advance a point, during ongoing Request for Comment. (BullRangifer notes this at DIFF).
 * 2) 23:27, 22 July 2017 - Violation of WP:No original research policy, adds primary source to advance a point, "The first documented instance of the term..." -- when in fact the source itself cited does not say anything about "first documented instance of the term".
 * 3) 07:17, 23 July 2017 - Violaton of WP:SYNTH, again, adds a source that does not explicitly mention subject of article, to advance a point, during ongoing Request for Comment. (Removed by BullRangifer, with rmv OR.)
 * 4) 07:27, 23 July 2017 - Warning by  - "disruption needs to stop. Be satisfied with the RS."
 * 5) 07:38, 23 July 2017 - Violation of WP:No original research. Adds blog post by Lucas to advance a point about "used the word".... Cannot use a source this way unless source explicitly reports Etymology of the word.
 * 6) 08:36, 23 July 2017 - Violaton of WP:SYNTH, again, adds a source that does not explicitly mention subject of article, to advance a point, after having been notified about this AE request itself. Edits are now WP:Disruptive editing, with multiple ongoing reverts, reverts that add back the WP:SYNTH violations:.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 09:26, 22 April 2017 - "You are restricted to 0rr (including manual reverts) on post-1932 US politics articles that already have the 1rr restriction - You have been sanctioned for violating the 1rr restriction on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections after multiple warnings." by admin.


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * 14 December 2016 - Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months.
 * 25 February 2017 - Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 25 February 2017 - Participated in AE request filed by.
 * 22 April 2017 - Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 22 April 2017 by.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * 1) 02:14, 21 February 2017 - Warning by for "content that you added to an article that was completely lacking in secondary sources".
 * 2) 04:19, 23 July 2017 - Analysis at the WP:No original research/Noticeboard by : "Yes, synthetic claims which are not explicitly stated in RSs can also be viewed as violations of WP:SYN."
 * 3) 04:28, 23 July 2017 - Analysis at the WP:No original research/Noticeboard by : "We should only use secondary sources and avoid original research."
 * 4) 05:13, 23 July 2017 - Analysis at the WP:No original research/Noticeboard by : "It is original research."

Note: This is NOT a content dispute. These are violations of WP:No original research policy and WP:Disruptive editing, as noted by at "This disruption needs to stop." . I reported here after gaining feedback on WP:No original research/Noticeboard that it was original research violation, and after the user continued the same behavior. . Sagecandor (talk) 08:53, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm quite willing to use Wikipedia site policies including Wikipedia community consensus and Request for comment to help resolve disputes. There is an ongoing issue here with JFG ignoring site policy of WP:No original research and WP:Disruptive editing, per comment by at "This disruption needs to stop." . As this is explained as original research by    and   -- please, help advise, me, what's the best way to deal with such violations of the WP:No original research ? I'll gladly and happily defer to your judgment about what to do here? Thank you, Sagecandor (talk) 14:55, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Please, this statement, "The repeated, apparently deliberate, confusion of the OED with Oxford Living Dictionaries" is a false assumption about me. I genuinely thought at the time it was the online edition of the OED. I was wrong. That does not itself make Oxford Living Dictionaries an unreliable source. It is still a reliable source. If the OED had an entry that contradicted Oxford Living Dictionaries, for sure, I agree with you, the OED would be the much stronger source in that case. Sagecandor (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * You are correct that WP:No original research is a policy about content, but it's repeatedly being violated here, as determined by   and   and  . Sandstein, I'll gladly take your input, what is the best way to deal with such repeated reverts and violation of site policy? Sagecandor (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you, this is indeed related to WP:NOR/N, where I received helpful feedback from third-party previously uninvolved editors : "Yes, synthetic claims which are not explicitly stated in RSs can also be viewed as violations of WP:SYN." and from : "We should only use secondary sources and avoid original research." . Masem, what is the best way to deal with repeated violations of the WP:No original research policy, as noted by  that is disruptive per "This disruption needs to stop."  ? How best to address this concern ? Sagecandor (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :


 * 07:54, 23 July 2017 - notification posted to user's talk page. Sagecandor (talk) 07:55, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Statement by JFG
This is forum-shopping of a content dispute. No time to reply in detail to the allegations right now, however I will note that discussion is ongoing on Talk:Whataboutism, including an RfC that I opened, and after a long and repetitive exchange over the last few hours, Sagecandor proceeded to forum-shop the underlying content dispute to WP:NOR/N in addition to this AE filing. — JFG talk 08:47, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for not answering more fully yet, had some real-life work to do. Please give me 24 hours before passing judgment on the merits. I see that bailed out for health reasons, hope s/he gets well soon, and let's put this report on hold until then. — JFG talk 22:08, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

- Finally I have some time for a detailed reply. Although I'd like to keep it short, it may need to be longer due to the multiple comments and sub-threads that appeared since the filing. Sorry to bother admins with excess prose…

First, let's look at the direct allegations of policy violations. Please bear in mind that we were editing and discussing the "Etymology" section of the article, so obviously editors were looking at dictionaries and dated examples of the word appearing in the written record.
 * Edit 1: Among a discussion on various dictionary sources, I replaced a false statement "traces the origins of the word back to the 1990s" (the OLD source does not "trace" the origins of the word) by "asserts that the word originated in the 1990s, but provides no example of use from that period". The goal was to clarify what each dictionary says or doesn't say; in the same edit I noted that the OED never included the word, citing both the 1989 print edition and the 2017 electronic edition. At the time of the edit, the talk page looked like this: with lots of back-and-forth about OLD vs OED confusion, which my edit sought to clarify (editsum: "Distinguish OLD vs OED, clarify dates"). I admit that the second part of my sentence "but provides no example of use from that period" may be delving into OR, by talking about the source instead of only reporting what the source says. It's certainly not SYNTH (synth with what? deducing what?). When later removed that part, I accepted that it should not be there. I see this as normal BRD process, not sanctionable.
 * Edit 2: I added details about the documented sequence of three publications by Lucas in late 2007 and early 2008 which are the first archived instances of the word "whataboutism" said to describe a Soviet tactic. This series of posts was acknowledged by lexicographer Ben Zimmer for the Wall Street Journal in 2017 as the seminal event that propelled the word "whataboutism" into mainstream use. Zimmer did not say it was the "first documented use" and I shouldn't have phrased it that way. When pointed out my error, I changed the formulation to "Lucas used the word whataboutism in a blog post of October 29, 2007." Again, good-faith run-of-the-mill BRD, nothing sanctionable.
 * Edit 3: I restored the WP:Verifiable fact that the Oxford English Dictionary does not list "whataboutism" either in its last print edition of 1989 or in its current electronic edition of June 2017. I did not make any SYNTH deduction from this, just laying out an extra piece of evidence for readers to be better informed about historical use of the word.
 * Edit 4: That's BullRangifer accusing me of disruption in the middle of a discussion about being asked to prove a negative. I replied that he got it backwards regarding the proof of a negative, and that deflecting and lawyering by Bull and Sage was itself getting disruptive.
 * Edit 5: That's the edit I made in reply to criticism of edit 2 (see above). Apparently that was not enough to satisfy Sagecandor. Can't see any OR violation there, just stating a sourced fact.
 * Edit 6: Restoring my edit 3, specifically in reply to assertions by Sagecandor and BullRangifer that this edit was SYNTH. I explained how it was not SYNTH and restored it, with edit summary "Restore statement of fact, after answering SYNTH claim on talk". Not a 3RR violation either, that's my second revert of this phrase, and it was made after taking into account the other editors' remarks on the talk page.

All of these edits revolve around a content dispute, with mild edit-warring about including or excluding some dictionary sources, all happening while editors were engaged in rapid back-and-forth discussion on the talk page, in several threads that were becoming hard to follow. I was the one stating that discussions had stopped being productive, while Sagecandor went filing two NOR/N requests (without notifying me) and finally this AE thread that really left me puzzled. Due to real-life commitments, I did not take the time to pursue the discussion at NOR/N and I asked for a delay to defend myself here.

There were several active editors on each side of the debate:, , and  on one side, , , ,  and myself on the other. Both groups made valid comments and edited while discussing; the article was being gradually improved by contributions from both sides. There is an ongoing RfC that I started a few days ago. I don't see why this content dispute should have been escalated to AE. NOR/N was indeed an appropriate forum to gather more input after the discussion was deadlocked at the talk page. Some editors from NOR/N and possibly from here came to make further comments about the article, that's surely a good thing and I hope we reach consensus on the article's scope as a whole. — JFG talk 23:23, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Regarding my previous sanction, I would like to stress that I had made a honest mistake (a second revert after 17 hours on a 1RR article) and the sanctioning admin agreed to limit my 0RR restriction to three days on that article only, instead of indefinite on all articles. The original sanction had been imposed due to a series of unfounded accusations by a specific editor. Read the appeal for details. — JFG talk 23:23, 25 July 2017 (UTC) - Now the delicate issue, as some commenters have talked about wielding the proverbial boomerang here: is there a problematic pattern to Sagecandor's editing?

I have crossed paths with this editor on several articles related to Donald Trump, who is a common area of interest for both of us. While Sage is a prolific content creator, for example single-handedly creating well-sourced articles for every book ever written by or attributed to Trump, s/he tends to behave defensively when fellow editors disagree with statements that s/he wrote, and the conversations can quickly take an WP:IDHT turn. In those situations, Sage tends to behave as article WP:OWNER, to bludgeon discussions by repeating the same point over and over again, and sometimes to lose track of WP:CIVILITY. This happened on Whataboutism recently: Sage called my contributions "bullshit", opened rapid-fire threads in reply to comments by other editors, made incoherent statements, talked to dissenting editors in the third person and in a disparaging tone, and finally forum-shopped the content dispute, presenting a one-sided case at NOR/N and calling for sanctions on a flimsy basis here at AE.

Already a few days before recent events, seeing some tension build up on the Whataboutism article, I reached out personally on Sagecandor's talk page, but s/he deleted my post within minutes and continued with battleground-style discussions. Some days Sagecandor is mild-mannered and a joy to work with constructively, some others s/he is trigger-happy and aggressive on what should be benign content issues to be discussed and resolved in a collegial way. S/he even managed to get upset at me after I closed a discussion about an article title, Trump Tower (novel), with unanimous consent to which s/he agreed.

Not for me to judge, just adding my limited perspective on this editor's interaction style for consideration. — JFG talk 00:35, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Power~enwiki
This is clearly a content dispute; Sagecandor's claims are puffed up egregiously. Based on a pattern of behavior, I request that boomerang sanctions be considered against Sagecandor, possibly a TBAN for post-1932 American politics.

I filed a complaint at ANI against Sagecandor approximately 1 month ago regarding his behavior on Malcolm Nance and his edits continue to be both single-purpose and with a clear intent to ensure that content reflects his personal views. Recently on Talk:Whataboutism and Talk:Elijah Daniel, he has antagonized multiple other editors, and generally refuses to engage in back-and-forth discussion at all. I have warned him several times regarding his behavior but it appears to be continuing. 

As far as User:JFG's behavior, he should drop the stick; there are clearly multiple other editors concerned with Sagecandor's ownership attempts here. Power~enwiki (talk) 11:33, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by IP
This does seem to be a content dispute, not behavioral. The forum shopping by the OP is somewhat concerning as well. I have seen Sagecandor on the wrong side of the admin boards a few times lately, and would agree a short topic ban to American Politics (no more than 3 months) may be beneficial. 87.140.35.118 (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by BullRangifer
Policy or content dispute? I'm not going to parse that here. The controversy of relevance is that JFG, backed by Jack Upland (and now a mysterious one-edit IP above!), insist on an OR/editorializing type of content based on their LACK of sources. Normally that should engender a LACK of comment in an article.

Editors are not free to state in Wikipedia's voice something not explicitly stated in a RS. They must not use an absence of evidence as evidence of absence, partially (there could be myriad other reasons) because that "absence of evidence" is based on their own inability to "find" (OR!!!) some evidence/sources. Failing in that OR mission, they should not write anything about it in the article. To then add unsourced commentary on their failure is OR editorializing, and that's what JFG has done with this addition. This content says otherwise anyway.

If JFG was right, we'd have a pure content dispute, but because of their error, it is also a policy violation. The noticeboards seem to say that Sagecandor has interpreted policy correctly.

Note that Sagecandor has received support and justification in these noticeboard threads. Sagecandor is right that OR violations are happening at Whataboutism:


 * No original research/Noticeboard
 * No original research/Noticeboard

BullRangifer (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * GoldenRing, I'm not sure, but I suspect part of your objections below apply to JFG, not Sagecandor, so if any sanctions are applied, they must also share the blame. Since the noticeboards say that Sagecandor is right, they should not be sanctioned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:08, 23 July 2017 (UTC)


 * DHeyward, this is not the place to bring up old grudges or things that are not relevant to this case. Your comments are simply personal attacks which have no bearing on this case. It's just nasty piling on. That's not fair. Sagecandor may have had problems in other areas and in the past, but this case should be judged on its own merits. You have not addressed any of the issues in this case, just made an unfair series of personal attacks which have no bearing on this case. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:05, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * DHeyward, maybe "grudges" is the wrong word, so I have stricken that. I don't know your history with Sagecandor that well. Thanks for pointing that out. I want to be fair to you. Otherwise, my pointing out your accusations against Sagecandor is not an ad hominem attack. Take a look at what you've written. It's a long list of nasty stuff. If it were on-topic, IOW about ONLY this case, it would be a whole different matter and such criticisms would be justified and not personal attacks. They could even be seen as evidence. Because they have zero bearing on THIS case, they aren't just criticisms, but ad hominem personal attacks because they do not address the CURRENT situation at all. For those reasons, your use of others' similar errors doesn't help. They too are wrong to demand a boomerang reaction while they are ignoring the CURRENT issues. I will point you to others' remarks: * (1) "But I am puzzled by the admins' responses thus far, not dealing with the actual behavior of JFG here, who has edit warred to add policy-violating content on a topic with DS. That is the issue here. And similar to their appeal, what they wrote above is simply an attack on other editor. Unlike their appeal, they do not acknowledge their double-layered problematic behavior, on a topic where they should be editing very conservatively. Jytdog"; * (2) "I haven't read through the entirety of the debate yet, but I'll put on the record that my initial impression of the situation is diametrically opposite to that of GoldenRing. The policy violations and IDHT behaviour are, as far as I can tell so far, fully on the side of JFG. Fut.Perf.". I have nothing against you in any way. It's just unfair to criticize Sagecandor for other behaviors and at other times while not addressing the CURRENT issues. That's all. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:45, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward
Sagecandor has a history of weaponizing 3RR, AE and ANI as well as a history of stalking behavior. I think it's about time he take a break from American politics for a bit. He should get at least a 30 day topic ban to stop the stalking and sanction abuse against editors he perceives as ideological opponents. Diffs on request if any admin at AE is unfamiliar with Sagecandor's behavior or his technique of forum shopping for sanctions. It's not surprising to see him here after ANI failed to gain traction. I've personally experienced his overzealousness at AE and when it failed, ANI   and it was only his apologies that saved him from being sanctioned on a boomerang at ANI. Even after all the "mea culpas" at AE and ANI, he launched a false accusation of 3RR violation not 4 days after admitting he was wrong and promising to move one. There are other editing practices that are fairly easy to see but remedies for that may be unnecessary if he completes a topic ban while still contributing to the project. --DHeyward (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

JFG should not be sanctioned in any way for having to deal with a problematic and overzealous behavior. Apparently, SageCandor has shopped this to 3 forums, just like he did to me so he should know better. --DHeyward (talk) 05:07, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

, your statements are classic ad hominem attacks. Others have already suggested a boomerang for SageCandor's forum shopping. He has a history of it and it's very relevant here because this is one of the noticeboards he has shopped. His behavior does not support the end goals of the project as forum shopping these boards is a way to stifle participation. I agree with the boomerang sanction because of his history of this type of behavior despite his statements that it would stop. And no, pointing out poor behavior is not a personal attack but casting aspersions about "grudges" is. If you think complaining about editor conduct is a grudge, kindly direct your grudge comments to SageCandor as we are once again here at AE because of a complaint filed by SageCandor. Kindly strike your unsupported aspersions. --DHeyward (talk) 10:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

thank you for striking "grudges" but you are still characterizing my remarks as personal attacks. They are not. They discuss SageCandor's behavior regarding prior use of multiple forums and wikihounding that escalate conflicts he becomes involved in. Editors that can't devote 16 hours a day to Wikipedia can't keep up with complaints in multiple fora for the same behavior. It's an abusive behavior with a shotgun approach looking to silence those that disagree with him. JFG is now defending himself up in three noticeboard discussions where sanctions could possibly be imposed. Being a normal editor, that would greatly consume his WP article editing time. GoldenRing's first response was boomerang which I support. The behavior has been noted as problematic for millenia as told by Aesop in The boy who cried wolf and there comes a time when when we need to discuss the behavior of the boy and not just look for wolves. Your request that I address this "wolf" without discussing all the other cries misses the whole point. I certainly not alone with the observation of his behavior. --DHeyward (talk) 05:42, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Propose Close w/ no action    Part of this was closed at ANI as Masem noted. It now appears SageCandor is ill so, as a practical matter, their dispute with JFG has ended. Also, SageCandor seems unlikely to be able to respond to whatever statement JFG supplies nor would he be able to clarify anything JFG questions. If other editors come in conflict with JFG, they can certainly file their own requests but it appears this complaint is moot and the meat of the content dispute is being resolved elsewhere. If SageCandor returns and the dispute is resurrected, this can be refiled. --DHeyward (talk) 05:42, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by SPECIFICO
Regarding the statement of above, the ANI thread cited against Sagecandor was rejected and closed by  as a personal dispute with no action taken. SPECIFICO talk  14:05, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I endorse 's comments. I may not be able to do so myself due to real-life conflicts, but I urge anyone with some spare time to scrutinize JFG's participation in American Politics articles over the recent past. I won't say more here unless I have time to assemble diffs. SPECIFICO talk  18:21, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Jytdog
This AE was filing was inexpertly done.

With regard to "diffs by JFG showing the violation" section:
 * 1 -3) the first three diffs are relevant;  diff #3 should have stated more clearly that this was re-adding the OR added in the first 2 diffs.
 * 4) diff 4 is not by JFG and should have been with comments below
 * 5) diff is not relevant
 * 6) diff is on point - this is again adding the OR

The explanation with regard to diffs 1-3 and 6 is also badly done. In all of them OR is introduced - this notion that the term is not in the OED, or that some use was the "first use"

The valid diffs demonstrate:
 * a) edit warring (the initial introduction in #1, then reverts in #2, #3, and #6
 * b) in order to introduce policy-violating content
 * c) in a field where there is very clear DS and on the topic within the field Trump/Russia, where JFG was sanctioned before.

In case it is not clear to admins, the article as it is currently constructed says that "whataboutism" is a propaganda technique used by the Soviets and then Russia, which Trump has also adopted as well - it is part of the Trump/Russia narrative.

To add some nuance here, I'll note that JFG appealed their prior 0RR sanction for violating the 1RR limit on a specific Trump/Russia article, acknowledging the mistake and requesting the 0RR sanction be limited to 3 days. The admins responded by admonishing JFG for making the appeal mostly an attack on other people, but accepted the request to reduce it to three days, a standard length of sanction for edit warring where there are no DS.

To add further nuance, I agree generally with JFG that the article is kind of a recentist mess and am in discussions at the talk page about how to dissolve it, which puts me in opposition with the OP who has mostly built the content.

But I am puzzled by the admins' responses thus far, not dealing with the actual behavior of JFG here, who has edit warred to add policy-violating content on a topic with DS. That is the issue here. And similar to their appeal, what they wrote above is simply an attack on other editor. Unlike their appeal, they do not acknowledge their double-layered problematic behavior, on a topic where they should be editing very conservatively. Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I appreciate KingsIndian's statement, but I remain even more puzzled that neither he nor the admins here see the behavioral problems here, which are laid out clearly above. Somebody should not be allowed to edit war policy-violating content into an article with DS, especially when they have been sanctioned  before for this in the very subtopic within the field of the DS, and when they do not even acknowledge that what they have done is unacceptable, but instead attack the filer.  This is how things run amok, and what AE is meant to identity and stop.  Not sanctioning means inviting future behavior along the same lines.  That is good for no one. Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Kingsindian
This is mostly a content dispute, with some edit-warring. I will address both in turn.

The main point at issue is whether the word "Whataboutism" is of long-standing usage, or whether it is a relatively recent phenomenon. The concept behind the word (tu quoque) is well-known and ubiquitous. JFG is arguing that the word was hardly used prior to 2008 or so when it was popularized in an Economist article, while Sagecandor is arguing that since the article only popularized the word, it must have been used before. Each is trying to build up their case on the talkpage, and there's an RfC on the matter. This is how it should be, in my opinion.

Let me now come to the behaviour. The first three diffs of JFG, all violate WP:OR in various degrees. For instance, JFG was incorrect in writing "the first documented use of the term...", because that would be WP:OR. They accepted the removal of the phrase here. There are still some disagreements about whether the phrasing JFG used is appropriate. I am not taking a position on who is right, and to what extent, but it does not violate WP:OR, in my opinion. Diff 4 is filler, diff 5 is not a problem, diff 6 is a mild case of WP:OR (using some source to prove a negative).

WP:OR disputes can be easily handled on the talkpage or the WP:NORN board. Are these diffs so egregious that they demand WP:AE action? I do not think so myself, since JFG seems amenable to rephrasing, compromise, discussion, RfC and so on. Admins can disagree, of course. I have found this kind of behaviour many times in my own arguments on Wikipedia.

As an aside, I am somewhat sympathetic to JFG's point that the pattern of word usage (almost all the references connecting the word to Soviet propaganda are relatively recent) is suspicious. I suspect there may be some citogenesis going on, or it could be just that the Economist article was very popular and the word was popularized rapidly. However, Wikipedia is only as good as its sources, and one can't enter one's theories into Wikipedia. It would be good if they made their case on the talk page, rather than the article. I can point out that they have an uphill battle: there are a LOT of sources (media usually) which use the term. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 05:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Politrukki
This is a content dispute and not actionable. Filer has not specified which remedy or sanction JFG supposedly violated. Filer has supplied no evidence that JFG is aware of Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions or that they have been warned in this topic area by an uninvolved administrator. I fail to see how JFG's edits – judging by diffs provided as evidence – are related to American politics, even broadly construed.

Filer's post at WP:ORN seems like an attempt to canvass editors to the RFC – and on the article's talk page they tried to canvass an editor who expressed certain point of view in ORN discussion. Filer has canvassed editors to this forum, by pinging them in their enforcement request. Politrukki (talk) 16:40, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning JFG

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


 * Comment This may be related to this recent ANI issue: Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents as it seems to involve the same article. Also here WP:NOR/N --M ASEM (t) 13:00, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This does look like a content dispute to me, which arbitration (enforcement) does not resolve. WP:OR is a policy that is about content, not conduct. As such, I think that disputes about the alleged violation of this policy normally are content disputes. There are certainly cases where the repeated, intentional violation of important content rules can be considered misconduct and therefore sanctionable at AE, but given that all diffs are about one article, Whataboutism, and are from within a few days, I don't think we're at that stage here.  Sandstein   13:42, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Having spent a half-hour reading the whole talk-page, I am very much minded to wield the boomerang here. The repeated, apparently deliberate, confusion of the OED with Oxford Living Dictionaries; the repeated insistence that a secondary source be provided for the verifiable fact that the OED doesn't include a word; the insistence on believing what a source says when it is plainly, trivially wrong; and the justification of not providing further citations in support of that source by primly saying that to do so would be original research seem to me plainly disruptive. I'm not taking a position one way or another on JFG at this point - I'm still thinking about that - but I'm pretty certain everyone would benefit from SageCandor taking a break from that article. I'm thinking probably a two-month page ban. I don't think a wider tban is warranted at this point. GoldenRing (talk) 13:54, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't read through the entirety of the debate yet, but I'll put on the record that my initial impression of the situation is diametrically opposite to that of GoldenRing. The policy violations and IDHT behaviour are, as far as I can tell so far, fully on the side of JFG. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Note that SageCandor has left a note at their talk page saying they are going inactive due to health issues. I'm in private communication with them as well and would not recommend action against them at this time.  GoldenRing (talk) 13:03, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It looks like no admins want to take action here. Without admin objection, I'll close this thread in 24 h as no action taken.  Sandstein   08:33, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No particular objection. I'd probably go for a "All participants are reminded that..." sort of close, if you can think of some words to fill in the ellipsis that aren't completely trite (I can't).  GoldenRing (talk) 13:08, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't like long paternalistic closing statements. We just need to decide whether or not to sanction somebody.  Sandstein   07:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning The Banner

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 21:57, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:TROUBLES (I am not sure if this is the proper link or not for this):


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


 * 1) 18:53 26 July Reverts Melbguy05 own revert
 * 2) 19:49 26 July Reverts several of Melbguy05's edits
 * 3) 20:58 26 July Reverts the exact same edits again after Melbguy05 restored them


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) shows The Banner has been blocked several times before for edit-warring and battleground behaviour without engaging in proper discussion, the same as in this edit-war.

This comment by The Banner on their talk page shows that they have read the Troubles restriction seeing as they were able to provide a direct quote from it in response to Murry1975's comment about that specific restriction. They also fail to deny knowledge of it when I mentioned it to them within the past hour.
 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Melbguy05 is also at fault here for continuing to restore their edits despite being reverted and have been notified by The Banner of the 3RR rule, to which Melbguy05 hasn't violated but only just. They have however violated the 1RR in place on Troubles related articles yet do not appear to have prior knowledge of this and I have duly notified them of it. As such I do not know whether they should also be reported here or not due to this. The Banner has also engaged in what could be classified as uncivil battleground behaviour with unfounded allegations such as this.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Editor notified.

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

Statement by The Banner
Mabuska is referring to a post out of 2015. Sorry, but I do not remember that. It sounds like a feeble excuse, but ill health - depression - played a part in that. The Banner talk 22:32, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

And yes, I apologies for my indiscretion. The Banner talk 23:15, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Mabuska
Thank you for the input. Melbguy05 as already detailed above has been notified that they violated 1rr and if you excuse their non-knowledge of it, also now know of 3rr. I did state I was not sure what was to be done in regards to Melgbuy05 hence why I explicitly stated such above so there is no prejudice in the case, and an admin can easily take action against them if deemed neccessary. Both were guilty of edit warring, however only The Banner knew of the 1rr which they ignored. The mention of The Banners previous block history is because the open a request thing asks you to add in previous blocks that may have relevance and they may have had relevance. Only doing what is requested.

Anyways if nothing is to be done, The Banner is sure to be able to remember the restriction from now on, however with an editor that experienced in Troubles articles I don't know how they can forget about it. Mabuska (talk) 09:27, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Will notify Melbguy05 now. Mabuska (talk) 09:32, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning The Banner

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


 * I do not think is incivil.  It is a statement of opinion, and he has to be able to express a concern.  The evidence for the claim lies in the diffs themselves, so the evidence is apparent.  If you think someone is whitewashing an article (a problem we have all over the wiki), I think saying so is fine as long as you don't pad the comment with a lot of hyperbole or ad hominem, and in this case, The Banner did not.  Editing isn't always pretty.  As for the reverts, both parties were equally to blame, so I wouldn't be inclined to sanction one more than the other.  Technically, the request for sanction should be against both, not just The Banner, which prejudices the case a bit. Previous issues in 2015 are meaningless here.  Not excusing his behavior, but I don't think it would be fair to single him out.  Everyone has been leaving civil and sufficient edit summaries, just not using the talk page.  In a perfect world,  and The Banner would just agree to stop it, use the talk page and get past this.  You should probably notify Melbguy05 of this discussion as he reverted three times in 24 hours as well. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 23:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This seems a bit hard to believe, but as far as I can tell, The Banner has never been properly notified of DS regarding WP:TROUBLES. The diff provided might be construed to show awareness, but doesn't count under WP:AC/DS.  So I think we need to close this with a warning not to edit war.  GoldenRing (talk) 09:44, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a bit of a technicality, as I'm quite sure The Banner knows about DS in TROUBLES, but I'm not sure about Melbguy05, who may or may not be aware. To prevent a lopsided situation, a warning to both is probably a safe way of dealing with this issue today, so I agree.  I have left the standard Arb template on both editors pages The Banner's page (Mabuska had just left one on Melbguy05's), so both this discussion and that template will serve as a very clear indication that they are aware.  Any future problem won't have the same limitation.  I'm leaving this report open a bit for comment, but my opinion is that both editors should be warned in the closing.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 14:24, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning MBlaze Lightning

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement :


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan :


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


 * 1) Special:Diff/792927623 Removal of sourced content (revert).
 * 2) Special:Diff/792933072 Second revert
 * 3) Special:Diff/792933871 Third revert
 * 4) Special:Diff/792946912 Fourth revert
 * 5) Special:Diff/792947736


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) Concerned user was previously blocked for 1RR violation and also for socking.


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.
 * Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.
 * Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on Date by.
 * Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
 * Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date
 * Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date.
 * Successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date.

MBlaze Lightning is a disruptive editor. The above diffs present a violation of 3RR. The users with whom MBlaze Lightning edit warred are now sockblocked also.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

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

Result concerning USERNAME

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



Request concerning MBlaze Lightning

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement :


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan :

User made 4 reverts within 24 hours on the same page. 3RR violated.
 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * 1)
 * 2)
 * 3)
 * 4)


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :

User has an extensive block history over edit wars and socking.
 * 1)
 * 2)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

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

Result concerning MBlaze Lightning

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


 * On the face of it, this is a 3RR violation. I'm not sure I'm ready to hand out sanctions for it though, since the material reverted includes the claim the ISI controls the Afghan Taliban, sourced to what looks a pretty rotten source to me. I'd be interested in the views of User:Samsara on this, who has since applied page protection to end the edit war. GoldenRing (talk) 13:00, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see the need to entertain requests from someone whose edit history screams "autoconfirmed sleeper sock". T. Canens (talk) 14:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Kautilya3
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Kautilya3

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 13:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan :


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


 * 1) User reverted without talkpage explanation as is required on all Kashmir Conflict related articles as is stipulated by an admin.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :

This user previously broke 1RR on a Kashmir Conflict related page and got let off lightly here with a warning. Secondly an admin clarified the ARBIPA restrictions on a talkpage where Kautilya3 was active. []. 2 IPs on the page List of massacres in Jammu and Kashmir also broke the restrictions.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Discussion concerning Kautilya3
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by Kautilya3
has amended the edit restriction here. So, there is no violation. Further, RegentsPark has never brought this page under the edit restrictions anyway. Perhaps it should be, and semi-protected at the same time? This is extremely disruptive (not withstanding the fact that an account registered on 3 July 2017 is citing evidence from 2016.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:55, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Sitush
I notice in one of the diffs provided by the filer that in September 2016 intimated that he would be revisiting the 1RR restriction that he had imposed in April 2016 (again, the filer provided the diff for that). Did it happen? What was the outcome? - Sitush (talk) 13:59, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde
Not actionable. As Kautilya points out, the restriction has been amended. No violation here. The article probably does come under the restrictions, but that is not relevant. Vanamonde (talk) 14:35, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning Kautilya3

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


 * Not actionable. The actual restriction has been modified here and no longer requires a first revert to be explained.  As a very new editor, I'd advise the filer to slow down a bit.  GoldenRing (talk) 14:07, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

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

Request concerning JFG

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 17:14, 3 August 2017 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2 :


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


 * 1) 10:57 3 AUG 2017 1rr
 * 2) 11:06 3 AUG 2017 2rr


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JFG/Archive_Drama#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_sanction

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JFG/Archive_Drama#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_sanction

1rr violation after previous 1rr violations on Russian interference articles.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * The sanctions (to my understanding) are for "all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people." Moreover, the parent article Talk:Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections is clearly under those sanctions and displays the banner. Additionally, JFG was sanctioned for violations in that parent article.Casprings (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJFG&type=revision&diff=793741494&oldid=792848831

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

Statement by JFG
Unfounded complaint: this article is not under 1RR. Editors are discussing the content issue on the talk page. — JFG talk 17:21, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Result concerning JFG

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


 * As far as I can tell, this article is not subject to 1RR - unless I'm missing something? GoldenRing (talk) 18:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)