Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid

Case Opened on 17:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 19:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Requests for arbitration.

Involved parties

 * (initiating party)

Statement by Ideogram

 * Clerk note: A few days after filing this case, Ideogram blanked his original statement. Because the opening statement is needed to understand the responses below, I have copied his original statement here. Ideogram's subsequent comments, which he blanked at the same time, have not been copied but are available in the RfAr page history if necessary. Newyorkbrad 17:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

These editors all argue that the article Allegations of Israeli apartheid should be deleted. They have now decided as a group that if they can't get that deleted, they will create as many "Allegations of X apartheid" articles as they can and defend them by pointing at the Israeli article. User:Urthogie alone created the Brazilian, Chinese, and French articles. User:Jayjg created the Saudi Arabian article and has swamped the deletion debates with old battles. The same crowd, all tied up in the Israeli fracas and never showing any interest in any of these countries before, is bloc-voting on all of the AfD's.

I leave it up to ArbCom to decide whether this WP:POINT disruption is to be allowed.

--Ideogram 06:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Jayjg
This case appears to be a poorly thought out attempt to get the ArbCom to decide content disputes (and AfDs) in Ideogram's (and others) favor. To begin the list of "Involved parties" seems to be modified almost at random.  In addition, an AfD is not an "attempt at dispute resolution". Moreover, commenting on AfDs (and even voting Keep) is not WP:POINT, nor is editing articles, and none of those things are policy violations.

It baffles me that Ideogram would claim I created "one dozen articles"; yes, 13 "Allegations of apartheid" articles have been created, but by seven different people independently, over a period of over a year. Of these 13 articles (most of which have gone to AfD), 3 were deleted, 2 were merged, 1 was moved, 5 have been kept, and 2 are currently under AfD review. One of the existing articles was restored after DRV, and one of the deleted ones is currently before DRV. Personally, I did create one of those articles, 4 months ago, and it didn't seem to cause any "disruption" until a couple of days ago, when someone put it up for AfD (it was subsequently speedy kept). I also voted/commented on some AfDs, but not others (e.g. Islamic or the Jordanian). What this wide variety of outcomes actually shows is that no "group decisions" have been made and the process is working.

Regarding comments made by several editors about Sefringle (who appears to have gone on Wikibreak almost 2 weeks ago), it's rather telling that their best evidence of the "smoking gun" regarding the "motivations" of the "bloc" is not actually part of any "group" or "bloc", nor did he create or edit any of the articles in question, so bringing up his statements is, at best, a red herring. Finally, as is typical, there has been a lot of "piling-on" going on here, as other people opposed to the article(s) try to see if they can get their way via this AfD, and people with grudges in general try to piggy-back onto this, using it to even up old scores; disappointing, but unsurprising, and in my view not something that should be encouraged or rewarded. Jayjg (talk) 06:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Cerejota
I think treating all of these articles as a collective entity for purposes of editing and AfD is incorrect and unproductive.

I do agree with Ideogram that editors are voting keep/merge in AfDs but in the discussions frequently raise that if X article is invalid for Y reasons, then the Israeli article is invalid for the same reason Y, and that they are voting keep/merge until the same standard is applied to the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article. A number of these editors are editors who had never edited or shown interest in the given country being edited, but certainly are active on WikiProject Israel and/or articles on Judaism/Israel. This can be seen in the AfDs.

Whatever the motivations of the editors involved in creating these articles, I take the view that they should be evaluated by their content, and not as a collective entity. Some are of rather high quality, others are not. Some have been deleted or merged, others have not. This shows the community is developing a consensus around this topic that is consonant with my POV that each article should be evaluated on its merits, and that while there is a topical connection, each article is a world upon itself. I think ArbCom should clarify this matter for the community, and encourage admins and crats to ignore comments that allude to other pages in AfDs. It sounds like a quid pro quo attempt to gather support to delete Allegations of Israeli apartheid, not based on its merit, but on the offended national sensitivities of a group of editors.

This is not the first time involved and uninvolved editors have raised the possibility of a WP:POINT meatpuppet effort, and ArbCom should look into this allegation seriously, and rule on this. If there is evidence and there indeed is an effort to WP:POINT, ArbCom should defend wikipedia and wikipedians. If there isn't evidence and these are empty accusations, then it must defend the accused editors from the smear.

Thanks!--Cerejota 13:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Clerk note: Subsequent comments be Cerejota are on the talkpage. Newyorkbrad 17:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:NicDumZ
I came here today to denounce the fact that considering all the Allegations of X articles together hijack the editing process on the other articles. Understand me, I may say I have no interests in the future of AoIA, I'm only working on the AoFA article ; when trying to reach a consensus, (about renaming it/moving it into an other article/expanding its content to treat a wider suburban French problem, well... trying to work on this locked article), all I get, when not bad faith, are answers like this one :. A comparison involving the AoIA.

The centralized discussion about the Allegations of X articles is striking to me : From the outside, it seems that all the discussions are eventually about the fate of the AoIA article. Some may say more about this strange phenomenon, for example drawing conclusions on why all these articles were created. I'm not going to step into these hazardous allegations.

There is indeed a widespread problem involving the Israeli article. What ought to be done overthere, I don't know. But allowing the deadlocked debates on this particular article to expand to other content-independant articles, especially through Allegations of apartheid, this should not happen.

NicDumZ ~  15:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:Urthogie
I believe this is really a content dispute about where we draw the line on what is a notable "allegation." AFD has already eliminated the "allegations" that don't deserve to exist, such as Allegations of Jordanian apartheid. This arbitration is unnecessary, and is an attempt to bypass AFD.--Urthogie 21:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (6/1/0/1)

 * Decline. Things are unquestionably a mess here, but I don't see how the ArbCom could help. There are no specific instances of user misbehaviour to deal with. We could put everything in this area under probation, but that would have no effect on the creation/deletion of the pages, which seems to be the core issue. - SimonP 19:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Accept. SimonP 11:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * * Decline. I agree with SimonP that it's a mess, but it's a mess that ArbCom can't untangle. For my part, I would think that any article entitled "Allegation of X" has forfeited its claim to neutrality from the outset, and that any content therein could be discussed more usefully in an article which has a wider contextual foundation. Mackensen (talk) 00:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Accept. I'm persuaded by GRBerry's rationale--the comments on that DRV are extremely unfortunate. Mackensen (talk) 22:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Reject. This does not foreclose any future cases based on WP:POINT arising from this fracas. Anyone who doesn't understand the policy should read it now rather than later. Charles Matthews 02:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm keeping this under review. Charles Matthews 01:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. This is snowballing. Charles Matthews 12:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. The allegation that bogus articles were created by respected Wikipedians to prove a point is troubling and is not strictly a matter of content. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Decline. All "allegations of" articles are crap, but that's not for ArbCom to determine. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 17:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Reject. Do not see how ArbCom can help here. The community needs to settle this specific content dispute. The complaints do not rise to the level of an arbitration case. FloNight 00:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC) Strike my oppose. FloNight 14:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. Paul August &#9742; 04:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. Kirill 21:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision=

As the Committee has been unable to determine which actions in this matter, if any, were undertaken in bad faith, and as the community appears to be satisfactorily dealing with the underlying content dispute, the case is dismissed with no further action being taken.


 * Passed 8 to 0, 19:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)