Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ebionites/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log, as those will have changed by the time people click on your links. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to re-factor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Revert-warring, editorial bullying, inappropriate application of disputed tags, and editing against consensus by Michael Price, leading to locking of the article
Edit-warring over a dubious assertion placed in the lead of the article by MP. Application of OR tag by MP w/o adequate explanation to intimidate other editors. MP imposes the novel argument that removal of disputed content is OR because editors should not be allowed to use judgement with respect to sources.

        

More reverts by MP. Editing against consensus of three editors. Loremaster attempts to stop revert wars by moving dispute to talk page.

           

MP inserts a related dubious assertion into the lead, resulting in more reverts. Loremaster attempts to give up the dispute.

      

MP refuses to let go of the dispute and applies a totally disputed tag. MP adds both disputed assertions back to the lead, resulting in more reverts.

         

MP applies Totally Disputed, OR, and NPOV tags, blanks a paragraph of the lead, and the article is locked by an admin.

   

Talk page discussion about the content dispute and improper use of OR tag

       

Bad faith editing by Michael Price and a 3RR trap on Loremaster
MP files a 3RR complaint against Loremaster resulting in a block, for a revert war in which he also violated 3RR

       

Ovadyah's responses to Michael Price's comments, on behalf of Loremaster
One specific incident of archiving material from the talk page that was cited by Michael is inaccurate. I, Ovadyah removed the material in question by archiving it, not Loremaster. An editor added personal and private information about me outside of Wiki to the talk page, which I regarded as inappropriate behavior. The editor that questioned this removal had been previously blocked several times by WP:PAIN for personal attacks against myself and Loremaster. As to Loremaster's unrepentant reply, please note in the same diff the admonition against Michael Price's personal attacks, and the personal attack by Michael that immediately followed.

I can verify, as an observer to these exchanges between Michel Price and Loremaster, that Loremaster has an excellent understanding of WP:OR and WP:NPOV. This includes the particulars of Neutral_point_of_view, which required a request of two RFC's to attempt to explain them to Michael Price. I should also point out on Loremaster's behalf that he is an accomplished editor with two Featured Articles to prove it.

Michael Price confuses his personal interpretations with those of the authors he cites, often without valid pagination
Every attempt I have made today to check the history of the Talk page and create diffs, as required, freezes up my internet connection. I will be brief, then. Both the page proper, and the talk page suffered great distress under Michael Price's solitary, insistent and invariably confused edits, which appeared to prefer engaging editors in warring, than in responding to their legitimate requests for clarification. I mediated on his behalf initially, and but found, on close examination, that his procedures were fraudulent, and that he was wholly unresponsive to legitimate and polite requests for clarification by all other editors. I should add that the article, though recondite, is of considerable importance, since it deals with one of the seminal debates in the origins of Christianity, and the dedicated work done by several gifted and informed editors is at severe risk from the disruption I, as a neutral observer of the page, have noted.

I can only link the relevant section of the talk page where I showed that he was passing off his own synthetic interpretation of two books as in fact the views independently entertained by those authors. I apologize if this method does not fulfil the committee's criteria for evidence, but until I diagnose the problem with my computer, I can only refer you to the brief exchange, in which Price acknowledged implicitly that he was making improper inferences (confusing a source with the conclusions one historian made from that source - a constant in his editing of a hghly technical page) here Nishidani 11:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

My Responses to Michael C. Price's comments.
(1)In his defence (below) Michael writes:-

"The Gospel of the Ebionites, as reported by Epiphanius of Salamis records the vegetarianism of John the Baptist and, by implication the rest of the Ebionites,"

The words show the impossibility of arguing with him, since in defending himself he only provides further evidence for the charges laid against his editorial practice. Take the bizarre syllogism in the quote above.

(a)(Major Premise) There is no proof John the Baptist was an 'Ebionite'  (b) An ancient source is cited by Michael to the effect that John the Baptist was a vegetarian (c) Therefore (by implication) the Ebionites were vegetarians.

Note the 'implication' is a deduction made by Michael Price. I find it impossible to argue over detailed issues with someone who does not understand the most elementary practices of logical reasoning, and the distinction between evidence and inference.Nishidani 11:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

(2) In his defence (below) Michael writes:- "'I must emphasize that this assumption of bad faith is routinely assumed by all the other parties involved in the arbitration.'"

It simply is not true. I, and I think John Carter, both came in to mediate and showed, from the beginning, a certain willingness to debate Michael's points with (in my case) Ovadyah. There was, at least certainly in these two instances, no 'assumption of bad faith'. To the contrary, the assumption of bad faith was forced on me by his subsequent behaviour. I for one have no 'POV' on this issue (and have refrained from editing the text, except to provide properly accented Greek script). I have a strong POV on 'proper scholarly methodology in textual criticism, indispensable methods for assessing evidence in the humanities of which Michael remains blithely unaware. Nishidani 14:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Addition of misleading and fraudulent content to the article by Michael Price
MP pushing the discredited POV that the early Christians were same group as the Essenes, editing against the consensus of three editors, and misattribution of sources.

Reverting the article against consensus and misattribution of a source:

     

Related Talk page discussion:

             

MP engaging in WP:SYN by conflating three highly conjectural POVs together: 1) that John the Baptist was a vegetarian based on a source disputed by Epiphanius, 2) that JTB was an Essene, and therefore, 3) that the Essenes were vegetarians. MP continues to push the veggi POV despite being shown archaeological evidence of animal bones excavated from Qumran.

                

MP pushing the logical fallacy of nothingness as a positive proof of Essene vegetarianism.

   

MP refusing to remove or modify the knowingly false assertion that a quotation from Pliny "proves" the Essenes were vegetarians. I cite WP:Point and request an RFC to explain the application of the principle of undue weight to Michael.

     

MP reinserts the disputed Essene vegetarianism claim and cites a vanity publication by Jacob Rabinowitz, which was judged to be an unreliable source by Rs/N. Rabinowitz's speculation about vegetarianism at Qumran was overturned by the archaeological evidence that MP knew was present in the article and was discussed on the talk page. Despite this, MP refuses to retract the false assertion and reverts all attempts to remove it. MP claims instead, in an egregious violation of OR, that vegetarians were present during the time periods when a lack of specific evidence of animal bones did not rule it out, despite my pointing out that there were extended periods when Qumran was found to be uninhabited.

       

MP falsely claims that James H. Charlesworth linked the Ebionites to the Essenes, and he violates WP:OR by conflating both groups with John the Baptist. I provide verifiable source evidence to the contrary, but MP refuses to remove the claim, based upon a television interview that other editors cannot access, and refuses to provide specific evidence to support this claim on the talk page.

      

Related talk page discussion and editing against the consensus of two editors.

        

I made a second request for an RFC on undue weight to Alec McConroy, who was our previous RFC on the article. I cite Wiki policies against disruptive editing and WP:TE to which MP responds with accusations of bad faith and personal attacks. I request an opinion from Ft/N to get an outside opinion on the evidence linking the Essenes, John the Baptist, and the Ebionites. Responding to my query, John Carter opines, "I'd consider almost all content related to the Essenes questionable, at least if it refers to Qumran as Essene." The comments from Ft/N are ignored, so I ask for suggestions on how to proceed from admins Jayjg and Metamagician. My complaints regarding editorial syntheses and fraudulent content are witnessed and verified by two independent editors.

            

MP conflates the views of James Tabor, Robert Eisenman, and Jacob Rabinowitz to falsely state they are all in agreement that the Ebionites regarded John the Baptist to be a Messiah. This is the initial rewording by MP of the key sentence, copied from a complex diff for clarity: 

MP modifies the initial conflated version, editing against consensus and compounding the synthesis by adding Eisenman:   

I remove the disputed references to Rabinowitz and Eisenman, and I point out to MP that they nowhere make a connection between the Ebionites and JTB as a Messiah figure. MP responds by reverting my changes without discussion. I recheck my sources and insist that MP provide specific evidence from his sources on the talk page. MP refuses to provide the evidence and reverts Eisenman. I request a fact check and MP removes it without discussion, so I apply a disputed tag to the article and report the incident to An/I. Responding to my complaint, the article undergoes FAR for a lack of stability, neutrality, and factual accuracy, after which the article is eventually demoted to B status for failing these and other criteria.

       

This brings the evidence up to the point where Nishidani began to participate in the discussion on the talk page. Since I am out of diffs, I will have to rely on him to present the rest of the evidence. Nishidani and I both presented arguments on the talk page definitively refuting this Eisenman / Tabor conflation.

In summary, I presented specific evidence showing that Michael Price conflated sources as a means to add OR content to the Ebionites article that was knowingly false, with the intention to deceive. These actions resulted in damage to the article, and the reputation of the encyclopedia, that was only partially remedied by demotion of the article in FAR. In other words, Michael Price committed the textbook definition of fraud.

My responses to Michael Price's comments
I wish to thank Michael Price for proving my points. Since Nishidani has already picked Michael's position apart, I will be brief. 1) There is no evidence to support the statement "this was an earlier and separate settlement than the Qumran settlement that existed in New Testament times (c30 AD and later)", only Michael's fevered speculations. 2) Hirschfeld, whom Michael cites here, commented on the possibility of vegetarian Essenes at Ein Gedi (not Qumran), based on a complete absence of evidence of food debris. What Hirshfeld did describe, however, was evidence of pottery fragments dating from 70 - 100 AD, ie. a timeframe that is too late to support Michael's arguments. Further, Hirschfeld is widely regarded in the field as a crank, including by a second author, Jodi Magness, whom Michael cites on the talk page.

"Here's the critical passage from Magness' review:

She essentially portrays Hirschfeld as a revisionist crank. Ovadyah 14:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)"

In summation, this fellow has no idea how to distinguish evidence from inference. Even more exasperating is his insistence that removal of disputed material to the talk page is itself an act of OR. Michael's desire to have substantive discussions is really just another way of provoking endless edit-warring on the talk page for his amusement. Nice try Michael, but it won't wash. The evidence against you is overwhelming, and all the other participating editors agree.

Evidence presented by User:Warlordjohncarter
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Michael Price has engaged in regular attempts to avoid directly dealing with questions by attacking and insulting others
At this point, I regret to say that I have forgotten my specific reason for paying attention to the page, although I believe it was as a result of the notice posted on the Fringe theories/Noticeboard here. I note I had earlier tagged the article with the Christianity banner, but I had tagged a number of such articles, and do not have any specific memories of that. Initially, I was somewhat symphathetic to Michael Price's position, given that it did seem rather well sourced. I also believe I noticed almost immediately how Michael Price regularly raised rhetorical, accusatory questions and statements regarding those with whom he disagreed. I absented myself from further discussion for some time, being busy elsewhere, and suggested that RfM was filed, here. Obviously such things can happen in longstanding disputes, but it did strike me at the time. I believe I did not return until after mediation had been suggested. There was a question from me regarding why certain content calling John the Baptist a Messiah was reintroduced [|here], to which Michael responded with a great deal of heat but no clear clarification, in a discussion which continued [|here], [|here], [|here]. He pointedly refuses to acknowledge his own responsibilities as per wikipedia policy to cite specific sources when challenged [|here], which I pointed out [|here]. I requested comment as to whether this constituted synthesis [|here], but the answer was inconclusive [|here]. to be continued ...

Response to MichaelCPrice's comments
I note that he is once again raising below the misstatement that other editors attack him whether he changes his mind or not. The essential question in the eyes of myself and others is not whether he changes his mind or not, however. It is the implicit belief that his opinion, and his opinion alone, is what should determine the content of an article. In fact, statements similar to the above have been made before. The fact that he persists in these palpable attempts at misdirection even here is itself I think some proof toward my above assertion. John Carter 20:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Michael C. Price
My apologies for the lateness of my response. It will take awhile to respond to all the assertions, so please be patient.

Nishidani's "confusion" claim
The disputed sentence in the article, which Nishidani claims I was confused about, was in fact added by Loremaster, not myself:. All I did was add three references, including Eisenman, to support some of the claims made (such as some of the ancient sources portraying John the Baptist as a vegetarian). For clarity I included the relevant passages, with page numbers, as quotes in the supplied Eisenman reference:. This was claimed, by Nishidani, as "fraudulent synthesis in this footnote scam", a violation of WP:AGF.

The disputed paragraph went on to state, in NPOV fashion: "It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian (a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus[72][7]) or whether some Ebionites (or the related Elchasaite sect which Epiphanius took for Ebionites) were projecting their vegetarianism onto him.[47]"

All this material has since been deleted from the article.

Loremaster's inappropriate behaviour
I do not dispute that I edit warred with Loremaster, so I will not respond in detail to each and every diff Ovadyah has presented on Loremaster's behalf. I was forced to edit war because resolution via the talk was impossible: Loremaster, at the time, had a very poor grasp of WP:OR, and WP:NPOV, would not indulge in consensual edits and had poor wiki-social skills -- e.g. he would archive threads from the talk page immediately once he had made what he considered to be the definitive pronouncement on an issue, without asking or waiting for responses. e.g.   A number of other editors, not just me, complained about this. Loremaster was quite unrepentant about this practice.

Ovadyah's accusations of fraud
Ovadyah (and others following his lead) frequently claim that I make fraudulent or knowingly false claims on a range of topics; a claim that he repeats here. There is not the time nor space to respond to all these claims, so I will examine just one (which seems to attract a lot of Ovadyah's ire), the issue of vegetarianism, where Ovadyah says "MP continues to push the veggi POV despite being shown archaeological evidence of animal bones excavated from Qumran.". The Gospel of the Ebionites, as reported by Epiphanius of Salamis records the vegetarianism of John the Baptist and, by implication the rest of the Ebionites (an implication which many secondary sources make, despite Nishidani implication that this is my own original research), despite Epiphanius' skepticism on the subject. Modern sources have commented on this in the context of the disputed hypothesis that the Essenes were vegetarians. It is an open issue as to whether the Essenes or the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls (who may or may not have been Essenes) were vegetarians -- there is no scholarly consensus on the matter (some cite Pliny in support of the vegetarian hypothesis, for example, others cite Josephus both for and against the hypothesis). What does not settle the issue, despite Ovadyah's original research claims to contrary, is the presence of bones dating from 31 BC or earlier at the Qumran site (abandoned between 37 BC to 4 BC), since this was an earlier and separate settlement than the Qumran settlement that existed in New Testament times (c30 AD and later). I pointed this out to Ovadyah and others  on the Ebionite talk page, along with a plea to assume good faith to be met with the usual presumption of bad faith. The entire vegetarian thread is here. Perhaps I could have repeated this point more often and in greater detail, but since Ovadyah's argument was original research it didn't seem appropriate.

I could repeat this process of refutation for every single accusation of fraud that Ovadyah makes (about the Essenes, about John the Baptist being described as a Messianic leader, etc) they are all a result of the lack of objectivity that follows from the refusal to assume good faith. The violation of WP:AGF makes consensual progress impossible.

Refusal to assume good faith
The Ebionite article attracts editors with strong POVs but with an unwillingness to allow the presentation of other notable, reliably sourced POVs (such as James Tabor's) in a balanced and fair way, in line with Wikipolicies such as WP:NPOV. Rather than productively debate these substantive issues many editors resort to the consistent presumption of bad faith. This is a long-standing problem that needs addressing. With this bad faith practice stopped I believe the content issues can be resolved.

I could cite many examples, which would be tiresome: the vegetarian issue in the previous section is sufficient.

I must emphasize that this assumption of bad faith is routinely assumed by all the other parties involved in the arbitration. If I change my views on something I am accused of shifting like a chameleon, If I don't change my views I am accused of obduracy and bad faith. Needless to say the disputed substantive issues are not as straightforward as presented by others; the continued assumption of bad faith makes it impossible to have a rational debate about them.

An example of how the refusal to assume good faith has lead to a quite hysterical atmosphere in which reasoned debate is fruitless was provided when I concluded a proposal with:
 * ....I don't mind either way, but we all have to agree beforehand.

to be met with the immediate response:
 * Michael, I hope eveyone will pardon me for saying your last statement above looks to me like one of the most pathetic attempts at evasion I have ever witnessed in my life.....

How can a proposal, along with an acknowledgment that I was happy with what ever outcome we agreed to, be regarded as an evasion?

Evidence presented by {your user name}
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.