Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria/Evidence

Correction
I've noticed the nice effort on the google searchs but would like to suggest a few changes that must be made to them (if you don't mind the suggestions): p.s. there's more ways to write down the names of the area and while 'Shomron' bumps up the findings another reasonable 300K, Google doesn't know how to handle "Iudea" and finds 470 million pages using the word 'Idea' instead. Warm regards,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Change the 'Samaria' searh to be X or Y or Z rather than X and Y, which is the current format. Here's a sample search with the added, rarely used in English term 'Yesha' (translates to: Judea, Samaria and Gaza) -
 * 2) Change the 'West Bank' search to be "A B" rather than A and B, which finds all the B's and all the A's regardless if the context is relevant to "A B" -- in this instance, all the pages that include a mention of a bank and all the ones that say west are included; Here's how to do this -

p.s. if I add the Hebrew usage, the tables are clearly turned towards using Samaria/Judea rather than censoring them as MeteorMaker proposes 28.7 Mil vs. 15.9 Mil. Still wondering how adding Arabic would benefit the searches though I found out that West Bank (in Arabic) raises the findings to 18 Million while adding Arabic for the Samaria search gives it a total of 28.7 Million. i.e. it (expectedly) adds a neglectible number of findings in the "occupation of Arab land" narrative.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This has been thoroughly discussed on Talk:Israeli settlement. Short recap:
 * Per WP:NCGN, English Wikipedia uses English place names. Filter your Google searches on language, folks.
 * Filter out Wikipedia.org (and disregard WP clones).
 * Googling for "Samaria" yields tons of irrelevant hits. On the first Google page, we get only two relevant hits (the rest are, in order or prominence, refs to Ancient Samaria, Crete's Samaria Gorge, and the Korean movie Samaritan Girl (aka "Samaria"). The number of relevant hits goes down from there but stabilizes around one in twelve.
 * Of the remaining hits for Samaria, 85% are confirmable as of Israeli origin, and 8.3% occur on self-confessed Zionist sites and blogs (based on a sample of the first 500 Google hits in November 2008). Remember, it's not disputed that the term is used in Israel, only that WP should use partisan terminology.
 * Even without taking 3 and 4 into consideration, "West Bank" (18M hits) blows away "Judea" and "Samaria" (2M hits each).
 * Perhaps surprisingly, even in Israel "West Bank" is the clear majority term with 156K Google hits. "Samaria": 58.6K hits, "Judea": 54.8K.
 * For those who want to perform WP's standard test for wide acceptance of a geograohic term, the procedure is detailed here. For those too lazy to do it, the result of applying it to the relevant terms is here.


 * Finally, "Yesha" is not a term we are discussing here and yields only 38.3K hits anyway. MeteorMaker (talk) 09:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * A chunk of your argument is (A) argumentative and subjective (e.g. "we get only two relevant hits", "85% are confirmable as of Israeli origin, and 8.3% occur on self-confessed Zionist sites" [sic]), and (B) does not justify the censorship of the use of 'Samaria' and 'Judea' from the project.
 * Warm regards,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  16:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Please clarify your objections. There are in fact only two hits that pertain to the relevant question on the first Google result page, 85% of the relevant hits are in fact confirmable as of Israeli origin, and 8.3% of them do occur on self-confessed Zionist sites. If you disagree with the exact figures, I suggest you do it from the position of having performed the same evaluation of at least a 500-item sample yourself. Your "censorship" accusation is in itself not only argumentative and subjective, but also inflammatory. MeteorMaker (talk) 17:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Dear MeteorMaker,
 * I personally counted 7 links from the first 10 that I would consider relevant to the comparison (based on equal grounds to both terms); a 350% influx in comparison to your presentation which is, basically, a faulty perspective/narrative on the facts. All sides standing on equal grounds, there is a clear case that the terms Judea and Samaria should not be censored from the readers and this includes Arabic (lack of) use on the terms as well.
 * The 'censorship' note is not an accusation on you personally but rather an observation on a selective approach to sources in a manner that fits the predetermined agenda. When facts don't fit the predetermined agenda they are repeatedly rejected in a way that makes one perspective, the predetermined one, completely nullify the legitimate other (see WP:NPOV). This approach fits my interpretation of the WP:CENSOR policy even if the rejected perspective is not deemed offensive to the motivated censor and to further illustrate my point, I've not seen you mention that in the 17.5 Million hits (500,000 less than the 18M you've claimed) on your West Bank search, you've neglected to mention that 4 of the first 10 are completely irrelevant (3 banks and 1 agenda driven musical production).
 * Warm regards,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  20:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) You must have counted refs to Ancient Samaria (which is uncontested usage, remember), Samaria Gorge (which is on Crete, several hundred kilometers away from the West Bank), and/or Kim Ki-Duk's movie Samaritan Girl (no, it's set in Korea, and is about two girls who perform sexual services out of goodness). Neither is particularly relevant to the question whether "Samaria" is used for the modern West Bank region.
 * 2) You have to suggest amending WP:NCGN to accept terms that aren't widely used in English then. As it is, it clearly and unambiguously states:
 * "When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. [...] A name can be considered as widely accepted if a neutral and reliable source states: 'X is the name most often used for this entity'."
 * We have plenty of sources that state precisely that about "West Bank". We have no sources at all that state that "Samaria" is the name most often used for any part of the West Bank. On the contrary, many of the sources explicitly say that "Samaria" is used only in Israel and not at all in the rest of the world.
 * Google hit counts notoriously vary considerably even during the course of the day, so don't expect absolute numbers to stay the same for long. I concede one thing, that I underestimated the number of banks that use variations of "West Bank" in their names. Filtering them out broadly by excluding the word "banking" seems to take care of that problem. Still more than 6 times as many hits as for "Judea" or "Samaria", even before the basic pruning described above (which further increases the ratio to 1 "Samaria" hit per 70 "West Bank" hits, nearly all on Israeli sites). MeteorMaker (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Samaria is not an Israel-only term and selectively playing with and misrepresenting the statistics is not convincing at all. I've just shown that it can be displayed, on even grounds, that Samaria/Judea are even more common than West Bank (28.7 Mil vs. 18 Mil). Certainly enough to allow their usage on the project.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * p.s. as far as I am in concern this conversation is over. We have an open Arbcom case so use your Arbcom space to place your notes about how you think Google works. We've already discussed matters in length 10 months ago and you refused to compromise and managed to offend me as well by calling 'world bank' and other sources "Jewish government related" and rejecting them. Use the Arbcom platform please. Thanks,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Kindly provide a diff to where I called anything "Jewish government related". I regret that it offends you when I point out that 1) if somebody intends to prove that a term is used anywhere else than in Israel, an Israeli source using that term isn't the most ideal evidence, and 2) the number of Google hits for websites on Bible history, geological formations on Crete, Korean movies and so on is pretty irrelevant to the question we are discussing here. That's a reality you will have to face if you want a sincere and fruitful discussion however. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You've already stated your concerns/beliefs on numerous locations and ignored those of others on many more. Please review my previous response and follow it up with a review on WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Thanks!  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  22:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Jaakobou, you've been taken in by one of the many hoaxes that have proliferated in this dispute. Here's the sequence: (1) MeteorMaker added material to the effect that "Samaria" is a term used by Israelis for the northern West Bank.  He had excellent secondary sources saying exactly that.  (2) Jayjg and others then amassed a number of primary sources, which they claimed were "non-Israeli sources," in an attempt to disprove MM's sourced statement.  Many of their "non-Israeli sources" were in fact Israelis; Jay et al attempted to wikilawyer around that, claiming for example that an op-ed by an Israeli ambassador was a "non-Israeli source" because it was published in an Australian newspaper.  (3) MeteorMaker insisted on this fact, that many of their "non-Israeli sources" were in fact Israeli. (4) Jay et al replied that it was "distasteful" to discriminate between sources according to nationality, and broadly and repeatedly insinuated that MM was a bigot.
 * The whole thing was a hoax. MeteorMaker never argued against the use of Israeli sources in the article.  He argued that primary-source-based original research attempting to show widespread non-Israeli use of a term failed in its purpose if the primary sources relied on were in fact Israeli.  His reasoning was as sound as 2+2, and there was no hint of bigotry or discrimination in it.  You've been tricked.  No great shame there, by the way; I was initially tricked as well.  When I discovered it was a trick, I became disgusted.  You too should be disgusted.  One of the purposes of this RfArb is to try to deal with the fallout from this sort of deception.--G-Dett (talk) 00:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Dear G-Dett,
 * I'm well aware of MeteorMaker's arguments and sources but I am also aware that he called non-Israeli sources "Jewish government related" and decided, against the opinions of fellow editors, that they should have no bearing on the discussion.
 * The "hoax" claims against Jayjg are factually incorrect. Perhaps a few sources were Israel related, but a good number were indeed international or not connected to Israel in a more direct way than other sources were to 'West Bank'.
 * The discriminatory way MeteorMaker handled sources was indeed distasteful as well as in violation of WP:NPOV.
 * MeteorMaker argues that the terms Judea and Samaria should be deleted from the project (unless it's a bible story) and to support this argument, they are misrepresenting statistics and selectively promoting information to support a single POV. I'm disgusted by such trickery as calling out the Samaria search with "it's related to the bible" but "forgetting" to mention that many of the 'west bank' searches are unrelated as well. You too should be disgusted not only by that but also by the incivility of your hoax "observation" on jayjg.
 * Cordially,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  22:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * G-Dett is backing up her assertions with evidence on the evidence page. I suggest you do the same if you want yours to have any credibility. Cla68 (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Cla68. Am also wondering why none of the "pro-Israel" editors (always in scare quotes, for a multitude of reasons) are posting evidence of any kind.--G-Dett (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Heyo cla68 and others,
 * I did back up my statement regarding violation of WP:NPOV by MeteorMaker. I also backed up the issue that on a leveled playing field, Smaria, Judea and Yesha have even more prominence than West Bank does.
 * Warm regards to "anti-Israel" (Arabs call it "massacre") editors,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  09:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Jaakobou:
 * 1. I have already informed you that I've never called any sources, Israeli or non-Israeli, "Jewish government related" and asked you to provide a diff for that claim. In response, you repeated that inflammatory untruth still one more time. This is turning into a civility issue.
 * 2. You are misrepresenting G-Dett when you claim she has said all of Jayjg's sources were Israeli. The problem with his sources is mainly that none actually says that J+S are widespread toponyms in English and for that reason, he has had to build his argument using WP:SYNTH. The hoax she is referring to is his trying to pass off Israeli sources as non-Israeli because they have been quoted in foreign books or newspapers, and his insisting that it's "distasteful ethnic discrimination" to point that out. Remember, it is not contested that the terms are used in Israel, so examples of Israelis using the terms are irrelevant to this discussion.
 * 3, 4. Your persistent allegations of "misrepresenting statistics and selectively promoting information to support a single POV" and accusations of "distasteful" discrimination and "trickery" that you say you're "disgusted by" are a severe breach of WP:AGF and will count against you if you fail to back them up with something substantial.
 * 4. Historical usage of the terms is not contested. Examples of such usage are thus irrelevant to this discussion. Google hits to such examples of use are not evidence of modern use and should be subtracted from the result of comparative Google searches. Do you disagree with any of these statements?
 * Also, your claim that "Smaria, Judea and Yesha have even more prominence than West Bank does" appears to be unsourced. Since it blatantly contradicts every reliable source we have so far, plus thorough evaluations to the WP:NCGN protocol as well as more informal Google searches (see above), you should really take a moment and peruse WP:REDFLAG. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

$$\leftarrow$$ Can we stop this somewhat futile debate right here? I don't see the point in mashing-up google hits in one way or another if we have rather explicit sources in academic and mainstream literature. If you've got real evidence, post it on the page. Discussing it to death here is only a waste of time and energy. Cheers,  pedrito  -  talk  - 04.03.2009 11:31
 * Agree completely. Since Jaakobou announced his intention to pull out of this conversation, I assume we don't have to discuss this particular aspect of the main issue further. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

"Historical Term"
Just wondering what constitutes an "historical term." How old does something have to be to be accurately labeled "historical"? Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As opposed to "modern", I would say it's enough that we have no evidence of modern use. For Wikipedia, since no particular guideline exists that states otherwise, it's technically sufficient with an RS that says that "Samaria" and "Judea" are. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a silly opinion piece-- who the devil is Shalom Freeman, lol? The term was used exclusively until around 1970, when "West Bank" was pushed as an alternative, since the Palestinian Arabs became unhappy with the old "Jewish" names.  If that's "historic," that would mean that anyone over 40 is "historic."  Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There are others who refer to "Arab-occupied Samaria and Judea", but I would guess that would be considered an opinion as well. Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I see Freedman is notable enough. But opinion pieces are just that, opinion pieces.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 04:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is an opinion piece, I just found the original. My bad, I just lazily checked the URL and found the word "university" in the domain name. Though my point still stands, "historical terms" typically means "terms no longer used". MeteorMaker (talk) 09:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly sure that the term "West Bank" was coined and used well before 1970, and also that it is incorrect to state that Judea & Samaria were used "exclusively", or even at all much, prior to that. My understanding is that these fairly ancient and obsolete terms were revived within Israel after 1967 by the Likud governments of the 1970s, for pretty clear political purposes (although Samaria does seem to have been used during the British mandate period). As for the more general point about when a term becomes historical, I agree with MM that we would say that about a term that has fallen into disuse - or indeed has never really been used in the modern era by most people - regardless of when that happened. 1972 seems to fit for Ceylon vs Sri Lanka. We might not describe anyone over the age of 40 who still refers to Ceylon as "historic" themselves, but we might argue that thay had failed to move with the times, or that they were trying to make a nostalgic or irredentist point about the British Empire. --Nickhh (talk) 12:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, there are two separate questions here. To identify a term like Samaria as "historical" in the actual text of a Wikipedia article, we need reliable mainstream secondary sources explicitly identifying it as such. Something for example like this from the Los Angeles Times: Around Sanur and Homesh, a web of back roads, trails and canyons could make it difficult for the army to block the arrival of religious militants from other settlements in the northern West Bank, historically referred to by its biblical name, Samaria. But for the purposes of talk-page discussions, when we're hashing out formally and informally which terminology we should use in article space, then it's fine to point to mainstream primary sources and observe that in the last 40 years "West Bank" (with or without modifying adjectives, e.g. "northern," "southern," etc.) has become the overwhelming standard consensus terminology, while "Samaria" and "Judea" have fallen into disuse.--G-Dett (talk) 16:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

"Judea and Samaria" vs. "Judea" & "Samaria"
CM argues that it's beside the point to determine if "Samaria" and "Judea" are widely accepted terms or not, because they are not administrative districts, but "geographical/topographical entities". His argument clashes with WP:NCGN, which requires us to use the most widely accepted English name for every geographical entity.

Sources using "Samaria" and/or "Judea" as geographical entities
"Judea was the name of a country in Palestine in ancient times." (p.J158) "Samaria was the name of a city and its surrounding region in ancient Palestine." (p.S63) (Emphasis mine). While at the library, I checked a couple more encyclopedias and none supports the "J&S are modern toponyms" position, not even Encyclopaedia Judaica (which, for the record, does not grant the West Bank an article). "Judea, Lat. form of Judah, the southern province of Erez Israel during the period of Roman hegemony". "Samaria (Heb. Shomron, mod. Sebaste), city established as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Omri c.884 BCE". Note that "Judean heights" and variations thereof is uncontested use and has no bearing on the terms we are discussing here. "The [West Bank] territory, excluding East Jerusalem, is also known within Israel by its biblical names, Judaea and Samaria." Judea, the S division of ancient Palestine under Persian, Greek, & Roman rule succeeding the kingdom of Judah; bounded on N by Samaria, on E by Jordan River & Dead Sea, on SW by Sinai Peninsula, & on W by the Mediterranean.
 * The World Book Encyclopedia terrain map: It's indeed possible that within the scientific field of geology, J&S may be terms in current use, though 1) we need more research and 2) the number of WP articles that may eventually be affected (ie, Geology of Israel) is rather small. I have now checked WBE at the local library. The articles on Judea and Samaria leave little room for the interpretation that the toponyms are current:
 * The Encyclopedia Britannica map: Doesn't in fact label the area "Judea" at all, what CM sees on the map is still another variation of "Judean heights". This is what Britannica has to say about Judea (in the West Bank article):
 * The Merriam-Webster map: CM's interpretation is not consistent with the dictionary itself:
 * Note the "ancient", not what we would expect if the term was extant.


 * The CIA map: There are indeed "Judea" and "Samaria" labels on it. However, CIA maps typically use local toponyms. Take a look at eg this map of Denmark where "Zealand" is replaced with the local name "Sjælland", or this one of Italy, where the administrative divisions are labelled with their local names (eg "Toscana" rather than "Tuscany"). To draw the conclusion that the local place names on these maps are valid English alternatives to the established ones appears somewhat rash. Furthermore, the terms "Judea" or "Samaria" never occur in the entire online body of CIA documents, while "West Bank" occurs 690 times. MeteorMaker (talk) 21:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, we have individual, occasional instances being cited, and then - were they even to stand up to scrutiny - a conclusion too far being drawn from those sources, that the terms are standard. The debate has long since moved beyond that - we need some clear statistical evidence or secondary comment/analysis that shows them as being the mainstream, internationally-used terms. Plenty of both has been brought forward showing that they are in fact no such thing, while to date nothing has been brought forward to rebut that. In addition I can't be the only one to find the attempt to draw some kind of clear distinction between the use of the terms individually and the combined term rather difficult to compute. I understand the point being made, but at the end of the day we're not going to get away from the fact that they are exactly the same words, and that when someone says "Judea and Samaria" they are usually talking about exactly the same thing as "Judea" and "Samaria".
 * As to the suggestion that when used individually, they refer to areas that straddle the border, as noted elsewhere problems arise with this assertion (quite apart from the key fact that no sources have been presented to confirm that this is a standard, mainstream terminology) -
 * This may be the way that "Judea" and "Samaria" are used (in so far as they are at all) in some cases. But there are mainstream sources which explicitly say they are used (again, in so far as they are used at all) to refer precisely to the southern and northern parts of the West bank, not to some vague area that includes some parts of Israel and excludes some parts of the West Bank. Try CNN, Ynet and Haaretz. A Google books search will throw up many similar observations
 * As a result, if we accept this definition, we have no clarity as to what area is in fact being identified were WP to start referring in its neutral voice to towns and settlements as being "in Samaria" or "in Judea".
 * And we still (to labour the point) have no properly sourced evidence that either use is common or standard
 * I was going to do something more interesting today, but it seems to be raining outside ... --Nickhh (talk) 15:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Evidence related to the behavioral issues
The mudslinging has begun. I admit I was involved in some unnecessarily hot edit wars in my first four months of active editing, it comes with inexperience and the foolhardiness to set foot in the I/P area. That was my edit-war baptism of fire, and I was young and foolish enough to believe it's enough to have the sources and policy on my side. I am wiser (and more disillusioned) now.

While it's no surprise to see my 3RR block and limited topic ban (that was subsequently lifted when it was found I hadn't in fact done what I was accused of) exposed and milked for everything they're worth by CM, he may not be the most suitable editor to make such accusations. During his first four months of editing, he was warned for disruptive editing four times, AGF once, TE once, BITE once, and personal attacks twice. Was he an innocent noob? No, here he admits to having edited for "a while" without a named account. Even more aggravating, one year into his career as a mature editor, in only the last three months, CM was


 * Warned for disruptive editing
 * Warned for edit warring
 * Again warned for edit warring
 * Warned to stop reverting against consensus
 * Warned to stop vandalizing and disruptive editing (last warning)
 * Blocked for edit warring
 * Warned for extremely disruptive editing
 * Warned for edit warring
 * Warned to make POV edits

I don't drag this up to single out Canadian Monkey, every I/P editor has a history of edit warring, generally concentrated to the first few months of one's career berore the subtleties of WP editing practices and etiquette have been discovered and internalized. What's striking in this dispute (at least to me, a relatively inexperienced editor) is how the bad behavior has been spreading from experienced editors, who should instead have been role models for us all.

I'm also appalled at how casually editors like CM fling around pretty serious accusations that may have grave consequences for fellow editors. His claim "None of these warnings and sanctions seemed to have helped, and the latest ban by Elonka was repeatedly violated by User:MeteorMaker", which he now repeats in the hope that nobody will notice that the bluff has already been called, doesn't even contain the proverbial germ of truth, and it will be interesting to see which of the two options "provide diffs" or "remove it" he will choose. MeteorMaker (talk) 19:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sandahl's evidence

 * Lots of people oppose Jay and lots of people's edits to I-P articles will be in opposition to Jay's because a/ he's very active and b/ he's an egregious POV pusher. Most people just give up, because Jay has escaped correction for his behaviour so many times. G-Dett is to be saluted for her resilience imo. Grace Note (talk) 07:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC) [Moved from Sandahl's evidence section. Cla68 (talk) 07:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)]

Sandahl, I can assure you the discussion climate was already at its nadir when G-Dett entered the debate in early December. Far from worsening the dispute, her input has helped restoring the focus by keeping the most egregious disruption tendencies at bay and by breaking up the vicious circles with entirely new angles.

Re this, Jayjg was indeed making a demonstrably false accusation that he has still not been able to provide diffs for. It was not inappropriate to point this out, as I've done myself. I'm confident his transgressions of this kind will be looked into more fully by you and other admins before this case is closed.

Here, like in a dozen other articles, user:Canadian Monkey appeared out of the blue within three hours of my edit only to revert it, just like you correctly note G-Dett did in the same article. Anybody with a passing familiarity with this dispute knows that a similarly good case can be made that CM has an unhealthy fixation on me, as has Jayjg and user:NoCal100. Between Dec 4 and Feb 29, we were all focused on essentially the same articles, so as proof of anybody hounding anybody, your last observation is of negligible value.

Of G-Dett's edits since December, there is a clear focus on articles that pertain to the Samaria dispute. I don't see this as evidence as an "unhealthy fixation on Jayjg", it's only incidental that both (and several other editors) got involved in this discussion. For all I know, both may have followed my contribs history, since neither had edited eg Samaria (disambiguation) before I did. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Accusations of wp-hounding are rather easy to fling around, and are often made with an impressive-looking collection of diffs to back them up. I've been on the receiving end of utterly fraudulent accusations at times, often from editors who themselves have a rather strange habit of appearing on pages pretty swiftly after I, or other specific editors, have been there. But you know, get your accusation in first and you've immediately stolen the moral high ground in the eyes of any passing observer. Now I have no idea whether G-Dett does actually trawl through Jayjg's contributions page and dive in to pages after him, but the reality is - for better or worse - that when there's a flare-up on an I-P page you often see the same editors popping up. This is hardly surprising and is not necessarily because any of those editors are following others to those pages. As here, the underlying themes often spread across several related pages. As to the more specific allegations being made by Sandahl one or two observations spring to mind -
 * I haven't checked the history, but I'm sure G-Dett had edited Second Intifada for example in the past, prior to the diffs shown. That page has a long history of fractious debates and there's no reason to assume that someone going there is following another editor.
 * Quoting User:Canadian Monkey's criticism of G-Dett as if it constitutes evidence of some sort, is a little odd. They are hardly uninvolved or a neutral observer, and indeed rather revel in making WP:NPA breaching accusations of this sort. Even taking them to noticeboards, where unsurprisingly the smear was swiftly dismissed.
 * Saying that there are 1000s of I-P pages kind of misses the point. As is the case across WP, most pages are rarely visited by anyone, a small number of high-profile pages see regular traffic. See my point above about flare-ups
 * Accusing G-Dett of making compromise more difficult is a rather egregious slur. I mean, if your review of the debate was so comprehensive, you might have spotted this little part of it surely? I would add here, that compromise - while keeping content within policy on naming and due weight - is something those of us on this side of the debate have tried on many occasions, but which is usually immediately reverted and/or simply ignored - in the latter case with a healthy dose of rather cynical game-playing on the side, by, oh, guess who?
 * Anyway, I'm sure G-Dett will respond herself to this stuff .. --Nickhh (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Confirmed that G-Dett edited Second Intifada before this dispute. MeteorMaker (talk) 14:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, generally I advise staying out of arbitration, making complaints on boards, and whingeing, because the line between a legitimate grievance over disruptive behaviour, and mere gaming the system to gather scalps is thin, and usually the latter is what is going on. I don't even think diffs are a RS for reading the flow of a conflict well, since all they are used for is to provide selective verbal evidence about one 'attitude', shorn of its context, in the 'attitude' of the other parties. But this sudden Cheshire Cat appearance with User:Sandahl making Jayjg's case for him, is a little too much. G-Dett complained here of Jayjg's behaviour. Jayjg is reading. He doesn't reply. He always replies on talk pages.


 * You can be a highly disruptive editor, and yet meticulously mind your p's and q's. The ideal I/P administrator keeps his/her eye on the main contentious articles, doesn't intervene over trivia, gets his impression of the flow and drift of politics, personalities and proof well grounded, and then intervenes, even without request, to rein in warning parties, not just on formal grounds, but when behaviour is 'unreasonable though formally perfect. One can be a teflon administrator, like User:Jayjg, notorious among some of us for his capacity to read, on one article, a rule as though it were as tight as a nun's nasty when he wishes to block information he finds disagreeable to his side, and then twist the same rule, on another page, when poorly sourced information he likes comes to his notice, so that the same rule assumes a sudden expansive elasticity of cosmic dimensions, to become a black hole that will suck anything into its maw. He can wave WP:NOR by the minute, and usually does, but if that is violated completely on Elie Wiesel's Night page, Jayjg, who loves that book, in a sudden volte-farce says the WP:NOR he is so obsessed with when censoring things he dislikes, is suspended, because the 'brilliance' of the original research (violating also WP:SYNTH, which is also another of his bugbears) summons into play WP:IAR. He plays an endless zero-sum game with the dicey rules cogged to 'I win-you lose'. We peons sigh, get blamed, admire his bumptious, olympian exemption from the sublunary plain of battle we lesser editors put up with, and move on.


 * But I have to comment on G-Dett because she one of the finest prose stylists around wiki, doesn't nitpick, reads extremely well, seems to protest bad recalcitrant and obtusive behaviour on talk pages without frequent recourse to administrative tribunals, though she is often punished after her adversaries appeal, usually by administrators who pride themselves on their formalist perfectionism.


 * From User:Sandahl's presentation, I can't recognize G-Dett's behaviour, because I can remember most of the incidents, and Sandahl's presentation shows the usual hasty preference for formal judgements on decontextualised and isolated 'incriminating' evidence that dispense with close attention to the actual flow of edits and interactions between parties.


 * Look, for example, at this, of one Sandahl's first diffs:-


 * Note 23


 * The exchange reads as follow:-
 * User:Jayjg's preferred text:-
 * "The beginning date of the Second Intifada is disputed, but the major violence started the day after a controversial visit on September 28, 2000 by Ariel Sharon to a site held sacred to both Jews and Muslims; some sources, including the Mitchell Report, assert the violence was planned before the visit."


 * G-Dett reverts this, and we have
 * "'The beginning date of the Second Intifada is disputed, but the major violence started during and after a controversial visit on September 28, 2000 by Ariel Sharon to a site held sacred to both Jews and Moslems.'"


 * This is called by Sandahl ‘opposing’ Jayjg. That contradicting Jayjg's frequently arbitrary edits - he makes far too many, too quickly, for them to be grounded in a serene and careful examination of the subjects involved - is termed 'opposing' him, itself would call for comment. 'Opposing Jayjg'? Is there some rule I have missed, that reverting him, uniquely, is culpable recalcitrance, something subversive, close to lèse majesté? After all, Jayjg 'opposes' virtually every I/P editor who doesn't agree with him. For instance


 * No. Here G-dett simply restored a correct and succinct statement from the false disinformation Jayjg inserted into it. The Report reads:-


 * "'In their submissions, the parties traded allegations about the motivation and degree of control exercised by the other. However, we were provided with no persuasive evidence that the Sharon visit was anything other than an internal political act; neither were we provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising. Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity; or to conclude that there was a delilberate plan by the GOI to respond with lethal force.' The Mitchell Report"


 * For removing false information planted by Jayjg, and wrongly asserted by him to be grounded in a Reliable Source which said the exact opposite of what he maintained was written, G-Dett, it turns out, has only left damning 'evidence' to be used against her by administrators who disregard as irrelevant the substance of an edit-conflict. User:Sandahl can be forgiven because she does not follow I/P articles, for ignoring the irony that this case before Arbcom arose in good part because of Jayjg's persistent and vexatious attempts to call MeteorMaker a planter of deliberately false and misleading information, whereas the second diff she cites shows that this was what Jayjg himself was engaged in. Precisely for these reasons, Sandahl should not mess around making calls that completely ignore the abuses being made with content manipulation, while focusing on the niceties of WP:AGF etc. in whoever may try to correct the damage.Nishidani (talk) 15:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say that I'm following this thread. I'm busy preparing the next installment of evidence for the main dispute here, but when that's through if anyone wants me to respond in detail to Sandahl/Jayjg's accusations, I will. For the moment, I'll just say that I am both a reader of Wikipedia and an editor. Although the I/P conflict is not what I write about in real life, I do regularly read articles about it here and elsewhere; mostly regarding high-visibility subjects like the second intifada, Israeli settlements, the siege of Jenin, the Gaza war, and so on. When I come across something truly egregious, like the apparently deliberate misrepresentation of the Mitchell Report noted above, I look at the talk page, the edit history, etc., to see what's happened, and intervene if necessary. If the problem is chronic, and involves a massive coordinated effort of source-distortion, policy-distortion, and a catenaccio approach to talk-page discussion – a strategy, that is, of making only tautological statements that assume the established truth of precisely what is in dispute, and dismissing, without elaboration, all critique and analysis of same as "strawman arguments" – then I find, almost without exception, that User:Jayjg is at the center of it.

A final word regarding what Sandahl calls an "unhealthy obsession." My interactions with Jay are indeed unique, without parallel among my other interactions with "pro-Israel" (note the scare quotes) editors. See my recent exchanges with Ynhockey for a representative counter-example. Meanwhile, virtually all of Jay's relationships with "pro-Palestinian" (scare quotes again) editors not only occasionally feature but are in fact defined by frustration, tautology, nonsensical games of who's-on-first, failed attempts at dispute resolution, total breakdown of WP:AGF; and an odd, almost poignant pleading, on the part of Jay's interlocutors, that he for once step out of his defensive crouch, stand up straight, and engage in substantive discussion.--G-Dett (talk) 18:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It might be helpful if you could say "No, I never followed Jay, here's evidence" or "Yes, I have pursued him to the following articles, here's why," though I would expect the evidence you presented to do most if not all of the explaining re the "why" part. Does that sound reasonable? IronDuke  19:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, sorry – I thought it was relatively clear I wasn't "following" Jay, who is as ubiquitous as the weather. The part I thought required a response was my alleged obsession about, my dare I say British fixation on, ahem, the weather.  It's always hard to prove a negative, but yes I'll talk about the "stalking" thing in any amount of detail you like.  Just give me a minute to get finished with the evidence page.--G-Dett (talk) 19:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay... so, not to nag in any way but just to clarify: you never, ever checked Jay's contribs and decided to see what he might be up to on a page you had not yet visited. Every time he got to a page before you, it was mere coincidence? (I'm not casting aspersions, just asking.) I would also disagree that Jay is ubiquitous... I edit a lot in IP and I frequently find myself on pages he has never been, and frequently find him on pages I've never been. I'd also add that, in my own experience, Jay has been insufficently hard on people who've been following him (not saying you, per se). I make a good deal more fuss about it. IronDuke  22:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about the nagging; I just finished posting more evidence, and still have to add the diffs... In response to your questions, in order:
 * Of course I've looked at Jay's contributions, plenty of times. Yours too, and those of a hundred other editors as well.  Looking at multiple users' contributions can be a very useful way of trying to get the big picture of what's going on in Wikipedia, in innumerable ways.  And yes, I've certainly used Jay's to try to understand how he edits, the nature of his shifting policy-positions, the extent of his disruption, the extent to which he's gamed and deceived the community, and how and why it's worked.
 * No, I never use his contributions page to follow him anywhere. This I don't do and won't do.  Even if this weren't forbidden, I wouldn't do it, partly because trying to keep up with Jay on his enormously extensive beat would make my head explode, even if I were to quit my job and devote myself full-time to this.  Again, I use contributions lists to understand larger patterns, not to "see what so-and-so's up to today."  Because of the nature of the conflict between Jay and I, I've had to devise a principled, structured approach to my editing, which I'm happy to share with you.  (a) I never, in any circumstances, follow him.  I read along my own lines of interest, intervening where I see a problem.  When I've had occasion to "research" Jay's contributions (say, during the Allegations of apartheid hoax), I make a conscious point of keeping that separate.  (b) When on my own "beat" I discover egregious POV-pushing of the cut-and-dried sort, and I discover Jay is involved, I do not back away fearing I might be accused of stalking.  I press ahead.  (c) I regularly read most of the community bulletin-board pages – AN/I, the RS and BLP noticeboards, RfCs, and so on.  (I believe you do too, no?)
 * There may be 7000 articles on I/P, as Sandahl says, but when you cut it down to high-visibility articles (like Israeli settlement), and then to only those where one finds egregious POV-pushing, the number drops drastically, and you're looking at a very high probability that Jay is going to be found there. Let me know if there are other questions I can answer for you.  If you have specific pages in mind where you're wondering how I got there, I'll do my best to reconstruct it.--G-Dett (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A few final words on Sandahl's evidence. The bulk of it (i.e. everything from West Bank, Israeli settlement, Judea and Samaria, Samaria (disambiguation), and Talk:Samaria/Discussion_of_sources) regards the present dispute, the quarreling over use of the terms Samaria and Judea in WP's neutral voice for the northern and southern West Bank respectively. The others are simply high-visibility IP articles that had rank POV-pushing in their leads when I cam across them: Second Intifada's lead falsified the conclusions of the Mitchell Report, and Anti-Zionism's lead misrepresented sources in order to suggest a strong and necessary connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Jay was standing behind both falsifications, so I confronted him over both. These confrontations were about a week apart.

Sandahl also lists the BLP and AN/I noticeboards as pages I "followed" Jay to. I regularly read almost all of the public noticeboards, and do not hesitate to intervene where serious POV-pushing and/or misrepresentation is going on. Now, Jay's war over the disputed terms "Judea" and "Samaria" had been going on for months without my knowledge when I first intervened. I began watching Israeli settlement in late November, for reasons that had nothing to do with the disputed terms, and nothing to do with Jay; I simply happened to read a version whose lead began like this: Israeli settlements are arbitrarily defined as communities inhabited by Israeli Jews in territory that came under Israel's control as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War. Some Arabs, included most members of Hamas, use the term "settlement" to refer to any Israeli community, even those inside the Green Line, in order to deny Israel moral legitimacy and to represent Israelis as foreigners or outsiders rather than indigenous... ...and finished by saying the settlements constituted "one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for Arabs and Europeans." (emphasis added). This was not Jay's work but that of an anon., and was fixed soon enough by Nickhh, without much ado or significant edit-warring (rolling back rank POV-pushing is generally accomplished without too much fuss if Jay isn't involved). Looking into the talk page, however, I saw the dispute about "Samaria" coming to full boil. I do not understand Sandahl's attribution of the "deterioration of the discussion" to my involvement; at the point that I first entered the discussion, all of the sources were laid out, the positions were entrenched, and Jay was repeatedly calling MeteorMaker a liar and a bigot. My debut posts consisted of two requests for clarification: I asked Jay to explain why he thought when an author (Safire, discussed in my submitted evidence) "refers to 'the Biblical names for the West Bank,' what he really has in mind is 'an Israeli administrative district'?"; and I asked more generally: Is it the position of Nocal100, Jayjg, Oboler CM et al that Samaria is not a loaded term? Or is that even if it is loaded, Wikipedia should use it as long as some RSs use it? Jay did not respond to my first question. To my second question, he wrote that "'Samaria' reflects a moderately widely used term that also happens to reflect the terminology used in the official government statements regarding the withdrawal." I asked if we should also factor in moderately widely used terms from official Palestinian statements; Jay responded, "I'm pretty sure the Israeli government is currently the government legally in charge of the territories." I asked if "NPOV terminology on Wikipedia is set by the party 'in charge of' a disputed or occupied territory"; Jay then claimed I was strawmanning him, but wouldn't say how. He never would say how, and I don't think any reasonable person could conclude I had strawmanned him; connoisseurs of the catenaccio can follow the game to its mind-numbing conclusion at the bottom of this section. Meanwhile the larger question I had put to him – why we should privilege official Israeli terminology over official Palestinian terminology, instead of just using the standard consensus terms of reliable sources – remains the heart and soul of this dispute, and needless to say remains unanswered, possibly unanswerable. I realized at that point that this was a propaganda ploy, plain and simple, and decided to take it on.--G-Dett (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for your replies. As for BLP and AN/I, during the time period in question, were you regularly weighing in on other editors, or was it just Jay-related stuff? Also, Sandahl indicates in his/her evidence that your recent edits focused almost exclusively on Jay-related matters, and on no other articles. Is that correct? IronDuke  17:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Duke, aren't these last questions ones you can answer for yourself by looking at my contributions pages?--G-Dett (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course, I just thought you might know the information off the top of your head, having examined the evidence closely. Do you not actually know, or were you just annoyed I wasn't getting off my duff and looking for myself? IronDuke  18:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Really, this is ridiculous. Anyone who has been about wikipedia for any time knows that Jayjg has engaged in longstanding (and until now very successful) POV pushing. There are scores of articles distorted by him and his friends. That someone finally takes the time and effort to focus on him and build a case is welcome. Too many people have looked the other way, or decided it wasn't worth the inevitable grief, for far too long. "OMG they are persecuting sweet jayig" really won't wash here.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So you would support the idea that people should follow Jayjg to as many articles as they like, as long as they strongly feel he is introducing content that is wrong? IronDuke  19:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be a good strategy to use with any problematic editor.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I don't believe that's the consensus view. If the arbs had anything along those lines to say about WP:STALK, I'd be all ears.  IronDuke  20:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It is standard practice. If someone is vandalising, spamming, POV pushing, or otherwise (as you put it) "introducing content that is wrong", you open their contributions and check to see if they are doing the same elsewhere. We couldn't possibly maintain the encyclopedia in anything like the way we do otherwise. It is just a pity more editors didn't take the time to scrutinise known POV pushers.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you've been here a while, I think, so I'd be inclined to take your opinion seriously. That said, my experience is that people are generally told to "knock it off" when they follow other editors around on content disputes (though not, as you say, on spam or vandalism). I guess the reasoning is "What is leaast disruptive?" In nationlist disputes, particularly, there may be right on both sides, but we should not be encouraging editors embroiled in those topic areas to stalk each other. Again, anything the arbs have to say would be interesting to read. I can't tell you how many times I've had to bite my (virtual) tongue when I've been dumb enough to check someone's contribs and seen them adding POV nonsense to articles.  IronDuke  22:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Duke, I don't think anyone's saying it's OK to follow someone from article to article in pursuit of a personal grudge or "unhealthy obsession" or whatever, and I believe I've offered a fairly detailed response to that charge as leveled at me by Sandahl. I think what Scott is saying is what I'm saying, that it's OK to consult and analyze a problem editor's contribution history in order to understand larger patterns of disruption, deception, chronic POV-pushing, etc. I invite you to do the same with my record; then you can present your charge against me, rather than asking a daisy-chain of insinuating rhetorical questions.--G-Dett (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The questions weren't rhetorical, m'lud, they were actual -- and you answered them, which I appreciate. IronDuke  22:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As to your previous questions, Duke, they didn't seem to me lazy so much as theatrical. I was picturing you in wingtips and a barrister's wig, sort of hypnotically pacing in front of the jury box, awaiting a response about my whereabouts "during the time period in question" when the answer is two clicks away. Anyway: yes, both of the community-noticeboard issues I took up during that period involved Jay. Jay and I clashed briefly on Anti-Zionism in late October, and Second Intifada in early to mid November. Meanwhile however from late October and throughout November, my edits concentrated pretty heavily on Rashid Khalidi and Cynthia McKinney; Jay wasn't present and wasn't a party to either of those disputes. Then in early December I happened upon Israeli settlement and got into the whole Judea & Samaria business. During December I also got involved in a dispute about the use of sidebars on Israeli apartheid analogy; Jay was not involved directly in that dispute, as I remember, but I did mention his position on the Antisemitism sidebar. At another editor's request I weighed in on a dispute on Hummus, where Jayjg was not active. In January much of my editing was taken up with articles relating to the Gaza conflict, where Jay hadn't edited at all. I was also involved pretty heavily on Pallywood in the last week of January; again, no Jayjg. Meanwhile my involvement in the Judea & Samaria dispute has continued pretty stably in 2009 (yes, lots of firefights with Jay), with occasional edits to this and that (George Packer, Charles Freeman, etc. Now if I can borrow the wig & wingtips for a second and ask you a question, do you have any idea how many I-P articles Jay edited during this 4-5 month period?  Would it be in the hundreds?--G-Dett (talk) 21:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest that IronDuke have a look at the precise wording of WP:STALK: "singling out one or more specific editor(s) ... in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work, with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor." In other words, merely intervening on the same articles or discussions isn't stalking; it's the malicious intent that makes it so. Seeking to correct problematic behaviour, such as vandalism or serial POV-pushing, isn't a malicious motive; it's basic wiki-maintenance. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "I'd suggest that IronDuke have a look at the precise wording of WP:STALK" Would you indeed? I'd suppose, given your history of... interest... in my edits, one could comment on the irony of such a suggestion. Also curious is why you elided the definition. Here is what you left out. "The term "wiki-hounding" has been coined to describe singling out one or more specific editor(s), and joining discussions on pages or topics they may edit (often unrelated), or debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work, with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor." Also of possible note is "If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions." IronDuke  22:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm not getting why you think ChrisO strategically elided the bolded text? That part is about the more traditional notion of wikihounding, which involves unrelated articles – say, you have a conflict about W.G. Sebald with an editor, then he pops up and bites you on the nose on King cobra.  The kind of alleged wikihounding we're discussing here is different; it's about clashing on the same or related disputes on closely related articles between editors with overlapping interests.--G-Dett (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * After reading the above thread and some of the other stuff on this misbegotten, never-should-have-been-accepted case, I just have one question for G-Dett and ChrisO: Do you really think everybody else on Wikipedia is that stupid, that they don't see what's going on here?  I suppose if this case results in the long-overdue serious sanctions for G-Dett that her long-term conduct so richly deserves, it would be worth it.  I doubt that it will, though.  6SJ7 (talk) 22:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I think they're smart and getting it, more and more all the time. In what ways would you like to see me punished, 6SJ7?--G-Dett (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"Ban evasion by User:MeteorMaker"
Talk about flogging a dead horse. Jaakobou now joins Canadian Monkey in perpetuating accusations that have already been thoroughly debunked, in the vain hope that somebody will fall for his deliberate assertions of false information in order to mislead.

The limited topic ban Jaakobou is talking about was found to be based on a misunderstanding and lifted on 1 March. Now, he makes the following demonstrably false claims: Jaakobou may, like User:NoCal100 here, be a little unclear over the definition of citation. No amount of wikilawyering from Jaakobou and others can change the fact that no citations were removed during my ban, and no Samaria-related reverts were done on any articles.
 * "User:MeteorMaker was placed on Arbcom sanction of 90 days length from removing reference related content from Samaria/Judea related articles." Wrong, the ban was from
 * Making Samaria-related reverts to any article in the Israel/Palestine topic area
 * Removing reliable citations from any article in the topic area.

I request clarification from Jaakobou where in the diff he provided he sees that. Until such clarification has been produced, Jaakobou should strike that accusation. UPDATE: On receiving this request on his talk page, Jaakobou replies he's "thinking that the text doesn't require further clarification at this point in time" and has chosen not to strike the false accusation.
 * "User:MeteorMaker then falsely claimed that their sanction was removed"

Complete nonsense. I even quoted the facts, so it's quite a stretch to claim that I "misrepresented" them.
 * "the person lifting [the ban] noted that MeteorMaker was misrepresenting the facts."

Jaakobou also neglects to mention that as a consequence of my "arguing the sanction", Elonka admitted she had made a mistake:

''You are correct about the citation thing. I saw the edit summary, and that citations had been removed, but missed the part about you moving the citations to a different part of the article. I am amending my statement accordingly, and apologize for my error.''

This is becoming ugly. Jaakobou's and Canadian Monkey's persistent attempts to discredit other editors with made-up serious allegations are, how shall I put it, somewhat less than helpful. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I notice that the Samaria and Judea proponents aren't posting much evidence to support their POV, instead mainly attempting to discredit the opposing editors. I predicted that this would happen when the case opened (not on-wiki). Cla68 (talk) 23:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Check out dead agenting - it's a tactic I've seen before. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Evidence on Jayjg's past behavior?
As the case is progressing, evidence of POV-pushing by Jayjg is being presented. I wonder if it would be helpful for the ArbCom if evidence was presented that showed whether or not Jayjg has been a persistent and problematic POV-pusher, apart from this particular dispute, over a long period of time? If this seems like a good idea, I'm extending an open invitation to any interested editors to collaborate in compiling evidence on a page in my userspace. I suggest listing evidence, if any exists, of Jayjg engaging in:


 * Bad-faith POV pushing
 * Implying that opposing editors are bigots
 * Using tag-teaming and off-wiki coordination to control content
 * Use of, or threatened use of, admin privileges against opposing editors
 * Arbitrary and contradictory use of policy (wiki-lawyering) to support POV pushing
 * and so on.

If such evidence exists, it could then be presented in this case, if not, then the evidence in this case stands on its own merits, subject to evaluation by the Committee. Cla68 (talk) 23:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * We have your back. ;)--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I see absolutely no reason why an ad hoc grab bag of smears wandering well off-topic wouldn't be welcome. Perhaps a similar meandering wiki-inquisition could be held for all involved editors. IronDuke  00:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If any editor has a history of POV pushing on these (or related) issues that would be relevant. It would only be a "smear" if an allegation were made that could not be evidenced. If any other editors involved here have a history of related POV pushing, please feel free to lead evidence on that too. There's no need for the passive-aggressive tone you adopt. Either there is relevant evidence for arbcom to consider, or there is not.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * First, many thanks for the advice on "tone" -- I thought your winking and "back" reference above, combined with "persecuting sweet jayig" set it rather nicely (and NB: it wouldn't be passive agressiveness, just plain old sarcasm). "If any other editors involved here have a history of related POV pushing..." If? Yeah, that'd be a hard one to prove. Kind of makes me want to run out and spend a week compiling evidence which will then be ignored. POV pushing exists on IP articles. Always has, always will. The "solution" isn't to try to punish everyone who demonstrates a POV, it's to try and harness that energy (which has actually made some pretty good articles). IronDuke  00:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely not. NPOV isn't what emerges from a dialectic of POV psuhing, it is what all wikipedians must strive for in all their editing. Sure, bias sometimes creeps in with us all - but we must work to minimise it. If any editor has systemically and deliberately being pushing a POV that editor should be warned to desist - particularly if they were an experienced wikipedian.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "NPOV isn't what emerges from a dialectic of POV psuhing" I can only disagree from my own experience. On controversial topics, that's how the articles get built. I'm not sure I even know of a long-standing exception. Editor A edits Martians with a really good source that says Martians are aggressive. Editor B comes in with a source that says Martians are peace-loving. They argue, each holding the other to a very high standard (far higher than 99% of all other WP articles get subject to). Eventually, the article gets written to reflect the fact that there is a disagreement as to the ways of Martians. I'm sure there're better ways to do it in principle, but I haven't seen any that work here on WP. IronDuke  00:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want to see editors working in a generally congenial manner with each other and trying to be NPOV from the get go, come observe how most articles get built in WP:MILHIST. A fundamental principle of Wikipedia editing is neutrality.  We know we're succeeding if we write something and someone else can read it and not be able to tell which side we're taking.  If we're unwilling or unable to at least make an attempt at NPOV editing, then we're a problem.  This especially should hold true with our administrators, who are expected to show by example how we should behave. Cla68 (talk) 00:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So Katyn massacre was a model of decorum in its making? I haven't really looked, but I believe it if you say so. As was John McCain (and there I'm afraid I wouldn't believe you, though again I haven't looked)? I agree with you as a general principle, I just don't agree with you on how we get there on highly emotional, contentious articles. IronDuke  01:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Yikes, the user conduct on the articles you watch must be worse than most. Most of the time it works much better. I try as hard as I can to leave my biases at the door. Often I can agree with a statement, whilst still recognising that it is POV and has no place on wikipedia. That's how we should act. I should be willing to oppose Palestinian, Israeli, American, British, right-wing, left-wing or whatever bias I encounter, and certainly open to others poking me where I slip up. Wikipedia is not an ideological battle-ground. If one can only edit an article as an advocate for a POV, then it is probably best one does not edit articles in that field - and a topic ban may be in order (self-imposed or otherwise).--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It may be I watch more stormy subjects than you. But on everything from IP to Ireland to abortion, I see the same patterns recur. And if you could somehow remove the contribs of every POV editor on IP articles and ban them all for life, pro and con, you'd end up with stubs, and poorly written ones at that. IronDuke  01:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If it's recent and directly related to this episode, it would probably be relevant. If it's old, by which I mean more than a few months old, and unrelated to the immediate issue, I don't think it would be very useful - it would just lead to the case getting bogged down even more than it already is. Better to focus on the issue at hand and present evidence relating to that, rather than turning it into a laundry list of stale gripes. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Arbitration is about editor conduct. If anyone thinks this is just about the "latest issue this week" then they miss the point. If we just deal with that we'll be back here on a related one a week later. No. If we have long-term POV pushers in this area, we need to take a look at the bigger picture and act accordingly.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As Doc points out, bias can affect all of us, myself included. For most of us, however, it is expected that we'll mitigate our bias through acceptance and consideration of feedback from other editors, in article talk page discussions or in peer reviews or in the GA or FA forums.  The evidence presented in this case indicates that Jayjg may not be doing this.  Other editors have alleged that this is a continuous, long-term pattern of behavior by Jayjg.  The best way to put these allegations to rest is to explore whether they have any veracity or not. Cla68 (talk) 00:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur with statements above to the effect that user conduct issues needn't be limited to Jayjg, and I'm fully prepared to have my own editing scrutinized; I won't (in fact I never) complain of "attacks."

That said, I think it's useful to break down what we mean by POV-pushing. "Bias" per se is not the problem here. I'm biased, Duke's biased, most people (with the exception of a few saints and geniuses) are biased when it comes to the I/P conflict. With its core policies, its mechanisms of consensus and dispute resolution, and its traditions of lively, good-faith debate, Wikipedia is fully prepared to deal with bias. In fact, I'm only half kidding/rhapsodizing when I say it's the best system yet created by man for the absorption of collective intellectual energy and elimination of individual bias in the production of knowledge. (And I say that as a member of and believer in academia.) In the case of Jayjg, I think what we're looking at is not an editor who is "biased," but rather an editor who regards the policies, mechanisms, and traditions of Wikipedia as constituting not a system of restraint, but rather a set of pieces in a chess game to be mastered. This I regard as exceptional. This is why I don't have an "unhealthy obsession" with editors like 6SJ7 (whom I like very much even as he calls for my punishment), or my dear friend IronDuke (who regularly makes me laugh and whom I'll gladly stand a drink one day). I have beloved relatives who share their opinions ("biases"), and I'd be delighted if they too started editing the Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit. I think if anyone is going to bring a bill of particulars against another editor, it cannot focus on how their edits, in whole or in part, show that their balance of sympathy inclines towards one or the other side in the I/P conflict. This is perfectly normal and frankly perfectly acceptable, and Wikipedia is more than capable of making use of their energies. No, what a bill of particulars would have to establish is that the editor in question was deliberately gaming (and therefore showing contempt for) the very policies, mechanisms, and traditions that are there to manage and control the biases we all have.

This may be as good a moment as any to mention that Jayjg has created, built, and sustained – in the best spirit of Wikipedia – a huge and invaluable series of articles on synagogues in North America.--G-Dett (talk) 01:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow. That was eloquently written, and said better than my post above on the same subject (except for the part about Jay, of course). For myself, I've had the feeling for a long time that pro-Palestinian editors (not you) were abusing the mechanisms of WP to promote their agenda, in effect trying to shut out anyone who was pro-Israel, or even merely neutral. And I agree that's a problem. IronDuke  01:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Cla68, I would prefer if you work on and present your evidence primarily as your own. Inviting other editors to compile a specific sort of evidence against another editor is an invitation to problems. In addition, if you wish to submit evidence to this arbitration, please do it on the case's evidence page, not within your user space. An RfC as evidence would also be acceptable.--Tznkai (talk) 02:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have rarely edited the I/P articles, so assistance from editors who have or are more familiar with that topic area would be helpful for both time and substance reasons. If the page in my userspace ends up with any actionable evidence on it within a reasonable amount of time, I plan on posting it here.  If it doesn't, I'll be blanking it and moving on. Cla68 (talk) 02:34, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Part of my concern is what you're essentially doing is creating an RfC/U within your own user space to be used as evidence in an Arbitration case - which just seems like more trouble than its worth, in large part owing to the unique status userspace is afforded in on-wiki norms.--Tznkai (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

IMHO the case named "West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria" should deal with the conflict related to the articles. Then it have chances to lead to something useful. The decision of the Arbcom that the community finds useful and fair make a precedent for solving other disputes. Now admins could use the decision as a guidance to solve similar conflicts on their own right or we could bring other acute conflicts to the arbcom to decide, etc. Creating omnibuses cases over years of editing, hundreds of articles, thousands of edits, etc. is IMHO usually unhelpful. I am not sure whether attempt to criticize a long time editor on a talk page and canvassing for some sort of a flashmob against the editor is helpful or in alighnment with our policies Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Witch hunts usually reflect more poorly on the organizers and participants than on the witches they eventually burn.—Sandahl (talk) 17:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Witch hunt organizers and participants are found on both sides here, Sandahl. MeteorMaker (talk) 17:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Just an observation, not aimed at anyone in particular, but it's a witch hunt, plain and simple.—Sandahl (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Witch hunts involve widespread moral panic and hysteria, with large numbers of relatively powerless people being brought before ad hoc tribunals consisting wholly or in part of their accusers, whose evidence traditionally consists of guilt-by-association. In the present case, the accusers are relatively powerless (none even has an admin bit); the accused is a single, very powerful and influential admin, checkuser, and former Arbcom member; the evidence is detailed, concrete, and wholly free of guilt-by-association; and the tribunal is well established, both by rule and by custom, and it's entirely independent.  The accused in fact used to sit on it.  The witch hunt analogy in this case was either ill-conceived or deliberately Orwellian I find the witch hunt analogy in this case ill-conceived and inappropriate, and surmise from your deployment of it that you find the gathering evidence damning.--G-Dett (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, I think you're missing something here. Evidence against Jay saying "Jay is wrong on his Judea/West Bank edits" is not a witch hunt, it's either true or it isn't. What's being referred to here was the suggestion above of a semi-private, userfied pseudo-RfC in which ancient diffs and grievances would be dug up (how appropriate for an IP case, no?) and those who "tag-teamed" with Jay would be sucked in as well. Witch hunt may not be the mot juste here, as it seems to be going nowhere snipe hunt might be more proper -- but it isn't always the powerless who are victimized. See Robert Ten Broeck Stevens. IronDuke  19:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It might be more reassuring if people defended jay by stating they did not believe he was a longterm POV pusher, and therefore that his detractors would not find any evidence of such behaviour ("bring it on"), rather than resorting to emotive language and name-calling in an attempt to poison the well and suggest people should stay silent. False allegations of witchcraft are not dangerous here, since before we burn anyone we would need solid evidence, and the concurrence of our impartial arbitration committee. So the witch-hunt analogy is poorly chosen. However, if the black arts of wiki-gaming have indeed been practised by Jay, then an airing in the light of day would perhaps be of benefit. (The witchcraft analogy assumes the accused is an innocent victim, and the judges biased and irrational, whilst Jay is quite able to defend himself articulately against any accusations and before a fair and rational body.)--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I would very much appreciate it if we could all agree to avoid the use of inflammatory terms like witchhunts and Orwellian - which will have to substitute for actually not having these meta-arguments on the talk page. Would those who have evidence against Jayjg please produce it in a brief and timely manner within the existing confines of Arbitration and dispute resolution. I see very little benefit in this conversation continuing outside of actual evidence to analyze and discuss.--Tznkai (talk) 19:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is exactly the kind of evidence that I'm talking about. I think this effectively shows evidence of similar, repeated behavior in the past.  I'll blank my page for now. Cla68 (talk) 05:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Note from case clerk
I was unexpectedly busy this weekend in Meatspace and will continue to do so- so I apologize for responding to inquiries slowly. I will attempt to respond to inquiries or requests for clerk assistance within 24 hours, you may wish to contact another clerk if the issue is urgent.--Tznkai (talk) 01:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * In addition, I am going through the evidence. If I see a significant problem, I will use the template. If this problem is not corrected within an acceptable time frame (about 48 hours since editor activity), I will refactor, move, or remove the problematic evidence as appropriate. For example, I may make this note:
 * Your evidence is too long. Please keep your evidence to 1000 words or less. --Tznkai (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The evidence's author would be given a reasonable time frame to shorten their evidence. If this is not done, the evidence will be collapsed and moved to the talk page.--Tznkai (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I am afraid I was unclear here - this is not the only response response to evidence that is too long. I will make decisions on a case by case basis.--Tznkai (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Very basic question
I'm thinking of contributing to this great and exciting endeavor. One thing I'm unclear about, however. Is this about content or about contributors? Should I be saying "we should user term xxx because source-xxx says that the term is xxx" or should I be saying "user xxx is an unproductive edit-warrior, see xxx-link and xxx-link" ?-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 03:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Conduct is the concern, not the content issue per se. Content related evidence should enhance conduct related evidence. For example, if a source (acme) says "West bank is the most common term" (content) and an editor quotes Acme as saying "West bank is a term popularized by evil zionists and is now the most common term" its a relevant point for a conduct issue.--Tznkai (talk) 03:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought so, but this give and take threw me off. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 04:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the content and conduct issues here are a little more interwoven than usual. It isn't so much that a content dispute has spilled over into incivility, vote-stacking, etc.  The conduct allegations here include deliberate stonewalling, wikilawyering, IDIDNTHEARTHAT, misrepresentation of sources, and dissemination of red herrings – behavioral violations, in short, that are inextricable from content, and allegedly intended to bring to terminal impasse a dispute about an allegedly simple matter: when discussing disputed/occupied territory in Wikipedia's neutral voice, should we rely more or less exclusively on the standard consensus geographical terminology adopted by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources, or should we alternate that terminology with a nationalist terminology favored by one side to the dispute, rejected by the other, avoided by reliable primary sources, and described as politically loaded by reliable secondary sources?  So good evidence sections will not merely say, here's where so-and-so was rude to me, but something more along the lines of here's where so-and-so systematically distorts source X or policy Y as a tactic of deception or delay, etc.--G-Dett (talk) 15:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, as long as that argument is stated and supported. Brief evidence that is straight to the point is usually best.--Tznkai (talk) 15:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes yes, agreed and agreed. :) I was careful to use "allegedly" twice in the statement above.  And I saw your note to me on the evidence page and will radically revise and condense my contribution today.--G-Dett (talk) 15:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by Tundrabuggy
"this diff given by MeteorMaker as evidence of so-called "misrepresentation by User:Jayjg""

Hmmm. I can't recall giving that diff as evidence, and none of my diffs have been labelled "misrepresentation by User:Jayjg" (though I have been encouraged to make the diffs user-specific, so I may have to label them that way). No idea why User:Tundrabuggy makes those claims, which seem to be good examples of misrepresentation themselves. (UPDATE: TB has corrected his error, though it's still a puzzling statement).

"the region is still so-named and understood world-wide."

That is an oft-repeated claim, but nobody has been able to find any kind of source, reliable or unreliable, partisan or neutral, mainstream or fringe, that actually states so. While there are numerous sources that explicitly state they are used in Israel and not in the rest of the world. 

"Further, User:MeteorMaker and others are simply wrong when they say that "reliable sources began avoiding it...in 1948." In fact, it was the common (and only) usage up until and after the '67 war. "

1) I've never claimed that "RSs began avoiding [J&S] in 1948", and I don't think anybody else has claimed that either.

2) The (unsupported) notion that it was the only usage up until 1967 is contradicted by several sources:
 * “Judea and Samaria”, the biblical terms that the Likud government succeeded in substituting for what had previously been called by many the West Bank, the occupied territories, or simply the territories." (Aronoff 1991)
 * "Even though the name ‘Judea and Samaria’ had been officially adopted as early as the beginning of 1968 instead of the ‘West Bank’, it has hardly been used until 1977. " (Gazit 2003)
 * "Judea and Samaria (a term taken from Mandatory times and officially adopted to replace West Bank or the territories)" (Eisenstadt 1992)

"In fact, UN authorities consistently referred to Judea and Samaria as such."

For some years, the UN simply continued to use the official but defunct British Mandate district names that were imposed in 1920. "In 1920, the British mandate government established a Commission for Place Names, charged with giving a name to new Jewish localities. Three criteria were established to govern the choice of new toponyms: (1) to restore the names of historical places, in particular the names of historic Jewish sites, whose names had been arabicised over time; (2) to commemorate persons and events important to the Zionist movement, the Jewish population of Palestine or of Jews, generally; and (3) to choose names of symbolic signiﬁcance, esp. from the Bible (Arikha 1937: 7). These three principles seem to have been followed during the Mandate period and governed many of the earliest changes."  Isolated instances of the terms can indeed be found in UN texts up to two decades after the Mandate was terminated, as Tundrabuggy's refs show. However, from the last 45 years, Tundrabuggy has only one example of UN usage (1970, incidentally from an Israeli source, The Israel League for Human and Civil Rights in Tel Aviv.)

"Samaria, for example, is on recent maps, is a real place with real roads, with a real university, Ariel University Center of Samaria."

Scroll up to the Discussion of evidence presented by Canadian Monkey section for the debunking of the "recent maps" claim. "Trans-Samaria Highway" and "Ariel University of Samaria" may be "real" (whatever that proves) but their names are nevertheless given by Israel.

"The Judean region, hills and lowlands are really real as well a magnet for travel or Jews, Christians, and history/archeology buffs worldwide and known for its wineries."

Absolutely. And the question we are discussing here, if J&S are widely accepted toponyms outside Israel, Tundrabuggy supports with five examples of usage, predictably all taken from Israeli sources — except one, from a n Israel-only travel agency, where the single tour leader is presented with these words: "Without hesitation, Linda takes a stand for Israel, for Jerusalem as its undivided capitol and the unquestioned right of the original Chosen People to be in their land." I rest my case.

"When editors use legitimate, acceptable, and modern RS to refer to "Judea and Samaria" or each separately, very real and readily understood places, why would that not be perfectly acceptable at Wikipedia?"

Because the terms are not compliant with WP:NCGN, WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. Note that none of Tundrabuggy's sources have stated that the terms are widely used (which is required by WP:NCGN), and nearly all from the last 40 years are Israeli.

"There does seem to be two sides here. One that wants to use "West Bank" to the exclusion of the Israeli "Judea and Samaria" throughout WP, and the other one that wants to use "Judea" and/or "Samaria" together with "West Bank."

Or rather, one side that wants to use neutral, internationally accepted standard terms without issues with multiple policies, and the other one that wants partisan minority terminology (but generously together with the unproblematic terms, for extra reader confusion). The complementary third side (that advocates using Palestinian partisan minority terminology) has not been invited to this party, but I can't see how their preferred nomenclature is less legitimate. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I totally endorse this analysis of the evidence presented. We seem to have links to sources from 30 or more years ago, together with links to a couple of features about tourism in the Israeli press, as well as one spectacularly weird commercial tour site. Again one has to make the observations - where is there any material telling us that Judea and/or Samaria are the standard, prevalent terms in modern international usage, in contrast to the plethora of sources that tell us the opposite? Where is any statistical analysis that debunks the figures that show West Bank is currently used in a ratio of anywhere between 100 and 1000 to 1 to these alternatives? And if we're going to treat one minority nomenclature as standard, why not use the other one as well whenever the opportunity arises - why not say Ramallah is a town in "Palestine", as GlobalSecurity.org seems happy to do? Is that seriously what TB and others are asking us to do here? No-one disputes that the terms Judea and Samaria are used in some contexts, and have been used in the past, and no one is asking for them to be censored. This is simply about due weight and neutrality. If you want WP to describe Nablus, Hebron etc as being in "Samaria" or "Judea" (as well as or instead of the West Bank), you first have to go to Haaretz, the New York Times, CNN, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, most international English-language publishers and most world governments and international bodies, and ask them to start using the terms regularly, or even at all. Then come back here in 20 years time and explain how the world has changed (yet again) and how WP should now follow that new consensus. Until then, I'm afraid not. Sri Lanka was called Ceylon 40 years ago, and we still have Ceylon tea. But we don't say Colombo is "in Ceylon", or even "in Ceylon, in Sri Lanka"
 * In addition this sort of exchange sums up the underlying behavioural issues. For months now editors asking for the use of these terms have been providing random one-off examples of their use in mainstream(ish) sources, and suggesting that this proves they should be used regularly here. In response they have been asked variations on the above questions 100s of times, but these have simply been ignored. And then the idea that we should use both terminologies concurrently is presented as being some sort of "compromise", which is being rejected by unreasonable editors who want to "censor" or purge WP of Jewish nomenclature. Indeed the whole dispute is being misrepresented as some sort of "Israeli POV" vs "Palestinian POV" battle over terminology. It's not of course, it's about standard international use vs minority Israeli use - Palestinian viewpoints (many of which would prefer to use "Palestine") aren't even getting a look-in here.
 * And my god, if WP can't even get this sort of simple naming issue right, what hope is there for the rest of the I-P topic area? --Nickhh (talk) 15:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"Difficulty of discussions with MeteorMaker"
"Discussions with MeteorMaker on this topic are typically difficult, and often involve his repeating the same arguments, despite their rejection by other editors."

Well, what can I say. Editors who constantly reject arguments that policies should be adhered to and that evidence must support the conclusions find it "difficult" to discuss with other editors. I have no problem with editors who engage in civil, give-and-take, policy-respecting discourse — see these  for example, where articles were improved considerably through collegial discussion rather than stonewalling and disruption.

"Here he insists that an English language source can only be used on Hebrew Wikipedia, because it is Israeli." My argument is really in the linked page, the talk page note is just a short teaser. Considering there's exactly one edit by me on that talk page, my alleged "repeating the same arguments" doesn't seem to be such a big problem after all.

"In another discussion, he insisted that the two tables and  are "the exact same one", despite the former having data in it from years after the latter had been published."

For all relevant purposes, the tables are exactly the same, with (as I was the first one to point out) two columns added (that are immaterial in the context). I was also the one who tracked down the original table and the sources so they could be discussed. Tundrabuggy also chooses to truncate the full sentence: Re the table, it's the exact same one, only with the header changed from "Population Growth in Judea" to "Population Growth in the Judea Region [Southern West Bank]". Two more year columns have also been added, and populated with data supplied by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. Were those Tundrabuggy's best examples of the alleged difficulty to discuss with me?

"Inappropriate editing by MeteorMaker"
I hope it will not count as "difficulty of discussion" with me if I point out that Tundrabuggy's last two examples are, um, exactly the same (with not even a column added). That leaves two examples, which on closer inspection turn out to be the same one too, only manifesting itself as two different reverts of the same insertion of highly cherry-picked sources by Jayjg. WP:UNDUE doesn't state anything about how it applies to refs, but it sort of goes against the spirit to select eight partisan sources that say "Samaria" over more than half a million that say "West Bank". I suspect the "inappropriate editing" charge is more properly levelled at Jayjg, though we need more discussion to determine if this rather extreme case of selective source selection in order to prove a point is consistent with policy. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * For every one word of (my) evidence, you have managed 10 in refutation! But on one point your are correct and I have changed it accordingly.  The "misrepresentation of Jayjg" quote was from G-Dett, not you, and I have corrected it.  I apologize for that error.  I do find it amazing though that you are disqualifying sources (eg a travel tour) because of the personal views they express on the conflict.  Since when do we invalidate sources because we  don't like their views? Furthermore, in your zeal to disenfranchise a certain perspective, you have mischaracterised  the travel agency as "an Israel-only travel agency."  Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Corrected, thanks for pointing that out. I still see a residual claim that "MeteorMaker does not seem to understand this concept", but it would be equally odd with G-Dett's name in it, so you may leave it that way if you wish.
 * Note that friendlyplanet.com is not a source for your claim that J&S are internationally accepted terms, because it doesn't claim that (and it bears repeating that no other known sources do either). What you have been doing, synthesizing that conclusion by presenting examples of sources using the terms, is a wasted effort if the sources aren't in fact from outside Israel (and the much smaller group, people abroad who, "without hesitation, take a stand for Israel, for Jerusalem as its undivided capitol and the unquestioned right of the original Chosen People to be in their land" — but that goes without saying really). MeteorMaker (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I wouldn’t worry too much about User:Tundrabuggy's remarks. He thinks Tel Aviv is in the West Bank, oops, ‘Samaria and Judea’ region, though I disabused him of the extraordinary claim he makes, with a dinky source he introduced only to misread. And (2) he thinks that Israeli Settlements, which Wiki like every other source describes as in the Palestinian Occupied Territory of the West Bank are ‘in Israeli territory referred to specifically & officially as Samaria & Judea’, a position so off-the-planet that not even the Israeli government or Avigdor Lieberman subscribes to it. His first article of faith puts Israel in the West Bank, his second, the West Bank into Israel. This is what one has to put up with here.Nishidani (talk) 15:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * [ec]::Again, you have fallen into the trap of invoking WP:NCGN as a justification when the policy specifically says "This page describes conventions for determining the names of Wikipedia articles on places." This is not about naming an article, it is about using the term at all! It also clearly says "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception." There is plenty of room within those guidelines for the use of Judea and/or Samaria within articles in WP, and even for articles so-named.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes NCGN is of course primarily about naming articles themselves, but you seem to have missed this point: "Within articles, places should generally be referred to by the same name as is used in their article title". And are you suggesting that it means we name articles using the standard name, but then when we refer to that thing/place within other articles, anything goes? That seems a little odd. If Judea/Samaria were standard, modern, widely accepted and neutral alternative terms, you would have a case for concurrent or interchangeable use within the body of articles, for stylistic reasons if nothing else. Unfortunately neither you nor anyone else has established that fact yet, nor have you rebutted the 100s of sources that suggest the exact opposite. --Nickhh (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thin ice, Tundrabuggy... The amount of "common sense" and "occasional exception" you are suggesting would also allow us to replace (or extend) every mention of Israel with Palestine or Zionist entity, two terms used by some people in some contexts. Please try to think about how your argumentation would apply to other cases.
 * Cheers,  pedrito  -  talk  - 10.03.2009 15:59

The whole paragraph Nick quotes from (last paragraph of WP:NCGN's lead) is very relevant to this dispute: Within articles, places should generally be referred to by the same name as is used in their article title, or a historic name when discussing a past period. Use of one name for a town in 2000 does not determine what name we should give the same town in 1900 or in 1400, nor the other way around. Many towns, however, should keep the same name; it is a question of fact, of actual English usage, in all cases. For example, when discussing the city now called Istanbul, Wikipedia uses Byzantium in ancient Greece, and Constantinople for the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and also the Ottoman Empire. Similarly, use Stalingrad when discussing the city now called Volgograd in the context of World War II. Emphasis added. This paragraph should also be borne in mind when Jay argues that a 2006 history book referring to Samaria and Transjordan in 1948 establishes the contemporary currency of such terms: "clearly published in 2006, not historical usage." --G-Dett (talk) 16:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"Further evidence of the recentism of "West Bank" as a place name"
TB presents a Google News Archive link to support his conclusion that "Samaria" is "clearly understood internationally, then as now." The "now" part has of course never been substantiated, but let's take a look at how clearly understood the term was in the 48-67 period, according to his evidence.

Of the first 50 hits, 18 are to ships named "Samaria", 3 to a race horse, 1 to one Peter Samarra of Pennsylvania, 7 to other places called Samaria, 3 to a pilgrimage play, and 10 to the ancient/biblical Samaria. Only 8 (of which two duplicates and two probably more properly classified as ancient/biblical) use the term as a contemporary toponym. The ratio of relevant hits decreases dramatically as we move down the Google stack, to around 2 or 3 in 50, the majority of which are from quotes by Israeli PMs or other Israeli sources. We also encounter the special case "Samarian Hills" and variations of it, which is uncontested usage and irrelevant to this discussion.

Now, was the term "clearly understood" in the 48-67 period? If it were, we would expect the term to be used without explanations. Even in this highly fragmentary material, we frequently find such explanations however: "the Samaria region of the Holy Land" , "the biblical district of Samaria, now i[n] western Jordan". Interestingly, all 4 instances of unexplained use are from the New York Times, which may indicate a naming policy unique to that publication during the 50's.

"The usage that one side wishes us to adopt as neutral, has only recently come into currency, especially with the current apparent "default" understanding that "West Bank" means "Palestine.""
 * TB apparently sees the words "neutral" and "recent" as opposites and bases his questioning of the neutrality of the term "West Bank" on this unorthodox notion. TB is also encouraged to show diffs to claims that "West Bank means Palestine."

"To insist on purging "Judea" &/or "Samaria" as currently used and understood terms is not to be neutral, but to take a position in a political language war going on not only in Wikipedia, but throughout the internet. "
 * There is no evidence at all of such a "political language war" outside Wikipedia. On the contrary, even sources on TB's own side acknowledge that that war was lost long ago:
 * "West Bank [has] won that terminological battle" (Safire 2006 )
 * "Only some right wing Jewish media in Israel and abroad now consistently and repeatedly use “Judea and Samaria”. The international media have adopted the term “West Bank” without demur in virtually every editorial piece they publish." (Singer 2007 )
 * "[Samaria] is used by the Israeli government, Zionists and Israelis, to refer to the modern region, but it is no longer used by others, who prefer [...] "West Bank"". (Zionism and Israel - Encyclopedic Dictionary )
 * "The world has adopted the empty Arab term, ‘West Bank’". (Gilboa 2006 )

MeteorMaker (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by Jayjg
"The campaign"

It is wholly appropriate for editors to remove or amend bad content. Where it occurs across multiple articles, that may lead to those editors going to a large number of articles to put those errors right. Working "systematically" would seem to be a good thing in this context. The fact that there are ten or more WP editors engaged in trying to retain that poor content is a serious cause for concern, not evidence of the rightness of their case.

"Compromise"

To say that neither MM nor Pedrito "allowed any compromise wording" is, well, untrue. See this thread and this comment. Other examples abound. In addition, please note that we cannot - and should not - have compromises that overcome fundamental policy, eg (to use a familiar example) to say "2+2=5" because there is a (real world) minority view that it equals 6.

"Reliable sources dismissed"

Yes, one-off and occasional uses recorded in some sources have been rightly dismissed as a basis for demonstrating that the terms Judea and Samaria are standard, or equivalent alternatives to the the mainstream international terminology. I see you are still throwing them in here. I can throw 100 times as many back that do not use the terms at all, and use West Bank instead (note, not "as well as"). By implication, you and others are "dismissing" those.

What we have been waiting for over the last 6 months is the source that summarises the overall situation and says "while West Bank is a term favoured by Palestinians and Mongolians, the majority of the world refers to the area using the standard terms Judea and Samaria". Either bring that source, or confirm to us all now that it doesn't matter whether it exists or not, and the basis of this dispute will finally be made clear to everyone, in your own words. Or, as I've suggested above, go to every English language media organisation, every publisher, every international body and most governments in the world and work on getting them to change the way they describe the area. Once that's been sorted out I'll cede the point - I don't have any stake in it one way or the other, I just want this place to follow the language and terminology that I see in 99% of the mainstream newspapers, websites, documents, official papers and books I've ever read. That's policy here btw --Nickhh (talk) 19:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Questions about the "administrative district" shell game, and about "G-Dett's definition of Samaria" 

Jay, a large number of secondary sources have been introduced over the months stating that the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" are ideologically loaded. You have dismissed most of these, saying that what they're really talking about "is the administrative district, not the geographic term." I contested these dismissals on a number of occasions, pointing out that in many instances the sources were explicitly talking about "biblical names" cum geographic terms, mentioned nothing about the name of any administrative district, etc. You never responded to any of my questions or challenges about this during the months that the dispute was unfolding. Now, in this Arbcom case, you are introducing as evidence sources that are explicitly talking about the administrative district:
 * "From the time of the Persian Gulf War, President Bush and later President Clinton campaigned for a Palestinian-Israeli peace treaty and they insisted that Israel refrain from building any further settlements in the administered areas of Samaria-Judea."

Can you explain this? How does this work? When William Safire talks about the disputed terms as "biblical names evoking Hebrew origins," you say he's talking about an "administrative district," so he doesn't count as a good source. Weird. But when Herbert Druks talks about "the administered areas of Samaria-Judea," he's not talking about the administrative district, he's talking about "geographic terms," hence he's a valid source? Very weird. Do you see how weird this is? I've been introducing anomalies like this as evidence that you are consciously playing a shell-game, categorizing sources as being either about the "administrative district" or the "geographic term" based solely on whether you want to credit or discredit them, all the while refusing to discuss the rationale of these dubious categorizations. I'm now in the process of condensing my evidence; if you respond in a meaningful and illuminating way to this question that I've been asking for months now, I'll revisit and possibly revise the allegation in my evidence section that you've been willfully deceiving the community about this.--G-Dett (talk) 20:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm also a little perplexed by your reference to "G-Dett's definition of Samaria as a 'Biblical name'," which you then refute by saying the British Mandate was neither 'biblical' nor 'ancient'." First of all, as I pointed out to you maybe fifteen times, that's not my "definition," it's just precisely (word for word) how Haaretz, the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Washington Post, and countless other contemporary mainstream sources define "Samaria": "the biblical name for the northern West Bank."  Those words.  Meanwhile, for the definition you were adding as you edit-warred against me      – "a region on the West Bank of the Jordan River" – you had to rely on a UN document from 1947, because none of the mainstream current encyclopedias in English (Britannica, Columbia, Encarta) define "Samaria" as a modern geographic region, and mainstream newspapers and periodicals, as we've seen, define it as "the biblical name for the northern West Bank."  Would you mind clarifying this in your evidence section, that what you call there "G-Dett's definition" (and elsewhere a "deliberately misleading statement," an "obviously inaccurate definition," etc.) was taken precisely word-for-word from multiple top-notch contemporary mainstream reliable sources?  Thanks.


 * Can you also clarify that far from arguing that "biblical name" means "not in use today," I pointed out repeatedly that it was precisely in the context of its contemporary use that the sources were underscoring that "Samaria" is a "biblical name"?  And that I was the one who finally came up with a formulation that made explicit that it was a biblical name used today, per the sources?  Thanks again.--G-Dett (talk) 21:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Meteormaker and Pedrito's campaign
Preliminary note: Keep in mind that what Jayjg is opposing here is two facts that are almost universally accepted:

1) "Judea" and "Samaria" are historical terms (ie, not used any more) for the area that is today the West Bank.

2) With the sole exception of Israel, where the terms are official.

"User:MeteorMaker first began his campaign to remove/deprecate the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" on April 6, 2008. By July he had done so in 34 articles:"

That is true, though all except one of Jayjg's edit examples were made on a single day, April 18/19. As a month-old newcomer, I noticed a number of articles that used archaic terminology and updated them ("J&S" -> "West Bank"). Nothing particularly problematic.

"MeteorMaker took a break from Wikipedia from July 8 to October 22, and the conflict disappeared."

It's somewhat disingenuous to describe something as a "conflict" that doesn't involve edit warring or at least a few reverts. The nearest thing I can find is a short revert exchange with User:Canadian Monkey on 19 April @ Lakhish River, and again with the same user on 8 May@ Judea.

"MeteorMaker was well aware of the controversial nature of these removals. He had been advised by three different administrators that it was a bad idea for him to be doing this".

Not quite true. Of the three different administrators on Jayjg's list, only one (Ynhockey) says anything at all about "these removals", contrary to Jayjg's claim, and that was (obviously) after the fact. Ynhockey initially calls it "vandalism" but after reading the talk page at Judea engages in discussion, which ends with no particular objection from him or statement to the effect that it's "a bad idea" or "controversial". As a gesture of good will, I put a lid on updating the toponyms anyway. The second editor on Jayjg's list, Coren, talks exclusively about Jayjg's and mine out-of-hand dispute at the Samaria article, and the third, Elonka, talks exclusively about Israeli settlement. Jayjg's recollection of the events is not consistent with reality (easily verified by checking my talk page).

"in February 2009, Elonka banned him for 90 days from making Samaria-related reverts, and admonished him for that behavior."

What Jayjg neglects to mention is that the ban was found to be based on a misunderstanding and lifted on March 1. 

Let's take a look at what was behind that 90-day topic ban Elonka imposed on me, because that has bearings on what's happening now. Background:


 * On 25 December, Elonka placed a restriction on the Israeli settlement article: No more Samaria-related reverts in the lead of the article.


 * On 5 February, from another section in the article, I edited out the word "Samaria" and moved a few citations to a more proper place.

"Hi Elonka. I discovered that Meteormaker has again removed the term from the Israeli settlement article, despite the previous agreement."  Jayjg does not mention the crucial qualifier "in the lead".
 * On 12 February, Jayjg posted a note on Elonka's page:

"MeteorMaker, you have been cautioned before about removing citations to reliable sources. Since you have started up again, I am going to make this formal: You are banned from This ban is in place for 90 days. "
 * On 14 February, Elonka writes on my page:
 * Making Samaria-related reverts to any article in the Israel/Palestine topic area
 * Removing reliable citations from any article in the topic area.

Curiously, Elonka ignores Jayjg original (unfounded) claim and comes up with a different rationale for banning me. Upon finding I hadn't in fact removed any citations, she apologized, and the ban was subsequently lifted. 

In essence, I could have got a 90-day topic ban because Jayjg provided Elonka with incorrect information. I am not insinuating malicious intent, but as an experienced admin, he should have checked his information better, particularly as the consequences for an innocent editor could have become dire. User:brewcrewer, User:NoCal100 , User:Canadian Monkey , and User:Jaakobou soon begun lobbying for extensions of the ban, the latter two alleging breaches of it on my part. They both provided incorrect information to support their claims. Both have been notified and given an opportunity to review their allegations ; in this Arbcom case, they have both chosen to maintain their allegations.

"Unlike those who disagreed with them, neither MeteorMaker nor Pedrito allowed any compromise wording that used both terminologies."

Since the pro-J&S side's position was that both terminologies, partisan and neutral, should be used, it's not correct to describe that as a "compromise wording".

"Meteormaker's most typical edit summaries were "Terminology modernized" or "Terminology updated," and the edits often marked as "minor" even after months of disagreements about these changes. "

I see nothing wrong at all with "terminology modernized". That Jayjg disagrees with me about the modernity of the terms, as well as with several other editors, and with all the sources that say anything at all about the subject, is hardly evidence of disruptive behavior on my part. A word on "minor": it was default for my editor, so I didn't always bother to switch for small edits. Apparently Jayjg didn't either always.

"This was in line with persistent attempts to deprecate the term wherever it could not be excised completely - to insist that it was not a term used today. Thus Meteormaker's and G-Dett's definition of Samaria as a "Biblical name"/"Biblical term"/"Biblical" or "ancient region" despite MeteorMaker stating weeks earlier, several times, that it was the name of the "British Mandatory administration district." - the British Mandate was neither "biblical" nor "ancient."

"Biblical" was in fact a compromise, the original distinction between modern/historical was expressed simply by using the past tense like in all other articles on historic regions. Since Jayjg refused to budge on this and allow the articles on Judea and Samaria to reflect complete source consensus, we settled on describing the areas as "biblical", much because hundreds of reliable sources use that exact word.

"In addition, it's true that more recently one "side" in the conflict has tended to prefer the traditional, longstanding designations, rather than the newer "West Bank.""

Question to Jayjg: just why should WP kowtow to that side and its idiosyncratic terminology? Aren't we here to write English wikipedia, for English readers, using established English terminology? MeteorMaker (talk) 02:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

"Reliable sources dismissed"
Preliminary note: Jayjg's claim that reliable sources were dismissed is a total red herring. No sources were ever presented, by Jayjg or anybody else, that remotely support the "J&S are modern toponyms" position without a huge amount of WP:SYNTH. What was rejected was examples of usage, because they failed to be examples of anything else than historic usage or Israeli usage (both uncontested).

"On the Talk: page discussions it was shown that, contrary to Meteormaker's assertions, there were many examples of modern English language sources using the terms"
 * Jayjg makes a false assertion here — what was asserted is that there aren't sufficiently many to call the term widespread, which is what WP:NCGN requires.

"MeteorMaker and his supporters disqualified almost all sources that contradicted their claims. They rejected out of hand any Israeli sources; the fact that the official Israeli government designation for the region was "Judea and Samaria" was apparently meaningless,"
 * Indeed it is. The Israeli government can't decide how we write articles on Wikipedia, particularly not articles on places that aren't even located in Israel. Tibet is considered a part of China, but we still don't use the official name Xizang.


 * you might notice that Tibet and Xizang are actually names for the place. While West Bank is a general term that doesn't even coincide with the areas (is it the whole bank? how far from the river?) and in political terms generally follows the green line, something that neither Judea or Samaria are bound too, because they're actually geographic names and not political terms invented by third parties. 216.165.2.199 (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

"and any English language sources published in Israel that used the terms were not, MeteorMaker claimed, valid indicators of their use in English."
 * Another false assertion: Israeli sources are not valid indicators of use outside Israel. Jayjg keeps forgetting that it's not contested that J&S are valid terms in Israel, only that we should use Israel-specific terms in Wikipedia.

"However, the rejections quickly widened beyond this scope: if an American or British publication used the terms, but the author was born in/connected with Israel, then it was again not an example of English-language use. "
 * Correction: Not an example of outside-Israel use. This is one of Jayjg's more unorthodox positions and one that has raised eyebrows as well as a fair amount of controversy: that the nationality of a writer changes with the nationality of the publisher . I leave it to the reader to ponder the consequences if it were applied universally. His unwillingness to back down sparked a long edit war and a futile stonewalled discussion here.

"For example, David Weisburd's Jewish Settler Violence, published by Penn State Press was dismissed because "...Weisburd is also an Israeli, which makes [him] unusable as evidence of outside-Israel use of the toponym." This despite the fact that Weisburd was, at the time of publication, a professor at the Graduate School of Criminal Justice of Rutgers University, with degrees only from American universities. "
 * I doubt Rutgers University requires their guest professors to lay off their native geographic terminology. Naturally, David Weisburd continued to use the terms he was used to from back home (and he has every right to).

"Similarly, Miriam Shaviv, born and raised in Canada and a citizen of the U.K. was dismissed as writing for "foreign publications" when she wrote for Britain's The Jewish Chronicle."
 * Well, never trust Wikipedia. Either Jayjg has now forgotten that I've told him I was fooled by her article's describing her as "an Israeli writer", or he's acting in bad faith.

"Sources were also dismissed if the author was, in MeteorMaker's estimation, an "ardent anti-Muslim"
 * Strange how Jayjg can read "Appears to be legit" as a dismissal. Legit, even though the guy (Bernard Gilland, not Jayjg) isn't shy to tell the world about his desire to see the al-Aqsa mosque blown up and dead bodies of Muslims desecrated.

"or an official in the Zionist Organization of America and therefore using "Zionist-approved terminology", or, in the case of Abraham D. Sofaer, because he had committed the "faux pas" of belonging to a Zionist organization in his youth. "
 * As I've said many times before, I shouldn't have to waste time explaining how Zionism is ideologically tied to Israel. As a compromise, I'm perfectly happy to amend the suggested wording to "The combined term Judea and Samaria is used in Israel and by Zionists to refer to the West Bank as a whole."

"If all that didn't work, then sources could be dismissed because, according to MeteorMaker, the source "[could]n't be evaluated due to restricted content" "
 * Jayjg reads that as if the source was dismissed, when in fact all that was stated was that it couldn't be evaluated.

"or was a dead link (to partisan source), despite the actual quotations being provided."
 * That particular source was dismissed, not because of the quote or the 404, but because, as an example of non-Israeli use of the terms, an Israeli government source using the word "Samaria" isn't terribly valuable. But I concede I've learned that a 404 isn't sufficient reason to remove a ref.

 "It became apparent that there was little point in providing sources that contradicted MeteorMaker's theories, because there was always some rationale by which they could be dismissed."
 * The rules are in fact very simple: If you want to provide examples of "X is used as a modern term outside country Y", you need examples that are A) modern and B) from outside country Y. A handful of Jayjg's examples (up to half a dozen, depending on the strictness of the source checking) in fact met these two requirements and were acknowledged as bona fide anecdotal evidence (scroll down to about the middle of this table, or search for "User:Jayjg").

"Despite all this, and even when applying all of MeteorMaker's conditions, there are still sources that use the terms."
 * Jayjg misrepresents his opponents' position again. Martin Gilbert and Herbert Druks (and a couple more that Jayjg leaves out this time) have never been contested as non-Israeli users of the terms. ( point 8, 33) There are probably hundreds more to be found if one stays away from editing another week and concentrates on scouring the Web. The problem is the same as always: What Jayjg needs is not a few isolated examples like these (that he has now recycled literally dozens of times, together with the thoroughly debunked ones he keeps posting (ie the maps, except perhaps G-Dett's geological one)) — what Jayjg needs is either, per WP:NCGN, solid statistics that show J&S to be at least twice as common as "West Bank", or reliable sources that actually say that "Judea" and "Samaria" are modern, widespread terms — plus, if he resists adding the suggested usage note that says the terms are confined to Israel, that they are used by others than Israelis and Israel's closest cheerleaders. And against 80 sources for the opposing position, plus unequivocal proof from applying the NCGN procedure, he needs exceptional sources.

"And a final bit of irony: a number of editors have been trying to portray the "Samaria"/"Judea" terminology as Israeli-only, or Israeli/Zionist/Jewish. Yet in several of the articles in question, the terminology was first added by a Muslim Palestinian (and native English speaker)"
 * Jayjg's final bit of irony boomerangs back: according to his user page, Al Ameer Son grew up in Israel.

MeteorMaker (talk) 02:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This last section above is very important. The sources Jay is talking about in his highly misleading "Reliable sources dismissed" section were never dismissed by MM as sources for any of the articles in question.  They are primary sources Jay collated and introduced in a talk-page meta-discussion for the purposes of disproving "MeteorMaker's theory" (in fact a well-sourced statement).  MeteorMaker pointed out that Jay's collection of primary sources did not demonstrate what Jay claimed they demonstrated, to wit, that the disputed terms were in wide use outside of Israel, and were widely accepted as neutral.  This occasioned one of Jay's most brazen (and brazenly repeated) lies, that MeteorMaker was "discriminat[ing] against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin."--G-Dett (talk) 03:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Lack of Beef
What's missing in User:Jayjg's evidence is the smoking gun or silver bullet: A source that explicitly says that Judea and Samaria are the common names for the southern and northern West Bank, respectively. Until then, all accusations of anybody being on a campaign of disruption are bogus. No source, no argument. Cheers,  pedrito  -  talk  - 11.03.2009 13:05

Notes on User:Jayjg's evidence
It has taken me 2 days to check thoroughly his evidence. The notes are so extensive, that I would violate even generous word-limits. I'll use just one snippet paradigmatically (as is known, I don't think diffs are reliable to judge what is going on. Each a frozen snapshot of a long and intricately sequential film of evidence)

It is a masterful mustering of evidence, in the German sense of 'Muster'. The problem is, how to read the pattern? I clicked through the dazzling necklace, spangled with cerulean diffs, feeling somewhat like Catherine the Great drifting on her imperial barge down the Dnieper, and admiring the impressive facades of Potemkin's villages. It is useful, however, at the end of the voyage, to walk the backleg and see the same facades from behind. The technical term is 'unpacking'.

There is almost nothing there, unless one accepts Jayjg's prefatory premise that MeteorMaker  is engaged in a 'campaign' of denigration ('deprecation'), with a bigoted spirit on I/P wikipedia. Let me unpack the first piece of evidence.

Item 173.
 * Meteormaker enters here and made an edit on 21 of September 2007, replaced the phrasing
 * "'a geographic term used for the mountainous region between the Galilee to the north and Judea to the south. It is the name of natural, historical and political regions. It is the central region of the Biblical Land of Israel. Most of the region is in the northern West Bank of the Jordan River.'"

with
 * "'is a term used for the mountainous northern part of the West Bank, used by people who want to emphasize Israel's and the Jewish people's relationship with the area.'"


 * This passage was edited on February 5, 2008, by an anonymous I/P editor who added 'of the Jordan River', and in turn qualified by MM two months later with the words ‘The term is controversial: see usage note at Judea and Samaria on the 6th of April, 2008
 * At this point, 3 days later, User:Jayjg, with an edit summary that reads: ‘remove unsourced trivia from lead. Everything is “controversial”, removes this last addition but does not touch MM’s earlier edit referring to Samaria as ‘a term used for the mountainous northern part of the West Bank of the Jordan River'.


 * What does this tell us? That on April 9, 2008, 6 and a half months into MM’s edit, Jayjg found nothing wrong with MM’s defining Samaria as a term for the mountainous northern part of the West Bank. He found nothing 'deprecating' in MM's edit at that time, for several months.


 * MM reverts Jayjg's dismissal of his edit as 'trivia' the same day referring him to the discussion page.
 * MM in turn is then almost immediately reverted back by the usual anonymous stand-in type, a certain anonymous I/P editor Editing User:I am Dr. Drakken, who restores Jayjg's last version (which accepts MM's original proposal for Samaria in the northern West Bank). MeteorMaker returns to that page only 2 months later to intervene briefly in another section of the article, on I June 2008 altering ‘Israel’s position is that the legal status of the land is complicated’ with ‘Israel has been criticized for the policy of establishing settlements in Samaria. Israel’s position is that the legal status of the land is unclear’ with the edit summary ‘Notes on settlements and Israel's position restored, pending citation'. Here MM actually introduces 'Samaria' into the text.

Conclusion. In itself, there is nothing here, evidence-wise. No edit-warring, or deprecation, or campaigning, at least on that page. To the contrary, MM, over a period of 8 months, makes 4 edits, one of which Jayjg contests after 6 months, while accepting MM's original reduction of the lead, which defines Samaria as 'in the West Bank'. Since then, a problem has arisen, and now what Jayjg accepted of MM's edit is now adduced as evidence for MM's campaign of hostile POV pushing. If one wants, I can do this for a good many of the other pearls in the spangle. It is the method which is defective. Nishidani (talk) 15:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by JoshuaZ
Hi Joshua, I just read your piece of evidence, about the irritable exchange between MetoerMaker and Jay regarding the dead link to the op-ed by the Israeli ambassador to Australia, which Jay had presented as a non-Israeli source.

I agree with you that MeteorMaker ought simply to have found the cache online or visited a library, rather than insinuating that Jay's summary might have been incomplete or misleading. For context, however, it's relevant that at the time that MeteorMaker expressed those doubts, Jay had already accused him sixteen times of being a liar, and a comparable number of times of being a bigot. In almost all of these cases, it's clear that Jay's accusations were made in bad faith. It's also relevant that Jay has in fact lied extensively and repeatedly about many of the sources involved in this dispute. Just for perspective, I'll say that I would never take on faith any claim that Jay makes about source materials. I wouldn't insinuate doubts about something that could be easily checked, and in that respect MeteorMaker misstepped, but the above is the above.--G-Dett (talk) 03:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Heyo G-Dett,
 * All due respect to the long standing grievances that seem to exist between you and jayjg, calling out another editor for so-called extensive lying in a conversation with a third person seems out of order. The most ovbious thing it does not do, is de-escalate situations which is something I would assume people would like to achieve from the use of this forum. Assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia, one that is extended even to political rivals.
 * Warm regards,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  09:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment removed by clerk: unacceptable personal insult to criticism ratio. --Tznkai (talk) 03:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts and input, Jaakobou. Remember that this case is in large part about conduct – conduct that includes extensive lying, systematic misrepresentation of source material, and the like.  You are absolutely right that WP:AGF is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia.  Honesty and sincere commitment to content policies are essential to AGF; take them away, and not only AGF but the very structure of good-faith collaboration collapses.  That, unfortunately, is what has happened in this case.  Hopefully Arbcom can get to the bottom of it.  Candor, sincerity, tough-mindedness coupled with restraint, and above all, concrete evidence, will them to do so.--G-Dett (talk) 14:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This case is at least 90 percent about content, not conduct. To the extent it is about conduct, it is about MeteorMaker's conduct, and yours.  6SJ7 (talk) 03:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * And, of course, Jayjg's. User:Canadian Monkey, User:Jaakobou, and User:NoCal100 have been accused of bad conduct too. MeteorMaker (talk) 05:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, their only "conduct" was to try to put in or restore content that you don't like. As far as I know, there is no rule that says MeteorMaker gets to decide what content stays in Wikipedia.  You, on the other hand, have been disruptive, which does violate the rules.  6SJ7 (talk) 14:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, let the arbitrators decide. Regarding what content goes in Wikipedia, there is a well-defined framework of rules, and numerous editors have tried to sidestep and undermine them to push their ideology's agenda, which IMO is the ultimate disruption. In addition to that, there are some minor issues, like presenting false information knowingly in order to get fellow editors sanctioned. MeteorMaker (talk) 15:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that Joshuaz misuses the term "bad faith" for what he means, that MeteorMaker did not assume Jayjg's good faith. This use seems to be appearing more frequently; I tend to hope for that to reverse, since it seems to turn the whole accusation into a simultaneous self-incrimination. Mackan79 (talk) 05:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

"Bad faith by User:MeteorMaker"
"On December 19, 2008 MeteorMaker argued that an Australian newspaper using the term "Samaria" could not be verified since the link was dead. This is exactly counter to what is stated in WP:V which is explicit that sources do not need to be online."

True, I'm still learning. I honestly didn't know that at the time. (Parenthetically, it has had some odd consequences, for instance here, where an unverifiable but 404-reffed claim was made where we, counterintuitively, had to simply take the posting editor's word for it, because policy says so.)

Let me also mention that in academia, everything needs to be verifiable, and verification is seen as a natural part of the scientific process rather than as an expression of bad faith or a personal attack. Blindly accepting the word of an authority runs counter to everything science (and, I innocently believed for a while, Wikipedia) stands for.

"User:Jayjg responded to Meteor that he had provided the quote and confirmed the source, and suggested, in the face of apparent bad faith or inability to understand basic policy, that MeteorMaker drop by a library to validate the source himself."


 * The "in the face of apparent bad faith" part is a little difficult to understand. Let's consider the full context:


 * 1. A mention of "Samaria" in a section about the 2005 settlement pullout in the Israeli settlement article becomes the focus of a content dispute.


 * 2. Consensus leans towards removing it. Then, Jayjg adds eight refs that all say the settlements were in Samaria (ignoring the more than half a million that say they were in the West Bank), and insists "Samaria" is now a "well-sourced alternative term" and "cited terminology" that cannot be removed.


 * 3. Several other editors oppose this as WP:TE. An edit war erupts. The eight sources are examined and found to be Israeli/Zionist (6), historical (1), and one that contradicts the Samaria claim altogether by stating ""


 * ""[...] Judea and Samaria, what most of the world refers to as the West Bank."


 * 4. In the discussion that followed, G-Dett collects five sources that all use the "other" partisan term and asks Jayjg if he's prepared to now also mention "Palestine" in the article.


 * 5. Jayjg now insists that the sources must say "West Bank, Palestine" in order to count. He notes that none of G-Dett's sources use that formulation, which he uses as a justification to dismiss her argument.


 * 6. I point out that none of Jayjg's sources uses his wording either ("the northern Samaria region of the West Bank"), except one, that has now gone offline, "so there's no way to verify [his] claim". Jayjg responds with


 * "I quoted the source, therefore it said it. The claim has been confirmed by me. Period. "


 * I don't push it further.


 * 7. Three months later, my innocent remark is used as proof of "bad faith" on my part.

"After a two week period, Meteor removed the link as well as the content, with the edit summary "Rm dead link (to partisan source)". This act was both against basic policy and apparently in bad faith."


 * Now, the ref's only function was as a prop for the word "Samaria" (it had been selected from over half a million sources exclusively because it contained the word, remember) and in that sense, it was indeed partisan, being an op-ed by Israel's then-ambassador to Australia. It had also been extensively discussed on the talkpage, where multiple editors opposed it but the other side stonewalled every attempt to remove it. As a ref, it was also of little value, merely announcing the Israeli government's future intention:


 * "Four settlements will be evacuated in the northern Samaria region of the West Bank."


 * And as already mentioned, I had no idea deadlinked refs couldn't be removed.

"A Spanish translation of the original newspaper article was then found hosted on the web and was used as a substitute for the Australian citation. It included, however, a footnote text that was not part of the original article. MeteorMaker inserted his translation of the hosted version's footnote."


 * And correctly so, since the Spanish translation now was the actual citation. I can't see how that can be construed as what JoshuaZ later condemns as "tendentious editing".

"Jayjg pointed Meteor to a google cache to further confirm the content of the original and reminded him of the library option."


 * I assume JoshuaZ never checked Jayjg's link himself. It does in fact yield two pages, one related but different story, one with the 404. It seems unlikely that anybody else has access to a different version of the cache on the same URL. My local library does not have The Australian, unfortunately, so that was never an option for me. In response to my postulating the existence of a disclaimer, like in the Spanish version of the article: "Samaria": Nombre israelí de una parte de Cisjordania (Israeli name for a part of the West Bank), Jayjg, somewhat surprisingly, stated he had "quoted [the source] exactly and completely, leaving not one word out". His quote was exactly 14 words long.


 * Since the link was permanently dead, and the cache empty, it was unlikely that Jayjg still had access to the original text, and he apparently relied on his recollection of it, where a short footnote probably didn't figure. That's why I asked Elonka, who said she had access to it, for verification.


 * I must regrettably also concur with G-Dett's observation that in this dispute, Jayjg has a history of making bold claims about sources that don't hold up well to scrutiny (for instance point 45 and 46 here, where crucial context had been elided through tight quote truncation), and extremely bad faith assumptions (eg when he claims, repeatedly, that I engage in "distasteful ethnic discrimination".)

MeteorMaker (talk) 15:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm curious if there is any evidence that you have discussed the last issue inappropriately. It strikes me as clear enough that if multiple sources specifically state that the use of the term is limited within a country or population, that issue will have to be discussed.  If sources are brought to challenge the point, then certainly you would also need to discuss their success or failure in doing so (unless such challenges were simply rejected as original research).  I mention in evidence that this seems to have been uncontroversial in other discussions, where Jay has categorized authors by religion in the absence of any sources doing so.  If this is all the evidence suggests, I hope the related accusations will be recognized to lack basis. Mackan79 (talk) 05:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No such evidence has been produced, by Jayjg or anybody else. The allegations of "distasteful ethnic discrimination" are persistent though, particularly from Jayg, Jaakobou and Canadian Monkey (see my evidence section ). (A fourth editor that used to fling such accusations around, User:Amoruso, has since been permablocked is currently on a prolonged wikibreak.) If there had been one grain of substance, I'm sure they would not have hesitated to take it to AE. MeteorMaker (talk) 06:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is completely false, and is sadly quite typical of the misrepresentations that are prevalent in MM's "evidence" and Talk page discussion. User:Amoruso has not been permablocked or anything close to it. You have repeatedly attempted to disqualify sources not just on the basis of them being written by Israelis, but also on the basis of them having studied in Israel at a certain point in their lives, or fund raising for Israeli organizations by Jews, or belonging to Zionists organizations in their youth, which is support for the claim that you are practicing a form of ethnic-based discrimination. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * These repeated claims that MM or anybody else is engaging in 'ethnic-based discrimination' is founded on one basic willful omission by MM's accusers. That MM has rejected sources 'on the basis of them having studied in Israel at a certain point in their lives, or fund raising for Israeli organizations by Jews, or belonging to Zionists organizations in their youth' is a rather basic form of intellectual dishonesty. MM has pointed out, repeatedly, that the claim that compilation of sources put together to give credence to the idea that J+S is terminology used outside of Israel is based primarily on Israeli sources, as in pieces written by Israelis, using the terminology. That a list of Israeli sources using a term proves that the term is used outside of Israel is an argument that is without merit, and it can not be construed that to show that is without merit is to be engaging in a form of discrimination. The charge, no matter how often repeated, is without basis, and the repeated presentation of the charge is sadly quite typical of the behavior that necessitates this case. Nableezy (talk) 02:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of Mackan79's evidence
Mackan79's original post here was evidence, and has been moved to the evidence page in his section.
 * What I see here is you letting your pre-conceived notion of what the end result should be color your interpretation of the source. The source in question proposes alternative names - "West bank", "the territories" ,and 'Judea and Samaria'. the context makes it clear we are talking about alternative political designations, not geographical designations. It describes 'Judea and Samaria" in the plural ("they are") just as it describes the alternate, administrative use,in the plural ("the terriories"). It is plainly obvious that this sources sees an equivalence between "West bank" = "the territories" = 'Judea and Samaria", and it follows that it is not talking about the separate geographical entities "Judea" (which extends into Israel), and "Samaria". Jayjg's position  is far from 'absurd' - it just differs from your interpretation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canadian Monkey (talk • contribs)


 * Canadian Monkey, would you agree that Jayjg refuses to discuss his interpretation? If not, can you point me to an exchange where he articulates and defends his interpretation?  As opposed to tacitly assuming the self-evidence rightness of his interpretation, and dismissing all discussion of same as original research?  (You might have a look at my final evidence section regarding this.)--G-Dett (talk) 22:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If two groups claim different names for a particular territory, how does that say anything about where else the territory extends? I'm also wondering how one could think a reference to "the territories," in lower case, is solely a claim regarding legal designations.  Or, for that matter how anyone could dismiss a passage that is 100% about these names and who uses them, in a discussion about these names and who uses them.  These are all silly, nonsensical arguments to discount a completely unambiguous source.


 * Besides that, the real issue is how Jayjg approaches this (and similar arguments): not just to claim the ridiculous, but going so far as to twist the entire thing around in a bizarre attempt to claim that he is not claiming anything. At least you attempt to argue the source.  Jayjg claims he has nothing to argue, and moreover that to show otherwise the other side has to somehow create the non-argument for his non-rebuttal.  Is Jayjg having a good time?  No doubt; "Nice try at reversing the onus of proof again...." now prove to me that "Samaria" means "Judea and Samaria."  Is it a way to have a content discussion?  Well, hardly. Mackan79 (talk) 01:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

/Workshop
Perhaps now might be a good time to start focusing on solutions and ways forward? Or at least get some concrete proposals going over at the Workshop ... &mdash; Roger Davies  talk 15:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I posted a proposal, although it is heavily based around my previous proposal at the talk page of the case. It really bothers me that something as unimportant as this has created so much controversy, but I also feel strongly about some of the aspects of this case. Hopefully we can use this case to move forward and remove the obstacles that prevented us from doing so until now. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 21:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It might be helpful if other editors commented freely on the proposals, not so much with a view to getting their own position across, but with the focus on reducing them to a core framework that will garner broadest support. In other words, use the workshop to explore common ground instead of widening gulfs. &mdash; Roger Davies  talk 13:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, we started to do this, but the Arbcom brief specifies more behavioural issues than content resolution. In fact, that equivocation perhaps accounts for some hesitancy in going forward to put forth intelligent proposals for resolving the content dispute. But, at the same time, the content dispute has a strong behavioural element. A circle. I'm sure there's willingness to work further on Ynhockey's proposal, and many other proposals. I disagree with Ynhockey's repeated remarks that this is trivial. It potentially effects several hundred pages, and only clear guidelines on the protocols of nomenclature and what constitutes valid evidence will reduce the strong potential for continued conflict. I hope that, in this fraught issue, Arbcom extends us a little patience to clarify disagreements, get over the bickering, and then sort out the principles of method. It took me 2 full days of reading just to check one editor's diffs and their context. Otherwise I would have gone ahead with negotiations on the substance.Nishidani (talk) 13:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, as the alternative will probably include sanctions, it really is in everyone's best interests to try to resolve this now by civilised discussion, even if it is time-consuming. &mdash; Roger Davies  talk 14:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Couldn't agree more. It's complex, and will require patience to thrash out. All we want is severe eyes on our exchanges, until this is settled. ThanksNishidani (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Note regarding my own (G-Dett's) final section of evidence
In my final section of evidence, just now submitted, I refer to Jay's use of WP:NOR as a parliamentary bludgeon to suppress critical discussion of source-material on talk pages, instead of as a community policy governing article content. I say he does this "in every single instance where he is opposed." This is not rhetoric; I am fully prepared to prove that this is his standard operating procedure when it comes to disputes about sources. This illegitimate tactic is absolutely central to the dispute now before Arbcom; in other words, if Jay didn't do this, we wouldn't be where we are today.--G-Dett (talk) 21:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's wrong. It's really just a content dispute.  If there is any wrongdoing here, it is about you trying to silence Jay, and chill others, in order to skew content toward your POV.  6SJ7 (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you should review this section 6SJ7: . G-Dett doesn't really have a dog in this fight, while you, Jayjg and I certainly do. G-Dett is not a POV editor. She's a policy freak. (Sorry G-Dett) She also seems to deeply enjoy getting to the bottom of things, often resolving intractable disputes. I think you, and some others, have been way too hard on her. A kind of shooting the messenger thing. Anyway, my two cents.  T i a m u t talk 22:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with this. As I and others have to keep repeating, this whole debate is frequently mis-characterised. "West Bank" vs "Judea &/or Samaria" is not about a Palestinian POV vs an Israeli POV, it is simply about standard international terminology vs a minority POV terminology (which happens to be Israeli, albeit not even seemingly a majority Israeli one, going by English-language news sites such as Haaretz and Ynet). This is a common problem in I-P pages, where, as I have just pointed out below, anyone coming in from outside, with a fairly objective and mainstream world view of the conflict, is quickly branded by most of the sitting editors as "pro-Palestinian", simply because they don't fall in with a perspective which many might characterise as a pretty right-wing Israeli one. A "Palestinian POV" - or at least one of them - would presumably be pushing quite hard not for West Bank, but for "Palestine". That view isn't even getting a serious look-in here, and I would not fall in with it even if it were. I'm interested in what most of the mainstream sources in the real world say, not what some on either party to the dispute might be interested in. In 20 years time, "Palestine" or "Judea and Samaria" might become the standard phrasing. If and when that happens, that's what WP should use, and I'll argue for that. But not at this point in time. --Nickhh (talk) 23:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much Tiamut and Nick. I'd only add, 6SJ7, that the last thing in the world I want to do is "silence" Jayjg (!?).  I want him to speak, speak, speak.  I often beg him to speak.  In particular, I want him to speak in something other than policy links and circular, supposedly apodictic statements, any criticism of which is spuriously dismissed, without explanation or elaboration, as "strawman arguments" or "original research."--G-Dett (talk) 00:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Judea and Samaria on their own, again
(moved back here to avoid dumping repetitive discussions there)

The point of the Trinidad and Tobago example is this quite simple one, based around a combination of geography and logic - if a place is in "Trinidad and Tobago", it is by definition surely also sited in one or other of "Trinidad" or "Tobago" (or possibly, one of the smaller islands). Equally, if we note that Port of Spain is in Trinidad, it is also surely in "Trinidad and Tobago". By the same logic, if we say something is in "Samaria", it is surely by definition to be found within the larger entity "Judea and Samaria". Whether we wish to describe these areas as "geographic" or "political" or "administrative" regions is kind of neither here nor there, although as it happens the designations are not mutually exclusive anyway. We are simply talking about where things are located.

The "confusion" which seems to be coming from pointing to occasional sources that suggest places in Israel are also in Samaria only arises because in some cases "Samaria" is used in what would appear to be more of a historical or even biblical sense, to refer to a wider region that extends into modern day Israel. This appears to have been the case in British Mandate times, when of course Jordan was also called Transjordan. Contemporary usage, according to sources I have seen, does not generally follow this. Those contemporary sources are quite explicit that "Samaria", on the occasions when it is used at all in a modern context, is, unsurprisingly, usually simply a reference to one part of "Judea and Samaria", or rather "the West Bank". Please, once and for all can we get beyond the "here's one example of X being used in a certain way, therefore X is the standard normal term and can be used everywhere" logic? Anyway here's a sample of what really does seem to be the standard use -


 * CNN - Israelis often refer to the northern West Bank region by its biblical name of Samaria.
 * Foundation for Middle East Peace - In Samaria, the biblical name for the northern West Bank
 * USA Today - "We are in a situation of total closure in the area of Samaria," Ben-Eliezer said, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank. I assume as well that Ben Eliezer is not suggesting that he is locking down towns the other side of the Green Line

Similar examples are available in respect of Judea/southern West Bank. The argument that suggests that Samaria and/or Judea can therefore be added in to articles (especially in respect of things in the West Bank, but probably in respect of places in Israel as well) fails on several levels, all of which have been discussed and demonstrated at length long before we got to ArbCom -


 * The term Samaria, whatever it refers to, is not in common use at all
 * Where it refers to a broader region that straddles the Green Line, that would appear generally to be a historical usage of the term
 * Where it refers strictly to simply the northern West Bank, we already have a perfectly valid and neutral word to use for that area, which is used by the vast majority of media, official and academic sources around the world - northern West Bank

At the end of day I'm personally agnostic as to whether the term can or should be used in respect of towns in the parts of what could be referred to as historical Samaria/Judea that lie within Israel, but they should certainly not be used in respect of places in the West Bank as if they were neutral standard terms. Saying "but we're using them as geographical terms rather than in a Judea & Samaria sense" won't wash for the reasons above. When they are used, they have a standard - and rather obvious one would have thought - meaning. If I abuse someone in the street and they object to my language, I can't get away with saying - "oh you and everyone else might see c##t as a rude word, but I'm using it as a term of affection, so there's nothing wrong with it. Look, here's a film script where someone uses it as a term of endearment, QED". --Nickhh (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Nickhh! A slip up there of southern for northern, which I was tempted to correct, but left because it is indicative of the point you and many others wish to make. I can well understand you writing 'southern West Bank' to gloss Samaria! A natural slip for a non-Israeli, for whom this terminology is very vague, and a reason why our colleagues should realize that, slips apart, generally people outside the given ethnocultural world of the region are not familiar with the terms as precise geographic indicators.Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks for spotting that .. it was though a genuine mistake, which I have now put right - unfortunately perhaps I have it very well lodged in my poor little brain which way round these things go, not least because of the farce we are all involved in here. Ultimately it seems a little nuts to be spelling out to people that "area X" must by definition be wholly contained within "area X & Y", but as you know this is indeed where we are. --Nickhh (talk) 21:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by Brewcrewer
Brewcrewer's methodology has several flaws that have been discussed already. A brief recap:


 * 1) Non-English language sites cannot be used as evidence for English usage of a term. All Google searches must be filtered on language.
 * 2) BC's match is between "Samaria" and "northern West Bank". Given this, all occurrences of the whole phrase "Judea and Samaria" must be filtered out, because they compete against the whole West Bank, not particular parts of it.
 * 3) Korean movies, geological formations on Crete, people named Samaria, churches and religious orgs, little towns in Indiana and so on are irrelevant and need to be subtracted from the total. This is difficult to accomplish with simple Google filtering, so a sufficiently large sample of the individual hits needs to be examined and a correction factor determined.
 * 4) Historical usage is also irrelevant to the question if the terms are in modern use (because everybody agrees that the terms were applicable roughly up to the end of the British Mandate plus perhaps a decade). Again, a large sample must be examined to determine a correction factor. A 500-item analysis I performed in November indicates that the combined correction factor in the case of "Samaria" is close to 1/12 (ie every 12th Google hit for Samaria is relevant to this discussion). Those who disagree with the exact value should do so from the position of actually having performed a similar analysis.
 * 5) At the time of the analysis, 85% of the relevant hits were of confirmable Israeli origin and 8.3% from self-confessed Zionist sites and blogs.

Result: Samaria: 1,540,000 /12 = 128K hits.

Also note that "Northern West Bank" has several alternatives, like "Northern part of the West Bank" (32K hits), "Northern portion of the West Bank" (4.8K hits), "North West Bank" (90K hits, with the word "banking" excluded to filter out most false positives. (Though ORing the varieties together, counterintuively, lowers the Google total, which is probably indicative of a deficiency in the Google search algorithm. I have chosen to disregard the varieties in this calculation.)

Result: 118K hits, with "banking" excluded but none of the results of the varieties added to the total.

Conclusion: Far from being "far more commonly used English terms", the terms seem to be in the same ballpark. Outside Israel, "Northern West Bank" is around 20 times more common than "Samaria". This is in addition to the result of another (informal) analysis, that indicated that "West Bank" is 70 times more common than Samaria, and 1400 times more common outside Israel. 

BC's accusation that his "comments and offers to compromise were met with WP:IDONTHEARTHAT, WP:WIKILAWYERING, strawman arguments, stonewalling, and incivility" has not been substantiated with anything. The discussion is here.

"I pointed out that other "Samarias" don't necessarily take away from the notability of the term because the fact that other things are named after the original Samaria enhances the notability of the current Samaria."
 * This is not a matter of the notability of the term (which could perhaps, as I suggested, be given a section in the Samaria article). This is a matter of whether the term is used anywhere else than Israel to mean the modern West Bank. Neither BC's Google statistics nor any other sources presented so far support that conclusion.

"MM responds with: WP:IDONTHEARTHAT, WP:WIKILAWYERING, and general stonewalling."


 * BC misrepresents open discussion as "stonewalling" and "wikilawyering". We disagree about his methodology and his somewhat unorthodox idea that historic "notability" of a term determines how it should be used today (a perusal of WP:NCGN quickly dispels that notion). MeteorMaker (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * BC is bringing up the "Samaria on its own means something totally different from Samaria when considered as part of Judea & Samaria, and doesn't simply mean northern part thereof" argument again, which has been done to death. Indeed I posted about it only just above here yesterday, providing yet more explicit, sourced statements which clearly show that of course in common, modern usage they are part of exactly the same deal. For most people a combination of dispassionate logical analysis, wide general reading on the topic in books and newspapers and simple common sense should reveal this, but nevertheless the claim has been indulged, and discussion entered into. Yet still we read things like - the original research-like jump that editors have taken, claiming that West Bank vs. J&S is the same as "northern West Bank" vs. Samaria and "southern West Bank" vs. Judea. Who's WP:IDIDNTHEARING here?. Please look again at the sources above, which of course are merely a sample of the extensive list that has been provided elsewhere, which actually analyse or comment on the use of the terms. Google hits from the entire web of random individual uses of the word Samaria against one variation of the alternative, standard phrasing don't really tell us much.--Nickhh (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"Tendentious argumentation"
''"Initially [MM] states that editors "don't have to be worried about the expungment of J&S from WP because there is Category:Judea and Samaria. Yet weeks later argues for its removal."''

Not a "misrepresentation", a change of mind, after careful consideration over many weeks. The J&S category is problematic for many reasons: MeteorMaker (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) We already have a perfectly good West Bank category.
 * 2) J&S are non-standard terms, used exclusively by Israel (essentially what this discussion is about)
 * 3) J&S are not in Israel, and are thus exonyms. We have no other non-English exonyms as categories, and even though it's not specifically mentioned in WP:NCGN, it goes against the spirit of the guideline.
 * 4) By having a J&S category, we open for attempts to use the individual terms improperly.
 * 5) By having a J&S category, we invite exclusion of articles from the West Bank category, which causes reader confusion.

"User:G-Dett incivility"
Keep in mind that BC's diffs have been taken out of context and that he had kept insisting ad nauseam:
 * 1) that Google hits for Samaria Gorge and a host of other things add bonus "notability points" to Samaria's Google hit count.
 * 2) that "northern West Bank" is a "new-fangled" neologism and people who use it are "neologism-pushers".
 * 3) that a newspaper article (see below) with a short section on the historical background, where Samaria is mentioned en passant when discussing the ancient tribes in biblical days, "establishes the term's common usage"— which cannot even theoretically follow from one single example of usage, and "that it "disproves the theories that the term "northern Samaria" is an Israeli government term" — which in fact nobody has stated.

BC also misrepresents her:
 * "calling my comment "very weird"/"stupid"": Nope, what she called "weird" and "stupid" was the spectacularly unorthodox method to add "notability points" to Samaria mentioned above. I think that is pretty weird too, and so do probably most people.
 * "bankrupt piece of wikilawyering": There's a "not" BC may have missed in her comment: "isn't even the most desperate or bankrupt piece of wikilawyering".

BC, despite his stated dislike for neologisms, doesn't hesitate to waste hours of other editors' time in an attempt to force one on this article. I admire the other editors' restraint deeply. MeteorMaker (talk) 14:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Offers to compromise and responses
BC gives four diffs as evidence of his stated willingness to compromise. Of these, three are just unsupported statements to the effect of "I have compromised". Let's take a look at his sole remaining example of an offer to compromise:


 * MM suggests: "Keep the partisan term "Samaria", with the proviso that the article mentions it's Israel-specific terminology."


 * Nickhh agrees: "WP will better serve its readers if it explains that Judea and/or Samaria are not standard terms, while nonetheless briefly explaining that they are occasionally used in some places by some people, for very specific reasons".


 * BC disagrees: "The current compromise is getting too overlawyered and we are doing a disservice to our readers. How about just putting "northern West Bank" and "southern West Bank" in parentheses after each mention of "Judea" and/or "Samaria"?"

In other words, BC's "compromise" is to make J&S the standard terms on WP, and put what everybody else regards as the standard, neutral terms in parentheses. As an attempt to adopt controversial terminology, it goes much further than what even the most notorious POV-pushers have dared to suggest. Needless to say, BC's suggestion got no support and was immediately struck down. It takes some gall to parade that episode as evidence of other editors' "refusal to compromise", particularly as BC's "compromise" was offered in opposition of another, more functional compromise.

Regarding CM's attempt to disguise Jayjg's 6 partisan sources as "the International Herald Tribune, the Journal of Church and State, Sussex Academic Press, Lexington Books, Hoover Press and others", it's so obviously a breach of good citation practice that it needs no further discussion. It was rightly removed and nobody has argued for putting it back again. Was that BC's best example of a "refusal to compromise"? MeteorMaker (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"Misinterpretation of International Herald Tribune (IHT) article"
"MM [and G-Dett] wikilawyer to get around IHT article".
 * Wikilawyering seems to have become a synonym for source evaluation lately. To avoid misuse of that term, good understanding of its applicability is essential.

Let's now take a look at the relevant part of the IHT article:

"Biblical significance of West Bank settlements — IT'S IN THE BIBLE: The four West Bank settlements that Israel is evacuating are all located in the biblical Land of Israel — territory that observant Jews believe was promised to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. The area of the West Bank, known as northern Samaria, was inhabited by the tribe of Menashe, one of the 10 tribes of Israel that were forced into exile. "
 * Does the article use West Bank or Samaria predominantly? "West Bank": Five instances, "Samaria", one.
 * Is "Samaria" used as a modern toponym? Given the context, it appears not. From a syntactical POV, it could theoretically be argued that the lack of a tense-inflected verb or other indicator of time allows us to read this clause as "presently/still known as northern Samaria" rather than "at the time of Menashe, known as northern Samaria". This is BC's position.
 * Does the evidence support the corollary that "the International Herald Tribune uses the term Samaria"? Of 48 instances on their site, all are 1) accompanied by an explanation that it's an Israeli/biblical name for the northern West Bank (almost exclusively quotes by Israelis, various PMs in particular) or 2) comments from Israeli readers. The West Bank, in comparison, is mentioned 2775 times.

"When it was inhabited by the tribe of Menashe, it wasn't known as Samaria, it was Samaria."


 * Hundreds of sources are unimpressed by BC's analysis and merrily use that exact word anyway.

Note that the IHT article is, again, just an alleged example of outside-Israel use of "Samaria" and not a source that actually says anything about the usage — unlike these. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Samaria is known today as Samaria by millions of Christian travelers. . "...making it desirable not only to the residents of Israel, but also to Judea, Egypt and Samaria."    "We travel to the Communities of Judea and Samaria": " It is also known to Jewish travelers the world over as "Samaria": "This afternoon we drive into the heartlands of Israel to Samaria to observe the Samaritan Passover traditions. After dinner we observe the Samaritan Passover Celebration in Samaria at Mt Gerazim."  It is known to secularists and historical buffs and travelers as "Samaria:" "Samaria is in the West Bank of Israel, under the Palestinian Authority. It has been impossible to visit Samaria on a regular basis for many years" .   It is clear that millions of people outside of Israel understand and use these terms, and travel there today.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tundrabuggy. Do you actually read the content of what you google, as does Meteormaker with that exhaustive meticulousness and patience, which, despite accusations, does credit for his dedication to precision on wiki? Your first link says 'Samaria, or Shomron in Hebrew, is an area located at the northern region of Israel’s West Bank. We are arguing many things, but you are the only editor throughout this sad discussion who keeps providing trash sources that say the West Bank is Israeli territory. It isn't, no editor, pro or contra, no Israeli official source, no informed person in the world, argues this. So please don't google up stuff that sounds cute, but just wastes our time. (p.s.It was Jordan's West Bank. It would be Israel's 'East Bank' if the writer had known anything about the subject) Thanks Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Christian sites also use the word Palestine to refer to Nazareth. and this tour guide for Palestine lists Nazareth in it as well.  However, our wiki article on Nazareth does not say it is in Palestine, but rather Israel. When it does use the word Palestine it is to refer to historical events, since that was the name of the place of the time.
 * In any case, these are primary source examples and prove nothing either way. The sources provided Meteor Maker, G-Dett and others provide definitions of the terms Samaria and Judea, both separately and in conjunction and describe their usage as either biblical terms or those with ideological overtones when used in present day discourse. So please let's stop comparing cherry-picked examples and instead critically examine the evidence we have from reliable secondary sources which some people have gone to enormous trouble to compile.  T i a m u t talk 16:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * (EC)I would take TB's post to task for the way, yet again, it simply provides one-off examples of uses of the word. As noted time and time again, we have moved beyond this to ask "what is the standard, neutral, most commonly-used and internationally-recognised term to use here?" And as has been pointed out to you before, on this principle of "occasional use in certain circles means we can throw the term in", we could add "in Palestine" to every Palestinian town, even some Israeli towns. Is that what we are asking for here? However, I merely wish to say thanks for these sources, which do more to prove the fringe use of the terminology, and precisely why WP should avoide using it as a neutral description, than anything I've ever said at great length here. --Nickhh (talk) 17:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Forgive me for being late to the debunking of Tundrabuggy's latest claims, I had some private business to tend.


 * That a few small specialized travel agencies exist is pretty weak support for the claim that "Samaria is known today as Samaria by millions of Christian travelers." In case TB intends to show them as examples of outside-Israel use of the term (he doesn't actually make that claim, but it's implicit), let's do the basic source check:


 * Samaria.info: Appears legit. TB's assertion that "millions of people outside of Israel understand and use these terms" is contradicted by the fact that the site sees it as necessary to provide an explanation of the term (incorrect, both factually and grammatically, but still): ""
 * "an area located at the northern region of Israel’s West Bank which name is derived from the famed ancient city of Samaria."


 * Tourstotheholyland.com is owned by one Guy Millo, who works for ARZA, an organization that describes itself as Zionist.


 * Linda Smith, the tour leader of "Thanksgiving in Israel", is presented with these words:


 * "Without hesitation, Linda takes a stand for Israel, for Jerusalem as its undivided capitol and the unquestioned right of the original Chosen People to be in their land."


 * Inner Faith Travel: Appears legit.


 * On Ferrell’s Travel Blog, the "Samaria" Ferrell Jenkins is talking about is the ancient city Sebaste/Samaria, not the modern West Bank area. The preposition "at" in "There is a tradition that John was buried at Samaria" could have served as an indicator, had TB bothered to read the text.


 * Result, apart from one wasted hour of my time: Two Zionist examples, one mistaken historical, two legit. Pretty good (considering the average is around one in ten), though not the evidence of wide acceptance that has been postulated. None of the sources remotely supports TB's claim that "millions of people outside of Israel understand and use these terms, and travel there today." MeteorMaker (talk) 18:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Over the months, Brewcrewer has contributed a number of spirited if eccentric propositions to this debate. He has argued for example that standard contemporary usage should be determined in part by pop-cultural references to the ancient past; that putting an ordinary adjective like "northern" in front of a proper noun like "West Bank" results in a "chic neologism," which we should avoid even if it's standard usage among mainstream RSs; that a story in the IHT about the biblical resonance of "Samaria" for settlers living in today's West Bank (subtitled "IT'S IN THE BIBLE") establishes the widespread, neutral, contemporary currency of the disputed term; that to resolve a months-long dispute about whether to use controversial nationalist terms in WP's neutral voice alongside the accepted terms, a good "compromise" would be to use the controversial nationalist terms in WP's neutral voice, with the accepted terms in parentheses; and so on.

If I'm not mistaken, all or most of his eccentric propositions are rooted in a single act of research, wherein he typed "Samaria" into a search bar and got knocked back out of his deskchair by the flood of Google hits streaming from his monitor. Fellow editors in hip-high rubber galoshes came to his aid here, quickly discovering that the first ten of these three million consisted of four references to the ancient past, one reference to "historical parts of the Land of Israel," two Wikipedia articles, a reference to a 2004 film called "Samaritan Girl" (about a South Korean prostitute), and three references to a national park in Greece and its nearby accommodations. From his sprawled position on the floor, Brewcrewer did not dispute the point, but rather suggested, sopping wet and still blinking, that we had more to learn from the brand name of bottled water in Greece than we do from the neologistic phraseologies used by chic, fly-by-night organizations such as the New York Times, Haaretz, and CNN, when talking about today's Middle East.

A surprising amount of time has been devoted to Brewcrewer's impish observations and non sequiturs; to my knowledge, there has been no IDIDNTHEARTHAT. There has been a bit of ICANTBELIEVEHEJUSTSAIDTHAT and even some GOODLORDBREWCREWERPULLYOURHEADOUT. To the latter in particular I plead guilty.--G-Dett (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the way that MM speaks to my simple travelogue articles shows clearly "standard" that he is requiring. Sources must not be Christian or "Zionist."  There must not be any allusion to historical or ancient times.  He is clearly creating a standard whereby he is "testing" every source, checking its background for any relation to Israel or "Zionism." If a reference is made to the fact that the terms have a long and ancient history, they  are immediately dismissed as archaic.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * MM is doing what large numbers of editors never do in wiki. It may appear abnormal, 'witch-hunting', a 'campaign'. In the real world, it is what they teach you at doctoral levels in the best universities. We still don't know whether he will have a recognized place here, but he certainly would earn one rapidly in any academic institution of note, purely in terms of method, and scruple of oversight, to secure consistency over a field of articles that, without such close work, appear to be separate worlds, with distinct vocabularies for the same phenomena, and different editing principles, depending on the editors who write them.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really. It would be seen by most academics as bias to dismiss sources used in determining what is or is not a "modern toponym" based on a religious, political, or ideological "test." I doubt if they teach that at the best schools or at the College of Judea and Samaria.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tundrabuggy, would you accept as sources establishing the neutrality, acceptability, and general currency of "Palestine" (in Wikipedia's neutral voice, either for West Bank & Gaza or for all the land between the river and the sea) travel brochures marketed at religious pilgrims headed to Mecca? What about the stated address of Birzeit University, Palestine?--G-Dett (talk) 00:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue is not trying to cleanse wiki of the use of "Palestine," so your analogy is specious. The proponents of Judea & Samaria usage are not objecting to the use of "West Bank," but rather saying that there are times that using Judea and/or Samaria is appropriate and properly referenced and should not be subject to political or ideological tests in order to be used. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Correction: the issue is not "trying to cleanse wiki" of any of the disputed terms. "Judea," "Samaria," and "Palestine" are all appropriate in hundreds of contexts across the encyclopedia.  These include for Judea and Samaria discussions of the historical regions, of the biblical/geographic terms both in an ancient context and in contemporary political and ideological usage, and of the administrative district in a contemporary administrative context (taxation, revenues and expenditures, etc.), and so on.  For "Palestine," appropriate contexts include the historical region, the mandate territory, the possible future state, etc.  The only inappropriate use of all three terms is for current geographic-political realities as discussed in Wikipedia's neutral voice.  I think what you meant to say is that no one is trying to inject an inappropriate, ideologically loaded use of "Palestine" into Wikipedia's neutral voice; therefore no one is presenting as evidence of widely accepted, neutral terminology travel brochures aimed at Muslims traveling to Mecca, or the stated address of Birzeit University.  If they were, you and Jay and others would be rejecting those sources, in exactly the same terms MeteorMaker and others are rejecting your ridiculous sources.  And this of course is why you're evading the question.  Meanwhile, the fact that no one is trying to inject an ideologically loaded use of "Palestine" into Wikipedia, while a half-dozen editors (including yourself) are trying to inject an ideologically loaded use of Judea and Samaria into Wikipedia, is reflective of an unequal distribution of editorial incompetence and/or conflict of interest between the two "sides" of this dispute.--G-Dett (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC) Tundrabuggy : Your sources weren't dismissed, your conclusions were. Your proposition "millions of people outside of Israel understand and use these terms" has nil support in the sources you provided, and neither has the implicit corollary that J&S are widespread modern terms outside Israel. As a bonus, even though it wasn't strictly necessary, I showed you that one of your claimed examples of modern non-Israeli usage was about the ancient city Samaria/Sebaste, two were by self-confessed Zionists (technically outside of Israel, granted), and one contradicts your proposition even though it's technically legit, all of which you could have caught yourself with better fact checking. Your response: "Sources must not be Christian". Wonder how you arrived at that conclusion. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is an official link to the tourist figures in Israel for 2006 & 2007 . Here is another official link which includes religion and purpose of visit .  Israel had some 2 million visitors in 2007 alone.  If you look this over you will see that it is not the least far-fetched to consider that "millions of people" outside of Israel know of and use these terms; especially when you consider all those who know and use the terms that have never actually even been there!Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Brave attempt at synthesizing making up proof for your position. What's lacking in your stat sources is a column that says "number of travellers who use the terms J&S". Without that, you have not provided proof for anything else than that one Israel info site and three small organizers of Israel group journeys, two of which describe themselves as Zionists, have used the term. MeteorMaker (talk) 07:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] @ Nishidani, one could argue that to teach one approach to the exclusion of all other approaches blind sides the student/teacher to the necessary pluralism required in the imperfect world of knowledge. Two simple examples will suffice.
 * 1) the approach to the Theory of everything, commonly referred to as T.O.E,. requires a reconciliation of two exclusive theories, N. Bohr's Quantum Theory and A. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.


 * 1) Behaviorism vs Ethology is a second example. In Behaviorism one learns that the mind is a black box subject to external stimulus called Stimulus-Response, and that behavior is taught. In Ethology, we have internal machinations which manifest behaviors full blown without external interference. It is called Instinctual and is unlearned.

Obviously the two are not compatible. To adhere to one requires sacrificing the rich world of pluralism for the singularity of homogeneity, an act of faith. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You have not understood my point. MM is using standard doctoral-level methodology to evaluate all information from all sources. We are not dealing with competing 'theories'. We are dealing with language use, and everything in the threads underlines the point that 'J & S' are minority Israelocentric terms, and 'the West Bank' the standard English, and international term for the area. It is, by the way, if one is to believe the great historian of Israeli cartography and geography, Meron Benvenisti, (see presently my page), Israel that is rewriting the map to erase alternative toponyms, and establish an homogeneous Hebrew-rooted nomenclature for all territories. Ask the people in Silwan, within Jerusalem: 1,500 are under an expulsion order, so that a lovely area can be landscaped, and reconstructed to evoke the Biblical world of David. Their error was to be Arabs, descended from Arabs, speaking Arabic, on top of an area where, according to Jewish tradition, 3,000 years ago, David ruled. So, this must be expropriated, and renamed as purely Jewish, and all historic traces of the inhabitants, their toponyms, and history for the last 1,400 years deleted from the record, since the mayor of Jerusalem has put in a demolition order for all Arab homes there, so non-Muslim tourists can admire their 'Judeo-Christian tradition' in the de-Islamicized Holy Land. That is the victory of homogenization over pluralism, which you strangely think is what we are pushing. Since the area first had a Hebrew name, the revival of biblical nomenclature goes hand in hand with ethnic cleansing. 'Judea and Samaria' imply the same process in the West Bank. This is none of our business, of course. Here we just register the facts, which are that the appropriation of the West Bank, a non-Israeli territory, started with renaming it 'Judea & Samaria' and, thus named, it was expropriated and settled because the Israeli nomenclature declared an historic right of possession. Your group pressure to insert this minority terminology within a neutral encyclopedia collaborates with what is a political process by one party to the dispute, to make global readers think of this area as a non-Arab, Jewish land. This hasn't been determined by negotiations, or international law, or in international cartography, so until the world agrees with Israel's nomenclature, and Palestinians cede by treaty that area to Israel, it must remain, neutrally and politically indeterminate, as 'the West Bank'.Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Your dissertation shows clearly that the issue has zero to do with Wikipedia's "neutral" voice and everything to do with politics. There has been no "revival" of Biblical nomenclature; it has been in continuous use since Biblical times.  Nor is it "Israelocentric," since it doesn't address the use of those terms in the contemporary Christian world nor the Jewish diaspora.  Accusations "ethnic cleansing"  can be met with the corresponding fact that Jews have been reduced to eight-tenths of one percent of what they had been in the Arab world at the re-creation of Israel in '48. There were Jewish communities in both West Bank and Gaza prior to 1948 that have since been reduced to zero.  At the same time, the Arab population of Israel has increased > ten-fold.  That makes yours is a strange definition of "ethnic cleansing."    In fact, the terminology "West Bank" was "invented" a mere 40 years ago with the express purpose of re-naming the area from the "Jewish" terms, (see my evidence) and the effort  has been quite successful and certainly a result of that type of "group pressure" you are talking about.  It is not the business of Wikipedia to help in this effort to extinguish the Jewish presence in the area by "standardizing" the language in such a political way.  There is absolutely no reason to wipe out one nomenclature in favor of another; or why both terms, (West Bank, Judea and/or Samaria), cannot be appropriately used.  That is precisely the reason we rely on reliable sources, and why these reliable sources are not subject to a political, geographical, ethnic, or ideological tests.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you mean all three sets of terms: Judea/Samaria (preferred by many Jews and Israelis), Palestine (preferred by many Arabs and Palestinians), and West Bank (preferred by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources). My position, and that of Nishidani and MeteorMaker et al, is that Wikipedia's neutral voice should stick to the terms regarded as neutral by the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources.  If your position is that WP's neutral voice should alternate the consensus terms with the nationalist terms favored by the two sides – Judea/Samaria and Palestine, respectively – then that would be an interesting position, a little unorthodox and possibly chaotic but at least arguably consistent with NPOV.  If you're arguing however that WP should privilege only one side's nationalist terminology – and that does seem to be how this year-long conflict has unfolded – then you really are just wasting everyone's time and being very disruptive.--G-Dett (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, the argument here is in relation to J&S, and West Bank...not J&S and Palestine. It is already clear from looking at articles that the way it was done before this recent search-and-destroy mission did not under-represent "West Bank" at all. A check of articles only what links here shows some 2500 articles link to West Bank;  articles that link to the "Judea and Samaria" page  stop at the hundreds.  Links to "Judea" alone  is under 1000, in the main historical; to Samaria, under 500.  It appears that J&S already is used in the WP project in due and appropriate fashion.  We do not need special rules to limit its use, though we might need special rules to prevent such terms from being arbitrarily and artificially eliminated from wiki.  Tundrabuggy (talk)
 * Maybe I'm missing something, but your responses seem like non sequiturs. Did I suggest West Bank was "under-represented"?  Did anyone?  My point is simply that there are two terminologies widely regarded as partisan (Palestine and Judea/Samaria) and one widely regarded as neutral, and therefore used by the vast majority of reliable sources (West Bank).  Despite your diversionary statements, your non sequiturs, and all the genocidal rhetoric ("cleanse," "eliminate," "search and destroy," etc.) you keep weirdly employing, what this comes down to is you want to use a combination of the neutral terminology and one of the two partisan terminologies (J/S), the Israeli one.  You ought by now – a year into this – to be able to make a simple and compelling case for why Wikipedia should use partisan Israeli terminology but not partisan Palestinian terminology.  Don't suggest anyone's bigoted, don't suggest their editing constitutes a sort of genocidal campaign against your preferred terminology, and don't, for heaven's sake, keep dodging questions with non sequiturs.  Just answer the question.  Why should Wikipedia use partisan Israeli terminology but not partisan Palestinian terminology in its neutral voice?--G-Dett (talk) 18:10, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not interested in tit-for-tat. Yes, after the nakba of 1948, many Arab countries expelled their Jewish populations in part from retaliation, in part because the European model of the nation told the world nationality is interchangeable with ethnicity, a lesson Israel followed in the main. This does not mean that my description of Silwan's realities is therefore wrong. I don't subscribe to the 'eye for an eye, and the devil take the hindmost' school of historiography. I'm interested in the facts, and, in every country's key moments of history, they are usually violent, and swept under the carpet by the mythographers. Please read books, esp. by Israeli historians (and I am not thinking of Ilan Pappé) and get back to me, without trying to fob off on me incredible things such that 'West Bank' was a term introduced in the late 1960s (you're out by 2 decades). Silwan is being ethnically cleansed. Read Haaretz, or David Shulman, an Israeli fluent in Arabic, whose office looks over the area, and who meticulously documents these facts. You have never relied on reliable sources in this matter. Had you done so, you would never have made the outlandish remark that Samaria and Judea are in Israel. Nishidani (talk) 16:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have repeatedly acknowledged that J & S are in the West Bank, and have agreed that it is appropriate to use the term West Bank in many, if not most, cases. It is not I who is trying to cleanse wiki of one usage or another.  As for evidence, I have presented Unispal evidence (documents) that demonstrate that the term "west bank" was first introduced to the international community in 1968, and even at that time it was originally introduced as a common, as opposed to proper, noun.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh really? Then, to cite one of innumerable sources, why did the Americans back in the heyday of Eisenhower evoke the "West Bank Scenario" as the jargon of the day put it, to rein in Nasser? As Allen Dulles put it, 'if the Jordanian regime were overthrown, there would be a danger that Israel would conquer the West Bank' (Abraham Ben-Zvi, John F. Kennedy and the politics of arms sales to Israel, Routledge, London, 2002 p.16). These things are pretty easy to check, you know.Nishidani (talk) 20:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "West Bank" became pretty much standard at pretty much the same time "Israel" became pretty much standard: 1948. How long each has been pretty much standard is, well, pretty much irrelevant.  As are arguments (yours or anyone's) about whether the process by which they became standard was fair or outrageous.  "By following modern English usage, we also avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called."--G-Dett (talk) 19:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * (EC) What Tundrabuggy might not be aware of is that "J&S" were similarly introduced by the Brits as the names of administrative districts in the 1920's . Like it or not, the real world outside Wikipedia "expunged" J&S long ago, if the terms were ever used. WP shouldn't mislead the reader by using terminology that world consensus has determined to be simply obsolete. MeteorMaker (talk) 19:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * What MM might not be aware of is that there is absolutely nothing on Google re: "British Mandate Commission on Place Names." What does the abstract of your article say of it? "The biblical themes of exile, return, the blossoming of the desert and the promise of the land have been transformed to support Zionist nationalist policies of ethnic cleansing. Biblical and archaeological scholarship, itself, has contributed substantially to the de-Arabicisation of Palestinian toponymy, the understanding of the Bible’s allegorical narratives as nationalist epic and an ethno-centric understanding of Palestine’s ancient history."  The "Zionist nationalist policies of ethnic cleansing?" the "de-Arabicisation of Palestinian ancient history?"  The Jewish religion has been transformed to support ethnic cleansing? Hmmm....  No bias here, eh?  Sorry but you will have to come up with something better than this racist garbage.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful if you, googled less polemically and tried to focus on what is said, and not extrapolate nuanced arguments on specific issues into a cosmic drama of antisemitism vs.Zionism so often. I haven't seen anyone attacking the Jewish religion, or trucking in racist garbage. On de-Arabization, this was not only a central concern of Ben Gurion, it affected policies with the immigrating Mizrahi communities, whose 'Levantine' Arab ways had to be thoroughly transformed to make them into Israelis (Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews: a postcolonial reading of nationalism, religion, and ethnicity, Stanford University Press, 2006 chapter 5 pp.136ff.). On the nationalistic uses of archeology in Israel, there is an impressive work by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel, Uni of Wisconsin Press, 1995; on the cleansing of all traces of Arab/Palestinian place names there is Meron Benvenisti's Sacred Landscape, which I've mentioned elsewhere, and will shortly excerpt on my page to illustrate the point. In short, all of these things, issues, arguments are part of Israeli discourse, intensely analysed by ranking Israeli and Jewish scholars in Israel and abroad. Only agenda-driving rags, and internet pages seem to ratchet up the tension by theatrical caricatures, so that everything becomes an issue of racism, politics or ethnic hatred, or religious enmity.Nishidani (talk) 09:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You "haven't seen anyone attacking the Jewish religion, or trucking in racist garbage"? I take it you didn't read the link provided by Meteor Maker then?  I was merely looking for some substantiation for a claim made in this journal whose abstract is written thus:  "The biblical themes of exile, return, the blossoming of the desert and the promise of the land have been transformed to support Zionist nationalist policies of ethnic cleansing. Biblical and archaeological scholarship, itself, has contributed substantially to the de-Arabicisation of Palestinian toponymy, the understanding of the Bible's allegorical narratives as nationalist epic and an ethno-centric understanding of Palestine's ancient history."  You can't see the bias that?  Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, you don't seem to know the context, field or scholarly world in which Thomas L. Thompson's remarks are made. The man has a chair at Copenhagen Uni., and positions of this kind are not renewed with people known to trot out 'racist garbage'; and though his minimalist views of the Bible as history are controversial, he belongs to an important school of thought. Secondly, the opinion is a commonplace, found throughout impeccably credentialed sources published by top-tanking university presses, in Israel and abroad. There is nothing 'racist' here, and much that recasts the results of scholarship on the use of Biblical themes to underwrite Zionism. I insist on this because I see absolutely nothing anomalous in the way a tradition, religious or otherwise, is harvested and rewritten to create a national mentality. I don't know a nation where this hasn't been a part of modernization. I could cite you 20 sources to show that reworking the ethnic traditions, religious and otherwise, to create a modern state identity, is everywhere at work, whether we speak of American exceptionalism's evangelical roots, Japan's re-deployment of Shintoist narratives, Russian slavophilism's hammering of national identity on the Byzantine dispensation of religious orthodoxy, the use of the Qu'ran to rephrase Muslim identity, the contemporary Chinese reevocation of the Confucian canon to fine-tune an ideology to replace the Marxist one that prevailed under Mao, etc.etc. In all these modern nationalist ideologies, the past was ransacked for an aggressive ethno-national worldview, and the consequences were a systematic diffidence for any social group within the new polity which lacked this mythistorical tradition. Could I repeat my request. Please read books, and don't resort to hallucinatory hyperbole in characterizing the positions of scholars or editors.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tundrabuggy now smears a perfectly reliable source, published in University of Edinburgh's journal Holy Land Studies, as "racist garbage" in order to dismiss it and not have to bother with discussing the facts stated in it. Such tactics seem to have become a popular alternative to real discussion on Wikipedia lately. MeteorMaker (talk) 09:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I discussed the so-called "fact" that you claimed was in the article by telling you that there is 'not one other references on Google to this "British Mandate Commission on Place Names" which is supposed to have been responsible for Hebrewicizing the names in the area. Considering that the rest of your "perfectly reliable" source was clearly an anti-Jewish & anti-Israel polemic, that was sufficient for me. Are you sure this " Holy Land Journal" is not funded by the "Holy Land Foundation?."  At any rate, it is a totally biased piece of material, and I don't believe it would pass the smell test in reliable sources for anything except the opinions of the authors.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Were Tundrabuggy in charge of Wikipedia's Smell Test Commitee, I'm sure it would matter little if an academic paper is written by a Danish professor and published by the University of Edinburgh — if it, or indeed any source, discusses facts that TB interprets as unflattering to Israel, it gets dismissed as "racist drivel" and cleansed from WP. Regarding the Hebraization of the toponyms in Palestine, anybody interested to learn can read up here. At any rate, the constant dismissal of reliable sources because they are "anti-Israeli", "anti-Jewish", etc etc could tend to lend itself to the interpretation that Tundrabuggy is a hypocrite. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * And is the suggestion here that in, say, 1% of settlement articles we say they are in "Samaria/Judea" and in the other 99% we say they are in the "northern/southern West Bank", to reflect the proportionate usage of said terminology in the real world? That seems to be where TB is heading, and it's a very odd place. How would we choose which ones were which? What proportion should we actually do this in? Should 0.04% of articles about towns in Israel say they are in "the Zionist entity"? Should 10% of articles about settlements or Palestinian towns say they are "in Palestine"? Should 1% of articles about towns in Britain say they are "in Albion"? Or shall we just be consistent in using the standard, contemporary names for places, like we would anywhere else in Wikipedia? Tough choices, surely. --Nickhh (talk) 12:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

[outdent]Not at all. In fact it was you who said on the workshop page "where there are alternative terms or terminologies, especially when these are used to express a point of view about ownership or to highlight a political or national affiliation, these should be acknowledged and noted, but only in the appropriate place and only relative to the extent that they are used in mainstream and authoritative sources." It is you who is suggesting "ratios" or percentages. I say let the sources used determine the name. If there is a legitimate conflict of names in the RS, it can actually be noted in the article, both can be used with the appropriate reference, either through the use of a quote, or a note concerning which sources say what. It shouldn't have to be black and white. It isn't rocket science. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That merely meant (as I've suggested all along) that we have a reference to the alternative names, maybe in a dedicated terminology section, in the main articles, where we note that they exist and note where they are used, why and when. In addition that we do have articles about the terms themselves. I never said anything in support of using them on some proportional basis in secondary articles, or about "ratios" or "percentages", so I have no idea where you dragged that up from. However thank you for clarifying where you stand. I'm not sure it's any better though - the whole point here is that different sources say different things (albeit that the vast majority stick to "West Bank", on its own, and deliberately avoid Judea and/or Samaria). Either we go with the clear, NPOV majority and do so consistently, or in each and every short article about a town or settlement we have endless fights about it, only to end up saying, at great length: "X is a town in what is referred to in most sources as the northern West Bank, however some in Israel prefer the term Samaria, although this term is not used in the majority of the world's media or academic books on the subject, or indeed in most of the English language Israeli media. Some sources prefer the alternative term Palestine, on the basis that this area will soon form part of an internationally-recognised Palestinian state. Both the Independent and Observer newspapers in the UK use this terminology sometimes, although it is not widely accepted elsewhere". OK, exaggerated for effect, but this would just be needlessly complicated.--Nickhh (talk) 13:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tundrabuggy says "let the sources used determine the name"; it's useful to see how this works in practice. Take Israeli settlement, for example.  Jay changes "northern West Bank" to read "northern Samaria region of the West Bank," claiming that he's "updating" the terminology by adding the controversial biblical term.  Then Jay reverts a few more times with equally nonsensical, counterfactual, middle-finger-in-your-eye type edit summaries, for example that he's "undoing OR" by adding the term "Samaria"; or that he's adding the disputed term "per Talk page an WP:NPA."  Then after ten or so of these reverts, he "adds refs" – the two or three obscure "Samaria" refs he's managed by that point to google up among the tens of thousands of mainstream "West Bank" refs.  And from there it's Tundrabuggy's mantra: "let the sources used determine the name."


 * If another editor says 'look, there are 1000 sources saying "West Bank" for each of the Judea/Samaria sources you've scavenged', you just say 'OK, we'll use both terminologies', and if they contest the point further, accuse them of being on a "crusade" – a "search and destroy" mission – to "cleanse" the encyclopedia of the disputed term; and accuse them of being bigots for good measure. "Let the sources decide" is, in short, just part of another stupid scam operation.--G-Dett (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by User:Khoikhoi
Khoikhoi's argument is a good example of the logical fallacy converse accident: Since Jayjg has written 4 FA's, all his edits must be without fault. The evidence that has come to light in this discussion strongly contradicts that conclusion.

Another way to see it: While this dispute has been going on, neither Jayjg or anybody else involved has had time to devote to writing FA-quality articles. Jayjg's refusal to let WP reflect total source consensus has cost the project countless productive hours, and potentially several FAs. MeteorMaker (talk) 15:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Khoikhoi just gave a predictable opinion, shorn of evidence. I admit to having written nothing to GA status. I admit that I once had to spend two intensive months, trying to prove to User:Michael Safyan's satisfaction (not obtained) that 'uprising' was acceptable usage in English to describe the Al-Aqsa Intifada. I provided some 20 high quality academic books by specialists which used the word precisely of that Intifada. I have 140 examples of the word in wiki pages on historical uprisings to show it is standard, and the most neutral word, in English, for such events. The evidence Michael used to oppose this, on examination beyond the first lines, almost invariably proved my case. As with User:Jayjg's refusal to answer the argument of massive evidence in the 80 sources we have provided to show Samara and Judea is a politically charged, partisan Israeli term, one never got replies of substance, only pettifogging. No deal. Arbitration was began. It got lost with the administrator Steve Crossin, and the way he packed away my evidence in neat, hidden frames, was so cute, I can no longer even find it. So because one editor, with whom I assumed good faith, opposed that word, and the edit, I wasted 2 months, wrote little, else, nothing was decided, and while Michael Safyan is clearly wrong (uprising was ruled out to his mind because it might have produced an echo of the Warsaw Uprising, whereas Michael was convinced there was nothing popular or desperate in the Al-Aqsa uprising, despite most academic sources describing it precisely in that way). So don't blame us. Jayjg's work on American synagogues is distinguished. Ask User:Timeshifter or User:Relata refero what happens to GA aspirations for an article if you try to edit it against his opposition. I'd be more impressed if he had a record for bringing, collegially, numerous difficult articles in the I/P area to GA status. The contrary is the case.Nishidani (talk) 16:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Three of Jay's four Featured Articles and all five of his Good Articles are about synagogues and Jewish community centers. The fourth FA is on Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz and helped spread detailed information about the Holocaust to the Allies. As I wrote above, on this very page, "Jayjg has created, built, and sustained – in the best spirit of Wikipedia – a huge and invaluable series of articles on synagogues in North America."

Meanwhile, the problem under discussion in this Arbcom case is his serious conflict of interest in editing articles on or related to Israel/Palestine, a conflict of interest that has him exploiting and misrepresenting core Wikipedia policies and principles instead of implementing and respecting them, making his presence in this area of the encyclopedia indeed a "pernicious" one.--G-Dett (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't mind him being militantly pro-Israel. I dislike two things: endless wikilawyering, by whoever, that makes working in this area a virtual impossibility for anyone who aspires to do good thorough articles, and the example his work in the I/P area sets for ignoring the implications of the role of being an administrator. I know of no administrator whose interpretation of the rules is subject to wild variation depending upon how perceived Israeli interests are affected. If I have time, I will provide several diffs to show how his assessment of reliable sources varies from page to page, according to POV convenience. Arbcom is not interested in our personal judgements, but in evidence, so we should provide diffs, rather than opinions, esp. at this point. Nishidani (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Re: "By contrast, as far as I can tell, G-Dett, Nishidani, Pedrito, and MeteorMaker have a combined total of 0 FAs and 0 GAs. In addition, it appears that the editing of the four of them is restricted almost exclusively to edit-warring on I-P related articles. Make of that what you will" Even were this statement accurate, it of course takes two to edit war. What I "make of it" is the following - if there was less egregious POV-pushing and talk page obfuscation on I-P articles, often about the seemingly smallest things (predominantly from one side - there are far more active and long-standing editors here who seem to edit from a fairly right-wing Israeli perspective than there are those who edit from an activist "pro-Palestinian" viewpoint, and there are hardly any active Palestinian or Arab editors here at all), I would imagine that there would be less time spent edit-warring and dribbling all over talk pages. Those editors who do contribute extensively in other areas would have more time to get on with that; those of us such as myself who might only occasionally pop in - with an uninvolved, and relatively objective and neutral perspective - to correct what would seem to be obvious errors or bias, whether in I-P areas or elsewhere, would have more time to do other things in WP or indeed elsewhere, as opposed to getting bogged down each time we tried to put every tiny word right on an I-P page. And of course, WP would get better, more stable articles. --Nickhh (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This section is a great example of how this arbitration has become an attack-fest by one "side". I hope the ArbCom can see this concerted, coordinated smear campaign for what it is. 6SJ7 (talk) 22:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I was merely responding to what was pretty clearly an attack on named editors by Khoikhoi, which in turn has followed on I might add from some pretty unwarranted accusations of racial and ethnic discrimination going back months, from other more involved editors. And to the extent that your comment refers to mine, who was I actually attacking here anyway? The comments about nationalist POV-pushing and the balance in the numbers of editors on either "side" are in my view accurate (the latter point particularly so), and it is precisely because of this problem that we have ended up here - not least because when genuinely neutral editors come in to push for middle-of-the-road, mainstream, standard terminology, they are immediately branded as part of a "pro-Palestinian crowd", and denounced as living proof of "anti-Israeli" bias on WP. That's how skewed the debate gets. And by the way, when I referred to editors who do "contribute extensively in other areas", I very much had Jayjg for one in mind. These kind of blow-ups waste everyone's time. --Nickhh (talk) 23:09, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence presented by Slrubenstein
"MeteorMaker claimed, in response to User:Khoikhoi's evidence, that "'While this dispute has been going on, neither Jayjg or anybody else involved has had time to devote to writing FA-quality articles. Jayjg's refusal to let WP reflect total source consensus has cost the project countless productive hours, and potentially several FAs"'. As regards the first sentence, as noted in other evidence, the conflict began on April 6, 2008. In addition to the article Jayjg currently has up for FA status, he also had FAs promoted on August 6, 2008, October 13, 2008, and November 15, 2008. His GAs were promoted on August 8, 2008, September 12, 2008, December 19, 2008, December 20, 2008, and January 4, 2009. All of his DYKs were written during this period."


 * The dispute was a reasonably low intensity affair until mid-November. No FA-approved articles were written by anybody involved after that point, like I said, and countless hours were lost unnecessarily, mainly on the side that has provided the vast majority of the source checking. The rest of User:Slrubenstein's argument is essentially the same as User:Khoikhoi's: that Jayjg's edits and conduct must be above criticism because he has had a number of his articles FA/GA/DYK-approved.

"Perhaps Jayjg is being singled out because he was the one that provided the most sources opposing that campaign":


 * Jayjg certainly tried hard to find support for his position that J&S are terms in modern use, and deserves respect for that. However, when it was clear to him that his search hadn't yielded any sources at all for his position, he should have made a dignified retreat. Instead, he chose a different strategy: to bundle a number of examples of use and fabricate evidence from that, in clear, knowing violation of WP:SYN, while fiercely maintaining that the other side's evidence (which consisted of encyclopedias, academic works, and highly reputable news sources) was "synthesized", "OR", "disproven" and so on. To add insult to injury, he dismissed the observation that most of his alleged examples of modern outside-Israel usage were in fact rather examples of historic and/or Israeli usage . The latter objection was met with repeated accusations of "distasteful ethnic discrimination". If Slrubenstein has never seen this kind of disruptive and uncivil behavior and always been able to work together with Jayjg constructively, I can only congratulate him. I know for a fact that many other editors get to see this side of Jayjg all too often. Perhaps he only displays it in the I/P area.

MeteorMaker (talk) 16:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not believe that Jayjg is above criticism because he has worked on FAs. I just want accusations against editors to be accurate.  Like jayjg i put most of my energy into a small number of articles that correspond to my interests and knowledge and I do NOT fault jayjg for doing that.  Unlike me, Jayjg also works hard on FAs and other articles.  If we are going to bring this up in relation to this RfA let's just be accurate.  You now clarify that for you the conflict really kicked in in November.  Great - that itself is important information.  I am glad my evidence led you to clarify this point.  I assume it means you will present any evidence prior to November.  (Be that as it may, this is only your view; I continue to see the conflict as starting earlier, and that seems to be how this case in general is viewed).


 * As for your example of synthesis, all I can say is that I still see only a content dispute. NPOV insists that we include all significant views.  Even if Judea and Samaria represented only the view of annexationalists and settlers, it seems obvious to me that any article about the occupied territories, or any conflict over the occupation or settlement of the occupied territories by Jewish Israelis, of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the view of settlers and annexationalists is (1) relevant and (2) significant and thus should be represented in the article.  But Jayjg provides a quote in which Lustick is reporting a fact (an event Palestinians would agree occured) and Lustick uses the word Samaria.  Lustick is not to my knowledge an annexationalist or supporter of the settlers, and he certainly is a scholar, and definitely was born in and lives in the US i.e. is not an Israeli, so it seems to me that at least one scholar is willing to use the terms "Judea and Samaria" and I see no harm in saying so.  Wikipedia reports views.  It does not make claims about which views are right or wrong, or which views are true or false.  We just report views.  The only motive I can imagine for this opposition to reporting that there is one view held by a major player in the conflict is that the territory be called judea and Samaria, or that some scholars call the territories Judea and Samaria, is if you reject our NPOV policy and believe that including this information in Wikipedia is in some way partisan.


 * What is at stake here is our NPOV policy and the insistence that Wikipedia is not partisan. What makes us partisan is not the exclusion of partisan views but the inclusion of all significant views from notable sources.  In one article or another we ought to have the views Nazis had about Jews, or the views misogynists have about women, or the views anarchists have about the state, or the views the KKK has about Blacks.  If you think this means Wikipedia sanctions those views, then you do not get our NPOV policy.


 * This is a content dispute, and NPOV is the issue, and I wish Wikipedia had an effective process for resolving content disputes but I did not think ArbCom was part of that. Okay, ArbCom decided to hear the case.  When they do I hope they will exclude all "evidence" that actully pertains to a content dispute.  Like the one from Talk: SamariaMeteor maker provides above. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * PS A number of people have responded to my claims, above. I will not respond except to point out that these are the kind of arguments (arguments that boil down to, some view is "more neutral" than another, thus missing the point of NPOV) one often finds when a content dispute is being represented as something else.  Everything else I have already said serves as my response to those who reject my views. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Steve, it's not easy to follow your arguments, because you tend to express them in very general formulas, formulas moreover that often don't apply to the present case; for example you keep talking about the need to "report views," even though this dispute has never had anything at all to do with what views to report, but only what terminology to use. What I think I understand, both from your initial post and from the postscript you've just appended to it, is that you think WP:NPOV calls for proportional representation of competing terminologies, is that right?  If so, I think this is where the hitch is, because I think it's more common to interpret NPOV as calling for consistent use of the common English language term, so that may be where we disagree.  There's another rub here, because the edit-warriors you're supporting aren't aiming for proportional representation of "Judea" and "Samaria," which would mean something like one instance per every thousand or so instances of "West Bank" in any given context.  What they've done, rather, is to use "Judea" and/or "Samaria" for anything to do with Jewish settlements in the West Bank, regardless of how rare and controversial such use is in practice.  Thanks in advance for responding.--G-Dett (talk) 22:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

G-Dett, thank you for trying to understand my position. I am sorry you find my way of explaining myself unclear - I will try harder. I think NPOV was created because the founders of Wikipedia assumed that it was very plausible that all the editors working on a given article might be highly partisan, with irreconcilable points of view. For me the key point of NPOV is that there is no truth, just points of view. I am disturbed by any argument that one term is "more neutral," which to me is the same kind of argument as "more true" - the problem is, anyone may believe that the term they favor is "more neutral." NPOV exists precisely because every editor can believe that their way is best whether they use the words "more true" or "more good" or "more correct" or "more neutral." NPOV says, "Uh, we do not care what you think. We provide all significant views from notable sources that are relevant." Beyond that, my own approach is to defer to the people in question. If it is someone's view that the ground they live on is called Samaria, when we are talking about them, use Samaria. If it is someone's view that the ground they live on is called Palestine, when talking about them, call it Palestine. Nishidani seems to think that this is an endoresement. It is not. It is complying with our NPOV policy, which is to express all significant points of view - everyone I seem to have pissed off here seems to get back to an argument that their word is somehow "better" when they whole point of NPOV is to make a huge sidestep around those kinds of arguments which get us nowhere. No, G-Dett, you have a right to disagree with me, but I posit that you would be disagreeing with my interpretation of NPOV. Doyou see how I reach my conclusion? This ends up as a dispute over how to apply NPOV. It is a content dispute. I sorely wished we had good mechanisms for resolving content disputes, this has been a problem at Wikipedia for many years. But I do not think it is wise for people to solve the problem of a lack of mechanisms for resolving content disputes, to out of desparation (and frustration, and a desire to improve the encyclopedia - i am not questioning anyone's good faith, only their good judgment), say "it is not a content dispute, it is a personal behavior dispute" because once they make that little switch, they can go to ArbCom. I understand the motivation, the sense of need. But it is still a bad idea to call a content dispute a personal behavior dispute. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 21:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Three quick points while we're waiting for G-Dett's reply:
 * 1) This was a content dispute, roughly until mid-November. After the conclusive proof was presented that J&S are Israel-specific terms, it transformed into a behavioral problem, with one side employing stonewalling, source synthesis, diversionary incivility and many other kinds of disruptions to compensate for the lack of evidence for their position.
 * 2) WP:NPOV requires us to acknowledge and report that minority views exist, in this case the fact that the terms J&S are used in Israel (which, incidentally, Jayjg et al have done everything in their power to suppress). WP:NPOV does not require us to use minority terminology.
 * 3) All reliable sources with a view on the relative neutrality of the terms explicitly say "West Bank" is neutral, J&S partisan, which to my understanding trumps subjective relativism on WP.
 * MeteorMaker (talk) 21:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

MeteorMaker, you are simply calling for the termination of our NPOV policy. So some sources say that "West Bank" is neutral. So what? Big deal! That itself is a point of view. Do you get it? My position is simple: The neutral point of view is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints. As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy on the grounds that it is "POV". All views are "points of view," even those views that people claim are neutral. It just doesn't matter. Wikipedia must represent all significant views and it is utterly irrelevant that people believe one of those views to be "neutral." Slrubenstein  |  Talk 22:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand your point, and I again direct your attention to the fact that Jayjg and other editors on his side have actively tried to eliminate representation of the significant fact that J&S are predominantly used in Israel . WP:NPOV is very clear: "Articles should provide background on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular". I also take this opportunity to repeat that WP:NPOV requires us to acknowledge and report that minority views exist, not to use minority terminology. Else, consistency would demand that we begin to call Israel "Zionist entity" in articles because a minority uses that term.
 * Btw, would you reconsider your decision to not answer my six questions below? MeteorMaker (talk) 23:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you asking me if I believe in Wikipedia policy? Yes. Are you asking me to judge someon's behavior? I won't do that. I am an outsider but obviously felt it important to ente e3vience on behalf of Jayjg. haven't you offered evidence too? So now what? Are you asking me to be judge? jury? Wikipedia has no good mechanism for resolving conflicts over content. editors need to work it out with patience. I continue to view this as a conflict dispute. Are you asking me if I believe in NPOV, V and NOR for strict guidance? My answer is yes. Are you asking me to apply elements o policy to this case, i.e. resolve the dispute for you? Sorry, I won't. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 23:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the six questions were much more specific than that. It would have been interesting to hear your honest answers, but it's perfectly fine with me if you decline. I respect your opinion that this is a content dispute, and agree with G-Dett that your evidence section provided preciously little evidence and much opinion, perhaps with excessive emphasis on rhetoric if I may be so unashamedly judgmental. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just out of curiosity, how many GA and FA articles in the I/P area, where many complain of his extremely erratic bending of the rules according to POV convenience (yes, without wishing to 'nail' him, I'll try to illustrate shortly), has Jayjg made a significant contribution to?
 * Secondly, many of the sources of the 80 compiled, Lustick included, identify 'Judea and Samaria' as a minority term within Israeli usage. Modern Hebrew allows הגדה המערבית‎, HaGadah HaMa'aravit ('West Bank') or יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן‎, Yehuda VeShomron (Judea and Samaria). So this expression is not the 'Israeli' perspective, it is that of a group of settlers, their supporters, and political parties underwriting them. Linguists note that political lines in Israel are split between those who prefer the former, international usage, and those who prefer annexationist language. Haaretz almost invariably uses 'West Bank'.
 * How is wiki NPOV policy honoured if a sectarian and political usage within Hebrew is given equal, or pride of, place with international usage in English, and as that standard usage is refracted within Hebrew, while the other party, the Palestinian side, and its distinct terminology, is not mentioned? There are no West Bank Palestinians arguing their case in here to my knowledge, as opposed to many many editors with strong national or emotional involvements in the future incorporation of all or part of that non-Israeli land within its state definition. There is no way this will be resolved, since it is wall against wall. And while it is a content dispute, the content dispute cannot be resolved unless Arbcome provides us with a clearer definition of what policy is to prevail in resolving this. It is, to my knowledge, the only case, from among similar toponymic nationalist disputes, where only one side's subnational, and sectarian language is being defended, without a 'controparte', i.e. without the slightest representation of the position of the other (which, to gather from sources, finds this usage invasively offensive). That is why we others insist that only international usage can get us out of the impasse. I hope you take this as a reasoned comment, and not, as you seem to think, the sort of thing one would expect from an edit-warrior whose work apparently shows no sign of article building.Nishidani (talk) 20:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Slrubenstein, this is a dispute about what geographical terms to use when writing in Wikipedia's neutral voice, not about which "views" to "report." That you've posted "evidence" of an entirely personal, impressionistic nature – about which editors are awesome, which ones suck, and your fond memories of harmonious collaboration with one of the awesome ones – without even having read enough to realize what this case is about, is, frankly, rather remarkable.


 * My view that you're simply posting personal support for Jayjg without the foggiest idea of the nature of this dispute (or the sources it involves) is reinforced by the following:
 * You write that "in this case, there is no 'neutral' name." "West Bank" is in fact the standard consensus term, overwhelmingly preferred and/or used exclusively by international agencies, statemen, every major mainstream English-language outlet on the planet, and the vast majority of scholars.  It is not, moreover, a term used by partisans and nationalists of either side.  This is not a close case, not by any stretch of the imagination.
 * You repeat verbatim spurious formulations from Jayjg's posts, such as his reference to "MeteorMaker and Pedrito's campaign to remove or deprecate the terms 'Judea' and 'Samaria'." Your phraseology here is literally [ctrl-C]-[ctrl-V]; generally speaking, so seems to be your thinking.


 * If you have evidence to present, for G-d's sake present it. But don't go on the evidence page (of all places!) to post hazy impressions, fond recollections, idle misstatements, and lazy assumptions that if an editor has written featured articles about synagogues, he must be right in a dispute about geo-political terminology.  He is, in fact, wrong about it.  If, by the same token, an admin who had written five (or ten, or fifteen) featured articles about mosques in North America began claiming that Tel Aviv was in "Palestine," he too would be wrong, and his wrongness wouldn't change on account of ad hominem attacks on his critics, or slavish praise of him by idle memoirists.--G-Dett (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Rebutting evidence is an acceptable use of the talk page. Being insulting while doing it is not. Put the proverbial thesaurus away.--Tznkai (talk) 17:52, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You may have missed Slrubenstein's evidence, Tznkai. The section isn't just needlessly and irrelevantly insulting, but makes claims about Jayjg's interactions that Slrubenstein is not in a position to know about.  I'm not sure whether he is paraphrasing Jayjg, but I notice that he brings links for just the same "at least 16 editors" claimed by Jayjg to have opposed MeteorMaker and Pedrito, while presenting as disinterested.  With respect, if baseless ad hominems are permitted in evidence, then others must be allowed the proverbial thesaurus in addressing them specifically and substantively.


 * To address Slrubenstein's comments since he does go out of his way to mention me by name, he may be surprised to find that Jayjg and I have worked productively on most articles, as often as we may disagree about content. Jayjg's approach is nevertheless, as I think any editor in this area of Wikipedia is generally aware, to act as a partisan advocate for his positions in a way that is in many ways sharply inconsistent with Wikipedia's stated purpose.  I'll repeat that this is less of a concern when experienced and resilient editors are there to respond, but then I've also seen where those editors are not there or don't know how to respond.  It's also my view that the environment of constant frustration in this area of Wikipedia is quite largely a result of Jayjg's far-reaching gamesmanship.  As someone who strongly agrees with ArbCom's recent understandings of civility policy, I see no question that Jayjg consistently flouts these principles, and that he's been doing so extensively in this dispute.  Of course I realize other less active editors are as flagrant, and that this case could be left without any evaluation of editing conduct, and that Jayjg does a great deal of productive editing and clean up.  In my view all of these issues need to be understood in reaching an informed decision. Mackan79 (talk) 08:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "You now clarify that for you the conflict really kicked in in November. Great - that itself is important information. I am glad my evidence led you to clarify this point."


 * My bad, I tend to assume everybody is as familiar with this case as I.


 * "the view of settlers and annexationalists is (1) relevant and (2) significant and thus should be represented in the article. [...] The only motive I can imagine for this opposition to reporting that there is one view held by a major player in the conflict is that the territory be called judea and Samaria, or that some scholars call the territories Judea and Samaria, is if you reject our NPOV policy and believe that including this information in Wikipedia is in some way partisan."


 * Couldn't agree more. The sources agree too: it's the view of the settlers and annexationalists that J&S are the proper toponyms, so there should be no problem to include that information in the relevant articles. However, Jayjg et al have worked very hard to exclude any information that might give the impression that the terms aren't universally accepted alternatives to "the West Bank":


 * These are just a couple of diffs from two long edit wars over precisely the issue you describe. For a more in-depth view than what a few diffs can offer, you may want to read this and this and perhaps this discussion. After you've read them, tell me if you honestly think a neutral observer gets the impression Jayjg et al are motivated by concern with policies and accuracy.


 * "it seems to me that at least one scholar is willing to use the terms "Judea and Samaria" and I see no harm in saying so."


 * Now, the dispute isn't over a formulation like "J&S, a term for the West Bank Ian Lustick and others have used". What Jayjg tried to do was to synthesize the conclusion that J&S is a term in wide use from a handful of examples. Moreover, he frequently did so by removing or ignoring context that makes it clear that Lustick and the other neutral sources do not use the term other than as free indirect discourse. In a few cases, quotes were truncated so that preceding sentences or even preceding words from the same sentence were removed (eg, point 45, 46). Many of the sources were fragments from Google Books that just happened to contain the word "Samaria", but there was no way to verify them (short of buying the books). Merely mentioning that fact was met with accusations of incivility.


 * Since I know source evaluation is of great importance to you, what is your true opinion about:
 * Truncating quotes so that crucial context is removed that contradicts rather than supports the claim
 * Ignoring the larger picture how a source uses (or refuses to use) a term and focus on one single, ambiguous instance
 * Supporting a terminology claim with sources that use the editor's preferred term and ignoring the overwhelmingly much larger supply of sources that use a more common term
 * Supporting a terminology claim with sources that do not say anything about terminology
 * Masking a terminology claim as a statement about something else, then supporting that something else with cherrypicked sources that "happen to" use the contested term
 * Supporting a claim that a term is used outside country X with examples from country X
 * MeteorMaker (talk) 19:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: Slrubenstein has declined to reply (see above), describing (among other things) the above six questions as "arguments that boil down to, some view is "more neutral" than another". MeteorMaker (talk) 22:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Note to all parties (and other participants)
On this talk page alone, there are over 40 thousand words spanning 66 single spaced pages. The evidence page currently hosts about 24 thousand words. As a reference point the first Harry Potter novel was 76,944 words.--Tznkai (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. Maybe break it up into several subpages? MeteorMaker (talk) 19:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * See false analogy. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone had fewer characters and less intrigue than Samaria's Last Stand (working title).  More worryingly for us, even at 76,944 words it was unresolved and led to six sequels.--G-Dett (talk) 20:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also consider that the official Harry Potter site is over 900K. This page is about one third of that. By today's standards, 372K is nothing. Has anybody reported a problem with loading it yet? MeteorMaker (talk) 22:05, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Let me put it another way. No one wants to read a novel length argument about terminology.--Tznkai (talk) 02:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "Novel-length," because it is an adjectival phrase, requires a hyphen. I will give some thought to your point about the human attention span.--G-Dett (talk) 03:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Tznkai says: "No one wants to read a novel length argument about terminology."  Except, apparently, the Arbitration Committee.  The ArbCom accepted a case about an intractable content dispute that really had (and has) very little to do with behavior.  The result is thousands and thousands of words about the content dispute.  Is that really a surprise to anyone?  6SJ7 (talk) 03:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not think you should underestimate the intellectual curiosity of the Arbitration Committee.--G-Dett (talk) 05:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll try to remember that. But your response has nothing to do with what I said.  6SJ7 (talk) 10:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I'll review all threads and suggest a solution in 300 words.

(A) There is one bounded geophysical and political region. It is called in international law 'The Occupied Palestinian Territories. Its inhabitants are 83% Palestinian, with 17 percent Israeli settlers, there illegally (in international law). The area is known internationally by a term, the 'West Bank', which is disliked by that part of Israeli society which favours annexation, partial or complete. Palestinians in the area call it 'Palestine' (Filastin). We thus have (i) international neutral terminology (ii) sectarian (sub-national) Israeli usage (iii) Palestinian usage.

(B)A cultural-ethnic block in wiki wants a 'singularity', i.e. the use of toponyms for this non-Israeli territory as favoured by annexationists. They want these terms to be treated on a par with international terminology. They never mention the countervailing Palestinian terms as having equal legitimacy. They press for 'the northern West Bank' to be called 'Samaria', and 'the southern West Bank' to be called Judah. No one on the other side (editors from many different ethnic backgrounds) has countered by suggesting we call the two areas 'northern Palestine' nor 'southern Palestine', the prospective name of the future state, just as 'Judah and Samaria' would be the prospective territorial designation if Israel were eventually to incorporate the West Bank into its territorial confines.

(C) When international usage coincides with Israeli usage, we use the term Israelis use. Hebron, not Al-Khalil, the name used by 99.8% of its inhabitants, and a billion Muslims. When international usage coincides with Palestinian usage, we use the term Palestinians use. Nablus, not Shechem, as many Israelis prefer. When Israeli and Palestinian terms are in conflict, we use the default, neutral international term in English. 'West Bank' (not 'Judea and Samaria or Filastin/'Palestine'). In all cases, we should not use any term which prioritizes one (sub)national or partisan-political name, while suppressing the countervailing nation (people)'s naming system. That is an obvious violation of WP:NPOV. Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * the problem with this is that it lacks a gripping plot, lacks wikidrama, and is unlikely to be made into a smash hit.Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's a notion: Pretend this is an article on the event ( the editor conflict) and write for the enemy.--Tznkai (talk) 18:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * My only enemy is sloppy language and conceptual fuzziness. That's why I am my own worst enemy.Nishidani (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * How about this as a summary:
 * A group of editors wants the terms "Samaria/Judea" to be considered equally neutral as the term "West Bank" to refer to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A second group of editors has produced conclusive evidence that "West Bank" is the internationally recognized, neutral term for that area, and that "Samaria" and "Judea" are not.  The first group of editors responds by wikilawyering, stalling, hounding, and namecalling.
 * Does that sum it up? Way forward:
 * Decide which editors aren't acting in good faith, then give them all at a minimum one year topic bans. I suggest the "topic" should include any article having anything to do with Israel or Palestine.  Give admins broad discretion in issuing more topic or general bans concerning the issue. Close the case. Cla68 (talk) 07:28, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much the way my mind is going and as an approach it will probably find wide favour among the arbs.  Roger Davies  talk 07:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This would essentially amount to a ruling on content -- it can only be bad faith if the content in question is "wrong." I have no problem with arbs ruling on content, but I'd like for it to be acknowledged that this is being done, if it in fact is done. IronDuke  23:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not quite true - there have been various accusations of policy gaming, battleground editing, and the deliberate misrepresentation of sources: these are all behavioral problems that require or at least imply "bad faith." If the accusations are found to be true, the behavior is objectionable even in a vacuum.--Tznkai (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, those are fair points. However, making a judgment as to what a given source is "really" saying is as close to a content decision as makes no difference, IMO. And sure, there could be some rulings on policy gaming and battleground editing, but some of the editors in question, on both sides, are the ones who really make these articles good. It is a fractious process, and I know some people dislike it mightily, but a year ban for them would yield more peaceful, yet more crappy, articles: not an optimal solution. IronDuke  14:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A peaceful environment leads to better articles. That's presumably the intellectual basis of Wikipedia's conduct policies. These articles, and the arguments, accusations, and gamesmanship that surround them, are what make Wikipedia suck. I doubt anyone (outside a small group of partisans on either side) cares whether the terms "West Bank" or "Judea and Samaria" are used. I don't. On the other hand, I care about partisan editors using various mailing lists to coordinate their editing. I care about people using talk pages and dispute resolution to fight a never-ending rearguard action that drags down any attempt at constructive discussion. I care about indiscriminate accusations of bigotry or political bias applied to anyone who questions the editing tactics of a small group of partisan editors. Those are issues of conduct, not content. MastCell Talk 19:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm also not all that worked up over what terminology is used when, FWIW. But it's certainly the case that bigots are attracted to these articles; I've had to fend a number of them off. Some are smarter than others, and while sometimes quite clearly bigots to those with expertise in this area, others with less knowledge will (in good faith) leap to their defense. I don't know if there are any bigots here, but it's easy to get paranoid -- especially when dealing with a country like Israel, that seems to be unpopular with a lot of Wikipedians. And I think my point still stands: ban everyone who warred on these articles for a year, and watch the quality of those articles, old and new, tumble. IronDuke  19:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Terminology is pretty important. I once remarked on the annexation of Jerusalem, which a good many sources say occurred, until User:John Z, a very cluey wikipedian, dropped me a note referring me to an article by Ian Lustick, which outlined very strong evidence from Israeli legal minds that annexation had not occurred, stricto sensu. Gratefully illumined, I started to be more careful, and found numerous obstacles. People wouldn't accept a specialist study of the problem because so many sources got it wrong, but supported the POV. As to bans, I am neutral. I want stricter standards of WP:RS, (2) people on either side showing their dedication to the project by reverting or challenging bad edits made by people identified as 'on their side' as much as on the opposite side (3) more signs that people are just not googling stuff that fits their POV on articles they have not prepared themselves for. Some people in here spend several hundreds of dollars a year (User:Ashley kennedy3, User:Ceedjee, User:ZScarpia) buying books, and studying to master a topic, before venturing to edit with assurance. In return, they have 'copped a lot of stick' by editors who go after, or went after them. These articles won't tumble either way, since they are not really high enough off the basement level, despite appearances, and hardly any rank even close to 'slightly below par'. I think the best punishment would be to compel anyone who wishes to edit in the area to choose a difficult article, and turn it to GA level, within 2 months, perhaps even all to do this, serially, with several bad articles, with an admin or two overseeing behaviour. Failure would mean a collective suspension for the same period. Complex, but it would be salutary as an exercise. A fine copyeditor, who was as neutral as they come User:Suicup tried to do this with one article, and was shot down very quickly however.Nishidani (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with you about many things, Nishidani, but that is one of the most sensible ideas for a remedy I've ever seen on an arb page. Instead of forcing people to fight, as these IP arb cases necessarily do, you force them to cooperate. I can only hope the arbs would be that creative and flexible. Heck... maybe you should propose it as a remedy? You'd have my strong support. IronDuke  20:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I've been saying this for some years. I thought the idea, which I think Ravpapa put forward, as I found out, before me, of competitive pages by either side on the same topic, competing for comprehensiveness and NPOV, within a time limit, another possibility. This would mean that each side's editors would have to correct or rein in the worst in their fellows to win, rather than simply challenge editors of the other narrative. One small point of disagreement, or rather qualification. Sure, some editors don't think much of Israel. It's also true that it is not widely understood that these articles are dealing with two realities, of which Israel is one, and that there is a Palestinian narrative, which is often treated with contempt, insouciance, and, without naming names, regarded rather paranoiacally as the source of all evils by a few. I am editing in here strictly to get that Palestinian perspective on par, and don't edit in the Israeli area at all (except for Jewish intellectual history), since it is very well covered, defended and explored, whilst we have no Palestinian editors (WB and Gaza based) in here. Rather than speak of 'prejudice', I think the problem in several editors is that their focus is so totally Israeli-orientated, they fail to take into cognisance the other reality, which, since this is about two entities or countries, must be done if, on every article, NPOV is to be secured. Nishidani (talk) 20:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ps. To illustrate point 2. I actually have an example or two of asking my 'pro-Israeli' colleagues to correct two anonymous tag-teaming edit-warriors' reversion of a wording grounded in the source, after I ran out of reverts. They wouldn't change the text, which was unsupported by the source. All stood round, arguing (The whole thread is instructive, at Shuafat). I got no response, though the complaint was clearly just, if one reads the thread. They were even supported by User:NoCal100, see here, which I cite as evidence that might be taken, on Coppertwig's principles, against me, for I remonstrate, in 'G-Dettian' terms, with editors, something for which I think, among adults, a certain leeway should be permitted. We are not children. I asked that my colleagues User:Jayjg and User:Jaakobou, I think, on the other side revert clearly unsourced private information on the Beit HaShalom page. No response. I think reining bad edits, taking one's own side's(ugh!) lapses to task should be obligatory. It is crucial for building good faith.Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You force me to agree with you again (about the principle, haven't looked at the diffs). I think somewhere on WP it says "Police your own." I'd very much like to see more of that from both "sides." IronDuke  21:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I think many on the other side have a legitimate grievance against me. I've never read any policy page, except under duress or if caught up in a rendition programme that imposes this as part of the torture. But I'm always thankful when told things like this, 'police your own', by people with more patience than I have. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The root of the problem
"MeteorMaker used the phrase "used outside Israel" to mean "written by non-Israelis".  Jayjg understood it to mean something different as he explains here  and as is evident here . Therefore the rejection of examples based on whether the authors were Israelis appeared arbitrary to Jayjg, who was offended; and when he expressed this, MeteorMaker was in turn offended."
 * Coppertwig continues to insist that misunderstandings are at the root of the problem. However, there is strong and uncontested evidence that Jayjg's private e-mail testimony is inconsistent with reality. Despite what he claims now, Jayjg clearly both understood the requirement that valid examples of non-Israeli "J&S" usage must be by non-Israelis, and acknowledged and even used the term "non-Israeli" himself several times long before his 21 counts of attacking another user for "distastefully [...] discriminating sources on ethnic grounds". There is also very strong evidence against Coppertwig's hypothesis that "the rejection of examples based on whether the authors were Israelis appeared arbitrary to Jayjg": "(Jayjg, 14 November 2008 :) '[MeteorMaker] has been presented with multiple English language sources that use the term and thus refute his theory, but has rejected them on various grounds, claiming that they are referring to the biblical Samaria, or that the sources are Israeli. Now, to begin with, there is nothing wrong with a source simply because the person happens to have been born in Israel. I repeat, there is nothing wrong with a source simply because the person happens to have been born in Israel. [...] However, even if you exclude people born in Israel (not that there is any reason to), your claims still fail, as the multiple sources below show.'"  (Emphasis in original). Note, it was when 14 of these examples were found to be by people born in Israel that Jayjg's allegations of "distasteful ethnic discrimination" begun. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:43, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

"Samaria" is not a synonym for "West Bank"
Red herring, because nobody has claimed that, and no arguments on the WB side depend on it. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not an intentional red herring, but a clarification. I'm trying to encourage clear communication. Yes, I think everyone agrees on it (though I'm not completely sure); however, I think it's important to state the things we agree on, to make sure things are clearly understood and to avoid misunderstandings. I don't think anyone thought that "Samaria" was a synonym for "West Bank", but I do think people said things that seemed to me to mean that, and I think those things need to be clarified: what did they really mean?  I don't know what they really meant.  For example, your comment here: "that it's settler-speak for the West Bank".  I would appreciate it if you would word things more precisely so that we can understand what you're talking about, as this sounds to me as if you're saying that Samaria and the West Bank are the same thing.


 * My point is: arguing that the term "West Bank" should always be used to refer to the West Bank in no way precludes the use of the term "Samaria", since they refer to different things. Much of the discussion I've seen seems to ignore this point. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:36, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You may have seen the phrase "northern West Bank" on one or two occasions in this discussion. MeteorMaker (talk) 07:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

"The Glebe" is much rarer worldwide than "Ottawa"
That only demonstrates that smaller geographical entities are more rarely mentioned than the larger entities they are parts of, which nobody has doubted. Another red herring. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * That's not the only thing it demonstrates: it also demonstrates by example that mentioning a smaller geographical entity in a Wikipedia article can be quite appropriate, even if it is mentioned much more rarely outside the local area. Not a red herring at all. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Are there reliable sources characterizing the Glebe as ideologically partisan terminology? Is Canada's sovereignty over Ottawa unrecognized by the international community? Is there a population living in Ottawa that strongly objects to using the name the Glebe?
 * It's not a red herring, but its certainly not an appropriate analogy.  T i a m u t talk 01:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If an invading army were to take over Ottawa and declare that the Glebe is to be called "the Glebe", would we be compelled, as a result, to delete "the Glebe" from Wikipedia articles where it had previously stood as a normal and legitimate term? I would say not. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose I deserve a rhetorical question in reply given my use of them. However, your question is not only rhetorical, it's hypothetical. If the Glebe were occupied by an invading army (and, more importantly, there was documentation in secondary sources regarding its heavy usage among pro-invading army ideologues and its rejection by most of the native population), it might be an appropriate analogy for this case. Since it's not, it's simply not a good analogy. Sadly, no rhetorical hypotheticals can make it so.  T i a m u t talk 02:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification
"Successes in clearing up misunderstandings! G-Dett originally stated [...] MeteorMaker clarified [...] MeteorMaker has clarified |...] possibly clearing up a misunderstanding."

Considering that the only person who have misunderstood those things so far seems to be Coppertwig himself, the success is perhaps not much to write home about. MeteorMaker (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Update. MeteorMaker (talk) 02:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

MeteorMaker
""demonstrably false accusation" (Here is the diff requested: "


 * I gather Coppertwig hasn't read much of this page. This must be around the 100th time that utterly untrue claim has to be debunked:
 * Jayjg sets out to prove that the statement "J&S are not used outside Israel" is false.
 * He scours the Web for reliable sources, but finds none.
 * Instead, he decides to collect some (purportedly non-Israeli) sources that use the term (violating WP:SYNTH in the process).
 * Other editors point out that many of his examples are in fact from Israeli sources, and thus irrelevant as evidence for outside-Israel usage.
 * He responds with accusations of ethnic discrimination, and a few other J&S editors chose to join in. They have chosen to keep repeating the incivility to this day despite having had the above explained to them over and over.


 * Please reserve the term "demonstrably false accusation" for situations where there is clear evidence that would convince any reasonable neutral party. This situation involves a difference of points of view and is subjective; it doesn't fall into that category. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is precisely that kind of situation. Jayjg has not been able to show one scrap of evidence for his accusations of ethnic discrimination, hence "demonstrably false". MeteorMaker (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your statement "but finds none". See Jayjg's evidence. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * He has found perhaps half a dozen examples of outside-Israel use, which he has tried to synthesize into the conclusion "J&S are terms in current use outside Israel". He has not found one source that actually makes that claim, and neither has anybody else. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the whole idea that something written by someone who is outside Israel, and published outside Israel, is not an example of usage "outside Israel" simply because the person is an Israeli or was born in Israel. Maybe you need to state more clearly what it is you're trying to prove. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a strange thing to disagree about — do for instance Ariel Sharon's views become the views of the news media that report them? Equally absurd is the idea that his (or other Israelis') terminology becomes outside-Israel terminology by mere virtue of having been cited or printed in outside-Israel media. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with what Tundrabuggy said here, but substituting "examples of usage" for "reliable sources" as you pointed out. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Do I understand you correctly that you're defending Jayjg's accusations here? If so, please explain how examples of "X" can be used as evidence of non-X, and how it can be "distasteful" to point out that attempts to do so are inherently illogical. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please choose your words carefully; for example, I think it's probably not a good idea to say "accusations of ethnic discrimination" if the person didn't use the phrase "ethnic discrimination". Please provide diffs of Jayjg making accusations of "ethnic discrimination". (The last set of quotation marks is to indicate that I'm quoting you.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the place is littered with links to diffs of Jayjg making those accusations already. Frankly, I don't understand the point in requesting the same links over and over, but here you go:
 * "Please stop categorizing sources by alleged ethnicity or national origin, it's inappropriate and distasteful."


 * "Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin, and suggesting it shoudl do so is distasteful at best."


 * "It is you who continually brings up the alleged ethnicity or national origins of the various authors, as means of approving or disapproving them"


 * "You have repeatedly tried to dismiss sources published outside Israel because of their alleged ethnicity or national origin. [...] Stop trying to disqualify sources on spurious grounds, including their alleged ethnicity and national origin, and I will stop noting how distasteful it is."


 * "Wikipedia does not discriminate based on ethnicity or national origin, and it's rather distasteful to see attempts to do so."


 * "Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, based on their having once been members of Zionist organizations, and suggesting it should do so is distasteful at best.".


 * "I'll stop noting your distasteful attempts to disqualify sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin as soon as you stop doing it."


 * "Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin, and suggesting it shoudl do so is distasteful at best."


 * "Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin, and suggesting it should do so is distasteful at best."


 * "it is inappropriate to discriminate against sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin. I'll continue to point out all of these to you, including the latter, until you stop doing it. "


 * "Also, as explained many times, Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin, and it's distasteful to suggest it should."


 * "The United Kingdom - where the term was used - is not inside Israel, and your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate."
 * "Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by a British university press. Your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate."
 * "Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, and the usage was published an American journal. Your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate."
 * "Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, and the usage was published by an Australian newspaper. Your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate."


 * "I'll stop noting your distasteful and inappropriate attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin as soon as you stop doing it."
 * "As for your continual distasteful and inappropriate attempts to disqualify sources based on ethnicity or national origin, see (6)."


 * "And you're very persistent in trying to discriminate against sources on those grounds. I've told you that I'll stop referring to it as soon as you stop doing it."
 * "You have repeatedly tried to disqualify sources on the grounds that they are "Israeli"; once you stop trying to disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin I will stop having to point out it is distasteful and inappropriate."


 * "Also, Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, and the usage was published on an American news-site. Attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin are distasteful and inappropriate."


 * "Regarding the rest, Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin, based on their having once been members of Zionist organizations, and suggesting it should do so is distasteful at best."


 * "MeteorMaker, your rejections of sources disproving your theories, based on self-serving interpretations of what you think the sources are alluding to, or on distasteful discrimination against sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin of the authors, have been roundly rejected.


 * I may have missed a few. EDIT: Added a few more, for a total of 20. Still, I'm sure there are some I have missed. MeteorMaker (talk) 13:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This focus on trivial issues, like the placement and usage of quotation marks in talk page discussions, is very odd. Jayjg's repetition of a slur against MeteorMaker accusing him of ethnic bias is a serious personal attack and breach of good faith. A further serious issue lies in the attempt to cherrypick primary sources to establish extensive use of Samaria outside Israel, while shunning the tens of reliable secondary sources that explicitly define and designate it as a partisan or outdated biblical term. Why focus on the twigs and miss the trees?  T i a m u t talk 01:39, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that makes just 16 for that phrasing. Repeating yourself 16 times is a good example of stonewalling. Everybody knew this, responded, but it just kept being dished out ad nauseam, as if repetition would somehow subliminally influence perceptions that source analysis to determine whether 'Judea & Samaria' was widely used outside Israeli or Jewish communities, was discriminatory against Jewish people,  It was like being told 16 times, on saying 'shikse' is a basically Jewish word, because you find it most frequently used by Jewish people, that you are prejudiced against Jews. No, you are just saying non-Jews don't use 'shikse' very often. I really don't know why the obvious has to be repeated with so many analogies, metaphors, illustrative examples, evidence, sources, and arguments so often. This only happens in the I/P area, in the world of human discourse, or when people like Edmund Burke would address an assembly of the deaf, and find they are not responsive to his oratory.Nishidani (talk) 14:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * MeteorMaker, you have quoted Jayjg as accusing you of "distasteful ethnic discrimination", but that phrase does not appear in any of the diffs you have provided. Please provide one (1) diff of Jayjg actually using that phrase (and please don't waste everyone's time with yet more diffs which do not contain that phrase) or else refactor your comments. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you honestly think it's inappropriate to condense "distasteful attempts to discriminate against sources based on alleged ethnicity" to "distasteful ethnic discrimination", kindly indicate in what way the meaning has been changed. Quotes, as you have yourself argued, do not necessarily have to be verbatim. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

""deliberately assertion of false information in order to mislead" (quote without diff; no evidence for "deliberately")"


 * The word "deliberately" is in fact very appropriate, because Jaakobou has been notified of his mistake and admonished to strike the false information he supplied on the evidence page, and chose not to. Coppertwig should 1) check his evidence better and 2) himself strike the incorrect information. MeteorMaker (talk) 17:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ongoing discussion here. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

"''""This is one of Jayjg's more unorthodox positions: that the nationality of a writer changes with the nationality of the publisher." [528] (no evidence Jayjg said that)''"

Correct observation; fixed. The diffs I added may be difficult to understand without the context: Jayjg: "Utter nonsense. The sources are all non-Israelis who use the term to mean the Samaria, no more no less."  Jayjg is talking about these usage examples, of which 10 of 35 have been shown to be Israeli.  Jayjg: "You're right, they are 35 examples, not sources. The fact that they're non-Israeli and "from Jewish sources" is actually what is "irrelevant", as Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on country of birth or ethnicity of the author."  Jayjg is talking about the same examples. Later, after having added 8 examples, 3 of which were found to be Israeli, he also said "I will, however, grant you the "most humorous argument" award for claiming to have proved that "its use is confined to Israel" in the face of over forty reliable sources from outside Israel using the term." 

Some additional Jayjg quotes to illustrate the concept: MeteorMaker (talk) 01:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "However, the sources used are not "Israeli" or "Jewish"; rather, they are typically American or British publications, written for general English-speaking audiences."
 * "sources published outside of Israel are not Israeli"
 * "Things published in America are American. "
 * "As for things published in Australian papers, they're Australian."

I think the problem here may be that you're perhaps somehow using the term "outside Israel" to exclude a person who is an Israeli who is outside Israel at the time. I don't think there's any evidence that Jayjg has made the ridiculous claim you're attributing to him. Please state more clearly what you mean when you say "outside Israel": I think that will clear up the misunderstanding. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is that Jayjg so desperately needed non-Israeli examples that he commandeered demonstrably Israeli ones, like quotes by Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon.  It's interesting that you share his view that an Israeli who is outside Israel at the time (like Naftali Tamir, the then-ambassador to Australia) becomes an "outside-Israel source" whose every use of the contested terms counts as an example of their international acceptance. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

G-Dett
"3 diffs, where Jayjg did not demand a specific verbal formulation"
 * Ah, but he did. Let's take a look at Jayjg's actual words:
 * According to whom are "Samaria and the West Bank... different-epoch names for the same area"?
 * And which reliable source says the term Samaria is "not used much any more"?
 * Sigh. Which one of those sources states "Samaria and the West Bank... different-epoch names for the same area"? Please quote them saying it.
 * Note the quotation marks around the specific verbal formulations (emphasized for further clarity) in all 3 of G-Dett's cases. And as G-Dett notes, taking a random formulation from a talk page comment or edit summary and demand an RS with that exact phrase is a tactic Jayjg often uses to veto inclusion of well-sourced material (where the sources, in this case, were Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta and Columbia Encyclopedia) ]. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, he didn't. Regardless of what Jayjg's comments seem to you to mean, when I look at them they seem clearly not to be asking for a specific verbal formulation. The quotation marks seem to me to indicate that he was quoting previous comments in the discussion. There's extensive discussion of this on my talk page, but regardless of that, Jayjg has clarified that he was not insisting that the source had to use the exact same words. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

''"what Jay claimed they demonstrated, to wit, that the disputed terms were in wide use outside of Israel, and were widely accepted as neutral." (No evidence that he said that.) "lies" (discriminate can mean make distinctions between) [529] "accused him sixteen times of being a liar, and a comparable number of times of being a bigot" "bad faith" "has in fact lied" [530] "extensive lying" [531'']
 * By any definition of the word, Jayjg lied when he repeatedly accused me of "distasteful ethnic discrimination". Even given the benefit of doubt regarding why Israeli examples must be dismissed as irrelevant as examples of non-Israeli usage, Jayjg's persistent repeating of the claim that what he perceived as "discrimination" was "ethnic" (I assume he does not regard "Israeli" as an ethnicity) was clearly not based in ignorance. Despite numerous admonishments to either show diffs or strike the accusations, he chose to perpetuate the lie, to the point that other editors started joining in. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You have stated that Jayjg said "distasteful ethnic discrimination". You have used quotation marks, indicating direct quotation (expected to be word-for-word accurate). You have not provided a diff of Jayjg saying that. Please provide a diff, or strike out your statement.
 * It's all on the evidence page. You may have missed the link above. MeteorMaker (talk) 20:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence whatsoever of Jayjg lying. Please assume good faith.  Please try to see how this situation looks from Jayjg's point of view; try to understand why he would say what he said.  (What he actually said; not what you've apparently misquoted him as saying.) It makes a lot of sense when looked at in a certain way.  ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * See below. Possible inconsistency: Coppertwig might want to clarify why he now interprets quotation marks as something that "indicat[es] direct quotation (expected to be word-for-word accurate)" which contrasts starkly with his earlier suggested requirement that such direct quotes be prefaced with "[I demand a source containing] exactly these words: ... "" MeteorMaker (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You say you assume Jayjg doesn't regard "Israeli" as an ethnicity.  Do you then deduce based on that, that when Jayjg uses the word "ethnic", he must be lying?  I have a suggestion for you, MeteorMaker.  I suggest that you begin by assuming, per WP:AGF, that Jayjg is acting in good faith, build your logical deductions from there, and see where you end up. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:06, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, Coppertwig. Let's evaluate your good faith hypothesis:
 * Jayjg accuses me of "distasteful ethnic discrimination" (a few examples here: ). I explain my position numerous times (one example here) and inform him that he's misrepresenting me. He chooses to repeat the accusation verbatim,  over  and over  and over.  I ask him to stop willfully misrepresenting my position and caution him I may have to report him,  and explain my position again, Jayjg insists he hasn't misrepresented me at all and repeats the accusation.   I warn him again that his claim is highly uncivil, slanderous and a complete lie, and will lead to a report. I again explain my position and advise him to strike the by now dozens of instances of the "distasteful ethnic discrimination" accusations,  Jayjg responds with repeating the accusation, over  and over   and over . I again advise him to strike the lie, , he again chooses to repeat it . A fourth time, I ask him to strike it, , Jayjg responds with repeating the lie yet another time and calls my warning "meaningless".  Coppertwig now suggests that I am to assume good faith. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: no diff of Jayjg saying "distasteful ethnic discrimination" has been found. See Misquotation by MeteorMaker. Please don't move this comment. MeteorMaker has clarified that the quotation marks are not intended to indicate an exact sequence of words.(12:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

”Possible inconsistency by MeteorMaker”
"Re West Bank/Samaria, MeteorMaker seemed to insist on keeping the phrase "what is today", arguing it is not a pleonasm, but re Palestine deleted "what is currently called" , and "the area today referred to as" (edit summary "Tautology removed") "


 * "Palestine can be used to refer to [...] the area today referred to as the Palestinian territories" is almost the definition of a tautology, so removing one of the instances of "referred to" is hardly evidence of inconsistency. "The name and the borders of what is currently called Palestine have varied throughout history" doesn't make much sense either if you think about it, and the qualifier "what is currently called" is clealy redundant. Compare to Jayjgs's repeated complaint that the qualifier "what is today" in "Samaria was is a term used for the northern part of what is today the West Bank" is pleonastic: No reduncancy whatsoever, because the sentence states exactly once that Samaria and West Bank are different-epoch names for the same area. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Diff, please. In the discussion I'm aware of, the phrase being discussed contained the word "is", not "was": "Samaria [...] is a term used for the mountainous northern part of what is today the West Bank"  Speaking of diffs: I think you had mentioned on my talk page that you didn't know how to find a certain type of diff.  I was going to see if I could help you with that, but I forgot. I'm sorry. I'll look into that now (if I don't get distracted again).  ☺ Coppertwig
 * Corrected. As you notice, that minor change doesn't make the "possible inconsistency" any less imaginary. MeteorMaker (talk) 20:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I hadn't noticed this section on this talk page until now.
 * MeteorMaker, I'm glad to see you back from wikibreak. I'm eagerly waiting for your response to the draft guidelines (first draft &mdash; second draft, editable). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Need to assume good faith
"Given a choice between assuming Jayjg considers "Israeli" an ethnicity and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former. "
 * When Jayjg has accused me of so-called distasteful ethnic discrimination, 20 times, Coppertwig now suggests that even though Jayjg has made no attempts to clarify, I should assume he didn't actually mean it, and furthermore, turns Jayjg's false and extremely bad-faith accusation into an accusation against me. Priceless. MeteorMaker (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What you're saying is an inaccurate representation of my suggestion. One of my suggestions is that you consider what Jayjg actually said, not the phrase you've been using and have repeated above.  I think it will be a step easier to AGF if you do that.  Another of my suggestions is that you assume that Jayjg is acting in good faith.  If you find that this contradicts some other assumption, I suggest that you consider discarding the other assumption (such as, for example, an assumption that Jayjg knew what you meant).
 * I dispute your statement that Jayjg "made no attempts to clarify". For example, here, Jayjg said "...Your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate. The United Kingdom is "outside-Israel", and the alleged ethnicity or national origin of the other is irrelevant and willfully misleading." The last sentence appears to me to be an attempt to clarify what is meant by the sentence preceding it. You might not have noticed or understood his attempts to clarify at the time, but that doesn't mean he didn't try. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Your "suggestion" (which looks for all the world like an accusation) says "Given a choice between assuming Jayjg considers "Israeli" an ethnicity and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former." If it's "an inaccurate representation" to say "Coppertwig suggests that I should assume he didn't actually mean it", what on earth is an accurate representation? What exactly does Coppertwig insist I assume when Jayjg accuses me of "distasteful ethnic discrimination"? That he intends it as a compliment? Also, Coppertwig, what do you make of the fact that not one diff in support of these accusations has been produced?
 * "One of my suggestions is that you consider what Jayjg actually said, not the phrase you've been using and have repeated above." OK, this is what Jayjg actually accused me of:
 * "Categorizing sources by alleged ethnicity or national origin", which he called "inappropriate and distasteful"
 * Suggesting WP should "discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin", which he called "distasteful at best"
 * "bring[ing] up the alleged ethnicity or national origins of the various authors, as means of approving or disapproving them"
 * "hav[ing] repeatedly tried to dismiss sources published outside Israel because of their alleged ethnicity or national origin"
 * "trying to disqualify sources on spurious grounds, including their alleged ethnicity and national origin", which he called "distasteful"
 * Attempting to "discriminate based on ethnicity or national origin", which he called "rather distasteful"
 * Making "distasteful attempts to disqualify sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin"
 * "Discriminat[ing] against sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin", which he called "inappropriate"
 * Making "attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin", which he called "distasteful and inappropriate." (*4)
 * Making "distasteful and inappropriate attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin"
 * Making "continual distasteful and inappropriate attempts to disqualify sources based on ethnicity or national origin"
 * "Trying to disqualify sources based on alleged ethnic or national origin", which he called "distasteful and inappropriate"
 * "Distasteful discrimination against sources based on alleged ethnicity or national origin of the authors"
 * Does any one of them sound like Jayjg is assuming good faith?
 * Note that your Jayjg quote, bizarrely interpreted as an "attempt to clarify", is in response to this post:
 * "'Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term. The nationality of the publisher is immaterial and your 'discrimination' objection is distasteful and willfully misleading.'"
 * This is Jayjg's reply, which you insist demonstrates the decidedly odd belief you postulate: That my definition of "outside-Israel" means that a text by an Israeli author counts as "outside-Israel" if the publisher is non-Israeli:
 * "'Your attempts to discriminate against sources based on their alleged ethnic or national origin is distasteful and inappropriate. The United Kingdom is 'outside-Israel', and the alleged ethnicity or national origin of the other is irrelevant and willfully misleading.'"
 * If he actually held such a belief, he apparently failed to notice the preceding post (where my definition of "outside-Israel" was clarified four times), like you apparently failed to notice the many examples of earlier, similar clarifications for Jayjg I posted below. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please refactor this part: "when Jayjg accuses me of "distasteful ethnic discrimination"?" because Jayjg never used that phrase, and as I've pointed out before, your use of quotation marks like that is too easily interpreted as a claim that he used that phrase. I'll reply to the rest later. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Are we looking forward to another massive and disruptive waste of everybody's time from you if I simply say "the concept of scare quotes has already been fully explained to you"? MeteorMaker (talk) 01:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please explain your use of scare quotes to all readers of your comment, including those who might not read these following comments; i.e. by refactoring the sentence or adding an explanation immediately following that sentence. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course I didn't intend the quotation marks to indicate an exact sequence of words. I could have chosen to say "Jayjg claims I have engaged in distasteful ethnic discrimination'" (without quotes), but that would have appeared as if I accepted the validity of his accusation (even though I dismissed its applicability in my case). By using scare quotes, I distanced myself from the concept itself: that dismissing examples of "X" as proof of non-X is a "distasteful and inappropriate attempt to disqualify sources based on ethnicity". MeteorMaker (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

"Given a choice between assuming that Jayjg understood that "West Bank" was being used as a short form for "Northern West Bank" and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former. "
 * Both Coppertwig's diff and his accusation are extremely confusing and I can't make heads or tails of either. He should clarify or retract. MeteorMaker (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: Coppertwig has changed his allegation. It now reads:

"Given a choice between assuming that Jayjg understood that "outside Israel" didn't mean place of publication and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former. "
 * Still extremely confusing, but I think I can at least make out the outlines now. Coppertwig seems to be saying that even though Jayjg has never suggested it, I should have assumed that he thought that I, all along, considered examples whose publisher is outside Israel legit. Apparently the failure to assume good faith that Coppertwig thinks he sees is in pointing out that I actually only considered examples whose originator is from outside Israel legit. Is that correct, Coppertwig?
 * This makes my head spin, and I'm not sure if these diffs, to a few of the times when I've pointed out the same thing to Jayjg many times long before Coppertwig got involved, count as evidence for or against his case. MeteorMaker (talk) 18:47, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: On 2009-04-19, Coppertwig added the highlighted part of the following quote by me to the evidence:
 * "'Even given the benefit of doubt regarding why Israeli examples must be dismissed as irrelevant as examples of non-Israeli usage, Jayjg's persistent repeating of the claim that what he perceived as 'discrimination' was 'ethnic' (I assume he does not regard 'Israeli' as an ethnicity) was clearly not based in ignorance. Despite numerous admonishments to either show diffs or strike the accusations, he chose to perpetuate the lie, to the point that other editors started joining in.'"
 * If I understand Coppertwig correctly, it's an act of bad faith to assume that Jayjg did not hold the thoroughly false belief that "Israeli" is an ethnicity. Furthermore, Coppertwigs hypothesis fails to explain why Jayjg later consistently made the distinction between ethnicity and national origin. "  Would he have done that if they were the same thing to him? MeteorMaker (talk) 16:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm glad you're thinking about it. Maybe going for a long walk will help.  Jayjg said "Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by a British publisher. The United Kingdom is "outside-Israel"."  I don't see how Jayjg could get much clearer than that that he was interpreting the phrase "outside-Israel" as referring to place of publication. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose it is a violation of policy to say this. But since half of these pages has been taken up by an enormous and intricate-to-the-point-of-being-incomprehensible repetition of the same futile nagging that generated this Arbcom case, I'll have to risk things and say what I've always thought. No reflection on you Coppertwig, but your approach is almost identical in its grueling vacuousness to the one that Jayjg practiced on the original 'Samaria & Judea' thread. I appreciate the function of acting as attorney for someone under suspicion, who has preferred or not deigned to represent himself directly, but what has been lost from sight is that Jayjg also was under suspicion of both bad faith and misreading, and yet he is not been subjected to this mode of hairsplitting cross-interrogation. the person who was the object of his original accusation is, alone, in the dock for charges that could equally apply to Jayjg. You are probably not aware of it, but in literary criticism, as opposed to forensic logic, what is going on would suggest to many critics something like the following, a logic of creating an impression, to the advantage of just one of two parties, out of thin air.
 * First MM was guilty of wrong attribution (disproven as a quibble) and now he is guilty of non assuming Jayjg's good faith. I don't feel obliged to assume Jayjg's good faith necessarily. I judge it on the nature, quality of his edits, from page to page, and I see no reason to see good faith in his behaviour over the 'distasteful ethnic discrimination' gambit he repeated ad nauseam. No serious disputant would repeat himself before intelligent interlocutors, fully familiar with the rigmarole of wiki policy, some 21 times with a serious accusation of racial bias without a purpose, and that purpose cannot be remonstrative or discursive. In the real world, to do this is tantamount to suggesting your interlocutor is thick-skulled, plain dumb. An administrator, esp. if he was convinced of the truth of this perception, would simply have taken MM off to some arbitration. Jayjg never did this. So the function of this ruthless repetition struck me at least, according to the logic we see in advertisements and political debates, that of seeding a trail of suspicion by innuendo over a long thread. 'There's no smoke without fire' etc. It's a tried and proven ploy in politics. In serious discourse, it is the hackwork gambit of rhetorical hammering aimed not primarily at one's adversary, at one's interlocutor, but at the impressionable subconscious of onlookers. It is only aimed at one's adversary in the sense that repeating virtually verbatim the same charge to the same person, who dutifully replies with thoughtful unrepetitive comments on each occasion, often succeeds in unnerving him, frustrating him, and pushing him/her to a possible boiling point where some artless slip may be elicited to use against the person, i.e., to fish for evidence that is not there, but which can be produced by stressing one's interlocutor with rude repetitive baseless charges.
 * I think MM's good faith is perhaps the only proven thing to have emerged from this rigmarole of cross-interrogation, for the simple reason that Jayjg made his defence and then boycotted the whole discussion. You have taken on his role, and his manner, and, as with Jayjg earlier, MM has responded with great precision to questions that I, and I think most other readers see absolutely no sense in. My impression is that this has become, nolens volens, a stage-play where, by repeated cross-interrogation of MM over nano-minutiae, his willingness to participate with extraordinary patience while the other party has disappeared, and is not held up to interrogation, is made, at least subliminally to give the impression he alone has something to account for. 'Qui s'excuse s'accuse' seems to be the scenario. I know from the past you are responsive to frankness, and hope you take this as a perspective that others outside of this duet may well find justification for embracing, not out of enmity, but simply because in the real world, this mode of infinite hairsplitting is proof of an unwillingness to use commonsense and intuition to understand the plain drift of any piece of human speech.Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Coppertwig, I don't know if what's needed is a long walk, a brisk jog, an afternoon of paragliding, or an evening of strawberry daquiris, but at some point you're going to have to acknowledge that these "misunderstandings" that have occasioned so much exegetical energy from you are deliberate. They represent an engineered form of stonewalling and deception on the part of Jayjg.  So many "misunderstandings" surround Jay's interactions with other editors because an enormous amount of his talk-page activity consists of devising just this sort of impasse.--G-Dett (talk) 20:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. I should add that I find Nishidani's analysis (2nd paragraph above) of this "stage-play" absolutely compelling.--G-Dett (talk) 20:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ditto. T i a m u t talk 01:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please assume good faith, G-Dett. Neither side of the dispute directly addressed the question of what was meant by the phrase "outside Israel": are we to blame only one side for this lack of clarity?
 * MeteorMaker: I'm certainly not blaming you for pointing out that you had been requesting sources whose originator was from outside Israel. I see nothing wrong with that. The problem, as I see it, is that this was not pointed out clearly enough. Instead, the ambiguous phrase "outside Israel" was used, and was not defined as far as I know, until recently, (though I'm still asking for clarification on that definition ). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm reasonably sure I've never made a request with such a qualification. You will have to support that with a diff if you intend to build your case on it. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I wasn't building a case with that comment. I'm trying to straighten things out so that no sanctions are needed against anyone. I was only trying to point out that what you said above "Apparently the failure to assume good faith that Coppertwig thinks he sees ..." is not an accurate representation of anything I had said. I'm striking out a sentence in my comment because I think you've misinterpreted it as an accusation, which it isn't intended to be. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (EC) That made no sense at all to me, and by now I believe many may have lost track what you're actually accusing me of, or even if it's indeed intended to be an accusation at all any more. Could you please restate your allegations? MeteorMaker (talk) 02:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * MeteorMaker, I see you've reworded your question, but my answer is still the same: no, that's not correct. That's not what I meant. What I'm suggesting is that you assume that Jayjg is acting in good faith. If this leads you to deduce that he must not know what you mean by "outside Israel", fine, but I'm not asking you to assume that as a premise.
 * The discussion looks symmetric to me. Both of you mentioned the term "outside Israel". Neither of you defined it in a sentence like "By 'outside Israel', I mean ... ". One of you stated that the place of publication is irrelevant. One of you stated that the nationality of the author is irrelevant. There was a lack of communication, but not one that can be blamed on one side. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Are the accusations still "Given a choice between assuming Jayjg considers "Israeli" an ethnicity and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former" and "Given a choice between assuming that Jayjg understood that "outside Israel" didn't mean place of publication and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former", or have they transmogrified into something else now? I ask because after your latest clarifications, I frankly don't understand at all what you think I've done wrong, or what I should have done instead. MeteorMaker (talk) 02:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec) I said, "Given a choice between assuming that Jayjg understood that "outside Israel" didn't mean place of publication and assuming good faith, MeteorMaker chooses the former." In other words, I'm pointing out that you haven't been assuming good faith. I've pointed out that you have a choice: you can assume good faith. I'm calling on you to make this choice. You've been choosing instead to assume that Jayjg understood what you meant by the phrase "outside Israel", and deduce based on that that Jayjg was not acting in good faith. To me, "outside Israel" very much sounds as if it means a physical location, and Jayjg's comments about place of publication make a lot of sense to me.  It was hard at first for me to even realize that you might have meant something different by the phrase "outside Israel" from what it sounds like to me.  Jayjg may not have realized that you meant something different.  Apparently to you, interpreting the phrase "outside Israel" as a physical location is a strange thing to do.  It seems strange to me that you find it strange. Maybe we're speaking different dialects?
 * Jayjg said, "the alleged ethnicity or national origin of the other is irrelevant", and you apparently didn't take this as indicating that from then on, the phrase "outside Israel" was to be interpreted in that way in the discussion. You said, "The nationality of the publisher is immaterial", (quotes and diffs are in the discussion above), and likewise, Jayjg apparently didn't take this as indicating the definition of the phrase "outside Israel". It looks symmetric to me.  If you think of your own motivations for discussing the way you did, then you can imagine Jayjg having similar motivations.  ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The obvious conclusion, if that were true, is that we both have failed to assume good faith. I'm still very much in the dark as about how my alleged breach of WP:AGF manifested itself. Did it happen when I told Jayjg that examples by Israeli authors remain Israeli even when published by foreign publishers? Or when you postulated that he hadn't at all challenged that one of his examples was in fact Israeli, and I pointed out that nothing he actually said lends itself to that interpretation?  Or is it the simple fact that a few anecdotal examples make no difference at all when we have scores of eminently reliable sources that expressly state that "J&S" aren't used much outside Israel? MeteorMaker (talk) 03:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the obvious conclusion would be that you would both have failed to assume good faith; I don't see how you would arrive at that conclusion. (I don't know which of the things in my comment you're referring to when you say "if that were true".) I believe you're both acting in good faith, but that there are hard feelings, and differences in ways of thinking, both of which make it difficult for you to understand each other. In answer to your question about how the alleged breach of AGF manifested itself: when you say "Can you honestly read this as an acknowledgement that the editorial itself is an Israeli source, and as an sincere attempt to discuss the validity of the quote from the editorial as evidence of outside-Israel use?", it seems to me to imply that Jayjg was not making a sincere attempt to discuss the matter.  If that's not what you meant, you might want to clarify that.
 * In answer to your comment of 01:32, 19 April 2009: You had said "Coppertwig suggests that I should assume ... " I'm suggesting that you assume one thing: that Jayjg is acting in good faith.  As for whether Jayjg considers "Israeli" to be an "ethnicity", I'm not suggesting that you assume that he does, and I'm not suggesting that you assume that he doesn't.  You can make assumptions if you want, but if you arrive at a contradiction then you'll need to discard one of your assumptions.  I suggest not discarding the assumption that Jayjg is acting in good faith unless it's necessary to discard that assumption; and I'm pointing out that as long as you can avoid a contradiction simply by, for example, realizing that there's a possibility that Jayjg considers "Israeli" to be an "ethnicity", then (at least until you ask him about that) there's no need to discard the AGF assumption.  There may also be other possibilities.
 * Re your comment "What exactly does Coppertwig insist I assume when Jayjg accuses me of "distasteful ethnic discrimination"?" As I've mentioned previously, I think you'll find it easier to AGF if you look at what Jayjg actually said rather than at your paraphrase, given here in quotation marks, of what Jayjg said. Again, I'm suggesting that you assume that Jayjg is acting in good faith.  If you study what he actually said, while making that assumption, you might at some point suddenly begin to see what he said as being understandable.  If not, it might be helpful for you to ask him what he meant; however, I think there's a danger there of further inflaming the situation, and that you would need to be in a calm, open-minded and AGF frame of mind for that to work out productively.
 * Re your comment "Also, Coppertwig, what do you make of the fact that not one diff in support of these accusations has been produced?" I don't agree: that is, I'm not endorsing what Jayjg said, but it seems obvious to me that he was subjectively describing what you actually did, not alleging that you had done something different. That is, he was talking about the discussion about examples of use of the term "Samaria" including discussion of whether the authors were Israelis, whether the authors were Zionists etc.  I think Tznkai describes the situation well here.
 * Re your comment "Does any one of them sound like Jayjg is assuming good faith?" That's an interesting question. He says he finds what you were doing distasteful.  Whether he's assuming good faith would depend on what he assumes about the reasons for your doing what you were doing.  I don't care to speculate at the moment about such assumptions he might be making.  (Perhaps I've carried a vestige of a ten-foot-pole in here with me after all.)  However, when he says "distasteful", he seems to me to be expressing his own feelings, not saying something about yours.
 * You said "That my definition of "outside-Israel" means ..." What definition? I'm not aware of any definition of "outside-Israel" having been mentioned by you in the discussion with Jayjg. You said "where my definition of "outside-Israel" was clarified four times": I think this was a misunderstanding.  Because you didn't connect the definition with the phrase (for example, by saying "by 'outside Israel', I mean ... "), it doesn't appear to me to be a definition of the phrase, and may not have appeared that way to Jayjg.  Similarly, as I've pointed out, Jayjg said things about place of publication, and you didn't interpret that as being a definition of "outside Israel": that's very similar to the way Jayjg reacted to what you said. It may seem obvious to you, but to me, your definition of "outside Israel" is a strange one to attach to that phrase, (just as the way I understand the phrase is strange to you!) so it's not easy to realize that the things you're saying are intended as a definition. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * (<---Outdent)

(Outdent ) I'm sure I'm not alone in considering your strange insistence that "in/outside Israel" must mean a physical location near-disruptive. "Term X is used in country Y" is a very simple concept to understand. Quibbling about edge cases like if a citizen of country Y travels abroad, or if something was written by a citizen of country Y but published in country Z is not helpful in the least. Are Americans required to lay off typically American idioms when they go abroad? Are foreign publishing houses under an obligation to substitute non-Americanisms in texts written by Americans? This diversionary shifting of the focus to inconsequential grey zone cases while ignoring the larger picture is, as Nishidani observes, essentially identical to Jayjg's technique (which it apparently is not an AGF breach to call "distasteful", and by extension I assume, "not sincere").

Some observations:
 * 1) You are constantly insinuating I wasn't looking at what Jayjg actually said, while at the same time putting completely imaginary versions of his words in his mouth.
 * 2) You constantly miss the simple fact that the "misunderstanding" you postulate could only have happened if we assume complete, utter failure by Jayjg to notice the many times I pointed out to him that Israeli sources don't become non-Israeli by being published by non-Israeli media.
 * 3) You continue to tiptoe around the issue of Jayjg's conduct, "don't care to speculate", and excuse his obvious breaches of WP:CIV as "expressing his own feelings" and "subjectively describing what [I] actually did".
 * 4) You cling to your "misunderstanding" hypothesis despite the fact that no evidence at all exists and that nobody ever confirmed that such misunderstandings actually occurred. On the contrary, one of your culprits confirmed that you are wrong and that she did not misunderstand anything the way you insist happened.
 * 5) Now that you have declared that I was acting in good faith after all, contrary to your earlier allegations, this discussion is entirely pointless and only serves to highlight your own double standards. Striking this accusation point from your evidence seems like the obvious thing to do. MeteorMaker (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Communication difficulties
"Another example: MeteorMaker said "All explicitly, unequivocally and undisputedly support one side" but did not specify (until I asked) what assertion or proposed action the editor was saying had been supported."


 * The assertion the quote supports is simply the one in the preceding sentence. If that can be stated more clearly, I'm open to suggestions. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * By "the preceding sentence", do you mean this sentence: "About 80 reliable sources, mainly academic or encyclopedic, have been collected during the course of this discussion."? (I think I'm probably misunderstanding which sentence you mean.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Coppertwig, your perceptive observation is quite correct: By "the preceding sentence", I mean the preceding sentence. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Lack of carefulness with quotation marks
"In spite of much discussion  about placing that very phrase in quotation marks, MeteorMaker again used quotation marks to mention a phrase which Jayjg didn't actually use. "
 * It's interesting to note two things:
 * The only person who seems to have any interest in this issue is Coppertwig. Despite the long discussion, not one editor has volunteered to become his trusted squire. I and probably every other editor who has had to read through the reams of discussion this unfounded accusation has generated are bored to death with it.
 * The fact that Coppertwig focuses so persistently on this trifle seems to indicate a conspicuous lack of more serious conduct issues.
 * MeteorMaker (talk) 22:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your assertion about "[t]he only person": this comment from Tundrabuggy on the Workshop page very clearly supports the request to be careful. How much does it cost to type a couple of words in parentheses as a clarification, or to leave off the quotation marks? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you got one short support comment, by Tundrabuggy, in 10,000+ words' worth of pointless, repetitive, boring discussion that ended with you admitting you were wrong, which everybody else could see from the first word. I think iI'm speaking for everybody here when I beg you not to start this hair-splitting sophistry all over again. MeteorMaker (talk) 02:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification from G-Dett
Coppertwig, you've proposed on the workshop page that "People need to state clearly and often what it is they're arguing about." I'm not sure how often is often enough for you; apparently very often, so I'll take this opportunity to point out for the 500th or so time that no one has ever proposed "to cleanse Wikipedia of 'Samaria'." They've proposed to use it in appropriate contexts, and not in Wikipedia's neutral voice as an uncontroversial contemporary toponym. Its use in a contemporary context is controversial, ideologically loaded, and very rare among mainstream reliable sources. If you think it's analogous to "New England" or "Western Canada," then you haven't acquainted yourself with the dispute you're wading into.
 * Ah, OK. I may have misunderstood: I thought "but only in the appropriate place" in Nickhh's proposed principle might have meant using a term only in the article about itself. The proposed remedy "Amending content in all relevant articles" also seems to be saying something similar. That's what I meant; I apologize if my language is too colourful. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the diffs of mine you cited as misleading in your "evidence" post, they contained exactly what I said they contained, and my use of them was unanswerably straightforward. As you appear at best simply to have clicked the wrong diffs, or not read or understood what you were commenting on, I urge you now to do the honorable thing and refactor.--G-Dett (talk) 03:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry: I don't know which diffs you're referring to. I didn't use the word "misleading" in my evidence (except quoting others saying it). However, I think something you said was originally inaccurate, which I think is why you refactored it by deleting the word "exactly". ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is correct.  I refactored because you thought it was misleading.--G-Dett (talk) 20:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. Are you asking me to refactor something? If so, what, and why? When you originally wrote "exactly that verbal formulation", I'm under the impression that at that time you meant that Jayjg was asking for a source that used the exact same words. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No I'm not asking you to refactor anything. You're responding to a three-week-old post of mine.--G-Dett (talk) 04:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

A note on Ynhockey's suggestion I am responsible for 'conflict creation'

 * On our interactions generally see, for example this for an illustration of our precisely reciprocal requirement for textual and source accuracy at Deir Yassin


 * Phil Knight gave us barnstars on the same day. Our respective pages read therefore 'The Barnstar of Diligence is hereby awarded in recognition of extraordinary scrutiny, precision, and community service, especially in regard to article improvement. (23/06/2008) if I am not mistaken. We are both, by repute, precisians, though I am normally called a ‘ranter’ even for the most innocuous remarks, most recently by User:Beit Or here (for my reply) or a ‘niggler’.


 * On learning of your election to administrator level I congratulated youhere and commented, in our pleasant exchangee, that I welcome people with a strong Israeli POV who are rigorous with the rules and exact high standards


 * See my self-revert here, when I believed I may have done you an injustice. Apology, in review, is something I think one is obliged to do. I even apologized to User:Jayjg, whose behaviour I often find unacceptable, when disruptive behaviour by an eminently rude and tendentious wikipedian, User:NoCal100, perhaps the most disruptive wikistalker in the I/P area, caused me to retire from the Israel Shahak page at a crucial point in negotiations.


 * I have, as others here, complimented you on your map work several times. Our only substantial difference occurred the other day when I found you’d wiped out an historical background edit I had made at Susya by questioning the source (CounterPunch) and saying you could find no confirming evidence after a search. I reverted you here, immediately on March 30, 2009 because your examination was extremely superficial, looked to me as though it were removing uncomfortable facts, and you appear not to have examined the authors of that report, all Israeli academics with direct research experience and fieldwork on the West Bank. David Dean Shulman has written a distinguished book on the area of Susya, Neve Gordon is an historian and analyst of Israeli-Palestinian relations, these two are common knowledge, have professorships in Israeli universities, and as for the third, Ehud Krinis, a cursory check would have shown you that he has tertiary qualifications, a summa cum laude from Ben-Gurion University, in Judaeo-Arabic Culture in the Middle Ages, is a Mandel Scholar at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, and with Erella Dunayesky has actually published on the topic of Susya. In my book, one never wipes out a sourced edit when the authors of the source are scholars of distinction, with known or proven intimate knowledge of the topic. The propriety here should have involved dropping me a note requesting more details or clarification on my or the Susya talkpage. Your edit was patently incorrect, tendentious, and, in failing to rely on my bona fides, lacking in the usual courtesies.


 * After, even needlessly, I justified the correctness of my reversion of your edit, by the addition of easily available further source details, you remained silent, except for adding a map of Susya. I clicked on the map, and while doing so my cursor showed the window reading: Susya is located in Israel. Since on my work page here I had already noted that you had created and uploaded a map for the Battle of Karameh which makes the West Bank look like it is part of Israel, and looks very tendentious, I thought you were responsible for that, and remarked on this on the Workshop page. User:Nableezy promptly informed me on my page that the window message may be due to the template you, Ynhockey, were using, and not to you, as I thought (See also the full exchange here). I immediately posted a note of clarification and apology if this was a consequence of what Nableezy says.


 * I can’t find, mysteriously (why?), the diff for this note but the workshop page has this:-


 * "‘It would appear from a note on my page by User:Nableezy that I am guilty of not (I admit it) having the foggiest notion of how images generate these window pop-ups. If the Susya pop-up is as Nableezy suggests, I retract my remark on it, and apologize to User:Ynhockey.Nishidani (talk) 10:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)’"


 * However, what is the situation now? The template is clearly defective. You subsequently responded to my point by added to that template ‘and in the Palestinian territories’, but in wiki maps on Susya, and elsewhere we still have these West Bank towns and villages ‘located in Israel (and the Palestinian territories)' Your emendation has just worsened the problem, since now places like Susya show bilocality or it is implied, what is in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is, from another POV, in Israel. Thast is damaging to wikipedia’s aspirations for a reputation for objective, reliable and precise pages.

A day has passed, and those who are capable, like yourself, of fixing these things, don’t fix them. My original point therefore stands. One should not upload defective templates that give the false impression West Bank villages are in Israel, esp. when this whole Arcom issue has been trying to fix the problem of an occupational power (Israel) having its POV, that parts of the West Bank, are 'Judea and Samaria' (i.e. Israeli, not only administratively, but historically, politically and symbolically), represented here. That template asserts as a fact something which happens to be an ideological dream and a geopolitical aspiration, as yet devoid of any legality.

If being very precise is a problem, then we both have it. In an area as conflicted as the I/P one, I, as a mere peon, expect stringent standards of neutrality in anyone honoured by an administrative capacity, for administrators here must set an example. What you cite for the idea I am responsible for 'conflict creation' is a tiff that disguises, yes, a conflict in our respective POVs. Those are resolved by loyalty to method and strict requirements for evidence, and objectivity. We both subscribe to these: at times, the POV shows a leg.Nishidani (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As to my putative attempts 'to politicize minor technical issues', I think you've just highlighted our differences. You appear to believe in the neutrality of facts, maps and technical issues. There is a 15 volume Israeli gazetteer with tons on information on Israel (including the West Bank) and for you, as an Israeli, it is apparently shorn of any political framing. I am sketching out in my workpage essay why this assumption is demonstrably untrue, as many, ranking Israeli scholars among them, have shown. I believe that facts and technical problems are embedded in frames of human, social, cultural and political interest, and must be so worked that neutrality of presentation and representation are achieved in an encyclopedia. The former Lockean assumption is one of epistemological naivity: the latter is the orthodoxy at least since Karl Mannheim and Juergen Habermas, not to speak of a thousand others. Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Apropos in your complaint, when you write, 'the first few actually means the first several thousand', I'd like a diff. I saw a list of only a few dozen, and reading down noticed immediately one that was not in Israel, but in the West Bank, and remarked on this, as is proper. It's not as if I were some paranoid nutcase(as Kyaa the Catford thinks) minutely trawling through several thousand edits to spot some minor quirk, and make a big fuss about it. The list I saw was very brief. And in the note I explicitly express my appreciation for your work.Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Re User:Ynhockey's Update of complaints against me I am not sure whether it is serious enough to respond to. I would appreciate guidance. I find corrections of misleading trivia extremely tiresome. If the clerk requests that I clarify, I shall certainly do so, as briefly as possible. If on the other hand Ynhockey's four diffs clarify the quality of his complaint without need of comment, then I will withhold replying to avoid needless bickering. Nishidani (talk) 13:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * To whom it may concern, since this barrel-scraping for evidence is now reaching levels of absurdity, I merely direct whoever feels obliged to check this effluvia, to Ynhockey's wild ruminations about me on User:G-Dett's page. I refuse to reply, for I assume people can follow the paper trail if so tempted. I can see no correspondence between these loose accusations ('many' immigrants to Israel magically changed to 'most olim' etc.etc.etc.etc.) he now makes against me, and my original remarks. Nishidani (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification from Jayjg
Since Jayjg hasn't been active on-wiki recently, I sent him an email to ask about some things that have been discussed here recently. He gave me permission to post his reply, which is:


 * "Coppertwig ... wrote,
 * "Jayjg:


 * "re the arbcom case, it would be helpful if you would answer these questions:


 * "(1) Do you consider "Israel" to be an ethnicity?


 * "If you mean "Israeli", of course it's an ethnicity. Aside from my own personal views on this, there is academic support for the idea: in particular, the work of Rina Cohen and Gerald Gold at Toronto's York University in the 1990s. Ephraim Nimni, at the time at Belfast's Queen's University, built on this in the 2000s.


 * "(2) When MeteorMaker said "outside Israel", did yo understand that this meant "written by non-Israelis", not "physically located in a place other than Israel"?


 * "Huh? "Outside Israel" means "outside Israel" - i.e., outside Israel. How could it possibly mean "written by non-Israelis"? Is that what MeteorMaker is now saying "outside Israel" means? "Written by non-Israelis"? If so, why didn't he say that, rather than "outside Israel"?"

☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig now presents a new e-mail from Jayjg as evidence for his hypothesis that misunderstandings are at the root of this dispute.

(1) Observations: MeteorMaker (talk) 00:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * In his accusations of "distasteful discrimination", Jayjg consistently uses the expression "alleged ethnicity or national origin" (emphasis mine). Jayjg now says that in the case of Israel, "ethnicity" and "national origin" are the same thing (though he might have misunderstood Coppertwig's question).
 * Jayjg fails to acknowledge that regardless of his definition of the term, I don't approve of being accused of attempting to "discriminate based on ethnicity" and ignores multiple admonishments to cease, calling them "meaningless".

(2) Jayjg says ''"Written by non-Israelis"? If so, why didn't he say that, rather than "outside Israel"?"'' Let's check the sources and see when the word "non-Israelis" entered the discussion:


 * "One - possible - non-Israeli remained on your list of supposed non-Israelis that have used the word "Judea" online, and she turned out to have a web site where she pleads for donations to the Jewish National Fund. [...] Even so, you have not found more than one possible instance of the word "Judea" on the Web that wasn't written by an Israeli, which I find telling. " MeteorMaker, 19 April 2008
 * "Your sources are sort of self-refuting, if you indeed set out to prove that the term "Judea" is widely used by anybody else than Israelis - as 9 out of 10 turned out to have been written by Israelis." MeteorMaker, 20 April 2008
 * "Having now seen the evidence put forward, it's difficult to not draw the conclusion that the number of instances of non-Israelis using the term "Judea" for the West Bank is vastly overrated by the term's proponents." MeteorMaker, 21 April 2008
 * "Note that even if you had managed to dig up even a hundred bona fide examples of non-Israelis using the term "Judea", (and so far, you haven't presented even one that has held up to scrutiny), that would merely constitute anecdotal evidence." MeteorMaker, 9 May 2008 (All quotes taken from this 12-month-old section):
 * "Of your two examples, that were intended to show that many non-Israelis use the term "Samaria" for the modern West Bank, one is written by an Israeli, and the second is about historic Samaria" MeteorMaker 3 November 2008
 * "For the third time, Defense Update is a U.K. publication, owned and edited by a former IDF officer. If he chooses to publish abroad, that does not make him a non-Israeli." MeteorMaker, 4 November 2008
 * "Of Jayjg's ten examples, all except one have been shown to be written by Israelis [...] "Samaria" is used exclusively by Israelis: 10 cases. "Samaria" is used by others than Israelis: 0 cases." MeteorMaker, 4 November 2008
 * "If you haven't attempted to prove anything, why did you post 11 links to alleged examples of non-Israelis using the term "Samaria" for the modern West Bank?" MeteorMaker, 7 November 2008
 * "Now, where are your sources that say "Samaria" is still used for the modern West Bank, and that others than Israelis use the combined term Judea and Samaria to refer to it?" MeteorMaker, 12 November 2008
 * "Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term." MeteorMaker, 5 December 2008
 * "[...] when you're trying to prove that non-Israelis use a particular term." MeteorMaker, 26 December 2008

Now, the crucial question: did Jayjg understand that valid examples of outside-Israel use need to be "written by non-Israelis", not just "physically located in a place other than Israel"?
 * "Britannica nowhere claims that [...] the term "Samaria" is only used in Israel, or by Israelis, or only understood by Israelis, or any of the other theories you have invented." Jayjg, 13 November 2008
 * "Utter nonsense. The sources are all non-Israelis who use the term to mean the Samaria, no more no less." Jayjg, 16 November 2008 []
 * "Find sources that actually discuss the "toponym" "Samaria", and say that it is not modern, or only understood in Israel, or only used by Israelis, or whatever else you have invented." Jayjg, 13 November 2008
 * "feel free to reread the discussion above, where I've produced several sources, used by non-Israelies, only to have MM complain that one such non-Israeli collected funds for the JNF, and was thus tainted [...]" Jayjg, 3 February 2009
 * ""[MeteorMaker] has been presented with multiple English language sources that use the term and thus refute his theory, but has rejected them on various grounds, claiming that they are referring to the biblical Samaria, or that the sources are Israeli. Now, to begin with, there is nothing wrong with a source simply because the person happens to have been born in Israel. I repeat, there is nothing wrong with a source simply because the person happens to have been born in Israel. [...] However, even if you exclude people born in Israel (not that there is any reason to), your claims still fail, as the multiple sources below show". Jayjg, 4 November 2008 (Ironically, it was when 14 of these examples were found to be by people born in Israel that Jayjg's allegations of "distasteful ethnic discrimination" begun.)
 * "None of the sources in the second list, your list, discuss the usage of terminology; they don't say things like "the term Samaria is used only in Israel" or "Samaria is a historical term, used today only by Israelis, Zionists, or people who belonged to Zionist organizations in their youth". Jayjg, 28 December 2008 . Interestingly, when in response to this comment by Jayjg a source was posted that fulfilled all his criteria (stating "Israelis often refer to the northern West Bank region by its biblical name of Samaria"), he responded with: "Wow! You've actually found one source that discusses the use of the term! Bravo. Admittedly, its quite brief, and just a news-channel, but still, infinitely better than the reams of anecdotal evidence you provided before. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't actually support any of your theories, since it doesn't discuss the use of the term outside Israel, or how well the "toponym" is understood there."

Conclusion: Contrary to his claim in the email to Coppertwig above, Jayjg understood that "[Samaria is] used only by Israelis" was my position. Nevertheless, only one post later, he switches foot and dismisses a source that confirms that position 100%, by improvising a strawman, where "outside Israel" (which he silently misconstrues further to mean "physically located outside Israel") becomes the criterion, then characteristically leaves the discussion. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig too apparently understood the concept at the time: MeteorMaker (talk) 01:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "If Jayjg is proposing to add to the article a sentence like "The term "Samaria" is often used by non-Israelis", then WP:SYNTH is relevant. But if Jayjg is arguing on the talk page that Samaria is often used by non-Israelis, as an argument for putting something else (e.g. just "Samaria") into the article, then I don't see the relevance of WP:SYNTH." Coppertwig, 7 November 2008

don't know if this is the right place
i followed his edit, but I'm trying to npov an article called Jerusalem light rail and user meteormaker has been really disruptive there. If this is about his conduct here on wikipeida something shall be done to stop it I believe. 216.165.95.70 (talk) 22:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This is the discussion Mr Anon is talking about. You be the judge who's being disruptive. MeteorMaker (talk) 02:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a feeling here that Mr. Meteormaker is always ok and everyone around him is disruptive and to be blamed, right? I know the type :) Other editors of the article commented on what was going on... and yes, you can clearly see who was warring with me simply for a small neutralizing thing... I was shocked. and I think edit fighting (i know in other wikipedia language platforms) or how it's called is not allowed, especially for experienced users who are bound to some ethical guidelines I suppose... I for one not surprised that meteormaker is up for some serious misconduct here if i understand. 216.165.95.70 (talk) 10:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I've read through here a little, and it seems amazing. Meteormaker is trying to erase the terms judea and samaria out of wikipedia?? this is what's going on here? These are distinct georgraphic areas... how does he explain the fact that these areas are also part of Israel proper like he called it.... if you can read hebrew you can see here, for example Beit Shemesh is in Israel proper and in judea. was this ever explained? sorry if it's in the wrong place. 216.165.95.70 (talk) 10:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not in fact the the right place to argue about this. You may want to read up on dispute resolution and Arbitration before continuing here.--Tznkai (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Level of JayJG's contribution to the project (the FAs)
JayJG's FAs have been touted as showing his general contribution to the project. However they have been extremely questionable content (individual congregations). When there are so many big topics, even within only Jewish areas), that are not at FA, seeing JayJG work up these minutia into FAs, does not impress me. Makes me wonder if he is just trying to get FAs like notches on a belt, rather than helping the encyclopedia.  I almost even wonder if he is advertising.

Why not get Dead Sea Scrolls, Masada, David, Passover up to FA? Surely that helps the project more than random synagogues? Hand to heart, I picked 4 major interest Jew themes and not a single one was FA. Those were the first 4 I picked! I've picked some before and not come up with an FA. I'm sure there are some wide interest Jewish topics that are FA/GA, but they are HARD TO FIND!

At a minimum, JayJG's accomplishments are less than what is touted (given the subjects' lack of importance to readers). At a maximum, JayJG is deliberately gaming the system to promote himself or the congregations.


 * That is a very unfair comment. There is no 'extremely questionable content' in Jayjg's FAs. They show that he is more than capable of excellent work, but so far, only in a non-conflicted article dealing with his own community or culture. Nothing should blind one to this, antipathy, disagreements with him in the I/P area, or whatever. The articles are a credit to Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 09:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

P.s. The Meteor guy sounds even worse. But at least no one is making this to do about what a contributor he is...

69.255.3.246 (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Anon, this is a simple personal attack and we can't have that. The Squicks (talk) 20:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)