Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:26, 13 August 2007

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Evidence presented by ChrisO

Narrow responsibility for articles

1) The development of the "allegations" articles has been dominated by a small number of editors, a significant number of whom are actively involved in editing Allegations of Israeli apartheid or its talk page. (The names of the article creators are bolded.)

• Allegations of American apartheid - 22% of edits by Mackan79, 19.5% by Urthogie.
• Allegations of Australian apartheid - 47% of edits by Urthogie, 26% by Ashley Y
• Allegations of Brazilian apartheid - 48% of edits by Jayjg, 8% by Lothar of the Hill People, 6% by Urthogie
• Allegations of Chinese apartheid - 31.5% of edits by Jossi, 20% by Jayjg, 12.5% by Urthogie, 6% by Ideogram
• Allegations of French apartheid - 39.5% by Jayjg, 16.5% by Cerejota, 12% by NicDumZ, 7% by Lothar of the Hill People, 4% by Urthogie
• Allegations of Islamic apartheid - 55% of edits by Urthogie, 7% by Sefringle, 9% by Mackan79
• Allegations of Jordanian apartheid - 30% of edits by Cerejota, 25% by Chesdovi, 15% by Bleh999
• Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid - 39% of edits by ChrisO, 19% by Urthogie, 8% by Cordless Larry, 8% by Victor falk, 6.5% by Cerejota, 3% by Theo F
• Allegations of Puerto Rican apartheid - 42% of edits by Cerejota, 35% of edits by Bleh999, 15% by Urthogie, 7% by Victor falk
• Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid - 22.5% of edits by Jayjg, 19% by Bless sins, 10% by Lothar of the Hill People, 9% by Victor falk, 8% by Bigglove, 4.5% by Urthogie

Urthogie is the editor most heavily involved (in 7 of 10 of these articles), reflecting his role as the principal creator of the series. Jayjg has the largest number of edits, reflecting his leading role in developing these articles (though he only created one of them). Individual articles have had substantial involvement from editors native to the countries under discussion (Ideogram - China, NicDumZ - France, ChrisO (myself) - Northern Ireland/UK, Cerejota - Puerto Rico). Some of these editors (notably Cerejota) have gone on to play significant roles in the development of the other articles after becoming aware of the wider controversy.

Sefringle's statements

2) Sefringle nominated Allegations of Israeli apartheid for its sixth and most recent AfD and has participated in the AfDs on the French and Jordanian apartheid articles, voting to keep both. In discussing why the other "allegations of apartheid" articles had been created, he stated:

"You clearly don't understand why we created other apartheid articles. All allegations of apartheid articles are meant to antagonize people of that culture; the Israel one included. They are all POV forks. Their existance on wikipedia is proof that WP:NPOV does not apply to article titles or afd's. Since these articles cannot be balanced on their own, the only way to balance them is to create similar articles about other countries, thus making the attack page have less effect since country X isn't the only one being alleged of being an apartheid state. There is nothing encyclopediac about accusing somebody or some culture/country/religion of apartheid. It is all an attempt to push a POV."

Similarly, in voting to keep Allegations of French apartheid he stated:

"either keep this one or delete them all per Humus Sapians. These is an obvious POV fork. It is very POV to have articles accusing some countries of apartheid while not allowing a similar attacks against others. Allegations of apartheid is an attack against that country, and cannot be written in a neutral manner. The closest thing we can do to make it neutral is allow the allegations against every country. This is the only way to balance it out."

Sefringle's statement in this RFAr should also be read in its entirety, as it specifically places this dispute in the context of "the zionists and supporters of Israel" battling "the anti-zionists". -- ChrisO 07:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Diametrically-opposed positions and non-policy-based block voting

3) A number of Israel-focused editors have been involved in many of the AfDs on "allegations of apartheid" articles. Notably, they have systematically voted to keep them while voting to delete the older article Allegations of Israeli apartheid (AoIa). They have often based their opposition to AoIa on general principles which they have then set aside for the other articles. The rationales have invariably been non-policy-based, usually citing the "all or nothing" principle invoked by Sefringle - which has no basis in policy - to tie the other articles' fate to that of AoIa. The following examples illustrate this pattern of behaviour and the block voting dynamic that has been apparent in these AfDs:

• 6SJ7

• Armon

• Humus sapiens

• IronDuke

• Jayjg

• Jossi

• Leifern

• Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

• Sefringle

• Shamir1

• Tewfik

• Tickle me

Evidence presented by NicDumZ

All or nothing arguments to avoid any treatment on the French article

Some editors tried to move the article without any consensus, the article got protected. From that time, every proposal I would do got "all or nothing" answers ("if you act on the French article, you should act the same on the other articles; If you don't want to act on others, then I will oppose your edits") from Israeli-focused editors, as ChrisO named them :

• Discussing about moving the article :
  • Jayjg] :
  • 6SJ7 :
  • Humus sapiens :
• When trying to merge it into Social situation in the French suburbs :
  • 6SJ7 :
  • Urthogie : Please notice that this vote on the French article is copied from the one on the Saudi Arabian article :
  • Jossi : &

"I created several allegations articles so that Misplaced Pages could be more NPOV"

Urthogie : (He logged in and signed his comment 20 minutes later : )

Evidence presented by Picaroon

IronDuke has been incivil

IronDuke (talk · contribs) has made incivil comments in relation to the allegations of apartheid articles and the users involved with them. Examples: suggesting antisemitism (via "filthy Jew" reference) on the part of people he is in disagreement with, accusing keep voters of being anti-Israel, accusing CJCurrie of assuming bad faith

Picaroon (t) 05:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's more flabbergasting: that I have been accused of incivility where a brief glance would reveal that not to be the case, or that it's been done by an editor I have never, to my knowledge, encountered before, who has never made any attempt to warn me of my allegedly uncivil behavior, and who has actual uncivil remarks of his own to answer for.

I feel that a reply ought to be unnecessary, since one only has to click on the diffs provided by Picaroon to see that they do not match his interpretation of them. Also, this was not a proceeding I wished to be a party to, and would have happily ignored it but as it appears there's no opt-out clause, I will reply.

The first of Picaroon's diffs refers to a point I have made many times, which is that AoIa is similar to "filthy Jew" in that is an epithet meant to smear a specific ethnicity. Nowhere do I suggest or imply, as Picaroon erroneously claims, that any editors (other than the banned ones) who support AoIa are antisemites. It is perfectly possible to agree with me that AoIa smacks of antisemitism, but disagree with me and say WP needs an article on it anyway. My reasoning may be off (though I don't think it is), but to claim that a general comment like that is somehow "uncivil" is just odd.

The second diff is even more of a reach: . I suggested that while it was possible that some supporters of the article had an axe to grind with regards to Israel, that did not nullify their concerns. There isn't even a whisper of incivility there.

The third diff is also, if I say so myself, entirely polite. I did point out that CJCurrie had supported an antisemitic sock puppeteer Kiyosaki, but made it clear that 1) he more than likely wasn't aware that he'd thanked an antisemite for giving him a barnstar and 2) his arguments should be given a fair hearing. See here:

I actually pride myself on remaining civil to editors with whom I disagree on this issue. I'd point, as evidence of this, to the remarks of Xoloz who closed the Chinese apartheid DRV. He had this to say regarding my conduct. . "A few editors below -- IronDuke, Avi, JoshuaZ -- make calm and reasonable arguments for reconsideration." These allegations are so manifestly false, I cannot begin to fathom what caused this editor to make them. IronDuke 22:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sefringle has been incivil and assumed bad faith

Sefringle made an incivil statement, in which he assumed bad faith, at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid (diff). Select excerpts include "here are clearly many editors on wikipedia who hate Israel", "will only agree to what is forced upon them", "his article is liked because many wikipedians (the ones who voted keep the Israel one, delete the others in the allegations of apartheid afds) hate Israel", "t is an attack page against Israel, and it was created by anti-zionists to inflame us", and "Israel haters saw that, and want to keep the article bias".

Picaroon (t) 05:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Jossi

Edit-warring by Ideogram on Allegations of Chinese apartheid despite 1RR parole

RE: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram#Ideogram_placed_on_revert_parole

• August 4 11:23, 1st revert by Ideogram, here
• August 4 14:01, second revert by Ideogram here
• August 4 14:16, third revert by Ideogram here

In addition:

• August 4 17:19 - My edit diff
  • reverted by deletion of lead by Ideogram on Aug 5, 9:22 with edit summary Remove lead not supported by any sources diff
• I added sources to the lead as requested on Aug 5, 12:36 here
  • ...which was reverted a few minutes later by Ideogram here

After being reminded of his 1RR parole, Ideogram desisted from reverting.

Ideogram has been uncivil and assumed bad faith

• Ideogram used abusive language, diff (which he later refactored diff after being asked to do so by Nandesuka diff)
• Ideogram assumed bad faith throughout my research and editing of that article. See Talk:Allegations_of_Chinese_apartheid#Lead.

Ideogram offered an apology for his abusive language, which I accepted in good faith. But this behavior only shows what a problem these type of "allegation of XXX" articles are and how heated discussions can get. 16:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

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