• • Please keep this discussion in the realm of general principles about how to move forward, rather than resorting to personal comments and attacks. JDoorjam Talk 18:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree with Doorjam. Zeq 01:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe this is a viable principle. Activists may well bring a level of knowledge of an issue that non-activists don't have, and we should always welcome input from experts. As Kim says, what really matters is whether you follow the NPOV rules or not. -- ChrisO 22:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wheelwarring

14a) Wheelwarring, reverts by administrators, often using powers reserved to them, is unacceptable whatever the excuse. Wheelwarring will be severely sanctioned. Administrators who habitually engage in wheelwarring will be desysopped.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose (see under 14b for detailed comments). I should also point out that the proposal is imprecisely worded, as the definition of wheelwarring ("reverts by administrators") would actually prohibit administrators from reverting anything. I'm pretty sure this isn't what Fred has in mind, but it's what the proposal says. -- ChrisO 22:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Wheelwarring (alternative)

14b) Administrators are given special powers for maintenance tasks such as deleting and moving pages and vandalism fighting such as blocking of disruptive editors. They should not use these powers to win content disputes, but can use them to undo disruption by editors and admins alike. Administrators who habitually misuse their sysop powers will be desysopped.

Comment by Arbitrators:

An administrator undoing the "disruption" done by another administrator is called wheelwarring and is not acceptable. Fred Bauder 00:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

We really do want to ban the reversion of administrative actions. There is no class of always right super administrators. Fred Bauder 00:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed -- Kim van der Linde 18:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The proposal of Fred Bauder effectively makes it impossible to undo sysop misuse in content disputes, and facilitates the misusage of those powers, because to get a unilateral, not consensus based and controversial move undone, the effort to get it undone is a multitude of the misuse in the first place. This can effectively be used by regular editors by moving a page, do a null edit on the newly created redirect page after which sysop power are required to move the page back, which then becomes misuse by the description of Fred Bauder. As such, distinctions between misuse and undoing misuse needs to be made. -- Kim van der Linde 18:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Kim. Fred's proposal is a bad idea, as it's very inequitable for two reasons. First, it effectively creates two tiers of misuse of privileges, to be treated in two different ways: it would mean that reverting non-admin actions is permitted within the limits set by the 3RR, but reverting admin actions for any reason at all even once is not permitted, even if there is a reasonable belief that the action being reverted is a misuse of privileges. Second, it effectively sets admins apart as a privileged class of users whose actions cannot be reverted by other administrators. This would be a decisive break from the policy set out in Misplaced Pages:Administrators: "From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community, but should be a part of the community like anyone else only equipped with a few more tools to do some chores that would potentially be harmful if everyone were entrusted with them." -- ChrisO 22:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

ChrisO and KimvdLinde, it is this attitude that caused the dispute to become highly disruptive. Getting parties to temporarily stop worrying about The Wrong Version of the article is a must in order for meaningful conflict resolution to occur. Your insistence that the article must be returned to a certain version is a problem. I hope that you will come to understand this idea otherwise I think that you have real problems ahead. FloNight 23:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you misunderstand my argument. I'm not talking about reverting versions, I'm referring to the much bigger question of whether we really want to ban the reversion of administrative actions in all circumstances. The only remedy in the event of a gross abuse of admin powers is for another administrator to override the first admin's actions. Under Fred's original proposal, any use of admin powers to revert another admin's actions for any reason at all is defined as unacceptable wheel warring and prohibited. No misuse of admin powers could be reverted even in absolutely indisputable circumstances (e.g. gross vandalism). Not even the ArbCom would be able to act, as Fred's proposal doesn't carve out any exemptions (reverting is "unacceptable whatever the excuse", in his words). I'm sure Fred doesn't have self-emasculation in mind, but that's what his proposal calls for. -- ChrisO 00:05, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Chris, which "admin powers" did I "abuse" when I moved the page back to Allegations of Israeli apartheid? Jayjg 00:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg, I'm not referring to anything you might have done and I'm sorry that you've interpreted it that way. My comments here are related only to Fred's proposal at 14a and the abstract point of principle that it raises, not to any specific events in this case. As I've pointed out, if Fred's proposal is adopted it would ban all of us, administrators and arbitrators alike, from reverting any administrative action for any reason at all. This simply isn't practical or desirable. I hope you would agree with that point. -- ChrisO 00:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh good; so you don't think I "abused" my "admin powers" when I moved the page? I certainly didn't use any admin powers to move it. BTW, Fred's proposals would mean that you couldn't even revert an edit made by another admin. Jayjg 00:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:AGF

15) Assume that others intended to follow the policies and guidelines of Misplaced Pages participation, unless there is clear and present evidence to the contrary.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes, Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith is policy. Fred Bauder 00:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 20:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. I believe that all the participants in this case (and I have to include myself in these comments) acted in good faith to uphold Misplaced Pages policies. I acted to uphold WP:CON but may have overridden WP:WHEEL in the process; Humus, SlimVirgin and Jayjg have stated that they acted to uphold WP:NPOV, but in doing so overrode both WP:WHEEL and WP:CON. We perhaps went about upholding these policies in the wrong way (that'll be for the Committee to judge) but I believe the evidence shows that all four of us acted to defend what we felt were the best interests of Misplaced Pages. -- ChrisO 22:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is indeed the key to resolving this crisis. We must assume Good faith and examine all the actions that lead to this edit-war at the end of the 2-months crisis. We need to see which editors have acted in Good Faith throuout this Crisis (Humus Sapeines is a clear example for that) and who may have violated it by weasled out at the last moment to escape examination of his/her deeds that caused the crisis. Zeq 04:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Good question. In General we must assume Good faith. We should identify those editors who continusly acted without it througout this crisis.

Clearly Humus sapiens acted in Good faith when he belived that all the various polls can not result in consensus and a bold action is needed to bring the crisis closer to resolution. Zeq 04:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• clearly, "some editors" have acted w/o good faith - otherwise we wound not be where we are.
• For example, any editor who uses sockpuppets, is not acting in good faith.
• Since sockpuppets have been used in this conflict user:Sonofzion which was active especially during the 48 hours when one of the editors deeply involved in this crisis was blocked for violations of 3RR (as part of the edit war in this crisis).
• The identity of user:Sonofzion and other sockppupets (some from your geographical area) must be idenitified so that Good Faith sould be detrmined. Zeq 05:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• "clearly, "some editors" have acted w/o good faith - otherwise we wound not be where we are." This statement is not consistent with AGF. Homey 05:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Quotes from WP:AGF:

"This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, sockpuppetry and edit warring.

• Intersting (maybe even bizzare) diff: Zeq 06:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hardly, the user was not a sockpuppet since there is no concurrence in IP addresses as is clear from when the alleged sockpuppet had posted without logging in - the block was improper and the individual who claimed the user was a sockpuppet did so after the sockpuppet opened an RFC against him. The alleged sockpuppeteer was not informed before or after the action which makes the banning even more suspect. Homey 14:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"The identity of user:Sonofzion and other sockppupets (some from your geographical area) must be idenitified so that Good Faith sould be detrmined." You are implying that I have been using sockpuppets - this is false and I have lost track of the number of specious sockpuppet allegations you have wrongly made against me and others, none of which have been borne out. Toronto is Canada's largest metropolis and has one of the largest population of Jews, Israelis and Arabs outside of the Middle East. Canadians are also, per capita, heavier internet users than even Americans. That there are several users from the Greater Toronto Area who edit on Middle Eastern topics is to be expected. When there is no concurrence in IP addresses there can be no assumption that someone is a sockpuppet just because they are posting from the same large metropolis as someone else on a topic of interest to many many people in that city. Homey 15:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• An Admin blocked user:Sonofzion and now you have unblocked him: - it seems you are barking up the wrong tree(I did not block him).
• As an admin you are expcted to talk to the admin who took the inital action instead of engaging in wheelwarring. Zeq 15:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Lifting a ban after three weeks is hardly "wheel warring". You are grasping at straws. But I will leave a post on the banning admin's talk page and if he reimposes the ban I will not reverse it so no, there is and will be no wheel war. Homey 15:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

For the record, a check of Sonofzion's history shows no edits were made to Israeli apartheid or Talk:Israeli apartheid. The sockpuppet allegation is outside the purview of this RFA. Homey 19:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Administrators may make mistakes

16) Administrators are expected to pursue their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with this: administrators are not expected to be perfect. Consistently or egregiously poor judgement may result in removal (temporary or otherwise) of admin status.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Wheelwarring is unacceptable. Fred Bauder 00:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that wheelwarring is an offence of such heinousness that the explanation of "good faith mistake" (as opposed to, say, "malicious action") isn't available. Could you make it clear whether or not you consider motivation to be irrelevant? -- ChrisO 00:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Interpreting policy isn't a precise science; people can and do make mistakes in good faith, as the Pedophilia userbox wheel war decision recognised. -- ChrisO 22:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. -- Kim van der Linde 04:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'll declare an open interest to support this one. David | Talk 22:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Banning practices

17) It is not an accepted practice to ban users from editing Misplaced Pages unless they are actively disrupting, endangering, or otherwise harming the project. Where enacted, bans should be consistent with the severity of the offence.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Exactly, wheelwarring seriously endangers the project. Fred Bauder 03:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- ChrisO 00:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Fred says: "wheelwarring seriously endangers the project" which shows that he might have forgotten what this project is all about. Read WP:Not Fred, this is not an expriment in democarcy or anything else.

• This is an encyclopedia, and what will bring it down is not few admins fighting but the fact that there are those who are able to manipulate the content of "this project".
• banning people is not a way to achive (one sided) consensus. It is time Fred stop "showing off" his power as arbitor and look at the core content problem of this issue - find ways to solve it if you really care "about this project". Zeq 21:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Administrators vs. disruption

18) One aspect of the responsibilities of an Administrator is to attempt to prevent disruption to the Misplaced Pages site and its users.

Comment by Arbitrators:

It is not the job of one administrator to police another by engaging in wheelwarring. Fred Bauder 03:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -- ChrisO 07:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed, as per precedent (Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy/Past decisions#Administrators). This necessarily applies to all user actions, not merely those of non-administrators. Admins are not immune from basic user conduct policies. -- ChrisO 01:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Tag team (or factional) editing

19) Tag-team editing in which a group of allied editors habitually work together in order to try to win content wars by trading off reverts in order to avoid a technical violation of 3RR and an abuse and is strongly discouraged.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Biased editing is the issue, not cooperation. Fred Bauder 13:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

ProposedHomey 11:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is when editors work as a faction to gain advantage in a content dispute, push a POV and engage in revert warring. Homey 13:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Tag team (or factional) admin abuse

20) Tag team admin abuse involves a group of editors who habitually edit together, particularly in a specific topic area, in which one or more of the group holds back from editing a particular article so that he or she can intervene at an opportune moment in order to use an admin permission such as protecting or banning in order that the group as a whole gains advantage in a content war. Such behaviour is against the principles of wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

This does happen. The problem, however, is point of view editing, not covert cooperation. Fred Bauder 13:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

ProposedHomey 11:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Template

1) {text of proposed principle}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Creation of article

1) Israeli apartheid was created May 29, 2006 by Homeontherange (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) . After expansion and elaboration its neutrality was challenged late that day by Humus_sapiens (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who inserted Template:POV and initiated discussion on the talk page . Homeontherange then added a section critical of the concept and removed the POV tag and . Strothra (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) requested Peer review . 6SJ7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) adds many tags Template:TotallyDisputed. Template:Unencyclopedic and Template:POV-title . Moshe_Constantine_Hassan_Al-Silverburg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) reinserts Template:Unencyclopedic .

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 23:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a good faith effort at NPOV and Fred Bauder 19:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

On the same day 17:52, 28 May 2006, Homey created Apartheid (disambiguation), promoting this "term used by some left-wing critics of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians." ←Humus sapiens 01:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages are utilities, not promotional tools, particularly when they are not the primary page but have (disambiguation) in parentheses. That page survived an AFD and it also survived scrutiny by User:Natalya, a netural editor who is an expert in disambiguation policy. The description you quote is also quite neutral.Homey 02:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Pecher 19:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Article names policy

2) Article names are addressed at Misplaced Pages:NPOV_tutorial#Article_names, Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions, and Misplaced Pages:Naming conflict.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Seems to be more under "policy" than "fact". — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Arthur Rubin. Pecher 19:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

POV implications of "Israeli apartheid"

3) The article title "Israeli apartheid" carries point of view implications which associate Israel with the apartheid practices of South Africa. It is also an allegation of the newly defined Crime of apartheid, which has been characterized as a "crime against humanity" by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

As far as I am concerned, this is a content interpretation. See scholary articles/books using the comparison:

• Delvoie, L. A. 2002. Palestine/Israel - Peace or apartheid. International Journal 57:318-320
• Glaser, D. J. 2003. Zionism and Apartheid: a moral comparison. Ethnic and Racial Studies 26:403-421.
• Roy, S. M. 1993. Joyless in Gaza - Apartheid, Israeli-Style. Nation 257:136-139.
• Yiftachel, O. 2001. From “peace” to creeping apartheid: The emerging political geography of Israel/Palestine. Arena 16(3):13–24.
• Oren Yiftachel, Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben Gurion University of the Desert, Neither two states nor one: The Disengagement and "creeping apartheid" in Israel/Palestine in The Arab World Geographer/Le Géographe du monde arabe 8, no 3 (2005)
• GREENBERG, STANLEY 1980 Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in Comparative Perspective. Ravan Press, Johannesburg
• AKENSON, DONALD HARMAN 1992 God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London

-- Kim van der Linde 15:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: None of Kim's sources actually use the phrase "Israeli apartheid", but rather allege that Israeli policies are apartheid-like. This rather weakens her claim that there is a "standard name" for this, which the article should use. Jayjg 22:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but they explicitly link Israel with apartheid, which goes beyond allegations. I would not have a problem with Israel and Apartheid which would take the issue of whether that name exists away, but also prevents the normative Allegations of Israeli apartheid. -- Kim van der Linde 23:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Crime of apartheid is not new -- it dates to 1976 UN GA ruling, although its adoption by the ICC, via the Rome Statute, is recent, primarily because the ICC and the Rome Statute are recent developments. --Ben Houston 17:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The acts constituting apartheid were always a crime against humanity due to their nature. Its formal definition in a court empowered (by those who agree to jurisdiction) to prosecute violations is new. Fred Bauder 17:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The original UN GA convention did allow for the prosecution -- here is the original . Article V states "Persons charged with the acts enumerated in article II of the present Convention may be tried by a competent tribunal of any State Party to the Convention which may acquire jurisdiction over the person of the accused or by an international penal tribunal having jurisdiction with respect to those States Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction."

Also, it is important to note that initial claims that Israel was apartheid (such as by Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of SA apartheid, in 1961) were made prior to the creation of the crime of apartheid (which was 1976.) Also this article was created prior to most involved parties knowledge that there was a crime of apartheid (I can find comments to this effect -- it was why I created the crime of apartheid article) -- thus implying Israel was committing the crime of apartheid was not their original intent in creating or titling the article. --Ben Houston 17:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It certainly does have POV implications, but so do many other terms used as article titles (e.g. Republic of Macedonia, Sea of Japan ,Islamofascism, pro-life and more). This does not automatically disqualify it from use or require a qualifying adjective. See my comments above under #WP:TITLE 5a and 5b. -- ChrisO 20:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"Republic of Macedonia" is a name for a place. "Islamofascism" and "pro-life" are well-established terms. "Apartheid" is an allegation about discriminatory practices. They are not comparable. Jayjg 22:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"Islamofascism" is an allegation about a link between Islam and fascism; "pro-life" is a politically loaded way of framing a particular political issue. (I note that the Framing (communication theory) even cites "pro-life" and "pro-choice" as examples.) "Israeli apartheid" is both an allegation and a way of framing an issue. I agree with Fred's proposed finding, but I think that it's important to note that this article isn't a unique example of the phenomenon. Ideally, I would like to see the Committee provide a ruling that can be applied consistently to other such examples. -- ChrisO 22:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this proposal by Fred. This is the very reason why the reaction to this article and title was so strong and immediate. 6SJ7 00:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Term over description

4) If a single term is available for the title, this is preferred over an descriptive title. -- Kim van der Linde 15:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a principle, not a finding of fact, my mistake.-- Kim van der Linde 15:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Misplaced Pages is not a platform for propaganda. Fred Bauder 17:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I am glad we agree. -- Kim van der Linde 17:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Lets see if we can get this clear. If terms can be replaced by descriptions, this will make it possible to replace many many titles to longer desciptive titles, and would generate a lot of additional discussion. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, and does not make value statements about titles. As such, the most common name should be used and descriptions should only be used when there is not a single term available. -- Kim van der Linde 15:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no single term for this allegation, which is why so many of the sources used in the article do not use the term "Israeli apartheid". Jayjg 22:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The large majority (if not all) of the supporting articles do use the term "apartheid" to describe policies of Israel -- it was the intent to keep the sources used on topic. --Ben Houston 13:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Propaganda warfare

5) Nations (or other entities) and their supporters which are engaged in conflict attempt to use information as a weapon. This includes attempts to frame a conflict in terms favorable to one side or another. For example, one side may always refer to resistance by the other side as "terror", while the other side may view the conflict as "invasion" or "occupation".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Agree - this is self-evident. For the record, we have many articles with titles which use terms in this way - e.g. Islamofascism, pro-life, pro-choice and so on. Framing (communication theory) is a good primer on this. -- ChrisO 22:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

We also have an article named Zionist Occupation Government - the phrase is reprehensible, propagandistic, anti-Semitic and completely unacceptable and I find it quite offensive on every level, yet it is the name of the article because it is a phrase used by a (narrow) segment of society. Our task at Misplaced Pages is to ensure that the contents of the article are NPOV but this does not mean changing the name of the article in an attempt to neutralize an offensive phrase.Homey 22:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make it right. I would support retitling Zionist Occupation Government into Zionist Occupation Government (phrase) and Islamofascism into Islamofascism (epithet) or other NPOV titles.

In this particular case, propaganda warfare was aggravated by 1) the initial POV title Israeli apartheid, 2) its proliferation as a link into disambigs and other articles, 3) stalling its NPOVification for weeks by intransigence. ←Humus sapiens 00:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Either of those changes would be unencyclopedic. The fact remains our practice is to NPOV the content of the articles rather than adding qualifiers to the title.Homey 00:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I really don't see how that line of reasoning makes sense, I believe that it is obviously unencyclopedic to leave the articles as they are. At least if we add the qualifier we make it clear that it is not indisputable fact.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

So, American imperialism becomes Allegations of American imperialism, Evil Empire becomes Allegations of Evil Empire, New anti-Semitism becomes Allegations of New anti-Semitism, Great Purge becomes Allegations of Great Purge etc. I see our "A" section is going to get a whole lot bigger. Homey 01:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be remembered that "Allegations of..." was a compromise. I think a better compromise would have been better to keep (phrase} after the title. As I explained on the article's talk page several weeks ago and will soon explain on this page, there is no Misplaced Pages policy that prohibits that, despite the efforts of some to make their own policies as it suits them. I would not have any problem if each of the above titles had (phrase) after them, or if the titles were in quotation marks. And as I also said on the talk page weeks ago, "Islamofascism" definitely should have a "qualifier" in the title, if it exists at all. What I don't believe is that one bad title deserves another. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a propaganda outlet and not a compendium of name-calling. 6SJ7 01:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Should we contact Webster's and the OED and try to convince them to add (epithet) and (phrase) to entry titles as well as to the definitions themselves since, by your argument, simply listing an offensive term without adding a qualifier to the title implies bias.Homey 01:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Homey, as far as I am concerned you can do whatever you want outside of Misplaced Pages. As for what my argument is, I get to say what my argument is, not you. 6SJ7 01:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time for a comprehensive policy/guideline consistent with NPOV. In one case, Soviet Canuckistan is a mere redirect, while in other, Israeli apartheid is being promoted, proliferated and warded as if propaganda warfare is our new policy. ←Humus sapiens 01:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

If there was any additional information on "Soviet Canuckistan" other than it being an epithet used once by Pat Buchanan an article may be warranted. It's not comparable as it is. Homey 01:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Note by Nagle (talk · contribs): One reason we're having so much trouble with this article is that both sides have active lobbying organizations pushing their point of view. Players include AAPER, AIPAC, BICOM, CAMERA, Engage, Honest Reporting, IsraeliActivism.com, Palestine Monitor, and many others. All putting out materials and trying to control the debate. There's even a training course in POV-pushing. With all that activism, writing a neutral article is difficult. Especially since it's an explicit strategy of both sides to complain loudly about anything published that doesn't favor their side. Both sides maintain "media watch" operations.

It's a tough test for Misplaced Pages. But one that can be met. We may have articles that are footnoted to death, and we may have to ban some editors for excessive POV-pushing, but it's not impossible to get a readable article out of this. And that's our job here. --John Nagle 02:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My response is in the threaded comments above. I agree with the proposed principle. I also believe that when phrases that are being used as a propaganda weapon but become so notable that they are deemed worthy of an article, the title should contain some qualifier. Examples are discussed above. My specific comment on the talk page regarding "Islamofascism", made more than a month ago, is here. 6SJ7 00:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Israeli apartheid as reframing

6) Reframing the Arab-Israeli conflict as apartheid casts Israel in a bad light, associating it on one hand with the racist apartheid regime of South Africa and on the other with the crime of apartheid. In addition, by implication, it advances the contention that only an integrated multi-ethnic state offers a fair resolution of the conflict .

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Content, and opinion. Not based on WP:RS. Based on some reliable sources, however, other hold different opinions. -- Kim van der Linde 18:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC) Updated. -- Kim van der Linde 19:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of SA apartheid, in 1961 referred to Israel as an apartheid state. He was an individual supportive of apartheid and thus his usage, which one was of the first, was not reframing but rather genuine belief. I would counter that claims of Israeli apartheid are reframing is itself a reframing of the situation. Second, just because there are similarities between the current situation does not mean that one support a similar outcome -- thus saying that it implicitly advances support for a multi-ethnic binational solution is a leap of logic in my opinion. --Ben Houston 18:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A finding of fact is not a Misplaced Pages article. Fred Bauder 18:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I merely pointed out that the term "reframing" here is not appropriate. Also I notice that you use above the term "Arab-Israeli" conflict -- which is too general, the allegations of apartheid are primarily in reference to the Palestinians and usually specific to the occupied territories -- thus "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict would be most appropriate. --Ben Houston 18:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The other side of that is that reframing "Israeli Apartheid" as "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid" reframes the topic as being about commentary, rather than implementation. An article titled "Israeli Apartheid" might focus on identity cards, residency requirements, land ownership, travel restrictions, security issues, and the wall/fence/barrier. Titled "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid", the article gravitates towards press coverage and political statements. The title does, to some extent, drive the article. --John Nagle 18:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. Fred Bauder 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily, and in any event, one must decide whether the article is about the "standard name" "Israeli apartheid", or about the claim that Israeli has apartheid-like practices. One cannot argue that this is about a standard name on the one hand, and about a series of practices under all sorts of names on the other. The world is filled with accusations of apartheid, and practically every country is accused of it; see Apartheid outside of South Africa for many examples. An article about various discriminatory practices of Israel is one thing, but when one asserts that they constitute "apartheid", that is another. Jayjg 22:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That is what NPOV is all about: The views iof those who allege and those who disagree can both be expressed (as they actually are) in an article called by the correct name. An even better NPOV name is "Use of the term Israeli Apartheid " - it is NPOV and the article text can provide various uses of the term by both sides of the POV debate. Zeq 18:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I feel compelled to point out that all of these difficulties associated with the "Allegations of..." title -- which I supported and still support as a compromise -- would have been avoided if the name had simply been permitted to remain at Israeli apartheid (phrase), which does not violate any Misplaced Pages policies as I explained on the article's talk page weeks ago. Evidently I will have to explain it again, as my move of the article to Israeli apartheid (phrase) on May 31 appears to be one of the "charges" against me in this arbitration. 6SJ7 19:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

While an interesting, if inaccurte, assertion of POV I don't see how it is at all relevent to this ArbComm case except as a restatement of one individual's own bias. It is inaccurate since Fred says the Arab-Israeli conflict when I believe he means the Israel-Palestinian conflict.Homey 19:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence I would agree with, the second seems to be an assertion of POV; multiple POVs from reputable sources exist on this issue. I don't believe the Committee should really get into deciding which POV it prefers. It's not the Committee's job and it simply isn't relevant to this case anyway. (I note that the case was accepted on the basis of reviewing conduct, not content.) -- ChrisO 22:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The "contention that only an integrated multi-ethnic state offers a fair resolution of the conflict" is viewed as denial of Israel's Right to exist as the only homeland of the Jewish people - such denial is widely (but not unanimosly) as a form of New anti-semitism.

Misplaced Pages articles should be used to promote (or justify) hate or any other political view . Zeq 18:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

My position is that when Saudi Arabia goes multi-ethnic, Israel/Palestine ought to consider it too. Fred Bauder 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Although this is saying that "when pigs have wings" I don't really see the connection between ensuring survival of the Jewish people to giving Christians the right to enter Mecca. In any case the key issue is that:

• Misplaced Pages articles should be written in a way that they (or part there of) will be used to promote (or justify) hate or any other political view . Zeq 18:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You go too far. Those who would use "Israeli apartheid" as a title are not engaged in hate or even anti-Semitic. Fred Bauder 19:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

No. The European Union has an official position that (Ia m repharsing ): "denying Israel's as a homeland for the Jerwish people is antisemitism". In this sense use of the term to promote the "one state solution" is antsemitism. Zeq 03:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Zeq, that's a valid POV, but it's one that many reputable sources don't agree with (see Binational solution for a case in point). The proposal also strays much too far outside the boundaries of this arbitration, as it's an invitation for the Committee to endorse a particular faction's POV.

I agree with Fred's comments, and I believe that WP:NPOV and WP:NOT already provide sufficient basis to prohibit the writing of articles as propaganda tools (WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox, in particular). -- ChrisO 23:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• That is really the point: WP:NPOV and WP:NOT has been violated when the article wesnt through it's initial revisions. Instead of descrbing the controversy editors seem to enage in an effort to take part in it (mostly on one side) Zeq 08:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Bad faith renaming of article

7) The article was moved arbitrarily in the middle of a poll to determine whether there was consensus over renaming it. Moving the article before the poll had been completed, and when there was, by the mover's own admission, no consensus for a move, was an act of bad faith that harmed the informal mediation process that was underway at Misplaced Pages:Central_discussions/Apartheid. All editors, administrators in particular, should act in good faith and should not use their administrative permissions to entrench or re-inforce a bad faith move.

Comment by Arbitrators:

What ought to be done when there is a deadlock as was seen here. Keep negotiating or see who can revert the fastest? I think there needs to be an examination of the reasons expressed in the voting and further analysis of what our policies mean in specific instances. In other words, serious discussion, not just voting. Fred Bauder 00:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed.Homey 20:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Tweaked for clarity.Homey 18:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The poll had lasted far longer that the required 5 days, a majority supported the move, and there was a strong consensus for it when the poll was finally closed. Claiming that this strongly supported move was done in "bad faith" is, in fact, both "bad faith", and a vote for process over product. Jayjg 22:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Humus stated explicitly that there was no consensus when he implemented the name change:

There is no consensus and we are not going to get one and to pretend otherwise is dishonest. For weeks, we've been kept hostage to activists (I am trying to be polite here) who are interested only in namecalling and inflammatory soapboxing. This cannot go on forever. I am moving the article Israeli Apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid because that is what it is: allegations. ←Humus sapiens 20:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thus, his action was in bad faith. Several other admins acted to defend this bad faith action. Homey 22:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You have no idea what Humus meant by that comment, if anything. I certainly don't presume to speak for him. As for me, I didn't see that comment, and supported the move because there was good enough consensus for it. I'm not Humus, by the way. Jayjg 23:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"You have no idea what Humus meant by that comment, if anything" - I have a very clear idea, as would anyone reading his statement, that he recognized there was, in his own words, "no consensus" for the name change. It's clear from his action and from his saying "I am moving the article Israeli Apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid because that is what it is: allegations" that he did not see the lack of consensus as a barrier to his implementing the move based on his own personal view of the article. Jayjg, you have offered no alternate interpretation of Humus' words nor has Humus, a party to this RFA, replied here to claim that when he said there was "no consensus" he actually meant the opposite. Homey 18:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that bad faith was keeping the POV title. While a majority emerged for a NPOV title after several weeks of negotiations (including the unusually long poll), certain editors showed only interest in keeping the unpopular and POV status quo, instead of seeking a compromise. ←Humus sapiens 22:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

You should have put forward an argument then rather than acted unilaterally when you knew (and said) there was no consensus.Homey 22:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm hesitant about attributing bad faith in this matter. I believe that all the parties involved acted in good faith, which isn't the same as saying that they made the right decisions. Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith should surely apply. -- ChrisO 22:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's clear from his own words that Humus initiated the name change while recognizing there was "no consensus" in the poll. One cannot give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't realise he was acting against consensus when his statements make his thinking clear. Homey 22:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly clear from his own words that Humus was aware that he was acting without consensus (note: not against consensus, as there was no consensus to act against). However, I note that in his edit summary Humus stated "NPOV title" - in other words, he believed that he was upholding the NPOV policy by moving the article to a title that he considered consistent with NPOV. I believe the evidence shows that he broke one policy (Misplaced Pages:Consensus) in order to uphold another policy (WP:NPOV). In this respect, I think it's fair to say that he acted in good faith but went about it in a bad way. (I recognise that the same could be said about the other participants, including myself.) See also my comments under #WP:AGF above. -- ChrisO 23:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Neither is clear. English is not Humus's first language. Jayjg 03:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but his written sentences are quite clear and the meaning of "no consensus" is unequivocal, wikilawyering or no wikilawyering. Homey 01:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Voting dynamics

8) The unilateral move of the page and the resulting posting of that on the WP:AN/I page resulted in a new influx of editors who otherwise would not have expressed their opinion. This influx changed the balance in opinion from no consensus (56.7%) to support. See Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid/Evidence#Voting_dynamics and see also Wikipedia_talk:Central_discussions/Apartheid#Poll:_Rename_.22Israeli_apartheid.22_article_to_.22Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid.22 for the underlying data (except the last three votes).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed -- Kim van der Linde 20:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

There was certainly a majority in favor; it is your view that that majority was not a good enough consensus. That majority has only gotten stronger. Jayjg 22:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Kim's view is supported by Misplaced Pages:Consensus: "If there is strong disagreement with the outcome from the Misplaced Pages community, it is clear that consensus has not been reached." If 43.3% of the voters disagreed with the proposition, that's a pretty good sign that a consensus did not exist. A narrow plurality does not equal consensus. (Consider this parallel: if a narrow majority elects the President, does that mean that the President was elected with a consensus of the people?) -- ChrisO 00:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to view "consensus" as a purely mechanistic process of counting heads. Jayjg 03:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Involvement of more people in votes is a good thing; one should not imply that it is in some way bad or improper. Jayjg 22:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely, though it's fair to ask whether the majority would have come about if Humus sapiens hadn't done what he did. The fact that his action seems to have catalysed a majority vote should not excuse the fact that his action was improper in the first place. -- ChrisO 00:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the opinion that John Nagle drew attention of more people by his post on the WP:ANI, but find the grievance of "influx of editors who otherwise would not have expressed their opinion" as diametrically opposite to the ideals and methods of the entire project. ←Humus sapiens 01:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Apartheid

9) The Apartheid article should discuss the term, and not be a redirect to History of South Africa in the apartheid era, which is only one of the usages and not a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration_policy/Past_decisions#Content_of_articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes, good idea. Fred Bauder 21:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 21:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand; on the one hand in proposed finding 6 John Nagle argues that the article regarding Israel's practices should be about the practices, not the term, but here Kim argues a similar article should be about the term, not the practices. Can we have some consistency here? Also, just how far are we going to expand the scope of the case? I thought it was about some page moves of one article. Jayjg 22:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is actually a major part of the problem - there's no agreement about the subject of the article. Is it about the term or the practices? Or both? I'm inclined to think that this is getting into the content side of things, which I thought the ArbCom wanted to avoid. -- ChrisO 23:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The proposal is beyond the scope of this case, which is solely about the moves of Israeli apartheid. In addition, this proposal asks the ArbCom to endorse a certain content issue, and I agree with ChrisO that it's better to steer clear of it. Pecher 19:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a pure content finding. The arbitration committee still doesn't dictate content. Rebecca 02:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Zaian has often politely expressed the desire of South African editors to have Apartheid redirect, as it does now. There are good, practical reasons why it's currently that way. Su-Laine Yeo 07:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Poll on renaming

10) Wikipedia_talk:Central_discussions/Apartheid#Poll:_Rename_.22Israeli_apartheid.22_article_to_.22Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid.22

Comment by Arbitrators:

Note Fred Bauder 21:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Scope of the conflict

11) The conflict covers various articles (Allegations of Israeli apartheid, Apartheid (disambiguation), Apartheid outside of South Africa, Global apartheid, Gender apartheid, Sexual apartheid, Apartheid wall, Crime of apartheid, Islamic apartheid, Apartheid) , whether they should exist, their titles and the content.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Too much already on our plate. Fred Bauder 00:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 21:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean you are proposing that the arbitrators decide all those issues? I am not saying at this point whether I would agree or disagree. I am just asking whether that is what you are asking them to do. If it is, then there are a few other things I will need to ask, and perhaps suggest, before this train travels much further. 6SJ7 22:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This is proposed finding of facts section, and this is the scope of the dispute. That is what I say here. -- Kim van der Linde 22:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That's certainly not the basis on which the case was accepted. Cases should be constrained to defined issues, not huge complaint-fests about multiple articles edited by different people at different times and in different ways. Jayjg 22:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jayjg. Let's keep this focused on the immediate dispute over the out-of-process move of the Israeli apartheid article. -- ChrisO 23:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with ChrisO.Homey 22:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Arbitration policy states that the Arbitrators only consider disputes that are referred to them. Evidently the committee in practice can find that it has to go slightly wider than the immediate subject but there's no point in extending cases as far as they can possibly go. For one thing it just complicates the case for no good reason. For another, every finding in a separate area is, in fairness, going to bring in more evidence about that area. (username not immediately apparent) 21:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Pejorative political terms

12) There are a number of articles which can be fairly characterized as Category:Pejorative_political_terms. Notable in this context is Islamofascism.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 12:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I see no reason at this point to delete to rename Islamofascism if there are adaquest reliable references to support its existence. It is also interesting to note that Jayjg (see ) and SlimVirgin (see ) and Zeq (see ) voted keep on Islamofascism during its two AfD -- I can't find mention of others involved in this mediation voting on the article, but I may has just missed it. --Ben Houston 02:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I just want to note here for the record that I was always very clear that Islamofascism should be called Islamofascism (term) and I moved it to that title on at least one occasion. SlimVirgin 17:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

As did Humus sapiens. SlimVirgin 17:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

All moves by SlimVirgin, Humus sapiens, and Jayjg of "Islamofascism" to things simlar to "Islamofascism (phrase)" occured around June 8, 2006 (about a year after the creation of the "Islamofascism" article), which is immediately after 6SJ7 (May 30, 2006), and Humus Sapiens (June 5, 2006) started adding various "(phrase)"-style additions to "Israeli apartheid." --Ben Houston 18:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Not so. I moved Islamofascism to Islamofascism (term) on November 22, 2005. SlimVirgin 18:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

We will be making no remedies regarding Islamofascism in this decision. Fred Bauder 17:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Why would one support renaming Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid but oppose renaming Islamofascism to Allegations of Islamofascism?Homey 22:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a fair point. As I've noted above under "Propaganda warfare", the use of loaded, pejorative or otherwise biased terms is a standard tactic in political framing. We need to have a consistent rationale for treating loaded terms in article titles. My original vote against the move was motivated by the fact that we don't appear to have such a rationale. -- ChrisO 22:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see some consistency as well. For the record, on June 8 I renamed Islamofascism into Islamofascism (epithet), but it was promptly moved back. ←Humus sapiens 02:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Far from being a "fair point", it seems like cherry-picking of ancient edits to me. Renaming an article is not the same thing as deleting it; not only did User:Slimvirgin support renaming Islamofascism to Islamofascism (epithet) , but so did I , and I even went about renaming things to match that. Next? Jayjg 03:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

If an implication is to be drawn that "Israeli apartheid" does not need a qualifier because "Islamofascism" does not have one, I just want to make clear that (for what I hope will be the last time as I am becoming repetitive out of a sense of caution) both should have qualifiers, as I stated more than a month ago here. 6SJ7 00:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The fact that numerous polls and debates have ended in no consensus is to me a pretty clear indication that the guidelines need to be beefed up. To me the big difference between Islamofascism and Israeli apartheid is that one sounds like a nut-fringe opinion and the other one sounds like a description. It's a subtle and subjective aspect of language, but an important one. Another difference is the prominent Apartheid (disambiguation) page which in previous versions arguably had the effect of saying, "Oh, you want to learn about apartheid. Do you mean the South African apartheid or the Israeli one?". I'd object to putting Islamofascism or Islamic fascism on a Fascism (disambiguation) page too. Su-Laine Yeo 07:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Wheelwarring

13) In the absence of consensus in the ongoing discussions regarding the appropriate title for Israeli aparthied Humus_sapiens (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli appartheid . ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) immediately moved it back . SlimVirgin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) moved it again . ChisO again moved it back . Jayjg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) again moved it . ChisO moved it back for a third time . Humis sapiens then moved it a second time .

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

The title of this finding is inconsistent with the finding itself. Moving a page is not a privileged action - any registered user may do it. A wheel war is a conflict between privileged users. The finding itself is, however, reasonable. David | Talk 15:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I question whether these actions all amounted to wheelwarring. Making a single page move is not wheeling, anymore than making a single edit is edit warring. I note that admins override each others actions without prior consultation or later notification. While regrettable and essentially improper it is common and doesn't result in repurcussions. If we wish to establish a 1-WW standard then we should do so consciously and consistently. -Will Beback 11:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg previously cautioned against edit warring

13) One of the remedies in the RFA against User:Yuber was to formally caution User:Jayjg against edit warring and to advise him to "use Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedure in preference to attempting to control content through the use of reverts.".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes, he was warned. He asked us not to do that precisely because he could foresee this sort of thing. We chose not to follow his advice. However, a mere warning in the past does not form the basis for an increased sanction in this case. Every administrator should have taken notice from that warning, not just Jayjg. Wheelwarring is unacceptable. Fred Bauder 00:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"a mere warning in the past does not form the basis for an increased sanction in this case" -increasing disciplinary response over successive offenses from an initial warning to suspension and ultimately to termination is the basis of progressive discipline. Homey 04:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Homey 18:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Not relevant, as there was no edit warring on part of Jayjg in this case. Pecher 19:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wheelwarring is a form of edit warring.Homey 19:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Then, one move does not constitute a wheel war, just like one revert does not constitute an edit war. Pecher 20:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

One move as part of a wheel war constitutes participation in a wheel war just as throwing just one rock during a riot constitutes participation in a riot. Homey 22:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Homey's statement does seem to be supported by past ArbComm decisions; see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Wheel warring. -- ChrisO 22:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I was recused. Fred Bauder 03:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

As I read it, Jay was "reminded," and "advised," not "warned." IronDuke 00:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The header says "cautioned" and even so the advise/reminder does not seem to have been heeded so progressive discipline demands that this time there be a more serious response than a mere slap on the wrist. Homey 02:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Banning an arbitrator for even one day is hardly a slap on the wrist. Fred Bauder 02:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Good faith, bad methods

14) The parties acted in good faith to defend Misplaced Pages policies but did so in an inappropriate way.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes Fred Bauder 03:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- ChrisO 00:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe that all the participants in this case (including myself) acted in good faith to uphold Misplaced Pages policies. I acted to uphold WP:CON but may have overridden WP:WHEEL in the process; Humus, SlimVirgin and Jayjg have stated that they acted to uphold WP:NPOV, but in doing so overrode both WP:WHEEL and WP:CON. We perhaps went about upholding these policies in the wrong way (that'll be for the Committee to judge) but I believe the evidence shows that all four of us acted to defend what we felt were the best interests of Misplaced Pages. -- ChrisO -- ChrisO 00:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

3 revert rule

15) The number of reverts carried out by the parties did not exceed the threshold set by WP:3RR.

Comment by Arbitrators:

This would be a finding of fact. However, it is not relevant as there is zero tolerance for wheelwarring. Fred Bauder 20:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- ChrisO 00:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Battle of Deir Yassin/Deir Yassin Massacre

16) A similar dispute has arisen at Battle of Deir Yassin/Deir Yassin Massacre involving many of the same users. Discussion is at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Deir_Yassin, part copied from other sources Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#What_to_do_if_a_move_poll_is_determined_by_partisan_reasons.3F andWP:ANI#Battle_of_Deir_Yassin.2FDeir_Yassin_massacre:_move_poll_closure_review_requested

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need to drag a bunch more people in to play Gotcha with. We just need to take a good look at POV editing and administrating. Fred Bauder 17:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Than do not drag this second case into the current one. -- Kim van der Linde 17:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

The Israeli apartheid page move case involves untill now: Humus sapiens, SlimVirgin, JayJG and ChrisO. The Deir Yassin massacre move involves KimvdLinde, Bibigon, Huldra and Nysin. as far as I can see, there is no overlap between the cases in editors involved in the page moves. I admit that I should not have moved the page in the first place, but left that to an complete uninvolved admin, probably by posting my analysis to the admin noticeboard. The conclusion on which I based my move was deemed correct by two uninvolved admins (see above link) and the page was moved to Deir Yassin massacre by Haukurth . Yes, it involves some of the same users. If my moves in the Israeli apartheid case are under consideration here, I would like a notification above at my earlier request that this case has been expanded to all page moves so that I can properly present my evidence in both cases. -- Kim van der Linde 15:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"Many of the same users" would more accurately read "one of the same users". Homey 16:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This arbitration is already getting to the verge of being unmanageable. Can we please confine it to the Israeli apartheid issue? If there's good reason to arbitrate Deir Yassin massacre as well, it should surely be done separately, given that article's different history, issues and set of actors. It will only make things even more complicated if an entirely fresh dispute gets dragged into this arbitration. -- ChrisO 21:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue that is relevant here is that Kim van der Linde has again confused her roles as editor and admin. She arrived at the page once it had been moved; arranged a poll; ignored the results of it because they went against her POV, claiming that because five editors she disagreed with had been told about the poll it was therefore invalid; got an editor banned from the page; then moved the page against the consensus that she decided didn't exist. I have no opinion on the validity of the title. But she misused her admin tools in exactly the way she did several times in this case, even as this case was continuing, and therefore it becomes material. SlimVirgin 21:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Some context: the article's name was unilaterally changed after four years without consensus. The change was implemented by an editor, User:Guy Montag, whose user page expresses support for the Irgun, the militia that has been asssigned blame historically for perpetrating the massacre. A neutral admin has moved the article back to Deir Yassin massacrebecause "There was clearly no consensus for the move at the time and a subsequent poll failed to gain consensus for the new title, despite selective soliciting of votes by Guy."Homey 21:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

While it is true that my last edit to the Deir Yassin massacre article was 9 months ago, to remove pro-Zionist edits and restore information indicating that it was a massacre, many of the same editors have been involved at both articles. In particular, User:ChrisO has been involved, as has Kim van der Linde, who is central to both cases. Jayjg 00:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, for heaven's sake. If by being "involved" you mean "discussing the matter with other users on the talk page following a request for outside input on WP:AN/I" and "providing advice on what Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines say" then I plead guilty (see Talk:Deir Yassin massacre#Misplaced Pages's policy on naming conflicts). Do you regard that as grounds for sanctions? This is taking on the character of a witchhunt, and frankly you should know better than engaging in that. -- ChrisO 00:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was referring more to your silently protecting the page against moves, which you also did to the Israeli apartheid page. As for your claim that "this is taking on the character of a witchhunt", the case took on that character several days ago; why have you only noticed now? Jayjg 01:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is getting ugly. Admins should know better. Thatcher131 17:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Sources

17) Sources of information have been collected at Talk:Israeli apartheid/RS.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Biased editing

18) The article has been subject to biased editing, an extreme example.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Humus sapiens banned

1) Humus sapiens is banned from the article namespace for two months for wheelwarring. During this time he may continue administrative duties.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No point in cutting off our nose to spite our face. Humus sapien's administrative work is too valuable to lose. Fred Bauder 21:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Humus' punishment should be more severe than ChrisO's given the fact that he instigated the edit/wheel war and did so be knowingly disregarding the lack of consensus in a poll on the article's title. Homey 20:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Humus just moved the article; ChrisO started the war by reverting him, and then continued to war by reverting two other editors. Humus only reverted one time, one revert is not a "war". Jayjg 21:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Several admins working in concert co-operating to each make one revert does constitute a war - albeit one in which one side has several individuals co-ordinating their efforts against one individualco-operating against another individual. Your response, if it were accepted, creates an unacceptable loophole ie it allows wheel warring when it's done by several individuals pooling their efforts.Homey 21:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Working in concert?" "co-ordinating their efforts against one individual"? A bizarrely conspiratorial view of the world that again violates WP:AGF. When editors happen to agree with each other regarding edits on their watchlist, that is not a conspiracy; if it were, we'd have to ban practically every admin who has ever reverted anything. It is merely an assertion of yours that there was no consensus, and WP:3RR is quite clear that actions of individual editors are treated as individual actions; attempts to group them have never been accepted as policy, and for good reason. I find these attempts to completely re-write policy for partisan reasons based on unfounded assertions to be quite disturbing. Jayjg 21:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not "bizarrely conspiratorial", it's just an observation that several admins co-operated (is that a better word?) to enforce a move despite the fact that there was no consensus for the move and with disregard for dispute resolution mechanisms, including an attempt that was underway. A tag-team wheelwar is still a wheelwar. Homey 21:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Tag-team"? That's another tendentious phrase. Do you think it would possible for you to make your unsupported assertions in a less tendentious way? As they stand, they seem intended to engender more heat than light. Jayjg 00:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Past decisions by the ArbComm would seem to support the contention that this constituted a wheel war. See Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Wheel warring. I also disagree strongly with the claim that I "started" the wheel war. The first move, as the evidence shows, was carried out by Humus, not myself. -- ChrisO 23:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No, past decisions indicate only that using admin powers might be considered wheel warring. Jayjg 00:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred has not provided any basis on which this penalty and others have been proposed. However, the terms of the penalty appear to be calculated on the basis of one month per each move/revert carried out by each party (3 for me, 2 for Humus, 1 each for SlimVirgin and Jayjg). This seems a very unsatisfactory and mechanistic basis on which to proceed, as it takes no account of the motives involved - as I've argued below (#Good faith, bad methods), there's clear evidence that all of the parties acted to uphold policies but broke other policies in the process. The penalty also far exceeds similar penalties in similar cases. I point in particular to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war, where the harshest penalty given to any of the administrator participants was desysopping with permission to reapply for administrative privileges after two weeks. There is simply no precedent for bans of this length for any of the participants, nor are such long bans appropriate in my judgement. -- ChrisO 23:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, disproportional. -- Kim van der Linde 03:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as grossly disproportional. Before anyone is going to be disciplined for this offense (at least under the circumstances of this case) I think it needs to be made clearer exactly what is and what isn't prohibited and I think a standardized range of penalties should be determined as well. Admittedly, I was not previously familiar with what "wheel-warring" is and, as a non-administrator I am not completely familiar with the tools that admins possess, but from what I have read here it is obvious that the term is not clearly understood even among those who have the capability of engaging in it. But regardless of the "larger picture", this penalty seems unwarranted. (I am posting the same comment in the sections for all four admins for whom bans are proposed, and modified versions for some of the other penalties.) 6SJ7 18:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The penalty was proposed by Fred Bauder, not me. Homey 20:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

My comment wasn't just about this one particular proposal.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you shouldn't have cut and pasted the identical comment to each page as your comments are misleading. Your words imply that Kim, myself and Fred have jointly proposed these various actions when that is not the case. Homey 21:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don;t think it does imply that, in the least, I wrote three different passages and variously included them in different proposals depended on which one applied the most.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• Banning all those admins for one month or more is completely silly, maybe a temp desyropping is in order and a ban of the article is in order, but not that. Jaranda 23:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• As a wheelwar is defined in WP:WHEEL as "A wheel war is a struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's admin actions " it would seem that a move, which is not an "admin action", rather an action of any user, is not considered wheel warring. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 23:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • See this link for a list of administrative actions that were taken as part of the wheel war. Deletions and undeletions were necessary in order to implement the various moves thus it was a wheelwar. Homey 23:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Banning or desysopping anyone for one revert or one block is insane. This is taking the concept of edit warring to altogether new (and rather stupid) lengths. Rebecca 02:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Way disproportionate. Rather like bombing the hell out of a country because two or three soldiers got abducted. --jpgordon 18:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to listen to BBC too much. The issue is not the two soldiers but the 6 years of bombings on israel North twons by Hizbulla. The problem is that BBC never bothered reporting it. Zeq 19:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is this project going to give up a good editor just because he took bold action to move an issue toward resolution ? Zeq 21:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Rebecca. Completely out of proportion. AnnH ♫ 07:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This dispute, aming otherwise responsible editors, is limited to a small set of articles. I suggest that remedies should likewise be limited to the narrow topic. -Will Beback 11:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking over Humus' participation in the conflict, this remedy strikes me as disproportionate to his activities, particularly in relation to the behavior of those he faced. FeloniousMonk 19:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

On two separate occasions Humus initiated article name changes without consensus. He is a prime instigator here. Homey 19:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO banned

2) ChrisO is banned from the article namespace for three months for wheelwarring. During this time he may continue administrative duties.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No point in cutting off our nose to spite our face. ChrisO's administrative work is too valuable to lose. Fred Bauder 21:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

If ChrisO is to be punished (and I don't think he should be given the circumstances) his punishment should be less severe than Humus' given the fact that Humus sapiens instigated the edit/wheel war and did so be knowingly disregarding the lack of consensus in a poll on the article's title. Homey 20:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This seems an extraordinarily disproportionate penalty, far beyond those levied in previous cases involving wheel warring (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war for a case in point). For the record, I acted to uphold WP:CON (though I acknowledge that I may have broken WP:WHEEL in the process; see my comments at #Good faith, bad methods). I involved myself with the dispute over the article name only because policy had not been followed in unilaterally moving it. My position is fundamentally the same as that of User:BorgHunter in the pedophilia userbox case; as he said there, "it was up for , and consensus had not been reached, therefore it must stay until voting can finish and we can all come to a consensus. That's not wheel warring; that's upholding policy."

In addition, Fred has not provided any basis on which this penalty and others have been proposed. However, the terms of the penalty appear to be calculated on the basis of one month per each move/revert carried out by each party (3 for me, 2 for Humus, 1 each for SlimVirgin and Jayjg). This seems a very unsatisfactory and mechanistic basis on which to proceed, as it takes no account of the motives involved - as I've argued below (#Good faith, bad methods), there's clear evidence that all of the parties acted to uphold policies but broke other policies in the process. -- ChrisO 21:50, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Strong oppose, see rational below under #ChrisO commended. -- Kim van der Linde 03:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as grossly disproportional. Before anyone is going to be disciplined for this offense (at least under the circumstances of this case) I think it needs to be made clearer exactly what is and what isn't prohibited and I think a standardized range of penalties should be determined as well. Admittedly, I was not previously familiar with what "wheel-warring" is and, as a non-administrator I am not completely familiar with the tools that admins possess, but from what I have read here it is obvious that the term is not clearly understood even among those who have the capability of engaging in it. But regardless of the "larger picture", this penalty seems unwarranted. (I am posting the same comment in the sections for all four admins for whom bans are proposed, and modified versions for some of the other penalties.) 6SJ7 18:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, Again this is a ridiculous proposal, I really cannot imagine what could be going through Fred's mind to make him think that these "solutions" are appropriate.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is insane. ChrisO is an excellent veteran editor, with a history of excellent work, who happened to get in an edit war. How would handing down any more than a warning help Misplaced Pages in any way? Rebecca 02:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Grossly disproportionate. --jpgordon 18:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Rebecca. Are we trying to make an example of people or trying to help Misplaced Pages? AnnH ♫ 07:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This dispute, aming otherwise responsible editors, is limited to a small set of articles. I suggest that remedies should likewise be limited to the narrow topic. -Will Beback 11:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This remedy is yet one extreme response out of many here that defy logic and precedent. To say it is disproportionate is an understatement. FeloniousMonk 19:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin banned

3) SlimVirgin is banned from the article namespace for one month for wheelwarring. During this time she may continue administrative duties.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No point in cutting off our nose to spite our face. SlimVirgin's administrative work is too valuable to lose. Fred Bauder 21:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

One move has suddenly become "wheel-warring"? SV didn't even use admin powers for that move, anyone could have made it. Seems pretty absurd. Jayjg 21:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Saying that it constituted part of a wheel war does seem to be supported by past decisions (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Wheel warring). -- ChrisO 23:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's not. The cases are not similar, and the findings are about admin actions, i.e. actions using admin powers, not any action an admin might take - otherwise even simple edits would be covered by this. Jayjg 03:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred has not provided any basis on which this penalty and others have been proposed. However, the terms of the penalty appear to be calculated on the basis of one month per each move/revert carried out by each party (3 for me, 2 for Humus, 1 each for SlimVirgin and Jayjg). This seems a very unsatisfactory and mechanistic basis on which to proceed, as it takes no account of the motives involved - - as I've argued below (#Good faith, bad methods), there's clear evidence that all of the parties acted to uphold policies but broke other policies in the process. The penalty also far exceeds similar penalties in similar cases. I point in particular to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war, where the harshest penalty given to any of the administrator participants was desysopping with permission to reapply for administrative privileges after two weeks. There is simply no precedent for bans of this length for any of the participants, nor are such long bans appropriate in my judgement. -- ChrisO 23:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, disproportional. -- Kim van der Linde 03:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as grossly disproportional. Before anyone is going to be disciplined for this offense (at least under the circumstances of this case) I think it needs to be made clearer exactly what is and what isn't prohibited and I think a standardized range of penalties should be determined as well. Admittedly, I was not previously familiar with what "wheel-warring" is and, as a non-administrator I am not completely familiar with the tools that admins possess, but from what I have read here it is obvious that the term is not clearly understood even among those who have the capability of engaging in it. But regardless of the "larger picture", this penalty seems unwarranted. (I am posting the same comment in the sections for all four admins for whom bans are proposed, and modified versions for some of the other penalties.) 6SJ7 18:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred is the sole proposer. Homey 20:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• As a wheelwar is defined in WP:WHEEL as "A wheel war is a struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's admin actions " it would seem that a move, which is not an "admin action", rather an action of any user, is not considered wheel warring. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 23:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• • See this link for a list of administrative actions that were taken as part of the wheel war. Deletions and undeletions were necessary in order to implement the various moves thus it was a wheelwar. Homey 23:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. In what way were "undeletions necessary in order to implement the various moves"? Jayjg 03:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin has a long and continuing history of excellent contributions, and is one of our best at dealing difficult users. How on earth would a month ban help Misplaced Pages in the slightest? Rebecca 02:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Stupidly disproportionate. --jpgordon 18:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I oppose this. I watched much of this unfolding, and I don't see how Slim wheel-warred, it looks to me like she didn't even come close. And in any case, there are only a handful of editors out there (and Jay is one of them) who can claim to be a valuable to the project as Slim. Cutting off more than our nose. IronDuke 00:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Completely out of proportion to this case. I'm stunned that it's even being considered. The original suggestion was "banned from Misplaced Pages for a month". Now, we apparantly consider that we'll still allow her to serve us while we humiliate her. Honestly, I can't see any purpose to this proposal (in its original or in its modified form) other than to humiliate an excellent administrator as a "punishment", in complete violation of the normal principle that Misplaced Pages is not punitive and that things like blocks are meant, not as punishment, but to protect Misplaced Pages. How on earth can one move be "wheel-warring"? How can humiliating and punishing one of our best contributors possibly be helpful to Misplaced Pages? The original suggestion was pretty appalling (considering the aggressive, abusive, edit-warring, stalking, sockpuppeting users who get six-month bans from ArbCom and considering the outstanding record SlimVirgin has of helping editors who are victims of such behaviour), but this is, if anything, more insulting, suggesting that we'll humiliate her in public, but we'll be very magnanimous and allow her to continue to serve us in the meantime. I vehemently oppose this suggestion. AnnH ♫ 07:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This dispute, aming otherwise responsible editors, is limited to a small set of articles. I suggest that remedies should likewise be limited to the narrow topic. -Will Beback 11:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Again this is another surreal and insane proposal that seems to have taken disproportionate and excessive to an all new level. How does 1 page move warrant such a harsh response? Also, despite very partisan claims to the contrary, there's absolutely no precedent for this in these circumstances. The scope of the misdeeds of other parties in this conflict stand out in stark relief to those SlimVigin's, making this not an appropiate case for "a plague upon both your houses"-type solutions. FeloniousMonk 16:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg banned

4) Jayjg is banned from the article namespace for one month for wheelwarring. During this time he may continue administrative and arbitration duties.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Modified. No reason to cut off our nose to spite our face. Jayjg's administrative and arbitration work is too valuable to lose. Fred Bauder 21:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This should be longer as this is a repeated offence: Jayjg (talk • contribs) is reminded that edit-warring is harmful to Misplaced Pages's mission and is advised to use Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedure in preference to attempting to control content through the use of reverts.-- Kim van der Linde 18:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages:Wheel warring:

Most editors (and admins) tend to agree that wheel wars are not good. Sometimes, admins are temporarily blocked for wheel warring, but this can result in a wheel war itself if the blocked admin or a friend undoes the block. Temporary desysoping may be used as a measure to deter and halt wheel wars. Wheel warring has been used as grounds for sanctions by the ArbCom in a few cases (), some of which have resulted in users having to re-apply for adminship and others being stripped without that option.

I would like to add violation of WP:AGF here. -- Kim van der Linde 20:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

One move has suddenly become "wheel-warring"? I didn't even use my admin powers for that move, anyone could have made it. Seems pretty absurd. Jayjg 21:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact you did use your admin powers.Homey 21:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. I will repeat myself. I didn't even use my admin powers for that move, anyone could have made it. Jayjg 03:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Saying that it constituted part of a wheel war does seem to be supported by past decisions (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Wheel warring). The definition of wheel warring used there - "undoing an administrative action by another administrator" - isn't dependent on the use of admin powers. Any action which "undoes an administrative action by another administrator", even if it doesn't use admin powers, counts as wheel warring under this definition, which you voted for. -- ChrisO 23:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The cases are not similar, and the definition covers admin actions, i.e. actions using admin powers, not any action an admin might take - otherwise even simple edits would be covered by this. Jayjg 03:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

That's self-contradictory: you cannot undo an administrative action without using admin powers: for example, you cannot unprotect a page without using admin powers. If you're undoing an action without using admin powers, then it wasn't an admn action in the first place. Pecher 17:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred has not provided any basis on which this penalty and others have been proposed. However, the terms of the penalty appear to be calculated on the basis of one month per each move/revert carried out by each party (3 for me, 2 for Humus, 1 each for SlimVirgin and Jayjg). This seems a very unsatisfactory and mechanistic basis on which to proceed, as it takes no account of the motives involved - as I've argued below (#Good faith, bad methods), there's clear evidence that all of the parties acted to uphold policies but broke other policies in the process. The penalty also far exceeds similar penalties in similar cases. I point in particular to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war, where the harshest penalty given to any of the administrator participants was desysopping with permission to reapply for administrative privileges after two weeks. There is simply no precedent for bans of this length for any of the participants, nor are such long bans appropriate in my judgement. -- ChrisO 23:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, disproportional. -- Kim van der Linde 03:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as grossly disproportional. Before anyone is going to be disciplined for this offense (at least under the circumstances of this case) I think it needs to be made clearer exactly what is and what isn't prohibited and I think a standardized range of penalties should be determined as well. Admittedly, I was not previously familiar with what "wheel-warring" is and, as a non-administrator I am not completely familiar with the tools that admins possess, but from what I have read here it is obvious that the term is not clearly understood even among those who have the capability of engaging in it. But regardless of the "larger picture", this penalty seems unwarranted. (I am posting the same comment in the sections for all four admins for whom bans are proposed, and modified versions for some of the other penalties.) 6SJ7 18:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred is the sole proposer. Homey 20:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Banning people from Misplaced Pages looks like an unusually harsh remedy for wheelwarring. In Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway, Tony Sidaway was limited to 1RR for wheelwarring on a much larger scale than in this case. Pecher 19:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

And other admins have been desysopped for wheelwarring, some have been allowed to reapply for admin status, others have not. Homey 19:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wheelwarring involved a misuse of administrative permissions - admins, and particularly ArbComm members, should be held to a higher standard. Also, Jayjg has been cautioned (ie "recommended") in the past year for edit warring so this is not a first offence. Homey 19:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway was wheel warring -- or at least formally convited of so in the above RfA.

I am not as experienced in WP policy as you two, but complete bans seems harsh. I would recommend alternatively temporary bans from articles related to the IP conflict or temporary suspensions of admin rights -- thus they could all still contribute value to Misplaced Pages during the punishments, just not in the area (I-P conflict) or in the way (admin rights abuse) that resulted in the problems. --Ben Houston 19:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Freestylefrappe was desysopped for wheelwarring and allowed to reapply for admin status.. Homey 19:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

No, Homey, admins are just users with tools; they are held to the same standard as everybody else. Pecher 19:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

They are users who are granted extra powers and thus have extra responsibilities. Further, an ArbComm member should be expected to set an example, not be a repeat offender.Homey 19:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• News Flash: Even "ArbCom" members are human. Zeq 19:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

One move is not a repeat offense; only people who persistently engage in certain reprehensible behavior must be sanctioned. Pecher 20:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Engaging in wheel warring after being cautioned in an earlier RFA against edit warring makes Jayjg a repeat offender. Homey 21:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

One move not using admin powers is "wheel warring"? And "a repeat offender"? Hmm. Jayjg 21:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Were you not cautioned for edit warring in a previous RFA? Your lack of contrition mitigates against any leniancy.Homey 21:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg is right to point out a ludicrous over-reaction here. There does seem to be a general tendency to regard any reversion of an administrative action (and here a reversion of a non-administrative action by an administrator) as a uniquely disruptive thing. One administrator disagreeing and reverting another's administrative action does not make a wheelwar. There is a danger of creating such a fear of a wheelwar that it prevents good sense administrative action in the first place. (user name not immediately disclosed) 21:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is using administrative powers to enforce and entrench a move that was made in bad faith and against consensus and in complete disregard of dispute resolution processes that was underway. For one admin to act in such a manner is problematic. For several to work in concertco-operate to disregard consensus and dispute resolution is absolutely unacceptable. Homey 21:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, I just made a move. I didn't use my admin powers for that move. And this conspiracy mongering is quite disturbing. Jayjg 21:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, you did use your admin powers.Homey 21:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll repeat myself: "I didn't use my admin powers for that move". Jayjg 21:50, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• As a wheelwar is defined in WP:WHEEL as "A wheel war is a struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's admin actions " it would seem that a move, which is not an "admin action", rather an action of any user, is not considered wheel warring. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 23:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • See this link for a list of administrative actions that were taken as part of the wheel war. Deletions and undeletions were necessary in order to implement the various moves thus it was a wheelwar. Homey 23:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
    • In any case, as ChrisO points out above according to past RFAs wheel warring is any action which "undoes an administrative action by another administrator", even if it doesn't use admin powersHomey 23:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO can claim what he likes, but the RFARs were actually about admin actions, i.e. actions using admin powers, not any action an admin might take - otherwise even simple edits would be covered by this. Jayjg 03:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

One unblock is not a wheel war. Furthermore, I see absolutely no reason why a caution would not deal with the situation adequately, and fail to see one single benefit in having an excellent user banned for a month. Rebecca 02:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"I see absolutely no reason why a caution would not deal with the situation adequately" Because he's been cautioned before in regards to revert warring. Homey 03:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, my reading is that Jay was not cautioned, merely "reminded" and "advised." IronDuke 00:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Disgustingly disproportionate. There would be no benefit to any of these bans. --jpgordon 19:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, completely OTT. Jayjg is a crucial editor and arbitrator. No significant history of wheel warring. JFW | T@lk 21:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose I don't see how Jay wheel-warred. I think Jay kept a pretty cool head throughout. As I said about Slim, we'd be cutting off more than our nose. IronDuke 00:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Vehemently oppose and I say that as someone who has been on the "opposite side" of Jayjg any time I've encountered him when editing an article. I don't see how one move can be wheel warring, any more than one revert can be edit warring. (The pedophilia userbox case is different, as someone who, even once, knowingly and deliberately undoes a block placed by Jimbo is asking for trouble.) This serves no purpose other than to humiliate a conscientious and helpful Wikipedian. Everything I wrote about SlimVirgin above applies here, and I'd write more except that I'm going in to work in a few minutes. The original suggestion was bad, and the modified suggestion is bad, implying that we'll allow him to continue to serve us while we humiliate him in a way that is completely contrary to our normal practice of not using blocks or bans as punishment, but solely to protect Misplaced Pages. AnnH ♫ 07:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This dispute, among otherwise responsible editors, is limited to a small set of articles. I suggest that remedies should likewise be limited to the narrow topic. -Will Beback 11:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

And again another proposal that adds all new meanings to 'disproportionate' and 'excessive'. There's no precedent for this. Jayjg's culpability in this conflict is exceedingly minor when viewed in the light of the scope of the misdeeds of those who've opposed him. Once again, this not an appropiate case for "a plague upon both your houses"-type solutions. FeloniousMonk 16:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Negotiation

5) Editors of articles concerning apartheid are directed to negotiate in good faith appropriate article names using relevant policies and guidelines. If negotiation is unsuccessful. interested parties are required to enter into good faith mediation regarding the matter. As a last resort, the matter shall be decided by the Arbitration Committee or such users as it may appoint to decide the matter; in addition, sanctions may be applied to users based on their behavior during negotiation and mediation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

That seems reasonable, as there is a level playing field while the negotiation/mediation is going on. The problem is that, as mentioned elsewhere, "facts on the ground" tend to make certain people reluctant to negotatiate in good faith when the facts are in their favor. That was certainly the case with the initial creation and naming of the article, which created "facts on the ground" that the creator, who effectively asserted "ownership" over the article, played to his advantage at every opportunity. 6SJ7 18:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This would be appropriate as a single, all encompassing remedy, although the last sentence implies that the AC would be willing to do content arbitration, which it never has and never will. Rebecca 03:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Negotiation (alternative)

5b) Since WP:CON states that Misplaced Pages works by consensus and nothing in this article was agreed by both sides (not even the name) the article will be removed from Misplaced Pages until the succesfull conculsion of the required mediation or until a version of the article will be put up for a vote and will win a consensus on it being an NPOV version.

• No benefit should be given to the party who first created the article or name it if there is no consensus to the article content or name. WP:CON takes precedent over who was first Zeq 20:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)5b) Since WP:CON states that Misplaced Pages works by consensus and nothing in this article was agreed by both sides (not even the name) the article will be removed from Misplaced Pages until the succesfull conculsion of the required mediation or until a version of the article will be put up for a vote and will win a consensus on it being an NPOV version.
• No benefit should be given to the party who first created the article or name it if there is no consensus to the article content or name. WP:CON takes precedent over who was first Zeq 20:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Googling for "Israeli apartheid" gives 277,000 hits. However it is not a popular search term yet. Fred Bauder 23:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is in some part due to wikipedia mirror sites. Zeq 18:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred, why are you bringing up Google hits on an arbitration workshop page? Do you want to have the whole AfD debate re-hashed here? Su-Laine Yeo 16:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

5b) (which should really be under a separate heading as it is a different propsal made by a different person) would effectively allow individuals or teams of editors to veto articles they don't like. There is no incentive for those who oppose an article to actually submit to mediation since by blocking mediation they get what they want. At best it would encourage opponents to prolong the mediation process indefinitely in order to keep an article they don't like out of wikipedia for as long as possible.Homey 21:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• This is why it is a binding mediation. Foot draging will be censored by the mediator. The idea is to reach a resolution instead of the current "facts on the ground" "I was there first" method that has been used. Zeq 18:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion for the reasons I stated in the preceding sub-section. I made the same suggestion once or twice on the article's talk page and/or the centralized disussions and/or talk page. And look who opposes it, he who took ultimate advantage of the "facts on the ground." 6SJ7 18:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Would that be Humus sapiens or Jayjg?Homey 21:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

5b) proposed by Zeq 20:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO commended

6) ChrisO is commended for undoing unilateral actions on a highly controversial article by fellow admins that were not based on consensus but were the subject to intense discussion and a onging poll about the actions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

He was wheelwarring Fred Bauder 19:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

He was undoing unilateral controversial moves not based on consensus while a poll to resolve this was under way. -- Kim van der Linde 19:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 18:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, I believe ChrisO should neither be banned nor commended. I think there were better ways to handle the situation, and hopefully policy will be established stating exactly how a similar situation should be handled. In the meantime, two ways that spring to mind as to how this could have been better handled are either posting on one of the administrators' notice boards or starting an arbitration right then. I understand that that would have left the title as is for the time being, but when I think back to all the days I had to look at the title of simply "Israeli apartheid", it is difficult to have much sympathy. 6SJ7 18:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, I'm really not sure that I have ever seen this level of silliness. It was one thing when Kimv annoyingly showed up at these articles and then inappropriately used his admin powers to change the article's name despite the objections of a clear majority of editors on the talk page and then protected the page when it reflected his version under the guise of a neutral party, it was worse when he stayed around and continued to pretend he was uninvolved despite always voting with and using his powers for the benefit of one side, but these "proposals" really take to the next level. How in the world could he think that it is appropriate to attempt to discipline people who did a similar thing that he did earlier (except they never used their administrative powers and they had the opinions of a clear majority of users on their side). Does he actually believe that anyone is buying into his claim that he is just an "uninvolved party trying to solve a problem"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 20:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Don't you mean "commended"? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. -- Kim van der Linde 19:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It takes at least two sides to wheelwar; ChrisO was the worst offender, and it's quite weird to commend him for that. Pecher 19:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure, and I would agree if this was a content dispute. However, we are talkng user conduct, and violating policies versus upholding those same policies should not be treated as equal, but as opposite. -- Kim van der Linde 19:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• It seems to me that we all must come to term with the fact that there are subjects in which Misplaced Pages Consensus based idea and non-binding mediation efforts just do not work.
• In light of this some people will see unilaterla actions as good or bad according to what their own POV is on the issue.
• While usuall edit wars are bad, the person that need to get high praise is the person who took the bold action that got this issue closer to resolution. The rest seems to support his bold move. Let's face it if he would not have taken this step we will not be any closer to solution.
• Some issues there is no consensus for doing anything: Nither to delete nor to keep.
• maybe some mecahnism must be deleoped to handle these situations, and the only people who should get repremended are those who do not participate in this process with Good faith (i.e. not driving toward a solution) Zeq 19:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to state for the record that I have never staked a position on the content side of this dispute. I'm not a partisan on this issue and my handful of edits to the article have almost entirely been related to minor tidying up (typo fixes, formatting etc). My original vote against the move was (as I stated at the time) because I felt that it was inconsistent with how we treat other articles on loaded/pejorative terms. My actions in reverting the move were (as I also stated at the time) undertaken to permit the move poll to be completed according to policy. These are "technical" issues, not a content dispute. Nor am I involved in any other articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -- ChrisO 23:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg removed from ArbComm

7) User:Jayjg is required to resign from the Arbitration Committee for wheel warring after previously being cautioned against edit warring.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Nonsense Fred Bauder 23:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Homey 19:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add violation of WP:AGF here. -- Kim van der Linde 20:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to state that I do not support this proposal. -- Kim van der Linde 02:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel that I can support this - effectively sacking an arbitrator for his actions in this case seems an extremely harsh penalty. As I've proposed above, "Administrators may make mistakes." If his actions can be deemed a mistake, I don't believe that it's one of such seriousness that he should be banned and expelled from the Arbitration Committee (nowhere near, in fact). I should also point out that Jayjg's comments in this arbitration proceeding, as cited by Kim, aren't germane to the subject of the case itself. Having said that, some of Jayjg's comments on this page do seem inappropriate and I would feel very uncomfortable asking him to arbitrate any future cases in which I was involved. -- ChrisO 23:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Strongly opposed per other comments above and below. I would second Rebecca's comment that this proposal is about vengeance. The proposer made a comment, I believe in the page on the proposed formal mediation, that supports that. 6SJ7 18:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Quite wrong. Without commenting on whether the assertion that Jayjg has been wheelwarring is correct, I disagree that this would be reasonable if it was true. Arbitration is not criminal justice, in which law-breakers must be judged by those who have undoubted commitment to maintain the law. An ArbCom full of people with "perfect disciplinary records" would be useless in dispute resolution, and it is ultimately dispute resolution which is what ArbCom is about. ArbCom needs editors who have "been there" and understand what it's like to be in a dispute, as well as the steps which both led to and avoided disputes happening in the first place. (username not immediately apparent) 21:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's one thing for someone to have had a spotty record prior to joining ArbComm, it's quite another to accumulate a spotty record while on the ArbComm. An ArbComm member who disregards the rules he or she is supposed to adjudicate on loses his or her credibility and authority when adjudicating over others. Homey 21:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This is nonsense. Jayjg has been an excellent arbitrator, and has not abused that role in any way. This is an act of pure venegance on the part of an opposing party. Rebecca 03:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF. It's not unreasonable to argue that it is not in the interests of the project to have someone continue on ArbComm after they've been found to have merited some sort of warning or sanction on two separate occasions. Homey 03:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg has never been sanctioned last time I checked. Pecher 17:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I said "warning or sanction", he was warned previously and sanctions are being proposed in this instance. Homey 20:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a stupid idea. The whole affair is irrelevant to his ArbCom work. --jpgordon 19:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, being able to abide by policy is quite germane when it comes to one's legitimacy in adjudicating policy violations.Homey 20:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, as per Fred. IronDuke 00:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose per Rebecca. AnnH ♫ 20:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This is just silly. FeloniousMonk 22:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Humus sapiens desysopped with immediate reentitlement

8) Humus sapiens is desyopped for wheel warring and for acting in bad faith by renaming the article in the middle of a poll without consensus to do so. He is free to reapply for adminship at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship at any time.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Inappropriate. He deserves a severe sanction for starting a wheelwar and participating in it, but desysopping a trusted administrator is just foolishness. Fred Bauder 23:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

If Humus is truly "trusted" he will have no problem when he resubmits his name for adminship. Homey 00:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Homey 20:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I don't believe that this case merits desysopping anyone. I agree with Fred that a sanction is appropriate, but it should be consistent with previous wheel-warring cases and proportionate to the degree of the policy violation. Desyopping is neither consistent nor proportionate. -- ChrisO 23:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this is to harsh. I would suggest something along the line of a ban on making moves within the IP conflict range of articles, which would actually deal with the cause of the war. -- Kim van der Linde 02:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Desysopping actually is consistent as it has occured in the past in wheel warring cases. In two cases users was desysopped but allowed to resubmit their names in the request for adminship process (in one case immediately, in the other after two weeks) in other cases users were desysopped for a period of time and then automatically reinstated.Homey 03:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as grossly disproportional, for same reasons I stated in opposition to the banning of the four administrators involved. 6SJ7 18:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

For once, I agree with Fred. Banning him would be equally unhelpful, however. Rebecca 03:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred's statement raises the question of why he considers a ban to be appropriate while desyopping isn't - a ban is a much more drastic penalty than desysopping. It seems very inconsistent to propose the harsher penalty while dismissing the lighter penalty as "just foolishness" - it's like arguing that cutting off someone's hand is excessive while simultaneously proposing to cut off their head for the same offence. I'd be interested to know Fred's rationale for this. -- ChrisO 07:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I am also unclear on why a two-month ban is an appropriate sanction but de-syopping (with immediate entitlement) is not appropriate. Thatcher131 17:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It's starting to feel like the Night of the Long Knives around here. --jpgordon 19:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a good thing. Certain people have shown their true colors. SlimVirgin 19:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Completely disproportionate to this case. AnnH ♫ 20:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed by Homey I see. By his own reasoning he should be held to the same remedy on account of his own extensive history of edit warring, violating 3RR, use of sockpuppets, and inappropriate unblocking of same. FeloniousMonk 22:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is cautioned

10) Slimvirgin is cautioned to respect ongoing discussion related to controversial moves, and is advised to use Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedures.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Yes, but that goes without saying. Fred Bauder 20:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 03:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

If there are to be "cautions" distributed, I think a number of people deserve them, including the proposer of this remedy. 6SJ7 18:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, this is ridiculous. Besides the fact that no wheel-warring took place because the page moves were not administrative actions, all of these "proposed remedies" are also incredibly unfair in everyway. Kim, Fred, and Homey are being incredibly innappropriate to even propose this stuff. Fred is usually a fair arbitor, but in this case he has really crossed the line. However, Kimv and Homey are being ridiculous, Homey especially but also Kim were primary participants in this dispute, the fact that they would even try to propose such bias "solutions" only to the editors that opposed them even though Homey especially has acted far far worse is just preposterous to the point of being actually funny. I seriously encourage anyone to ignore anything that Homey and Kimv has proposed on this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

If you are even opposed to something as mild as being cautioned what sort of disciplinary action do you support? Anything at all?Homey 20:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't support anything as one sided bias as what is being proposed. So yes I do not support the proposal that "we caution every administrator that dared to oppose Homontherange or Kimvanderlinde.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I agree with 6SJ7. I see no reason to single out one user who made one move, thereby putting a black mark on the record of an excellent user, which will be eagerly seized on in the future by trolls. All parties should be reminded to respect ongoing discussion related to controversial moves, and advised to use Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedures. Although this proposal is one of the less offensive ones, some of the suggestions on this page remind me of the old English custom of leaving an executed criminal's head on a spike for several days as a warning to others. That's not what Misplaced Pages is about. AnnH ♫ 23:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You may be thinking of this practice - pour encourager les autres, as they said at the time. The Committee of Public Safety isn't a good model for the Arbitration Committee to follow... -- ChrisO 00:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg is prohibited to make page moves

11) Jayjg is prohibited to make page moves within the Israel-Palastinian conflict for one year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

This makes no sense. Fred Bauder 20:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 03:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not sure that I have ever seen this level of silliness. It was one thing when Kimv annoyingly showed up at these articles and then inappropriately used his admin powers to change the article's name despite the objections of a clear majority of editors on the talk page and then protected the page when it reflected his version under the guise of a neutral party, it was worse when he stayed around and continued to pretend he was uninvolved despite always voting with and using his powers for the benefit of one side, but these "proposals" really take to the next level. How in the world could he think that it is appropriate to attempt to discipline people who did a similar thing that he did earlier (except they never used their administrative powers and they had the opinions of a clear majority of users on their side). Does he actually believe that anyone is buying into his claim that he is just an "uninvolved party trying to solve a problem"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 20:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Rational for the somewhat harsher measure is that he has been warned before Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Yuber#Jayjg. -- Kim van der Linde 03:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as disproportional for similar reasons stated under the proposed "bannings." I think this prohibition and the one proposed against Humus sapiens are being proposed in order to tilt the "playing field" on articles regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 6SJ7 18:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to ban a good editor on the basis of one page move. Pecher 20:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not a ban. Homey 20:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, Doesn't anyone find it strange that all of these "solutions" that Kimv and Homey proposed for some reason only apply to people that disagreed with them? Doesn't anyone think it is strange that Jayjg, Humus, and Slimvirgin are being accused of taking "innappropriate unilateral admin action" when their page move had a clear majority of support on the talk page and involved no administrative actions, while Kimvd actually originally moved the page despite having little support and then protecting the page so that nobody could reverse his actions in an event that could only be called "innappropriate unilateral admin action"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 20:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"Doesn't anyone find it strange that all of these "solutions" that Kimv and Homey proposed for some reason only apply to people that disagreed with them?"

I find it strange that you keep accusing me of having proposed remedies that were actually proposed by either Fred or Kim. I did not propose this. I suspect you may be throwing my name into the mix in an attempt at guilt by association. I find it less strange, though not very credible, that you oppose any and all proposed action, even something as mild as being cautioned.Homey 20:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It obviously applies to you as well considering the fact that you proposed stuff that was even more ridiculous and one-sided. As I have just stated above, I oppose someone being cautioned if the criteria for it is "any administrator who opposed User:Homeontherange".- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposing desysopping is in line with sanctions in previous wheelwars so while you may disagree with it it is hardly "ridiculous". Your comments are uncivil, Moshe. Homey 21:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Its completely ridiculous. First of all, no wheel war took place, the only administrators that used their powers innappropriately in this conflict were you and Kim, page moves have nothing to do with administrative powers unless the article is protect right afterwards (as in Kim's case), second of all, it was even more ridiculous that you and kim expect to be taken seriously when you are only proposing solutions that apply to your opponents.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"Doesn't anyone find it strange that all of these "solutions" that Kimv and Homey proposed for some reason only apply to people that disagreed with them?" - the same could be said of you as you haven't said anything in regard to ChrisO's proposed ban - you've only opposed the disciplining of your friends. Homey 21:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"The same can be said" so you're equating my silence on the matter of ChrisO with your proposals to desysop all of your opponents? Are you being serious?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This workshop page is helpfully starting to resemble the various pages that got bogged down in the dispute, pages that Homeontherange and Kim van der Linde also took control of. SlimVirgin 19:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Certainly the least offensive suggestion of the batch, so far. --jpgordon 19:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

While a better targetted remedy than some, this is still too severe for a minor action. I suggest that an admonition would be sufficient. -Will Beback 11:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Disproportionate to the level of participation. FeloniousMonk 22:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Far too severe. Are we trying to help Misplaced Pages, or are we trying to humiliate editors? AnnH ♫ 23:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Humus sapiens is prohibited to make page moves

12) Humus sapiens is prohibited to make page moves within the Israel-Palastinian conflict for one year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

This makes no sense. If there is consensus there is no reason page moves cannot be made. Fred Bauder 20:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. -- Kim van der Linde 03:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Has twice unilaterally moved pages to disputed titles, one time overruled, one time pre-maturily. -- Kim van der Linde 03:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed as disproportional for similar reasons stated under the proposed "bannings." I think this prohibition and the one proposed against Jayjg are being proposed in order to tilt the "playing field" on articles regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 6SJ7 18:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Opposed, Doesn't anyone find it strange that all of these "solutions" that Kimv and Homey proposed for some reason only apply to people that disagreed with them? Doesn't anyone think it is strange that Jayjg, Humus, and Slimvirgin are being accused of taking "innappropriate unilateral admin action" when their page move had a clear majority of support on the talk page and involved no administrative actions, while Kimvd actually originally moved the page despite having little support and then protecting the page so that nobody could reverse his actions in an event that could only be called "innappropriate unilateral admin action"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 20:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, I did not propose this - however it should be noted that you oppose any disciplinary action whatsoever, including being cautioned. Homey 20:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"It should be noted", Ha! Should also be noted that all of your "solutions" only apply to users that disagreed with you?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose as disproportionate. It assumes that all such moves by Humus have been/would be for illegitimate reasons, which I don't think anyone has claimed. One or possibly two lapses in judgment don't justify a remedy that assumes a complete lack of judgment. -- ChrisO 00:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

While a better targetted remedy than some, this is still too severe for a minor action. I suggest that an admonition would be sufficient. -Will Beback 11:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Completely out of proportion to the act. As with all the proposed remedies (desysop, ban for a month, ban from articles but allow to work as an unpaid volunteer, ban from page moves, etc.), if such sanctions are going to be imposed for such acts, we should suggest making it policy, discuss it, vote on it, etc., before acting as if it is policy. We can't just implement these remedies without warning in order to make an example of these editors. AnnH ♫ 00:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

14) The complete apartheid related content dispute is referred for mediation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Only if serious negotiation in good faith fails. Fred Bauder 20:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed, in line with Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid#Statement_for_the_Mediation_Committee by Essjay. -- Kim van der Linde 04:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I have been wondering about the fate of the Mediation Committee's rather wide-ranging referral myself. However, Kim, in your proposed findng above, do you mean "mediation" or "arbitration"? The Mediation Committee stated that it was "hereby making formal referral to arbitration", although it also raised the possibility of "binding mediation" under the auspices of the ArbComm. In turn, the ArbComm appears to have neither accepted nor declined either the referral or the alternative suggestion. Most people seem to be assuming that the scope of the arbitration is much narrower than the Mediation Committee's referral would suggest. 6SJ7 05:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Essjay wrote: With that said, if the Committee would like to appoint someone from the Arbitration Committee to handle a binding mediation of the matter, and sanction anyone who refuses to participate or exercise good faith, then that might be a workable attempt at mediation. However, voluntary mediation is simply not going to work for this one. For the Mediation Committee, Essjay (Talk • Connect) 05:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC) -- Kim van der Linde 21:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be borne in mind that it was largely Kim van der Linde who scuppered the RfM because she wasn't being allowed to control it. SlimVirgin 20:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The above statement by SlimVirgin that Kim van der Linde scruppered the RfM is inaccurate. I disagreed with the timing of the RfM and viewed it as a way to avoid responsibility for the bullying by HS, Jayjg and SV. I supported the new title but felt their actions were out of line. Thus I opposed the RfM and ensured that I was listed as a major player, see this discussion Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation#Major.2Fcentral_players.3F and Zeq and SlimVirgin's queries that I switch to supporting the RfM here . I also argued that Kim (who oppposed the RfM) should be correctly considered a major player of the RfM -- this also had the effect that I was not the sole major player opposing of the RfM. Thus if the "blame" for scruppering the RfM is to be placed anywhere, it should be placed on me. I do see it feasible to later go back to the RfM after this ArbCom is completed -- I just didn't want the RfM to be a way to avoid responsibility, which giving its timing seemed to be the case. --Ben Houston 13:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Foot-dragging over proposed compromises

15) foot-dragging over proposed compromises is not allowed. Editors who engage in it violate the Good faith required to edit Misplaced Pages. The mechanism of Binding mediation must be interduced and added to Dispute Resolution procedure.

Comment by Arbitrators:

There is no such thing as binding mediation. There can be compulsory mediation. Good faith can be required. But only arbitration can result in a binding decision. Parties to mediation can, in good faith, refuse to agree. Fred Bauder 20:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I am taking a wait-and-see attitude regarding dispute resolution mechanisms on Misplaced Pages. In my one and only exposure to mediation on Misplaced Pages, which I realize was "informal" in nature, I later came to realize that I had been hoodwinked into agreeing to a mediation conducted by a person who was not neutral. (It was in connection with this article.) 6SJ7 18:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you have stated this at various places now, would you mind to show some proof of your accusations? -- Kim van der Linde 18:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Evidence that you're not neutral? You've got to be kidding. Hardly anyone agreed to you being a mediator for the simple reason that Homeontherange proposed it and no one trusts him. You took what was a relatively minor dispute (by Homey's standards, anyway, because he's a veteran) and turned it into a full-blown circus; wikilawyering and issuing instructions about processes and policies you've clearly misunderstood; misusing your admin powers even after you yourself admitted you weren't acting as a mediator; and then standing in the way of proper mediation with the medcom. Not satisfied, you then propose a series of vindictive and draconian penalties against editors who dared to stand up to you; and even today you continue to misuse your admin tools elsewhere! SlimVirgin 20:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

" Hardly anyone agreed to you being a mediator for the simple reason that Homeontherange proposed it and no one trusts him." In fact, no one, not one person, voiced opposition to Kim as a mediator and 6SJ7 and IronDuke agreed immediately while others on both sides accepted her efforts and participated in the process she was facilitating. I do not recall anyone voicing any opposition to her until she renamed the article as a result of a polling procedure and various arguments being made. In fact, she offered at one point to transfer mediation to Su-laine.yeo who had voted to delete the article in the AFD and whose positions were pretty much in agreement with the views of Humus and Jay - not exactly an offer one would expect from the biased mediator you and Jay are latterly trying to recast her as. Indeed, you only expressed dissatisfaction with her after she failed to support your attempt at an 11th hour RFM. I'm sorry Slim, but reality does not agree with the script you are attempting to write.Homey 19:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me ask you a question, when you decided that your mediation was not going to succeed, why didn't you just go on to other administrative activities? Why did you stick around and become involved on one "side" in this dispute, including casting a "vote" against the renaming proposal? Don't you see how that, alone, might cause someone to conclude that you were not "neutral"? And then, after you cast a "vote" against the renaming proposal, while the poll was still active, you (in your capacity as the Requests for Move "cleanup" administrator), moved the poll from "Current proposals" to "Old discussions" (with the misleading comment that the dispute over the name had been referred to the ArbComm) where presumably another administrator would not see that the poll needed to be closed, and the name would remain "Israeli apartheid"? Do you deny that this event occurred? If so, I will find and post the evidence. But if you acknowledge that this occurred, don't you see a problem here, and don't you see how others would draw the conclusion that I have drawn? 6SJ7 19:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

1) I voted against the move based on the following arguments:

First, renaming it to that name would free the way of a second article that deals with for example the scholary opinion about this topic, which is not an allegation or accusation but an analysis. And I think that is not warranted. Second, I think that this issue should be dealt with in a wider sense, dealing with all apartheid articles. Third, the article is not stable yet, and it is unclear what the exact content of this article should be, and setting the name already to a title like this is setting limitations to the article content.

As you can see, my arguments are content stability, fear for POV-forking, and scope within other articles. I do ot see an opinion about whether the Israeli apartheid actually exists.

2) I have been cleaning parts of the large backlog of the WP:RM, and did not want to close the poll myself. Besides that, it is my (maybe wrong) understanding that cases under the arbCom should be left to the ArbCom, and as such, I moved it there for the time being. That the ArbCom case has been narrowed down sinse then is a secondary issue.

And if you want to know my opinion about this article: IT SHOULD NOT EXIST, it should be not more than a 1-2 paragraph long in a general article about apartheid. See my proposal here: Misplaced Pages:Central_discussions/Apartheid#Proposal__by_User:KimvdLinde where I explicite state: Israeli apartheid: If and only if the amount of relevant information is sufficient to warrant a split of from the main article. Short article. And until now, I am not convinced it warrants its own article. -- Kim van der Linde 19:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred, thanks for clearing that up about "binding mediation." I thought it sounded like an oxymoron, but then I thought hey, Misplaced Pages is a unique place, maybe they have some sort of special way of making mediation binding. Actually, when I first saw the term used, I assumed that since there is no such thing, the person meant compulsory mediation, so that is how I have been "reading" it. 6SJ7 21:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin wrote:"Hardly anyone agreed to you being a mediator for the simple reason that Homeontherange proposed it and no one trusts him."

As I recall she fell into the role as a result of having responded to a request on the protection board to either protect or unprotect the article. Yes, I did suggest that she try to facilitate a consensus but this was because she was an uninvolved admin. I had no experience with her prior to her dropping into the article notwithstanding your conspiracy theory. And yes, she was accepted widely, even by Zeq. Your demonization of me is unfortunate and the ad hominems you are racking up on this page are unbecoming of an admin who should know better. Perhaps instead of blaming everything on me as you've been doing on various pages you should look as well at yourself and your friends. Speck. Beam. Eye. Homey 20:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

proposed by Zeq 06:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Kim, Homey points out correctly that she offered the mediatorship to me. FWIW, I have the impression she has put a heck of a lot of time into this dispute because she cares about Misplaced Pages, not because she wants to push a point of view. Until I see good evidence to the contrary, I think Kim's errors in judgement in her role as mediator are just that - errors. Please respect the work of volunteers and be generous in assuming stupidity, not malice. Su-Laine Yeo 04:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Administrators admonished

16) All involved administrators are admonished not use their administrative tools without prior discussion and consensus, and to avoid using them so as to continue an editing dispute. Humus sapiens, ChrisO, Kim van der Linde, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg are reminded to use formal mediation and other dispute resolution procedures sooner when conflicts occur.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Amen Fred Bauder 21:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

As I said above about "cautions," if "admonishments" are to be distributed to any administrators, they should be distributed widely. The second sentence of FloNight's first statement below is right on the money. 6SJ7 18:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Can I ask based on what evidence of wrong doing in this case that I am added. -- Kim van der Linde 14:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Battle_of_Deir_Yassin/Deir_Yassin_massacre Fred Bauder 14:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so the case has now been widered to two cases. -- Kim van der Linde 14:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You misused your tools in this case too, more than anyone else involved. SlimVirgin 20:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is enough. Appears to me that the above parties recent attempts at mediation were foiled by the parties that are asking for their head on a platter. FloNight 12:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Support if Kim is also added to the list. She did several controversal moves during the discussion, posing as a "mediator". However, she was never formally appointed as such, and her partisanship was clear throughout the process. Pecher 17:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

AGF. Kim was accepted by both sides and tried to accomodate a compromise. That she later developed her own views on the topic, after she had ceased to be a mediator, does not mean she had been "posing" as anything. Homey 18:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

She was not accepted by both sides. Most of the editors involved did not accept her, mostly because you proposed her. And she deliberately scuppered the Request for Mediation. SlimVirgin 20:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The above statement by SlimVirgin that Kim van der Linde scruppered the RfM is inaccurate. I disagreed with the timing of the RfM and viewed it as a way to avoid responsibility for the bullying by HS, Jayjg and SV. I supported the new title but felt their actions were out of line. Thus I opposed the RfM and ensured that I was listed as a major player, see this discussion Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation#Major.2Fcentral_players.3F and Zeq and SlimVirgin's queries that I switch to supporting the RfM here . I also argued that Kim (who oppposed the RfM) should be correctly considered a major player of the RfM -- this also had the effect that I was not the sole major player opposing of the RfM. Thus if the "blame" for scruppering the RfM is to be placed anywhere, it should be placed on me. I do see it feasible to later go back to the RfM after this ArbCom is completed -- I just didn't want the RfM to be a way to avoid responsibility, which giving its timing seemed to be the case. --Ben Houston 14:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

On which archive page of Talk:Israeli apartheid do "most" of the editors express opposition to her undertaking mediation?Homey 20:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

On which archive page of Talk:Israeli apartheid do "most" of the editors express acceptance of her undertaking mediation? Jayjg 04:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Since I happen to have been one of those who expressed acceptance for Kim's mediation (though with a caveat as to the scope of the mediation), perhaps I can clear this up. Three editors accepted the mediation, including me, the other two being IronDuke and Ben Houston. Nobody was opposed, but I now know that in "official" WP mediation (the Mediation Committee) explicit acceptances from all the "major players" are required, and none of the major players explicitly accepted. If I had known that, I would have questioned it at the time. I went into this fairly inexperienced in Misplaced Pages, although I would gladly have remained inexperienced having seen what I have now seen. 6SJ7 05:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me do more reading, okay? FloNight 18:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Her latest closing of the vote on Talk:Battle of Deir Yassin gives more weight to my proposal. This is another instance where Kim attempted to play an uninvolved editor. Pecher 19:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Too little, especially after Arbcom took a strong stand against wheel warring in the pedophilia userbox case. I assume all the appropriate redirects were maintained, so there would have been very little harm (if any at all) at allowing the article to remain at a bad title while taking time for more discussion. Thatcher131 19:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Thatcher131, my wording come from the last case of admin wheel warring. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Blu Aardvark#Administrators admonished FloNight 20:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"Administrators admonished

5) All involved administrators are admonished not use their administrative tools without prior discussion and consensus, and to avoid using them so as to continue a block war. Raul654 in particular is warned not to repeatedly unblock when he is reversed.

Passed 6 to 0 at 00:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)"

Hm, well in that case 2 admins unblocked a highly controversial user without discussing it first (except on IRC) or obtaining consensus. There was no real wheel war. Here, a group of admins wheel-warred over an article title; I have no idea whether it was more damaging to the project but deciding on the title of the article was certainly less urgent than reblocking BA and MSK. As long as proper redirects are in place bad titles can sit for weeks without doing any more harm than offending some people's sensibilities. This was a case of admins on both sides convinced they were right and making moves without proper discussion or consensus, some of which apparently required administrator tools. Your proposal is certainly closer to what I have in mind than any of the {adjective deleted} blocks and bans propsed above. Thatcher131 20:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

There was wheel warring in this case. Two days after the original unblocks and reblocks (which would be considered wheel warring as it is defined in this case), Raul unblocked 2 times with two different admins reblocking. Other admins threatened to reblock any admin that unblocked again. At that point Raul had the good sense to bring the case to arbitration comm. ; - ) FloNight 21:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I would support the above under two conditions: 1) It is made explicit that the idea of being "reminded" in no way constitutes a "warning." 2) As per Pecher, I'd strongly recommend adding Kim to that list. If Kim had no POV before coming to the article, she quickly developed one, as she makes clear in her own statement on the article. As someone who endorsed her (what I thought was good faith) effort to mediate, I'm saddened by her inability to remain neutral which lead directly, I think, to the present mess. The article really needed someone who wouldn't lean one way or the other. IronDuke 01:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

If developing an opinion when you are looking in such a detail into the information that is brought in front of you and if that is an offense, please add me. -- Kim van der Linde 02:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For admins with minor roles in this debacle, this proposal strikes me as having crossed far beyond disproportionate and excessive and into the surreal and insane. For example, evidence shows Jayjg's participation consisted of all of 1 revert and a page move and not using his admin role or tools. So, exactly how is it Jayjg's actions warrant such a harsh warning? Also, despite very partisan claims to the contrary, there's absolutely no precedent for this in these circumstances. Considering that the extensive misdeeds of several parties in the conflict contrasts sharply to those with minor roles, this is not an appropiate case for "a plague upon both your houses"-type solutions. FeloniousMonk 16:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Given that Jayjg has already been cautioned once in an RFA the ArbComm would be remiss to do anything less than that this time, indeed the principle of progressive discipline requires a more serious penalty for a second violation. Homey 16:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

As Fred already told you "However, a mere warning in the past does not form the basis for an increased sanction in this case." In this case it's a matter of the remedy being proportionate to the trangression, and in Jayjg's case it doesn't appear to be. FeloniousMonk

Fred told me that but he provided no basis for that assertion. It is normal in most judicial and quasi-judicial settings as well as in workplace settings under progressive discipline that a record of having been warned in the past does provide a basis for increased sanction in the case of further violations. This is certainly the principle used in 3RR cases, as you know, and there is no reason why it shouldn't apply here. Homey 19:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

FM, I know that it's not a perfectly worded sanction, nor is it intended to make a final judgment on the parties involved. I was attempting to point out that milder sanctions have been given in similar cases. At the point I wrote the remedy, some were arguing that precident established that servere sanctions must be given to admins that use their admin tools outside of consensus. Since I follow arb cases on a regular basis I knew that was not the case. The days and possibly weeks ahead will sort out who stays on this proposed remedy (or one with better wording) and who goes. Some parties may have additional sanctions against them. I could be wrong but it appears that some parties rejected mediation to force this case. Others were working to find common ground and settle the dispute. It's not to late for all involved parties to work together and settle this dispute. IMO, the strongest sanction belong against those that prolong the conflict by not engaging in constructive consensus building activites. FloNight 19:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on personal experience, I'd reject mediation with someone I believe to be participating bad faith as well. There's no basis for a good faith resolution when one party is not participating in DR in good faith.

Using this wide of a brush tars those with minor roles with the transgressions of those who are more responsible for the conflict. Evidence shows not all admins participated to the same degree in this conflict, meaning a one-size-fits-all admonishment is not going to be accurate, appropriate or fair. FeloniousMonk 19:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

FM, my experience with arb comm cases tells me that the final outcome will be determined by the participants behavior before and during the case. For that reason at this point my remedy cannot address who should be included and who should not. From my limited perspective it appears that KimvdLinde might have hampered mediation in this case forcing it to proceed to arbitration. It appears that others have similar concerns.

The current wording of this admonishment is appropriate *if* the arb comm thinks that all the admins involved used their tool outside of consensus. Some evidence has been given to support this argument. I'm offering it as a remedy *if* they make this determination. I understand that you do not believe it to be true. If the arb comm rejects the idea that all admins used their tools outside of consensus, then they can adjust the names of the parties involved. I offered the remedy to show that lesser remedies are possible instead of banning, probation, desop and the other extremely harsh remedies offered by others in this case. FloNight 20:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate and agree with your reason for proposing this remedy. It should have been worded "Certain administrators" rather than "All involved administrators" I think. Evidence is already on the evidence page makes it clear that neither SlimVirgin or Jayjg used their admin tools in this conflict. If the logs presented by KimVanDerLinde and Zeq are to be believed, then applying this remedy to all involved administrators would be neither accurate nor appropriate is my only point. FeloniousMonk 22:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ben Houston, We have a different view of the purpose of arb cases. I think the purpose is to put remedies in place to curb disruptive user behavior that interfers with writing the encyclopedia. If users are no longer being disruptive because of mediation then sanctons are not needed. Insisting on bringing a case in order to hold people accountable for percieved past bad behavior that is already corrected is not a good use of the arb comm time. FloNight 14:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Can I strongly endorse this sentiment in all particulars? If only the Arbcom would apply it to the Irishpunktom case where myself and Irishpunktom have already solved the dispute completely. David | Talk 16:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't bring the ArbCom case nor have I made any proposals within it. I actually have no experience with regards to ArbCom. Although I view myself as a participant in the dispute over thea article, I am also not directly involved in the move war. That said, I have very little trust for SlimVirgin who initiated the RfM and I only recieved requests to take part in the RfM from her side of the dispute. I see now that this ArbCom process is like a sausage factory, much more so that I expected. I hold out hope that in the end people will see through the various extraneous accusations and just focus on the out of process moves. I must admit that initially I imagined that it would have been a much cleaner and more focused process since the initial incident which motivated the ArbCom was so straightforward. --Ben Houston 15:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Administrative probation

17) For poor judgment shown in wheel warring and misuse of administrative tools (unprotecting articles and/or deleting pages to enable moves), Humus sapiens, ChrisO, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg are placed on Misplaced Pages:Administrative probation for one year. If during that year these admins engage in further gross violations of administrative responsibility, they may, following a hearing by the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped or be subject to restrictions on their administrative activities.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I would not support this. These administrators engaged in a serious violation, wheelwarring, but have no general failing to adequately perform as administrators which would support administrative probation. Fred Bauder 21:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Thatcher31, which administrators "misused" their administrative tools to "unprotect articles and/or delete pages to enable moves"? Could you list them, and how many times they did it? Jayjg 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I withdraw this proposal. You may ignore, delete or strike as appropriate. More on talk page. Thatcher131 00:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed, from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom/Proposed decision. Thatcher131 19:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessarily harsh. Finding in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Blu Aardvark#Administrators admonished are adequate for this case. FloNight 20:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Being slightly naughty here but I really don't understand how Fred Bauder can say that admins here were wheelwarring but shouldn't be on probation, whereas I was not wheelwarring but Fred apparently thinks I should be on probation. There appears to be an egregious lack of consistency. David | Talk 22:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

But on the other hand he wants them banned from main article space for one, two or three months. Thatcher131 22:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is happening on the wrong page, but still ... Answering the question you posed in your edit summary, I'm actually more than happy to engage in free-ranging private discussion with Arbs about the proposed remedy. Disappointingly all the private discussion that has taken place has been initiated by me. David | Talk 22:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Adminstrative status restricted

17a) For poor judgment shown in wheel warring and misuse of administrative tools (unprotecting articles and/or deleting pages to enable moves), Humus sapiens, ChrisO, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg are explicitly prohibited from using administrative tools on any page to which they have made non-minor edits, from using rollback in any non-vandalism situations other than to revert themselves, or from taking any administrative action regarding a conflict in which they are personally involved. He/She may be blocked for up to 24 hours for each violation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I would not want to cripple capable and responsible administrators. Fred Bauder 21:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Thatcher31, which administrators "misused" their administrative tools to "unprotect articles and/or delete pages to enable moves"? Could you list them, and how many times they did it? Jayjg 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I withdraw this proposal. You may ignore, delete or strike as appropriate. More on talk page. Thatcher131 00:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. 17 merely says that if these admins get into a conflict again, the Arbcom may review it. 17a has teeth. Per Dmcdevit's modification of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom/Proposed decision. Thatcher131 19:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessarily harsh. Finding in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Blu Aardvark#Administrators admonished are adequate for this case. FloNight 20:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Adminstrative status restricted

17b) For poor judgment shown in wheel warring and misuse of administrative tools (unprotecting articles and/or deleting pages to enable moves), Humus sapiens, ChrisO, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg are explicitly prohibited from using administrative tools on any page related to this conflict, or from taking any administrative action regarding a conflict in which they are personally involved. S/he may be blocked for up to 24 hours for each violation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I would not want to cripple capable administrators. When there is consensus they ought to be able to perform administrative duties. This proceeding involves actions taken in the absence of consensus. Fred Bauder 21:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Thatcher31, which administrators "misused" their administrative tools to "unprotect articles and/or delete pages to enable moves"? Could you list them, and how many times they did it? Jayjg 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I withdraw this proposal. You may ignore, delete or strike as appropriate. More on talk page. Thatcher131 00:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Same as 17a but limited to this conflict. Thatcher131 19:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessarily harsh. Finding in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Blu Aardvark#Administrators admonished are adequate for this case. FloNight 20:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I must say I am flummoxed by the idea that formally restricting them from using administrative tools when they are in a conflict (which I hope is basic policy anyway) is "crippling" but banning them from the article namespace is not. What admin duties don't involved article space? Blocking vandals, reverting article vandalism, reverting talk page vandalism, voting on XfD, closing AfDs, page moves, history merges, RCP, NPP. Thatcher131 21:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)