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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Please note the following for this case: This is not a re-opening of the Ebionites 2 request/case from March 2011. The initial case scope is limited to conduct within the past year. Please do not post any evidence or commentary which relates events before September 2012. Evidence submission for this case has closed. Please do not submit further evidence, it will be removed.

Ebionites 3 evidence length

I have asked the clerk for this arbitration, Callanecc, for some temporary leeway on the length of evidence, as I previously explained here. Once I strip out the principles, the total words will fall below the 1000 limit. I want them in front of me temporarily so I can stare at them while I put the arguments and evidence into final form. Thank you. Ignocrates (talk) 18:19, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Btw, wouldn't linking to prior versions of the evidence page as a means of circumventing the length requirement be considered an abuse of process? diff That is apparently being done and may require some adjustments. Ignocrates (talk) 19:54, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

To answer both your questions here: some temporary leeway on evidence length is OK. As the arbitrator who has volunteered to draft this case, I intend to review the evidence submitted so far at the end of this coming weekend, and give directions on how helpful the evidence is, and ways to shorten/improve the evidence based on my review at that point. This will help focus things and hopefully avoided wasted effort. Unfortunately I won't be around between now and then, so the best thing for you both to do is to keep things as short and concise as you can, and not let things descend into a back-and-forth between you two. In my absence, please follow instructions given by the clerks or other arbs. Best for now to focus on your own arguments, and not be drawn into rebuttals of what others have said. I will give some time later for rebuttals. Carcharoth (talk) 01:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Question for the Arbs about broadening the scope of this case

• @Arbs, are we allowed to show evidence of interactions with uninvolved 3rd parties if those interactions have nothing directly to do with the other party named in this two-person case? Ignocrates (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I've asked for clarification. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:41, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
    • My view (depending on what clarification Callanecc receives from other arbs or clerks) is that it is best to keep the focus purely on interactions between the two of you (Ignocrates and John Carter) for now. Once the extent of that is clear, we can then consider widening the scope if needed. So "possibly, but not now". Carcharoth (talk) 01:47, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. The scope is currently not being limited to interactions between the two named parties. diff Ignocrates (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Scope restricted to the past 12 months

I informed the clerk for this arbitration, Callanecc, that the restriction placed on the scope limiting evidence to the past 12 months is being violated. Ignocrates (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I see no such violation. I see presentation of evidence which happened over a year ago which directly relates to one of your own points of evidence, and, on that basis, I believe it falls within the parameters of discussion. You yourself refer to this in your at this time extant section "Alleging a conspiracy among editors and with an outside religious group to push a POV". Quoting your comment as it now stands, "John Carter has demonstrated a battleground mentality by making unsupported accusations of biased editing based on an assumed religious affiliation. He poisoned the well by making unsubstantiated claims of collusion with other editors as well as a religious group and the group’s leader, including an attempt to "out" my personal religious beliefs.' Well, that link supports the "accusation," and thus reasonably merits inclusion because it pretty clearly indicates your own allegation is inaccurate. And, yes, I believe it reasonable to indicate that misstatements of fact in the evidence section are in fact misstatements of fact. John Carter (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

You are in arbitration, not on some user's talk page. Please direct your comments and queries to the clerk or the Committee. Thank you. Ignocrates (talk) 20:13, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

And I was also directly responding to your own allegations, therefore, it seemed reasonable to indicate as much. Also, honestly, considering you say in your own comment that you posted the matter on the ArbCom clerk's page, honestly, if you were to follow your the rules you yourself seek to impose, your own comment starting this thread might well qualify as basically redundant, considering that they would respond. If one is going to attempt to dictate the conduct of others, would it not make sense if they followed the rules they seek to impose themselves? The talk page is for talking about the evidence, and I responded directly to your allegations of misuse with at least one piece of evidence which can be seen as repudiating your allegation, and indicating here that the evidence was added for the purpose of repudiating the allegation submitted in evidence. That is, I believe, a reasonable use of talk pages, although I am not sure posturing comments necessarily are. John Carter (talk) 20:29, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Limiting the scope to the past 12 months is intended to: (a) keep the scope manageable; and (b) to avoid stirring up old grievances. I intend at the beginning of next week to prepare some notes on the background to this, which will cover some of what happened prior to the last 12 months, starting from the original Ebionites case and working forward, but I don't want the two of you rehashing all that. This will be intended as a brief summary and background material only. I know it may be difficult, but please do keep to the initial scope. I will also, after reviewing the evidence posted by the end of this weekend, have some questions for you both which should help focus matters. As I said above, please focus on your own arguments and not those of others. I will give time for rebuttals later. Carcharoth (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Understood, and, although no one has said this yet, you seem to be the driving factor in this arbitration being accepted, and I think you deserve some thanks for that. However, honestly, I still believe it reasonable to indicate misstatements of fact, or what others might call more bluntly "lying," in the evidence presented as well. John Carter (talk) 15:18, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

John Carter's comments on my evidence on the evidence page

I am not supposed to answer back to the "involved" parties on the evidence page, I guess, I hope it is OK to make a comment here as to what is said about my "evidence" there. John Carter says "The specific discussion which got Smeat involved was my saying Ehrman is not considered a "fringe"y source for his recent comments regarding the oral gospel tradition, an idea which, while acknowledged, has gotten little real support in the academic community beyond him and a few others". Doesn't he mean Ehrman is considered a "fringe-y" source? (in John Carter's opinion, of course). And he also says "Smeat also regularly ended the comments defending Ehrman with a statement that he is a NYT best selling author". Once. I did that once, nor "regularly" and what I said was that writing NYT bestsellers does not disqualify someone from being a WP:RS, as John Carter seemed to think.Smeat75 (talk) 17:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Supplemental comment: Smeat75, we went through the same thing with James Tabor in mediation 2. To this day, John Carter refuses to acknowledge that Tabor is a reliable source. diff He recently blanked an entire section of reliably sourced content in the Ebionites article containing Tabor as a source, among others. diff Ignocrates (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I am about to review the evidence submitted so far, and will comment on this talk page after that. Carcharoth (talk) 23:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Under the circumstances, I'm wondering whether maybe extending the evidence phase beyond the first, depending on when the comments are finished, might not be inappropriate. Regarding the blanking of content, it seems once again Ignocrates is displaying a remarkable inability to remember even his own history here. The previous discussion regarding Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty, on the talk page of Ebionites and elsewhere, was rather clearly that the work is very "fringey." Ignocrates' regular inability to remember his own history is apparently becoming a very serious and repeated problem. John Carter (talk) 14:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Preliminary comments

I've reviewed the general thrust of the evidence submitted so far, and from the diffs provided I should be able to locate the full discussions relating to those diffs (to give them context), i.e. links to talk page archives of the full discussions and/or page history links to current discussions (ones not yet archived), plus dates for the links and discussions. It would help if those presenting evidence provided those links as well - please ask if you need help doing that.

On my review so far, what I see so far is plenty of allegations arising from, and evidence of, disagreements and arguments between the two of you (John Carter and Ignocrates), mostly on article talk pages. The motivations and underlying reasons for such persistent disagreements, however, are not something that can be easily drawn out from a series of diffs. What I intend to do after looking through this some more is ask both of you some questions on the workshop page in the section reserved for that. I will post those questions in a few days time, along with a summary of the background leading up to this case.

What I am also looking for is evidence that the two of you are able to work together productively (please go as far back as needed to answer this) - is there any evidence for that? I am also looking for is evidence of either or both of you being able to work productively with other editors, both on this and other topics. Overall, I'm looking to answer the question of whether these issues are limited just to this topic area, to the interactions between the two of you, or a combination of both. Carcharoth (talk) 00:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Links added to Evidence per your request. Ignocrates (talk) 17:59, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

More evidence

I have asked Blueboar to comment on a similar incident that happened earlier this year here. Ignocrates (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

No comment to give. I don't think the "incident" that I was involved with (a minor disagreement on on an unrelated page), has any baring on this arbitration. Blueboar (talk) 11:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Carcharoth, it seems to me that what you are asking for in the preliminary comments is some understanding of the tipping point of this conflict between John Carter and myself. There was already an edit conflict underway on the Ebionites article between John Carter and Michael Price in May 2010, which I was trying to mediate. I think my entry point into that dispute can be narrowed down to this diff and the conversation around it link. This is where, imo, John Carter made this conflict personal and no longer only about sources. Ignocrates (talk) 13:37, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The above statement is so completely ridiculous it is hard to know where to start, and contains I believe further evidence of either the abject dishonesty of that editor, or a really miserable ability to remember anything, which I believe might certainly related to his basic WP:COMPETENCE. I believe the material in the first arbitration will make it clear that Ovadyah/Ignocrates left a message at the Christianity WikiProject talk page, and that was my first involvement. His disagreement with Michael was the cause of that request. I think that this further evidence of Ignocrates' continuing to try to warp reality to make it more easily fit into what seems to me a delusionally high opinion of hismself. I also believe that it was clearly personal to Ovadyah/Ignocrates from the very beginning of his editing, considering he has edited little if anything outside of the Ebionite subject field, with which he has clear rather transparent biases. And I believe his long-standing support of fringe sources which seem to among the few to support the beliefs of the non-notable EJC is clear evidence that it has never been anything but personal to him. Also, I would ask anyone to review the recent history of the Talk:Gospel of the Ebionites page and see how clearly Ignocrates seems to refuse to even address matters relating to sources. At least from the time he requested my desysoping, I believe it has been clear that his motivations in contact with me have been almost exclusively driven by his own personal biases. But, FWIW, I acknowledge that I have misused the phrase RS when I should have used fringe more than once. If that occasional misuse of words is considered actionable, I have made it clear from the time I became an admin that I would revoke my adminship if another admin said they saw sufficient cause, and all the members of ArbCom are admins, so they all qualify. If they were to wish to do so on their own, without consulting me in advance, under the circumstances, that would be acceptable as well. John Carter (talk) 14:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)