Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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Important notes:

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Jiujitsuguy

Clearly no admin consensus to do anything. T. Canens (talk) 00:18, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning Jiujitsuguy User who is submitting this request for enforcement Nableezy 00:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Jiujitsuguy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it 14 November 2011 Removal of consensus statement on illegality of Israeli settlement 13 November 2011 gross misrepresentation of cited source 13 November 2011 misrepresentation of cited source Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) Notified of the case Additional comments by editor filing complaint Similar to an earlier case where an editor removed from articles the consensus sentence on the legal status of Israeli settlements, which Jiujitsuguy was involved in and is aware of the consequences, Jiujitsuguy has removed from an article on an Israeli settlement the consensus sentence. Jiujitsuguy was involved in both the discussion that resulted in that consensus and in the AE request linked above. Since coming of his topic ban, JJG has continued with the same conduct that saw him banned, relentlessly pushing an extreme minority POV, such as claiming the Golan is in Israel (see for example here or here where he adds maps showing the Golan as being within Israel's borders). This latest episode of removing the consensus statement is the last straw as far as I am concerned. The user should have been banned for any number of actions, this just being the latest one. In both the edit summary of the edit reverted by JJG (here) and the talk page section opened about the issue (here) the discussion WP:Legality of Israeli settlements is explicitly referenced. This is simply bad-faith editing against consensus and should be dealt with accordingly. Besides the issue with the removal of the sentence on the illegality of the settlement, there is an additional problem with the edit. In the edit, Jiujitsuguy changed it is the largest settlement in the Golan Heights to it is the largest town in the Golan Heights. The source for the sentence says Katzrin, the largest among the Golan settlements with a population of 7000. Now one might quibble over whether Katzrin should primarily be called a settlement or a town or whatever, but Jiujitsuguy here ignores the source to further a political agenda and while doing so introduces a factual error into an encyclopedia article. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Katzrin (listed as Qazrin in English here, the Hebrew spelling קצרין verifies it is the same city) had, at the end of 2005, a population of 6500. Majdal Shams had a population of 9500. Katzrin is considerably smaller than the largest town in the Golan, it is specifically the largest settlement, yet this was ignored due to the political leanings of a Misplaced Pages editor. This manipulation of language to suit a political purpose while ignoring the sources causes damage to the encyclopedia. Jiujitsuguy continues to disregard, and indeed misrepresent, sources when they do not conform to his political views. nableezy - 05:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC) Jiujistuguy's response only causes greater concern. He says I do not for one second regret that* part of my edit* with that part being a reference to the modification of the sentence on Katzrin being the largest settlement. He now brings as justification for that edit a "source" that was not mentioned in the article or the talk page and one that is clearly inaccurate as even official data from the Israeli government shows (also, I found a more recent census, which gives Katzrin's population as 6500 and Majdal Shams as 9600). He still feels justified in introducing factual errors so long as they reflect his personal political opinions. The misrepresentation of sources to push a political POV was the major cause of his last topic ban. To remind anybody who has forgotten, in that episode Jiujitsuguy modified Israel also expelled Arabs from the DMZ and demolished their homes to Israel also expelled Arab squatters and trespassers from the DMZ and demolished their homes. This most recent episode, with the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the wrong, demonstrates that he has yet to understand the issue of misrepresentation of sources and that he continues to do so for purely political purposes. nableezy - 17:40, 18 November 2011 (UTC) Jiujitsuguy still, despite repeated explanations from both myself and RolandR, does not understand the issue. That doesnt give me much hope that this can be rectified with anything other than a ban. This isnt an issue of calling Katztrin a settlement or a village, a colony or a city. That he can only see this issue through that lens and persists in arguing a completely irrelevant point is itself evidence of the tendentious nature of his edits. He still has not understood the basic point that Katzrin is not the largest town in the Golan, and by making the article say that, based purely on his political positions, he introduced a factual error into the article. And he apparently feels no regret for that. I dont think much more evidence is needed that Jiujitsuguy's editing goals and Misplaced Pages's mission are simply incompatible. His goal here is to align articles with a political viewpoint without any regard for either the facts or the sources. That cannot be tolerated, especially in an area as problematic as the ARBPIA topic area. nableezy - 19:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC) JJG, do you really not see a problem with calling that a scholarly source, or with the fact that it is plainly wrong as the census data makes clear? And do you still not see the problem that in your rush to push a POV based on your personal political feelings you disregarded the source and introduced a factual error? Or does everything fall under "content dispute"? It seems you have yet to learn the lesson of the last topic ban, which was due to exactly this type of disregard for sources in order to push a POV. nableezy - 21:37, 18 November 2011 (UTC) @WGFinley, the issue is the misrepresentation of sources to further a political agenda. JJG was banned for exactly this behavior, and he repeats it, almost to a t, here again. In the past instance, JJG misrepresented an offline source, changing Arabs to Arab squatters and trespassers when the source makes pretty much the opposite point. Here, he changes what settlement to village when the offline source, again, makes the opposite statement, and in doing so he introduced a blatant factual error into an encyclopedia article. He defends this action. I can think of no action more serious to the integrity of the encyclopedia than willfully and repeatedly misrepresenting sources to further a political agenda. Let me know if you still dont see what the issue is. nableezy - 00:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC) Um, no, not exactly. In fact, not even a little bit. Jiujitsuguy self-reverted after being brought here due to his having removed the consensus statement on the illegality of the settlement from the lead. He did not then, nor has since, acknowledged any error in misrepresenting the cited source and introducing a factual error into an encyclopedia article due to a tendentious attempt to push into the article a political viewpoint, an extreme minority one at that. nableezy - 02:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC) WGFinley, that last comment of yours demonstrates that you have no business on this page. This isnt about Nableezy vs Jiujitsuguy, and the thread above has almost nothing to do with JJG. I repeat, please ensure that you have carefully considered the evidence before threatening topic bans and interaction bans. Your comments demonstrate a lack of understanding. nableezy - 12:20, 19 November 2011 (UTC) There is no basis, whatesoever, for any sort of interaction ban. JJG made an edit that both removed consensus material and, in a blatantly political POV push, willfully introduced a factual error into an encyclopedia article. One admins imagination is not a basis for any type of ban. nableezy - 12:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC) I have added an additional diff of Jiujitsuguy willfully misrepresenting a source to push a particular POV. In this edit, JJG adds a source that says Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain as justification for claiming that Mt Hermon is in Israel. He also added in the reference the quote famous as Israel's highest mountain. However, the sentence actually reads, in full, The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. Yet another example of JJG distorting a source to push a political POV, and this remains in the article today. JJG has in the past beeen topic-banned for reasons such as misrepresentation of sources to push a political POV, and fresh off his topic ban he is right back at it. nableezy - 17:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC) And I just added a third diff. In this diff JJG adds this source to claim the the Mt. Hermon's summit straddles the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel. What the source actually says is: On one side of the mountain is Israel, and on the other side are Syria and Lebanon. Israel took part of the southern slope, the Golan Heights, during the Six Day War, in 1967. Syria recaptured it on Oct. 6, 1973, the first day of the Yom Kippur War. Israel took it back two weeks later and has held it since. Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. That is, the cited source backs up exactly what the article had said, that the summit straddles the border of Lebanon and Syria. It does not support the edit made that Mt Hermon straddles an Israeli border. This is yet another example of JJG manipulating a source to degrade the quality of encyclopedia articles by introducing factually incorrect material with the sole purpose of advancing a POV. Like the 2nd diff, this, after more than a week, remains in the article. nableezy - 18:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC) Can an admin comment on the added diffs? In them, Jiujitsuguy repeats the exact behavior that saw him sanctioned last year, namely purposely misrepresenting sources to push a POV. If he can continue to get away with this I would like to know. Of all the things that count, purposely misrepresenting sources has to be more important than reverting too much. He purposely degraded the quality of an article by misleading readers into assuming the sources support the fringe POV that he has focused on pushing into a range of articles. If this is allowed to stand I think you all have to seriously reconsider if this is a project to create an encyclopedia. Because if it is, you cannot allow people to do such blatantly underhanded and deceitful things as purposely distorting sources to push a fringe POV into articles as though they were fact. Honestly, I dont see how anything short of an indef ban could be a proper response to such tactics. nableezy - 14:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC) JJG's dishonesty shows itself here as well as in article space. He claims that I fail to note that the source was referring to the mountain’s summit and he fails to give you the entire sentence which says, “The summit of Mount Hermon… is actually in Syrian territory. My quote above of the source was complete, including the part about the summit. However, JJG's edits to the page changed the article to claim that that Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, despite the sources that he himself brought, unreliable though they are, that explicitly say the exact opposite. This is simply dishonest editing, distorting sources to push an extreme fringe POV as fact. His dishonest edits, edits that disregard even the most basic of requirements for editing here, remain in the article. How any admin can accept such blatant dishonesty is not something I understand. How this is being completely ignored is, likewise, something I do not understand. Jiujitsuguy continues to distort sources, the same offense that brought him his last ban. He has not yet learned the required lesson. Is anybody going to do anything about that? Or will WGFinley's imagination that this is all due to some player vs player nonsense derail what should be an open and shut case? nableezy - 14:05, 25 November 2011 (UTC) The misrepresentation of sources at Mount Hermon remains, with Jiujitsuguy's edit that changed Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon and Syria to Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria with the sources he added saying Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. and The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. nableezy - 06:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC) Is anybody, anybody at all, going to deal with the repeated, constant misrepresentation of sources? Or is Jiujitsuguy entitled to continually falsify sources to push a fringe POV as fact? nableezy - 16:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC) I dont think an argument can be made that either this or this was made in good faith. In the first one he changed Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon and Syria to Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria while the source says Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. The source says the exact opposite of what he put in the article. In the second one he takes a quote and manipulates it into giving a different meaning. He does this again below when he claims that Fodor's says Mt Hermon is famous as being Israel’s highest mountain. That is simply not true, the only place the words famous as appears in that book is where it says The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. Here he adds the word is and continues to misrepresent the source. I cant believe such deliberate misuse of a source, to the point of sniping out the parts of the sentence that directly dispute the claim he is attributing to it, can be called a good faith action. It is very clearly a gross misrepresentation of the source, forgetting the low quality of it. nableezy - 14:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC) WGFinley, I don't see what he did on Mount Hermon other than to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that, really????? One more time; JJG used a source that says Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. and made the article say that Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria. He also used a source that says The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. for the same claim. Do you really not see the problem here? He consistently distorts sources, to the point of outright falsification. I have written this several times, explain how you do not see the issue. He did not even write anything about the ski resort in any of the cited diffs, where on Earth did that come from? Have you even looked at the diffs? nableezy - 14:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Surprise, surprise. Enigmaman, the issue is not whether a source is good enough. The issue remains about the deliberate distortion of sources to push a fringe POV in to supposed encyclopedia articles. Jiujitsuguy took a source that says the summit of Mount Hermon straddles the border of Syria and Lebanon and changed the article to instead of saying exactly that to instead say that the summit of Mount Hermon straddles the borders of Lebanon, Israel and Syria. That is a deliberate distortion of the source. Are you seriously going to pretend that this is acceptable? If a supposed "uninvolved admin" is going to play the role of Jiujitsuguy's advocate, could he at least respond to the actual issue. Despite my repeated requests, WGFinley has failed to. And now you completely disregard the issue. Can somebody please tell me if it is acceptable for a user with an established history of falsifying sources to push a POV, as evidenced by his last topic ban, to continue falsifying sources to continue to push that same POV? Forget that the sources are garbage, just look at that the fact that despite his using garbage sources he still needed to fabricate their contents to push that fringe POV into an article. nableezy - 01:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC) Despite several efforts to get WGFinley to explain his rather bizarre comment that the only thing that JJG did at Mount Hermon was to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that, he has refused to do so. WGFinley, have you actually examined the diffs here? In which one did he point out there's a ski resort? Did you not see that he used a source that said that the summit is on the border of Syria and Lebanon to change the article to claim that the summit is actually on the border of Lebanon, Israel and Syria? If you misread the diff fine, just say so. No shame in that. But you seem willing to disregard the issue in an attempt to remove any sanctions against Jiujitsuguy. This editor was once banned for distorting sources, he continues to do so. Below a thread was open about an editor inventing a quote from a source. This isnt much better. So, can you please explain why you made that comment and what diff shows JJG point out there's a ski resort there? nableezy - 07:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC) People; Jiujitsuguy lied about a source. I dont understand the hesitancy here. He claimed that the sources support that the summit of Mount Hermon lies on the border Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The sources that he brought, despite their low quality, say the exact opposite. Jiujitsuguy consistently distorts sources, so much so that I think it is fair to question the validity of all of his edits. An editor so willing to twist the sources to push a fringe POV should not be allowed anywhere near an encyclopedia. That this is allowed to continue is honestly astonishing. nableezy - 16:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC) WGFinley, perhaps my tone has been overly harsh, but in no way are the actions here so trivial that they pale in comparison to my tone. My tone is due to the fact that lying about a source to push a POV by an editor previously sanctioned for distorting an off-line source to push a POV is, or was, being completely ignored. I honestly cannot think of much worse sins here than distorting a source, and in doing so repeatedly introducing factual errors into articles. Forgive me for saying this, but it seems that despite repeated efforts to explain the issue you are ignoring that issue. There are many things that get me wound up, but being ignored tops the list. I have asked you several questions. You have not answered any of them. So, forgive my tone, but please answer my questions. If you do that you will find my tone much more pleasant. nableezy - 07:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Notified Discussion concerning Jiujitsuguy Statement by Jiujitsuguy Was unaware that this so-called consensus statement applied to the Golan Heights. I was under the impression that it only applied to the West Bank since the AE against Shuki involved a West Bank settlement and not the Golan Heights. I will self-revert but seek clarification if this is indeed the case.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 00:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC) self reverted--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2011 (UTC) I immediately self reverted within seconds once I was provided with the link above. ~~Look, if you’re looking to ban me just let me know so I won't waste any more time with this.~~ I self-reverted almost immediately once I was provided with the link. Forgive me if I'm not completely up to speed with every nuance of IPCOLLAB. In addition I haven't edited in I-P for over eight months. And again, the minute I was provided with the link and read it, I self reverted. What more do you want for Christ sake?!--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC) In response to Nableezy’s comments concerning my sourced edits at Mount Hermon, I stand by those edits and sources one-thousand percent. I triple sourced those edits and provided hyperlinks to the source so that any reader could verify what the source says. I want every reader to check and double check the source so that the reader can be better informed. If I had anything to hide, do you think I would provide the hyperlink? It is nableezy himself who is trying to pull a slick one by twisting the source in deliberate misleading fashion. This source from Fodor’s states that “Mt Hermon is famous as being Israel’s highest mountain.” I take that at face value. Now Nab rather slyly and underhandedly hooks in the part of the source that says “…is actually in Syrian territory.” What he fails to note is that the source was referring to the mountain’s summit and he fails to give you the entire sentence which says, “The summit of Mount Hermon… is actually in Syrian territory.” But the source clearly states that the mountains slopes are in Israel. This source from Popular Mechanics states “Mount Hermon straddles one of the world's most infamously contested borders. On one side of the mountain is Israel, and on the other side are Syria and Lebanon.” Again, I take that at face value and plain meaning. The source goes on to say that the mountain’s peak is in Syria. But nableezy would have you believe that the source says that the entire mount is located in Syria, which is entirely false. And the third source which states that Mount Hermon is, “located at the intersection of the Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese borders, Mt. Hermon's southern slopes are home to Israel's only ski resort.” Again, plain meaning and face value. Folks, this isn’t rocket science. It’s plain meaning. No twists, no turns and no pitfalls. The sources are entirely consistent with the edit and I stand by them one-thousand percent. I strenuously object to nableezy's insinuations, mis-characterizations and distortions.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 23:43, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Tim. In addition to Fodor's, I cited two other sources including one from Popular Mechanics to support my edit at Mount Hermon. I note that I’m required to triple source my edits whereas Nableezy is required to provide none. If Nableezy has a problem with the sources used, the appropriate venue or forum is the Discussion Page or RSN. If you have a problem with any one of the three sources that I used, I welcome your input at the Discussion Page as well.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC) NW, that is completely unfair! I utilized three sources to support a position that part of a Mount Hermon lies in Israel . If one thinks that all three sources are "suboptimal" the proper forum to address those concerns is at the Discussion page or RSN. I also note that Nableezy hasn’t provided a single source to support his position. It is no secret that Nableezy maintains a visceral hatred of me. By imposing such a one-sided sanction, you are inserting yourself directly into a content dispute and are in effect taking one side over another. This is like an episode right out of Orwell's 1984. I’m called every name in the book by some quarters while Nableezy, one of the most rabidly anti-Israel, tendentious editors remains untouchable. I assert that when I’m wrong I take responsibility and self-revert (as I did at Katzrin) But I stand by my edits at Mount Hermon 1000 percent. I make no apologies for triple sourced edits there.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC) So you stand by falsifying a source by claiming Mount Hermon is in "Israel"? This is the quote you used in the exact same manner, the strike through being what you omitted, "Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain -- ~~is actually in Syrian territory~~". But of course you know that, though you have the advantage of playing off of one admins refusal to even look at the matter, very clever. By the way, with the whole Nableezy "anti-Israel" nonsense, I think we have all had about as much as we can swallow of your recycled, nonsensical personal attacks. -asad (talk) 16:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC) I have not looked at the totality of Nableezy's edits, though I have seen some instances where he does get tendentious in his edits, but that is irrelevant here because it isn't even remotely difficult for me to perceive that you are making disruptive edits in this case in the pursuit of an agenda. You used travel guide information about a ski resort, distorted said information, and then inserted that distortion into an article about a mountain at the eastern edge of the Golan Heights to push a false claim about the Golan Heights in general. This is gaming plain and simple. Not even the Israeli government claims the Golan Heights are anything but Syrian territory under Israeli control. Three terrible sources that can be misconstrued as expressing a position do not override countless authoritative sources clearly expressing the opposite position. Given your actions on the Katzrin article it is not hard to see these are blatantly tendentious edits that show no regard for Misplaced Pages's rules about reliable sources and verifiability. One revealing part is what I noted in my comment below. You removed reliably-sourced material about the 1981 law being declared null and void as well as the consensus statement and never provided any explanation in an edit summary or on the talk page about why you did so. You made a comment in the edit summary to "see talk" but the only comment you made was about whether Katzrin should be called a town or a settlement. Did you really think that was the only contentious change you made?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning Jiujitsuguy Comment by Epeefleche Firstly, looking at the first noted diff in complainant's "additional comments" section, it appears that the complained-about edit was supported by a ref to an RS. And that this was noted in the edit summary as well. Secondly, what is referred to by complainant as "the agreed upon consensus statement of illegality" seems to be a violation of wp:SYNTH, in that the subject of the article is not mentioned at all in the source given. While it may be appropriate language for an article on settlements in general, it does smack of spamming for an editor to insert the sentence in the instant article where the ref fails to mention the place in question.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC) As to the second point, if there was (as is indicated) an earlier consensus (to the effect that including such a statement in articles is not synth, even where the ref does not mention the subject of the article),then I agree that consensus should be followed. Perhaps that discussion can be referred to with a diff, rather than a bald reference? It would be interesting to understand why that is not synth, in the eyes of the consensus. And also to explore what similar statements could be created (with that as a basis) and inserted into all "relevant" articles (even if the ref fails to specifically mention the specific subject of the article). I expect it could be a template for all sorts of dozens-of-insertions entries. For example, as to entities that are viewed as engaging in illegal terrorist activities.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:12, 16 November 2011 (UTC) What up, Epeefleche? Some (close enough to 50%) were not happy at all with the final consensus. I (the originator of the discussion) was on the fence. The line is SYNTH. This was clearly understood by editors involved. My reasoning for being OK with it being SYNTH is that it was concise and the only way to do it was by WP:Ignore All Rules. How it has played out has been contrary to IAR, though. Ignore All Rules is about the betterment of the project. The rollout of the line has been contrary to the project's goals. It is bad enough that editors have decided to use a boiler plate when using a source directly related to the subject would obviously be preferred. But now we have several incidents of bickering over it. I started the conversation to stop the disruption (edit warring and sneaky editing). Events since have been just as disruptive. This discussion might be better at IPCOLL. I just wanted to clarify since it is so related. Cptnono (talk) 03:27, 18 November 2011 (UTC) Can you provide a link to the discussion where the decision was made? That would be helpful. It may well be worth revisiting the issue. And/or extending this exception to the SYNTH policy to other matters, such as "x is considered a terrorist organization by z", whenever such organizations are mentioned.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC) I am just going to chime in here to note that statement is not WP:SYNTH. I have found in several cases that people represent synthesis as being one thing when it is actually another. Obvious inferences from a source related to the subject material are perfectly legitimate under WP:V. As it concerns this case, the source provided for that statement about Israeli settlements clearly says that Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights are considered to be in violation of the Geneva Conventions. That Katzrin is one of those Israeli settlements means that source is in fact about Katzrin, even if it is never mentioned by name. A source does not need to spell out everything for us to use it to back up a statement. If it is plain to everyone competent enough to understand the words being used that a source is referring to x, they never actually have to say x for us to require another source in order to state x is being referred to in that source. Generally, it is safe to presume that the source considers Katzrin as being an illegal settlement by virtue of the fact that the source clearly states that it considers all Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights to be illegal. The only way you could argue otherwise is if you argued that the source does not consider Katzrin to be an Israeli settlement, does not consider it to be in the Golan Heights, or does not consider either of these things to be the case.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Comment by Nishidani The Mt Hermon in Israel edit can be contrasted with what occurred at Alon Shvut recently. User:MichaelNetzer found a source for the Kermes Oak there which ran Without a doubt, the most famous tree in Israel is the Kermes oak in Gush Etzion. Well both Alon Shvut and Gush Etzion happen not to be in Israel, but the West Bank. Notified, Michael commendably understood the objection, though he did think the ambiguity in the syntax allowed for it to be taken as 'famous in Israel'. And he certainly did not use that phrasing to assert in the article that these communities were in Israel, since the article is quite clear on their location in the West Bank. That is responsible editing, and collaborative judgement as opposed to tactical quibbling. No such ambiguity appears to exist in the way the Fodor text has been twisted. This is a serious problem, in any case. You can get any number of your nation-state's sources to promote a line that is wide of the mark in terms of international understanding of geography and history. Experienced editors who've been around here for as long as JJG should not be playing games with this kind of slipshod sourcing. Commonsense tells us all to refrain from temptations to use sources that are evidently skewed as nationalist POVs. There can be no excuse for reading a source only to deliberately misrepresent it by careful erasure of its qualifications in order to trim it to fit a POV, as appears to be the case here. Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC) It has been 12 days and I doubt this is an "exceptional case" (especially since he fixed it already).Cptnono (talk) 01:48, 27 November 2011 (UTC) This is some silliness. Well over 12 days. If admins don't note that traffic suddenly increased a couple days ago then they should not be attempting to fix the area. I know that Tim knows what I am talking about and I do not need to beat around the bush. A whole lot of comments all of a sudden. What is up dude?Cptnono (talk) 07:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Well, after reading JJG's point above ('Nableezy hasn’t provided a single source to support his position.'), just made, I can't help but comment. For God's sake, until I started reading wikipedia I/P articles, I thought that everyone of a certain age had elementary geography drummed into them (i.e.'Mount Hermon Mount Hermon (Arabic: Jabal Al-Shaykh) is a snowcapped ridge on the Lebanon-Syria border west of Damascus.' Laura S Etheredge (ed.) Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Britannica Educational Publishing/Rosen Group 2011 p.3. states, not the position but the elementary geographical fact all general readers of a certain age know). I mean, Jeezus, I can't believe any editor here isn't familiar with the maps at Israel, where Israel is one colour and occupied territories like the Golan another. This is almost comical in the farcical pretense, even among one administrator, that the average joeblow, on looking at a map can't see the obvious, or that editors in the I/P area are unfamiliar with the maps on most pages they edit. I don't care about banning. I do think soap operas in which the obvious facts, any child used to learn at school, are opinionized in such agonizing detail shouldn't be tolerated. What encyclopedia are we writing if even the most basic facts are up to POV challenges like this? Nishidani (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Comment by asad @WGfinley As someone who has been following both of these A/E threads and withheld commentary in an effort to not clog the pipes, and someone who is actively involved in the Mount Hermon article, I would have to ask you WGfinley, it appears as if you have not even looked/not cleary looked at the sources the JJG put in the article. -JJG added the location as being Israel in this diff. -When adding the reference, JJG quotes the travel guide in the ref, "Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain" cleverly leaving out "-- is actually in Syrian territory".. Please see the actual travel guide source here. I am not sure how you can back up this action as defensible. He never self-reverted, as is evidenced by the article's history, where his last time even touching the article was to add the source. WGfinley, don't take my word for it. But I implore you, please see the links that I have provided to understand what Nableezy is talking about. I would also like to point out, when JJG added the source, it appears as his search term in Google Books was, "where is mt hermon israel or syria". JJG was just fishing through Google Books to find any source he could where it stated "Israel" rather than "Syria". Hell, he couldn't even get that right. -asad (talk) 15:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Comment by Gatoclass As I posted on his talk page a few minutes ago, I think WG's latest comment on the case demonstrates that he is simply not up to speed with prevailing standards of adjudication here at AE. AE long ago left behind the notion that admins cannot make judgements about such issues as misrepresentation or falsification of sources at this page, indeed, ARBPIA enjoins administrators to take whatever steps they deem necessary to prevent disruption in these topic areas. If WG's interpretation of the rules were to be accepted, it would be straight back to the bad old days when civil POV pushers ran rampant over the topic area with no fear of consequences. Gatoclass (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Comment by The Devil's Advocate Not being involved in these articles much I cannot speak clearly about this particular editor's actions under ArbCom. However, I think his actions in the first diff should not be discounted because of a self-revert. Has anyone mentioned the other passage removed in that instance? That the UN declared the 1981 action in the Golan Heights null and void was reliably sourced and this information was also removed without explanation despite having been there for some time (I found it in one version from at least a year ago). JJG actually left the comment that the act in 1981 was internationally condemned so it is not that he had an issue with bringing up the stance of the international community, but appeared to have an issue with noting that the act was declared void. His actions with the other article demonstrated an effort to cherry-pick sources (a "best-of" list in the skiing section of Popular Mechanics should not be treated as a definitive source on the legal status of any territory just because Popular Mechanics is considered a reliable source on news about technology) that are close enough to saying what he wants that he can misconstrue them as confirming something that is plainly false. The biggest cherry-picking of all, however, was the fact JJG was using sources only about Mount Hermon rather than considering them in the context of what reliable sources say about the Golan Heights in general. Removing plainly relevant and reliably sourced material from one article without explanation and misrepresenting sources, including several that are definitely not reliable (travel brochures and the like are promotional material not legal documents), in another article to push a false position indicates a pattern of acting contrary to core Misplaced Pages policies like WP:V and WP:NPOV. In no sense is this a mere content dispute. The fact he stepped away from one of those edits after the AE case was filed does not change much with respect to his behavior since that could just as easily be seen as an attempt to dodge administrative action. He could have self-reverted when Nableezy requested he do so as he was obviously online at the time.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Comment by Ohiostandard In a nutshell: 1. "Mt. Hermon" is more of a tremendously huge ridge than an individual mountain. 2. Around 7% of its 1000 km area evidently extends southward into the extreme Northern part of the Israeli-occupied Golan. (map) 3. The only way to claim the mountain is "in Israel" is by subscribing to Jiujitsuguy's view that the Golan itself is in Israel. 4. His belief that the Golan is a legitimate and "integral part of Israel", as he puts it, is common among right-wing Israelis, but it's utterly rejected by "almost the entire international community, including allies of Israel", as the BBC puts it. This easily-verified fact is demonstrated by its acknowledgment in WP:Legality of Israeli settlements. 5. Jiujitsuguy's fringe POV about Israeli-occupied territories isn't itself a problem. The problem is that he keeps on trying to use Misplaced Pages's voice to make others believe this extreme fringe POV too, even based on very thin, inappropriate, and misrepresented sources. What will he give us next to champion this fringe POV after Popular Mechanics as an authority on geopolitics, I wonder, if he's allowed to continue in the topic area? Cat Fancy on peace negotiations or military strategy, perhaps? And that selectively edited to leave out the inconvenient bits, as we've seen here? This is wholly unrepentant, long-term behavior: Jiujitsuguy "stands by his edits" to the Mt. Hermon article "one thousand percent", he repeatedly says above. This guy is obviously never going to stop pushing the extreme fringe POV that his edits there demonstrate, and that leaves the community with no alternative to a permanent topic ban. – OhioStandard (talk) 12:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC) Afterword: In evident support for his fringe POV that the Golan Heights is "an integral part of Israel" I see that Jiujitsuguy earlier this year also deleted an original CIA Factbook map that showed the region in the same color as Syria ( from whom Israel took it in 1967 ) and that included the phrase "Israeli occupied" beneath the "Golan Heights" label. In that same edit, he replaced the map with an altered version from which "Israeli occupied" had been expunged, and that likewise showed the area in a discontinuous color from Syria. He's evidently been pushing this fringe POV for quite a long time. – OhioStandard (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC) ( If you wish to comment, please do so in a section for your own statement rather than adding on to mine below. – OhioStandard (talk) 12:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC) ) Result concerning Jiujitsuguy This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. The consensus found by LHvU in the discussion plainly covers the Golan Heights (and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem), and it plainly states that this sentence is to be "included in all relevant articles". I'll reiterate what I have said previously: all editors in this topic area are expected and required to respect and follow this consensus in their editing, until and unless a different consensus is obtained through another RfC of similar participation. Failure to do so is ground for sanctions, including but not limited to a block or a topic ban. T. Canens (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC) @Tim, I immediately self-reverted within seconds once I was provided with the link as noted in my response above.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC) Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that Jiujitsuguy is making this kind of an edit again. If JJG 'immediately self-reverted when he was provided with the link' how come he did not notice the mention of WP:Legality of Israeli settlements in the edit summary of Nableezy's last version, the one that he reverted? The Legality page explicitly mentions the Golan Heights. And in his own statement above, JJG says "Was unaware that this so-called consensus statement applied to the Golan Heights. I was under the impression that it only applied to the West Bank." It seems doubtful he would say this if he had even read the single sentence which the Legality page has determined to be the consensus wording. (Yes, that single sentence includes 'Golan Heights'). Unfortunately the only practical way to keep JJG from engaging in more adventures is a renewal of his topic ban. Admins at AE have made strong statements about enforcing LHvU's formula since the pressure to boldly ignore it is so strong. I think the I/P topic ban is the only adequate method to ensure that people will respect the consensus statement. EdJohnston (talk) 02:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC) Ed. I am being truthful when I say That I did not know that that template language applied to the Golan. Yes, I was indeed negligent in not seeing it in his edit summary. I only became aware of it from his AE and after reading the link, I self-reverted, literally within seconds of his filing. I'm asking not to be thrown in the cooler again. I'm asking you to AGF and to take into consideration the self revert.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 03:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC) I'm very interested in hearing JJG's response to Nableezy's newest comment. T. Canens (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC) I was truthful in my first response and I will be truthful in my response to Tim’s query. The “consensus template” does not address the issue of whether Katzrin is a town, village, city or settlement. Thus, it would not be incorrect to apply any and perhaps all of these labels to this particular city so long as it comes from and RS and is verifiable. Concerning the subject edit, I noted at Talk page the following; "From Time magazine Israeli army tanks advance on the firing range during a training exercise, May 21, 2008, on the outskirts of the Israeli city of Katzrin in the Golan Heights. emphasis added. An equally if not greater persuasive argument can be made for calling it a town or city." There is also this describing Katzrin as the largest town in the Golan I made the edit because at the time, the first two sentences in the lead described Katzrin as a settlement without any reference to its town or city status. After my edit, the first sentence still referred to it as a settlement and the second referred to it as a town. I do not for one second regret that part of my edit (emphasis added). The only part of the edit that I regret is removal of the “consensus” language, which I immediately reverted once I realized that it also applied to towns in the Golan. (emphasis added)--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 17:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC) This response does not even begin to address Nableezy's point: Majd ash-Shams is the largest town in the Golan Heights. In this context, it is irrelevant whether you call Katzrin a settlement, a town, or a city, it is still smaller, and in altering the term "settlement" to "town", Jjg introduced a blatantly false assertion into the article. RolandR (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC) So I guess that all the reliable sources that refer to Katzrin as a town or city including Time Magazine The New York Times, Haaretz as well as scholaraly texts, are also asserting "baltant falsehoods," hmm?--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2011 (UTC) No, you are still missing the point. The blatant falsehood is not that Katzrin is a town or a city; it is the assertion that it is "the largest". RolandR (talk) 19:15, 18 November 2011 (UTC) According to this this scholarly text, Katzrin is the largest town in the Golan. So it becomes a content dispute.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 21:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC) You cite a source that you know is wrong and falsely claim it is a scholarly source, and you think that helps your case? Amazing. Zero 08:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC) I dug a bit further and I think this is very relevant to that particular portion of the edit. The RFC concerning this very issue was closed as no consensus for the demand that each geographic entity beyond the 67 border be deemed a settlement in the opening sentence.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 18:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC) Sticking To The Point Nableezy has filed one action in this AE request, that JJG took action in violation of consensus. JJG reverted himself within 30 minutes of the action when it was pointed out he was wrong. What's the issue? --WGFinley (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2011 (UTC) In response to Nableezy's comment above while I am certainly aware of the type of behavior JJG gets drawn in to (having banned him in this topic area myself on more than one occasion) I don't see the particular offense here to merit AE. He put something in, the point was made to him he wasn't being accurate and after 30 minutes of reflection on it he self-reverted. That's the exact thing I would expect. --WGFinley (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC) Nableezy/JJG Redux See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Result_concerning_Nableezy above. --WGFinley (talk) 06:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC) Given the sequence of events and the self-revert, I would be OK with closing the complaint against Jiujitsuguy (talk · contribs) with no action. However it is surprising that JJG manages to find himself back at AE so frequently. You would hope that past experience would encourage caution and get him to avoid making changes to very contentious portions of article leads. Some editors in this area who are closely associated with one of the two sides seem to feel duty-bound to strike a glorious blow for the cause. Thanks to WGFinley for all the new analysis he has done. EdJohnston (talk) 18:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC) Unfortunately it's not surprising in this topic area. --WGFinley (talk) 18:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC) I don't find JJG's response as to the "largest town" issue convincing. To me this seems similar to the example in WP:VNT#"If it's written in a book, it must be true!" of using a travel guide that says "Washington D.C. is named after George Washington (1722 - 1799)" to argue that Washington is born in 1722 and not 1732. I agree that no action should be taken on the "legality" issue at this time, considering the self revert. T. Canens (talk) 10:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Seems we have a consensus to close, is there a support for an interaction ban for JJG and Nableezy perhaps modeled on the one with Cptnono last year? . --WGFinley (talk) 06:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC) My view, briefly: The edits Nableezy listed, examined individually, are arguably in good faith. Together, though, they reveal a substantially more worrying pattern of behavior. Any reasonable editor in this area should have known that whether the Golan Heights (or parts thereof) is in Israel is a highly controversial matter. The idea that this kind of controversial territorial claims can be sourced to travel guides is frankly preposterous. The repeated use of clearly suboptimal sources in furtherance of a POV, even assuming for the sake of argument that these sources say what JJG says they say, is tendentious. I think a topic ban is in order. T. Canens (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC) Sorry, I prematurely closed this as it hadn't had comments for more than a week (thought we could finally close it) and I missed your latest comment TC. He self reverted and if we started topic banning over these territorial claims we would be topic banning until the cows come home. I think JJG came forward and reverted, I don't think we should topic ban when we get desired behavior. Perhaps an admonishment to use better care and stick to reliable sources in territorial claim articles is in order? --WGFinley (talk) 06:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC) First, I don't see a self-revert to Mount Hermon. Second, we expect people to use high-quality sources in this kind of cases. This isn't exactly rocket science. If all of them are using sub-par sources, then banning all of them sounds like a good plan. I'm tired of seeing an ARBPIA request at AE every other week. T. Canens (talk) 11:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC) I don't see what he did on Mount Hermon other than to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that. I would consider a travel guide a decent source for information on a ski resort. There doesn't seem to be any dispute there's a ski resort there, it has its own article. These folks argue incessantly over maps and even where a mountain range is based on where the peaks are! Using these nonsensical standards I guess we should put Canadian Rockies up for AfD since its peak is in the United States. We shouldn't be drawn into their content disputes by analyzing sources in taking action. I agree on this constantly coming up on AE but if we are going to reduce leniency then it needs to be across the board and not against one side or the other. But meting out a TBAN for using a travel guide as a source? That's drawing us into content where we shouldn't be going. --WGFinley (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC) I came across this discussion and I agree with WGFinley. I really don't see how Arbitration Enforcement is the forum for arguing about whether sources are good enough or not. Enigma 00:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC) Proposal: JJG (and other editors if people feel it is warranted) are topic-banned from articles that are within 25km of a border or disputed border where one of the nations involved is Israel. NW (Talk) 02:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC) Thanks to NW for proposing something that might allow this to close, but I'm afraid it could be more trouble than it's worth. We would then have admins trying to monitor which topics have some relevance to a border zone, getting us still deeper into content matters. I disagree with WGF on the question of whether we should look at content in the sense that sanctions have often been issued in the past for misuse of sources. This may require that admins read those sources and form an opinion on what they say. It is unfortunate that in my first reading of the complaint (back in mid-November) I thought it was just a 1RR complaint and did not realize that a lot of it was based on a claim of misreading sources. It may be too late in the day to turn the ship around, since several admins would have to (a) agree that misuse of sources was significant, and (b) decide if action is needed. The complaint has been open for over two weeks. Of the admins who commented, only T. Canens seems to have expressed concern about the issue of misreading sources. Jujitsuguy does appear to have used Google searches that try to cherry-pick data favorable to his points. For example, his above search that yielded the Balint reference was a Google Books search for 'Katzrin the largest town.' This should give us very little confidence on JJG's ability to interpret sources neutrally. Meanwhile, if any admins (in addition to T. Canens) want to give a fresh read of this AE based on the angle of misuse of sources (previously neglected) and consider a topic ban on that basis, I'd be open to a further discussion. If T. Canens wants us to ban other people as well as JJG he ought to suggest which people should be on the banned list. The evidence shows JJG in a bad light but it's not easy to follow. Plus, the only reasonable escalation for JJG, who has been warned and topic banned many times, is a new topic ban for several months. That would seem to need an easily-graspable violation to be justified. An alternative closure might be a full protection of Golan Heights, Mount Hermon and Katzrin for some period of time to keep the nonsense in check. EdJohnston (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC) My position has been represented by the filing party as supporting what JJG did, I have said I don't see what the large issue here that would make him subject to sanction. Whatever the case, what he did begins to pale in comparison to the tone and accusations made by the filing party here and on my talk page. I think all parties should be cautioned to not come here with unclean hands, which is a bit what NW is getting at with these constant AE complaints and counter-complaints. I think this case should be closed with a warning to JJG to mind his sources and all concerned to work out their differences on sources and articles on the talk pages and not in revert comments as seems to be the usual style. --WGFinley (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Clearly no admin consensus to do anything. T. Canens (talk) 00:18, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Jiujitsuguy

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Nableezy 00:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Jiujitsuguy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

14 November 2011 Removal of consensus statement on illegality of Israeli settlement
13 November 2011 gross misrepresentation of cited source
13 November 2011 misrepresentation of cited source

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Notified of the case

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Similar to an earlier case where an editor removed from articles the consensus sentence on the legal status of Israeli settlements, which Jiujitsuguy was involved in and is aware of the consequences, Jiujitsuguy has removed from an article on an Israeli settlement the consensus sentence. Jiujitsuguy was involved in both the discussion that resulted in that consensus and in the AE request linked above. Since coming of his topic ban, JJG has continued with the same conduct that saw him banned, relentlessly pushing an extreme minority POV, such as claiming the Golan is in Israel (see for example here or here where he adds maps showing the Golan as being within Israel's borders). This latest episode of removing the consensus statement is the last straw as far as I am concerned. The user should have been banned for any number of actions, this just being the latest one. In both the edit summary of the edit reverted by JJG (here) and the talk page section opened about the issue (here) the discussion WP:Legality of Israeli settlements is explicitly referenced. This is simply bad-faith editing against consensus and should be dealt with accordingly.

Besides the issue with the removal of the sentence on the illegality of the settlement, there is an additional problem with the edit. In the edit, Jiujitsuguy changed it is the largest settlement in the Golan Heights to it is the largest town in the Golan Heights. The source for the sentence says Katzrin, the largest among the Golan settlements with a population of 7000. Now one might quibble over whether Katzrin should primarily be called a settlement or a town or whatever, but Jiujitsuguy here ignores the source to further a political agenda and while doing so introduces a factual error into an encyclopedia article. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Katzrin (listed as Qazrin in English here, the Hebrew spelling קצרין verifies it is the same city) had, at the end of 2005, a population of 6500. Majdal Shams had a population of 9500. Katzrin is considerably smaller than the largest town in the Golan, it is specifically the largest settlement, yet this was ignored due to the political leanings of a Misplaced Pages editor. This manipulation of language to suit a political purpose while ignoring the sources causes damage to the encyclopedia. Jiujitsuguy continues to disregard, and indeed misrepresent, sources when they do not conform to his political views. nableezy - 05:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Jiujistuguy's response only causes greater concern. He says I do not for one second regret that part of my edit with that part being a reference to the modification of the sentence on Katzrin being the largest settlement. He now brings as justification for that edit a "source" that was not mentioned in the article or the talk page and one that is clearly inaccurate as even official data from the Israeli government shows (also, I found a more recent census, which gives Katzrin's population as 6500 and Majdal Shams as 9600). He still feels justified in introducing factual errors so long as they reflect his personal political opinions. The misrepresentation of sources to push a political POV was the major cause of his last topic ban. To remind anybody who has forgotten, in that episode Jiujitsuguy modified Israel also expelled Arabs from the DMZ and demolished their homes to Israel also expelled Arab squatters and trespassers from the DMZ and demolished their homes. This most recent episode, with the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the wrong, demonstrates that he has yet to understand the issue of misrepresentation of sources and that he continues to do so for purely political purposes. nableezy - 17:40, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Jiujitsuguy still, despite repeated explanations from both myself and RolandR, does not understand the issue. That doesnt give me much hope that this can be rectified with anything other than a ban. This isnt an issue of calling Katztrin a settlement or a village, a colony or a city. That he can only see this issue through that lens and persists in arguing a completely irrelevant point is itself evidence of the tendentious nature of his edits. He still has not understood the basic point that Katzrin is not the largest town in the Golan, and by making the article say that, based purely on his political positions, he introduced a factual error into the article. And he apparently feels no regret for that. I dont think much more evidence is needed that Jiujitsuguy's editing goals and Misplaced Pages's mission are simply incompatible. His goal here is to align articles with a political viewpoint without any regard for either the facts or the sources. That cannot be tolerated, especially in an area as problematic as the ARBPIA topic area. nableezy - 19:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

JJG, do you really not see a problem with calling that a scholarly source, or with the fact that it is plainly wrong as the census data makes clear? And do you still not see the problem that in your rush to push a POV based on your personal political feelings you disregarded the source and introduced a factual error? Or does everything fall under "content dispute"? It seems you have yet to learn the lesson of the last topic ban, which was due to exactly this type of disregard for sources in order to push a POV. nableezy - 21:37, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@WGFinley, the issue is the misrepresentation of sources to further a political agenda. JJG was banned for exactly this behavior, and he repeats it, almost to a t, here again. In the past instance, JJG misrepresented an offline source, changing Arabs to Arab squatters and trespassers when the source makes pretty much the opposite point. Here, he changes what settlement to village when the offline source, again, makes the opposite statement, and in doing so he introduced a blatant factual error into an encyclopedia article. He defends this action. I can think of no action more serious to the integrity of the encyclopedia than willfully and repeatedly misrepresenting sources to further a political agenda. Let me know if you still dont see what the issue is. nableezy - 00:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Um, no, not exactly. In fact, not even a little bit. Jiujitsuguy self-reverted after being brought here due to his having removed the consensus statement on the illegality of the settlement from the lead. He did not then, nor has since, acknowledged any error in misrepresenting the cited source and introducing a factual error into an encyclopedia article due to a tendentious attempt to push into the article a political viewpoint, an extreme minority one at that. nableezy - 02:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

WGFinley, that last comment of yours demonstrates that you have no business on this page. This isnt about Nableezy vs Jiujitsuguy, and the thread above has almost nothing to do with JJG. I repeat, please ensure that you have carefully considered the evidence before threatening topic bans and interaction bans. Your comments demonstrate a lack of understanding. nableezy - 12:20, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

There is no basis, whatesoever, for any sort of interaction ban. JJG made an edit that both removed consensus material and, in a blatantly political POV push, willfully introduced a factual error into an encyclopedia article. One admins imagination is not a basis for any type of ban. nableezy - 12:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I have added an additional diff of Jiujitsuguy willfully misrepresenting a source to push a particular POV. In this edit, JJG adds a source that says Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain as justification for claiming that Mt Hermon is in Israel. He also added in the reference the quote famous as Israel's highest mountain. However, the sentence actually reads, in full, The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. Yet another example of JJG distorting a source to push a political POV, and this remains in the article today. JJG has in the past beeen topic-banned for reasons such as misrepresentation of sources to push a political POV, and fresh off his topic ban he is right back at it. nableezy - 17:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

And I just added a third diff. In this diff JJG adds this source to claim the the Mt. Hermon's summit straddles the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel. What the source actually says is:

On one side of the mountain is Israel, and on the other side are Syria and Lebanon. Israel took part of the southern slope, the Golan Heights, during the Six Day War, in 1967. Syria recaptured it on Oct. 6, 1973, the first day of the Yom Kippur War. Israel took it back two weeks later and has held it since.
Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria.

That is, the cited source backs up exactly what the article had said, that the summit straddles the border of Lebanon and Syria. It does not support the edit made that Mt Hermon straddles an Israeli border. This is yet another example of JJG manipulating a source to degrade the quality of encyclopedia articles by introducing factually incorrect material with the sole purpose of advancing a POV. Like the 2nd diff, this, after more than a week, remains in the article. nableezy - 18:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Can an admin comment on the added diffs? In them, Jiujitsuguy repeats the exact behavior that saw him sanctioned last year, namely purposely misrepresenting sources to push a POV. If he can continue to get away with this I would like to know. Of all the things that count, purposely misrepresenting sources has to be more important than reverting too much. He purposely degraded the quality of an article by misleading readers into assuming the sources support the fringe POV that he has focused on pushing into a range of articles. If this is allowed to stand I think you all have to seriously reconsider if this is a project to create an encyclopedia. Because if it is, you cannot allow people to do such blatantly underhanded and deceitful things as purposely distorting sources to push a fringe POV into articles as though they were fact. Honestly, I dont see how anything short of an indef ban could be a proper response to such tactics. nableezy - 14:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

JJG's dishonesty shows itself here as well as in article space. He claims that I fail to note that the source was referring to the mountain’s summit and he fails to give you the entire sentence which says, “The summit of Mount Hermon… is actually in Syrian territory. My quote above of the source was complete, including the part about the summit. However, JJG's edits to the page changed the article to claim that that Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, despite the sources that he himself brought, unreliable though they are, that explicitly say the exact opposite. This is simply dishonest editing, distorting sources to push an extreme fringe POV as fact. His dishonest edits, edits that disregard even the most basic of requirements for editing here, remain in the article. How any admin can accept such blatant dishonesty is not something I understand. How this is being completely ignored is, likewise, something I do not understand. Jiujitsuguy continues to distort sources, the same offense that brought him his last ban. He has not yet learned the required lesson. Is anybody going to do anything about that? Or will WGFinley's imagination that this is all due to some player vs player nonsense derail what should be an open and shut case? nableezy - 14:05, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The misrepresentation of sources at Mount Hermon remains, with Jiujitsuguy's edit that changed Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon and Syria to Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria with the sources he added saying Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. and The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. nableezy - 06:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Is anybody, anybody at all, going to deal with the repeated, constant misrepresentation of sources? Or is Jiujitsuguy entitled to continually falsify sources to push a fringe POV as fact? nableezy - 16:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I dont think an argument can be made that either this or this was made in good faith. In the first one he changed Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon and Syria to Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria while the source says Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. The source says the exact opposite of what he put in the article. In the second one he takes a quote and manipulates it into giving a different meaning. He does this again below when he claims that Fodor's says Mt Hermon is famous as being Israel’s highest mountain. That is simply not true, the only place the words famous as appears in that book is where it says The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. Here he adds the word is and continues to misrepresent the source. I cant believe such deliberate misuse of a source, to the point of sniping out the parts of the sentence that directly dispute the claim he is attributing to it, can be called a good faith action. It is very clearly a gross misrepresentation of the source, forgetting the low quality of it. nableezy - 14:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

WGFinley, I don't see what he did on Mount Hermon other than to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that, really????? One more time; JJG used a source that says Mount Hermon reaches 9232 feet, but its peak is actually located on the border between Lebanon and Syria. and made the article say that Mount Hermon's summit straddles the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria. He also used a source that says The summit of Mt. Hermon—famous as Israel's highest mountain, at 9,230 feet above sea level—is actually in Syrian territory. for the same claim. Do you really not see the problem here? He consistently distorts sources, to the point of outright falsification. I have written this several times, explain how you do not see the issue. He did not even write anything about the ski resort in any of the cited diffs, where on Earth did that come from? Have you even looked at the diffs? nableezy - 14:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Surprise, surprise. Enigmaman, the issue is not whether a source is good enough. The issue remains about the deliberate distortion of sources to push a fringe POV in to supposed encyclopedia articles. Jiujitsuguy took a source that says the summit of Mount Hermon straddles the border of Syria and Lebanon and changed the article to instead of saying exactly that to instead say that the summit of Mount Hermon straddles the borders of Lebanon, Israel and Syria. That is a deliberate distortion of the source. Are you seriously going to pretend that this is acceptable? If a supposed "uninvolved admin" is going to play the role of Jiujitsuguy's advocate, could he at least respond to the actual issue. Despite my repeated requests, WGFinley has failed to. And now you completely disregard the issue. Can somebody please tell me if it is acceptable for a user with an established history of falsifying sources to push a POV, as evidenced by his last topic ban, to continue falsifying sources to continue to push that same POV? Forget that the sources are garbage, just look at that the fact that despite his using garbage sources he still needed to fabricate their contents to push that fringe POV into an article. nableezy - 01:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Despite several efforts to get WGFinley to explain his rather bizarre comment that the only thing that JJG did at Mount Hermon was to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that, he has refused to do so. WGFinley, have you actually examined the diffs here? In which one did he point out there's a ski resort? Did you not see that he used a source that said that the summit is on the border of Syria and Lebanon to change the article to claim that the summit is actually on the border of Lebanon, Israel and Syria? If you misread the diff fine, just say so. No shame in that. But you seem willing to disregard the issue in an attempt to remove any sanctions against Jiujitsuguy. This editor was once banned for distorting sources, he continues to do so. Below a thread was open about an editor inventing a quote from a source. This isnt much better. So, can you please explain why you made that comment and what diff shows JJG point out there's a ski resort there? nableezy - 07:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

People; Jiujitsuguy lied about a source. I dont understand the hesitancy here. He claimed that the sources support that the summit of Mount Hermon lies on the border Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The sources that he brought, despite their low quality, say the exact opposite. Jiujitsuguy consistently distorts sources, so much so that I think it is fair to question the validity of all of his edits. An editor so willing to twist the sources to push a fringe POV should not be allowed anywhere near an encyclopedia. That this is allowed to continue is honestly astonishing. nableezy - 16:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

WGFinley, perhaps my tone has been overly harsh, but in no way are the actions here so trivial that they pale in comparison to my tone. My tone is due to the fact that lying about a source to push a POV by an editor previously sanctioned for distorting an off-line source to push a POV is, or was, being completely ignored. I honestly cannot think of much worse sins here than distorting a source, and in doing so repeatedly introducing factual errors into articles. Forgive me for saying this, but it seems that despite repeated efforts to explain the issue you are ignoring that issue. There are many things that get me wound up, but being ignored tops the list. I have asked you several questions. You have not answered any of them. So, forgive my tone, but please answer my questions. If you do that you will find my tone much more pleasant. nableezy - 07:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Jiujitsuguy

Statement by Jiujitsuguy

Was unaware that this so-called consensus statement applied to the Golan Heights. I was under the impression that it only applied to the West Bank since the AE against Shuki involved a West Bank settlement and not the Golan Heights. I will self-revert but seek clarification if this is indeed the case.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 00:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

self reverted--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I immediately self reverted within seconds once I was provided with the link above. ~~Look, if you’re looking to ban me just let me know so I won't waste any more time with this.~~ I self-reverted almost immediately once I was provided with the link. Forgive me if I'm not completely up to speed with every nuance of IPCOLLAB. In addition I haven't edited in I-P for over eight months. And again, the minute I was provided with the link and read it, I self reverted. What more do you want for Christ sake?!--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

In response to Nableezy’s comments concerning my sourced edits at Mount Hermon, I stand by those edits and sources one-thousand percent. I triple sourced those edits and provided hyperlinks to the source so that any reader could verify what the source says. I want every reader to check and double check the source so that the reader can be better informed. If I had anything to hide, do you think I would provide the hyperlink? It is nableezy himself who is trying to pull a slick one by twisting the source in deliberate misleading fashion.

This source from Fodor’s states that “Mt Hermon is famous as being Israel’s highest mountain.” I take that at face value. Now Nab rather slyly and underhandedly hooks in the part of the source that says “…is actually in Syrian territory.” What he fails to note is that the source was referring to the mountain’s summit and he fails to give you the entire sentence which says, “The summit of Mount Hermon… is actually in Syrian territory.” But the source clearly states that the mountains slopes are in Israel.

This source from Popular Mechanics states “Mount Hermon straddles one of the world's most infamously contested borders. On one side of the mountain is Israel, and on the other side are Syria and Lebanon.” Again, I take that at face value and plain meaning. The source goes on to say that the mountain’s peak is in Syria. But nableezy would have you believe that the source says that the entire mount is located in Syria, which is entirely false.

And the third source which states that Mount Hermon is, “located at the intersection of the Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese borders, Mt. Hermon's southern slopes are home to Israel's only ski resort.” Again, plain meaning and face value. Folks, this isn’t rocket science. It’s plain meaning. No twists, no turns and no pitfalls. The sources are entirely consistent with the edit and I stand by them one-thousand percent. I strenuously object to nableezy's insinuations, mis-characterizations and distortions.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 23:43, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Tim. In addition to Fodor's, I cited two other sources including one from Popular Mechanics to support my edit at Mount Hermon. I note that I’m required to triple source my edits whereas Nableezy is required to provide none. If Nableezy has a problem with the sources used, the appropriate venue or forum is the Discussion Page or RSN. If you have a problem with any one of the three sources that I used, I welcome your input at the Discussion Page as well.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

NW, that is completely unfair! I utilized three sources to support a position that part of a Mount Hermon lies in Israel . If one thinks that all three sources are "suboptimal" the proper forum to address those concerns is at the Discussion page or RSN. I also note that Nableezy hasn’t provided a single source to support his position. It is no secret that Nableezy maintains a visceral hatred of me. By imposing such a one-sided sanction, you are inserting yourself directly into a content dispute and are in effect taking one side over another. This is like an episode right out of Orwell's 1984. I’m called every name in the book by some quarters while Nableezy, one of the most rabidly anti-Israel, tendentious editors remains untouchable. I assert that when I’m wrong I take responsibility and self-revert (as I did at Katzrin) But I stand by my edits at Mount Hermon 1000 percent. I make no apologies for triple sourced edits there.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

So you stand by falsifying a source by claiming Mount Hermon is in "Israel"? This is the quote you used in the exact same manner, the strike through being what you omitted, "Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain -- ~~is actually in Syrian territory~~". But of course you know that, though you have the advantage of playing off of one admins refusal to even look at the matter, very clever. By the way, with the whole Nableezy "anti-Israel" nonsense, I think we have all had about as much as we can swallow of your recycled, nonsensical personal attacks. -asad (talk) 16:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I have not looked at the totality of Nableezy's edits, though I have seen some instances where he does get tendentious in his edits, but that is irrelevant here because it isn't even remotely difficult for me to perceive that you are making disruptive edits in this case in the pursuit of an agenda. You used travel guide information about a ski resort, distorted said information, and then inserted that distortion into an article about a mountain at the eastern edge of the Golan Heights to push a false claim about the Golan Heights in general. This is gaming plain and simple. Not even the Israeli government claims the Golan Heights are anything but Syrian territory under Israeli control. Three terrible sources that can be misconstrued as expressing a position do not override countless authoritative sources clearly expressing the opposite position. Given your actions on the Katzrin article it is not hard to see these are blatantly tendentious edits that show no regard for Misplaced Pages's rules about reliable sources and verifiability.

One revealing part is what I noted in my comment below. You removed reliably-sourced material about the 1981 law being declared null and void as well as the consensus statement and never provided any explanation in an edit summary or on the talk page about why you did so. You made a comment in the edit summary to "see talk" but the only comment you made was about whether Katzrin should be called a town or a settlement. Did you really think that was the only contentious change you made?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Jiujitsuguy

Comment by Epeefleche

Firstly, looking at the first noted diff in complainant's "additional comments" section, it appears that the complained-about edit was supported by a ref to an RS. And that this was noted in the edit summary as well. Secondly, what is referred to by complainant as "the agreed upon consensus statement of illegality" seems to be a violation of wp:SYNTH, in that the subject of the article is not mentioned at all in the source given. While it may be appropriate language for an article on settlements in general, it does smack of spamming for an editor to insert the sentence in the instant article where the ref fails to mention the place in question.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

As to the second point, if there was (as is indicated) an earlier consensus (to the effect that including such a statement in articles is not synth, even where the ref does not mention the subject of the article),then I agree that consensus should be followed. Perhaps that discussion can be referred to with a diff, rather than a bald reference? It would be interesting to understand why that is not synth, in the eyes of the consensus. And also to explore what similar statements could be created (with that as a basis) and inserted into all "relevant" articles (even if the ref fails to specifically mention the specific subject of the article). I expect it could be a template for all sorts of dozens-of-insertions entries. For example, as to entities that are viewed as engaging in illegal terrorist activities.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:12, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

What up, Epeefleche? Some (close enough to 50%) were not happy at all with the final consensus. I (the originator of the discussion) was on the fence. The line is SYNTH. This was clearly understood by editors involved. My reasoning for being OK with it being SYNTH is that it was concise and the only way to do it was by WP:Ignore All Rules. How it has played out has been contrary to IAR, though. Ignore All Rules is about the betterment of the project. The rollout of the line has been contrary to the project's goals. It is bad enough that editors have decided to use a boiler plate when using a source directly related to the subject would obviously be preferred. But now we have several incidents of bickering over it. I started the conversation to stop the disruption (edit warring and sneaky editing). Events since have been just as disruptive. This discussion might be better at IPCOLL. I just wanted to clarify since it is so related. Cptnono (talk) 03:27, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to the discussion where the decision was made? That would be helpful. It may well be worth revisiting the issue. And/or extending this exception to the SYNTH policy to other matters, such as "x is considered a terrorist organization by z", whenever such organizations are mentioned.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I am just going to chime in here to note that statement is not WP:SYNTH. I have found in several cases that people represent synthesis as being one thing when it is actually another. Obvious inferences from a source related to the subject material are perfectly legitimate under WP:V. As it concerns this case, the source provided for that statement about Israeli settlements clearly says that Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights are considered to be in violation of the Geneva Conventions. That Katzrin is one of those Israeli settlements means that source is in fact about Katzrin, even if it is never mentioned by name. A source does not need to spell out everything for us to use it to back up a statement. If it is plain to everyone competent enough to understand the words being used that a source is referring to x, they never actually have to say x for us to require another source in order to state x is being referred to in that source. Generally, it is safe to presume that the source considers Katzrin as being an illegal settlement by virtue of the fact that the source clearly states that it considers all Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights to be illegal. The only way you could argue otherwise is if you argued that the source does not consider Katzrin to be an Israeli settlement, does not consider it to be in the Golan Heights, or does not consider either of these things to be the case.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Nishidani

The Mt Hermon in Israel edit can be contrasted with what occurred at Alon Shvut recently. User:MichaelNetzer found a source for the Kermes Oak there which ran Without a doubt, the most famous tree in Israel is the Kermes oak in Gush Etzion. Well both Alon Shvut and Gush Etzion happen not to be in Israel, but the West Bank. Notified, Michael commendably understood the objection, though he did think the ambiguity in the syntax allowed for it to be taken as 'famous in Israel'. And he certainly did not use that phrasing to assert in the article that these communities were in Israel, since the article is quite clear on their location in the West Bank. That is responsible editing, and collaborative judgement as opposed to tactical quibbling. No such ambiguity appears to exist in the way the Fodor text has been twisted. This is a serious problem, in any case. You can get any number of your nation-state's sources to promote a line that is wide of the mark in terms of international understanding of geography and history. Experienced editors who've been around here for as long as JJG should not be playing games with this kind of slipshod sourcing. Commonsense tells us all to refrain from temptations to use sources that are evidently skewed as nationalist POVs. There can be no excuse for reading a source only to deliberately misrepresent it by careful erasure of its qualifications in order to trim it to fit a POV, as appears to be the case here. Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

It has been 12 days and I doubt this is an "exceptional case" (especially since he fixed it already).Cptnono (talk) 01:48, 27 November 2011 (UTC) This is some silliness. Well over 12 days. If admins don't note that traffic suddenly increased a couple days ago then they should not be attempting to fix the area. I know that Tim knows what I am talking about and I do not need to beat around the bush. A whole lot of comments all of a sudden. What is up dude?Cptnono (talk) 07:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, after reading JJG's point above ('Nableezy hasn’t provided a single source to support his position.'), just made, I can't help but comment. For God's sake, until I started reading wikipedia I/P articles, I thought that everyone of a certain age had elementary geography drummed into them (i.e.'Mount Hermon Mount Hermon (Arabic: Jabal Al-Shaykh) is a snowcapped ridge on the Lebanon-Syria border west of Damascus.' Laura S Etheredge (ed.) Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Britannica Educational Publishing/Rosen Group 2011 p.3. states, not the position but the elementary geographical fact all general readers of a certain age know). I mean, Jeezus, I can't believe any editor here isn't familiar with the maps at Israel, where Israel is one colour and occupied territories like the Golan another. This is almost comical in the farcical pretense, even among one administrator, that the average joeblow, on looking at a map can't see the obvious, or that editors in the I/P area are unfamiliar with the maps on most pages they edit. I don't care about banning. I do think soap operas in which the obvious facts, any child used to learn at school, are opinionized in such agonizing detail shouldn't be tolerated. What encyclopedia are we writing if even the most basic facts are up to POV challenges like this? Nishidani (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment by asad @WGfinley

As someone who has been following both of these A/E threads and withheld commentary in an effort to not clog the pipes, and someone who is actively involved in the Mount Hermon article, I would have to ask you WGfinley, it appears as if you have not even looked/not cleary looked at the sources the JJG put in the article.

-JJG added the location as being Israel in this diff.

-When adding the reference, JJG quotes the travel guide in the ref, "Mt Hermon, famous as Israel’s highest mountain" cleverly leaving out "-- is actually in Syrian territory".. Please see the actual travel guide source here.

I am not sure how you can back up this action as defensible. He never self-reverted, as is evidenced by the article's history, where his last time even touching the article was to add the source. WGfinley, don't take my word for it. But I implore you, please see the links that I have provided to understand what Nableezy is talking about. I would also like to point out, when JJG added the source, it appears as his search term in Google Books was, "where is mt hermon israel or syria". JJG was just fishing through Google Books to find any source he could where it stated "Israel" rather than "Syria". Hell, he couldn't even get that right. -asad (talk) 15:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Gatoclass

As I posted on his talk page a few minutes ago, I think WG's latest comment on the case demonstrates that he is simply not up to speed with prevailing standards of adjudication here at AE. AE long ago left behind the notion that admins cannot make judgements about such issues as misrepresentation or falsification of sources at this page, indeed, ARBPIA enjoins administrators to take whatever steps they deem necessary to prevent disruption in these topic areas. If WG's interpretation of the rules were to be accepted, it would be straight back to the bad old days when civil POV pushers ran rampant over the topic area with no fear of consequences. Gatoclass (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

Not being involved in these articles much I cannot speak clearly about this particular editor's actions under ArbCom. However, I think his actions in the first diff should not be discounted because of a self-revert. Has anyone mentioned the other passage removed in that instance? That the UN declared the 1981 action in the Golan Heights null and void was reliably sourced and this information was also removed without explanation despite having been there for some time (I found it in one version from at least a year ago). JJG actually left the comment that the act in 1981 was internationally condemned so it is not that he had an issue with bringing up the stance of the international community, but appeared to have an issue with noting that the act was declared void.

His actions with the other article demonstrated an effort to cherry-pick sources (a "best-of" list in the skiing section of Popular Mechanics should not be treated as a definitive source on the legal status of any territory just because Popular Mechanics is considered a reliable source on news about technology) that are close enough to saying what he wants that he can misconstrue them as confirming something that is plainly false. The biggest cherry-picking of all, however, was the fact JJG was using sources only about Mount Hermon rather than considering them in the context of what reliable sources say about the Golan Heights in general.

Removing plainly relevant and reliably sourced material from one article without explanation and misrepresenting sources, including several that are definitely not reliable (travel brochures and the like are promotional material not legal documents), in another article to push a false position indicates a pattern of acting contrary to core Misplaced Pages policies like WP:V and WP:NPOV. In no sense is this a mere content dispute. The fact he stepped away from one of those edits after the AE case was filed does not change much with respect to his behavior since that could just as easily be seen as an attempt to dodge administrative action. He could have self-reverted when Nableezy requested he do so as he was obviously online at the time.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Ohiostandard

In a nutshell:

1. "Mt. Hermon" is more of a tremendously huge ridge than an individual mountain.

2. Around 7% of its 1000 km area evidently extends southward into the extreme Northern part of the Israeli-occupied Golan. (map)

3. The only way to claim the mountain is "in Israel" is by subscribing to Jiujitsuguy's view that the Golan itself is in Israel.

4. His belief that the Golan is a legitimate and "integral part of Israel", as he puts it, is common among right-wing Israelis, but it's utterly rejected by "almost the entire international community, including allies of Israel", as the BBC puts it. This easily-verified fact is demonstrated by its acknowledgment in WP:Legality of Israeli settlements.

5. Jiujitsuguy's fringe POV about Israeli-occupied territories isn't itself a problem. The problem is that he keeps on trying to use Misplaced Pages's voice to make others believe this extreme fringe POV too, even based on very thin, inappropriate, and misrepresented sources.

What will he give us next to champion this fringe POV after Popular Mechanics as an authority on geopolitics, I wonder, if he's allowed to continue in the topic area? Cat Fancy on peace negotiations or military strategy, perhaps? And that selectively edited to leave out the inconvenient bits, as we've seen here?

This is wholly unrepentant, long-term behavior: Jiujitsuguy "stands by his edits" to the Mt. Hermon article "one thousand percent", he repeatedly says above. This guy is obviously never going to stop pushing the extreme fringe POV that his edits there demonstrate, and that leaves the community with no alternative to a permanent topic ban. – OhioStandard (talk) 12:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Afterword: In evident support for his fringe POV that the Golan Heights is "an integral part of Israel" I see that Jiujitsuguy earlier this year also deleted an original CIA Factbook map that showed the region in the same color as Syria ( from whom Israel took it in 1967 ) and that included the phrase "Israeli occupied" beneath the "Golan Heights" label. In that same edit, he replaced the map with an altered version from which "Israeli occupied" had been expunged, and that likewise showed the area in a discontinuous color from Syria. He's evidently been pushing this fringe POV for quite a long time. – OhioStandard (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

( If you wish to comment, please do so in a section for your own statement rather than adding on to mine below. – OhioStandard (talk) 12:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC) )

Result concerning Jiujitsuguy

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

The consensus found by LHvU in the discussion plainly covers the Golan Heights (and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem), and it plainly states that this sentence is to be "included in all relevant articles". I'll reiterate what I have said previously: all editors in this topic area are expected and required to respect and follow this consensus in their editing, until and unless a different consensus is obtained through another RfC of similar participation. Failure to do so is ground for sanctions, including but not limited to a block or a topic ban. T. Canens (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

@Tim, I immediately self-reverted within seconds once I was provided with the link as noted in my response above.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that Jiujitsuguy is making this kind of an edit again. If JJG 'immediately self-reverted when he was provided with the link' how come he did not notice the mention of WP:Legality of Israeli settlements in the edit summary of Nableezy's last version, the one that he reverted? The Legality page explicitly mentions the Golan Heights. And in his own statement above, JJG says "Was unaware that this so-called consensus statement applied to the Golan Heights. I was under the impression that it only applied to the West Bank." It seems doubtful he would say this if he had even *read* the single sentence which the Legality page has determined to be the consensus wording. (Yes, that single sentence includes 'Golan Heights'). Unfortunately the only practical way to keep JJG from engaging in more adventures is a renewal of his topic ban. Admins at AE have made strong statements about enforcing LHvU's formula since the pressure to boldly ignore it is so strong. I think the I/P topic ban is the only adequate method to ensure that people will respect the consensus statement. EdJohnston (talk) 02:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Ed. I am being truthful when I say That I did not know that that template language applied to the Golan. Yes, I was indeed negligent in not seeing it in his edit summary. I only became aware of it from his AE and after reading the link, I self-reverted, literally within seconds of his filing. I'm asking not to be thrown in the cooler again. I'm asking you to AGF and to take into consideration the self revert.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 03:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm very interested in hearing JJG's response to Nableezy's newest comment. T. Canens (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I was truthful in my first response and I will be truthful in my response to Tim’s query. The “consensus template” does not address the issue of whether Katzrin is a town, village, city or settlement. Thus, it would not be incorrect to apply any and perhaps all of these labels to this particular city so long as it comes from and RS and is verifiable.
Concerning the subject edit, I noted at Talk page the following; "From Time magazine Israeli army tanks advance on the firing range during a training exercise, May 21, 2008, on the outskirts of the Israeli city of Katzrin in the Golan Heights. emphasis added. An equally if not greater persuasive argument can be made for calling it a town or city."
There is also this describing Katzrin as the largest town in the Golan
I made the edit because at the time, the first two sentences in the lead described Katzrin as a settlement without any reference to its town or city status. After my edit, the first sentence still referred to it as a settlement and the second referred to it as a town. I do not for one second regret that part of my edit (emphasis added). The only part of the edit that I regret is removal of the “consensus” language, which I immediately reverted once I realized that it also applied to towns in the Golan. (emphasis added)--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 17:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

This response does not even begin to address Nableezy's point: Majd ash-Shams is the largest town in the Golan Heights. In this context, it is irrelevant whether you call Katzrin a settlement, a town, or a city, it is still smaller, and in altering the term "settlement" to "town", Jjg introduced a blatantly false assertion into the article. RolandR (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

So I guess that all the reliable sources that refer to Katzrin as a town or city including Time Magazine The New York Times, Haaretz as well as scholaraly texts, are also asserting "baltant falsehoods," hmm?--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

No, you are still missing the point. The blatant falsehood is not that Katzrin is a town or a city; it is the assertion that it is "the largest". RolandR (talk) 19:15, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

According to this this scholarly text, Katzrin is the largest town in the Golan. So it becomes a content dispute.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 21:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

You cite a source that you know is wrong and falsely claim it is a scholarly source, and you think that helps your case? Amazing. Zero 08:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I dug a bit further and I think this is very relevant to that particular portion of the edit. The RFC concerning this very issue was closed as no consensus for the demand that each geographic entity beyond the 67 border be deemed a settlement in the opening sentence.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 18:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Sticking To The Point

Nableezy has filed one action in this AE request, that JJG took action in violation of consensus. JJG reverted himself within 30 minutes of the action when it was pointed out he was wrong. What's the issue? --WGFinley (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

In response to Nableezy's comment above while I am certainly aware of the type of behavior JJG gets drawn in to (having banned him in this topic area myself on more than one occasion) I don't see the particular offense here to merit AE. He put something in, the point was made to him he wasn't being accurate and after 30 minutes of reflection on it he self-reverted. That's the exact thing I would expect. --WGFinley (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Nableezy/JJG Redux

See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Result_concerning_Nableezy above. --WGFinley (talk) 06:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Given the sequence of events and the self-revert, I would be OK with closing the complaint against Jiujitsuguy (talk · contribs) with no action. However it is surprising that JJG manages to find himself back at AE so frequently. You would hope that past experience would encourage caution and get him to avoid making changes to very contentious portions of article leads. Some editors in this area who are closely associated with one of the two sides seem to feel duty-bound to strike a glorious blow for the cause. Thanks to WGFinley for all the new analysis he has done. EdJohnston (talk) 18:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately it's not surprising in this topic area. --WGFinley (talk) 18:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
- I don't find JJG's response as to the "largest town" issue convincing. To me this seems similar to the example in WP:VNT#"If it's written in a book, it must be true!" of using a travel guide that says "Washington D.C. is named after George Washington (1722 - 1799)" to argue that Washington is born in 1722 and not 1732.
  I agree that no action should be taken on the "legality" issue at this time, considering the self revert. T. Canens (talk) 10:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems we have a consensus to close, is there a support for an interaction ban for JJG and Nableezy perhaps modeled on the one with Cptnono last year? . --WGFinley (talk) 06:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

My view, briefly: The edits Nableezy listed, examined individually, are arguably in good faith. Together, though, they reveal a substantially more worrying pattern of behavior. Any reasonable editor in this area should have known that whether the Golan Heights (or parts thereof) is in Israel is a highly controversial matter. The idea that this kind of controversial territorial claims can be sourced to travel guides is frankly preposterous. The repeated use of clearly suboptimal sources in furtherance of a POV, even assuming for the sake of argument that these sources say what JJG says they say, is tendentious. I think a topic ban is in order. T. Canens (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I prematurely closed this as it hadn't had comments for more than a week (thought we could finally close it) and I missed your latest comment TC. He self reverted and if we started topic banning over these territorial claims we would be topic banning until the cows come home. I think JJG came forward and reverted, I don't think we should topic ban when we get desired behavior. Perhaps an admonishment to use better care and stick to reliable sources in territorial claim articles is in order? --WGFinley (talk) 06:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

First, I don't see a self-revert to Mount Hermon. Second, we expect people to use high-quality sources in this kind of cases. This isn't exactly rocket science. If all of them are using sub-par sources, then banning all of them sounds like a good plan. I'm tired of seeing an ARBPIA request at AE every other week. T. Canens (talk) 11:24, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see what he did on Mount Hermon other than to point out there's a ski resort there and added a travel guide as source for information on that. I would consider a travel guide a decent source for information on a ski resort. There doesn't seem to be any dispute there's a ski resort there, it has its own article. These folks argue incessantly over maps and even where a mountain range is based on where the peaks are! Using these nonsensical standards I guess we should put Canadian Rockies up for AfD since its peak is in the United States. We shouldn't be drawn into their content disputes by analyzing sources in taking action. I agree on this constantly coming up on AE but if we are going to reduce leniency then it needs to be across the board and not against one side or the other. But meting out a TBAN for using a travel guide as a source? That's drawing us into content where we shouldn't be going. --WGFinley (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I came across this discussion and I agree with WGFinley. I really don't see how Arbitration Enforcement is the forum for arguing about whether sources are good enough or not. Enigma 00:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: JJG (and other editors if people feel it is warranted) are topic-banned from articles that are within 25km of a border or disputed border where one of the nations involved is Israel. NW (Talk) 02:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to NW for proposing something that might allow this to close, but I'm afraid it could be more trouble than it's worth. We would then have admins trying to monitor which topics have some relevance to a border zone, getting us still deeper into content matters. I disagree with WGF on the question of whether we should look at content in the sense that sanctions have often been issued in the past for misuse of sources. This may require that admins read those sources and form an opinion on what they say. It is unfortunate that in my first reading of the complaint (back in mid-November) I thought it was just a 1RR complaint and did not realize that a lot of it was based on a claim of misreading sources. It may be too late in the day to turn the ship around, since several admins would have to (a) agree that misuse of sources was significant, and (b) decide if action is needed. The complaint has been open for over two weeks. Of the admins who commented, only T. Canens seems to have expressed concern about the issue of misreading sources. Jujitsuguy does appear to have used Google searches that try to cherry-pick data favorable to his points. For example, his above search that yielded the Balint reference was a Google Books search for 'Katzrin the largest town.' This should give us very little confidence on JJG's ability to interpret sources neutrally.

Meanwhile, if any admins (in addition to T. Canens) want to give a fresh read of this AE based on the angle of misuse of sources (previously neglected) and consider a topic ban on that basis, I'd be open to a further discussion. If T. Canens wants us to ban other people as well as JJG he ought to suggest which people should be on the banned list.

The evidence shows JJG in a bad light but it's not easy to follow. Plus, the only reasonable escalation for JJG, who has been warned and topic banned many times, is a new topic ban for several months. That would seem to need an easily-graspable violation to be justified. An alternative closure might be a full protection of Golan Heights, Mount Hermon and Katzrin for some period of time to keep the nonsense in check. EdJohnston (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

My position has been represented by the filing party as supporting what JJG did, I have said I don't see what the large issue here that would make him subject to sanction. Whatever the case, what he did begins to pale in comparison to the tone and accusations made by the filing party here and on my talk page. I think all parties should be cautioned to not come here with unclean hands, which is a bit what NW is getting at with these constant AE complaints and counter-complaints. I think this case should be closed with a warning to JJG to mind his sources and all concerned to work out their differences on sources and articles on the talk pages and not in revert comments as seems to be the usual style. --WGFinley (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Uhh, since when was it necessary that there be admin consensus for discretionary sanctions to be applied? Yall want to close this then fine, but the result is that an editor previously sanctioned for lying about sources is free to continue lying about sources. Well done, everybody. nableezy - 00:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think, you of all people, should be agitating for sanctions without consensus. If I recall correctly, just a week ago there was a case here against you, where at least one admin called for your topic ban, but it wads closed as no action. Be careful what you wish for. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk)

I call for sanctions when there is a cause for sanctions, mr obvious sock. Here we have an editor once topic-banned for misrepresenting a source to push a POV again lying about a source to push a POV. If you want to compare that to reverting a collection of socks of banned users you can do that. nableezy - 01:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You think there is a cause for sanctions, but clearly, there is no consensus that this is indeed the case. Be careful what you wish for. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 01:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate

The Devil's Advocate is topic banned from 9/11 Related articles until 30 Dec 2011. --WGFinley (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning The Devil's Advocate User who is submitting this request for enforcement -Jordgette 05:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced WP:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it The Devil's Advocate was recently blocked for one week for edit warring on the 7 World Trade Center article (a Featured Article). As noted in his block case, many of these edits were tendentious. Immediately after the block expired, the user began making more edits to the article. Although they have become increasingly subtle, as another editor pointed out , some of the recent edits "make controlled demolition seem less implausible." Edits before block: 10/24/11 Removal of information about physical evidence used by firefighters to predict that the building would collapse due to fire 10/19/11 Weakening of language to support the idea that NIST could not "rule out" the use of thermite to demolish 7WTC 10/25/11 Removal of engineering and fire-safety organizations that collaborated with NIST, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (the mentions are injurious to CT claims that the investigation was secret, insular, and inadequate) 10/24/11 and 11/7/11 Repeated removals of image of Fiterman Hall, a building across the street that was damaged by 7WTC's collapse (the image is injurious to the CT claim that 7WTC collapsed symmetrically into its own footprint) After block: 11/16/11 and reverted 11/16/11 Weakening of language to make NIST findings about blast sounds more open to question 11/16/11 More weakening of language, highlighting the fact that this is merely NIST's opinion 11/17/11 Incredibly, after this request for enforcement had been filed, the user removed the sentence "Few photos and video clips exist that show the damage sustained to the south face of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11" from a caption in the article. This sentence is inconvenient for conspiracy theorists and its removal consistent with the other POV-pushing. Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) Warned on 11/9/11 by EdJohnston (talk · contribs) Additional comments by editor filing complaint The user feigns impartiality, for example when it was pointed out that his deletions would be applauded by conspiracy theorists . Having been confronted, the user hides behind WP:AGF to defend his actions (in his statement below as well as here, paragraph 3) while accusing those who protect the status quo on the Featured Article of bias (, ). The user defends his actions with great verbosity and during his block declared himself right and innocent, even after three admins told him otherwise — so enjoy yourselves on this one! Update: I would like to get some action on this request. For over a month The Devil's Advocate has been asked numerous times to discuss significant changes to this article and find consensus first , yet he refuses because he doesn't "need the approval of your group" and continues to make extensive changes to the article including today, in an edit that introduced a missing space and awkward wording and deleted sources without discussion. But when the user is reverted, we get drama and demands for explanation . I am growing weary of the user's desire to unilaterally alter the article and then kick up tons of dust, for days, when the changes are resisted. This disruption is a drain on Misplaced Pages, with very little positive in return, and I'd like it to stop. Considering that the user has cut back on the blatantly tendentious edits but continues to work against consensus, might this issue now be more appropriate for the Incidents noticeboard? -Jordgette 20:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC) The Devil's Advocate continues to unilaterally rewrite and restructure. If this continues it's likely to destabilize the article. Tom Harrison 03:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Discussion concerning The Devil's Advocate Statement by The Devil's Advocate Since most of my comments below have been more at addressing claims of other editors, namely the editor who started this case, I figure I should provide a more complete statement on my actions. While WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE have apparently been interpreted by some editors as justifying repeating the claims of official investigations without qualification, my take on that is a lot different. For one, I do not think the idea is that all fringe theories are created equal. Each theory, fringe or otherwise, has its own independent merit or lack thereof and should be treated as an independent case (this applies even within a subject of conspiracy theory i.e. theories about Saudi/Pakistani complicity in 9-11 are generally seen as far more legitimate than theories about the use of directed energy weapons). In addition, WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE are about how much attention is given to an idea, not how that is treated. My understanding is that WP:NPOV still applies regardless of how little acceptance an idea has. WP:FRINGE is not a license to promote the mainstream position in any way or to attack the fringe position. When any source is cited potential conflicts of interest that source may have should be considered, as well as the credibility of any statement cited to the source. Even experts say things they cannot back up with facts. It is important to consider if a cited expert has done so before repeating the statement without qualification. For instance, that Stephen Hawking has stated God is not necessary to explain how the universe came to be does not mean we can repeat such a statement as fact, because it simply isn't a fact. No matter what level of certainty an expert attaches to a statement, it is the certainty of the actual facts presented that matters. When a statement of certainty would be prejudicial to a position held by any group, it definitely better not be stated without qualification unless the claim is clearly backed up. As it concerns giving due weight and covering fringe theories, insuring that you present the verifiable facts objectively without promoting any position takes precedence over all else. Not seeking to discredit or reject a fringe theory is not the same as promoting it or giving it undue weight. In this case, the controlled demolition theories get one paragraph devoted to explaining that the official investigation does not give these theories much credibility. Attributing these claims about the theories to the investigation does not give undue weight to the theories themselves. The above mainly concerns disagreements over one or two sentences in the overall article. When it comes to the more substantial dispute over the amount of material devoted to the collapse and investigation my reasoning does not require as much explanation. My take is that the building 7 article is first and foremost an article about a notable structure in New York City. At present it concerns both the present iteration and past iteration of that structure. To that effect I found the amount of detail devoted to the collapse excessive. Specifically six out of ten paragraphs in the section were about the investigation into the collapse, one being devoted almost entirely to the delays to the investigation. For an article about a building that sort of focus did not make a lot of sense. My concerns were magnified upon seeing that the article about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, where I would expect a great deal more detail, had two or so meager paragraphs on building 7. Now there is much made of me not discussing changes before making them (I discussed plenty after making a change), but this is partly due to my experience with contentious subjects. I find that many times people are simply unwilling to consider any major change to a contentious article and discussion tends to stalemate. Rather than spending days trying to sort out the question I figured a bold change would provide a clearer picture and make discussion easier than simply going over the vagaries of whether an article needs a major change or not. My desire was thus to have a WP:BRD process, though obviously I did hope the first change would be the only one I would have to make. All along the way my reasoning never changed. I felt a lot of unnecessary information was being included in the building 7 article when it rightly belonged elsewhere. Each time I paid attention to what the other editors were objecting to, asked them what concerns they had, and tried to discern what they really had a problem with as it concerned my changes. Some of the objections I got, like the one about Fiterman Hall, were not even things I thought involved any POV consideration until it was said to involve one. Part of my thinking was pretty simple: if every subsequent shortening effort kept information they specifically expressed a desire to keep they would either mention other bits of information they wanted to remain or we would arrive at a point where they had no objections, thus successfully achieving a consensus position that made the section shorter and the size more consistent with a Featured Article of its scope. On several occasions I did manage to find ways to shorten the article these editors agreed with and some of those changes remain in place. Two shortening efforts I made several days apart appeared to gain acceptance, in one case an explicit endorsement by one of the editors. Feeling like the bold, revert, discuss cycle was finally bearing fruit I thought of another way to shorten the article while respecting the concerns of these editors. Unfortunately, my memory of the objection to removing Fiterman Hall left me thinking including the information in the article was enough, but editor Jordgette apparently wanted the image specifically to remain. At the point Jordgette resorted to pushing for administrative action is I think where this really went wrong. I feel had we gone back to discussion the matter could have resolved itself without incident. However, pushing for administrative action no matter how well-intentioned always tends to make things uglier. Here I felt it was anything but a last resort and that everything was going the way any editing cycle should go on Misplaced Pages. Situations like this, in particular, often lead to one side feeling vindicated if they are left untouched by an administrative action while the other side is severely punished. On some level I think this explains why editor Tom Harrison went about reverting without explanation a number of the changes that had apparently been endorsed by Jordgette almost as soon as my block began. It also led to a complete change in the atmosphere on the article. Efforts to get discussion going on the reverts by Jordgette and Tom before and during my block essentially got stonewalled. Having reviewed some aspects of the article it has become clear that despite keeping eye on this article like hawks for anything they construe as pushing conspiracies a number of very basis problems like grammatical errors, puffery, and removal of the one wikilink directing people to the conspiracy theory page (an issue that got the 9-11 article stripped of its features status) went unnoticed by these editors until I began contributing. This sort of thing is really not unknown to me as it tends to be the case that when a group of editors push out the only significant opposing editors the whole article declines as a result. What concerns me is that continuing to impose heavy sanctions against me without so much as a reprimand for these editors will only encourage behaviors that do not in any way improve Misplaced Pages. I do not have any interest in seeing either of those editors sanctioned, but only that my actions be considered in context. Just consider that almost all of my changes to the article after the block have been about the building itself, most of them being "routine edits" as Tom described them, yet I am still getting reverted and often with little to no adequate explanation given. I should not be expected to get approval for splitting one large paragraph into two smaller ones and it is unlikely many editors will have any interest in satisfying such a demand.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC) Additional comments I have made it clear in the talk page that the change I was making was purely related to a grammatical error. The word "because" in the sentence does not match with the earlier wording "found no evidence" so I replaced "because" with "such as" and removed "were not observed" so that the sentence would be grammatically correct. An earlier change merely replaced absolute wording with more appropriate wording that was also used in the source material. The only other change just used identical wording to an earlier part of the sentence. It appears these are the only changes Jordgette is using to argue this point. While the latter two changes should not be a matter of controversy given what I just said here, I left those reverts in place and only sought to address the grammatical error.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC) It would appear Jordgette also believed that the previous wording needed to be fixed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC) Another note is that of the supposedly three edits listed as happening after the block, two are the exact same edit. The only other edits included the changes Jordgette has now acknowledged as legitimate as well as some changes that concern the building itself and have no bearing on the POV I am supposedly pushing. Some changes were purely style-related and had no impact on content, like merging paragraphs, while other changes involved removing blatantly promotional language, or expanding on a piece of information. What we are left with are edits before the block, in which case it appears Jordgette is merely pushing for additional sanctions on top of the week-long block.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC) One issue that keeps getting repeated ad nauseam is the notion that I am pushing a conspiracist POV. Unfortunately these accusations increasingly border on failure to assume good faith, as in the accusation that I was using a grammatical error as an excuse to make "dubious" edits or Jordgette's insistence that I am insidiously hiding behind a pretense of impartiality. That the admin who blocked me accepted the accusation of me pushing such a POV is part of the reason I rejected that decision. It seems there is a poor habit of editors, admins included, presuming that the only reason someone would not want to insert absolute wording in favor of the official version of events (preferring to use intext citation) is because that person wants to push the conspiracy theory or that merely being open-minded when it comes to conspiracy theories means you cannot evaluate edits objectively. However, my insistence on qualifying such statements by noting who said it or not using definite language is consistent with my edits across multiple subjects that have nothing to do with conspiracy theories. My opinions on some of those other issues are far stronger and sometimes are even dis-served by my changes, but only on this subject do people accuse me of impropriety and seek administrative sanctions over such accusations. Sadly, I cannot really prove to anyone what is going on in my head, but that just makes it all the more important that editors try to consider whether my reasons for edits make objective sense. Rather than approaching the subject with a battle mentality some editors need to be more diplomatic. Tom's claim below that I was adding "a lot of chaff" to the talk page is an example of this battle mentality. He appears to be referring to comments I made on the talk page looking for his explanation on why he performed a number of reverts on material that had been unchallenged for at least a week or longer without providing any explanation. My concerns pointed to a lot of serious issues like information not being contained in a citation and the questionable use of a non-free image. Describing my queries as "chaff" when the editor was being questioned about his reasons for reverting material that appeared to have gained consensus without explaining why he did this does not suggest a desire for cooperation. Tom may have also been referring to my questions towards Jordgette about whether that editor objected to certain changes that had been reverted, given that the editor only raised one specific concern, as well as explaining why I had made those changes. Describing that as "chaff" would also demonstrate a lack of interest in discussion.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC) Jordgette is going overboard now. I shortened a rather lengthy caption by removing information that goes on about how few photos exist, something that is of no consequence to the subject at hand at all (despite Jordgette's odd insistence otherwise). I also moved the image to the other side of the page so that the section would not look so cluttered. Once more, in Jordgette's haste and trigger-happy reverting, uncontroversial changes have been undone that only improved the article. Now we have three images on one side and it just makes the whole section look terrible. Absurdly Jordgette fails to fully restore the wording and when correcing that mistake makes the bizarre remark that the mistake was a "casualty of the current crisis" only going further to prove my point that these editors are in total battle mentality rather than actually seeking the good of the article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC) Scratch that, it appears that particular word has been absent for some time. It appears to only have just now been noticed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC) I looked back in the history and it appears that mistake Jordgette blamed on the "current crisis" has been an issue since a change over four years ago.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC) On my week-long block, since Jordgette brought it up and with those actions leading to it appearing to be the main thrust of the editor's objections, my reason for not accepting the decisions of the admins is because the one argument I made consistently, that my edits were consistent with WP:BRD, never got addressed by any of those admins. The closest an admin came to addressing it was the last admin reviewing the unblock, who still failed to acknowledge that my efforts at discussion specifically sought the opinions of other editors and tried to accommodate the opinions expressed or that such discussion did result in consensus changes. Of note for this case, Jordgette went to the noticeboard in that case hours after I tried to inquire about that editor's objections. Here Jordgette did not even bother to wait and reacted to a change that the editor now seems to acknowledge was not in any sort of bad faith. This behavior of jumping to seek administrative action even when an editor regularly expresses a clear desire for discussion is far more problematic than anything I am accused of doing.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC) On WGFinley's reasons for any admin interested you can look at the discussion on the admin's user talk page. However, here is a summary of why the reasons WGFinley gives below are inaccurate: The "removal of sourced material" was in fact a merge of information from one article to another, with the section in the building 7 article summarized. It was not done "without explanation" as the idea had been put forward by me on the talk page before the change and a section discussing the change was started immediately afterward with an explanation of the reasons for the change. None of this occurred after "coming off a block" because those edits WG mentioned were given as the reason for the block. Even though I had already spent a great deal of effort explaining those edits on the edit-warring noticeboard, in an unblock request, and in a response to an unblock request on my user talk page I still made some effort above to address those edits (I also addressed all the diffs from after the block expired), contrary to the claim made by WG below. Of course, WG would have probably realized all of this, but, as the admin made clear, my statement on these issues was not read. In spite of this and apparently in spite of my efforts to provide as succinct and simple an explanation as possible on that admin's user talk page pointing out those mistaken reasons, this admin still seems to be pushing for a topic ban. I am not sure what reasoning the admin now has for suggesting such an action, but it should be understood that the reasons currently given on this noticeboard are not accurate and, by the admin's own admission, not based off actually reading my comments.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC) On Jordgette's latest update it seems this editor has a nasty habit of selectively taking things out of their proper context. My lack of interest in getting approval for every little change is not unwarranted. Several times I have sought discussion with Jordgette and Tom without getting much feedback or receiving only snarky comebacks (several overtures I have made in the article talk page have still gone unaddressed). Notice how, even though I started a section mentioning these latest changes soon after they were made, Jordgette's first action is to cite those edits here in order to build a case to keep me from editing the article altogether, rather than raising these concerns on the talk page where I explicitly made a point of opening the changes up for discussion. In fact, Jordgette does not even take the time to correct a very simple mistake involving a missing space. Jordgette and Tom are now citing changes that they express no real opposition towards as an example of how I am being disruptive, which just seems bizarre. This rush to get rid of me, in light of their own expressed interests in having the article used to counter conspiracy claims, should definitely not be heeded. It is because of their own refusal to engage in real discussion and expressed agenda for the article that I aim reluctant to seek their approval for every change, though I have tried to get discussion going on contentious issues. I admit that I do not really believe in any sort of "seek consensus first" standard for editing articles, especially a standard imposed by editors who have a clear interest in pushing a POV. Most changes are just better achieved by taking bold action and then chewing over conflicts with other editors in pursuit of a compromise. I have consistently made an effort to do this all along the way in my edits to this article and, I believe, generally managed to improve the article. What problems exist are a product of several entrenched editors being unreceptive to discussion and seeking administrative redress for perceived slights against their cause instead of trying to compromise.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Here are some efforts I have made at discussion: Here are some of the responses I have gotten: (consider the call in the preceding link for keeping information to counter unmentioned conspiracist arguments in light of this earlier remark about the need for including information because it led the editor to read up more on the official explanation already included in the article) (preceding comment in link in response to numerous specific questions about specific changes) (in response to me suggesting an In-text attribution given conflicting statements in the source) (all in response to me asking an editor why he reverted several edits that had stood for a week without offering any explanation or discussion before or after the revert) (after I asked the editor to respond to some objections, like the revert he performed without explanation or discussion, he refers to my efforts for discussion on the article talk page as "chaff" here)--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning The Devil's Advocate It should be noted that this request concerns all of the edits listed above, before and after the block. The user, having gone through the edit-warring noticeboard process and a considerable block, continued making dubious edits immediately after the block. I for one have lost patience with the user and am pursuing this venue as the last resort that it is. -Jordgette 06:18, 17 November 2011 (UTC) I endorse Jordgette's request for enforcement. Coming right off his block, The Devil's Advocate, along with a number of routine edits, made two tendentious changes (Jordgette's statement above) to the paragraph on controlled demolition and added a ton of chaff to the talk page. Tom Harrison 14:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC) Earlier today The Devil's Advocate again began to restructure and reword. My concern is less with these edits themselves than with his not getting consensus for re-writing and moving around paragraphs, and that the long-term result of a number of these edits will be to slant the article toward controlled demolition. Tom Harrison 23:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Soooo, let me get this straight. You want me to get permission from you or editors of a similar mind just to make uncontroversial changes, but apparently think you can revert changes that stood for a week or longer, changes facing no objections from editors frequenting the article (one of which said editors I just noticed made one of the changes that got reverted), without providing any explanation in the edit summary or talk page for why you did it and ten days later, only after repeated prompting for an explanation, offer up a rather vague reason that you refuse to elaborate on. The standards you expect me to meet compared to the standards you use for yourself leave a lot to be desired.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:42, 24 November 2011 (UTC) Moving around paragraphs, deleting sources, etc., is not uncontroversial — particularly if it's a controversial topic, and particularly if it's a featured article. Not to mention the fact that you're listed on this page because other editors have serious problems with your ongoing editing practices on this article, and you've been called out by four admins now. Yet you continue as if no one has said anything. The hubris is incredible. -Jordgette 01:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC) Let us keep this in context. Moving a paragraph from a place it shouldn't be (somewhere that it interrupts a continuous line of information on a separate subject) to a place it more appropriately belongs (where it is clearly connected to the preceding paragraphs) is uncontroversial. Deleting two outdated sources that no longer go to the cited page and another source in favor of a single up-to-date reliable source that more than sufficiently backs up the information, is uncontroversial. There is no reason why you should consider such changes controversial.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC) You've been asked numerous times to find consensus on the talk page before making significant changes to this article. The fact that you continually refuse to do so, because you personally feel you are correct in all of your decisions, is the very reason you are listed on this page. -Jordgette 01:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC) Unstated fact: Jordgette apparently thinks I am correct in this instance. The fact I have no issue with some of my changes being rewritten or with rewriting some changes I made after objections are raised would logically indicate I do not feel I am correct in all my decisions. Now, the insistence that I need the approval of your group, because that is what we are really talking about here as you and people of your shared opinion frequent the article most, for any change would be more acceptable if you would not say things like "snore" when reverting my comments on your talk page about the need for you to explain your reasons for reverting changes or refer to my pleas for discussion as "chaff" as Tom did. Stuff like that makes me suspect you really just want to force me to only propose changes on the talk page so that you can give my proposals the silent treatment in the hopes that I will go away and allow you to continue pushing your position unhindered. Before you accuse me again of not assuming good faith, I am only telling you the impression your words and actions are creating. If this is not the case it is very simple to avoid that sort of confusion. Not treating another editor's calls for discussion with annoyance is one way. Actually discussing things seriously with that editor is another way. In spite of everything I am doing my utmost to try and be nice to you here. Behaving as though you know what I feel about myself is not making it easy.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC) I think DA's continuing editing of the controversial article even during this case is a clear manifestation of disruption and waste of everyone's time (and IDHT). A topic ban that will give everyone some respite and time to DA to think it over may be good. I am pessimistic that this will not continue after the expiry of the ban but I guess all of us have to AGF. - BorisG (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC) It is not like my edits since the AE notice have been problematic in any way for the article. One of the edits that got reverted did little more than split one big paragraph into two medium-sized paragraphs. There is no real logic that justifies undoing a change like that.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC) Just to reiterate: there is no basis for reverting due to "no consensus" and editors have to provide more than that. My "continuous editing" should be considered in light of what edits I am making, not that I simply am not partial to getting permission for every edit I make to an article. I did not register on Misplaced Pages so I could ask "mother may I?" every time I see something that should be changed then wait days or more to get permission and I doubt anyone else did. With one minor exception, my edits after coming off the week-long block have addressed issues with the article not pertaining to disputed content. Any admin should consider that first, and only then consider whether I am being disruptive by not getting permission, a demand for which there is no basis in policy.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC) If there is any doubt as to the user's POV, note that on the talk page of September 11 attacks the user stated that the National Institute of Standards & Technology is not necessarily a reliable source , this being a case of the fox investigating the henhouse . The user has also said that NIST "guessed" at what started the fires in WTC7 despite there being plausible CT-based explanations . When combined with the user's aggressive editing style of the article and resistance to consensus, I believe this fringe POV creates a problem for Misplaced Pages, even if the user is presently staying clear of obvious POV-pushing in the article. -Jordgette 22:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC) I agree that editor's MO seems to be sneaking up on the POV after making some edits that don't change much. My ability to AGF with DA is waning. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC) No one should have to sanitize their opinions for someone to assume good faith. Just because I do not share your disdain for conspiracy theories and their proponents does not mean I am not acting in good faith.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC) My position is that the government saying it did not do anything wrong should be regarded with the same level of skepticism as anyone saying they did not do anything wrong. You typically don't just take someone's word for it that they did not commit a crime. OJ Simpson is not a reliable source on whether he is innocent or not. On Misplaced Pages situations like that are when we make sure everyone knows that this is coming from the implicated party. Inserting absolute statements that treat their word as law seeks to keep people oblivious of that clear conflict of interest. That was the thrust of my argument on the 9-11 talk page. As for what I said on MONGO's talk page, I was seeking to illustrate the point that certain things being claimed as fact are really not even close. No one actually witnessed or had physical evidence to determine the cause of the fires so yeah it was a guess based on the fact that no one saw fires until a little after the collapse. For all we know Billy Joel could have started the fire. Even so, you consistently neglect the more important parts of my remarks like "Personally, I don't really think there is good reason to challenge the collapse from fire explanation" or "All of that is just my own random speculation so naturally it has no encyclopedic purpose in any article" that kind of suggest the opposite of what you are trying to say here. On the other hand, you appear to favor hiding behind verifiability and denying that you are pushing a POV with your edits even when you make that agenda plainly obvious. Take the instances I note above where you explain how the information on the bulge needs to be included because it led you to look into the NIST investigation (the obvious implication being that said piece of information will lead readers to accept the official version) or how the Fiterman Hall image is important because it is damning evidence that building 7 did not collapse into its own footprint (here the implication being that said image will get readers to reject the conspiracy theories). You phrase a lot of your reasons for including information in the building 7 article in terms of whether it will help or hurt people in adopting the "correct" position. Like I have noted several times consider that the first major change I made to the building 7 article was moving the information elsewhere on the basis that an article about the building should not be a battleground or soapbox for arguments about the collapse. Part of that was removing all information on conspiracy theories but a single sentence saying no evidence was found of a controlled demolition. What POV do you think a change like that would push if any?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC) Billy Joel? Really? What's next the Chewbacca defense? ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Just trying to lighten things up a little.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:08, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Result concerning The Devil's Advocate This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. The diffs provided show removal of sourced material without explanation. TDA has provided a TL;DR explanation of his philosophy but no response to the diffs submitted. Since he just came off a block I think a topic ban is in order. --WGFinley (talk) 01:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC) How long are you thinking? Don't see anything prior, I was thinking a month. --WGFinley (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate is topic banned from 9/11 Related articles until 30 Dec 2011. --WGFinley (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning The Devil's Advocate

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: -Jordgette 05:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

The Devil's Advocate was recently blocked for one week for edit warring on the 7 World Trade Center article (a Featured Article). As noted in his block case, many of these edits were tendentious. Immediately after the block expired, the user began making more edits to the article. Although they have become increasingly subtle, as another editor pointed out , some of the recent edits "make controlled demolition seem less implausible." Edits before block:

10/24/11 Removal of information about physical evidence used by firefighters to predict that the building would collapse due to fire
10/19/11 Weakening of language to support the idea that NIST could not "rule out" the use of thermite to demolish 7WTC
10/25/11 Removal of engineering and fire-safety organizations that collaborated with NIST, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (the mentions are injurious to CT claims that the investigation was secret, insular, and inadequate)
10/24/11 and 11/7/11 Repeated removals of image of Fiterman Hall, a building across the street that was damaged by 7WTC's collapse (the image is injurious to the CT claim that 7WTC collapsed symmetrically into its own footprint)

After block:

11/16/11 and reverted 11/16/11 Weakening of language to make NIST findings about blast sounds more open to question
11/16/11 More weakening of language, highlighting the fact that this is merely NIST's opinion
11/17/11 Incredibly, after this request for enforcement had been filed, the user removed the sentence "Few photos and video clips exist that show the damage sustained to the south face of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11" from a caption in the article. This sentence is inconvenient for conspiracy theorists and its removal consistent with the other POV-pushing.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Warned on 11/9/11 by EdJohnston (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user feigns impartiality, for example when it was pointed out that his deletions would be applauded by conspiracy theorists . Having been confronted, the user hides behind WP:AGF to defend his actions (in his statement below as well as here, paragraph 3) while accusing those who protect the status quo on the Featured Article of bias (, ). The user defends his actions with great verbosity and during his block declared himself right and innocent, even after three admins told him otherwise — so enjoy yourselves on this one!

Update: I would like to get some action on this request. For over a month The Devil's Advocate has been asked numerous times to discuss significant changes to this article and find consensus first , yet he refuses because he doesn't "need the approval of your group" and continues to make extensive changes to the article including today, in an edit that introduced a missing space and awkward wording and deleted sources without discussion. But when the user is reverted, we get drama and demands for explanation . I am growing weary of the user's desire to unilaterally alter the article and then kick up tons of dust, for days, when the changes are resisted. This disruption is a drain on Misplaced Pages, with very little positive in return, and I'd like it to stop. Considering that the user has cut back on the blatantly tendentious edits but continues to work against consensus, might this issue now be more appropriate for the Incidents noticeboard? -Jordgette 20:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate continues to unilaterally rewrite and restructure. If this continues it's likely to destabilize the article. Tom Harrison 03:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning The Devil's Advocate

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

Since most of my comments below have been more at addressing claims of other editors, namely the editor who started this case, I figure I should provide a more complete statement on my actions. While WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE have apparently been interpreted by some editors as justifying repeating the claims of official investigations without qualification, my take on that is a lot different.

For one, I do not think the idea is that all fringe theories are created equal. Each theory, fringe or otherwise, has its own independent merit or lack thereof and should be treated as an independent case (this applies even within a subject of conspiracy theory i.e. theories about Saudi/Pakistani complicity in 9-11 are generally seen as far more legitimate than theories about the use of directed energy weapons). In addition, WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE are about how much attention is given to an idea, not how that is treated. My understanding is that WP:NPOV still applies regardless of how little acceptance an idea has. WP:FRINGE is not a license to promote the mainstream position in any way or to attack the fringe position.

When any source is cited potential conflicts of interest that source may have should be considered, as well as the credibility of any statement cited to the source. Even experts say things they cannot back up with facts. It is important to consider if a cited expert has done so before repeating the statement without qualification. For instance, that Stephen Hawking has stated God is not necessary to explain how the universe came to be does not mean we can repeat such a statement as fact, because it simply isn't a fact. No matter what level of certainty an expert attaches to a statement, it is the certainty of the actual facts presented that matters. When a statement of certainty would be prejudicial to a position held by any group, it definitely better not be stated without qualification unless the claim is clearly backed up.

As it concerns giving due weight and covering fringe theories, insuring that you present the verifiable facts objectively without promoting any position takes precedence over all else. Not seeking to discredit or reject a fringe theory is not the same as promoting it or giving it undue weight. In this case, the controlled demolition theories get one paragraph devoted to explaining that the official investigation does not give these theories much credibility. Attributing these claims about the theories to the investigation does not give undue weight to the theories themselves.

The above mainly concerns disagreements over one or two sentences in the overall article. When it comes to the more substantial dispute over the amount of material devoted to the collapse and investigation my reasoning does not require as much explanation. My take is that the building 7 article is first and foremost an article about a notable structure in New York City. At present it concerns both the present iteration and past iteration of that structure. To that effect I found the amount of detail devoted to the collapse excessive. Specifically six out of ten paragraphs in the section were about the investigation into the collapse, one being devoted almost entirely to the delays to the investigation. For an article about a building that sort of focus did not make a lot of sense. My concerns were magnified upon seeing that the article about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, where I would expect a great deal more detail, had two or so meager paragraphs on building 7.

Now there is much made of me not discussing changes before making them (I discussed plenty after making a change), but this is partly due to my experience with contentious subjects. I find that many times people are simply unwilling to consider any major change to a contentious article and discussion tends to stalemate. Rather than spending days trying to sort out the question I figured a bold change would provide a clearer picture and make discussion easier than simply going over the vagaries of whether an article needs a major change or not. My desire was thus to have a WP:BRD process, though obviously I did hope the first change would be the only one I would have to make. All along the way my reasoning never changed. I felt a lot of unnecessary information was being included in the building 7 article when it rightly belonged elsewhere. Each time I paid attention to what the other editors were objecting to, asked them what concerns they had, and tried to discern what they really had a problem with as it concerned my changes. Some of the objections I got, like the one about Fiterman Hall, were not even things I thought involved any POV consideration until it was said to involve one.

Part of my thinking was pretty simple: if every subsequent shortening effort kept information they specifically expressed a desire to keep they would either mention other bits of information they wanted to remain or we would arrive at a point where they had no objections, thus successfully achieving a consensus position that made the section shorter and the size more consistent with a Featured Article of its scope. On several occasions I did manage to find ways to shorten the article these editors agreed with and some of those changes remain in place. Two shortening efforts I made several days apart appeared to gain acceptance, in one case an explicit endorsement by one of the editors. Feeling like the bold, revert, discuss cycle was finally bearing fruit I thought of another way to shorten the article while respecting the concerns of these editors. Unfortunately, my memory of the objection to removing Fiterman Hall left me thinking including the information in the article was enough, but editor Jordgette apparently wanted the image specifically to remain.

At the point Jordgette resorted to pushing for administrative action is I think where this really went wrong. I feel had we gone back to discussion the matter could have resolved itself without incident. However, pushing for administrative action no matter how well-intentioned always tends to make things uglier. Here I felt it was anything but a last resort and that everything was going the way any editing cycle should go on Misplaced Pages. Situations like this, in particular, often lead to one side feeling vindicated if they are left untouched by an administrative action while the other side is severely punished. On some level I think this explains why editor Tom Harrison went about reverting without explanation a number of the changes that had apparently been endorsed by Jordgette almost as soon as my block began. It also led to a complete change in the atmosphere on the article. Efforts to get discussion going on the reverts by Jordgette and Tom before and during my block essentially got stonewalled.

Having reviewed some aspects of the article it has become clear that despite keeping eye on this article like hawks for anything they construe as pushing conspiracies a number of very basis problems like grammatical errors, puffery, and removal of the one wikilink directing people to the conspiracy theory page (an issue that got the 9-11 article stripped of its features status) went unnoticed by these editors until I began contributing. This sort of thing is really not unknown to me as it tends to be the case that when a group of editors push out the only significant opposing editors the whole article declines as a result. What concerns me is that continuing to impose heavy sanctions against me without so much as a reprimand for these editors will only encourage behaviors that do not in any way improve Misplaced Pages. I do not have any interest in seeing either of those editors sanctioned, but only that my actions be considered in context. Just consider that almost all of my changes to the article after the block have been about the building itself, most of them being "routine edits" as Tom described them, yet I am still getting reverted and often with little to no adequate explanation given. I should not be expected to get approval for splitting one large paragraph into two smaller ones and it is unlikely many editors will have any interest in satisfying such a demand.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Additional comments

I have made it clear in the talk page that the change I was making was purely related to a grammatical error. The word "because" in the sentence does not match with the earlier wording "found no evidence" so I replaced "because" with "such as" and removed "were not observed" so that the sentence would be grammatically correct. An earlier change merely replaced absolute wording with more appropriate wording that was also used in the source material. The only other change just used identical wording to an earlier part of the sentence. It appears these are the only changes Jordgette is using to argue this point. While the latter two changes should not be a matter of controversy given what I just said here, I left those reverts in place and only sought to address the grammatical error.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

It would appear Jordgette also believed that the previous wording needed to be fixed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Another note is that of the supposedly three edits listed as happening after the block, two are the exact same edit. The only other edits included the changes Jordgette has now acknowledged as legitimate as well as some changes that concern the building itself and have no bearing on the POV I am supposedly pushing. Some changes were purely style-related and had no impact on content, like merging paragraphs, while other changes involved removing blatantly promotional language, or expanding on a piece of information. What we are left with are edits before the block, in which case it appears Jordgette is merely pushing for additional sanctions on top of the week-long block.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

One issue that keeps getting repeated ad nauseam is the notion that I am pushing a conspiracist POV. Unfortunately these accusations increasingly border on failure to assume good faith, as in the accusation that I was using a grammatical error as an excuse to make "dubious" edits or Jordgette's insistence that I am insidiously hiding behind a pretense of impartiality. That the admin who blocked me accepted the accusation of me pushing such a POV is part of the reason I rejected that decision. It seems there is a poor habit of editors, admins included, presuming that the only reason someone would not want to insert absolute wording in favor of the official version of events (preferring to use intext citation) is because that person wants to push the conspiracy theory or that merely being open-minded when it comes to conspiracy theories means you cannot evaluate edits objectively.

However, my insistence on qualifying such statements by noting who said it or not using definite language is consistent with my edits across multiple subjects that have nothing to do with conspiracy theories. My opinions on some of those other issues are far stronger and sometimes are even dis-served by my changes, but only on this subject do people accuse me of impropriety and seek administrative sanctions over such accusations. Sadly, I cannot really prove to anyone what is going on in my head, but that just makes it all the more important that editors try to consider whether my reasons for edits make objective sense. Rather than approaching the subject with a battle mentality some editors need to be more diplomatic.

Tom's claim below that I was adding "a lot of chaff" to the talk page is an example of this battle mentality. He appears to be referring to comments I made on the talk page looking for his explanation on why he performed a number of reverts on material that had been unchallenged for at least a week or longer without providing any explanation. My concerns pointed to a lot of serious issues like information not being contained in a citation and the questionable use of a non-free image. Describing my queries as "chaff" when the editor was being questioned about his reasons for reverting material that appeared to have gained consensus without explaining why he did this does not suggest a desire for cooperation. Tom may have also been referring to my questions towards Jordgette about whether that editor objected to certain changes that had been reverted, given that the editor only raised one specific concern, as well as explaining why I had made those changes. Describing that as "chaff" would also demonstrate a lack of interest in discussion.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Jordgette is going overboard now. I shortened a rather lengthy caption by removing information that goes on about how few photos exist, something that is of no consequence to the subject at hand at all (despite Jordgette's odd insistence otherwise). I also moved the image to the other side of the page so that the section would not look so cluttered. Once more, in Jordgette's haste and trigger-happy reverting, uncontroversial changes have been undone that only improved the article. Now we have three images on one side and it just makes the whole section look terrible. Absurdly Jordgette fails to fully restore the wording and when correcing that mistake makes the bizarre remark that the mistake was a "casualty of the current crisis" only going further to prove my point that these editors are in total battle mentality rather than actually seeking the good of the article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Scratch that, it appears that particular word has been absent for some time. It appears to only have just now been noticed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I looked back in the history and it appears that mistake Jordgette blamed on the "current crisis" has been an issue since a change over four years ago.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

On my week-long block, since Jordgette brought it up and with those actions leading to it appearing to be the main thrust of the editor's objections, my reason for not accepting the decisions of the admins is because the one argument I made consistently, that my edits were consistent with WP:BRD, never got addressed by any of those admins. The closest an admin came to addressing it was the last admin reviewing the unblock, who still failed to acknowledge that my efforts at discussion specifically sought the opinions of other editors and tried to accommodate the opinions expressed or that such discussion did result in consensus changes. Of note for this case, Jordgette went to the noticeboard in that case hours after I tried to inquire about that editor's objections. Here Jordgette did not even bother to wait and reacted to a change that the editor now seems to acknowledge was not in any sort of bad faith. This behavior of jumping to seek administrative action even when an editor regularly expresses a clear desire for discussion is far more problematic than anything I am accused of doing.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

On WGFinley's reasons for any admin interested you can look at the discussion on the admin's user talk page. However, here is a summary of why the reasons WGFinley gives below are inaccurate:

The "removal of sourced material" was in fact a merge of information from one article to another, with the section in the building 7 article summarized.
It was not done "without explanation" as the idea had been put forward by me on the talk page before the change and a section discussing the change was started immediately afterward with an explanation of the reasons for the change.
None of this occurred after "coming off a block" because those edits WG mentioned were given as the reason for the block.
Even though I had already spent a great deal of effort explaining those edits on the edit-warring noticeboard, in an unblock request, and in a response to an unblock request on my user talk page I still made some effort above to address those edits (I also addressed all the diffs from after the block expired), contrary to the claim made by WG below.

Of course, WG would have probably realized all of this, but, as the admin made clear, my statement on these issues was not read. In spite of this and apparently in spite of my efforts to provide as succinct and simple an explanation as possible on that admin's user talk page pointing out those mistaken reasons, this admin still seems to be pushing for a topic ban. I am not sure what reasoning the admin now has for suggesting such an action, but it should be understood that the reasons currently given on this noticeboard are not accurate and, by the admin's own admission, not based off actually reading my comments.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

On Jordgette's latest update it seems this editor has a nasty habit of selectively taking things out of their proper context. My lack of interest in getting approval for every little change is not unwarranted. Several times I have sought discussion with Jordgette and Tom without getting much feedback or receiving only snarky comebacks (several overtures I have made in the article talk page have still gone unaddressed). Notice how, even though I started a section mentioning these latest changes soon after they were made, Jordgette's first action is to cite those edits here in order to build a case to keep me from editing the article altogether, rather than raising these concerns on the talk page where I explicitly made a point of opening the changes up for discussion. In fact, Jordgette does not even take the time to correct a very simple mistake involving a missing space. Jordgette and Tom are now citing changes that they express no real opposition towards as an example of how I am being disruptive, which just seems bizarre.

This rush to get rid of me, in light of their own expressed interests in having the article used to counter conspiracy claims, should definitely not be heeded. It is because of their own refusal to engage in real discussion and expressed agenda for the article that I aim reluctant to seek their approval for every change, though I have tried to get discussion going on contentious issues. I admit that I do not really believe in any sort of "seek consensus first" standard for editing articles, especially a standard imposed by editors who have a clear interest in pushing a POV. Most changes are just better achieved by taking bold action and then chewing over conflicts with other editors in pursuit of a compromise. I have consistently made an effort to do this all along the way in my edits to this article and, I believe, generally managed to improve the article. What problems exist are a product of several entrenched editors being unreceptive to discussion and seeking administrative redress for perceived slights against their cause instead of trying to compromise.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Here are some efforts I have made at discussion:

Here are some of the responses I have gotten: (consider the call in the preceding link for keeping information to counter unmentioned conspiracist arguments in light of this earlier remark about the need for including information because it led the editor to read up more on the official explanation already included in the article) (preceding comment in link in response to numerous specific questions about specific changes) (in response to me suggesting an In-text attribution given conflicting statements in the source) (all in response to me asking an editor why he reverted several edits that had stood for a week without offering any explanation or discussion before or after the revert) (after I asked the editor to respond to some objections, like the revert he performed without explanation or discussion, he refers to my efforts for discussion on the article talk page as "chaff" here)--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning The Devil's Advocate

It should be noted that this request concerns all of the edits listed above, before and after the block. The user, having gone through the edit-warring noticeboard process and a considerable block, continued making dubious edits immediately after the block. I for one have lost patience with the user and am pursuing this venue as the last resort that it is. -Jordgette 06:18, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I endorse Jordgette's request for enforcement. Coming right off his block, The Devil's Advocate, along with a number of routine edits, made two tendentious changes (Jordgette's statement above) to the paragraph on controlled demolition and added a ton of chaff to the talk page. Tom Harrison 14:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Earlier today The Devil's Advocate again began to restructure and reword. My concern is less with these edits themselves than with his not getting consensus for re-writing and moving around paragraphs, and that the long-term result of a number of these edits will be to slant the article toward controlled demolition. Tom Harrison 23:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Soooo, let me get this straight. You want me to get permission from you or editors of a similar mind just to make uncontroversial changes, but apparently think you can revert changes that stood for a week or longer, changes facing no objections from editors frequenting the article (one of which said editors I just noticed made one of the changes that got reverted), without providing any explanation in the edit summary or talk page for why you did it and ten days later, only after repeated prompting for an explanation, offer up a rather vague reason that you refuse to elaborate on. The standards you expect me to meet compared to the standards you use for yourself leave a lot to be desired.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:42, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Moving around paragraphs, deleting sources, etc., is not uncontroversial — particularly if it's a controversial topic, and particularly if it's a featured article. Not to mention the fact that you're listed on this page because other editors have serious problems with your ongoing editing practices on this article, and you've been called out by four admins now. Yet you continue as if no one has said anything. The hubris is incredible. -Jordgette 01:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Let us keep this in context. Moving a paragraph from a place it shouldn't be (somewhere that it interrupts a continuous line of information on a separate subject) to a place it more appropriately belongs (where it is clearly connected to the preceding paragraphs) is uncontroversial. Deleting two outdated sources that no longer go to the cited page and another source in favor of a single up-to-date reliable source that more than sufficiently backs up the information, is uncontroversial. There is no reason why you should consider such changes controversial.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

You've been asked numerous times to find consensus on the talk page before making significant changes to this article. The fact that you continually refuse to do so, because you personally feel you are correct in all of your decisions, is the very reason you are listed on this page. -Jordgette 01:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Unstated fact: Jordgette apparently thinks I am correct in this instance. The fact I have no issue with some of my changes being rewritten or with rewriting some changes I made after objections are raised would logically indicate I do not feel I am correct in all my decisions. Now, the insistence that I need the approval of your group, because that is what we are really talking about here as you and people of your shared opinion frequent the article most, for any change would be more acceptable if you would not say things like "snore" when reverting my comments on your talk page about the need for you to explain your reasons for reverting changes or refer to my pleas for discussion as "chaff" as Tom did. Stuff like that makes me suspect you really just want to force me to only propose changes on the talk page so that you can give my proposals the silent treatment in the hopes that I will go away and allow you to continue pushing your position unhindered.

Before you accuse me again of not assuming good faith, I am only telling you the impression your words and actions are creating. If this is not the case it is very simple to avoid that sort of confusion. Not treating another editor's calls for discussion with annoyance is one way. Actually discussing things seriously with that editor is another way. In spite of everything I am doing my utmost to try and be nice to you here. Behaving as though you know what I feel about myself is not making it easy.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I think DA's continuing editing of the controversial article even during this case is a clear manifestation of disruption and waste of everyone's time (and IDHT). A topic ban that will give everyone some respite and time to DA to think it over may be good. I am pessimistic that this will not continue after the expiry of the ban but I guess all of us have to AGF. - BorisG (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It is not like my edits since the AE notice have been problematic in any way for the article. One of the edits that got reverted did little more than split one big paragraph into two medium-sized paragraphs. There is no real logic that justifies undoing a change like that.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to reiterate: there is no basis for reverting due to "no consensus" and editors have to provide more than that. My "continuous editing" should be considered in light of what edits I am making, not that I simply am not partial to getting permission for every edit I make to an article. I did not register on Misplaced Pages so I could ask "mother may I?" every time I see something that should be changed then wait days or more to get permission and I doubt anyone else did. With one minor exception, my edits after coming off the week-long block have addressed issues with the article not pertaining to disputed content. Any admin should consider that first, and only then consider whether I am being disruptive by not getting permission, a demand for which there is no basis in policy.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

If there is any doubt as to the user's POV, note that on the talk page of September 11 attacks the user stated that the National Institute of Standards & Technology is not necessarily a reliable source , this being a case of the fox investigating the henhouse . The user has also said that NIST "guessed" at what started the fires in WTC7 despite there being plausible CT-based explanations . When combined with the user's aggressive editing style of the article and resistance to consensus, I believe this fringe POV creates a problem for Misplaced Pages, even if the user is presently staying clear of obvious POV-pushing in the article. -Jordgette 22:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that editor's MO seems to be sneaking up on the POV after making some edits that don't change much. My ability to AGF with DA is waning. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

No one should have to sanitize their opinions for someone to assume good faith. Just because I do not share your disdain for conspiracy theories and their proponents does not mean I am not acting in good faith.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

My position is that the government saying it did not do anything wrong should be regarded with the same level of skepticism as anyone saying they did not do anything wrong. You typically don't just take someone's word for it that they did not commit a crime. OJ Simpson is not a reliable source on whether he is innocent or not. On Misplaced Pages situations like that are when we make sure everyone knows that this is coming from the implicated party. Inserting absolute statements that treat their word as law seeks to keep people oblivious of that clear conflict of interest. That was the thrust of my argument on the 9-11 talk page.

As for what I said on MONGO's talk page, I was seeking to illustrate the point that certain things being claimed as fact are really not even close. No one actually witnessed or had physical evidence to determine the cause of the fires so yeah it was a guess based on the fact that no one saw fires until a little after the collapse. For all we know Billy Joel could have started the fire. Even so, you consistently neglect the more important parts of my remarks like "Personally, I don't really think there is good reason to challenge the collapse from fire explanation" or "All of that is just my own random speculation so naturally it has no encyclopedic purpose in any article" that kind of suggest the opposite of what you are trying to say here.

On the other hand, you appear to favor hiding behind verifiability and denying that you are pushing a POV with your edits even when you make that agenda plainly obvious. Take the instances I note above where you explain how the information on the bulge needs to be included because it led you to look into the NIST investigation (the obvious implication being that said piece of information will lead readers to accept the official version) or how the Fiterman Hall image is important because it is damning evidence that building 7 did not collapse into its own footprint (here the implication being that said image will get readers to reject the conspiracy theories). You phrase a lot of your reasons for including information in the building 7 article in terms of whether it will help or hurt people in adopting the "correct" position.

Like I have noted several times consider that the first major change I made to the building 7 article was moving the information elsewhere on the basis that an article about the building should not be a battleground or soapbox for arguments about the collapse. Part of that was removing all information on conspiracy theories but a single sentence saying no evidence was found of a controlled demolition. What POV do you think a change like that would push if any?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:46, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Billy Joel? Really? What's next the Chewbacca defense? ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Just trying to lighten things up a little.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:08, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning The Devil's Advocate

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

The diffs provided show removal of sourced material without explanation. TDA has provided a TL;DR explanation of his philosophy but no response to the diffs submitted. Since he just came off a block I think a topic ban is in order. --WGFinley (talk) 01:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

How long are you thinking?

Don't see anything prior, I was thinking a month. --WGFinley (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Pantherskin

Pantherskin indefinitely blocked due to evidence that that the cited book does not contain the material that he stated. Future Perfect considers this to be a normal indefinite block, not an AE block. EdJohnston (talk) 01:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning Pantherskin User who is submitting this request for enforcement Nug (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Pantherskin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced Misplaced Pages:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it Back in April 2011, User:Pantherskin had been edit warring in the article Lia Looveer a claim that she worked for a particular German Radio station that was staffed by collaborators broadcasting Nazi propaganda: , (with edit comment not OR but well sourced), (edit comment align with source, no need to white wash her Nazi collaboration), (edit comment quote source "the Baltischer Reichs-Rundfunk was a propaganda program in Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian") all the while claiming on talk it was sourced to an German language book on the topic. Due to the obscurity of this source there was no way to easily access it and verify that Pantherskin had actually sighted it and thus the text was a true representation of this cited source, so I placed a "request quotation" tag. Pantherskin abruptly disappeared, not returning for several months. Two weeks later in mid-May, after User:Vecrumba corresponded with the author of the book, Ansparg Diller, it was discovered that this text that Pantherskin cites does not actually exist in Dillar's book, so in fact it appears that User:Pantherskin lied to us all along and faked the quote from the book in order to support his contentious edits. Now he has returned and reverted the same bogus text with the same faked cite to Dillar's book, even having the gall to remove the original "request quotation" template that triggered the investigation that exposed Patherskin's fraud. Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) N/A Remedy Misplaced Pages:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned allows for summary bans Additional comments by editor filing complaint I cannot think of anything worse than fabricating a quote and intentionally lying that the quote was sourced to a book, other than to use that faked quote to fraudulently imply a particular person was a Nazi collaborator. In light of that I ask that Pantherskin be summarily topic banned from editing Baltic articles. --Nug (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Notified Discussion concerning Pantherskin Statement by Pantherskin Comments by others about the request concerning Pantherskin Faking quotes is an endemic problem on Misplaced Pages, and, IMO, is as vile as copyvios - possibly worse as it ascribes statements of fact or opinion which the person cited does not state. Rather than making comments on this case, I suggest that the members examine the source and claim made before determining whether they should take this case. If it is a :fake quote" then the case should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible - whether by motion or whatever. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC) I haven't verified this case, but in general any clear case of faking sources in order to support a false claim should result in an indefinite site ban. The danger to the project from such individuals is just too big, and it's not appropriate to ask other editors to AGF such a user. Hans Adler 13:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Hold your horses. As far as I understand, we still haven't had anybody actually checking the book in the original. The only thing we have is a single sentence, out of context, from the author of the book, where he says that Pantherskin's text is not literally contained in his book. But as far as I can see, Pantherskin never claimed it was. It was never marked as an alleged literal quotation. If the author, in that e-mail correspondence, was believing he was asked to respond to whether something was an authentic literal quote, that would in fact suggest that his correspondent, Vecrumba, was giving him a distorted picture of what the issue was about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:33, 23 November 2011 (UTC) P. did claim that it's a literal quote in this diff. Once I get my hands on the book we can figure this out. T. Canens (talk) 14:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Ah, right. Hadn't seen that one. I can get the book from our local library too, but won't find the time to check it before Monday. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC) You will note that I did correspond with the author and reproduced his feedback in full at article talk. Had he confirmed the text, that would have been fine too, the purpose of my correspondence was simply to verify. Subsequently re-inserting content with no discussion is WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:EW regardless of how much time has, or has not, passed—or even if there has been massive confusion, Pantherskin could photocopy, highlight, and share to confirm. I can see no constructive purpose to the edit and the manner in which it was done. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC) Initially I welcomed a personal touch, if you will, by ArbCom. On reflection... if the book turns up something other than what the author wrote to me in response, where does that leave us? ArbCom now resolving content disputes? That is, you are going to rule on the passage in the book should it prove out to Pantherskin's contention despite the author's correspondence—and not Pantherskin's disruptive behavior, effectively excusing it? What is in the book is immaterial to the complaint, which is regarding editorial behavior. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Peter, but isn't the request above to determine whether a quote is faked, thus asking to rule on content? What am I missing? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus\| talk to me} 05:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Fabricating quotes is disruptive, per WP:DISRUPT: "Cannot satisfy Misplaced Pages:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research.". Fabricating quotes to make an accusation that a person of a particular national or ethnic group harbor Nazi sympathies violates WP:DIGWUREN. --Nug (talk) 10:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Falsifying citations is seriously disturbing and upsetting to me. It fundamentally subverts the epistemological process of the encyclopaedia: being grounded in verifiable reliable sources. Moreover, we have an especial trust in encyclopaedic editors who make claims out of more difficult to access sources—when our especial trust is betrayed, we feel an especial need to indicate out outrage. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC) The bottom line is this: If it turns out that the quote was indeed faked, I or another administrator will block Pantherskin indefinitely until he can explain himself. NW (Talk) 15:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Well, I am glad (though not surprised) that the author's correspondence to myself has been borne out. @Piotrus, my last point was that even if there were somehow a huge mix-up (i.e., the quoted passage did exist where and as indicated), the manner in which Pantherskin re-inserted content was disruptive, especially considering my following up with the author in the absence of any other confirmation of content produced a result contrary to that indicated by Pantherskin. My sincere thanks to the admins here for volunteering to verify a source in contention. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:06, 28 November 2011 (UTC) @Fut.Perf., discussion for another place and time, but the fundamental issue particularly with regards to the Baltics is—aside from the small number of genuine collaborators, that is, traitors against their nation and fellow citizens—the meme on the part of some editors that war-time cooperation with German authorities constitutes "collaboration" and "harboring Nazi sympathies" is patently false; when peoples and countries have already survived a murderous occupation, that "rule book" no longer applies. When caught between two devils, you use whichever you can for your own purposes or simply do what you have to in order to survive—how else do you explain those who served in the armies of both invaders? PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC) I bit the bullet and ordered the complete 5-volume set (of which Diller's regarding the Third Reich is volume 2). I think that puts me close to $3 grand at this point on sources for WP. (Not a complaint, I've gotten to read books which I would never have come across otherwise. Books have simply replaced CDs on my shopping list.) I'll post a note at the article and my talk when the set comes in and will be glad to scan any individual pages for inquiries. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC) Result concerning Pantherskin This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. I've arranged for a copy of the book to be sent to my local library (via interlibrary loan). This will probably take a little more than a week (due to Thanksgiving). I can't read German, but I can probably scan the relevant pages and send them to someone who do to verify if there is reference falsification. T. Canens (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC) I checked the book in our library. The material on pages 405–406 and surrounding pages does indeed contain information on German radio stations in the east, including some details about them being transferred between Thorn, Danzig and other places, and it provides enough information to support the notion that essentially all radio stations run by the German authorities targetting populations in occupied eastern Europe were firmly devoted to Nazi propaganda (and indeed, that is so blindingly self-evident to anybody with a basic degree of historical knowledge one really wonders how it could ever have been called into doubt by anybody in good faith), but the book contains no specific reference that I can find to this specific radio station ("Baltic Radio"/"Balti Raadio") mentioned in this edit and its Estonian or other Baltic-language programmes, nor does it contain the literal quote claimed here . In line with what others have said above, I am blocking Pantherskin indef. We can consider an unblock if and when he can explain how this could happen in good faith, but until then he remains blocked. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Pantherskin indefinitely blocked due to evidence that that the cited book does not contain the material that he stated. Future Perfect considers this to be a normal indefinite block, not an AE block. EdJohnston (talk) 01:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Pantherskin

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Nug (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Pantherskin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

Back in April 2011, User:Pantherskin had been edit warring in the article Lia Looveer a claim that she worked for a particular German Radio station that was staffed by collaborators broadcasting Nazi propaganda:

,
(with edit comment not OR but well sourced),
(edit comment align with source, no need to white wash her Nazi collaboration),
(edit comment quote source "the Baltischer Reichs-Rundfunk was a propaganda program in Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian")

all the while claiming on talk it was sourced to an German language book on the topic. Due to the obscurity of this source there was no way to easily access it and verify that Pantherskin had actually sighted it and thus the text was a true representation of this cited source, so I placed a "request quotation" tag. Pantherskin abruptly disappeared, not returning for several months.

Two weeks later in mid-May, after User:Vecrumba corresponded with the author of the book, Ansparg Diller, it was discovered that this text that Pantherskin cites does not actually exist in Dillar's book, so in fact it appears that User:Pantherskin lied to us all along and faked the quote from the book in order to support his contentious edits.

Now he has returned and reverted the same bogus text with the same faked cite to Dillar's book, even having the gall to remove the original "request quotation" template that triggered the investigation that exposed Patherskin's fraud.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

N/A Remedy Misplaced Pages:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned allows for summary bans

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I cannot think of anything worse than fabricating a quote and intentionally lying that the quote was sourced to a book, other than to use that faked quote to fraudulently imply a particular person was a Nazi collaborator. In light of that I ask that Pantherskin be summarily topic banned from editing Baltic articles. --Nug (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Pantherskin

Statement by Pantherskin

Comments by others about the request concerning Pantherskin

Faking quotes is an endemic problem on Misplaced Pages, and, IMO, is as vile as copyvios - possibly worse as it ascribes statements of fact or opinion which the person cited does not state. Rather than making comments on this case, I suggest that the members examine the source and claim made before determining whether they should take this case. If it is a :fake quote" then the case should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible - whether by motion or whatever. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I haven't verified this case, but in general any clear case of faking sources in order to support a false claim should result in an indefinite site ban. The danger to the project from such individuals is just too big, and it's not appropriate to ask other editors to AGF such a user. Hans Adler 13:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Hold your horses. As far as I understand, we still haven't had anybody actually checking the book in the original. The only thing we have is a single sentence, out of context, from the author of the book, where he says that Pantherskin's text is not literally contained in his book. But as far as I can see, Pantherskin never claimed it was. It was never marked as an alleged literal quotation. If the author, in that e-mail correspondence, was believing he was asked to respond to whether something was an authentic literal quote, that would in fact suggest that his correspondent, Vecrumba, was giving him a distorted picture of what the issue was about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:33, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

P. did claim that it's a literal quote in this diff. Once I get my hands on the book we can figure this out. T. Canens (talk) 14:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, right. Hadn't seen that one. I can get the book from our local library too, but won't find the time to check it before Monday. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

You will note that I did correspond with the author and reproduced his feedback in full at article talk. Had he confirmed the text, that would have been fine too, the purpose of my correspondence was simply to verify.

Subsequently re-inserting content with no discussion is WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:EW regardless of how much time has, or has not, passed—or even if there has been massive confusion, Pantherskin could photocopy, highlight, and share to confirm. I can see no constructive purpose to the edit and the manner in which it was done. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Initially I welcomed a personal touch, if you will, by ArbCom. On reflection... if the book turns up something other than what the author wrote to me in response, where does that leave us? ArbCom now resolving content disputes? That is, you are going to rule on the passage in the book should it prove out to Pantherskin's contention despite the author's correspondence—and not Pantherskin's disruptive behavior, effectively excusing it? What is in the book is immaterial to the complaint, which is regarding editorial behavior. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Peter, but isn't the request above to determine whether a quote is faked, thus asking to rule on content? What am I missing? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 05:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fabricating quotes is disruptive, per WP:DISRUPT: "Cannot satisfy Misplaced Pages:Verifiability; fails to cite sources, cites unencyclopedic sources, misrepresents reliable sources, or manufactures original research.". Fabricating quotes to make an accusation that a person of a particular national or ethnic group harbor Nazi sympathies violates WP:DIGWUREN. --Nug (talk) 10:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Falsifying citations is seriously disturbing and upsetting to me. It fundamentally subverts the epistemological process of the encyclopaedia: being grounded in verifiable reliable sources. Moreover, we have an especial trust in encyclopaedic editors who make claims out of more difficult to access sources—when our especial trust is betrayed, we feel an especial need to indicate out outrage. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is this: If it turns out that the quote was indeed faked, I or another administrator will block Pantherskin indefinitely until he can explain himself. NW (Talk) 15:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I am glad (though not surprised) that the author's correspondence to myself has been borne out. @Piotrus, my last point was that even if there were somehow a huge mix-up (i.e., the quoted passage did exist where and as indicated), the manner in which Pantherskin re-inserted content was disruptive, especially considering my following up with the author in the absence of any other confirmation of content produced a result contrary to that indicated by Pantherskin. My sincere thanks to the admins here for volunteering to verify a source in contention. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:06, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

@Fut.Perf., discussion for another place and time, but the fundamental issue particularly with regards to the Baltics is—aside from the small number of genuine collaborators, that is, traitors against their nation and fellow citizens—the meme on the part of some editors that war-time cooperation with German authorities constitutes "collaboration" and "harboring Nazi sympathies" is patently false; when peoples and countries have already survived a murderous occupation, that "rule book" no longer applies. When caught between two devils, you use whichever you can for your own purposes or simply do what you have to in order to survive—how else do you explain those who served in the armies of both invaders? PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I bit the bullet and ordered the complete 5-volume set (of which Diller's regarding the Third Reich is volume 2). I think that puts me close to $3 grand at this point on sources for WP. (Not a complaint, I've gotten to read books which I would never have come across otherwise. Books have simply replaced CDs on my shopping list.) I'll post a note at the article and my talk when the set comes in and will be glad to scan any individual pages for inquiries. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Pantherskin

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I've arranged for a copy of the book to be sent to my local library (via interlibrary loan). This will probably take a little more than a week (due to Thanksgiving). I can't read German, but I can probably scan the relevant pages and send them to someone who do to verify if there is reference falsification. T. Canens (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I checked the book in our library. The material on pages 405–406 and surrounding pages does indeed contain information on German radio stations in the east, including some details about them being transferred between Thorn, Danzig and other places, and it provides enough information to support the notion that essentially all radio stations run by the German authorities targetting populations in occupied eastern Europe were firmly devoted to Nazi propaganda (and indeed, that is so blindingly self-evident to anybody with a basic degree of historical knowledge one really wonders how it could ever have been called into doubt by anybody in good faith), but the book contains no specific reference that I can find to this specific radio station ("Baltic Radio"/"Balti Raadio") mentioned in this edit and its Estonian or other Baltic-language programmes, nor does it contain the literal quote claimed here . In line with what others have said above, I am blocking Pantherskin indef. We can consider an unblock if and when he can explain how this could happen in good faith, but until then he remains blocked. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

YehudaTelAviv64

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning YehudaTelAviv64

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: —Biosketch (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: YehudaTelAviv64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBPIA#General_1RR_restriction

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

14:49, 1 December 2011 – revert of this edit by me
10:23, 2 December 2011 – revert of this edit by User:George
17:49, 2 December 2011 – ~~probably also a revert~~ revert of this edit by User:Jiujitsuguy

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Warned on 1 December 2011 by me, followed by this message by Admin:EdJohnston.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user's behavior is aggressive and hostile, and his edits at Golan Heights and Holocaust-related articles articles could be considered POV-oriented. Additionally, there've been concerns he's masquerading as a new user under false pretenses.—Biosketch (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested: Notified.—Biosketch (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Discussion concerning YehudaTelAviv64

Statement by YehudaTelAviv64

This user is hounding me in response to me reporting him for edit warring here in the Administrators noticeboard.

Also, he calls my removal of an image with clear copyright violations a revert of an edit from May 16, 2011. It's entirely unreasonable to call my removal of that image a revert, especially since I had never even heard of that edit until Biosketch hunted it down for this ridiculous witch-hunt. I went through a lot of work to track down the origin of that image and I found that it is a Rights Managed photo that is part of the Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS collection. Biosketch himself recommended that that image be deleted. Biosketch is just hounding me for the sake of hounding me.

The same is also true for the third diff he links to. I tracked down the copyright violation (it's a Corbis Rights Managed photo) and removed the image from the article. Biosketch then tracked down some ancient edit from February 2011 and claimed the image removal was a revert of that. The first diff he links to was an edit where I undid a revert that he himself made and did not bother to discuss on the talk page. He also did not link to his revert here. I opened a discussion regarding my edit immediately, but Biosketch did not bother to link to that discussion when he opened this request.

I was very clear in my image removal edit summaries that they were clear copyright violations. I suspect that Biosketch threw those edits into this request as part of his hounding efforts to make it make it more difficult to respond to this request by adding spurious accusations to refute. He must have seen those edit summaries.

Furthermore, "concerns he's masquerading as a new user under false pretenses" refers to these personal attacks that I reported here in Wikiquette assistance. Also, he accused me of "aggressive and hostile" and "POV-oriented" edits but then did not point out any instances of this.

I would appreciate it if someone could stop Biosketch from hounding me so I can instead spend my time on constructive edits. YehudaTelAviv64 (talk) 04:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In response to EdJohnston: I agree and think that Biosketch just created this request to hound me. However, technically, you shouldn't be editing in the "Result concerning YehudaTelAviv64" section since you are actually an involved administrator. As part of Biosketch's "Additional comments" he mentions "concerns he's masquerading as a new user under false pretenses." Those false accusations include one by you here. YehudaTelAviv64 (talk) 04:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
In response to WGFinley: I was hasty in labeling the edit I reverted "vandalism", but I only did that in the edit summary. When I opened a discussion in the talk page I used more accurate language. YehudaTelAviv64 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning YehudaTelAviv64

Comment by Sean.hoyland

I don't understand your reaction to the questions about whether you have edited before and your statements about lack of evidence. You look like a sockpuppet because your edits are not like those of a new user. The observational evidence suggests that you are not a new user. Every edit you make is one more piece of evidence that you aren't a new user. So, they aren't evidenceless statements. They're statements based on observations by experienced rational observers using heuristic methods that have a near 100% success rate. In other words, people know what sockpuppets look like and you look like one. You could simply say whether or not you have edited under a previous account and if you have, tell people what it was and move on. You haven't done that yet. You've confirmed that you aren't a Pelican which has at least ruled out one of the large water birds but while questions remain unanswered and you find yourself in conflict with other users, partly because of their doubts and partly because of your responses to them, my concern is that your presence will attract sockpuppets to the topic area who will justify their presence by your presence. Editors could also use it as yet another excuse to do nothing about the long term repeat offender sockpuppetry by people whose views they agree with. If you just answer the question, edit constructively and don't come into conflict with other editors, people might just leave you alone. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I act insulted when people accuse me of being a sockpuppet because it's insulting to my intelligence. A stupid person would have trouble understanding Misplaced Pages formatting right off the bat and these accusers point to my correct formatting as proof of sock-puppetry. I have never edited under a previous account. I'm astounded that people are surprised that I was able to learn about formatting from Misplaced Pages's pages on formatting and by looking at other formatting in articles. This is not complicated stuff. Your "100% success rate" figure sounds made up. I am not a sockpuppet, time to move on people. I've been accused of both pro-Israel bias and anti-Israel bias now, and that was just for my constructive edits. I'd like to spend more time working on my constructive edits, but it's difficult when confused editors hound me with false accusations. YehudaTelAviv64 (talk) 07:19, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, since you've said that you've not edited under a previous account that is all I wanted to hear, thank you. And if you could continue to edit in a way that results in you being accused of both pro-Israel bias and anti-Israel bias that would be great. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It appears the pelican remark is because an editor accused Yehuda of being User:Supreme Deliciousness whose user page features an image of a pelican. What I will say is that what seems more relevant to me is how the editor has used various templates and policy references. My impression from the editor's actual usage of formatting is that this is not an experienced editor. The way the editor started out citing sources, for instance, is similar to how I started out with citations. Using the ref tags and simple brackets around a plain link rather than a more complex citation template does not suggest an experienced editor. Also, any editor who brushes up against a serious dispute is likely to end up becoming very familiar with policy very quickly. Even so, the manner in which Yehuda pursued policy actions again does not demonstrate familiarity. He went to AN/I to report an ArbCom violation. If this was an editor familiar with the dispute and familiar with Misplaced Pages it is not likely that he would have been unaware that AE is the place to file such reports.

None of this editor's contributions appear to be particularly problematic or tendentious. Seems this is more a case of WP:BITE than anything else.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning YehudaTelAviv64

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Diff 1 is troubling, with the "vandalism" comment, will await his response.
Diff 2 and Diff 3 the user was right, they are copyvios and appear to be on their way out at Commons.
The sock allegation has no proof submitted, you'll need to provide more info or go to WP:SPI if you have evidence believing the user to be a sock.

Appears an admonition about reverts in P-I space and use of the term "vandalism" are in order. --WGFinley (talk) 01:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

YehudaTelAviv64 has now been warned of the discretionary sanctions under ARBPIA, per the result of an AN3 case. In case any discretionary sanctions are deemed necessary, they can only be based on edits which take place subsequent to this warning. I agree that some of Y's reverts are justified by valid concern about copyright violation, so those should not count against the 1RR limit. I don't see anything in the present AE complaint that would justify a block of YehudaTelAviv64. EdJohnston (talk) 04:09, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I find the tactic of digging out months-old diffs buried in the page history to be particularly distasteful. T. Canens (talk) 00:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)