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If you wish to submit evidence, please do so in a new section (or in your own section, if you have already created one). Do not edit anyone else's section. Please keep your evidence concise, and within the prescribed limits. If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page. Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Misplaced Pages in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable. Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page. Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and Clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Gaijin42

I totally understand that gun control and the holocaust are touchy subjects, and discussing them together is even touchier. There are two levels of information discussed

  • Historical facts - completely undisputed (except apparently by editors here) and well sourced.
    • Nazi passing of laws prohibiting jews and others from owning weapons
    • actual confiscation of weapons
    • Use of weimar era weapons registration records to aid in the confiscation
    • Lots of primary sources from Nazis discussing the disarmament, and how it will aid in the pogroms of Kristallnacht and other efforts
  • Opinions and analysis of the historical facts
    • Opinions on what effect the confiscation had in aiding the holocaust
    • Counterfactual arguments about if the nazi disarrmament hadn't happened or if ownership rates were higher (weimar gun legislation hadn't happened)
    • Use as an analogy in modern gun control debates.

The opinions are disputed and controversial. Some find the topic offensive. both the facts, and opinions are covered in MAY sources, both primary, secondary, and tertiary. User:Gaijin42/GunControlArguments

  • Misplaced Pages is WP:NOTCENSORED "Misplaced Pages may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Misplaced Pages:Content disclaimer). Misplaced Pages cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms."
  • Respectfully to ArbCom, contrary to some of your earlier decisions saying something along the line of "Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view" I believe does not accurately reflect policy or consensus.
    • WP:BIASED "However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are good sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."
    • WP:NPOV As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage.
    • See also This unrelated discussion, showing wide consensus for this interpretation of NPOV, and in fact advocating for topic bans for those who remove liberal pov sources. (Hey, there's andy, seemingly taking the exact opposite argument as he has made in this argument, because the pov source agrees with his pov!)
    • Particularly in situations where there is a heavy schism in the real world political debate, saying policy requires exclusion of a POV is an obvious WP:NPOV failure.
  • Per Jimbo WP:DUE "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;"
    • To try and claim that an argument/discussion that has been being made continuously since 1941 (while hitler was still in power!), by notable individuals and groups is not a at a minimum a significant minority view is asinine.
      • Congressman Edwin_Arthur_Hall , 1941, 87th congressional record, 77th congress 6778 (aug 5, '41), discussing a bill allowing for government requisitioning of private goods, prohibiting it being applied to guns (with an amendment included in the passed law to that effect) "Hitler or Stalin, who took power from the German and Russian people, measures were thrust upon the free legislatures of those countries to deprive the people of the possession and use of firearms, so that they could not resist the encroachments of such diabolical and vitriolic state police organizations as the Gestapo"
      • Congressman John Dingell 1968, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 2nd Sess. 478 (1968) "Sportsmen fear firearms registration. We have here the same situation we saw in small degree in Nazi Germany. There they did not prohibit citizens from having guns. All they said was first of all we want to register them, and we are going to stop crime by it.”
      • Charlton Heston (NRA prez)
      • Wayne LaPierre (NRA prez)
      • Stephen Halbrook
      • Daniel D. Polsby& Don Kates http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/lawreview/vol75/iss3/4/
      • Federal judge Alex Kozinski 2003 in a gun control case (dissent) "All too many of the other great tragedies of history-Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name a few-were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece .... If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.
      • Robert_Cottrol "The reluctance of outside forces to intervene is well documented. And yet the obvious question is strangely absent: Would arms in the hands of average citizens have made a difference? Could the overstretched Nazi war machine have murdered 11 million armed and resisting Europeans while also taking on the Soviet and Anglo-American armies? Could 50,000 to 70,000 Khmer Rouge have butchered 2 million to 3 million armed Cambodians? The answers are by no means clear, but it is unconscionable that they are not being asked."
      • Andrew Napolitano Glenn Beck ( oooo say it again!) etc

The opposes have repeatedly said these are "NRA talking points", I disagree, but even if true - if the NRA isn't a notable POV on the topic of gun control, we might as well close up shop on WP:NPOV.

Evidence

The core editors in opposition have completely avoided all attempts at building consensus, and insist that the information must be deleted completely. No sources are provided for their assertions, just rhetoric saying that because we can't list the opinions, because by definition anyone who mentions those opinions is fringe.

Or attempting to procedurally invalidate any attempt at building consensus with mutually contradictory requirements for RFCs ]

That to include secondary sources A, you must find secondary source B discussing source A (also equating opinions about established historical facts to UFOs)

Or during a discussion about if content is sourced sufficiently, removing sources that directly confirm the facts under contention

Or deleting the section entirely repeatedly while it is the subject of an RFC and that have been in the article for months

Attempts to redefine the topic of the article to exclude unwanted material

complete failure to provide any specific guidance on what part of a policy apply or which particular bits of content are in violation

attempting to declare by fiat that notable expers on gun control publshing in respected academic journals is not an RS by fiat.

Saying "we should emulate this list of neutral sources",as an argument for exclusion, and not noticing that several of those sources explicitly cover this material

Acknowledging the controversial pov as a significant minority view and then saying it should be ignored directly in opposition of WP:NPOV

repeated personal attacks and incivility over minor spelling and grammar errors in the talk page (among other reasons)


more mutually contradictory arguments and goalpost moving (note, some of these diffs are from people not included in the case. that is because I don't feel that any enforcement action is needed against them specifically, this is to illustrate the general editing climate of the article and the lack of a coherent standard for discussion) "sure, writers about the holocaust mention gun control, but no gun control sources do" vs "the gun control authors are not respected holocaust historians so their opinions are fringe" (and back and forth) [https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Gun_control&diff=586376420&oldid=586376343

Goethean personal attacks and incivility (including seeking me out to respond to comments in threads he is not even involved in on topics other than gun control!) (to the point where even people who agree with his POV call his behavior bizzare)

Repeatedly claiming that things are "unsourced" when there are many sources provided, and refusing to discuss what those sources may be reliable for (including admiting there are sources for the content!)

Significant productive discussion on many aspects of guns and gun control, including the nazi material, with editors of all viewpoints who can work cooperatively. (Notably Scolaire, Isjella,Lightbreather, and FiachraByrne on the oppose side, among others) a

Goethean removing the "argument", leaving with "just the facts" that is a source of complaint from many other editors about article state

Andy (among others) making the argument on a topic that their POV agrees with that self published articles by admitted advocacy groups are reliable sources (but apparently articles published in independant academic journals are not) (several other editors comments included who are not a party to this case, to show the consensus for inclusion of WP:BIASEDsources) (to the point where disputing the source is grounds for a topic ban !vote!)

Response to hippocrite

The diff and article you posted about are on an article that have nothing to do with gun control or this dispute. But in any case, since the testimony in question was excluded from the trial on the grounds that it wasn't scientific, my objection seems well founded. In any case, the subjects own words about their own topic of expertise is no synth to put in juxtaposition to other statements by that same subject. Misplaced Pages:What_SYNTH_is_not#SYNTH_is_not_mere_juxtaposition . In addition, a single diff from almost 2 years ago - someone find the gallows its time for a hangin'... Gaijin42 (talk) 03:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

response to Goethean

Goetheans accusations are the perfect example of the crap that is going on in this article and elsewhere . He repeatedly makes his own assertions, without any sourcing, and redefines or makes up policies to suit his whim. Content that agrees with Goethan (or Andy's) POV is inherently reliable and authoritative. Any views to the contrary violate all policies. (diffs copied from Goetheans section for ease of understanding)

  • Geothean provides no evidence for his assertion that the quote in question has been "widely debunked". The Quote Goethean accuses others of using incorrectly  : "The most foolish mistake" is highly sourced (Hitler's Table Talk in particular). There is a different actually debunked quote (Or the Harcourt article he completely misread to try and debunk the other quote) ("This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration!") which nobody has ever brought up in this article or discussion. There however is a problem with the first quote in question, in that it was on the topic of disarming the occupied territories (Russia in particular), and not directly the disarmament of the Jews - which is why I did not argue to keep it. (note that that debunking article specifically discusses the actual quote and its legitimate provenance, but its just a blog so ah well.)
  • SPS - Yes, I removed SPS tags from a source that is obviously not self published anyone who spent 5 seconds looking at the source. our our citation tag, would see that it was published by a independent law review journal
    • I did break 3RR here, which I should not have done
  • The "well sourced material" I removed however WAS self published (the director of the ADL, in an ADL press release) - further it was off topic as the disputed content at that time was not making any comparison to modern gun control - and I didn't even remove all of it, I kept the part that was actually relevant
    • Note that this "reliable source" also admits to the basic facts that goethean disputes "akin to what Hitler's Germany did to strip citizens of guns in the run-up to the Second World War", contrary to Goetheans assertions that it "contradicts the Hitler argument" it in fact reinforces it.
    • This would be a potentially useful voice/cite for the "modern gun control compared to nazi gun control is offensive" pov currently in the article (including the portion previously deleted)
  • this diff actually shows Goethean removing balanced sourced material from the article.
  • Yes, I reverted pointed edits that 1) tag-bombed the article to make a WP:POINT 2) removed citations from the article that were directly relevant 3) is in total compliance with WP:SUMMARY
  • Yep I called him a vandal. Ill do it again. He removed a citation that directly backed the material in the article, while trying to claim that the material is unsourced.
    • (The source removed "The complete History of the Holocaust" :
    • where the text reads "Perhaps to help insure the Jews could not fight back in the future, the Minister of the Interior issued regulations against Jews' possession of weapons on November 11. This prohibited Jews from "acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition "
  • Quote from Goethean's evidence "Harcourt, an RS used in the article by Gaijin42 et al, thus contradicts Gaijin42..."
    • Goethean says Harcourt is an RS. Halbrook is unreliable. Amazing how reliablity or not follows Goethean's pov, as both are published in independent legal journals
    • Goethean admits that I added information that argues against halbrook, but somehow adding balanced sources violates WP:NPOV
    • Harcourt (who remember is arguing AGAINST the Nazi gun control argument) DIRECTLY ADMITS to the historical facts in question, which Goethean repeatedly disputes and calls
      • "To be sure, the Nazis were intent on killing Jewish persons and used the gun laws and regulations to further the genocide."
      • " The Nazi regime implemented this prohibition by confiscating weapons,including guns, from Jewish persons, and subsequently engaged in genocide of the Jewish population"
      • "The Nazis sought to disarm and kill the Jewish population."
      • "Finally, with regard to disarming the Jewish population, there is no dispute that the Nazis did disarm Jewish persons aggressively-of all firearms"
      • "But if forced to, I would have to conclude, at least preliminarily from this straightforward exercise in statutory interpretation, that the Nazis favored less gun control for the "trustworthy" German citizen than the predecessor Weimar Republic,while disarming the Jewish population and engaging in genocide."
  • WP:OR - LUDICROUS. (and a prime example of the opposers' technique of throwing every policy acronym at the wall to see what sticks)
    • Directly quoting the a pulitzer prize winning reporter, published New York Times is now OR?
    • Even if one argues that due to age, this secondary source has become primary
    • Directly quoting the primary source is well within WP:PRIMARY "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Misplaced Pages to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge"
      • On November 9. 1938 , two days before Kristallnacht the New York Times reported that "The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks, the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been 'disarmed' with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition."
    • But beyond that, this EXACT SOURCE is used by AT LEAST TWO other secondary sources, for exactly the content quoted. Therefore the use of the "primary" is to buttress the secondary, and provide a convenience link so that the reader can read the original content for themselves. (both additional secondary sources have been cited in this article consistently, but at any particular time may not be due to the edit warring and removal of sources)
      • The halbrook articles & books (A gun control source)
      • Kristallnacht 1938 (A holocaust history) (footnote 15 pointing directly to the NYT article )
        • Again, directly confirming the undisputed historical facts " In the autumn, the police in Berlin (and elsewhere) had exploited gun-licensing procedures to seize weapons from Jews" " It would also serve a practical purpose during the pogrom on November 9 and 10, when Jewish homes were not infrequently broken into and ransacked on the pretext of a search for illegal weapons."
  • Yep, I started two RFCs to try and get a wider consensus. Guilty as charged. That probably calls for a ifdef community ban... One of those RFCs and my subsequent notifications roped in AndyTheGrump into this conversation, so if Im trying to game the system I suck at it pretty hard.
  • Removing content from the academic record of Halbrook Yep, removing a quote calling someone else a white supremacist in an article that never mentions that person. sigh...

Gaijin42 (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

On the issue of Holocaust denial accusation : I indeed used those words, which was uncivil and ambiguous. As I explained in my unblock request and discussions with my blocker & unblocker Gamaliel User_talk:Gaijin42#December_2013, I was attempting to more narrowly use the term to refer to those who were attempting to cast doubt on the established facts of use of gun control by the Nazis, and was not attempting to accuse anyone of the larger issue of "Final Solution/genocide Denial" etc. However, in retrospect I can certainly see how there could be confusion, and I take full responsibility for that. (although I think to a degree it was intentionally misread to cause drama and attempt to get me banned). My first action on being unblocked was to apologize . The behavior of disparaging and casting doubt on established facts is one that I will note has continued in comments in this case.Gaijin42 (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Response to AndyTheGrump

A brief response to andy's points.

Andy repeatedly insists (without any sources) that "gun politics" and "gun control" are synonyms. Surely they are related terms, and perhaps gun control is the most notable sub-type of gun politics. But to claim that all gun politics, all gun regulation, all gun legislation is gun control is clear WP:OR (and sounds dangerously like a right-wing conspiracy theory!). He and others have also attempted to claim that the concept of "Gun Control" is actually a US only phenomenon, to because non-English speaking countries don't use the term. (Duh). (Or that direct references to gun legislation that restricts civilian access to firearms are not gun control if that exact term is not used)

Yes, I renamed the "Gun politics" article to the "list" title, now renamed to "Overview of gun laws by nation". This move has apparently been uncontroversial since nobody since Andy has commented negatively on it. The content of that article is, and always has been a list of gun laws by country, with some small (relative to the length of the article) sections on arguments and effectiveness of gun control, hence those sections are ripe for a move into the gun control article. (To be fair, I do disagree with the decision to remove the content from the previous "politics" article while the "control" article is protected, as that does result in a loss of good, sourced content)

Part of this rename/move is to directly address concerns that Andy and others have raised. If they think the gun control article is a fork of the politics article, then moving the overview/summary material from the politics article to the control article addresses the forking, and provides more balance weight to minimize the content they dislike.

Yes there is a focus on many of the articles on the US. There is of course the partly systemic bias that most editors are US based, but also the gun control debate is most active in the US. Civil Rights, Abortion Debate are also a global topics, but our content has more coverage on the US, and for the same reasons . Andy seems to be claiming that to make a globally balanced article, one must exclude notable aspects of the US debate (even when those same aspects have been documented in multiple countries)

Yes the holocaust is touchy. But it is no more so than the great many touchy subjects we have coverage on, many including highly controversial and offensive-to-some POVs. In this case there is a clear intersection between the documented facts and history of the holocaust and political arguments based on those facts. The intersection has been notable a for almost 80 years now, having a direct impact on worldwide gun control and gun rights laws and debates, and is well documented both by the direct sources having the debates, and meta coverage of the appropriateness/influence of the debate itself. To say that there can be no coverage of this intersection because some find it offensive is foolish. As is very common in politics there is no "right answer" or "truth" that wikipedia can or should be voicing.

The entire concept of WP:FRINGE is nonsense in this context. Do we declare one side of the abortion debate fringe? One side of the drug legalization debate? Stem cell controversy, minimum wage debates, One side of ANY contentious political issue? No. (With the exception of Global Warming, to the degree that it is verifiable, falsifiable, science rather than mere politics) Nor do we require anywhere close to unanimity for inclusion of the relevant arguments on those topics - by definition politically controversial topics are difficult to build consensus on each side always wants to exclude the other and claim that they own the truth.

Andy wishes to handwave away his continual civility issues (even when he knows he is under the enhanced scrutiny of the committee ) and documented policy violations while simultaneously conjuring new policies and violations thereof from the nether, without any sourcing or diffs - explicitly so : " I'll not bother to provide evidence".

Gaijin42 (talk) 21:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


Reply to Andy's newest snark : Astute readers will no doubt realize that having a "list of X by country" article and a "X" article are a relatively common way of organizing information in wikipedia. For example Prostitution_by_country Prostitution. However, if Andy would like to trim the WP:SUMMARY information out of the "by country" article to make it purely a list, that is a reasonable proposal that could be discussed (although not a shoe-in I think). One good reason for the current split is that that the articles are quite long. The remaining "overview by country" article is still over 100k, even with some of the content removed. Moving the generic arguments/effectiveness content out into the Gun Control article will assist in bringing that article down to a more reasonable size. (Based on Andy's earlier revert, it looks like that is about 20k worth of content, still significantly over the "should split" recommendation.) the "gun control" article is currently 60k. . Per WP:SUMMARY WP:SYNC etc, there will of course be some duplication of material between detail and summary level articles.

Andy keeps screeching about the "control" article only existing as a POV fork of the "politics" article. I would point out that the material he is so concerned about was IN the "politics" article for a long time (since at least 2008? ) (Make that 2003 ) , until removed by me , because "Associations with Authoritarianism" is a pov about "gun control" but not the general concept of "gun politics" . Were andy to get his wish and we go back to the status quo prior to ROGs change, it does not affect the underlying issue of attempting to exclude a notable and influential and highly sourced POV on the topic of gun control.

edit : I removed the nazi material from the "politics" article because it was already in the "control" article, where it was more appropriate. My original post above said "moved" when in reality it was previously copied by Rog, and then the source was removed by me. While I don't believe this simplification materially affects the discussion, Andy apparently does think so, and once again attributes every action to malice.. Did that action result in the removal of some content that wasn't in the control article? apparently. But the control article is where that content belongs, and where it was being debated/tweaked. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:34, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I want to point out Andy's automatic, reflexive, and constant WP:AGF failure during all discussions. Every action taken by anyone he disagrees with must be for nefarious motives. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hipocrite

Gaijin42 engaged in impermissible synthesis to advance a conservative political viewpoint on an article related to gun control

  • In this diff, Gaijin42 links to the personal website of an expert on voice recognition to attempt to refute that experts direct opinion and impugn his professional reputation. This was a violation of WP:SYNTH, because the website in question had nothing to do with the article topic.

North8000 has engaged in incivility, obvious and blatant violations of NPOV, misuse of sources, and harassment/intimidation of editors. He has been sanctioned for this already. He has violated his sanction, and engaged in obvious tag-team edit warring and has misrepresented consensus.

Incivility

Obvious and blatant NPOV violation

Misuse of sources

  • directly contradicts the unsourced (false, defamatory) statement that the living, identified persons were charged with crimes, which was a statement that North8000 had just replaced in the article .

Harassment/Intimidation

  • - proposes to desysop someone for asking for diffs.

Sanction

Edit warring, violating sanction, tag-teaming, misrepresentation.

Edit warring
  • , , is the edit warring.
Sanction Violation
  • Misplaced Pages: "In August 2012, after Romney chose him as his running mate, the Associated Press published a story saying that while the Tea Party movement had wanted a nominee other than Romney, it had gotten "one of its ideological heroes" in the Vice Presidential slot. According to the article, Ryan supports the Tea Party's belief in "individual rights, distrust of big government and an allegorical embrace of the Founding Fathers".
  • Tea Party Express: "Congressman Paul Ryan – Strong Tea Party Choice for Vice-President"
Tag Teaming
  • Request to "enforce consensus,"
  • Reverts in lede by requester prior to said request one, two, three.
Misrepresentations of consensus
  1. "clearly decided / a strong consensus"
    Talk page status at the time - reflects North8000, and the person who canvassed him, Tiller54, supporting outright removal, while Hcobb supports moving the content, HistoricMN44 and Designate stated no opinion. 2-1-1-2 is not a consensus, and certainly not "clearly/strong."

Moreover, I reviewed every main/maintalk edit this user has made where his edit summary describes there as a being "consensus." Not once has he found a consensus that he, himself did not agree with with his very first statement in the accompanying discussion - he has never found a consensus even slightly divergent from his personal starting position by my research. This goes beyond politics, to such articles as Weld quality assurance and beyond - I am further reviewing to see if North8000 has ever agreed to a compromise solution or just admitted that he was wrong/overruled.

Information presented by North8000

Vague chronology of article content related to gun control in Nazi Germany

  1. Circa April 2013 there was a larger section on this in the article, including opinions on it from both sides
  2. During a 2 month period ending approx June 2013 this section was reduced (in stages) to the bare bones historical facts, with no arguments, or conclusions of any type in it. An example of this version (Sept 1, 2013) is the the "Nazi disarmament..." section at ]
  3. Starting December 18th 2013 ()an active ongoing effort began to delete the remaining material, but it hasn't been deleted
  4. During brief unlocking of the article on January 3rd, the net effect was an addition (to the "bare bones" historical material) of some analysis/arguments from both "sides". A diff of the net change: . The Janaury 3rd changes have not really been discussed.
  5. So, contrary to various assertions, the material present from approx June 2013 through January 3rd 2014 was straightforward historical material with no analysis, opinions, conclusions, interpretations etc.

Vague overview and chronology of editor activity on this

(IMO throughout the entire process the majority of the dozens of editors on both "sides" have behaved reasonably.)

  1. June 2013 A "lull" in discussions on this started
  2. December 18 2013 he "lull" ends when a substantial effort to remove the remaining straightforward history material began with this edit: ; after 6 days (by December 24th) the conversation had shifted to focus on this material.
  3. December 24 the roughest phase of the process and discussion began. While good discussions by the majority of the editors occurred, this included (IMHO) tactics of villainizing and deprecating editors and viewpoints, and making false accusations by Goethean and AndyTheGrump; this was by far the worst behavior at the article, and I don't consider even the worst of these to merit pursuing at Arbcom and am not doing so. Here are diffs for that period, which covers the heart of the entire matter: 12/24- 23:25 12/28: 23:34 12/28/13 - 1/2/14
  4. Approx January 2nd, 2014 The nastiness in the discussions largely ends. Possibly due to some efforts on the talk page, possibly due to some folks receiving warnings from friends, possibly due to New Year's resolutions. :-). Since then discussions have been largely substantive and polite.
  5. January 3rd 2014 Gaijin42 brought this to Arbcom, possibly triggered by the flurry of editing that same day when it was unlocked.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The most-debated question

Compared to most other (reflecting a real-world contest) contentious articles, two things somewhat unique were the degree of "nastiness" / bottom two levels of the pyramid tactics (particularly in the second half of December) and one salient question at the center of it during that period. This concerns the "straightforward history" portion which was the sole material in the article on this starting last summer until it was expanded January 3rd. An example of this version (Sept 1, 2013) is the the "Nazi disarmament..." section at ]. Proponents of inclusion said that it is sourced material, whose veracity was unchallenged, and a significant instance of the topic of the article, and that that alone is sufficient and the norm for inclusion into the article, including for compliance with policies. I divide the statements against inclusion into two groups. One was the (to put it mildly) bottom-two-levels-of-the-pyramid volleys by 2 persons which volleyers many times refused to take to a "nuts and bolts" discussion, IMHO the latter was because the claims (e.g. that the material is fringe, "theories" etc.) simply and directly conflicted with what was actually in the article. The other was civil and engaged arguments against inclusion....roughly that more than that is required to have the inclusion comply with policy. So the "sufficient to comply with policy" vs. "more than that is required to comply with policy" is the reasonable core question. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Behavioral issues vs. content development

ArtifexMahem's works looks like normal content discussion work & assertions, not behavioral issues. This is fine and why it was brought to Arbcom. North8000 (talk) 18:27, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Abuse of process and editors on this page by Goethean & Hipocrite

Both of these individuals have put contrivances on this page that present a picture that is opposite to reality, the contrivances are invalid twice over / at two levels. Taking myself as an example.... One is that, if one takes a thorough look at each situation surrounding each of their diffs, one will see that none of them are as these two individuals describe them. And so my "diffs" are to read each situation surrounding each of their diffs and it will be seen that it does not support the false allegation of misbehavior. The second faulty layer is that even if 100% the claims of misbehavior were true (vs the actual ~0%) the large time frame that they gathered them from (2 1/2 years / 25,000 edits back by Hipocrite and 40,000 edits / >5 years back (to a year before my account even existed and a year before I first edited Misplaced Pages! by Goethean) would show that these are rare rather than the claimed pattern. The +5 year old , >40,000 edits back stuff also has immense technical blunders it it, for example, calling an edit done by somebody else in article space (to an article userfied by an admin) an edit to the final location the admin placed it (sandbox). There are (rough guess) about 43,000,000 active IP addresses hat start with each two digit sequence. Goethean is calling each of three 43,000,000 (~129,000,000 total) a "group" and inferring that if one of those 129,000,000 did it, that's enough to imply that it was me! And discussions about dynamic IP's from of an internet provider in 2008, over a year before I was even an editor or had my account. This looks like very nasty flailing, and that's putting it mildly.

Hipoctite's post baffles me further. They hadn't edited for 6 months (except three edits) until they did this. None are about the article in question. In talk here they said "We might disagree about lots of things", but I don't recall having ever interacted with his individual before much less having disagreements about lots of things. They even accused me of violating an essay , and it's clear that I didn't even violate the essay that they claim I violated. North8000 (talk) 22:13, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Please compare the false impression that they are attempting to leave with my overall behavior. I always try to do the right thing, and further for the last ~6 months I entered a mode where I'm even calm and low key, and lower key / cautious in editing in response to even the most egregious editing behaviors. The one area where I still respond sharply is against attempts to do wiki-harm to individuals, which usually takes the form of false accusations, usually via mis-characterizations. As further evidence, please compare the false picture these individuals have been painting with a scan of my actual wiki-pattern, my last 100 edits (), or my last 500 or 5,000 edits () or the largest conglomeration of my interactions with other editors () I've even offered olive branches 3 times to Goethean, who IMHO the meanest, nastiest most harmful-to-editors editor that I have interacted (substantially enough to know for sure) with in my 40,0000 diverse manual edits of working with folks in Misplaced Pages, and despite my having endured an immense amount of abuse and nasty clever warfare from this individual. One unusually simplified look at the viciousness and baseless attacks (simple because it was out of the blue with nothing for even a false claim of basis) would be a close look at this sequence. .

The majority of the editors on both sides have taken the high road in discussions at the article, and below I see Goethean working to paint the opposite picture of 3-4 more of them below. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Justanonymous

Working the bottom of the pyramid.

Esteemed Arbitrators. With the full acknowledgement that this forum is not about content I will focus on civility. I argue that choice of certain words can create a bad environment that drives great editors away and gives the wiki a very bad reputation to the outside world.

Consider this exchange:

Listen, you patronising little troll , I'm not interested in debating the finer points of genocide with you...Peddle your filth elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This could've caused:

The recent history of this article and talk page would probably make an excellent subject of study in the future, regarding misuse of the project. I certainly don't want to subject myself to it anymore as we move into the new year. It 's over the top. And no longer on my Watchlist.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

If the intent was to bully an editor into silence by creating a negative editing environment, that goal was achieved. The editor(s) who deliberately create(s) a negative editing environment might be aware that if they will only get a mild admonishment even after repeated incicents then that's a straightforward risk/reward equation to achieve the greater outcome of sidelining dissent.

I can't say that's what happened. I don't know. I do know that the editors here are veterans of the Wiki and some understand social psychology.

The gun control talk are littered with like examples. Some say, "toughen up," or "It's a reality of contentious pages." I disagree with that thesis. We shouldn't accept incivility. Nobody has used profanity at arbcom....it's not appropriate here, it's not appropriate anywhere. Frustration is no excuse. The damage of negative editing environments is immense and immeasurable in terms of lost talent that won't edit because of that. Civil discourse is the backbone of the encyclopedia. Contentious articles require an even higher standard of rhetoric and dialectic.

If we condone bullying then after a while only the bullies will be left in the playground and everyone else will be at home (bruised and battered but with their untapped talent)....Don't let that be the fate of our encyclopedia.

Response to Goethean Accusations

Below I'm addressing the accusations goethean raised: 1, When goethen removed the content, I noted that it could be vandalism. This is not an accusation, it's a categorization. Might I have been more sensitive? perhaps but that hardly calls for the creation of this environment:

Newsflash. Removing bullshit NRA propaganda from Misplaced Pages articles is not vandalism. Rather than throw around accusations that you know are bullshit, go talk to an administrator. Please go ahead and tell someone that I am vandalizing the gun control article. Start a thread at WP:ANI. Go ahead. You won't, because you know that you are full of it , and you know that you are spouting bullshit. Prove me wrong or shut up. — goethean 15:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Use profanity on my page again and you will lose the privilege and courtesy of using my talk page. You have been warned. Your summary removal of 4,000+b of content that has been there for some time and added by established editors without first discussing and gaining consensus on talk is inappropriate. Please don't vandalize the page. Please be civil. Please get consensus on the talk.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Enough warnings. Start a thread about my vandalism or STFU (SHUT THE FUCK UP ) — goethean 15:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Please don't post on this page again. Your profanity is not welcome. If you do, I'll have to report you for personal harassment.-Justanonymous (talk) 16:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

We should assume good faith. I felt and still feel bullied and I don't want to subject myself to that and if that behavior continues, I just won't edit (which I'm sure some would like). Note: Goethean and I have reconciled on this misunderstanding and he is fully welcome on my talk. This is not about Goethean in my mind, it's about how we create and develop editing environments on the wiki.

2, I removed that tag. I remove battleground tactics for readability.

3, mirror

4, This is a BLP and not on the gun control article. An isolated reference lumped the BLP with white supremacist. I moved the content to the talk for discussion. Goethean has ample opportunity to introduce his position - we're in NORUSH:

Here is the full exchange with context for the arbitrators, nothing sensational here

Note: he didn't tell me to shut the fuck up. Why? Because ARBCOM is scrutinizing us? Is that what it takes to be civil?? What happens when you're no longer watching? Do we revert? How many have been driven away while your microscope is elsewhere? How many with great ideas and content and talent have been railroaded into silence? It's not just about tolerating the eccentricities of a good editor who is sometimes abrasive. I'm not talking about Andy or Goethean etc per se, I'm talking about the broad wikivironment that we build and whether it's welcoming, tolerant, and nurturing.

Regarding goethean's WP:BATTLE accusation:

Here's the full exchange where you see my initial post, disagreement with my thesis by Gaijin and SRich, my apology, and SPECIFICO's acceptance

We were talking about the holocaust, SPECIFICO voted in GERMAN & RUSSIAN in ENGLISH Misplaced Pages. I coached that voting in German/Russian could be misconstrued as insensitive. Gaijin42 and S. Rich disagreed. I apologized. SPECIFICO accepted in POLISH. No problems since. This is not WP:BATTLE it's me trying to have us be respectful to holocaust victims and maybe me learning that some have a sense of humor. -Justanonymous (talk) 22:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Response to ArtifexMayhem Accusations

ArtifexMayhem asked for an extension, and at the 11th hour, he submitted evidence against me personally. Given his intent and his delay he could've been polite and advised me of his intent to do this if he really had a life event type issue.

Initially I asserted and argued that the law reviews are peer reviewed which was me saying that the source is authoritative and has followed the review process for that field. ArtifexMayhem asserted that the vast majority of law reviews are not peer reviewed, to which I responded That's an old fight, probably has no place here in a reference to this age old argument between the liberal arts and the sciences and the steps they follow before publication of their journals. It's a very big argument aka "fight" that academia has been engaged in. We at Gun Control are not going to settle this academic dispute on how law journals are reviewed and argument is not for the gun control talk page. That is what I meant and Moreno just because a law journal is not peer reviewed does not make it any less authoritative. The fact Artifex Mayhem is uneducated in these differences speaks to his lack of competence in editing in this field, in my mind.

It's evidently clear that the editor ArtifexMayhem does not understand how law reviews are published or he doesn't value the accepted format that academia follows. He and his cohorts are trying to force his mental model to the entire encyclopedia and bring me down in the process (note the last minute pile on in evidence from people I've never heard of before nor interacted with). I tried to educate him civilly on this topic but it seems he took it as an attack or bad form. I'm tired. This could be an issue of WP:Competence for him. Beyond that, I do try insist that editors label their sources if the source is biased. Absolutely no incivility in my part. The only incivility is the 11th hour submission after an extension with accusations against a single editor...sheer luck I have cell phone coverage right now....I have life events too...I don't work for Misplaced Pages.

Feel free to read the Law journals and peer review section on the archive below. It explains my efforts....feel bad they weren't appreciated nor valued. Sorry don't have laptop here to do justice to this last salvo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Gun_control/Archive_8 -Justanonymous (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Response to MastCell Accussations

I don't know the user MastCell and don't recall having interacted with him/her. Interesting that she'd show up to accuse me here.

Very curtly, the Misplaced Pages Talk pages are about argumentation and about reaching consensus. To do that, we have to - by nature - deliberate on the pages. Sometimes an editor will make a statemtent that they believe to be true only to be refuted thoroughly. It happens and it happens to me. The fact I'm refuted from time to time does not mean that I'm acting in bad faith. It just means that I either made a mistake, didn't know something and was educated, or my argument didn't stand based on critical logic so yes, when I am on the talk page, I am arguing for or against something.

The vast majority of legal journals adhere to the academic requirements for their field or the equivalent of peer review for the liberal arts - It's how they do it.

To be clear, when I was arguing the part of the Small Arms Survey, I had never heard of this pro gun control small think tank from Geneva so I was wrapping my arms around what that was. It seems to be the Brady Gun Control Group -- but their publications have not been through any kind of cite checking or peer review as Artifexmayhem and I think Andythegrump had claimed (it's fuzzy who claimed what). My claim is that the small arms survey publications were not on part with other academic journals -- and it turns out they are not. It turns out it is more like a book, with citations that might or might not be correct. The author calls Stand Your Ground Laws and Castle Doctrine synonymous -- a clear error so there is a question on whether that author is competent.

My only contention is that ArtifexMayhem is incorrect in labeling the Small Arms Survey content as "peer reviewed" and elevating that publication to the level of an academic journal (regardless of whether that's liberal arts or sciences) when it has not been subjected to any academic review of any kind. It's just a pamphlet or a study at best, just like what the NRA or Brady Campaign produces -- they start off with what they want to say and then they go find information that backs up their claim.

Note though that once I am refuted and that WP:RS sources are defined to be acceptable even if they're biased, I acquiesce and work constructively with Fiachabryne to improve the article and to bound the limits of this one study (which is not cite checked nor peer reviewed).

I don't know how to do a diff to an archive

Some legitimate points here, I think, in terms of the representation of the study and findings in the first version I inserted into the article. The suggested text by Justanonymous, however, misrepresents the sample (28 countries & 42 jurisdictions in total over 5 continents and not 11 countries). One would have to precise, also, in determining what the authors conclude from their sample and otherwise. I've included details of the sample in a revised wording for the section as I think that properly informs the reader. I'm less sure about whether the study should be attributed intext- although for the moment I've referenced and wikilinked the Small Arms Survey in an explanatory note - so I'd be interested in any valid consideration on that point. Merry Christmas/food festival/consumer orgy/bleak nothingness/whatever to everyone. FiachraByrne (talk) 22:42, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

thank you much for the consideration and good faith. I think the section is more neutral now after this last modification. Merry Xmas.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:34, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

So, MastCell objects because I engaged in civil content debate? was partially refuted with respect to Small Arms Survey and its admissiblity (It's definitely not Peer Reviewed nor Cite Checked but it borderline meets the WP:RS Standard just like the Halbrook Books)? and after we establish that I worked collaboratively to make the article better? Are the other editors willing to allow Halbrook content or the Nazi references eventhough they're based on fact? No they are not. The only thing this exchange that MastCell offers as evidence shows is that I'm at least willing to be flexible and to acknowledge when I am refuted or partially refuted and then I'm willing to work collaboratively with editors who don't share my ideologies.

The fact I'm refuted in a content dispute should not be admissible as evidence against me unless I was uncivil in how we went about determining the facts in the Talk Page. Instead I have to pour ink here into my 1,000 words at the very last minute defending against what is not evidence from an editor I've never heard of before. -Justanonymous (talk) 23:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Goethean

ROG5728 violated WP:BATTLE, WP:NPOV

  • Before Goethean or AndyTheGrump arrived at the article, the dispute already centered around ROG5728's insistence that, contrary to WP:RS, the Hitler material must be presented in the article not as an argument, but as a fact of history.
  • Edit warred to remove attribution (moving the Hitler argument from "some argue" to Misplaced Pages's voice as historical fact) backed up by Justanonymous. Again.
  • The edit which sparked the current dispute: ROG5728 re-structures article in a partisan manner, moving Hitler argument from "Arguments" to "History".
  • This edit is praised by User:North8000, User:Scalhotrod, and User:Justanonymous.
  • This edit occurs immediately after User:StopYourBull had stopped editing the article after having been bullied by ROG5728, North8000, and JustAnonymous. This bullying and subsequent POV editing may constitute a violation of WP:BATTLE.
  • If any of the four editors (ROG5728, Gaijin42, North8000, Justanonymous) had undone ROG5728's edit at any time from April 2013 to January 2014, the dispute could have been defused. Instead they WP:BATTLEd to keep this edit in place for several months.
  • Removes POV tags/edit summary

ROG5728, Justanonymous, Gaijin42 have used debunked material, violated WP:TE, WP:NPA

Here is Harcourt on the Hitler quote that ROG5728 stridently repeats on the talk page, backed up by Gaijin42:

It turns out, for example, that Hitler's infamous quote, rehearsed in so many newspapers, is probably a fraud and was likely never uttered. The citation reference is a jumbled and incomprehensible mess that has never been properly identified or authenticated, and no one has been able to produce a document corresponding to the quote. It has been the subject of much research, all of it fruitless, and has now entered the annals of urban legends—in fact, it is an entry in the urban legends website.

ROG5728 has threatened to insert this widely-debunked quotation into the article. It is curious that, although the Harcourt source which contains the above quotation has been used in the article, ROG5728 and Gaijin42 persist in treating a debunked urban legend as a straight-forward fact of history.

  • Goethean's rejection of this debunked quotation constitutes self-delusion according to ROG5728 (WP:TE, WP:NPA)
  • Justanonymous uses the Hitler quotation, lectures AndyTheGrump "You haven't read your history"
  • I suggest that any neutral version of the disputed material included in the article should explicitly debunk this quotation, given its prevalence.

Gaijin42 violated WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:TE

  • Removes POV tags from article
  • Removes SPS tag
  • Removes SPS tag, abusive edit summary:
  • Removes well-sourced material which contradicts the Hitler argument
  • Removes RS tags
  • Denies that the Hitler material is in the article as a comparison to contemporary US gun control laws, removes evidence against Hitler argument backed up by User:Shadowjams
  • Removes undue tag on Halbrook; removes Harcourt's depiction of Halbrook as untrustworthy ideologue
  • Removes verify tag from unreliable sources
  • Re-inserts unreliable Halbrook material
  • Removes merge tag from POV fork article
  • Removes duplication tag, although material is duplicate; removes page number tags, although citations lack page numbers
  • Calls Goethean a vandal for removing off-topic sources.

Gaijin42 violated WP:NPA

  • Gaijin42 accuses opponents of "holocaust denialism and trolling"
  • ROG5728: Not a personal attack; Gaijin42 was right
  • Gaijin42 defends his comment, ROG concurs
  • Holocaust denial again
  • Reaction of User:TParis to Gaijin42's attack? Block User:AndyTheGrump.

Gaijin42 violated WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:OR

  • Gaijin42 insists that the article must contain Stephen Halbrook's arguments, and historical facts carefully selected by Halbrook (see Gaijin42's evidence), even though Harcourt describes Halbrook as "not a historian" and someone whose " ideological commitments are so flagrant…that neither can be trusted in these debates."

Further, he claims that Misplaced Pages must endorse Halbrook's argument as if it were historical, uncontroversial fact, whereas it is not just controversial, but a fringe, partisan argument that no reputable historian takes seriously. Requests for sources to the contrary have met with refusal. Contradicting the claims of Gaijin42 et al about "straight-forward historical facts" Harcourt specifically refers to the Hitler argument as an argument, not a historical fact (emphasis mine).

The proposed bill prominently endorses the historical argument in its preamble, where it declares that "history has also shown that the registration of firearms in Nazi Germany enabled Adolph Hitler to confiscate firearms and render the disarmed population helpless in the face of Nazi atrocities.

Harcourt, an RS used in the article by Gaijin42 et al, thus contradicts Gaijin42 et al's oft-repeated claims, repeatedly used to justify placing Hitler material in the article, that the Hitler argument is "historical fact", not arguments or assertions. Gaijin42's claims are aggressive violations of WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV, made across several months and seen on this evidence page.

Gaijin42 violated WP:OR

  • Gaijin42 inserts his own historical research, sourced to a 1938 NYT article. backed up by ROG5728

Gaijin42 abused the RFC process

Two of the RFCs at the article have been written by Gaijin42, who words the RFCs in a way that gives the Hitler argument a distinct advantage.

North8000 violated WP:NPOV

  • Re-inserts POV header
  • Re-inserts off-topic info; re-inserts unreliable Halbrook
  • Re-inserts Halbrook material, including Harcourt's claim that Halbrook is an ideologue who "cannot be trusted"
  • Moves Hitler material from "Studies" to "History"
  • Removes attribution, putting Hitler argument in Misplaced Pages's voice

North8000 violated WP:TE, WP:NPA

  • At ANI, Goethean says that North8000 is engaging in WP:TE; adds diff; North8000 calls that a personal attack.

North8000 has a history of problematic behavior

  • User:NuclearWarfare's conversation on North8000's user talk on civility at Talk:Libertarianism
  • ANI threads on behavior at Talk:Homophobia
  • When asked to stay on topic, responds with passive aggressive accusations. These passive-aggressive accusations, evasion, and tendentiousness are the most striking characteristics of North8000's talk page comments throughout the gun control debate.
  • Deletes well-sourced material
  • Re-inserts unsourced material
  • Complaints about his use of hatnotes
  • Claims that decent edits are bad
  • POV pushing on Matthew Shepard.
  • Misrepresentation of sources.
  • An inability to admit when he is wrong

North8000 has a history of disruptively abusing multiple accounts

  • Asked whether he has abused multiple accounts, North8000 responds with personal attacks
  • North's bizarre story about his neighbor DougT1235 (talk · contribs)

99.x group

  • 99.151.174.223 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is North8000but refers to North in the third person
  • 99.144.250.1 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) like North, a conservative BSA homosexuality controversy editor who edits North's sandbox
  • 99.141.251.67 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) same passive-aggressive writing style as North
  • 99.151.164.88 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) test edits North's sandox then agrees with North
  • 99.142.10.228 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) gun control, edits just below North
  • IP99.x acted as an anti-climate change advocate and carried out a personal campaign against Tim Lambert
  • WP:ANI proposal that IP99.x is an anti-climate change WP:SPA and would have interaction bans and topic bans, including a topic ban from John Lott, an advocate against gun control. The proposed ban would "apply to the individual not the addresses and continue to apply should the user choose to register an account."
  • Dozens of related addresses

75.x/76.x group

  • North8000 has edited under IP address 75.24.138.102 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), but at times has acted as if 75.24.138.102 is a different user
  • 76.217.90.208 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) Traveler's Dream account who edits North's sandbox
  • IP76.x cluster harrassed User:Arcayne
  • Numerous other addresses that space doesn't allow

Justanonymous violated WP:NPOV, WP:OR

  • Re-inserts WP:OR, claims Goethean is "close to vandalism" for removing it.
  • Removes tag from bad source.
  • Reinserts unreliable Halbrook material.

Justanonymous, Gaijin42, Capitalismojo violated WP:NPOV

  • Capitalsmojo, Gaijin42, JustAnonymous removed material on the academic reception of Halbrook's research from Stephen Halbrook.

Justanonymous violated WP:TE

  • JustAnonymous absurdly claims material from a legal journal may constitute libel.

JustAnonymous violated WP:BATTLE

  • Patently absurd accusations of hate speech and harassment

Evidence presented by AndyTheGrump

Other participants in this case have already presented evidence above concerning issues of individual behaviour here, and I can see little point in repeating them - it frequently involves picking evidence out of context, and tends to obscure rather than illuminate the underlying problem, which is what I intend to discuss here. In brief, it is my contention that, due to the collective inappropriate behaviour of a significant number of contributors, Misplaced Pages's coverage of issues relating to the regulation of firearms has become distorted, and has demonstrably failed to comply with policies concerning a neutral point of view. More specifically, such behaviour has led to the viewpoint of a single faction of a debate confined almost entirely to a single country being given grossly undue representation in articles supposedly presenting all significant viewpoints internationally, sidelining or ignoring any opposition. To understand how this has come about, one must first note that for a considerable time, Misplaced Pages has had two articles on what is clearly the same subject - legal and political issues regarding the regulation of firearms. One, entitled (until recently) 'Gun politics' has presented what appeared to be a reasonable attempt to discuss the issues globally, presenting information concerning laws regarding the private ownership of firearms etc, as well as providing an 'arguments' section, which (although clearly suffering from over- emphasis on the U.S. debate) at least covers a wide range of views, and puts the debate into a broader context, giving sourced and detailed evidence concerning such issues as the (contentious) relationship between firearms ownership and homicide, domestic violence and similar issues. And then there is the contentious 'Gun control' article - which has a history of being repeatedly marked as a POV fork, proposed for merger with the 'politics' article, and generally warred over - unsurprisingly, since its sole purpose is clearly to present the views of a single faction of the U.S. pro-gun lobby.

It should be noted that despite multiple requests (by myself and others) no explanation for the forking of our international coverage of firearms regulation issues has ever been offered which was in any way whatsoever supported by external sourcing. Instead, interminably repetitious and frankly fatuous arguments have been put forward to the effect that Google searches find 'gun control' more often than 'gun politics', that 'politics' and 'control' are different subjects (yes, really...) and the like. None of which really amount to more than 'because I say so'. And none of which seems to have been seen as relevant once Gaijin42 decided to unilaterally, with no prior discussion whatsoever, rename the 'gun politics' article as 'List of gun laws and policies by country (which incidentally was all he did - he didn't even bother to edit the lede, leaving it with an explanation - WP:OR, or at least unsourced - as to what 'gun politics' meant, to the confusion of any reader not aware of the previous title).

The 'politics' article has since been renamed 'Overview of gun laws by nation' as a result of my objection that it is clearly more than a list: though a contributor then saw fit to remove the 'arguments' section on the basis that it didn't belong in a list, thereby removing sourced and detailed material entirely from Misplaced Pages article space, and leaving the POV-pushing 'gun control' article as our sole coverage of the subject from a (supposedly) international perspective. Though I've restored the material, we are now left with a badly-named article (not that the original name was particularly enlightening) with little indication as to what it is supposed to be covering. While this incident might seem minor in itself, it seems to me to be symptomatic of the high-handed WP:OWNership of the Misplaced Pages pro-gun lobby - and also symptomatic of their apparent lack of concern for readers not cognisant with the ongoing in-Misplaced Pages debate, who are left with confused article ledes, content removed for no apparent reason, and article titles which don't indicate article content.

Meanwhile, the 'gun control' article has been its usual contentious self. Contentious, because it has been repeatedly used as a coatrack for the uncritical presentation a particularly dubious pseudohistorical argument from sections of the U.S. pro-gun lobby: that 'gun control' leads to totalitarianism - with a focus on Nazi Germany. It should be noted that this argument has no support whatsoever from any mainstream historiography, and what little external commentary there has been has rejected it as, in the words of one critic "cherry-picked", "decontextualised" and "tendentious" ( p. 414) - a comment which would apply equally well to our article, and its interminable talk-page. The talk page is of course full of 'justifications' for this dubious content, veering from the (entirely unsourced) assertion that its main proponent Stephen Halbrook is some sort of major historical authority on the subject to the assertion that the article isn't presenting Halbrook's arguments at all, merely presenting 'historical facts' - though of course failing to explain why these 'facts' are more significant than any other.

Were this any other article, on any other subject, such blatant POV-pushing would be problematic enough, but this argument is being made in relation to the Holocaust - with Halbrook and co arguing (with no evidence of course) that the Nazi firearms regulations of 1938 were some sort of essential precursor to genocide. Not only is this suggestion a pseudohistorical invention based on nothing but a selective reading of history for the purposes of what can frankly only be described as propaganda, but it is, as multiple representatives of Jewish communities have made entirely clear, a grossly inappropriate abuse of the memory of the Holocaust for the political ends of factions in a debate in another time and place entirely. It is my opinion that the presentation of such pseudohistorical propaganda as some sort of objective 'history' concerning the Holocaust within Misplaced Pages is completely and utterly at odds with any pretence at neutrality, and with everything that Misplaced Pages is supposed to stand for. This is the fundamental issue at stake here, and accordingly I call on ArbCom to make it entirely clear to all Misplaced Pages contributors that, when it comes to content concerning the Holocaust, in any Misplaced Pages article, the proper source for material is historiography of the holocaust, written by historians. The remainder of the POV-pushing, and the issue of what to do about blatant POV-forking can be dealt with by normal processes - or indeed not dealt with, as normal processes so often fail to do. But concerning the history of the Holocaust, I can see no room for manoeuvre - either ArbCom stands by stated Misplaced Pages policies regarding appropriate sourcing concerning this matter, or it fails entirely in its remit to ensure policy is applied. Accordingly, this is all that I'm asking from ArbCom. I will make no requests concerning block, topic bans, or other sanctions (beyond expressing the personal observation that I consider Gaijin42 a net liability to the project - for which I'll not bother to provide evidence), and instead suggest that a line in the sand be drawn, and that we look to the future, where contributors contribute, rather than propagandise, and where Misplaced Pages articles do not exploit genocide for the purposes of political gain. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

A brief comment on 'civility'.
I would like to point out that the fundamental issues regarding the gross violation of WP:NPOV policy, and the abuse of Misplaced Pages for the purpose of presenting pseudohistorical propaganda relating to the Holocaust long pre-date my involvement in the topic. I would also suggest that the attempts by the promoters of such obnoxious propaganda to distract attention from their behaviour should be taken into account by ArbCom. If Misplaced Pages really considers occasional incidents regarding talk-page 'civility' more important than historical accuracy regarding one of the defining events of the 20th century, we might as well give up on writing an encyclopaedia, and join FaceBook or some other vacuous form of social media instead. I for one do not consider presenting offensive distortions of history to our readers as remotely 'civil' and neither is it in any way compatible with the objectives of Misplaced Pages. Our readers are our first priority, and the only legitimate reason for Misplaced Pages's existence. Let us not forget this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
It should also be noted that, as Lightbreather documents below, the contentious 'Nazi' material has also been dumped - seemingly without prior discussion - into the Gun politics in the United States article, where I have had no involvement whatsoever. This must surely indicate that attempts by those pushing the material to claim that this is all an issue about 'civility' are on shaky ground. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
A brief response to Gaijin42.
Making up imaginary arguments in order to proclaim them WP:OR is unlikely to fool anyone...
AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Incidentally, astute readers will no doubt have noticed that this claim of 'original research' relates to my question as to why we have two articles covering the same topic - international coverage of the regulation of the private ownership of firearms. No source has ever been provided to explain or justify this forking - but somehow it is the objections to the forking that are 'original research', whereas the fork itself is legitimate? Nope - this is archetypical Wikilawyering of the most blatant kind, and entirely par for the course. Rather than discuss the content, the POV-pushers invent 'policy' on the fly, argue semantics over titles rather than explain content, and contradict themselves in their arguments. Anything to ensure that Misplaced Pages's coverage of the topic is twisted to suit their transparent agenda. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
And as for Gaijin42's selective reading of article history, and his claim that he moved the 'Nazi' material from one article to the other, I have two comments: firstly, since I have consistently argued that the forking of material relating to firearms regulations is unsupported by any sourcing, and contrary to Misplaced Pages policy, it logically follows that I am not going to advocate placing it in one article rather than another - again, he is inventing arguments that I have never made.
Secondly, more to the point though, I should point out that that the material removed from the 'gun politics' article in the diff Gaijin42 provides was never posted into the 'gun control' article by him. Furthermore, the 'gun control' article already contained 'Nazi' material at the time - though not the same material at all - the material Gaijin42 removed from the 'gun politics' article for example contained responses to Halbrook and Co.'s argumentum ad Hitlerum from a noted Holocaust survivor, director of the ADL Abraham H. Foxman. That Gaijin42 should misrepresent his complete removal of sourced content (opposing his POV, needless to say) from Misplaced Pages article space as a 'move' in evidence submitted to ArbCom seems to me entirely indicative of his unsuitability as a contributor. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I see that in response to the above, Gaijin42 is suggesting that the fact that he removed sourced content opposing his POV from Misplaced Pages article space, and then claimed to have 'moved' it doesn't 'materially effect' the discussion. I suspect that ArbCom may think otherwise. Regardless of what may or may not have been done by other contributors, prior to this so-called 'move', Misplaced Pages contained a response to the 'Nazi' argument from the director of the ADL - a Holocaust survivor. Afterwards it didn't. Gaijin42 removed it. Weasel-worded equivocation won't alter this fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

A brief comment on 'peer review'. While I appreciate ArtifexMayhem's efforts in analysing sources used in the 'Nazi' argument, I think that a salient point may have been overlooked. Regardless of whether a peer review had taken place - and we seem to have little evidence that for the contentious Halbrook article at least it ever did - the publications in question were law journals, and I very much doubt that reviewers would be expected to have any particular expertise in the historiography of the Holocaust. Peer review, when properly conducted, may be of considerable value where the topic concerned is within scope of reviewers' academic expertise, but it isn't a panacea, or an abstract guarantee of 'reliability' and nor should it necessarily be seen as a method for validating material beyond the normal remit of the publication concerned. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ROG5728

AndyTheGrump and goethean violated WP:NPA

I don't know if I can possibly hope to untangle all of the assertions made above, so I'll just try to keep this short and to the point. I think both sides would agree that progress has been made in improving this article despite our differences of opinion.

However, the single biggest obstacle to that progress has probably been the repeated personal attacks and hostile behavior from two editors in particular -- AndyTheGrump and goethean. For example, this personal attack and this one, both of which came from Andy without any real provocation. It might be worth noting that Andy has a long block history due to this kind of disruptive behavior. Goethean has also been extremely hostile throughout this process, even on other editors' talk pages. At least one editor even left the discussion completely, as a direct result of the repeated personal attacks from Andy.

That's about all I can say regarding behavior issues in this particular dispute. Any dispute process is much more manageable if editors can just be WP:CIVIL and discuss the material instead of attacking each other. With that in mind, I submit that the biggest obstacle in this dispute has been the incivility from goethean and especially AndyTheGrump. ROG5728 (talk) 08:45, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ArtifexMayhem

ROG5728

North8000

Gaijin42

Justanonymous

Claims that sources are "peer reviewed"
  • On December 18th Justanonymous removes a {{Verify credibility|date=May 2013}} tag from this source clain in the first revert, no, it's fine, reputable journal, this went through peer review, plenty of scientists and researchers have biases. and for the second revert no need, the source is fine, the journal is peer reviewed, it's solid. Please don't POV push, don't edit war. Get consensus on talk please. Shortly after the second revert xe starts this talk page discussion and claims that "Some editors here don't want to accept WP:RS from reputable journals that are peer reviewed. That's plainly unacceptable. They're labeling some of those authors as 'ideologues.'" and a following edit summary that "We need to acknowledge that peer reviewed articles in reputable journals generally meet WP:RS." Justanonymous continues on this tack throughout the section (claims the source is peer reviewed, that other editors don't like it for purely ideological reasons, etc.):. The entire conversation can be found here.
Sets up a straw man when presented with evidence to the contrary
  • Three days later I presented information that contradicted Justanonymous' claims. Specifically, that as of 20:04, 19 December 2013, "None of the law journal sources cited in this article are peer reviewed.". Justanonymous' immediate response was, "That's an old fight, probably has no place here" (emphasis in original). This was followed by a variety of arguments, , none of which addressed the concerns expressed by other editors (notably those expressed by FiachraByrne were completely ignored). The entire conversation can be found here.
Then makes some rather pointy edits to the article and on the talk page
  • Five after that, Justanonymous starts a talk page discussion concerning sources published by Cambridge University Press. Forty-nine minutes later xe removes the material because the sources "appear to be pro gun control organizations", and that leaving it in "Could be seen as POV pushing and using weasel words" Xe also removes another 1.3kb of text and dumps it into the small arms article without bothering to fix any of the citations or even leave a note on the talk page.
On the talk page Justanonymous states that the source "is not like any academic paper, ever read", and that it "hasn't gone through any kind of peer review or other kind of rigorous process." Using the source is likened to "lifting content out of the NRA and NAG websites and used it liberally here under the auspices of "peer review" of which there has been none apparently" and that it must be removed of the article "Unless you're all ok with other editors going to the NRA websites and getting their "peer reviewed" ahem ahem content."
At this point Justanonymous wonders why xe is "having to explain these basic things?" to me, and suggests that if I "don't know how these fields work, just don't edit." My reponse was completely ignored. Justanonymous continues with this tendentious style for the rest of the section. The entire conversation can be found here.
The other three editors exhibit patterns of behavior that are very similar to Justanonymous'.

Notes on sourcing

Source Review

An example of the kind of reference padding used to maintain the presence of fringe sources in violation of our sourcing guidelines and our neutral point of view policy.
Extended content

From Gun control as of December 27, 2013 (diff).

Nazi laws regarding ownership of arms

Among the anti-Semitic laws, regulations, and acts of civil violence enacted by the Nazi regime against Germans whom it considered Jewish were restrictions of weapon ownership, and these were used by Hitler's government to disarm the Jewish population. The Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938 relaxed gun control requirements for the general population, but prohibited ownership, possession, sale, and manufacturing of firearms and ammunition by Jews. During the initial reports of events that would later be called Kristallnacht on November 9 and 10, 1938, the Police President of Berlin had announced that police activity in the preceding few weeks had disarmed the entire Jewish population of Berlin by confiscating 2,569 of their hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Shortly thereafter, with the addition of the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons of November 11, 1938, Jews were forbidden from possession of any weapons at all.

References
  1. ^ Harcourt 2004, p. 671. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHarcourt2004 (help)
  2. ^ Rummel 1994, p. 111-122.
  3. ^ Halbrook 2000, p. 509-513. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHalbrook2000 (help)
  4. McGuire 2011, p. 119.
  5. Bard 2001, p. 68.
  6. Bard 2008, p. 9,33,82.
  7. Polsby & Kates 1997, p. 1237. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPolsbyKates1997 (help)
  8. Bryant 2012a, p. 314.
  9. Tolischus 1938.
  10. Steinweis 2009, p. 38-39.
Bibliography
Analysis
Harcourt is not an authority on the history of German gun laws, the Holocaust, or the history of gun control in general.
Ref 39 : Harcourt 2004. On Gun Registration, the NRA, Adolf Hitler, and Nazi Gun Laws: Exploding the Gun Culture Wars (A Call to Historians), p. 671.
Non-peer reviewed law review article on the politics of gun control.
Rummel might be a reliable source—If he'd written anything concerning gun control, but he hasn't.
Ref 40 : Rummel 1994. Death by government, p. 111-122.
There is nothing in the pages cited that has anything to do with gun control in Germany.
Halbrook is not an authority on the history of German gun laws, the Holocaust, or the history of gun control in general.
Ref 41 : Halbrook 2000. Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews, p. 509-513.
Non-peer reviewed law review article on a topic outside the authors area of expertise.
Not McGuire's area of expertise. Scholars with much better credentials are readily available.
Ref 42 : McGuire 2011. Gun Control Laws, p. 119.
Might be useful somewhere in this article. Maybe. Probably more useful in some of the "gun politics" articles.
Same as McGuire above, not really Bard's area of expertise. Scholars with much better credentials are readily available.
Ref 43 : Bard 2001. The Complete history of the Holocaust, p. 68.
Not about gun control (we know the Nazis "disarmed" the Jews, etc., and have plenty of good sources for that fact).
Ref 44 : Bard 2008. 48 hours of Kristallnacht : night of destruction/dawn of the Holocaust : an oral history, p. 9, 33, and82.
Oral histories should not be quote mined in this way.
Polsby and Kates are not authorities on the history of German gun laws, the Holocaust, or the history of gun control in general.
Ref 45 : Polsby & Kates 1997. Of Holocausts and Gun Control, p. 1237.
Non-peer reviewed law review article on a topic outside the authors area of expertise.
  • Bryant, Michael S. • Adjunct Professor of Law, Creighton Law; Associate Professor of History and Law, Bryant. • Ph.D., Modern European History (OSU, 2001); M.A., Modern European History, (OSU, 1996); J.D., (Emory Law, 1989); M.T.S., Theology, (Emory, 1989); B.A., English Literature (OSU, 1985).
Bryant as all the right credentials, and is an authority on the Holocaust, its history, and related German laws.
Ref 46 : Bryant 2012a. Germany, Gun Laws, p. 314-316.
An excellent summary of German gun laws from 1914 to the present day.
Bryant 2012b. Holocaust Imagery and Gun Control, p. 411-414.
Not a useful source for this article, but an excellent choice for other articles (e.g., the National Rifle Association, Gun politics in the United States, etc).
  • Tolischus, Otto D. • Pulitzer Prize Winner, Correspondence, 1940: For his dispatches from Berlin (published by The New York Times). • Columbia School of Journalism.
Good journalist writing for a good paper.
Ref 47 : Tolischus 1938 (November 9). NAZIS ASK REPRISAL IN ATTACK ON ENVOY;....
The article is cited by Halbrook above, and by Steinweis below. The relevant quote seems to be:

Simultaneously the Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been "disarmed" with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.

See Steinweis below for context.
Ref 48 : Steinweis 2009. Kristallnacht 1938.
No page is given, however the link provided uses the search string NAZIS+ASK+REPRISAL+IN+ATTACK+ON+ENVOY+kristallnacht return p. 176 where footnote 15 cites ref 47 : Tolischus 1938, above.
Steinweis covers the events of November 8-10, 1938 on pages 38 & 39 (Emphasis mine):

Despite all the provocative rhetoric in the German press since November 7 about "consequences," there had been only one concrete governmental action. On November 8, the police commissioner of Berlin, Count Helldorf, had issued an order requiring the Jews of the city to surrender their firearms to the police. Helldorf had cooperated closely with Goebbels in harassing the Jews of Berlin, most notably during the antisemitic campaign of June 1938. In the autumn, the police in Berlin (and elsewhere) had exploited gun-licensing procedures to seize weapons from Jews. On November 8, Helldorf announced that all Jewish owned weapons would be confiscated, citing the "Jewish murder attack" in Paris as well as the need to guarantee "public security and order in the Reich capital." A considerable number of Jewish homes in Germany did indeed contain weapons, but these were overwhelmingly daggers, sabers, and pistols that Jewish men had kept as mementos from their military service in World War One. The notion that Jews needed to be disarmed because they constituted some sort of physical threat was preposterous. It fit well, however, with the antisemitic narrative that German propaganda had constructed to explain the vom Rath shooting. It would also serve a practical purpose during the pogrom on November 9 and 10, when Jewish homes were not infrequently broken into and ransacked on the pretext of a search for illegal weapons.

Law journals and peer review

Extended content

According to Washington and Lee University School of Law's Law Journals: Submissions and Ranking system, of over 1000 law journals in the US only about 150 of them are "refereed" (i.e., peer reviewed).

Law journal sources used in the article (As of December 27, 2013)

Rank Journal Student Edited Peer Edited Refereed Refs
6 Michigan Law Review Yes No No 8
12 Fordham Law Review Yes No No 20, 28
30 Washington University Law Quarterly Yes No No 26
49 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Yes No No 42
94 University of Maryland Law Review Yes No No 51
333 George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal Yes No No 9, 10
358 Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law Yes No No 22
  1. Rank based on combined score, journal cites and case cites of 642 ranked, student-edited law journals.
  2. "Student edited" means a student run journal that does not send articles out for peer review.
  3. "Peer edited" means a journal that is edited by professionals in the field
  4. "Refereed" means a journal that routinely sends article submissions on for peer review by members of a diverse professional group.
    *Student edited or Peer edited journals may also be refereed, in which case the journal will be listed as "Refereed".

See also:


Archived talk page discussion can be found here.

— ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2014 (UTC) (updated from this version)

Evidence presented by User:Anythingyouwant

"Peer review" of law review articles

In response to the evidence presented by User:ArtifexMayhem, I just want to make a brief comment about whether law review articles are "peer reviewed". It's true that articles in journals like the Harvard Law Review are normally not subjected to "peer review" prior to publication. However, they are normally subjected to extensive "cite checking" so that every statement of fact that could prove controversial is footnoted, and the footnote accurately conveys the content of the footnoted source. I am not aware that ArtifexMayhem disputes that the particular article in the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law was properly cite-checked by that journal's editors. Moreover, law review articles are typically subjected to an informal peer review subsequent to publication, in the sense that other legal scholars (i.e. peers rather than students) will either recognize quality scholarship by citing it, or will decline to do so. I am not aware that ArtifexMayhem has evaluated whether the article in question has been frequently cited by peers (which is easy to do via Google Scholar). In sum, Justanonymous may have not used precisely correct terminology (e.g. "cite-checking"), but I don't think his basic point was far off the mark. You can find useful background about the law review process here.* Mr. Mayhem seems in quite a weak position to protest about reliable sources when he has not taken the necessary steps himself to determine whether the AJICL is reliable as a source for the notion attributed to it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

@Grump

I don't argue that the Halbrook law review article is reliable for the opinions it expresses (assuming the opinions are not attributed inline). A tertiary source would be much more reliable in that regard. But facts are another thing, and I don't see why that law review article wouldn't be reliable for footnoted and cite-checked facts. And why is this an issue here? It hasn't even been to WP:RSN, has it? I note that many great historians have had no doctorate in history (Barbara Tuchman, David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robert Caro, etc etc etc).Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Here's the only RSN discussion about Halbrook that I can find.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:03, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Superficial and misleading evidence from User:ArtifexMayhem

Just for the heck of it, since the evidence period has been extended and re-extended and re-re-extended, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the "evidence" presented by Mr. Mayhem, which ArbCom seems to cherish so much. It turns out that evidence is in the grand ArbCom tradition of dumping a bunch of diffs and mischaracterizing them. For example, Mr. Mayhem says that User:Gaijin42 has "Accused other editors of bad faith....." Mayhem lists six diffs, but that's misleading since five of them merely repeated basically the same assertion to one single editor (Goethean), and moreover Mayhem provides no evidence that the assertion was inaccurate. All of those six diffs show basically assertions by Gaijin42 that the other editors were rejecting information because they didn't like it:

1. "The fact that you do not like a source does not mean that 'there are no sources'."

2. "You don't like the sources. tough shit."

3. "Such circular logic! 'The opinions of the people are fringe, and the facts those people are basing the opinion on is irrelevant because I don't like your sources because they are fringe!'l

4. "Its not unsourced. You don't like the sources, but that is not the same thing."

5. "That you do not like sources or their POV does not make the not WP:RS....Your continued effort to whitewash this topic of any possible negative information is a travesty of wikipedia's pillars."

6. "That you do not like the people who make it notable is irrelevant."

It is not unusual for the very best of Misplaced Pages editors to say that other editors are rejecting information based on disliking that information. According to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, "While some editors may dislike certain kinds of information, that alone isn't enough for something to be deleted." Nowhere does Mr. Mayhem suggest that the recipients of Gaijin42's remarks were not rejecting information based on disliking that information. ArbCom could treat Mayhem's superficial and misleading evidence as a one-sided baseless personal attack deserving a boomerang, or alternatively could treat that evidence as fodder for the final decision in this case. Experience tells me the former is much less likely than the latter. I am sorry to be such a cynic, but perhaps Mr. Mayhem would like to convert me into an admirer by explaining why the mere assertion of "IDONTLIKEIT" warrants action by ArbCom, such as a lifetime topic ban.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:15, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Lightbreather

I object to evidence focussing on Misplaced Pages articles that are not part of this case, because it makes this case unwieldy and because I take ArbCom's definition of the scope of this case seriously. However, if ArbCom suddenly decides to consider other Misplaced Pages articles too, I don't think that the article Gun control in the United States Gun politics in the United States would be a bad place for them to look to see how reliable sources are appropriately used to cover (in a stable manner) this particular aspect of the subject (i.e. tyranny and nazis). In reply to Lightbreather's speculations about a Misplaced Pages-wide pro-gun push, I'm not sure if she's criticizing me, but I have not (yet) received any email message or other communication offline from any editor involved in the gun control cases, nor from anyone who knows them, nor any offline communication about this case or about those articles whatsoever. I did do an "email this user" twice but got no answer, and my message basically said "hello". Also Lightbreather is correct that I supported the inclusion of the "cherrypicked" Nazi material in the Gun control article, but only because there was not yet consensus about what to replace it with, and I did argue it should be replaced.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I just got my first email from North8000, asking me to take extra care to be nice to Lightbreather who is a civil contributor. I agree, and I'm happy to oblige.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:22, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
P.P.S. Regarding my emails: .Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by GabrielF

I would ask that arbcom consider the article Gun Control Act of 1968 as within the scope of this case. Gaijin42 introduced claims that this act was copied from Nazi laws.. The choice of sources was remarkably poor - Gaijin42 chose to cite outspoken activists for gun rights such as Neal Knox and Wayne LaPierre as a source of facts, with no citations to academic sources or mainstream journalism or even activist sources that might represent the other side of the argument. As can be expected with this choice of sourcing, Gaijin42s text badly misconstrued the record. For instance, it stated that Senator Tydings (a sponsor of the bill) 'inserted into the hearing record various documents, "concerning the history of Nazism and gun confiscation"', implying that this is evidence that the bill had Nazi origins. Yet Gaijin42s text does not bother to note that Tydings inserted these documents into the bill for the purpose of refuting the claim that the bill mirrored Nazi efforts - in fact the record shows that he explicitly asked the Library of Congress to study the issue to refute NRA claims. Similarly, Gaijin42's text stated that Tydings inserted into the record 'a letter to Senator Thomas J. Dodd the chairman of the subcommittee, from the Library of Congress which stated "we are enclosing herewith a translation of the Law on Weapons of March 18, 1938, as well as the Xerox of the original German text which you supplied"' Again, Tydings inserted this document into the record to refute the Nazi connection. Gaijin42 also claimed that "During the Congressional Debates for the bill, when discussing then proposed registration requirements, Representative John Dingell argued that German registration of firearms was later used to later disarm Jews." In fact, Dingell did not mention Jews at all. (You can find the original exchange between Tydings and Dingell on page 480 of this PDF with the documents inserted into the record by Tydings in the following pages): . A discussion on the flaws in this edit is available at Talk:Gun Control Act of 1968.

While I realize that ArbCom's purview is user conduct rather than content, I feel that this edit demonstrates the root problem in this case - a pattern of brazen partisanship and the mendacious use of sources.GabrielF (talk) 10:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Lightbreather

Evidence of a larger push of contested material

In considering the behavior of these individuals, please consider the efforts of a larger editorial community to push the contested Nazi "gun control" material. About the same time this arbcom started, Gun politics in the U.S. took a striking turn. I documented that on the Gun control talk page, and started a discussion on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page. The nut of the argument is in this snippet from discussion just mentioned:

"There is an ongoing, unresolved debate on the gun control talk page about whether or not Nazi use of 'gun control' is appropriate for inclusion in that article. Just counting votes, a little over 20 say it is appropriate, and over 30 say it is not. That article is now protected from edits while some of those involved are before arbcom.
"While that was/is on-going, NAZI ARGUMENTS were ADDED to this article ... and THEN Political arguments of gun politics in the United States was quickly merged into this article. The just-added Nazi material was moved into the subsection in question, and soon after the subsection was bumped up to the top of Rights-based arguments."

The edits added arguments to Gun politics that were being warred over on Gun control, and linked them with 'tyranny' arguments supported by one poll and an unclear statement from an 18 year old book. I suggested that the Nazi arguments be removed from GP article until the debate was settled on GC article, and that the "tyranny" needed more, higher quality sources.

Additionally, once the Nazi material was moved into the Gun politics in the U.S. article, the lead was also changed, as documented in POV shifts: A proposal, a red flag, and another proposal:

These actions seem to me evidence of a larger push - without consensus - to get Nazi "gun control" material into gun-control and gun-politics articles.

Thanks again for considering this late evidence. Lightbreather (talk) 23:07, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Anythingyouwant

I'm sorry. I did not receive an email from you. If you try again, I will watch for it. Lightbreather (talk) 23:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. When you wrote "I don't think that the article Gun control in the United States would be a bad place for them to look to see how reliable sources are appropriately used to cover (in a stable manner) this particular aspect of the subject," did you mean to WL to a different article? The article you named/linked to - Gun control in the United States - redirects to Gun politics in the United States, which Political arguments of gun politics in the United States was recently merged into. That's the nut of my complaint/evidence. That concurrent with this kind of behavior being disputed on a related page (Gun control), editors involved in that discussion - even if not named parties in this arbcom - merged one article and Nazi material into another related page (Gun politics in the United States) without consensus. Lightbreather (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MastCell

Justanonymous and peer review

The source in question is an article published by gun-rights advocate Stephen Halbrook in the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. The journal in question is not peer-reviewed, nor peer-edited (it is a student publication without a peer review process).

Justanonymous repeatedly demands inclusion, because the source is "peer-reviewed"
ArtifexMayhem points out that the source is not, in fact, peer-reviewed
Justanonymous immediately switches gears, providing various (and sometimes confusing or contradictory) reasons for using the source anyway
Attacks ArtifexMayhem for correctly pointing out the lack of peer review
  • Calls Artifex "uneducated", incompetent, etc:
Double standards for material perceived as "pro-gun-control"

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.