Wikipedia talk:Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars

message: OK. It's been a month now. Has anything actually happened? --Folantin (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There has indeed been progress—however, I hesitate at indicating the volume of progress that has been made, and similarly any specifics, being nought but an observer of the group, and being an individual who speaks for himself, rather than the work group as a whole. I'll raise the prospect of releasing some sort of statement to the Community, perhaps on this page, regarding progress thus far. In the meanwhile, thank you for your interest. AGK (contact) 19:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "some sort of statement to the Community". Good. That would be in the interests of transparency. Thanks. --Folantin (talk) 12:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a believer in transparency, hence why I proposed it. However, as some sort of disclaimer, I would like to note that (*goes into tannoy mode*) we are currently experiencing technical difficulties, and such a release may be subject to a small delay. Best, AGK (contact) 12:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. No problem. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 12:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can probably surmise, I have failed to garner enough attention (let alone support) to push through this proposal. Anthøny 23:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Progress report? 

message: I can't log in. I can't even request a new password; in both situations I just get "Error". Any ideas? Daniel (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, since yesterday, all special pages have been down the dunny. I tried too. :s ~ Riana ⁂ 09:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a bug report made by a user, by since it's Saturday, this might take a bit. Maxim(talk) 11:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Riana's right—the special pages are buggered. Daniel, I still have access—is there anything you need to see? AGK (contact) 12:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I made a note on the Main Page. (the actual one). I tried to hide some revisions, but sadly I forgot that Special:Log and Special:Undelete doesn't work. And I'm not tell you how to delete the Main Page, don't get any ideas. ;-) Maxim(talk) 12:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea Maxim, I just noticed that. I can log-in, but that's probably because I was logged in with a remember-session cookie set before the troubles arose; nevertheless, I can't do anything else, bar view plain old pages. For the record, I've also inserted a site notice—it makes for higher visibility, and thus lower numbers of confused Work Groupers and Observers :) AGK (contact) 12:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I delete the Main Page, (in the process I disable the protection from deletion) and  AGK of all people say "good idea, Maxim". :-p Maxim(talk) 12:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, somebody else has managed to delete the Special:- prefix, so the lynch mob has their sights set on them—luckily for you ;P Does anybody know how long we're looking at until the problems are fixed? AGK (contact) 12:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Until the devs fix it, and it might take a while as it's Saturday in most places. Maxim(talk) 12:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  A message at the top of the page says to check WT:WORKGROUP on  EN, but that didn't lead anywhere, so I set it up as a redirect here to this page that we're on  right now. --Elonka 23:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good thinking, Elonka. I've also set up WP:WORKGROUP to lead to the project page—previously we only had WP:WORKINGGROUP. I won't add any more, however: we've got a fair number of redirects now :) AGK (contact) 23:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

text: bugzilla:13289 if you're interested in watching the progress of this bug, btw. ~Kylu (u|t)  08:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All, the site is back up and running. AGK (contact) 19:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Login 

message: For the public record, Bastique and HG have been granted observer status on the cultural edit warring working group, and now have active accounts on the group wiki. Discussion is ongoing with regards to the additional requests to join. Regards, Anthøny 17:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion is finalising with regards to current Requests to join. The Work group is also awaiting the sending-through of a number of other requests that were sent to Arbcom-l, through to the Working group, where they will be discussed accordingly. Anthøny 13:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New members 

message: OK, it's a month since I last asked and there's still no sign of any progress report...--Folantin (talk) 14:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. In somewhat related news, at least one of the members, Ioeth, has been inactive since mid-February (). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  16:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As a response to Piotrus, Ioeth has been active on the Working Group's wiki site. Anthøny 18:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Has he been active since mid-February? Some users, like me, were worried that his inactivity on en Wikipedia may indicate some real life problems. We would be happy if he would post to his userpage that he is ok, just on some wikibreak.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  19:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll drop a note on Irpen's WGwiki talk page, highlighting this thread and the concerns related. But yes, Irpen has very much been active, and has been making edits recently (April 3 was the last, it appears). Anthøny 20:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonono, we are not talking about Irpen, but User:Ioeth.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  20:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies, I'm getting confused between the two and their similar names :)  In that case, the last edit made by Ioeth was on February 18. Anthøny 19:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All's fine now, at least we know he is all right.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  19:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Another month goes by

message: For those who are watching this page, we could use some help in data-gathering.  What we're looking for right now isn't specific examples of disputes, but very high-level "birds-eye view"  analyses of the common patterns in disputes.  For example, what are the "flashpoints" that cause an article to suddenly "blow up" and become unstable?  These are elements that we've come up with so far.  Could folks look at these and think about disputes you've seen, and whether or not they fall into one of these categories?  If there's something we've missed, please bring it up, thanks.
* Incivility (somebody gets reverted or attacked, or feels that they were attacked), and people go into "Mastodon" mode
* Someone tries to add information from a controversial source
* Someone tries to remove information, saying that a source is controversial
* WP:UNDUE problems, as something gets moved around and there's disagreement about what is a "majority" view, or which "minority" views are important enough to include
* Localization issues, as someone changes the name of a city or a monarch or something to an "English" name v. it's local name v. it's "common" name
* Someone adds original research
* Someone adds information from a reliable source, but interprets it in a controversial way
* Someone violates WP:OWN, and persistently reverts good faith changes by other editors (even if they do it in a civil way)
* Someone is Tendentious, and persistently violates policies, but other editors don't want to take the time to "build a case" and file the paperwork to have them dealt with.
Does that pretty much cover everything?  Or what other broad categories can be added? --Elonka 08:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this summary, although I would change localization to naming and mention ownership of historic figures, per Copernicus. Novickas (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

text: News of another debate - plus comment Some of us are having an open debate about national and ethnic edit wars here . Everybody is invited to contribute. Most of the solutions we have come up with simply involve enforcing existing policies properly . As far as your question is concerned, I think these articles "blow up" because all too many editors in these areas are here for a fight not to add unbiased content. In other words, they bring their own dynamite. An exceptionally common example of this phenomenon is the "travelling circus" (described here ). Cracking down on those (as a clear violation of WP:POINT) might get us somewhere. --Folantin (talk) 09:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the link, I have added it to my watchlist. I  think I'll stay out of the discussion though, as I like the idea of two groups working on this independently.  It'll be interesting to see if we come up with similar solutions.  :) --Elonka 09:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

text: To me, the worst thing is any time an editor, sometime well-intentioned, sometimes not, claims they are trying to just repesent the "objective truth." Sometimes people think that doing so will resolve a dispute, when actually it often worsens it. what is the truth? usually there are two equally valid views of a specific issue. At the very least, each side has its own legitimate grievances and historical viewpoints. the best articles on such conflicts are those which consciously try to cover both sides of a conflict factually, instead of assuming that Wikipedia has to present some viewpoint which resolves the conflict intriniscally. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The worst case is when "NPOV" is hijacked to mean "represent all opinions equally" not "represent all interpretations of the same set of reputably documented events/facts equally." —PētersV (talk) 22:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't this be, basically, WP:UNDUE issue?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  23:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, because if a million people have an "opinion" or a government has a "version" then any other "opinion" is no more or less worthy, and any other position of another government is merely another "version." Reputably sourced events and facts disappear from the equation. "All governments lie, push their POV,..." ergo all is POV regardless of facts. And to be "NPOV" one must represent all "POV"s. —PētersV (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

text:  P.S. On "objective truth"... the purpose of an encyclopedic article is to bind all reputable sources into a cohesive narrative. All narrative is subjective. Any editor I have encountered who has strenuously pushed "objectivity" has just taken their POV opinion (not even editorial position), declared it to be "objective" and then used the mantle of "objectivity" to push their agenda. Editors proven to be paid shills of illegitimate regimes have pounded their chests on Wikipedia proclaiming their objectivity. —PētersV (talk) 02:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I have suggested the appropriate changes to the RS but the last time I looked at the page (about half a year ago) it was in the middle of so many conflicts, including a faction that wanted to delete the policy entirely, it was changing on a daily basis, so editing it was rather useless :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  23:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Flashpoints

message: It has been noted by several editors (I am sure others will be able to provide many links) and even Jimbo Wales himself that a serious problem is the usage of historic resources from XIX century. Particularly XIX century sources from countries that talk about those countries conquests are problematic. Imperial German, Tsarist Russia, Soviet and Nazi sources about their enemies and conquests are seen as problematic by many editors.--Molobo (talk) 22:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have suggested the appropriate changes to the RS but the last time I looked at the page (about half a year ago) it was in the middle of so many conflicts, including a faction that wanted to delete the policy entirely, it was changing on a daily basis, so editing it was rather useless :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  23:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Other important flashpoint

message: May I contribute a few observations from my experience?  One is that seems to me to be only tangentially addressed in the summary list above is contention over what precisely constitutes a “reliable source” for a particular article.  I don’t mean the situation where a source is attacked as controversial in its own right, but rather those in which a particular source is deemed by one side in a dispute as “not reliable enough.”  This can be an approach employed by POV-pushers, but in my experience is more often an honest disagreement by good-faith editors.  This is less a problem with academic, formally peer-reviewed sources than it is with what I might call sources of “middle reliability” which are known to have internal editorial standards such as newspapers, news journals, and topical magazines or other publications oriented toward the general public.
The addition or removal of information from a “controversial” source is always problematic (and they are the flip sides of the same “flashpoint”, not two separate ones).  I would hope that WP:SLR’s use of “qualified sources” would draw close study by this group.  Controversial sources can be extremely reliable sources for some purposes (such as the representation of one party’s POV and their critiques of their opponents claims/views) while being semi-reliable or unreliable for other citation purposes.  I strongly feel this innovation of identifying “qualified sources” is something that should be further and more broadly developed on Wikipedia.
Another particular flash point is the misuse of infoboxes for (unconscious or calculated) POV-pushing.  Because infoboxes lack sufficient space to include context, they have become magnets for POV-pushers.  Those editors who make good-faith changes can often be successfully encourage to make their (sourced) point within the article and in context instead; however, some extensive meat-puppetry can be encountered where the POV-pushing is an intentional abuse.  While such situations often give rise to suggestions of removing the infobox altogether, that approach goes against the efforts of the constructive editors to elevate the quality of the article to higher standards such as GA and FA, where their absence is counted against the article.
A final area that truly needs further development relates to the issue of “truth”.  The subject has long been cavalierly handled (at best) and repeated attempts to encourage explicit and clear explanation of why – and the value of – Wikipedia advocates verifiability over “truth” within WP:V get squeezed out and neutered to the point of there being no useful guidance to a new editor upset over the issue.  Currently, “verifiability, not truth” is addressed solely as a matter of “the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia”.  Not only is there no discussion of why this should be so, but it doesn’t even inform editors that the pursuit of “truth” is discouraged and rates getting the editor censured for being disruptive when they’re only trying to do their best to make Wikipedia articles the best.  (Furthermore, “WP:NOTTRUTH” is only a redirect to WP:V itself, not to an explanation of the why’s and why-not’s.)  Not having this issue clearly discussed has caused more than a few frustrated editors to leave the project.  It really is worth addressing, and not just because it offers a way to reduce the frequency of one type of disruptive conflict.
I hope these comments help to further advance this group’s efforts.  Askari Mark (Talk) 04:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Some further thoughts

message: We'd like to get some quantifiable data from places where disputes are reported.  For example, we have years of archives of ANI available.  Does there exist anywhere a summary of what kinds of things are reported at ANI?  For example, how many reports are overflows of content disputes (especially ethnic disputes), how many are urgent calls to deal with serious policy violations, how many are user conduct issues, how many are bad faith requests, how many are calls for review of admin behavior, etc.  Or if such a report doesn't exist yet, would anyone be willing to try and make one?  Again, we're not looking for specifics, we're looking for the broad patterns, at places like ANI and RfAr.  Thanks, Elonka 08:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "For example, we have years of archives of ANI available". I doubt if you'll get anybody to sift through all that lot, especially given the search facility doesn't seem to work any more. What usually happens is admins dismiss anything on ANI that doesn't concern civility as a "content dispute". In the worst cases, we have nationally biased admins stepping in to support obvious trolls . In the best, all too rare cases, we have a few dynamic admins who are prepared to take action to protect our content against edit warriors . We need more admins with low tolerance thresholds for this kind of nonsense who are prepared to enforce policies like WP:SOAPBOX, WP:POINT, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:UNDUE etc. --Folantin (talk) 09:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: (NB: The Arbitration Enforcement board might be a better place to look. Most of the stuff there is about national and ethnic edit wars. That's the place where admins with an interest in resolving these disputes tend to go. It's also far more compact if you want to get some kind of an overview). --Folantin (talk) 10:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody will shift through the ANI archives, but a good deal of the stuff that's come up at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard is nationalism-related, though by no means all. If you want to look through that, Elonka, go ahead. Certainly a lot fewer archives :) 81.99.113.232 (talk) 13:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sure sooner or later academics will shift through that data and produce interesting papers. Perhaps the group would suggest  adding related studies to meta:Wikimedia Foundation Research Goals; this is certainly a proposal I'd be pushing for if I could.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  13:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

text: There are some academic articles dealing with related issues, including conflict on Wikipedia (for example, Kittur et al. 2007, Viégas et al. 2004, Auray et al. 2007, Pfeil et al. 2006, to name just a few). I have spend considerable amount of time preparing WP:ACST to help identify useful studies. I'd be happy to offer more advice - which is one of the reason I requested a membership over a month ago.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  11:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that candidates, should already have wide acknowledgment and trust from community before even asking for membership or observer status. Otherwise any working group's efforts  and results will be compromised. M.K. (talk) 08:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Acknowledgment and trust" are subjective. There are those who would take exception to the working group's current membership. JFD (talk) 11:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with M.K. on this one, the membership of highly controversial editors involved in cultural wars and obscure process of election undermines the credibility and mission of the group. I shall elaborate on problems with that later in more detail.--Molobo (talk) 20:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Eyeballing the last two archives of WP:RS/N and the current page, it seems 50 out of 162 sections deal with religious/national conflict articles. This is an underestimation of the actual time, since those sections are also on the average considerably larger, as there is less good-faith discussion and less willingness to come to a resolution based on outside opinion. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Outside opinion" is problematic. It often only fans the flames instead of quenching them as outside usually means ignorance of major facts or issues which may seem like nuances but which are major differentiators by the time you get to a final interpretation. Any mediation/reconciliation has to be done by someone fairly, if not intimately, with events at that time and, in most cases, at least decades of prior history. I'm doing my best in one little Wikicorner in such a role, and someone who isn't intimately familiar with Baltic and Eastern European history would not even know where to start. —PētersV (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion is usually focused on the applicability of sources rather than fine points of interpretation, and there I think a less local view is usually helpful. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

text:  On "balance", there is at least one member whom I would like to see "balanced" by someone generally holding an opposite editorial viewpoint in the Baltic and Central/Eastern European realm. I concur that unless the working group has a balance of members that mirrors the balance of editors in the larger community, then the working group will have no credibility. —PētersV (talk) 21:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Data request: ANI

message: From the world of education. When I was in elementary school the student-teacher ratio was about 35:1; when my kids were, the ratio was about 22:1. There was a tremendous difference in the amount of conflict and in the speed with which conflicts were resolved. This personal observation is supported by the 1978 Safe School Study Report to the Congress: "there is a relationship between smaller class size and lower levels of violence and vandalism.". (Hope no one is offended by the analogy.) No reference for this, but you'd imagine that the less homogeneous the student body, the more oversight is needed to prevent and resolve conflicts. And no place is less homogeneous than WP. 
But since there are a host of non-ethnic conflicts here as well, you get into resource allocation issues. How to enlist more trusted community members in a more structured way? (I would argue that structure is crucial). Send invites to all admins? Currently the conflicts are addressed at a number of places, as Elonka has mentioned - naming conventions, reliable sources, conduct problems, etc. A more centralized noticeboard? Novickas (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, mediators are helpful and badly needed. But it is also a shame we have to waste resources on dispute resolution, and contributing to non-article space, instead of writing articles. Bottom line is that mediators - understanding teachers - help, but they should only be an addition to enforcing or existing rules and policies. Unruly schools and not improved with addition of few counselors who will try to speak nicely with the gang leaders, they are improved by enforcing the rules that make the kids behave - and sending the gang leaders and members to a special institution, putting an end to the disruption they were causing in the normal school.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  17:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Disputes among established editors can't be dealt with that way. So we have about 1,500 admins; how many editors who have made, say, over 100 edits? Novickas (talk) 13:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why? Experience gives one no immunity from our rules like civility, the last time I checked. Of course, you are right - that's only the theory, since experienced users can wikilawyer their way from most accusations and usually have enough friends to generate support against any community consensus against them. This is indeed something that we should address.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  14:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Precisely my thoughts, however we have quite new and good example then current candidate to workgroup not only behind the back called dedicated editors "trolls", but then was blocked for violation of WP policies, used off-wiki techniques to contact his friend in order to receive unblock, moreover threating to desysop blocking admin. Indeed, how much publicly declared words are differ from off-wiki. Having troubles to understand how such editors could help solving ethnic and cultural edit wars. M.K. (talk) 09:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediators-to-editors ratio

message: Just an update, I'm pushing through a proposal to have posted on enwiki, updates on what's happening on the WG wiki. This is in response to some comments on this page, that folks are getting curious as to our progress :) I am still awaiting final approval from the rest of the members, but I'm aiming for the status reports to be here within a week or two.
Additionally, I'd like to confirm that the various Requests to Join are still being processed, and haven't been forgotten ;) Apologies to all those that are being left to wait, but our time is somewhat spread pretty thin at the moment :-) More to come soon, folks. Cheers, Anthøny 00:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Anthony, thank  you for the effort put into keeping us up-to-date here, this is much appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  02:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can probably guess, the levels of activities on the WG wiki meant that my attempts to garner consensus for this proposals were in vain. Anthøny 15:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status reports: coming soon 

message: I wonder if workgroup wiki archives will be made open at some point, to aid researchers/curious editors/etc.? A big strength of wikis is transparency, and the fact that workgroup discussions are not transparent is slightly worrisome to me. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  02:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I do share your concerns, hence my efforts for on-Wiki updates, but I do, by-and-large, believe that the WG's private status is for the best. I won't go into the reasons why, as I don't think it would be prudent at this point, but I would imagine that, well after the thing is done and dusted, the wiki may (may) be opened to public reading. That's a long way off, however, and at the moment, is a moot point. It's an interesting one, however, and a point that I can imagine I will be addressing at a (much) later stage. Anthøny 02:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I can appreciate the current privacy, allowing the group to work without concern for on-wiki comments, but once the group is done, I don't see why the archives could not be opened - this could only serve to generate more positive commentary, and spurr future efforts to solve this problem.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  02:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said, I agree with you here, Piotrus, and I'd imagine, when things are done-and-dusted, the wiki will be opened for global read access. There's not much juicy material, though ;) Anthøny 09:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Will workgroup wiki archives be open? 

message: As a reminder, new applications to join the working group are still welcome. Relevant information on what is hoped for in candidates is available on this page. If you have previously applied, perhaps directly to the Arbitration Committee via their mailing list, and have thus far not received confirmation as to your application being received, I would encourage you to refile it.
Future applications can be emailed directly to any working group member. I have personally received a number; any re-sends of applications previously filed with the Committee, as well as any further expressions of interest, are more than welcome in my inbox. For information on emailing me via both on- and off-Wiki mediums, check out this page.
The working group has a preliminary deadline to report back in roughly one month's time, so I would imagine that many work group members are contributing with a view to "wrapping up". Having said that, perhaps now more than ever is an appropriate time for "fresh blood", particularly in an observer status; if you believe you have something to contribute to the working group, please do get in touch.
Although it is obviously not my place to reveal discussions taking place on the work group wiki, I will note that a number of candidates are undergoing discussion. If you have previously filed an application, and wish to know whether you are being considered, you are welcome to contact me or any other member/observer. Once again, any new candidates, and old candidates that have not yet received a confirmation, please (re-)send to any working group member.
Finally, a note that the "status reports" are still in the making. Hopefully, they will come soon enough to be useful. More on this soon.
Thanks, Anthøny 22:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  An update 

message: One of the work group members, inquired  about flash points and edit wars. Recently there was quite heavy flash point on Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, additionally see 
here for deeper insight. Perhaps this will be useful as case study. Cheers, M.K. (talk) 10:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The above comment itself can be seen as part of the case study. In particular, see this thread at Folantin's alternative discussion, bullet point 7.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  22:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Confused the boards? In any case, I was inquired by a work group member (and subsequent edits) about cases and promised to deliver insight. Newest incident quite interesting example. M.K. (talk) 13:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

text: "I'm amazed at some of the junk allowed to remain undeleted on talk pages". And I was even more amazed when an admin re-added junk, and even threatened to block the user who had removed it. That "Anti-Semitism in Poland" case needs to be studied. -- Matthead  Discuß   23:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible case study

message: And no report. --Folantin (talk) 13:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The final report is being compiled, Folantin, on the private wiki, and will be delivered on or after the six month mark. That should detail what we've discussed, and our recommendations for the future. Our approach seems to have yielded a focus on more general reflections on edit warring, rather than the generation of specific, remedial courses of action (as I'd been expecting). Watch this space, I suppose. Anthøny 21:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

text: You hit the nail on the head, Piotrus. I'm going to speak specifically here, as I don't feel silence is the best policy: we're down to one or two edits every couple of days (with periods of silence punctuating the activity on an increasingly regular basis). I've been out of the country to month, so I've been inactive, but I'm renewing my previous efforts to get an arbitrator to process the outstanding requests to join. Unlike previously, however, and further to my previous experience with getting an arbitrator's time, I can't promise anything firm. :( Anthøny 22:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, Anthony. For the record, after four months of waiting for any news of the status my application, and after receiving reassurances from one member of the task force that due to past personal conflicts that person will make sure I never join the task force, and after (constructively, I hope) contributing to Folantin's sideproject discussions, my desire to join the task force has mostly vaned. PS. Again, I in no way blame any members of the task force for it (well, maybe with one obvious exception :>). It is just a simple illustration of the iron law of oligarchy: even the most idealistic projects are likely to get hijacked by inefficient, self-interested oligarchies, and lack of transparency makes it only much quicker.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  23:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

text: In response to your original query, Piotrus, regarding how many and who has been active: it may be possible to release statistics on the levels of activities at the WG wiki, after we are "done and dusted" with regards to the final report. I'm not sure whether it's fair to do so, of course, as it may dump blame on folks who were inactive for a variety of reasons (additionally, certain members didn't "sign up" for the group, but were simply enrolled (granted, they did agree to join) in it)... Further input would be needed before such a proposal was approved. Anthøny 15:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Five months

message: The working group on ethnic and cultural edit warring will terminate its operations in four days' time, on 6 August, 2008. The group is currently completing the development of a "final report", which will be delivered to the Arbitration Committee (per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#Working group) shortly. I do hope that this report will be made available to the english wikipedia community at the same time, or at least shortly after the Committee has had time to "digest" and, if necessary, act upon our report. Only time will tell, of course.
I would like to personally like to thank the folks who have been visiting this page, getting involved and poking for updates: it still irks me, that we haven't managed to get a status report out to you folks in the six months we've been active... But, we didn't expect to achieve everything. I can assure you that progress has been made, although we have certainly been hampered by a low volume of participation at certain junctures of our activities. Such is the way of volunteer-driven projects, however.
Further information to come,
Anthøny 15:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While the committee provided the impetus for the creation of this group and its goals, I'm not sure I see why the final report should be provided only to them. Was that a component of its charter, so to speak, that its outcome would be confidential to the committee and released only at their discretion? Avruch  T   21:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whaaat... I missed that. The report will be confidential?? My. What. A. Total. Waste. Of. Time. I am lost for words. Confusion lifted, all's good :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  17:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  As a member of the group, I would have to say that I've heard nothing about the report having to be confidential. Our (current) plan is to announce it publicly tomorrow. --Elonka 18:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Nor have I, although the phrasing of my above comment, "delivered to the Arbitration Committee", may have been interpreted to mean 'delivered exclusively (and privately) to the Committeee'. This is not the case; I believe the current intention is to post the final version of  the report on the English Wikipedia. If anybody is interested, the draft is available at Wikipedia:Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars/Draft report. Anthøny 18:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it was this: I do hope that this report will be made available to the english wikipedia community at the same time, or at least shortly after the Committee has had time to "digest" and, if necessary, act upon our report. Only time will tell, of course. Perhaps I misinterpreted your meaning there. Avruch  T   22:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologise if it was indeed my fault (although I don't think it was here), and hope that things are now set straight. ;) Anthøny 22:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrapping up 

message: The final report is now live, at Wikipedia:Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars/2008 report. --Elonka 19:09, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Final report

message: There's a proposal here that might be of interest to you. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 19:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: left comments in support. We need a better system, and I think that at least moves us toward a better tool kit. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality enforcement: a proposal 

message: Hi, 
I'm not sure whether people are still active here, but you may be interested in this request for Arbcom to get involved relatively early in a content dispute. Comments welcome at the request page.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Use_of_.22disputed_territories.22.2C_.22occupied_territories.22_and_related_terminology_in_the_context_of_the_Arab-Israeli_dispute]] 

message: Please comment at Historic designation of the Palestine region. Chesdovi (talk) 15:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: A better place to post about this would be at WP:ECCN. --Elonka 21:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historic designation of the Palestine region 

message: Asking for a friend. :-) --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:01, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this project still alive?