Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles

message: I strongly encourage the committee to review editing patterns across a broad spectrum of articles here.  We have factionalized editing occurring, and also individually problematic editors from both factions.  I haven't been interested enough, nor willing enough to suffer the inevitable personal attacks consequent upon acting, to take a wholistic view and determine which editors Wikipedia would be better off without, if any, nor what other solutions would work.  I believe there is a pattern of "edit war, page protected, change page to war over, don't discuss the original edit war" occurring.  Some of this is a natural consequence of attending to a watchlist, some seems to reflect users who don't want to collaborate and/or create a NPOV article.  As an example of the sorts of problems that are encountered routinely consider the following sets of protections on Nov 29 and Dec 5.
:At the time I made the comments here, the named parties ended with Chesdovi
;November 29, 2007
* Israeli-Palestinian conflict protected due to edit warring involving Pedro Gonnet and Jaakobou of the named parties, as well as others.  Discussion on talk page.
* List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada and List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada protected  due to move and edit warring involving Tiamut, Eleland and Jaakobou of the named parties, as well as others.  Discussion attempted by Tiamut, without reply by other participants.  
;December 5, 2007
* Rule of the Gaza Strip by Egypt protected due to move warring involving Pedro Gonnet and Jaakobou of the named parties.  Pedro raised discussion on Jaakobou's talk page, later copied to article talk page.
* Saeb Erekat protected due to edit warring by Eleland and Jaakobou.  No discussion until Dec. 9, when both discussed it.  GRBerry 18:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by GRBerry 

message: This probably ought to go to ArbCom since there are real problems here, and no admin who values his residual sanity would get involved in trying to resolve them given the prevailing atmosphere and history. The only suggestion I have is that, if this goes to Arbitration, an uninvolved party (clerk or Arbitrator) seriously needs to ride shotgun over the Workshop and discussion pages to prevent them from turning into yet another front on the WP:BATTLEfield. MastCell Talk 18:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:MastCell|MastCell]] 

message: I also strongly urge the Arbitration Committee to examine this case. Resolving this issue, or at least issuing remedies related to it, would go a long way to defusing the minefield that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and Middle East articles in general. I have not assessed the full situation, but every time my actions intersect with these articles, I see what appears to be an attitude a lá "I'm right, everyone else is wrong; thus, my edit-warring is okay (or actually not edit-warring at all) and everyone else is a disruptive POV warrior". Not good, to say the least. -- tariqabjotu 21:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. I know I'm being pedantic here, but can we please reorder the entities in the name of this case, from "Palestine-Israel conflict" to "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", if/when it gets opened? The latter arrangement seems more customary both here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and the former sounds awkward. -- tariqabjotu 21:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: P.P.S. I don't believe  and  should be involved in this case. I'm also unsure about the involvement of , , , and . -- tariqabjotu 21:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I would like to remind everyone that this is an RfArb on just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles. Please be cautious about adding new editors; ensure that their involvement is specifically in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and not primarily in regard to disruption on other Middle Eastern articles (or elsewhere). Also, I do not believe every single person that has edited an article related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be dragged into this arbitration case. Please use some discretion. -- tariqabjotu 12:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Tariqabjotu|Tariqabjotu]] 

message: Jaakobou has undertaken mentorship with me.  This mentorship regards Wikipedia policies only, not the related content dispute.  He tells me he wishes to pursue other dispute resolution at this time.  Arbitration in general is a last resort, and I ask in good faith for the other parties to consider whether a brokered solution would be feasible.
I am neutral regarding the underlying conflict and, I hope, sufficiently respectful of both sides.  About two years ago I started a short article on a Judaism-related topic and at present I'm doing a little bit of editing that relates to uncontroversial parts of Palestinian social history. DurovaCharge! 21:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: G-Dett, please strikethrough that insinuation regaring me.  It's very bad faith and treads on the margins of a personal attack. DurovaCharge! 23:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yikes, Durova!  I'm not sure how the wires got crossed, but...that was a straight suggestion, not a sarcastic insinuation.  Sure, we've clashed briefly a couple of times, but I regard you as very even-handed on ME pages and related issues.  There was a mediation way back about whether Wikipedia should report with a straight face something that Juan Cole said about himself in wry self-deprecation, and two partisan editors were locked in what appeared to be mortal combat, and if I remember right you were stern and effective.  I was trying to think who would be a good foil to HG on my proposed 'cabal', someone who could be bad cop if necessary but had no ideological dog in the fight, and I thought of you.--G-Dett (talk) 00:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies, I misunderstood.  Please bear in mind that pretty much everyone in this dispute understands the content side in much greater depth than I do.  So while I'd gladly interact with anyone as a neutral party regarding wiki policies and practices, I'm also reticent to scale up my involvement more than it already is.  I'm posting here to affirm that Jaakobou is taking proactive steps and endeavoring to adapt to site standards. DurovaCharge! 05:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by uninvolved [[User:Durova|Durova]] 

message: I strongly support this request for arbitration. I only rarely edit Middle Eastern-related articles, for exactly the reasons that MastCell alludes to in his statement above. However, I've kept an eye on a number of editors and articles for some time, and I can confirm that there is indeed a serious and systematic problem in this topic area. I'd like to offer a few observations for the arbitrators:
* The class of affected articles is potentially very large - essentially all Middle Eastern articles, plus those on Jewish and Muslim-related topics, though I should emphasize that the number of articles being disputed at any one time is much more limited. 
* The problem has its roots in the behaviour of a relatively small number of editors whose primary interest is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Action against some of these editors (which will likely require topic or site bans) will help in part, but the topic areas are also likely to need placing under article probation (cf. Macedonia, Armenia-Azerbaijan). I suggest that parties should look to Wikipedia:General sanctions for relevant precedent in proposing remedies. A number of editors have been involved in straightforward violations of editing and conduct policies - for instance, episodes such as Jaakobou's recent edit warring to re-insert properly removed BLP violations, abuse of editing tools and other willful policy violations that led to this arbitration request in the first place. Such misconduct is relatively easy to identify and should result in those responsible being sanctioned.
* The harder question is what to do about the underlying problem in this topic area - the existence of blocs of partisan editors who use Wikipedia as a battlefield to campaign for their causes. The problem with Middle Eastern articles isn't only a matter of misconduct by individual editors; it has its roots in mutual hostilities that exist off-wiki and have been transported here en masse. The result is a poisonous atmosphere characterised by antagonism, aggressive behaviour and mutual distrust. There needs to be a change in editing culture on these articles, not just conduct. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:ChrisO|ChrisO]] 

message: While happily I'm not named above! - and this is NOT my primary area of editing interest (except last couple days!) - I have observed the problems on some of the pages mentioned above, as well as on Carlos Latuff (where there is an absurd on going editing war I don't much get involved in); on Samson Option (where any attempt to mention the controversial things said about the Samson Option by Israel leaders and supporters was repeatedly deleted, no matter how well sourced, even when placed in a "controversies" section); and on Jewish Lobby (refusal to allow there to be ANY mention of NON-antisemitic use of the phrase Jewish Lobby, even though many prominent uses of the phrase are by Jews and/or mainstream publications and/or are NOT antisemitic).
Having just started intensely editing in last 6-8 months, I confess I have sometimes lost my temper and ranted and even made a couple personal attacks, but I'm learning how to use to the process instead! :-) Yes, it has taken me longer than it should to really read and re-read and understand the Wiki Pillars, but the more I understand them, the more outraged I become at the behavior of these editors.  See my most recent complaining entry attempting to get NPOV version of page.  At the end of it I list multiple violations of WP:NPOV from the tutorial.
Besides whatever steps Arbitrators might take, I really think wikipedia needs a neutral AND courageous Ombudsman just for the Israel-Palestine and related issues to keep people in line with the wikipedia process.
An additional idea: I noticed that Wikipedia:Naming_convention has manuals of styles for several nations. Maybe there should be a "Israel-Palestine" manual of style, or maybe one on Arab/Muslim/Jewish issues, to set up some guidelines -though there'd be a massive debate on creating that!
Also, I agree that User_talk:Jayjg should be added to the list of problematic editors on this topic.
Carol Moore 02:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Uninvolved [[User:Carolmooredc|CarolMooreDC]]

message: I am relieved to see that this issue is being addressed. I was happily contributing in many areas of Wiki until I tried to edit a picture caption at Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and came across a stubbornly persistent Jaakabou. I am currently working to add recently-released casualty figures to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict article, and again I see what seems a coordinated effort by some editors to control content, with open talk about "sides," referring not to the subjects of the article, but to the editors themselves. This is a serious threat to Wiki. I would suggest interested parties also consider looking at some of the activity in our little edit war, I know Timeshifter for one has already studied the problem and made an interesting exposition on his user page. Good luck! RomaC (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:RomaC|RomaC]]

message: Sigh of relief, I am happy, ecstatic, naively optimistic and very much appreciate the decision to accept.  You will need the wisdom of Solomon and I wish you luck. It is long overdue; much longer that I have been around Wikipedia or on the Internet (Sept07).  That said, I have already been labled as being on one of the ‘sides’, but only on the talkpages, not on edits (largely because I’m still learning to Be Bold.  My POV is Pro-MidEast Peace, although a good friend of mine termed it the ultimate oxymoron, and even I consider that it is pushing the limits of the Serenity Prayer.  I look at the I-P conflict situation from a civil/human rights perspective and, therefore my bias tends to be pro-Palestinian, but my support for Israel is based on, well, Biblical proportions.  The admins will decide what they decide and I hope to be helpful along the way, but that is well over my head.  Most of the heavily involved users with whom I am familiar are included above, although I could name a few more, if asked.  
As pointed out in other’s statements above, I too feel that a broad range of topics with content disputes should be included and an ombudsman might be helpfull.  I also believe for Wikipedia to gain more credibility, the systematic bias with respect to this subject must be addressed.  More critically for Wikipedia viability is to address the issues noted here and to that I’ll add CAMERA and it’s multitude of talk-alikes, Hasbara and, for those computer literate types Megaphone.  The import of these on NPOV should not be discounted.  CasualObserver'48 (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:CasualObserver'48|CasualObserver'48]]

message: I would also strongly urge the arbitration committee to look at this case. As possibly the largest single contributor to articles on Israeli politics, I have come across almost all the editors listed in this case (hence listing myself as uninvited rather than uninvolved), and I am thoroughly sick of the endless disputes which a number of them create and prolong. Unfortunately for the project, whenever an edit by at least five of the editors listed above comes up on any of the 500+ articles on my watchlist, I know that in the vast majority of cases (for two of the editors the figure is 100%) that edit will not conform to WP:NPOV.
Unfortunately my past attempts to diffuse situations and correct POV have led to me being labelled as a POV pusher by both sides, but particularly by the pro-Israelis (possibly because I tend to stick to articles on domestic Israeli topics rather than Israeli-Palestinian ones, and pro-Palestinian editors are not common in that sphere). This has meant that despite being well-placed to do so, I am now effectively hamstrung from carrying out administrative actions against the numerous violations of policy carried out by many of the editors listed above. I hope that a thorough investigation may allow me more room to take prompt action against both sides in the future.
In addition, I would also support adding User:GHcool and User:Beit Or to this case, as they are both involved in reverting on some of the articles listed above. пﮟოьεԻ 57 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by uninvited [[User:Number 57|Number 57]]

message: I have to agree with Sm8900's "General Comment."  There may be something for the ArbComm to accept in Ryan's initial "example", in which he specifies what a few specific editors did in a few specific articles.  After that, Ryan identifies a few other articles, but with no specifics about what events concerning those articles might require arbitration.  And in the comments of some subsequent editors, this potential arbitration case has taken on a life of its own.  It would not be a particularly happy life, either for the parties, potential parties, the arbitrators or anyone else.  If the committee accepts this case without specifically limiting what the case is about, the case is potentially going to be about every dispute that has occurred among dozens of editors on dozens of articles.  I wouldn't be surprised if 150 or more editors are "named" before this is all over.  And how far back does this go?  All Israel- or Palestinian-related articles (and antisemitism-related articles?  and other religion-related articles?) for the past six months?  A year?  Three years?  Five years?  And what kind of disputes are we talking about?  I have already seen mentions of articles that would involve the ArbComm in content disputes, but I know that the ArbComm does not accept those.  I hope that the arbitrators, if they accept this case, will tell the rest of us what it is about.  Otherwise, this is going to become one big, ugly, nasty, confused and contentious scene, and it isn't going to produce anything good for anyone.  6SJ7 (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:6SJ7|6SJ7]]

message: General comment. Now that the case has been accepted I urge the arbitrators to look for a broad solution to this. AN/I threads like this will keep appearing if ArbCom does not come up with some sort of centralized solution to these disputes. The number of articles and the number of participants in these disputes would otherwise make it very difficult for the arbitrators and those enforcing the remedies to keep this from reappearing here. EconomicsGuy (talk) 11:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by uninvolved [[User:EconomicsGuy|EconomicsGuy]]

message: I added Jayjg to the case because of this thread  on WP:ANI.  I believe that more evidence of problematic behavior by Jayjg can probably be presented on the evidence page once the case formally opens.  If Jayjg is still on the ArbCom mailing list, I formally request that he be removed, at least until this case closes. Cla68 (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In response to requests for evidence of involvement by Jayjg in specific Palestine-Israel articles, here's a recent RfC that he participated in:  . Cla68 (talk) 01:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by univolved [[User:Cla68|Cla68]]

message: I don't understand why Cla68 added Jayjg to the case above. The thread he quotes above regards Jayjg's comment to Wayne, which Wayne regarded as a personal attack. (I don't see why that was ever on AN/I, actually, since it didn't involve Jayjg's admin abilities and was not requesting admin abilities be used to resolve it -- it just looks like a general complaint filed in an inappropriate place.) Jayjg's comment to Wayne doesn't involve the issues of "ownership", etc., in the description of this case. I don't think it's appropriate for him to be included as a party. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also note that the comment in question was on the Khazars talk page, unrelated to this RfAr, and Wayne and Jayjg to not appear to have ever had a content dispute related to Israel/Palestine articles. Can anyone just add anyone's name to these things, based on unrelated allegations? – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: In response to Chris O's statement, that e-mail also did not have anything to do with the articles in question, on Israel/Palestine relations -- it was about Messianic Judaism, which has exactly nothing to do with the case. This really appears to be a situation where some people think "If it has to do with Judaism and it's controversial, then Jayjg must be involved!", and all kinds of old and unrelated grudges are coming to the surface. This isn't an RfAr on improper posts to Wiki-l, nor is it an RfAr on alleged personal attacks on the Khazars talk page. It's about ownership issues in "Palestine-Israel articles", and I still can't see why Jayjg's name was drug into this. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm going to remove Jayjg's name. Several people have indicated that they want his name on it, but no one has given any reason why his name should be listed among those who have recently had ownership issues with Israel/Palestine articles. I invite anyone to provide evidence of involvement in this if I've overlooked anything. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: And regarding Nishidani's evidence below, you do realize that was 6 months ago, right? Is that the most recent evidence of Jayjg's questionable activities regarding this RfAr? – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Jayjg withdrew for several months just after the incident I mentioned, and therefore the point you make is irrelevant, since he  is now back on board. I have quite a number of examples I could adduce for the preceding period to underline a pattern of irresponsibly partisan abuse from someone who had formerly been elected to an administrative role requiring, certainly in this area, rigorous and austere neutrality. Had he not been an administrator I wouldn't have worried or raised the issue, since the behaviour I objected to is par for the course among the lower denizens of Wikidom Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by uninvolved [[User:Quadell]]

message: I have withdrawn from editing, tired of the futility of trying to get attested and verifiable book sources in, and internet propaganda sources out in many articles.  But, since I note User:Jaakobou has named me as a contentious editor, I should like at least to jot down this one point. In my experience, User:Jayjg, whose inclusion here many editors wonder about, certainly has edited frequently in an incomprehensible, and, in my view censorious fashion, riding shotgun to keep disagreeable information off many pages because he deems it personally unwelcome. As just one example of his  ignoring Wiki editing norms concerning sources in order to wikilawyer an item of information or a respectable author I could cite for example the following edit exchange with myself, .
The reason given was ‘remove claim attributed to an unknown and possibly non-existent rabbi'’
The quote came from an eminent authority on the region, Professor Ian Lustick. Lustick’s source was in turn the New York Times. Thus it was doubly grounded in reliable sources. Jayjg has enough experience to know that information must be grounded in verifiable and reliable sources, yet he challenged the use of this information because he doubted its truth (which is not at issue). In the subsequent exchange on the talk page 
, (Talk:Baruch Goldstein. See the present talk sect.5 'fingernail speech'), he endeavoured apparently to get me to engage in a violation of WP:OR, by trying to lure me to verify the truth of Lustik's remark.
That said, I do not think the issue is primarily  one of putting up individual editors to intense scrutiny, to weed out malefactors. Given the structural problem, even the best can find themselves dragged into violations of rules, out of sheer exasperation with patent abuses of the rules by editors cunning enough to avoid, themselves, a technical breach. And in any case, a person by person examination of the record would lead to a Kafkian or Borgesian archive of unmanageable intricacy. The articles in this area perfectly fit the cruxes (cruces) outlined in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The contentiousness in good part arises from the anomalousness of articles dealing predominantly with Palestinians (almost invariably entwined with Israel as occupying power). The history of the Palestinians is being written with hardly any Palestinians on board (User:Tiamut is a notable exception), by (a) complete outsiders (Westerners) who, for a variety of distinct motives, take on the task of representing a 'Palestinian perspective' as that is available in books and reliable sources, and (2) by Jewish/Israeli editors who are either present in the area or deeply committed to the country. Both are potentially defective sources, in that the Westerners who stand in as locum tenentes for the missing Palestinian voices, often have no intimate personal grounding in the area, and lack as often or not familiarity with the appropriate languages(User:RolandR provides an exception), and the Jewish/Israeli editors, some living in the West Bank, can often confuse their task with a national mission to define the people their nation has effectively colonized (after 1967), and over which Israel exercises a preponderance of legal, military, economic and, in a discursive sense, cultural power. User:Chesdovi 's home page is all for national liberation movements everywhere, for example, but in the relevant window on Palestinians, they alone effectively do not exist, since he locates their homeland in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.   
There is, in addition, a general Western cognitive bias against Palestinians and Arabs, one that has deep historical roots, and which is complicated by the intense politics concerning terrorism, identified in the public mind with Islam, over the past decades. A lesser one, often suspected as motivating some 'pro-Palestinian' editors, is anti-semitism. Personally I have not encountered editors whose work lends itself to this suspicion, but then again, I have relatively little experience. I judge this to be a concern among 'adversaries' because more than twice my work here has be hinted as implying such a bias, and the innuendo is often encountered. 
Several practical measures can be taken, with, I suggest a series of experiments. Here are two suggestions of many that come to mind. (a) Competitive page writing in which editors from both 'sides' (not always a valid marker, since many of us get on well with posters on the other 'side') take on an article, and compete to produce a GA/FA standard according to strict Wiki rules, while the original page is locked. The natural consequence will be to eliminate edit-wars between opposed groups, since say one page on Palestine will be done exclusively by Jewish/Israeli editors, the other page by 'pro-Palestinian' editors, in which the conflicts will be respectively inframural. The psychological logic of such testing would be, I should think, one that presses each group to modify internally its own natural biases, reduce ideological antagonism, and strive harder towards both neutrality and excellence in order to impress neutral arbitrators called in, at the end of the experiment, to cast a vote as to which article best fits Wiki's quality standards. (b) have a rule obliging patent and consistent violators or edit-warriors to justify their continued presence on the encyclopedia by creating, within a month or two, an article dealing exclusively and neutrally, with some event, figure or episode in the history or culture of either Israel (in the case of a 'pro-Palestinian' editor) or Palestine (in the case of a 'pro-Israeli' editor'.
Excuse my longueur. Nishidani (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:Nishidani]]

message: I generally have tried to stay away from Wikipedia articles about Palestine and Israel — despite my life-long personal interest in the subject — because of the venomous atmosphere that surrounds them. Like several others, I strongly recommend the addition of Jayjg to the involved parties: As a member of the Wikipedia community who has been entrusted with considerable authority, Jayjg should be setting a positive example; instead, he usually pours gasoline on the fire. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:Malik Shabazz|Malik Shabazz]]

message: There's been some minor trouble over at Jewish Lobby from some of the same parties named in this arbitration, but it hasn't yet risen to the level of needing ArbCom attention.  There have been some sizable deletions by , but they're usually follow-ups of similar actions by . 
It's worth noting that during 's first arbitration of 2007 (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid) when he left Wikipedia without explanation for some months, these issues seemed to quiet down.  ArbCom noted this in closing that arbitration.
Incidentally, if  is still on the ArbCom internal mailing list, ArbCom might want to consider removing him during this arbitration.  --John Nagle (talk) 01:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:Nagle|Nagle]]

message: Unless the arbs revert themselves, do not add this user to the case.  — Rlevse • Talk •  02:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Any future reverts of a sitting arb will result in a one month block, .  — Rlevse • Talk •  11:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently some think my stmt above was directed at John Nagle, but it wasn't. It was prompted by 128.122.253.196 reverting Morven, here and future such attempts to reinsert Jayjg as a party.  — Rlevse • Talk •  21:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Jayjg]]

message: I've been watching these discussions from afar, as I'm way too busy with RL to contribute to Wikipedia on a solid base. Elonka has been reasonable and helpful in moving the page forward, though it would be even more helpful if people stopped making sarcastic and pejorative comments on the talk page, directly and indirectly calling each other's position into ideological questioning. I haven't been following up on the page with enough persistence to make any further comment but I felt a vote of confidence in Elonka's efforts was due. Eternalsleeper (talk) 22:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Eternalsleeper|Eternalsleeper]] 

message: Personally I think that ChrisO is wasting his time here, but this appeal might  actually benefit from an ArbCom review, as a few editors have been sharply critical of the conditions for editing that I placed on this article. So I  wouldn't mind hearing from ArbCom as to whether or not I have been working in  accordance with the Discretionary Sanctions that they envisioned in January. To describe the situation in a nutshell: ChrisO, an admin who was participating as an involved editor, was edit-warring at the Muhammad al-Durrah article, which is within the scope of the Palestine-Israel articles ArbCom discretionary sanctions, and had been in a state of dispute for quite awhile.  I, as an uninvolved admin (and member of the ArbCom-appointed Working Group on ethnic and cultural edit wars), decided to take a look at the situation, and chose to place a civility and 0RR (no revert) restriction on the article.  Most editors complied, but ChrisO kept reverting.  Since he's an admin, I tried to give him lots of leeway, but it's obvious that he felt that the restrictions were for other people, and not for him, and he kept on with warring and incivility, such as referring to loony conspiracy theories.  So I gave him a steadily increasing set of cautions.   After his second revert, I told him clearly that if he did one more, he risked being put on tighter restrictions.  The next day, he reverted again, with a misleading edit summary of "blatant POV pushing" (his edit summary didn't describe it as a revert, but it was clear that he had cleanly wiped out 8 intervening edits, back to his own last version.) I then put him on (what I felt was) a mild ban of avoiding the talkpage for one week, and avoiding edits to the article for one month. He immediately started wikilawyering with multiple messages to my talkpage about why he was allowed to revert, and then he came up with this after-the-fact "BLP" angle, saying that it excuses his total revert.  I disagree.  The case is pretty simple as far as I'm concerned, and has nothing to do with BLP.  ChrisO was edit-warring, he was told to stop, he didn't, I put a brief page ban on him. 
I would also like to point out that when I first learned of the situation, the article was already protected, the talkpage was in the middle of a severe dispute, and ChrisO was begging for an uninvolved administrator to help out.  When I offered my assistance, he said it would be appreciated. I am proud to say that since I placed my conditions on the article on June 10, the article has become much more stable, with some very constructive conversations going on at the talkpage.  And all of this was accomplished with no blocks and no page protection.  Instead, three editors (two new editors, and ChrisO) were placed on temporary bans (see our admin log), and everyone else is back to work.  I acted in the best interest of the project, and got rapid control of a situation that was in near chaos, with only very minor course corrections on my part.  I wish that ChrisO could recognize that my system works. That he is continuing to escalate and is now trying to spin this as a BLP issue, is disappointing.  There were many ways that he could have edited the article to remove anything that he found problematic, by changing the text rather than just reverting. It is also disappointing that he's going to the trouble of filing what will probably be a lengthy appeal, which will probably take weeks to resolve.  I had pointed out to him that an easier route would be to simply avoid the talkpage for the rest of the week (until June 22), and then if he resumed participation in a civil and constructive manner, that I would consider lifting the article editing ban early, rather than requiring that he sit out the full 30 days.  I've already done this with one of the other editors, , who had been banned for 90 days. We instructed him to work on other articles for awhile, and he did, so we lifted his talkpage ban to allow him to resume discussions. But evidently ChrisO would rather stir things up here at ArbCom for a few weeks, rather than just waiting until the weekend to participate at talk, so here we are. --Elonka 23:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:Elonka|Elonka]]

message: Just a brief comment here. Elonka's system is interesting, and is in fact similar to what I have advocated elsewhere. I'm glad to see that some of these (rather obvious) ideas are at least being put into practice. I am concerned though that sometimes it can end up looking like some individuals (in this case Elonka) are the gatekeepers for the article. To avoid this, I suggest a system of rotation, whereby the uninvolved admins move on to different areas and different articles every few months. This will ensure things do not go stale, that grudges do not fester and build up, and that the admins involved get a fresh look on different articles rather than deal with the same things over and over again (ie. avoid burn out). This would also address the perennial question of whether admins are truly uninvolved and committed. If the admins in question are uninvolved, then they will not mind moving on a different article every few months. Possibly all this has been suggested elsewhere. If not, please do pass it on to whatever board is considering these things this month. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 23:39, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Carcharoth|Carcharoth]] 

message: Like everyone else, I have to say that Elonka has done a wonderful job on the talk page.  This was definitely a mop and bucket job.  I can see how the editing conditions may seem a little draconian but the alternatives are worse.
When I first read Chris' statement I thought it did raise an interesting policy question: can editing restrictions override our policy restrictions.  But, having looked everything over once again, I'm not sure that there is an actual policy difference here.  Elonka's conditions seem to have exclusions that go far beyond just BLP: "If something is added that is unsourced, that is obviously troublesome (such as very biased or potentially untrue), it can be deleted on the spot."  Chris’ initial arguments seem to be that his edit was within the limits of Elonka’s restrictions.  I think this is just a simple disagreement over the nature of Chris' particular edit. 
Chris does acknowledge that he did not adequately construct his summary.  If he did alter content beyond what was necessary to satisfy BLP concerns, it is easy to see why Elonka would have felt this was a reversion in violation of the editing conditions.  
I am sympathetic to Chris’ feelings.  I think that his general concern was having the article within policy.  But I think that an admin in Elonka’s position would have had to have given Chris the benefit of the doubt to think that his edit was not a reversion.  And at that point nobody on the talk page deserved such a benefit.  --JGGardiner (talk) 12:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:JGGardiner |JGGardiner ]] 

message: I fully endorse Elonka's actions - as someone who tried to make a foray into this article as an uninvolved party, I can testify that a firm hand is needed in handling this article. ChrisO's behavior has been problematic at times, as Elonka states (particularly his continual use of derogatory terms like "conspiracy theories" to describe other viewpoints; I believe this provokes other editors into inappropriate actions). This is not to say that the editing of his "opponents" has not also been problematic. But, as an experienced user, ChrisO should know better. Frankly, I'm impressed with how Elonka has handled the situation, and feel this approach should be used with other contentious articles. No ArbCom action needed here. Kelly hi! 14:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Kelly|Kelly]] 

message: This seems to be about the imposition of a fairly routine discretionary sanction as provided for by the remedies in the case in question. If someone thinks an administrator erred in imposing such a sanction, their first avenue of redress is surely to seek input from other administrators, say by raising the matter at WP:AN/I and establishing a consensus that the application of the sanction should be reversed. I don't think the Arbitration Committee's input is needed unless the community is unable to resolve the matter, or clarification of the remedy is needed. Neither appears to be the case here. The Committee will waste a lot of time if they're to agree to provide "first instance" review of every discretionary sanction imposed by an administrator. I think other avenues of redress should be explored first. WjBscribe 15:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:WJBscribe|WJBscribe]] 

message: I think the problematic part is the fact that some people would read the original wording as only sanctioning AFTER warning, and not to start with blanket 0RR. - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 16:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Penwhale|Penwhale]] 

message: As a new user I started my account 28th May and the first article I edited was Muhammad al-Durrah.  On June 2, the first external contribution to my talk page was the notification posted by ChrisO   without comment or discussion, and logged here: .  Until "tidied up" by  Moreschi  later, the edit read: "notified of the case in relation to single-purpose account editing and promotion of personal views and original research" 
Since then I've had a quick lesson in navigating, editing, rules and general "culture" of WP.  I believed  my half-dozen edits on the article were fair and neutral.
With the recent court decision, the release of the raw footage, and the latest articles, the equation has changed such that to continue to insist that that the opposing viewpoint is "fringe" or "conspiracy theory" becomes not only insulting, but rather a barrier to productive editing.  Thus I tried to use neutral terms such as "was reported."   This edit, however, became proof of being a 9/11-style thruthers , a sentiment endorsed by Moreschi, at the FTN with this highly POV edit .  The following day Moreschi goes to the Admin Noticeboard asking for an uninvolved admin to ban me and Julia1987. 
Later (ChrisO (talk) 23:44, 5 June 2008)labels other editors: Canadian Monkey, Gilabrand, & Leifern  "... to put it bluntly the SPAs and conspiracy theory advocates are not listening and are attempting to edit-war their view into the article. There is some very blatant soapboxing..."
Elonka stepped in and volunteered to mediate.  She was accepted by all including ChrisO.  As part of her ongoing mediation, she lifted protection on the article in exchange for some simple edit restrictions.
On June 10th I made the first single-word edit on the newly unprotected article -- "reported" -- and was surprised by a 90 day edit-ban on both article and talk page by previously uninvolved admin MZMcBride
Elonka asks for reconsideration:  and suggesting the ban is excessive, explains her rationale: 
I didn't challenge my ban until discovering ChrisO had received a much lighter restriction despite numerous warnings.  Indeed, one might suppose he could have been expected, as an administrator and experienced editor, to have required fewer warnings, to have been held to a higher standard than I.
MZMcBride said of my ban of three months: "There truly isn't any need for this level of discussion for something so minor." 
If three months is acceptable for one party in a mediated dispute, how is a week and one month from the article so egregious? I believe that ChrisO abused his administrative powers to shoe-horn his POV into this article, and is now trying to break an agreed-upon mediation. He should accept the mediator's decision(s) in good spirit, and abide by them.  To me the terms seem generous, and I think he could use his time to consider his own behavior in regard to this article, rather than trying to find fault in the behavior of others. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Concerning the issue of what ChrisO refers to as "ongoing litigation" in his statement.  There is currently no ongoing litigation.  Until and unless France 2 takes this to the Supreme Court, the issue has been decided.  On the point of BLP, the latest court decision says of the main figure in this controversy (Charles Enderlin) that in his position "he inevitably and knowingly exposes himself to more careful scrutiny," and that he "admitted that the film, ... perhaps did not correspond to his commentary"  "and the statements procured by the cameraman ... cannot be found truly credible neither in their presentation nor in their substance..." and in regard to the wounds of the father: "the lack of probative value of the photographs of Jamal AL DURA’s wounds." Thus the court has made their statement and to reiterate the substance of the investigations that the court decision used to determine its verdict would not seem to me to be in violation of WP:BLP. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Tundrabuggy|Tundrabuggy]] 

message: Prior to the ban ChrisO violated 3RR but escaped a block for technical reasons (report filed too late). He intimidated other editors using his admin "rank". His contribution page (prior to the ban) almost all his 500 edits are in one article.  (or this request for arbitration plus related talk page - arguing about the ban)  --Julia1987 (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Julia1987|Julia1987]]  

message: I do not know the background, but let's assume for the sake for the argument that the editing sanctions were rightfully applied. If a removal is done per BLP, and it is recognized as such by the mediator and others, then it is a granted exception to the editorial ban. This has to be a very cut-and-dry case, though, where it is unambiguously in compliance with the ArbCom statement which goes along the lines of "BLP must be enforced at all costs". Otherwise, it is a breach of the ban and should be reverted.
I have no problem with banned ones requesting others to make edits, BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT the proxy editor must acknowledge that they have passed the request through their own judgment and they are willing to be responsible for their edits. That way, it is like proxy editing, but with the benefit of a human filter to prevent bad stuff from going through.
If the editing ban was wrongfully placed, then that's for the ArbCom to deal with.
MessedRocker (talk) 02:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User talk:Messedrocker|Messedrocker]]

message: I half expected to see this request when I commented on the issue a little bit ago. I'm not sure on the specifics, but I will say that a blanket no-revert rule on an article, applied to all editors, isn't wise. Sometimes someone will make an edit with no redeeming qualities at all, negatively effecting the article, but without it being vandalism (or a BLP issue). My suggestion to Elonka was to make this restriction more.. restricted. Apply it to certain editors, certain texts, or something that wouldn't debilitate one of our most basic cleanup functions.
This may or may not be an issue yet, and this may or may not apply to ChrisO, but that's my two cents. -- Ned Scott 08:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by [[User:Ned Scott|Ned Scott]]

message: User talk:MeteorMaker has been banned from 'removing citations to reliable sources' in the Israel/Palestine topic area - and he subsequently violated that ban with this edit. NoCal100 (talk) 00:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ban violation 

message: because almost no one calls it "Palestine-Israel," except the most leftist groups, even most of them call it "Israel-Palestine," tho "Israel-Palestinian" is optimal.Tallicfan20 (talk) 07:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  should be called "Israel-Palestine" not "Palestine-Israel" 

message: There' a discussion regarding ArbCom Enforcement in regard to the Israel-Palestine articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Arbitration Enforcement/Israel-Palestine articles. The discussion is considering a number of options concerning how to deal with the apparent deterioration of editing of this topic. PhilKnight (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion of ArbCom Enforcement in regard to the Israel-Palestine articles 

message: Initiated by  Cptnono (talk) at 08:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I have 3 cents and it says that AE is superior since it is focused on topic areas of heightened conflicts and should receive faster and stronger results :) I can see problems with both since the edit warring noticeboard is more likely to be ignored but AE is more drama. Edit warring board might also have admins fresh to the topic area (which could be a good thing) but they are less informed on problem editors (although AE has not taken care of problem editors). I don't think it matters too much but it needs to be efficient so whatever makes most sense for the guys looking at the issue is a good thing.Cptnono (talk) 08:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I don't have a problem if other editors want to go to AE first, but I think we should be free to go to either (though not both for the same incident, which would be forum shopping). AE is about as focused as a wrecking ball operated by a drunk... it may swing this way today and knock everyone out, or it might miss the building entirely. Keeps life exciting, at least. :) ← George talk 08:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not using a wrecking ball today!Cptnono (talk) 08:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Thanks, TC. That is one admin. We don't need a dozen or anything but if we have a few say how they prefer it then others can take it from there. It isn't like we need a set rule or anything but being able to say a simple "hey it would be best if you went that direction" might be nice.10:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification: [[Wikipedia:ARBPIA|Palestine-Israel articles]] 

message: I think that edit warring noticeboard is more adept at handling simpler, first-time infractions of the 1RR sanction, while more problematic, long term, serial sanction violators should be referred to AE. Just my two cents. ← George talk 08:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I have 3 cents and it says that AE is superior since it is focused on topic areas of heightened conflicts and should receive faster and stronger results :) I can see problems with both since the edit warring noticeboard is more likely to be ignored but AE is more drama. Edit warring board might also have admins fresh to the topic area (which could be a good thing) but they are less informed on problem editors (although AE has not taken care of problem editors). I don't think it matters too much but it needs to be efficient so whatever makes most sense for the guys looking at the issue is a good thing.Cptnono (talk) 08:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I don't have a problem if other editors want to go to AE first, but I think we should be free to go to either (though not both for the same incident, which would be forum shopping). AE is about as focused as a wrecking ball operated by a drunk... it may swing this way today and knock everyone out, or it might miss the building entirely. Keeps life exciting, at least. :) ← George talk 08:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not using a wrecking ball today!Cptnono (talk) 08:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by George 

message: Requests to enforce the 1RR itself can be taken to AN3. If you ask for action to be taken under the discretionary sanctions provision (i.e., beyond a simple 1RR block), take it to AE. T. Canens (talk) 08:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, TC. That is one admin. We don't need a dozen or anything but if we have a few say how they prefer it then others can take it from there. It isn't like we need a set rule or anything but being able to say a simple "hey it would be best if you went that direction" might be nice.10:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Timotheus Canens 

message: *If you take a look at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive142 you will see some cases of Arbcom sanctions being handled at AN3, in a workmanlike fashion. Violations of 1RR are well within the abilities of AN3. Here are three examples:
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive142#User:Sulmues reported by User:Athenean (Result: 2 weeks/1RR 6 months)
16 October, 2010
User was cited for long-term edit warring on articles subject to WP:ARBMAC2. Blocked two weeks, put under 1RR per the discretionary sanctions.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive142#User:Hammer of Habsburg reported by User:Taivo (Result:48 hours )
User:Hammer of Habsburg reported by User:Taivo (Result:48 hours )
19 October 2010
Violation of a 1RR restriction imposed under WP:ARBMAC 
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive142#User:Prunesqualer reported by User:Jiujitsuguy (Result: No violation)
20 October 2010
Claimed violation of a 1RR restriction imposed under WP:ARBPIA. The admin did not judge that it was a violation of 1RR; closed as No Violation.
(Eventuallly he got blocked anyway for 24 hours, not sure where it was discussed).
-- EdJohnston (talk) 06:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by EdJohnston 

message: * I think the views above are reasonable; I have no objection to simple xRR enforcement being handled at AN/3RR if the enforcing administrators find that to be a more suitable venue. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: I feel that the decision made will benefit Wikpedians evertywhere.
GrammarSpellingWatch (talk) 20:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  My opinion on the decision 

message: This was added to the 2010 section: --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong secton 

message: Initiated by  Cptnono (talk) at 19:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that this request for clarification is on if the talk page comment is under the scope of the topic ban. If Prunesqualer wants to open a case against me they will have to get unbanned and make it at AE. Also note that those quotes were already handled at AE so they are now stale. If Prunesqualer wants to get unbanned the appropriate venue is not here but through the normal appeals process.Cptnono (talk) 23:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not asking for "action". I am asking for clarification. Can Prunesqualer contribute to a discussion that is about the conflict area or not?Cptnono (talk) 01:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

text: BTW, the reason I ask is because the policy WP:BAN is clear that the edit can be reverted. I also want to make sure that Prunesqualer does not continue to chime in on such discussion until an appeal is accepted. It is not much to ask and it is backed by policy. Unfortunately, both editors have refused to follow policy and allow the edit to be removed (I actually struck it out instead of reverting to be a little more open)Cptnono (talk) 02:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

text: Shucks another of my fiendish schemes, to undermine Wikipedia, and to subvert truth, has been thwarted. It's fortunate, for you pesky good guys, that the Guardians of integrity (Wiki admin) are so clear sighted and unbiased. I will now retire to my up-lit livid green laboratory, and munch on some babies, whilst Cptnono shines a beacon of truth for the free world. Prunesqualer (talk) 21:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification: [[User:Prunesqualer]]'s topic ban 

message: Prunesqualer is indeffed from the topic area.  Another user and I have a disagreement at Racism in Israel. I "warned" him (he had been warned about his conduct before) on his talk page. In hindsite, I should have been nicer and made it sound less scary. But the point of this request for clarification is that Prunesqualler decided to chime in. Is he allowed to comment in a discussion about the I-P/I-A topic area?
Also, I would be worried about the potential hounding of him following my "career with interest" but he is not prohibited from checking me out. I believe he he is prohibited from joining in discussion, though. If an admin would clarify that an indef does not need to be forever it would be helpful too. If Prunesqualer would stop going out of his way to make attacks and proved his editing could be a benefit to the project then he could request to come back.
On a side note,  Guinsberg and I have not gotten off on the right foot. I am tempted to request counseling in a separate request but would like to stop rocking the boat now. It would be appreciated if an admin could formally notify him of the arbitration case and give him advise in a friendlier fashion than I am capable of. Edits of concern include this pointy bombardment of the article with fact templates when there are sources provided for some of the lines.Cptnono (talk) 19:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that this request for clarification is on if the talk page comment is under the scope of the topic ban. If Prunesqualer wants to open a case against me they will have to get unbanned and make it at AE. Also note that those quotes were already handled at AE so they are now stale. If Prunesqualer wants to get unbanned the appropriate venue is not here but through the normal appeals process.Cptnono (talk) 23:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not asking for "action". I am asking for clarification. Can Prunesqualer contribute to a discussion that is about the conflict area or not?Cptnono (talk) 01:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

text: BTW, the reason I ask is because the policy WP:BAN is clear that the edit can be reverted. I also want to make sure that Prunesqualer does not continue to chime in on such discussion until an appeal is accepted. It is not much to ask and it is backed by policy. Unfortunately, both editors have refused to follow policy and allow the edit to be removed (I actually struck it out instead of reverting to be a little more open)Cptnono (talk) 02:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Cptnono 

message: I realise that the following is almost certainly not being presented in the correct form, or forum. However I can only hope that interested parties will sympathise with the following: I am doing little harm here, and that: one should not have to be a Wiki-Lawyer in order to contribute to Wiki.
I believe my contributions, before my indefinite topic ban, were "a benefit to the project".
Re. my ban (to which Cptnono has linked/referred) I can now see that I committed naive breaches of Wiki editing rules. In the case of my first ban I didn’t even know what 3RR meant (I realise ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defence, I'm just pointing out where I stood as an inexperienced editor). I noted during my resulting 21 October 2010, 24 hour, editing "block" that Wiki software made it impossible to edit. I made the following wrong assumption: that when I was allowed by the software to edit the Gaza war article before my longer ban on that page had run it's time I must have been forgiven or had slipped through the net (accepting the second possibility was not a noble thing to consider acting on, I admit) . This excuse may seem a little lame but I would add that if you follow the "Gaza War" discussion page at that time, you will find a fair bit of acceptance for the edits I proposed, even from previous opponents (this added to the "green light" feeling I had about making the edits). I realise now that that is not how Wiki works. For these relatively harmless mistakes I received an indefinite ban on editing IP/IA articles.
By contrast here are some Cptnono Wiki quotes:
"Call it Palestinians getting screwed with giant dildos as far as I am concerned"
"If you fuck with the mainspace I am going to fuck with you"
"How many separate articles do we need on the Palestinians being sad?"
"So you have enough time to write an AE but it took you this long to comment? Prick."
Action taken for the previous comments "blocked 3 hours for incivility"
Frankly, I admit, that since these events my attitudes and actions have reflected more than a touch of bitterness towards Cptnono.
I believe Cptnono is more biased in IP/AP outlook than I am. I see no good reason beyond his (admittedly) superior Wiki-lawyering skills, as to why- he should be allowed to edit on IP/AP articles, and not I.
PS I would be very happy to discuss the issue of subjectivity, which is so central to these matters (and all human affairs), with any interested party.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Prunesqualer (talk • contribs) 23:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Shucks another of my fiendish schemes, to undermine Wikipedia, and to subvert truth, has been thwarted. It's fortunate, for you pesky good guys, that the Guardians of integrity (Wiki admin) are so clear sighted and unbiased. I will now retire to my up-lit livid green laboratory, and munch on some babies, whilst Cptnono shines a beacon of truth for the free world. Prunesqualer (talk) 21:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Prunesqualer 

message: I'm not a great connaisseur of wikipedia's protocol. Even though I am aware that user Prunesqualer has been banned from contributing to Israeli/Palestinian articles, I can't understand the basis for Cptnono's complaint against him. User P. was not contributing to an Israeli/Palestinian article: he was using my Talk Page to warn me about the rather sly argument style Cptnono adopts on discussions about that topic - that is, user Prunesqualer wasn't even actually discussing Israeli/Palestinian politics, the only subject he has been forbidden to contribute to on Wikipedia. From what I can see in Cptnono's conduct, he has a very provocative communication style. He frequently accuses me of being disruptive and threatens to file a complaint against me for doing exactly what he's done before - even on instances where he recognizes I was right in acting in such a way. That he decided to pick on user Prunesqualer even though it is very hard to see what he has done wrong in communicating with me, only goes to confirm the pattern argumentative behavior. Plus, what he says about me - that I have been warned by an adm on my editions - is not true. Guinsberg (talk) 01:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Guinsberg 

message: *Prunesqualer has just one edit in the entire past month, and I do not feel impelled to take any action on this request. If Prunesqualer wishes to seek a lifting or modification of his topic-ban in the future, the appropriate venue in the first instance would be a request either to the administrator who imposed the topic-ban or to the AE board. Any such request would benefit from evidence of appropriate, collegial editing in other topic areas. I can't evaluate the quotes for Cptnono without diffs or links, but needless to say, if they are authentic, then this type of approach would best be avoided, no matter how stressful the editing environment in this topic-area may ofttimes be. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: As proposed this seems like a bad idea. Each editor is a unique case. Some have been better than others about keeping in line with the sanctions than others. Some have been more productive in other areas than others. And there may be other considerations. I would rather have each editor considered individually with each editor in question making a case for the removal of their sanctions. Since there are now only five editors who are relevant this should not be that much more work. But a blanket pardon in this context seems like a recipe for disaster and is also unfair to the editors who have toed the lines and worked hard to rehabilitate themselves. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by JoshuaZ 

message: Amnesty no.  individual topic ban reviews yes.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Uninvolved Rocksanddirt 

message: :Nishidani has ignored his topic ban multiple times. The topic area is cooling down a bit. The last thing we need is another editor who repeatedly asserts a battlefield mentality. He has not shown any remorse for his actions and letting him off the hook simply because the ban was some time ago is silly. If anything he has only served a couple months if you count the most recent breech. Will only serve to add fuel to the fire. When the editor actually fesses up to what he did wrong then it should be entertained until then we are simply cycling in another problematic editor to fill the shoes of another banned one.Cptnono (talk) 07:45, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement from Cptnono 

message: Cptnono and Michael C. Price have stated that Nishidani has ignored his topic ban multiple times. Given Nishidani's block log and the ARBPIA log of blocks and bans, I doubt that they can substantiate their claim. Given the ARBPIA log of blocks and bans and Cptnono's own block log, perhaps Cptnono in particular should be being a little less condemnatory.       ←   ZScarpia   16:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by ZScarpia 

message: I have been generally suspicious of some of these bans, though reading the above does make the reasoning more clear. I basically agree with BorisG. The one time I got blocked after getting angry at harassment and attacking another editor, I felt very righteous and it took some real prodding to make me see for myself that the specific attack I made was just a variation on the ones that others have used against me. So when I understood that, I did feel remorse and learned better not to make that mistake again. So if a person keeps making the same mistake, they haven't "gotten it" yet.  Maybe they just have to keep communicating with a sympathetic editor who can explain it again and again til they get it and then can have block/ban lifted. Also, if they keep slipping, they can always be reblocked as a "time out" for a week or two until they realize they went too far. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by CarolMooredc 

message: I am strongly against the proposal in its current form. The I–P area has the same problems today as it ever had, but each time one of the problematic editors is banned, the area becomes much nicer to edit, and gives good editors more time to concentrate on contributing content, instead of arguing. I think we should be lenient with editors who actually contribute to the encyclopedia, even if they make serious mistakes, but most of the editors permanently banned in I–P were banned after not one but a large number of serious mistakes. Most of them (except one editor whose ban was already lifted) have not shown that they can contribute constructively to the encyclopedia post-ban. Making small contributions here and there as some have is just not enough to justify bringing back more major problems to I–P. —Ynhockey (Talk) 19:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Ynhockey

message: Okay, you have convinced me. I agree with Nableezy: let's limit this to Gilabrand and Nishidani. Do I need to open two new motions for this, or can we continue to discuss them together here? Because, in my mind, they are related - both outstanding editors, on opposite sides of the dispute, and their return is supported by editors from both sides. It would only do the project good. --Ravpapa (talk) 17:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet another statement by Ravpapa 

message: I would support the lifting of the restriction on Nishidani. His three edits that have been picked out above are all over a year old. Nishidani has made thousands of edits in the interim. So, if he has a continuing pattern of problematic behaviour, it should be possible to find more recent issues. Also the three edits were brought to Arbcom's attention during the SAQ case in which Arbcom chose to act against the fringe theorists with whom Nishidani was in disagreement and not against Nishidani. 
I don't know the context of the issues with Gila. My presence on Wikipedia dropped in the latter part of last year and has only picked up somewhat recently and I think I must have missed the drama around this. I know she was on the "other side" of the I/P business from me but she had not stuck in my mind as someone particularly problematic.  I notice she has been indef blocked only recently for socking. If the problematic behaviour has been through the socks, I don't see what Wikipedia gains through the blocking of the main account. She is fairly prolific and if she has not recently been problematic with the main account then this seems to be a use of blocking as punishment rather than as a means of protecting Wikipedia. Maybe someone who has looked at things more recently could explain the logic of the block.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:57, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Peter Cohen

message: *First thought is that a general amnesty is not workable, that there's "too many and too much" to consider. SirFozzie (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: Permanent Link: 
====Motion====
The arbitration enforcement block placed on  related to the Palestine-Israel articles case is provisionally suspended as of 25 August or the passage of this motion, whichever is the latter. Gilabrand is reminded that articles in the area of conflict remain the subject of discretionary sanctions, and are currently subject to a 1RR restriction. Gilabrand is further reminded that any future problematic editing following the removal of editing restrictions will viewed dimly.
For this motion, there are 14 active non-recused arbitrators, so 8 is a majority.
;Support
# (happy with 1RR addition above) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request to amend prior case: Gilabrand 

message: The arbitration enforcement block placed on  related to the Palestine-Israel articles case is provisionally suspended as of 25 August or the passage of this motion, whichever is the latter. Gilabrand is reminded that articles in the area of conflict remain the subject of discretionary sanctions, and are currently subject to a 1RR restriction. Gilabrand is further reminded that any future problematic editing following the removal of editing restrictions will viewed dimly.
For this motion, there are 14 active non-recused arbitrators, so 8 is a majority.
;Support
# (happy with 1RR addition above) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Motion

message: A motion has been proposed that would amend a sanctions remedy in this case. It would replace the remedy in this case that allows administrators to unilaterally apply sanctions to editors within the designated topic area with a standardized remedy that essentially allows for the same thing. Any extant sanctions or warnings made according to the older wording found in those decisions (as applicable) remain unaffected. To comment on this proposal, please go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. NW (Talk) 20:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to amend sanctions 

message: On a purely cosmetic point, in the motion below saying "reverts of edits made by IP editors that are not clear vandalism" are still covered by edit-warring policy is a tad redundant. Edit-warring policy also provides an explicit exemption for reverting vandalism. Rather, I think after noting reverts of IP editors are not subject to 1RR the subsequent statement need only say that the usual edit-warring policy still applies.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment by The Devil's Advocate 

message: The 1RR exemption for IPs was intended as a discouragement to sockpuppetry. I am concerned that making reverts of IPs "subject to the usual rules on edit warring" will expose established accounts to the fiat of admins who not infrequently decide to hand out bans in contentious topic areas for perceived "edit warring" even when 3RR has not been violated. This is likely to make it difficult for established accounts to discourage sockpuppetry as intended as they will have to be looking over their own shoulder when reverting IPs. I suggest therefore that the phrase "subject to 3RR" be substituted for "subject to the usual rules on edit warring". This should help ensure that established editors retain a useful advantage over IPs without being accused of edit warring when doing so. Gatoclass (talk) 00:21, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: On reflection, and given Elen's comments below, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be simpler just to make reverts of IPs literally without penalty, ie they can be reverted as often as necessary. It would strongly discourage sockpuppetry but wouldn't completely prevent IPs from adding useful content, as semi-protection would do. Gatoclass (talk) 00:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by Gatoclass

message: Moved from WP:ACN as this is the right venue. Courcelles 20:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: *Enacted at 18:44, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Feel free to copyedit, but this has been sitting here too long for a mainly cosmetic change. Courcelles 20:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 23:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # (We may require some notifications about the amendment to The Troubles sanction - for example on the talk pages of popular, related articles - if our foresighted change is not to take the editors completely by surprise.) AGK [•] 23:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # PhilKnight (talk) 01:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Works for me. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Jclemens (talk) 05:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # I've historically recused on most parts of the Palestine-Israel case, but this motion pertains equally to The Troubles where I am active, and its really just a copyediting clarification (that has already passed anyway), so I will go ahead and vote. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Support in principle but I wonder whether this could not be more simply, clearly and emphatically expressed as "Unless the reversion is solely to remove clear vandalism, all reversions are subject to the One Revert Restriction". (Sorry to be a Johnny-come-lately on this.) I'll circulate this on the list and see if there's any traction,   Roger Davies talk 16:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:As I explained on-list, that would change the substantive issues of the sanction, which this motion explicitly does not do. That kind of change would require a fresh motion, as it would make reverting IP edits count in the 1RR, which they do not do at present. Courcelles 18:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:: Indeed. Thanks for clarifying it though, absent context, we're still left with an ambiguity in the first sentence (which Phil's "made" doesn't really fix). Sorry to suggest a recast but it's probably clearer to separate the vandalism and the IP edits entirely, as two sentences, thus: "Clear vandalism of whatever origin may be reverted without restriction. Reverts of edits made by anonymous IP editors that are not vandalism are exempt from 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring." And the "of whatever origin" is probably unnecessary.  Roger Davies talk 19:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:::Good idea, so copyedited.  Anyone, feel free to revert if you disagree. Courcelles 20:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # The only reason this is in there is the fear that five IP editors are actually just one editor.  If they were five editors, then there would be no reason to assume that. But whenever you put "IP editor" and "vandal" in the same sentence, the community comes away with the impression that IP editors are all vandals and can be reverted on sight. I would prefer something like the wording below, and will propose it as an alternative if there is any traction
In an area subject to IRR restrictions -
* Editors are restricted to making one revert only per day - this applies to all accounts and IP addresses of that editor
* There are no restrictions on the number of times vandalism may be reverted
* Any IP editor is restricted to IRR in the same way as other editors
*Where multiple IPs edit the article in a similar manner, they can be treated as if they are all one person and, if they persist in making the same edits or reversions, then other editors may revert them without penalty.
Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: Note to Clerk: Even though the motion as proposed is passing, please don't close this just yet, given the discussion of possible copyedits or alternatives. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: :*Enacted at 18:44, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: # Feel free to copyedit, but this has been sitting here too long for a mainly cosmetic change. Courcelles 20:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 23:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # (We may require some notifications about the amendment to The Troubles sanction - for example on the talk pages of popular, related articles - if our foresighted change is not to take the editors completely by surprise.) AGK [•] 23:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # PhilKnight (talk) 01:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # SilkTork ✔Tea time 01:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Works for me. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Jclemens (talk) 05:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # I've historically recused on most parts of the Palestine-Israel case, but this motion pertains equally to The Troubles where I am active, and its really just a copyediting clarification (that has already passed anyway), so I will go ahead and vote. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # Support in principle but I wonder whether this could not be more simply, clearly and emphatically expressed as "Unless the reversion is solely to remove clear vandalism, all reversions are subject to the One Revert Restriction". (Sorry to be a Johnny-come-lately on this.) I'll circulate this on the list and see if there's any traction,   Roger Davies talk 16:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:As I explained on-list, that would change the substantive issues of the sanction, which this motion explicitly does not do. That kind of change would require a fresh motion, as it would make reverting IP edits count in the 1RR, which they do not do at present. Courcelles 18:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:: Indeed. Thanks for clarifying it though, absent context, we're still left with an ambiguity in the first sentence (which Phil's "made" doesn't really fix). Sorry to suggest a recast but it's probably clearer to separate the vandalism and the IP edits entirely, as two sentences, thus: "Clear vandalism of whatever origin may be reverted without restriction. Reverts of edits made by anonymous IP editors that are not vandalism are exempt from 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring." And the "of whatever origin" is probably unnecessary.  Roger Davies talk 19:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: #:::Good idea, so copyedited.  Anyone, feel free to revert if you disagree. Courcelles 20:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: # The only reason this is in there is the fear that five IP editors are actually just one editor.  If they were five editors, then there would be no reason to assume that. But whenever you put "IP editor" and "vandal" in the same sentence, the community comes away with the impression that IP editors are all vandals and can be reverted on sight. I would prefer something like the wording below, and will propose it as an alternative if there is any traction
In an area subject to IRR restrictions -
* Editors are restricted to making one revert only per day - this applies to all accounts and IP addresses of that editor
* There are no restrictions on the number of times vandalism may be reverted
* Any IP editor is restricted to IRR in the same way as other editors
*Where multiple IPs edit the article in a similar manner, they can be treated as if they are all one person and, if they persist in making the same edits or reversions, then other editors may revert them without penalty.
Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

text: Note to Clerk: Even though the motion as proposed is passing, please don't close this just yet, given the discussion of possible copyedits or alternatives. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Motion

message: Initiated by  Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ at 10:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
=== Arbitrator views and discussion ===
* I would say yes, because the only reason to make this kind of edit is to push one side of the Israeli/Palestinian argument. It's not a term of scholarship. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification: [[WP:ARBPIA]] 

message: * I would say yes, because the only reason to make this kind of edit is to push one side of the Israeli/Palestinian argument. It's not a term of scholarship. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: Can I suggest that since the  Zoological conspiracy theories (Arab-Israeli conflict) article is clearly in violation of at least the spirit of WP:ARBPIA rulings in that it is nothing more than a collection of anecdotes cobbled together to 'make Arabs look stupid', WP:IAR is invoked, the article is summarily deleted and salted, and the warring parties get back to arguing about something a little less infantile than this petty little propaganda piece... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by AndyTheGrump 

message: I'm not involved in I/P or AE in general, but I saw this go by earlier today and attempted to clarify this matter a bit to Ankh on T. Canens's talk. My explanation doesn't seem to have done the job. To my linked explanation, I'll just add that the description provided for Arbcom's standard discretionary sanctions appears to be deliberately broad, encompassing things like revert restrictions, topic bans, mandated external review (which is very similar to what T.C. has imposed wrt Ankh's "Problem 1"), as well as "any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project". We're not intended to be bound strictly by exactly what words are used in the DS decription, because the DS description provides the, er, discretionary area of "any other measures." This means that opposing these sanctions on the basis of "restrictions can only be on people, not articles" is missing the point. Admin judgment is deferred to, within reasonable limits, in placing these measures, and there's nothing in what T. Canens has done here that looks particularly unacceptable (though I will admit to having had to read the restrictions twice to parse exactly who was being restricted from what). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 22:44, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Fluffernutter 

message: Honestly, I think the restriction is a bit too restrictive under the circumstances. The problem was with material being added that did not make any claim of the accusations being conspiracy theories. I think the requirement for discussion of any addition is restricting all editors and all content work for something that is a little more focused. At issue is specifically whether the additions involved conspiracy theories as no reliable sources provided used that description in any sense. Should reliable sources clearly cover a relevant incident as a conspiracy theory then I fail to see why discussion would be necessary on whether to include it in the article. If the material undeniably fits then requiring discussion is little more than bureaucratic regulation for its own sake.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by The Devil's Advocate

message: IP 24.177.121.137 commented below that he/she disagrees, which is fine.  But the IP is also encouraging people to ignore all rules and simply ignore the restrictions T. Canens has imposed, because they feel it fits ignore all rules.  I don't think this is acceptable behavior, and find this problematic. --Activism1234 01:38, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Activism1234

message: Fluffernutter's comment on my talk page captured my thoughts quite well - in fact, probably better than I could say. I just want to add a few points:
*The ease to remove existing material is by design; given the longstanding partisan battles on this article I have very little confidence in the quality of any content in that page. If someone misuses this ability, an editor-based restriction may well be appropriate.
*I actually noticed this issue via an ANI thread. In particular, JN466's comment is what really got my attention, and I set out to create a set of restrictions that, in my view, would address the problem. After I finished imposing and logging the restrictions, I looked at the AN3 thread and determined that, given the lack of an edit notice and the nature of the edits at issue, as well as the restrictions I just imposed, it was not advisable to take further action on the AN3 thread.
*As to article-based restrictions, they have been employed in a number of WP:ARBAA2 and WP:ARBEE cases. T. Canens (talk) 17:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by TC 

message: I think the restriction imposed is too broad and unfair. I also don't think that the discretionary sanctions provision of WP:ARBPIA authorize it. The language at WP:ARBPIA#Standard discretionary sanctions authorizes imposition of sanctions by uninvolved admins against users after an initial warning. There was no warning, the restrictions don't apply to "users" but to everyone, and the administrator imposing sanctions wasn't sufficiently uninvolved. 24.177.121.137 (talk) 01:34, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by other user 

message: A quick look at the article's editing history is all that's needed to see what's going on here.  Basically, two editors have been trying to use that article as a coatrack to hang out as many looney, animal-related incidents as possible.  I think T. Canens could just as easily have topic-banned the two editors primarily responsible instead of giving them playground rules.  At least, he is giving the topic some adult supervision, which was obviously necessary. Cla68 (talk) 01:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Cla68

message: This article has been a hotbed of propagandist efforts and poor sourcing. See the 2011 DYK for example: dyk that "... that Saudi Arabian officials detained a vulture (example pictured) and accused it of spying for Israel?" Editing restrictions on this article appear warranted. Also, one has to wonder if the Noleander RFAR may be of some relevance to certain editors involved in that article and similar ones. It's interesting that Apes and pigs in Islam also passed AfD with "flying colors" but was boldly moved out of article space by one admin and then deleted. (As an side, I'm thinking of a DYKing "... Ronald Reagan was an important champion of Idiot America". Easily referenced from the press: .) Tijfo098 (talk) 07:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Tijfo098

message: Just a quick response to Ankhmorpork's accusations against me. I am not trying to game the system. The article came under my radar because of the current AFD Discussion. Many arguments for deletion are that a lot of the content is WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACKING, some of the arguments to keep the article accept that some of the material does not meet Wikipedia standards, but maintain that this is not grounds for deleting the entire article.  
My aim was simply to remove the material that does not meet Wikipedia standards, I think it will be easier then for the community to decide whether the remaining material that is well sourced warrants an article or not. The basic rationale for deleting the content is here if anyone is interested. I will be happy to explain and discuss further should anyone query the edit on the article's talk page.
Of course Ankhmorpork is responsible for adding a significant amount of the WP:OR and WP:SYNTH material to the article, so it is understandable that he may not appreciate the kind of restrictions on adding such material that has been suggested. Dlv999 (talk) 23:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Dlv999

message: I'm one of the other regular AE admins, and the only reason there's an appeal of Timotheus Canens' actions here is because he beat  me to it.  The last thing we need in this area is people using these articles to soapbox about whatever conspiracy theory strikes their fancy, and this is as good a way to handle it as any.  I don't really care whether or not this solution is in The BookTM, it's already proven its worth in putting a stop to what was going on there before it, and I see no reason to remove it if it's working. The Blade of the Northern Lights  (話して下さい) 20:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment from The Blade of the Northern Lights

message: : This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*All editors are reminded to edit only in their own sections. --Guerillero | My Talk 21:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clerk notes 

message: *Well, the labeled "problem 3" is not a problem at all.  Admins have always and authority to issue special rules in discretionary sanctions to make articles work, a long-standing precedent has been imposing 1RR under their authority. The restrictions imposed here look reasonable to me, and we aren't going to direct an article deletion. Courcelles 22:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: Initiated by  Tijfo098 (talk) at 19:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A note that I've seen what AnkhMorpork posted below, and will not be dignifying it with a response unless the committee requests. T. Canens (talk) 17:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

text: I.P., you have stated only that you object to my comment, but not why. You must therefore forgive me if I pay little heed to your statement, but I do ask for your clarification. You state unilaterally that my comments demonstrated "extreme immaturity" and suggested they had "the appearance of partiality". On your former statement, I am sure you are aware (as a regular contributor) that baseless, ad hominem remarks like that are unacceptable on Wikipedia. I am particularly at a loss to see how those remarks demonstrated immaturity. On your latter statement, I think you misunderstand the role of an arbitrator: we do not exist to "judge" cases, nor to "protect and serve" and uphold the rigid public image that goes with such missions, but to solve editorial disputes. If to do so I must succinctly state I think an editor needs to be referred to AE for sanctioning, then I will do precisely that. The role of arbitrator is made up largely of an ability and willingness to speak about the proverbial elephant in the room; you subscribe to a woefully flawed vision if you conflate that ability with "partiality". AGK [•] 19:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
* I've asked the clerks to archive this request. AGK [•] 12:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

text: * I concur with PhilKnight and SilkTork, though I echo my call that more rigorous enforcement of POV-pushing as well as merely un-collegial conduct needs to be made in this topic area. AGK [•] 19:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification request: [[Zoological conspiracy theories (Israel related)]] 

message: I simply submit to you that the creative restrictions imposed are not working as expected, but are simply gamed to arbitrarily remove content from that page, cf. WP:AE#Dlv999. I request that the imbalance be addressed by a similar restriction on removing content without consensus. This has been done before, for example at Mass killings under Communist regimes. Tijfo098 (talk) 19:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Tijfo098 

message: This echoes my previous concerns regarding these novel restrictions and their susceptibilty to abuse -  which took all of two days to manifest itself. I support the need to reevaluate the efficacy of these restricitons and to consider extending them to equally cover existing content in this article. Currently, they simultaneously preclude good-faith additions and improvements, yet allow unilateral content removal by individual editors that totally eschew any attempt at collaborative discussion seeing as the need for it has now been obviated. While the restrictions were well-intentioned, they are proving wholly inadequate. Ankh.Morpork 19:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by AnkhMorpork 

message: I concur with the proposal -- to add to the restriction to anyone removing sourced material or at least to exclude from the restrictions any sourced content that was already in the article before the restrictions took place (grandfather in). The current rules leave the article open to gaming. Anyone can remove material with some vague edit summary and then demand another consensus for its inclusion, which will have to be approved by an uninvolved administrator that will have to be tracked down somehow. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 20:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Brewcrewer 

message: I agree that the restrictions imposed by are not working - but not for the reasons given above. They have simply been ignored, whether wilfully, or by accident, and material has been added without consensus to an article which has widely been seen (at for example the recent AfD discussions ) as burdened with WP:OR, poor sourcing, and significant POV-driven editing. Frankly, at this point I can see no hope for any consensus-based solutions short of topic-banning the more overt POV-pushers, and fully protecting the article. Loosening restrictions to encourage more edit-warring makes no sense whatsoever. This is a contentious subject, for which much source material  seems intended to cast people in a negative light, and as such it seems entirely reasonable that the burden of proof should be on those wishing to add material to our article - as is normal Wikipedia policy. The restrictions are in fact little more than WP:BRD extended and formalised in such a way as to prevent further questionable editing of a contentious article. What is necessary is that they be enforced, and that the article be made to conform to WP:NPOV standards - and if it cannot (which seems entirely possible, given the subject matter), regardless of (rather equivocal) AfD decisions, Wikipedia may have to do without it entirely. That is probably outside the remit of this discussion, however... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement AndyTheGrump 

message: I am completely uninvolved. The only way I have even touched this is to comment in the Uninvolved admins section on an AE request regarding this. That said, in the very short time that case has been open it has become clear that loosening restrictions is not in the best interest of this article. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by KillerChihuahua 

message: One of the main issues with the restrictions is that it allows editors to get away with violating 1RR as long as they're removing "original research."  By this, editors are gaming it, so that if RS wrote about how aliens invaded Palestinian farms and destroyed the crops as requested by Israel, it'd be removed as "Source doesn't say it's conspiracy, so how is the connection made that it's a conspiracy?"  Or if the reference writes that a "myth circulated" about it, it'd get removed as "source doesn't write it's a conspiracy, only a myth" (this actually happened).  In other cases, you have editors who will remove sections and violate 1RR in doing so, knowing that despite the 1RR violation, it will allow for the content to be simply removed without discusion, and any attempts to reinsert it will require a discussion, which that editor will just object and thus not allow for consensus.  
There have been cases where sections have been removed that even uninvolved editors disagree with removing.  There wasn't any discussion to remove it. But once removed, no matter what the reason, it's very tough to get it back in - because a lengthy discussion with consensus is needed, and that consensus will just be broken by one editor who opposes putting it in.  So what we're getting here are bogus excuses to remove content that even uninvolved editors disagree with, all in "compliance" with the restrictions.
I think they should definitely be changed.  I really don't see how this article can be that much more special and contentious than some other I-P articles here.  The normal rules in ARBPIA should suffice here, and they've been working up until two weeks ago, when the restrictions were made in response to a report filed because an editor violated 1RR. --Jethro B 20:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Jethro B

message: As far as I can see, the restrictions appear to be working as intended. Neither our resident puppy nor I have seen any actionable gaming. Some people may not like how they are designed to operate; that does not mean that they are broken. As to the "Mass killings restriction", it was the consensus among AE admins, when it was last discussed in this lengthy AE thread, that it is not a particularly useful restriction in many cases.
In imposing the restrictions, I have already considered and rejected the possibility of "grandfathering in" existing material. Given the lengthy partisan wrangling over this article, I had, and still have, little confidence in the quality of the existing material. I opted for the present approach of permitting easy removal of existing material, which will still preserve uncontroversial instances, rather than a significantly more aggressive approach seen in this BLPSE action.
I also don't see why this couldn't have been handled at the currently open AE thread. This is striking me more and more like running to the other parent when AE admins don't see any gaming, especially since the last arbcom thread on these very restrictions was closed less than a week ago. I respectfully request that the committee close this one speedily. AE simply can't properly operate if the restrictions applied are brought to the committee, and the admin who imposed them forced to defend them, every few days. T. Canens (talk) 04:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A note that I've seen what AnkhMorpork posted below, and will not be dignifying it with a response unless the committee requests. T. Canens (talk) 17:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by TC 

message: The primary purpose of discretionary editing restrictions on an article is to to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment in contentious areas prone to misconduct. When this has been created, Wikipedia assumes that editorial discussions and the ensuing consensus will adequately govern the nature of an article; this is a fundamental policy - that all editors can contribute equally to the make-up of an article, that there exists a clear separation of powers between the executive (admins) and the legislature (editors).  Admins should facilitate discussion and not attempt to foist their views on others. 
That being said, you have twice explained that your restrictions were predicated on your personal views regarding the subject. The imposition of the restrictions should not determined by whether you "had, and still have, little confidence in the quality of the existing material." Yet, you unilaterally imposed unique restriction designed to promote your particular point of view in a content dispute without deigning to seek admin consensus for this measure. In the words of Silktork: "I also share AnkhMorpork's concern that general editing restrictions are being applied to all users without there being a discussion first." Why are you of the view that your view is of pre-eminent importance that you, by yourself, can seek to forcefully alter the shape of this article through use of administrative privilege? I remind you of discretionary sanction guidance: you are expected to balance the provision of "responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Wikipedia as a battleground". I submit that the you have restricted good-faith improvement entirely and compounded this by allowing for pernicious abuse of the restrictions, to the extent that exasperated editors that have never previously participated in these discussions or topics are imploring for an alteration or arbitration enforcement.
As to your comment that this was recently discussed, I would assume that you are cognisant with what PhilKnight said: "Obviously these restrictions are innovative, and it may well be prudent to evaluate their effectiveness in due course". Well the answer to that is obviously they're pathetically useless and when you have editors returning from 6 month sabbaticals, two days after your restrictions, to remove vast sections with nary a talk page comment, I am surprised that you see this in any other way. Or then again, based on your above predilections, perhaps not.  Ankh.Morpork 13:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply to T Canens 

message: Seems like WP:FORUMSHOPING to me. The issue was already raised at the previous request for clarification last week.  The editor was told that any evidence of gaming should be presented to AE.  An AE case was filed  - the two uninvolved admins who have commented so far have not seen evidence of gaming or actionable behavior in the diffs provided. And now we are back here with the same issue being raised again. Are we just going to keep going round in circles with this until the editors get their own way? Dlv999 (talk) 07:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Dlv999 

message: @AGK Are you serious? Bali's edit was 80% editorial and consisted mainly of his interpretation of the sources. Moreover, he did not seek consensus for it on the talk page per the additional sanctions being discussed here, but chose to edit war his preferred version into the article. He could have just removed any problematic text which would then have needed to gain consensus to be put back in the article. 
Nobody needs to "bait" Bali for him to lash out, he does that regularly and frequently. In fact, if you look at some of the edit summaries he used, he "lashed out" against living people who have wikipedia articles as well. I wonder what they did to bait him. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by NMMNG 

message: This would be a good opportunity for ArbCom/WP's administration to show that WP:NPOV in an enforceable policy.  Look at the article's edit history, look at the article's talk page, note which editors are tring to use it to disparage Arab/Palestinian culture and/or politics, make a decision, then act on that decision.  Now's a good time. Cla68 (talk) 12:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Cla68

message: I do not care if Bali Ultimate's edits improved the article or worsen it, but AGK's comments demonstrate his extreme immaturity. An arbitrator must conduct arbitrations in an impartial manner. An arbitrator should avoid any conduct that might give the appearance of partiality towards any party. AGK writes: "Somebody needs to bring to AE the editors who reverted Bali ultimate's edits about the Shark attacks section." and then "(As an arbitrator, I'm unable to be involved in the enforcement process, or I would hand out AE blocks myself.)"? What kind of arbitrator AGK is? 
Bali Ultimate, you say you are a named professional except you behave as a named idiot. Named professionals come to Wikipedia to write articles and not to be ""meanie" on talk pages." Now you are blocked, and when the block expires you'd come back with your tail between your legs or else. It is the only thing you've achieved so far. — 108.60.151.4 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 23:18, 6 October 2012‎ (UTC).
: I.P., you have stated only that you object to my comment, but not why. You must therefore forgive me if I pay little heed to your statement, but I do ask for your clarification. You state unilaterally that my comments demonstrated "extreme immaturity" and suggested they had "the appearance of partiality". On your former statement, I am sure you are aware (as a regular contributor) that baseless, ad hominem remarks like that are unacceptable on Wikipedia. I am particularly at a loss to see how those remarks demonstrated immaturity. On your latter statement, I think you misunderstand the role of an arbitrator: we do not exist to "judge" cases, nor to "protect and serve" and uphold the rigid public image that goes with such missions, but to solve editorial disputes. If to do so I must succinctly state I think an editor needs to be referred to AE for sanctioning, then I will do precisely that. The role of arbitrator is made up largely of an ability and willingness to speak about the proverbial elephant in the room; you subscribe to a woefully flawed vision if you conflate that ability with "partiality". AGK [•] 19:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by 108.60.151.4 - Agree with NMMNG

message: I concurr with Bali Ultimate answer on this talk page : "AGK, you have just illustrated the dysfunction of the website's approach, and why it fails so badly in these areas. Someone like me, a named [person], will be easily blocked for being a "meanie" on talk pages. People who skew content in service of a cause (frequently one, as in this case, that seeks to advance its agenda by dehumanizing a whole culture) are left to merrily go about their business on the articles (the stuff the general public sees) so long as they are "civil." Please also note that this is going on in a great many more articles, most of them of far more importance and general interest, than the one I tried to make a point of fixing.Dan Murphy (talk) 02:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Pluto2012 regarding AGK comment 

message: I request that all of T. Canens' September 2012 edicts be suspended from this page.  In contradiction to the Talk Page notice, I see nothing here or here calling for prior restraint on edits.  Eventually I tracked down the history to  in which the policy is unilaterally decreed, and editors either vehemently disagree with it or go off on tangents.  This directly contradicts Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions which says "Best practice includes seeking additional input prior to applying a novel sanction or when a reasonable, uninvolved editor may question whether the sanction is within the scope of the relevant case;" more to the point, it is not a sanction against "any editor working on a page within the area of conflict (or for whom discretionary sanctions have otherwise been authorized) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process."  To the contrary, it includes a sanction against even a completely naive and good faith editor who, coming to the article page, and not seeing any special edit notice, adds a story that seems relevant in his consideration.  The talk page notice explicitly says that "Editors who violate the above restrictions may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offence."
I should also point out that the scope of this article is very arbitrary.  Of all the animal conspiracy theories in the world, we've singled out those about Israel for a special article based on one or two articles connecting them.  More plausible allegations have been made, for example, about the U.S. airdropping thrips on Cuba.  A reorganization, e.g. by species, is very much appropriate, which to me suggests that either these special restrictions should be eliminated, or eventually they will spread to infect articles even less related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, let alone to the original editors in the arbitration case.
The mere fact that some editors have had an interpersonal squabble based on their opinions in the Israel-Palestinian conflict does not mean that new editors a random article about allegations about Israelis in Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be subjected to unreasonable sanctions!
I should add that I am curious how many other articles have been subjected to such unusual sanctions as this one.  I should point out that there is a risk that, if a lot of Israel-related topics are treated to sanctions that affect even new good-faith editors, Wikipedia itself may become the object of a Zionist conspiracy theory. Wnt (talk) 16:34, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by Wnt

message: I'm only involved in that I blocked Bali Ultimate for a week for hate-speech, having previously warned him for using similar language in a different area. Several parties including another arbitrator have suggested that 'the other side' are successfully gaming the restrictions, cannot be brought to AE etc.  Is this the case? If so, this ought to be addressed. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by Elen of the Roads

message: : This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
* I've asked the clerks to archive this request. AGK [•] 12:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clerk notes 

message: * I have already opined on Bali ultimate's talk page about the recent edit war in the "Shark attacks" section of this article: To me, the problem is that edits to this article are being policed only for decorum, and that obvious POV-pushing is being disregarded. I therefore advise the enforcement team to examine complaints about this article in more detail, and to look at the substance of incidents and edits. Rarely is only one side to blame, and sometimes editors lose their head for reasons which are actually valid. AGK [•] 22:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: * I concur with PhilKnight and SilkTork, though I echo my call that more rigorous enforcement of POV-pushing as well as merely un-collegial conduct needs to be made in this topic area. AGK [•] 19:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: As I stated in my previous comments I favor no particular final solution because it will never happen. The unreliability and poor quality of articles on the Arab-israeli conflict will be a permanent feature of wikipedia for decades to come. As long as prominent notices alert the reader to the manipulations of the more active/effective side (currently Israeli nationalists) little more can be done.
Ravpapa nicely states it as "[failure means] there are some topics about which we cannot write objectively" This I
think is absolutely correct and I believe the failure is inevitable.
The bad acting partisans are intelligent calculating and don't give a hoot about wikipedia and are acting based on nationalistic motivations. So the realistic energy-optimal strategy towards them is not confrontation or arbitration but containment. Anyone who thinks the interests of their precious nation is more important than wikipedia should be barred from editing it. In lieu of that poor quality tagged dispute ridden articles will have to do.Alertboatbanking (talk) 03:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Alertboatbanking 

message: I dont honestly see what an ArbCom case would do to resolve this issue. There hasnt been any edit-warring, or at least nothing on the scale as to require a case to resolve, and while the talk page may be a bit uncomfortable it hasnt reached a point that the standard discretionary sanctions couldnt deal with. If this were to be accepted as a case, the outcome would likely follow the pattern of you banning anybody who knows anything about the dispute, resulting in a new group of partisans arguing on an even lower level. The Wikipedia way, tried and true. nableezy - 05:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Tariq, that last comment is patently untrue. The formulation was discussed, the exact sentences and sequences were brought to the talk page yesterday, however you refused to answer any questions, repeatedly. Instead you only said that it would be reverted without once providing a cause. You cannot refuse to discuss the content and then complain that it was never discussed. What is this, kindergarten? No I wont play soccer. No I wont play basketball. I wont talk about what game to play. Teacher! They're playing football without me!!!! nableezy - 19:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Please listen to Steven. And would a "no consensus" RFC be binding for three years as well? Binding mediation would be an exponentially better method to resolve this dispute. RFCs in this topic area rarely get meaningful uninvolved comments. nableezy - 19:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Nableezy 

message: I wrote on the Talk page that I would ask the ArbCom to study the issue if we could not find a way to move forward on the article. Tariqjabotku did it before.
The referees asked the right questions :
* Sort of dispute is exactly where WP:YESPOV, applied in good faith by editors striving to reach a neutral statement describing a contested reality, is supposed to prevail. (Jclemens)
** That's my mind and indeed the situation is contested except that I personnaly cannot believe any more in the good faith of some other editors. If we would apply the rules of NPoV quietly (ie just referring to what reliable sources state) that would be easy to solve.
* "why mediation has so far failed to achieve a lasting solution to this dispute ?" (AGK) : 
** I arrived lately in the discussion but per my understanding, mediators refused to take the mediation in charge.
* "What specific allegations of misconduct are you making?"
** There are personnal attacks but that is not a problem
** A side is WP:GAMING the system in refusing any evolution of a pov-ed sentence based on the fact it has been in the article for months. I assume the other think that we are biaised (?).
* "Is this misconduct impacting other areas of contention within this topic area?"
** There are problems on all articles relatived to the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
* "#Is there some reason why existing discretionary sanctions will not suffice to resolve this dispute?"
** I don't think sanctionning anybody could solve anything. WP:GAMING or WP:WIKILAWYERING cannot be solved by any "discretionary sanction".
*Would an RFC on the lead section, in which members from the entire community participated, work to bring a compromise to the central issue of content?
** I think that a part of the problem is that too many people intervene. No discussion can evolve because it goes in all directions and people do not answer to others'arguments and everything turns around.
*"If this case is accepted, what would you see as an ideal outcome of the case?"
** I would propose the following to the ArbCom. Don't analyse the past but let's see the good will of contributors to solve this "under the eyes of the ArbComs". Let's create a page of discussion where a few contributors will intervene and let's see how it moves forward. If we don't succeed in solving the issue, the Arbcom will be able to say who is working in the global spirit of our wikipedia rules and who does not and it will be able to take a decision based on concrete facts. Doing so, we move forward, we don't need to dig the history of the articles and the discussions to prove this one or that one is the bad guy. We could even find a solution by ourselves because everybody knows that the Arbcom will just look at us. That is also a good opportunity to synthetize all arguments and refresh the discussions. And all in all, it is the more constructive.
Pluto2012 (talk) 10:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Pluto2012 

message: I agree with much of what Pluto2012 has said. The content issue is embarrassingly simple to resolve in principal because it is about correcting a basic error. Many sources have already solved it in ways that comply with our policies. All that is required is for editors to follow the sources and comply with our policies and guidelines. It should be easy but it has not been possible, largely it seems because the information in the sources gets convolved with editor's personal opinions on the real world issues. If the only thing that came out of this was that it stopped editors from writing their personal opinions/personal analyses based on what they think they know about the real world issue without "utilizing reliable sources for contentious or disputed assertions" (to quote the discretionary sanctions) or what they think about other editors, it would be a huge leap forward. It's difficult to convey how low the signal to noise ratio is on that discussion page or how rarely people actually survey and look at how sources handle the contested status of Jerusalem. Sean.hoyland - talk 13:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sean.hoyland 

message: This request is an exact mirror of the problems on the article talk page.
*We have Dailycare, who agreed to the current wording as a compromise only to come back later, challenge it, POV tag it, change it while declaring he has "consensus by default" because whoever doesn't agree with him is part of the "hatikva brigade" and their views are not valid. Now he pretends the behavioral issue is with Tariq responding to his being a DICK and not with him being a dick in the first place.
*Pluto accuses whoever disagrees with him of gaming the system, as if having an opinion and stating it is some kind of sneaky underhanded attempt to play wikipedia's rules in order to corrupt it.
*Alertboatbanking, a pretty obvious sock which the resident "sockslayers" don't care about because he supports the result they want.
*Sean and Nishidani pretending the people they disagree with do not base their views on reliable sources, which is patently false and obviously dismissive. 
*I assume ZScarpia will be here shortly to try to chill his opponents with threats, and we'll have a perfect microcosm. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by No More Mr Nice Guy 

message: I am not convinced that Arbitration on this matter is the right way forward although i agree with a lot of what Tariqabjotu has said. There are three primary problems at present it seems to me and as Arbcom does not usually rule on content matters only one aspect of the situation might be resolved with arbitration and not the wider problem. Firstly we have in recent months seen a number of attempts to change the article, some of which have not been specific proposals, merely the fact some editors believe the current article introduction is wrong. There have been clear opposition to proposals and more editors times seem to support the current wording than any change, let alone a specific change.
Those of us supporting the status quo (which was based on the compromise agreed around two years ago) have on a number of occasions been accused of breaking the rules or doing something wrong, merely for supporting the status quo. So one thing Arbcom could probably help with is reinforcing the fact people are free to support the status quo, and that a change should only take place if there is a consensus. Not a change imposed by a minority of editors seeking to push aside objections.
The other two problems are content issues. The current wording is neutral and balanced. It states that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel but that this is not internationally recognised. That is accurate and balanced, and was a significant change prior to two years ago when the introduction did not mention at all the international community view in the first sentence, because it is handled in detail in another paragraph of the introduction.
Certain editors are insistent that the article introduction be changed to treat Palestine and Israels current situation in regards Jerusalem as entirely equal. That is not the case, and if we tried to treat them as equal it would be giving clear undue weight to the Palestinian POV. Jerusalem is the defacto, and dejure capital of Israel, rightly or wrongly that is indisputably the situation, although the future status of the city is certainly part of the dispute and that is already explained in the introduction.
Yet a few editors are demanding the introduction say Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel and Palestine. When I challenged one of the editors demanding the change to provide sources for this claim saying it would help justify the proposal ,  they initially said they would , then when I asked for specific reliable sources that say Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine  (which is what they have been demanded be added to the article).. the editor in question all but admits there are not the sources to back up such a statement. .  Not only did they never provide the sources requested, none of the other editors demanding change stepped in to provide sources either. 
So theres no case based on Wikipedia policies, and no case based on sources for the change they propose. Also there is a third problem that is often overlooked. If we are to change the article to pretend that Jerusalem is not the defacto and dejure capital of Israel (and in Israel), then many other things about the article have to change too. For example at present the infobox shows the Israeli flag of Jerusalem, Israeli emblem for Jerusalem, the mayor of Jerusalem. These would all have to be changed along with huge amounts of the article if the small number of editors got their way and had the article act as though Jerusalem is not the capital and a city in Israel. Also none of those demanding change have produced evidence that a country cannot decide its own capital, or that a capital is dependent on international recognition. The international community officially do not recognise Jerusalem as the capital (something that is made clear) but there are numerous sources showing that Jerusalem does serve as Israels capital. Some countries do not recognise the fact the state of Israel even exists, we do not seek to say it may not exist in the first article of the Israel article. 
So again, im not convinced arbitration is the right way forward, but if there was a ruling that editors are entitled to oppose proposals and support the status quo, it would at least help bring to an end some of the dismissive tones by those demanding the change, as though we have no right to take the positions we do.
Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 01:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by BritishWatcher 

message: There is so little one can add to a discussion so prolix! But I feel two things must be said:
First, editors and arbitrators who are looking for a permanent solution to this problem should be disabused: there is no permanent solution, because the situation is not permanent. The political forces affecting Jerusalem's status are constantly changing, and the article should reflect that. What we decide (or, more likely, don't decide) today will not be right tomorrow.
Second, arbitrator SirFozzie has suggested "binding arbitration" as a solution. I would strongly support such an approach if one existed. But, as far as I know, there is no such thing as binding arbitration (am I wrong?). The latest attempt at arbitration failed because not all the parties agreed to participate. Which is why, I believe, Tariq chose this forum to move toward a solution.
Nishidani and others are right that this case is outside the formal purview of the arbitration committee. I would suggest, however, that this is a time for you to take a bold step, live by the spirit of the fifth pillar, ignore all rules, and accept this case. To do otherwise would be to admit that the Wikipedia way has failed: that there are some topics about which we cannot write objectively, and that there are content disputes so intractable that the collaborative editing approach is doomed to failure. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Ravpapa

message: Arbs who are suggesting a binding RFC or mediation, are you going to make a motion mandating one? If not, I can't see how this is going to happen. Number one, there's no guarantee the parties will make an agreement to such a method, and number two, without ArbCom's stamp, there's no guarantee the result of such a process would be honoured. The naming of Macedonia-related articles was dealt with by an RFC mandated by the committee itself and has as such been clearly enforceable. Leaving it to the community to sort it out without ArbCom's authority tends to lead to more and more discussion with no results. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: SilkTork, yes, it is absolutely true that the community can call RFCs on its own. What it cannot do is make them binding. You ask for people to agree that the result will be binding. That will not happen willingly in heated national/ethnic disputes like this one, it simply will not. Notice we've already had participants who disagree with doing so at all. It's true that it's theoretically possible for the community to force people to abide by the result through extensive policing; in practice, the community has practically never had the patience or collective attention span (and collective attention span is a really hard thing to achieve in any case) to police it well enough. Coming from the perspective of an AE admin, I would generally be unwilling to enforce in cases like this without AE rules to back me up. So if you're convinced we don't need a binding RFC at all, fine, but please don't go down this road of "we don't need a motion, the community can do it itself". That position is not grounded in the reality of what Wikipedia is like. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Heim

message: I've been thinking about the same thing for days, and Heimstern beat me to it. What makes the binding RFC binding is ArbCom's say-so. Otherwise, one of the parties won't agree to it just as they wouldn't agree to the mediation, and the whole thing will be a wash. You need at least a motion for it. --Rschen7754 08:28, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: @SilkTork nooooo. Having been in a similar boat many years ago, a binding RFC is what is needed, and is what the committee can do here. Otherwise, there is nothing binding about the RFC if parties do not agree to it. But why would I think that they wouldn't agree to it? Because they didn't agree to mediation, for the exact same reason: what if they lose? Then they have to forfeit the right to argue endlessly and continue disrupting the subject area in the process, while trying to get what they want. --Rschen7754 20:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Rschen7754

message: The issue at hand is no doubt a complex one which has been an issue almost since the inception of Wikipedia. Some community members and arbitrators have suggested a method of binding content resolution for this dispute (which sounds very familiar), however I note that preference seems to be leaning towards holding a binding RFC as opposed to some other form of binding resolution (like mediation). If I could offer my thoughts on the matter, binding RFCs have been used now and then on Wikipedia, with varying results. Some have success and bring peace, others are hopeless failures. Sometimes this is because the issue is so bitter that reconcilliation between editors is impossible, and the period in which an RFCs result is binding serves only as a brief ceasefire in a bitter war. In other situations (like the Abortion RFC), the structure of the discussion/vote is the cause of downfall. I would suggest mediation to be the better alternative, under the guidance of an experienced mediator. I am quite surprised that the Mediation Committee rejected a request for mediation when fourteen out of the sixteen listed participants who commented on the case (out of a total nineteen) accepted the request (and the requirements of acceptance was changed earlier this year to not require unanimous acceptance), but nevertheless, what's done is done. 
I agree with what Nableezy said about a binding RFC being a bad idea. This situation seems to be too entrenched for anything except a split vote to occur, with minimal community input due to the contentious nature of the dispute, ending with a result of no consensus. Binding mediation has no real precedent that I know of, but it may be what's needed. For what it's worth, I'd be happy to mediate such a dispute - I think I'd be able enough to do so. But it all comes down to what's best for the dispute. I'd suggest mediation, failing that, a salted earth remedy like the Scientology case may be required. Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 14:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Steven Zhang

message: The talk page has obviously failed. Editors are filibustering to the point that it is almost as disruptive as edit warring and it appears that no one wants to budge out of fear of hurting their cause. As mentioned on the talk page, a request for mediation with certain parties not invited could be a solution. For example: I don't want to spend hours discussing the issue. Nableezy not being invited would also be beneficial (he declined mediation but kept on arguing on the talk page) while others could also take a step back and let those without such passion hammer it out in a more structured, concise, cooler, and objective manner. An RfC might be fine but a select group of editors already involved might fix this in mediation. Conversely, people are going to argue over this issue no matter what the wording is so maybe the status quo is perfectly fine. The article might actually be sufficient as is and the issue is primarily talk page behavior instead of how the article currently comes across to the reader. I lean towards the former since there is nothing that cannot be improved.Cptnono (talk) 08:14, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by cptnono

message: The problem is obviously one of excess demand. This suggests that filing and commenting on Malleus related cases is simply too cheap. What we need is an entrance fee. Every time someone feels the need to file such a case they need to cough up, say, 70$ (I dunno, give it to the Wikimedia Foundation, or better yet, some charity). Every time someone feels like they must comment on the case, it's 10 smackeroos.
If you wanna translate this into Wikipdia-costs, then make it an automatic week long block for filing a case, and a day block for commenting. Standard procedure, no stigma, you just got to lay off for awhile.
That way, if there's a truly serious problem which really is deserving of a case, the person or persons concerned will be perfectly willing to cough up the cash, forkout the funds, bankroll the blocks. If it's the standard frivolous bullshit, they'll think twice about it.VolunteerMarek 20:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Volunteer Marek

message: I'm in the camp which views the current wording as a prolonged case of prima facie point-of-view pushing. Since about 2007, I've participated in a couple of the futile, labyrinthine and archive-spanning attempts to change it by means of talkpage discussion.
That the current wording violates Wikipedia's neutrality principle has been shown (and ignored) time after time in the nine years that the current wording has stood.
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view:
*    "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts."
*    "Avoid stating opinions as facts."
*    "Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views."
*    "Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies.
*    "NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. This policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it."
*    "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources."
Some history: after the 1967 War, the UN passed a series of resolutions stating that any current or past unilateral Israeli attempts to change the status of Jerusalem, East and West, were invalid, including Israel's Basic Law of 1980 which declared Jerusalem its capital.
As one example, see Resolution 478 of 1980: "[the UN Security Council] determines that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the recent 'basic law' on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith." As another example, see Resolution 267 of 1969: "that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel which purport to alter the status of Jerusalem, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, are invalid and cannot change that status."  (see article Positions on Jerusalem)
Accordingly, the UK government, for example, takes the position  that: "... no state has sovereignty over Jerusalem. The UK believes that the city's status has yet to be determined, and maintains that it should be settled in an overall agreement between the parties concerned." One recent demonstration of the disputed status of Jerusalem was at the London Olympics, where the BBC listed Jerusalem as the seat of government, rather than capital, of Israel (and East Jerusalem as the intended seat of government of Palestine). Another concerned a complaint made to the UK Press Complaints Commission about The Guardian stating that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel. The Commission ruled that there had been no breach of its code (The Guardian subsequently updated its style guide so that it no longer calls Tel Aviv Israel´s capital, instaed just stating that Jerusalem should not be referred to as the capital of Israel).
Given the above, I cannot see how "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" is not a seriously contested assertion and that making it in the Lead of the article does not, therefore, breach the neutrality policy. In fact, the first sentence in the Lead doesn't even properly summarise the body of the article.
In line with the neutrality policy, editors have been asked to modify the Lead so that it either states something that it is not disputed, such as that Jerusalem is the declared capital of Israel or that it is the capital under Israeli law, or that it represents the claim that Jerusalem is the capital as the Israeli point of view. Nobody is particularly exercised over the form of words used, so long as the neutrality policy is adhered to. However, ignoring the Wikipedia definition of what a fact is, it is an article of faith with editors taking the Israeli view that it is a fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. Therefore, what looks as though it should be a trivial matter to fix, has taken on the dimensions of an ideological struggle. To support their position, editors taking the Israeli view have advanced identical, partisan arguments to those advancing the Israeli position outside Wikipedia, ignoring the counter-arguments and falsifying the position of what is commonly referred to as the international community. A set of double standards has been applied in order to minimise, or avoid, mentioning the Palestinian position on Jerusalem in the Lead.
(more to follow)      ←   ZScarpia   12:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by ZScarpia 

message: Noting the suggestion that RfC closers should be appointed in advance. I don't strongly mind if this happens, but in past successful binding RfCs (e.g. VnT, Muhammad), these details have been left to disputants and have not been imposed by anyone. Editors have put out their own "adverts" for closers, held their own auditions and applied for mediation in the normal way (e.g. to formulate an RfC question). I don't think there would be any clear benefit to ArbCom assuming this role. The risk, on the other hand, is that disputants may decide not to respect the outcome, on the grounds that ArbCom chose badly. For the Muhammad RfC, the in-advance/when-the-time-comes issue was decided (by disputants) in favour of the former, so that editors would not be able to bypass the RfC and instead appeal directly to the closers. The decision here might be different, but I think it should not be a matter for ArbCom. Formerip (talk) 01:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by formerip 

message: :This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
* Sent by me to the clerks' mailing list, a moment ago: "Dear clerks, You will notice that it is now mathematically impossible for the Jerusalem RFAR to be accepted. However, an arbcom-l thread regarding this case request is pending, and we are waiting to hear back from one arbitrator on a particular point of discussion. Therefore, please do NOT archive this case request until further notice. I've copied this instruction to the on-site clerk notes section." AGK [•] 23:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clerk notes 

message: I wish to point out, that the initial question of this subject was the both part of this sentence. Those two parts namely "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" and "although not internationally recognized as such" were equally but separately viewed as they are already balanced. Numerous sources are relating to this subject, without  mentioning international dispute in the lead. F.x CIA fact book  National Geography  and  and  Index mundi  even in sports and entertainment  etc. So if this sources without any dispute point out that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, our lead is at least already balanced with the negation of this claim through "international community"  --Tritomex (talk) 12:28, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Tritomex 

message: We need better management of case requests.  Something is very wrong when an experienced administrator has an expletive-containing hissy fit after the arbitration committee refuses to take a case related to an intractable dispute.  Would you all please stop abdicating your responsibilities: you Tariq, and you The Committee. Jehochman Talk 14:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Jehochman

message: * Good choices. NE Ent 14:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Community comments concerning motion 

message: Do y'all deal with obvious socks?  The problem, naturally, is that there's no way yet to know whose it is.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:35, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socks 

message: Hi there, all. this is just a suggestion. In the future, I think that any time that Arbcomm launches a process to discuss an RFC, they should ask the moderator to provide a set of the possible wordings or options which may be offered in the future RFC.
Then participants in the process for designing that RFC should be given the chance to say whether they are for or against each of those options, and why. 
if we permit all discussion participants to offer their own options and to argue over that, then the process can become quickly derailed, and we may never get around to the RFC itself which was the reason for convening that process in the first place. just a thought. hope you don't mind. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  comment on rfc process and arbcomm 

message: by the way, one reason I made this a request for clarification is that I left notes on the personal talk pages for several arbitrators. However, I did not receive a reply,. So, based on the fact that I did not receive any reply at all, even when i tried to conduct this discussion on an informal basis with individual members of Arbcomm,  I felt that it was advisable to post this. I appreciate your help. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Note on reason for process

message: I would like to thank Salvio for his note, and would like to reply. Salvio, I will try to be equally frank. In my opinion, I think this process really started out with some good intentions. but I think the results are not what Arbcomm had hoped for, since their goal was to provide a process which would make the design process for an RFC more easier. I know it is not Arbcomm's intent to inflict counter-productive processes on Wikipedia, and they intended to make things more better for our editing community. in my opinion the the resulting process is very much counter to what Arbcomm intended or desired. I don't think the design process for an RFC should take so long that actually launching the RFC itself becomes an afterthought, or is even made to seem relatively unimportant due to the length of this design process. my point is, Arbcomm itself should be notified if a process which it mandated turns out to not have achieved the desired result, and in fact ends up being just as laborious as the conventional process which it was meant to replace.
I do appreciate all the hard work which Arbcomm does, and all the multiple benefits which it provides to the Wikipedia community. I hope it will be possible for Arbcomm to have a full discussion of this item, to discuss both the intent of this process, and the actual course it took, and to also lay out some clear and specific guidelines on how the process should be designed in the future, and what guidelines Arbcomm should define for itself for any similar process which it may mandate in the future. if this came up now, then it could possibly come up again. so I appreciate any progress which we as a community might be able to forge together. I appreciate your help and input. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to Salvio

message: By the way, one more note in regards to what Arbcomm should do. in my opinion, of course Arbcomm should intervene if possible to do so. the whole point of Arbcomm mandating a process, imo, is so that they will intervene when necessary at various intervals, in order to maintain that process and to keep it viable. I really see no reason for Arbcomm to be hands-off if it mandates a process, and then that process does not show some viable progress. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Note on intent of process

message: I would like to request a clarification of the RFC process for Jerusalem article, which Arbcomm mandated, in regards to the points raised and queries in the following note on an Arbcomm talk page. 
# note: Arbitration/Requests#Mandated Jerusalem discussion appears to be a bureaucratic morass. (Permanent link.)
# I would also like to suggest a solution and remedy for the problems discussed in this note. I have made these suggestions at the following talk page section: ARBPIA#comment_on_rfc_process_and_arbcomm.
# The page which is referred to is located at: Talk:Jerusalem/2013_RfC_discussion.
thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original statement by Sm8900

message: I would like to thank Arbcomm for replying to this. please note that my motion on this item is not necessarily a point of contention with any other editor who is part of this, but is rather a suggestion on the nature of this process itself. thanks very much. --Sm8900 (talk) 02:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Note by sm8900

message: I would like to reply and say that I do appreciate all the hard work which the moderator has put into helping this process to develop. I don't think it is any fault of the moderator that this has taken so long. I think that the structure of this process was flawed from the beginning. in the future, I feel that Arbcomm should be the one to provide the possible options to be used in a future RFC. then, as part of the design process for the RFC, all participants should simply comment on the possible options which Arbcomm has provided. I feel that this might allow the process to go much more smoothly. --Sm8900 (talk) 11:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Note in reply to moderator of process

message: I'm not sure what exactly the "clarification" needed is, but, yes, this process is taking forever. I don't know what the problem is. A desire to get every minutae related to this RfC nailed down? Lack of participation (from those commenting or the mediator)? Excessive arguing over minor points?
That being said, while this process has taken a long time already, I feel the RfC discussion is close to its conclusion. 
On Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests, Looie496 said there are four steps left in the discussion before the RfC commences. However, that's not true; there are only two. One of them has been going on for more than a month now, so hopefully that should be drawing to its final conclusion (provided the moderator doesn't insist on several more questions). The last step is the finalization of implementation, which I imagine is just discussion of how the RfC will be advertised. The last two steps Looie referenced are the launch of the RfC and the analysis and implementation of the results -- i.e. the RfC itself.
I'm not a fan of this current drawn-out process, and I feel a small team of reasonable editors (maybe ArbCom itself?) could have come up with an RfC with a similar format months ago. But now that we've gone down this road, we might as well see it to its end -- although perhaps with a greater understanding from all parties involved that we need to speed this up. Many people, myself included, are becoming fatigued and losing interest in this whole thing. -- tariqabjotu 02:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Tariqabjotu 

message: For those unfamiliar with the background, I'm the moderator of the RfC discussion. I'm a little surprised to see this clarification request, as I think this could have been sorted out on my talk page without involvement from the committee. Sm8900 did leave a note on my talk page a few days ago, but we didn't discuss the issue of the basic structure of the RfC discussion, which seems to be what this request is about. 
Having said that, I do agree with him, with Tariqabjotu, and with Looie496, about the fact that this process has been taking too long. This is mostly the result of my decisions on how to structure the process, and I'm sorry for any unnecessary work or discussion that this has caused. It wasn't my intention to make the discussion last as long as this, and I might have been able to avoid this state of affairs with more foresight.
To add to this, there has been discontent among the participants at the latest stage of the proceedings. I made the mistake of posting what turned out to be very contentious questions for the participants to answer, right before I went travelling for a few days (on April 11). I wanted to post the questions before I left, as otherwise the process would have basically been stalled until I got back. However, this backfired, and resulted in a series of acrimonious exchanges which I wasn't able to moderate effectively due to my limited internet access. I think it is the negativity in this latest round of discussions that has led to the fatigue that Tariqabjotu mentions.
However, as Tariqabjotu also mentions above, this process is actually fairly near to completion, and I don't think there would be any benefit to radically changing its format at this stage. There are certainly lessons to be learned from this experience for the next time ArbCom tries something similar, and I myself have many things to reflect upon. What the actual process needs now, though, is for me to summarise the consensus from the latest discussions and to assemble a draft of the RfC text, not for there to be a change of procedure or of personnel. After the participants see an actual draft of the RfC, with any luck the fatigue should disappear. I have set aside today to do this, so you can expect to see some results later on. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:57, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Mr. Stradivarius 

message: In response to Salvio, let me note that this request is here because Carcharoth said it should be -- the issue was originally raised on the ArbCom talk page.  In my view, the most important aspect of this is that ArbCom really needs to be conscious of how far off track the process has gone, otherwise similar things are likely to happen again.  This is a remedy that did not work properly.  Can the concept be modified to make it workable, or should remedies of this sort simply be avoided?
It would also be helpful, for the current case, to have the moderator set a more or less definite target date for when the RfC should go live. Looie496 (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Looie496 

message: I agree with the editors above in that the process, while long, is quite close to completion and in that regard prospects are bright.  Mr. Stradivarius has been doing an admirable job in guiding the discussion toward the eventual goal of starting the RFC. I don't see why we shouldn't just finish the planning according to the agreed plan.  Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: hmmm, I do hear your points. I would like to thank Dailycare for his reply here, as a fellow participant. thanks.--Sm8900 (talk) 15:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Dailycare 

message: : This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*Taking care of the notifications now. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: *I've notified the moderator, closers and all users listed as participants. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clerk notes 

message: *Thank-you for the request for clarification. Before this goes any further, we need to make sure that all those who need to be aware of this request have been notified and added to the notification section above. Could you or a clerk please do that. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 00:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: * Currently, the article Syrian civil war is under the arbitration remedies of ARBPIA, despite that the Syrian conflict has no direct affiliation with the general Arab-Israeli conflict. The ARBPIA was enforced by administrator User:Jake Wartenberg on March 2013  in order to control constant edit-warring on the Syrian civil war page with the most suitable tool, chosen by him to be ARBPIA. Jake was later requested to amend the issue of enforcing ARBPIA on Syrian civil war and using instead a new 1RR took for the Syrian civil war articles, answering that Arbcom is the correct target for such request .
* A new arbitration 1RR tool is proposed to be created to deal with Syrian civil war articles in order reduce edit-warring, and stabilize a large number of pages, to keep order and refrain from confusion because of current use of ARBPIA for the Syrian civil war article (ARBPIA to be replaced with Syrian civil war 1RR restriction).
==== Statement by Greyshark09 ====
The ARBPIA 1RR restriction was enforced in Syrian civil war article in order to prevent constant edit-warring. The 1RR restriction was made by admin Jake Wartenberg on March 24, 2013, as an answer to editors' request to limit edit-warring on that page (request and enforcement). The enforcement of ARBPIA was made simply because it is the most convenient 1RR tool available and not because of an affiliation with the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, there might be a serious flaw in using the "Arab-Israeli arbitration enforcement" tool on Syrian civil war articles: first of all Israeli involvement is so far very limited in that conflict and hence Israel is not present in the infobox yet; secondly, even if considering Israeli involvement, the context is clearly not a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict (conflict between Israel and Arab League), but actually part of the Israel-Iran proxy conflict (Iran is not an Arab country and of course is not part of the Arab League). Considering that Syria is suspended from the Arab League (see ), thus the "Arab-Israeli arbitration enforcement" on Syrian conflict is irrelevant. I suggest creating a new arbitration tool named "Syrian conflict arbitration enforcement" for 1RR enforcing on Syrian civil war related articles instead of ARBPIA to resolve this issue.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: @Newyorkbrad: Basically, your understanding of the presented case is in line with my attempt to present it. Let's see additional opinions on the case.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

text: You should reread my proposal - the request is to remove the ARBPIA tool (because it has nothing to do with Syrian civil war) and implement a different 1RR sanction tool - proposed to be 1RR for Syrian civil war articles. Alternative solutions were also proposed by administrators.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

text: I would like to bring to your attention that in addition to Syrian civil war article and Syrian civil war infobox template, there is also a constant edit-warring on articles Syria, Syrian civil war spillover into Lebanon, Siege of Homs, etc.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amendment 

message: The ARBPIA 1RR restriction was enforced in Syrian civil war article in order to prevent constant edit-warring. The 1RR restriction was made by admin Jake Wartenberg on March 24, 2013, as an answer to editors' request to limit edit-warring on that page (request and enforcement). The enforcement of ARBPIA was made simply because it is the most convenient 1RR tool available and not because of an affiliation with the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, there might be a serious flaw in using the "Arab-Israeli arbitration enforcement" tool on Syrian civil war articles: first of all Israeli involvement is so far very limited in that conflict and hence Israel is not present in the infobox yet; secondly, even if considering Israeli involvement, the context is clearly not a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict (conflict between Israel and Arab League), but actually part of the Israel-Iran proxy conflict (Iran is not an Arab country and of course is not part of the Arab League). Considering that Syria is suspended from the Arab League (see ), thus the "Arab-Israeli arbitration enforcement" on Syrian conflict is irrelevant. I suggest creating a new arbitration tool named "Syrian conflict arbitration enforcement" for 1RR enforcing on Syrian civil war related articles instead of ARBPIA to resolve this issue.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: @Newyorkbrad: Basically, your understanding of the presented case is in line with my attempt to present it. Let's see additional opinions on the case.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

text: You should reread my proposal - the request is to remove the ARBPIA tool (because it has nothing to do with Syrian civil war) and implement a different 1RR sanction tool - proposed to be 1RR for Syrian civil war articles. Alternative solutions were also proposed by administrators.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

text: I would like to bring to your attention that in addition to Syrian civil war article and Syrian civil war infobox template, there is also a constant edit-warring on articles Syria, Syrian civil war spillover into Lebanon, Siege of Homs, etc.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Greyshark09 

message: As an editor who has made many edits to Syria-related articles (although I've recently been less active), I can safely say that the Syrian civil war is definitely not an Arab-Israeli conflict and should not be restricted by ARBPIA. However, the main Syrian civil war infobox often does suffer from edit wars. An 1RR restriction might be helpful there, but the Syrian civil war battle articles usually don't experience edit-wars, and therefore a 1RR restriction for those articles is unnecessary, maybe even inappropriate. I support restrictions for the infobox template, but do not support restrictions for the main article or related articles.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by FutureTrillionaire 

message: I have only got involved in the Syria article alone to try to resolve the infobox issue where international events at the time could pose a conflict of interest into how the country's infobox was presented.
Although the RfC initially went towards a neutral solution where the government would be in separate infoboxes preferable at the politics and government section, the ultimate consensus was keep the status quo for now, for which I respect.
However, my talk page and user page was subject to personal attacks on 25 April 2013 (see  and ). This resulted in me posting  about their actions, yet a user known as  tried to  on that, resulting in  to an administrator. Further investigation resulted in the said account blocked on suspicion of sockpuppetry.
My last recent edit to Syria was to remind users that the consensus was the status quo.
Therefore I could support a new Syrian conflict arbitration enforcement tool with tougher measures against personal attacks. Even where my experience has been completely independent of the Israel question, it seems that the civil war needs its own taskforce to deal with the present issues, although I tried my best to respect WP:NPOV. --Marianian(talk) 01:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Marianian 

message: I am not sure if it is okay to have sub-headers under my space for asking questions, but I was wondering how it would be possible to have an article under two Arbcom cases? --Marianian(talk) 07:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Question to Greyshark09

message: My involvement in this issue began in late March when I responded to a protection request that was made as the result of an edit war over whether Israel should be considered involved in the conflict.  It seemed initially as if I had been able to broker a compromise between some of the editors involved, but the situation quickly deteriorated after I lifted the protection.  I read through the talk page archives and found that this was a dispute between entrenched editors that had been going on for months with little progress, despite extensive DR.  ARBPIA reads, "any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict falls under 1RR. When in doubt, assume it is related."  In light of this, there seemed to me little question that the sanctions were applicable.  This is the first and only time I have worked in AE.  I apologize if my actions have not embodied the same finesse that might be expected of an administrator more experienced in this area.   ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 23:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Jake Wartenberg 

message: Will cool the many hot-heads down, and force them to use the talk-page, which is a good thing. FunkMonk (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by FunkMonk 

message: I agree with the statement that Greyshark09 made. I support putting 1RR the article. However it must be labeled appropriately. Labeling the Syrian civil war as part of the Israeli-Arab conflict without reliable sources calling it part of said conflict could be seen as POV pushing. So we could make the category Syrian Civil war protection as a temporary category and clearly state that fact. I hope I am not posting too late if so I apologize. Pug6666 19:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Pug6666 

message: I have no strong opinion, really - I'm not incredibly involved in this dispute. I did block a user recently for a 1RR violation, as a result of the 1RR restriction on the page. The block itself was slightly contentious, and I asked for other admins to review it at AN, though I don't think the main points of contention would not really be resolved by an ArbCom motion either way. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 17:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by ItsZippy 

message: Israel as a state is already directly involved in the conflict, as clear from the text of article, for example here, airstrikes by Israeli aviation and a lot more . Therefore, I think this particular article falls under ARBPIA. There is no need in any clarification, amendment, new case or ANI/AN discussion. This can be decided by admins on AE if anyone files a complaint.My very best wishes (talk) 03:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment by My very best wishes

message: In'm not involved in anything Syrian Civil War-related, although I have long experience in dealing with ARBPIA-related AE requests. In my view, this civil war is at most partially and indirectly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. As such, I think that the civil war as a whole is outside the scope of that conflict, and consequently outside the scope of the case's remedies, except as concerns edits that relate to Israel's involvement in the civil war. In addition, as I've said elsewhere, I have concerns that WP:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction is not enforceable as written, because it was voted on by the Committee only indirectly in the context of a motion amending it, and, if it is considered a discretionary sanction by an administrator, it would need to be the subject of individual prior warnings per WP:AC/DS#Warnings.
Because arbitration is the last resort of dispute resolution, if I were on the Committee, I'd request more specific evidence that community- or admin-level dispute resolution efforts or tools have failed to effectively prevent continued edit-warring before considerint imposing any arbitral sanctions. Such evidence has not been presented here. I therefore recommend that administrators first make use of normal anti-editwarring measures such as warnings, protections or blocks, or ask for a community sanction at WP:AN, before asking the Committee to impose sanctions.  Sandstein  04:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sandstein 

message: It should be made known that the Syrian civil war topic area suffers from a fairly high level of sockpuppetry, both account- and IP-based. ArbCom member User:Salvio giuliano can well attest to this. Any 1RR restriction should explicitly take this into account with a clear exemption for the reversion of sock-edits. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Lothar von RIchthofen 

message: :Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.
==== Statement by Thryduulf ====
I have only taken a cursory look at the article but it seems that 1RR is generally working there (and the statements by users here suggest likewise). If this is so, then I don't think that a community sanction authorising discretionary sanctions (or just 1RR restrictions) at the discretion of uninvolved administrators for all articles (and templates, etc) related to the Syrian Civil War would be hard to come by. However, ArbCom sanctions normally supercede community ones, and there is the potential for wikilawyering during a period until the community sanction is passed. As such I'd say that an arbcom motion retroactively authorising the existing sanctions and authorising their continuance until such time as the community reaches a consensus about whether to authorise sanctions or not. Although I don't think it likely, the community could decide not to authorise them, and at the same time it allows the status quo to remain in the event of no consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: re "are to be treated as if they were a valid implementation of arbitration enforcement.". My reading of the intention here is that they should should be treated as if this motion was in place when they were issued. It makes no judgment on whether they are/were correct or not, other than there was a valid authority to place restrictions. Thryduulf (talk) 07:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

text: "All sanctions made pursuant to the  prior to the passage of this motion are to be relogged at Talk:Syrian civil war/Log.". I don't think you mean all sanctions, as that would include those not relevant to Syria. "All sanctions related to the Syrian Civil War made..." is what I I think you want. Thryduulf (talk) 13:25, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

text: Your motion looks good to me, but you might want to be explicit that a community consensus at AN/I can in this case supercede the ArbCom resolution, as they usually can't. Thryduulf (talk) 15:13, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

text: NW, thank you for your response, but I still want to return to practical considerations as to what we should do in the meantime before you folk actually make a decision. The article and the related template  still have notices that sanctions are in effect. They also have edit notices that pop up if an editor edits either page. I think it's safe to assume that some editors, both admins and non-admins, aren't aware of this request here. What happens during the pendency of this request if an editor violates 1RR? One possible solution is to remove the edit notices (they are not required anyway - they just help to give notice), to leave the talk page notices on the talk pages, but add a notice that links to this request for clarification. It's not ideal as it has a certain schizoid quality to it, but I'm struggling to think of what's fair, yet at the same time not prejudge the outcome of this request.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: NW, I hate to be a pest (it's one of my many annoying flaws). Your advice makes sense to me except for two issues. First, if I remove the notice and edit notices, I think it would be better to post a message on the talk page warning editors not to construe the removal as a license to battle. To make it more visible, I'd like to put it into the header (I assume that can be done - I'm not experienced with editing talk page headers). Second, although it's true that a breach of WP:3RR is not required to block someone for edit warring, one rarely blocks an editor who reverts twice unless there's some additional factor, e.g., a recent history of edit warring in the article. And just because I can't resist, you might wish to fix your inadvertent and entertaining typo ("I think the former might be latter and preferred here"). :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 23:00, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: I apologize for the irrelevant question, i now see that the 3 month restriction is to be be applied to all Syrian civil war topic articles.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

text: This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*I remind all users commenting that you must only edit your own section. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 03:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *: I do not disagree that having this article be under 1RR / discretionary sanctions is ultimately a good thing for the editing atmosphere. However, my opinion is Jake had no authority to implement them under ArbCom's discretionary sanctions authorization. I know it is not the best thing in the world to do it this way, but it is in my view the only thing that ArbCom has authorized. Some examples:We use the phrase "broadly construed" a lot in our decisions. If the Syrian civil war would count under this, so too would the Egyptian revolution, the Gulf War and the US-Iran naval tensions. With all three of those topics, there are situations where the Arab-Israeli [or I guess more broadly Middle Eastern-Israeli] sanctions would apply: upheaval in the Egypt-Gaza region, the decision by Saddam to fire Scud missiles at Israel, and I'm sure the occasional presence of the IDF navy operating alongside the Fifth Fleet respectively. But for those three larger topics to qualify for discretionary sanctions, ArbCom would have had to have passed a motion putting all of MENA under discretionary sanctions, which it has not.What I would not be opposed to (and indeed, which I might propose if it sounds good to everyone) would be a motion implementing 1RR / discretionary sanctions for one month with respect to the Syrian civil war. This should give enough time for the community to authorize sanctions of its own if it wishes; should it not, that's its own prerogative and the matter can be brought back to ArbCom when there is a genuine "serious conduct [dispute] the community has been unable to resolve" (WP:ARBPOL). NW (Talk) 20:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *@Bbb23: That hypothetical editor can be blocked for edit warring separately from the blanket 1RR prohibition, and I would encourage that any blocks in the next week be given on a simple edit warring rationale instead of a 1RR violation rationale. Reviewing sysops are always at liberty to apply more stringent standards to enforcing the edit warring policy than the 3RR standard, whether on this or any other topic. I would remove the talk page banner and edit notice for now.For a more permanent solution, I think there are two routes we can take. One would be what I suggested earlier. Another would be to simply pass a motion adopting discretionary sanctions for the Syrian civil war topic area. I think the former latter might be better and preferred here; it is pretty clear that the article is a long-term minefield. The fact that the (wrong) implementation of discretionary sanctions and 1RR calmed down the topic area is almost evidence in and of itself that Arbitration enforcement was if not necessary, highly helpful, in helping calm down the topic area. NW (Talk) 22:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *@Bbb23: Don't worry about being a pest :) I wouldn't bother making any changes now. It's OK if the warnings are a little out of date if the ultimate intention is the same one. Hopefully the motion that I have proposed below will pass quickly enough and satisfy everyone's concerns. NW (Talk) 23:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *: 1RR has an automatic exemption for sockpuppetry, BLP, copyright, illegal content (WP:NOT3RR). There's no need to mention it specifically here. NW (Talk) 21:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further discussion 

message: I have only taken a cursory look at the article but it seems that 1RR is generally working there (and the statements by users here suggest likewise). If this is so, then I don't think that a community sanction authorising discretionary sanctions (or just 1RR restrictions) at the discretion of uninvolved administrators for all articles (and templates, etc) related to the Syrian Civil War would be hard to come by. However, ArbCom sanctions normally supercede community ones, and there is the potential for wikilawyering during a period until the community sanction is passed. As such I'd say that an arbcom motion retroactively authorising the existing sanctions and authorising their continuance until such time as the community reaches a consensus about whether to authorise sanctions or not. Although I don't think it likely, the community could decide not to authorise them, and at the same time it allows the status quo to remain in the event of no consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: re "are to be treated as if they were a valid implementation of arbitration enforcement.". My reading of the intention here is that they should should be treated as if this motion was in place when they were issued. It makes no judgment on whether they are/were correct or not, other than there was a valid authority to place restrictions. Thryduulf (talk) 07:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

text: "All sanctions made pursuant to the  prior to the passage of this motion are to be relogged at Talk:Syrian civil war/Log.". I don't think you mean all sanctions, as that would include those not relevant to Syria. "All sanctions related to the Syrian Civil War made..." is what I I think you want. Thryduulf (talk) 13:25, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

text: Your motion looks good to me, but you might want to be explicit that a community consensus at AN/I can in this case supercede the ArbCom resolution, as they usually can't. Thryduulf (talk) 15:13, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Thryduulf 

message: The phrasing of the discretionary sanctions regime from ARBPIA is as follows: 
Looking over the article and talk page, it is clear that Israeli involvement in this inter-Arab conflict is of significant editorial interest, which reflects the interest shown by reliable sources. ARBPIA doesn't pertain solely to Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, but even if it did the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command) are involved in the conflict and have threatened to attack the Golan Heights currently occupied by Israel. Since the discretionary sanctions apply to "related articles, broadly interpreted" I would say this falls roughly within the lines given all these facts. From my reading, however, this is strictly a question of the 1RR restriction on the article as any edits relating to Israeli involvement would be normally covered by the discretionary sanctions anyway. The general 1RR restriction actually has similar wording as the discretionary sanctions saying:
The bolded wording would clearly accommodate the position that the article falls under the 1RR restriction. My impression would be that sanctions wouldn't apply to every article regarding the Syrian civil war, just those where Israeli involvement would be a significant point of interest.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by The Devil's Advocate 

message: I am posting at this point only to respond to NW's comment. It's hard enough for admins to decide whether a particular article belongs under sanctions. Now, you're saying that we have to parse the actual circumstances to see if the violation occurred in a part of the article that relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's like putting sections of articles under sanctions. I see that as a practical nightmare. Also, although you recommend NYB's option #3, you appear to ignore NYB's first #3 (" no one so far seems to disagree that having the article under DS (in particular, a 1RR) is a good idea"), a statement rather than an option, and seems to contradict your view as how to apply the sanctions to this article.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:28, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: NW, thank you for your response, but I still want to return to practical considerations as to what we should do in the meantime before you folk actually make a decision. The article and the related template  still have notices that sanctions are in effect. They also have edit notices that pop up if an editor edits either page. I think it's safe to assume that some editors, both admins and non-admins, aren't aware of this request here. What happens during the pendency of this request if an editor violates 1RR? One possible solution is to remove the edit notices (they are not required anyway - they just help to give notice), to leave the talk page notices on the talk pages, but add a notice that links to this request for clarification. It's not ideal as it has a certain schizoid quality to it, but I'm struggling to think of what's fair, yet at the same time not prejudge the outcome of this request.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: NW, I hate to be a pest (it's one of my many annoying flaws). Your advice makes sense to me except for two issues. First, if I remove the notice and edit notices, I think it would be better to post a message on the talk page warning editors not to construe the removal as a license to battle. To make it more visible, I'd like to put it into the header (I assume that can be done - I'm not experienced with editing talk page headers). Second, although it's true that a breach of WP:3RR is not required to block someone for edit warring, one rarely blocks an editor who reverts twice unless there's some additional factor, e.g., a recent history of edit warring in the article. And just because I can't resist, you might wish to fix your inadvertent and entertaining typo ("I think the former might be latter and preferred here"). :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 23:00, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Bbb23 

message: It is my understanding that motion proposal shall result in retroactive change of ARBPIA sanctions to be moved to appropriate Syrian civil war sanctions log and the ARBPIA sanction (considered to be inappropriate by most) be replaced with a temporal tool, specific for Syrian civil war article to extend for three months. In my opinion, it would be a reasonable (though temporal) solution for the issue. However i should ask to clarify whether :template:Syrian civil war infobox (which is also a big source of edit-warring) shall also be included in this proposed change.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:23, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize for the irrelevant question, i now see that the 3 month restriction is to be be applied to all Syrian civil war topic articles.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Greyshark09

message: : This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*I remind all users commenting that you must only edit your own section. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 03:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clerk notes 

message: *Let's see if we have consensus on what the issue is, before we try to figure out the resolution to it. If the filing party is correct, the basics seem to be this: (1) there have been editing problems on Syrian Civil War, (2) an administrator started using discretionary sanctions on the article based on the Palestine-Israel case, (3) no one so far seems to disagree that having the article under DS (in particular, a 1RR) is a good idea, but (4) people have noticed the obvious fact that the Syrian Civil War is primarily an inter-Arab conflict rather than an Israeli-Palestinian one. Procedurally, we can't really say we are "clarifying" the Palestine-Israel case by expanding it to a subject that is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, and I'm not sure that are our doing so would fall comfortably within the scope of an "amendment" either. So I guess the procedural choices would be (1) to open a case (which might be overkill), (2) to adopt a motion in lieu of a case (which is do-able but only if the facts aren't in dispute), or (3) to recommend that the parties take this to AN and try to get a community sanction adopted there. Awaiting further statements to see if my understanding of the issue is correct and from there to recommend a solution. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: *: I do not disagree that having this article be under 1RR / discretionary sanctions is ultimately a good thing for the editing atmosphere. However, my opinion is Jake had no authority to implement them under ArbCom's discretionary sanctions authorization. I know it is not the best thing in the world to do it this way, but it is in my view the only thing that ArbCom has authorized. Some examples:We use the phrase "broadly construed" a lot in our decisions. If the Syrian civil war would count under this, so too would the Egyptian revolution, the Gulf War and the US-Iran naval tensions. With all three of those topics, there are situations where the Arab-Israeli [or I guess more broadly Middle Eastern-Israeli] sanctions would apply: upheaval in the Egypt-Gaza region, the decision by Saddam to fire Scud missiles at Israel, and I'm sure the occasional presence of the IDF navy operating alongside the Fifth Fleet respectively. But for those three larger topics to qualify for discretionary sanctions, ArbCom would have had to have passed a motion putting all of MENA under discretionary sanctions, which it has not.What I would not be opposed to (and indeed, which I might propose if it sounds good to everyone) would be a motion implementing 1RR / discretionary sanctions for one month with respect to the Syrian civil war. This should give enough time for the community to authorize sanctions of its own if it wishes; should it not, that's its own prerogative and the matter can be brought back to ArbCom when there is a genuine "serious conduct [dispute] the community has been unable to resolve" (WP:ARBPOL). NW (Talk) 20:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *@Bbb23: That hypothetical editor can be blocked for edit warring separately from the blanket 1RR prohibition, and I would encourage that any blocks in the next week be given on a simple edit warring rationale instead of a 1RR violation rationale. Reviewing sysops are always at liberty to apply more stringent standards to enforcing the edit warring policy than the 3RR standard, whether on this or any other topic. I would remove the talk page banner and edit notice for now.For a more permanent solution, I think there are two routes we can take. One would be what I suggested earlier. Another would be to simply pass a motion adopting discretionary sanctions for the Syrian civil war topic area. I think the former latter might be better and preferred here; it is pretty clear that the article is a long-term minefield. The fact that the (wrong) implementation of discretionary sanctions and 1RR calmed down the topic area is almost evidence in and of itself that Arbitration enforcement was if not necessary, highly helpful, in helping calm down the topic area. NW (Talk) 22:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *@Bbb23: Don't worry about being a pest :) I wouldn't bother making any changes now. It's OK if the warnings are a little out of date if the ultimate intention is the same one. Hopefully the motion that I have proposed below will pass quickly enough and satisfy everyone's concerns. NW (Talk) 23:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

text: *: 1RR has an automatic exemption for sockpuppetry, BLP, copyright, illegal content (WP:NOT3RR). There's no need to mention it specifically here. NW (Talk) 21:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: I don't know if this falls within scope of this page. I don't know if I am posting in the right place. The article, talk page, and BLPN seem to indicate it warrants posting here though.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:22, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quailfier? 

message: We seriously need a change in ARBPIA rules as they are not only doing nothing to stop socks but are also enabling them by disabling fine editors. As it stands WP:ARE and WP:SPI are ineffective against editors using swarms of throw-away accounts. I and many others desire a change with the focus being on "new" accounts editing in the IP area.
I suggest we begin a formal discussion on the matter where editors may propose and discuss ideas on curbing socks in the IP area with minimal damage to honest new accounts and IPs. If someone with more wiki-bureaucratic knowledge could start such discussions and post notices to the relavent boards that would be great. Sepsis II (talk) 03:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: A good start would be for you to come clean about your own previous accounts. See , , , Kipa Aduma, Esq. (talk) 04:30, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP area still being swamped by socks 

message: About . 
Yesterday I asked semi-protection against drip-drip editing by IPs . Protection was added by  .
In my request I cited that the page was under the workings of WP:ARBPIA. And in their editsummary, the protecting editor used that statement as an argument. I made this statement because of the template's content (esp. Jerusalem). However, I just discovered that its talkpage does not have the  warning. 
My first question is to add the warning to the template, and so make my assumption/statement correct, albeit afterwards. Or, of course, this could be denied and we should somehow cleanup my by then wrong assumption (reassess the protection setting).
My second question is a parallel one, about . In preparing this post, I discovered that the similar page List of Israeli cities has no ARBPIA warning either. The page currently also lists cities in the West Bank (like Ariel, itself with WP:ARBPIA warning), and so this page also could be under WP:ARBPIA, needing the warning. In fact this page even more so, because it explicitly addresses West Bank locations. So I propose adding the ARBPIA warning to its talkpage (or decide not to). -DePiep (talk) 07:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The absence of the warning template doesn't imply that the article isn't under discretionary sanctions, only that the template hasn't been added. It normally isn't added to pages where there hasn't (or where there isn't likely to be) an issue, especially when only part of that page would be covered by the discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: OK then. Case closed. I just wanted to be on the safe side. -DePiep (talk) 10:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this page under WP:ARBPIA? 

message: Why does the list of DS warning notices end abruptly in April 2014? Does it mean that notices are no longer given? Or are they logged on a different page now? 24.188.185.162 (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Because, as advised at the top of the notifications section, "On 3 May 2014 Arbcom established a new method of notifying for discretionary sanctions which is explained at WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts. All notices given prior to the May 2014 cutover date will expire on 3 May 2015. New notices are to be given using  and they expire one year after they are given. No new notices should be logged here." RolandR (talk) 16:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notifications 

message: I was surprised to learn the area of nuclear proliferation in Iran was not included under WP:ARBPIA. I often see the same sorts of Islamophobic and POV-pushing editing in this area as in other WP:ARBPIA areas. What is the reason for not including it? Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason is quite simple - WB:ARBPIA is not intended to counter Islamophonia, even assuming, ad argumentum, that the desire to curb Iran's  nuclear program is an example of Islamophobia, but to address behavioral issues by editors involved in editing article related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All Rows4 (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: This is nothing Islamophobic about the subject of nuclear proliferation in Iran. The problem is the subject attracts many Islamophobic editors, and without a 1RR, it is hard to keep an Islamophobic bias out of the articles. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 15:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Who are these Islamophobic editors you speak of ? Plot Spoiler (talk) 16:04, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the area of nuclear proliferation in Iran be included? 

message: I don't think the article Jews should be placed under ARBPIA IR restrictions, while I think this should apply to Palestinians. I gave my reasons here. That said,  Jeppiz does have a serious point however. It is absolutely impossible to discuss Jewish origins on Wikipedia in a rational, rigorously high RS source based manner. One is just over-ruled, as are the relevant sources and the reason is that the definition is perceived by a majority of editors as one which must contain a political statement about Israel and the Law of Return, meaning that whatever sources say to the contrary, the definition of a Jew must state that (s)he comes from ancestors who lived in Palestine, which is total nonsense.. But this, which relates to one or two sentences in  the lead, should not translate into making the whole article, which has nothing to do with the I/P conflict, lie under an ARBPIA sanction. Nishidani (talk) 21:54, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Nishidani 

message: I'm not really seeing any common sense reason, or for that matter any other reason to do this other than as an attempt to chill speech. Ending major disruption is generally the only reason to even consider it. The diffs provided, I'm not sure if they even show minor disruption. -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 01:42, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Serialjoepsycho 

message: I just wanted to add an additional comment, especially regarding my below request. If this is a request to have Jew be placed under sanctions, then how did any article get placed under sanctions? The template should make mention of a discussion where it was voted on. It is quite possible that somebody just decided that sanctions apply to my article below, or to some other article Jew included and just puts in the sanction template and then that article is now under sanctions. There ought to be a safeguard in place to prevent that. Sir Joseph (talk) 04:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sir Joseph 

message: *Decline Excessive--and inadequate to deal with the key stated problem on the origin of Jews, which could be fought equally well on other pages.  DGG ( talk ) 00:21, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel_articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: This article seems fairly stable. It doesn't seem to be much of a focus of the Israel and Palestine partisan divide that causes so much disruption on Wikipedia. Removing the cumbersome discretionary sanctions such as 1RR doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request. If an issue later arises it can always be put back under these sanctions. You can leave it to administrator discretion.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I do understand your position here Amanda.  However, Since everyone's here, you could review whether to whitelist this article and also offer the clarification that AE is to be used for the whitelisting of articles. From your comments it does seem as if we are breaking new ground on how an article should be reviewed for if it falls under a certain set of sanctions.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:54, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: ARBPIA is broadly construed. Haredim groups that support the PLO and Hamas, zionism. There's not an actual question of why this was put under Arbpia honestly.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 12:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Sir Joseph, There's not some secret committee that puts articles under sanctions. By the actions of arbcom articles are put under sanctions. ARBPIA for instance use language like "broadly construed". This is every article on wikipedia and every new article created that relates in anyway to the Arab and Israeli conflict. This is whether they are marked or not on the talk page.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 23:50, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

text: And if you feel an article falls under ARBPIA and someone has violated it AE would be the appropriate location to take it to. ARBCOM members could we trouble you to link the template to make other editors aware of ARBPIA?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 00:01, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Sir Joseph, do I think it's ripe for abuse? No. Save for 1RR Sanctions are not placed without prior warning with ARBPIA. Regardless of whether a page is marked or not you can be sanctioned after being warned. In the event that an article is not actually under sanctions you can make that clear at AE or any time after being banned. This article only mentions Zionism but also supporters of Hamas and the PLO. There's not actually an argument that you can make that this is not a part of Arbpia. It has already been dcided what is a part of ARBPIA. Anything that is a part of the Arab-Israeli conflict broadly construed. Your making an appeal to fear that the system can be gamed. Your alternative could be gamed as well. Gaming the sanctions is a can lead to discretionary sanctions. Instead of hypothetical show where this actually happening so that something can be done.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 10:47, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

text: If someone was not warned about 1RR they could be blocked for 1rr. Where is this article that was put up by sock?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: So again it's all about a hypothetical but not an issue that is actually happening? If a page does not have this warning on it but it is an ARBPIA article and you have already been warned ARBPIA you can receive discretionary sanctions. If a page is not ARBPIA and it has this warning on it and you receive discretionary sanctions you can use that in your defense. If this actually becomes an issue ARBCOM should do something about it and that's if giving sanctions to those gaming the system doesn't fix it. As far as I can tell this hasn't actually been an issue. When there are actually issues on wikipedia the unpaid volunteer editors of ARBCOM do not need to waste their time on hypothetical issues that others bring to them. The possible negative hypotheticals that could be brought to them are to numerous to calculate. In short, unless it's actually broke they don't need to fix it.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: From what you understand? I don't have any further comment here. This is to painful.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 06:00, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Serialjoepsycho 

message: I just want to add one more thing, something similar to what I wrote on the Jew case above. How do I know that the ARBPIA template was even added correctly to this article? For all I know some admin assumed it to be in the same sphere as Israel-Palestine and just copy-pasted it. Looking at the original ARBPIA articles, I could not find this article listed. I do think it would be a good idea that when articles are added/deleted/amended/etc. a record is kept, so that when a template is put on the page, we know where to look to find out why, and we can see the reasoning behind it. It could very well be that there was a discussion about this page years back in some archive long gone, but that's neither here nor there (but it is somewhere), but I do ask you to consider that in the future for all ARBCOM cases, when you add articles, to please maintain or track on the talk page of the article the date of the discussion. Thank you. Sir Joseph (talk) 18:43, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment after reading Amanda's comment, does being included in the Wikiproject Israel automatically put you under this AE? That doesn't make any sense. I know of tons of articles that are under Wikiproject Israel not under sanctions so I still don't know how this article got placed under sanctions and that's why there should be somewhere it is discussed before something so drastic as placing an article on restrictions occurs. Sir Joseph (talk) 01:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't necessarily want a whitelist, I would like to know how this article got included, and how other articles get included and do all project articles get included automatically. Sir Joseph (talk) 02:31, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just reverted an IP edit to Yom Ha'atzmaut because I assumed that would be under sanctions. I was surprised to find no such template, so my question still stands. How do articles get put under sanctions? Sir Joseph (talk) 15:07, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I disagree with Pluto2012, looking at the article, and the history while it may be a contentious area, it is not something as serious as the IP area and my question still remains, why is this article in the IP sanctions automatically? There has to be a process in place, not every article in WIKIPROJECT:ISRAEL is subject to IP sanctions. This article, for example is stable enough and contrary to Pluto2012's assertions, any conflicts in edits is handled on the talk page. The last edit war on that article was in 2006 if my memory serves me. Putting a disputed tag on an article doesn't mean I think it belongs in the IP area, it just means a fact in the article is under dispute. As for Zero's statement that because it has the word Zionism it must be under IP sanctions, that is also not true. This is not necessarily dealing with the IP conflict. This is dealing with internal Jewish religious issues and how to deal with Zionism. That doesn't bring it to the level of the IP conflict and again, look at the edit history. Sir Joseph (talk) 01:17, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

text:  Serialjoepsycho, and if we can just paste a template on a talk page, don't you think that would be ripe for abuse? If I decide that a page is subject to ARBPIA, then I post it to a talk page then I take you to AE and you're blocked for violating something you never even knew was part of ARBPIA. ARBCOM won't investigate who put the template. The template is on the page. What about removing from the page? My statement still stands. There ought to be a process, in all ARBCOM cases where pages are marked with a template. Who decided that this page is subject to ARBPIA? Maybe it wasn't ARBCOM, I couldn't find the diff. I found lots of WIKIPROJECT:ISRAEL articles not under ARBPIA, should I just tag them with the template? I think that's a terrible idea. Sir Joseph (talk) 01:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Serialjoepsycho, I just found an article that had a template placed on it by a sock blocked user. If someone were warned for 1rr on that article, they would be blocked because nobody would've known that the template didn't being.Sir Joseph (talk) 21:59, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Har Nof had a template put in June by a sock. I found it because I was wondering why it was there. That article has nothing to do with the IP conflict, broadly construed, and indeed, I found that it was just placed there. I removed it, but in this case the article is not heavily edited so it was simple to do. What happens in an article that is edited? After a few weeks or months, that template becomes fact and it becomes a sanctionable article even though it has nothing to do with ARBCOM area. Sir Joseph (talk) 00:16, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually, from what I can gather, the sock put the template on and then brought someone to AN and the user got blocked for violating ARBPIA, so it's not hypothetical. We have a user putting on a template and an admin blocking based on that template. Sir Joseph (talk) 03:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't know what you're complaining about, EdJohnston blocked a user based on a sock's placement of a template that didn't belong. The sock was in an edit war, placed the template and then reported the other user. He knew how to game the system. I don't know how you can't see that as a problem when there is no official record when articles are placed under sanctions. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

text: But having an entire article placed under restrictions because of that is ludicrous. We are discussing Israel, does that mean that AE is now under 1RR? Certain topics are contentious and need 1RR. But most topics don't need 1RR and if something discusses it tangentially, then I don't think it should change the entire article. And if you look at ARBCOM, you'll see how often they have things brought because of "broadly construed." Sir Joseph (talk) 19:00, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional Statement by Sir Joseph 

message: This articles deals with a very contentious topic in the I-P conflict, which is the anti-zionism  of some Jewish communities. Some of them, the Naturei Karta are well-known and even used in the propaganda war between Israel and its ennemies and opponents (eg Iran). Sir Joseph himself added a tag several weeks ago stating the article was disputed. I think it should remain the ARPBIA list. There is no added value to remove this and at the contrary it could be used a a pretext of edit war. Any improvement can be discussed on the talk page. Pluto2012 (talk) 10:48, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[user:Pluto2012|Pluto2012]] 

message: An article about Zionism is an article about the I-P conflict.  I think the argument to the contrary is simply mistaken. Zerotalk 12:23, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Zero0000|Zero0000]] 

message: , you have your facts slightly wrong regarding NoCal100's typically hypocritical behavior on behalf of the State of Israel using his All Rows4 sock account. He warned the user on 1 June 2015 here, reported him the same day here, and placed the ARBPIA template on the talk page on 3 June 2015 here as a result of comments at the 3RR report. The edit warring was covered by 1RR, regardless of the presence or absence of the ARBPIA template, because it was about the status of Jerusalem i.e. whether Wikipedia can use its neutral narrative voice to refer to places in West Jerusalem as being in Israel. Yes, the sock successfully gamed the system, as has happened countless times (even the ARBPIA discussions are contaminated by evidence presented by socks), but it wasn't dependent on the presence or absence of the ARBPIA template or the notion of the article being a member of a set of 'ARBPIA articles'. It's because, in practice, 1RR has been enforced at the content level, even if it is just one word or sentence that is interpreted as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed, despite the ARBPIA restrictions talking about things at the article level. Since the 500 edit/30 day restriction is currently being enforced by editors rather than by software, perhaps that restriction will also be enforced at the content level rather than the article level in practice. Sean.hoyland – talk 17:14, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] 

message: * Looking t the article, I don't see how editing it would affect the actual problem area.  DGG ( talk ) 20:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel_articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: The 1RR rule prohibits editors from reverting non-IPs more than once a day and no newbie rule says low edit registered editors can be reverted, so when  reverted new editor  per the no newbie rule  blocked her per the 1RR rule. Please fix the 1RR rule, and then get a clerk to change the wording on  so this doesn't happen again. NE Ent 00:56, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by NE Ent 

message: The long standing WP:BOLD pillar explicitly states "The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold when updating the encyclopedia." (emphasis original). A remedy that a good faith editor "may be blocked without warning" is, I believe, unprecedented in arbcom proceedings, and in any event, an incredibly bad idea. NE Ent 14:57, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on motion 

message: Fixing this would be helpful. At first I assumed based on  that the 1RR restriction did not include an exception for non-IP new users, but apparently the restriction against new editors says that it can be enforced through reverts? It's quite confusing the way it's set up right now. Either way, I've unblocked since I now assume that the intent was for such reverts to not be subject to 1RR. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 01:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, if it turns out these two restrictions do conflict and Huldra's reverts indeed were not supposed to be subject to the 1RR restriction, I would like permission to RevDel the block out of Huldra's block log, per WP:CRD. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 02:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

text: 1. Replies in your own section, please. 2. I may have a relatively low edit count compared to some other editors/admins, but I am by no means "inexperienced" or "bullied". I explained my rationale at ANI, but for reference: "I unblocked because the restriction against new users, which can be enforced "by reverts", was enacted after the 1RR restriction. I therefore think it a more reasonable assumption that the new user restriction supersedes the 1RR restriction." Still, the restrictions do seem to conflict each other, and it is something I would welcome clarification from ArbCom on. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 02:35, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

text: I would welcome hearing the committee's thoughts on 3RR's applications to this, but again, I assume "by reverts" to give license to surpass 3RR the same as for vandalism. I could be mistaken on this, however. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 02:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  The part I quote is at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3#General Prohibition. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 02:43, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't know, then. We'll see. I still feel like I made the right call to unblock, whether or not my call to block was correct. The waters are too muddy on this for me to feel comfortable leaving that block in place, which I hope is an understandable position. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 03:00, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Ks0stm 

message: Due to Arbpia3, Terrible towel7, with less than 500 edits is under ORR. They inserted their own original research, interpreting the meaning of a primary source and effectively created a BLP violation. Huldra was neither in violation of 1RR, 3RR, 6RR, or 20RR, due to the BLP exemption. Terrible Towel was in violation due to their first single edit. The edit warring that followed is enough not to consider any leeway in whether or not they were aware of ARBPIA3 in the first place as they went well beyond a 3RR violation. I hope in the future Huldra will go to the edit war noticeboard instead of continuing on with such an edit warrior but they did nothing wrong. It would probably help to clarify what procedure to take when an ip editor or other user under 500 contributions makes an edit. Are they exempt from revert rules?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 02:59, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: When Other Legends Are Forgotten, please save the wikilawyering. Ex post facto?  Is this not the first revert by them? While they say BOP-violation, this is clearly a typographic error and they meant BLP violation. How ever there's no need to take my word for that, why don't we just ask if there's any question to this. Your quoting policy but you make no actual argument as to why this would be exempt under the BLP. Terrible towel did use a primary source. They themselves interpreted it's meaning, which is original research. There's really no question here if this was a BLP violation or not, you have not found a loophole in the part of the policy you quote. Material challenged or likely to be challanged and all that jazz is what this comes down to. The primary source used and the users original research do not meet wikipedias standards of verification. They made the position first that it was a blp violation and later that it was vandalism. It probably had something to do with the wp:pointyness of the users few attempts to discuss it with huldra . I'm not sure your part in this. From my perspective as a neutral observer you seem to have an axe to grind with Huldra. I'd caution you if that is the case, standing before arbcom is probably not the best choices of locations.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 05:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I note your hesitation on the revdel and as I understand from your choice of words you feel as if such a revdel will sully the record of Ks0stm. I'm guessing a paper trail is left behind with revdel? I also note that it is Ks0stm that suggested the revdel. If there is a paper trail can it read that this was a good faith block and they had asked for the revdel personally? Or anything to the effect that leaves it clear that this block was not of any impropriety on the part of them?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 10:49, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Serialjoepsycho 

message: She WAS reported for 3RR, and initially blocked for that – correctly. Then we had her usual supporters bully and mislead an  inexperienced admin into unblocking her. When Other Legends Are Forgotten (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved from #Statement by Sir Joseph,  please comment only in your section. Kharkiv07 (T) 03:28, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

text: has been blocked as a sockpuppet of NoCal100. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts?  03:05, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by When Other Legends Are Forgotten 

message: Wow. What a mess.  was doing the right thing, enforcing Arbcom sanctions and protecting an article. That's quite clear, under the provisions of the "GP", and the partisan wikilawyering about 3RR is irrelevant and unseemly. thought they were doing the right thing, but the Arbcom sanctions were confusing. Once they realised this, they continued to try to do the right thing by unblocking and coming here, asking Arbcom to help fix it.Let's hope Arbcom can continue the theme, by doing the right thing themselves: fixing the confusing sanctions, and allowing the unnecessary block notations to be deleted from the record of a 10 year user with a clean block log. Of note is that Huldra does valuable, important work in this difficult, fraught area, where many would not be willing to, so that clean block log is both highly commendable and very important to them – allowing the notations to stand would surely hinder their valuable work, as opponents abuse their existence "in battle". Begoon talk 07:22, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Begoon 

message: This is a rather simple request. The General Prohibition WP:ARBPIA3 remedy obviously supersedes all other remedies. It explicitly states that the remedy may be enforced by reverts. One only needs to update the text of ARBPIA template to match it. Guerillero's proposed text seems ok to me. For , in the future, you may want to use the magic word "WP:ARBPIA3" in your edit summaries, to instantly get a "win" (example of me doing it is here, and WOLAF here). The wikilawyering by WOLAF, arguing that Huldra should be reblocked, is truly disgusting; I will not comment on it any further. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:14, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: May I suggest that the template have a wording which suggests that the editor (who is reverting the IP/editors with less than 30/500), link to WP:ARBPIA3 in the edit summary? It is a non-binding, simple suggestion that would save a lot of trouble, and makes it clear to the IP/editor as to why they are being reverted. This would both avoid WP:BITE to genuine newbies and give a clear direction to trolls/socks that they are wasting their time, as well as a pointer to uninvolved admins like Ks0stm who don't know about this. (See my examples above). Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:   To clarify, I am simply suggesting that the remedy include the wording in addition to the fixing of the wording you mentioned before. That would just serve as a public service announcement, kind of like warning signs on cigarette packs. Of course the wording of the template needs to be fixed, I am all in favour of that. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:53, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I myself have a clean block log, and I kind of understand Huldra's point. I have never been harassed like she has, so I will defer to their judgement about whether it will be used in the future. If ArbCom is concerned that this will set a precedent, I don't see any grounds for this. This is a very unusual situation concerning a very unusual remedy concerning a very toxic area. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:06, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Kingsindian 

message: Some people above say that WP:3RR restrictions still applied, but this seems like a clear case where they don't per WP:3RRBLP, and  did in fact mention she was reverting a BLP ("bop") violation in her first revert's summary. Furthermore, she stated she was under the (most probably correct) impression that the editor she was reverting was a WP:SOCK of a blocked editor, which is of course another exception to 3RR.
Therefore, given there was in fact no misbehavior at all on Huldra's part, I not only support the unblock, but I second the request (which actually comes from the admin who originally blocked her) to strike the block from her otherwise 10-year clean block log. LjL (talk) 00:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I might misunderstand something, but why do you seem to think that a revdel of the block would reflect badly on the blocking admin (any more than a note would, anyway)? Having two blocks in the block logs, even if one of them serves as a clarification of the previous one, is surely not the same in the eyes of the editor mistakenly blocked as having a genuinely clean block log – which she deserves, as I think we agree she has done nothing wrong (by the way, I think she did report the matter to a board, possibly WP:AIV, so she did her "duty" in that respect, too, though I don't have a diff and you should ask her about that). LjL (talk) 02:56, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by LjL 

message: As a heads up, at one of my usual haunts, WP:AN3, I was already assuming 1RR/3RR exceptions for reverting 30/500s in response to this remedy, as this seems self-evident and logical given a lack of active technical enforcement alternatives (e.g., no edit filter or new usergroup+page-protection option).  As such, I had already made changes to  toward the beginning of this month with that assumption in mind so that it also reflected that it's an exception to 1RR to enforce the remedy.  I only stumbled upon this now, but given the input here, I'm assuming that's what everyone's agreeing with anyway, but should Arbcom believe differently, feel free to either ping me to update it or obviously just update it with whatever wording's appropriate. :P --slakr\ talk / 00:51, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Slakr 

message: The proposal by Guerillero is ambiguous and I'm not even sure what it is supposed to mean.  The premise "When not impeding the enforcement of the General Prohibition" lexically appears to refer to the actions of the editors who are limited, but I expect it is intended to refer to the actions of an enforcing administrator.  Who exactly is impeding what, exactly?  Please rewrite it more clearly. Zerotalk 08:11, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: The blocking incident here was obviously an accident waiting to happen. It's very problematic to revert IPs/New users without linking to the General Prohibition in the edit summary and also inform the user on their talk page about the rule. It is natural that good-faith editors otherwise will be confused and feel mistreated; and may try to reinsert what they believe is an adequate edit to the encyclopedia and the result will be an edit-war requring blocks. Of importance is also that a "new user" in English Wikipedia can be a well-established user at a project in another language which don't have these rules; and for such users it will be upsetting to be reverted without explanation and then end up blocked if they reinsert a fully valid edit. Otherwise, I think the blocking of Huldra reflects the problem of many administrators on Wikipedia blocking serious users for a simple (perceived) mistake without warning them and giving them a chance to explain themselves first. Iselilja (talk) 10:45, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Iselilja 

message: I know this request is basically completed, I just want to jump in here and say this is exactly what I said would happen if the (what we're now calling the "no newbies rule") were to be enforced by reverts and not by a technical restriction. This revision isn't going to fix that problem. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Ivanvector 

message: :
Proposed:
:(1) The General 1RR restriction that is part of the Palestine-Israel articles case is rescinded including all modifications of the remedy.</p> (2) In its place, the following remedy is enacted: Editors are limited to one revert per page per day on any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Reverts made to enforce the General Prohibition are exempt from this limit. Also, the normal exemptions apply. Editors who violate this restriction may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense.
:Enacted --Mdann52 (talk) 07:19, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The GP already allows for users to revert  an unlimited number of times. If you want to throw in an explicit exemption for vandalism, I think one is implicitly included,I would have no issues --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 21:05, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

text: We've been criticised for our use of language. Can you suggest something better than  "while not impeding the enfocement of the..."? Doug Weller talk 11:17, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would suggest "Editors are limited to one revert per page per day on any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Reverts made to enforce the General Prohibition are exempt from this limit.  Editors who violate this restriction may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense." Kirill Lokshin (talk) 21:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I still think we need to exempt reverting "obvious vandalism". Someone's going to come back here and ask about it sooner or later. Doug Weller talk 13:07, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Furthermore I have added our standard exemptions phrase as we've added it to every nth motion from here to Gamergate. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 13:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motion: Palestine-Israel articles 1RR 

message: :Original discussion
Initiated by Debresser at 20:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
* (initiator)
*
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
*
=== Statement by Debresser ===
Is the topicban for  on ARBPIA articles that was decided upon at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive106#Chesdovi still in force?
----
Then can any of you please explain to me why he created an article like Palestinian wine, which gave rise to much ARBPIA-related controversy? Debresser (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*
=== Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion ===
*Yes. The topic ban was extended to indefinite, and they do not seem to have tried to appeal it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles (February 2016) 

message: Is the topicban for  on ARBPIA articles that was decided upon at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive106#Chesdovi still in force?
----
Then can any of you please explain to me why he created an article like Palestinian wine, which gave rise to much ARBPIA-related controversy? Debresser (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Debresser 

message: I see that there was an appeal of a topic-ban-related block in 2012. Though the initial topic ban was for one year , it was later changed to indefinite. I checked the user's talk page archives and I don't see any notice of a subsequent appeal of the topic ban, successful or otherwise, though I guess Chesdovi could have removed it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:22, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Darkfrog24

message: *Yes. The topic ban was extended to indefinite, and they do not seem to have tried to appeal it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: In  the  Azzam Pasha quotation,  Editor1 makes an addition, Editor2 removes it, Editor1  then makes the  very same addition a few hours later (which  Editor3 removes), and  Editor1  argues they did not break 1RR as "the first edit was an edit, not a revert". 
*If Editor1  is correct, then I would like the 1RR rule amended, so that such disruptive behaviour is disallowed.
*(If Editor1  is  wrong, and they did indeed  break the 1RR, then I withdraw this request)
::I have edited as if that  2nd addition was a violation, but then I have possibly been too  "conservative". (But I edit virtually only articles under ARBPIA sanctions, so better safe than sorry..)
::I agree completely with  User:BU Rob13: If Editor1  view is correct, then "Deference is automatically given to the position that is not the status quo, contrary to all our usual processes." I would like to add:  "...and contrary to common sense."
:::It seems to me that people here agree that this *is*  a problem, but that we cannot amend it without amending the  1RR rule for everybody. (Which seems to be a large task?)
:::But if we added a sentence to the ARBPIA3, like the one in  :Template:2016 US Election AE: "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). If in doubt, don't make the edit."
:::…then Editor1 could not have made that 2nd addition: problem solved.
:::What I find untenable is the present situation, where if  one  editor want  to change anything, then it takes two editors to keep the status quo. To me, this is counterintuitive, Huldra (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Huldra 

message: I believe that the issue raised is not only limited to ARBPIA3, but is more generally applicable. I respectfully invite the committee to make general comment on "first mover advantage" in revert wars (described more fully at WP:WINWAR#Intermediate tactics and gambits), particularly as applied to contentious topic spaces; and on if & how this should be addressed. I also respectfully invite the committee to examine the impact & effectiveness of the combination "1RR/consensus" restrictions applied to multiple articles in the ARBAP2 topic space. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 16:02, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Ryk72 - 2 

message: This is definitely a "bug" when it comes to all types of revert rules. Deference is automatically given to the position that is not the status quo, contrary to all our usual processes. The solution is to accompany all 1RR restrictions with the "Consensus required" restriction, as noted by Doug below. This has worked well on certain American politics articles this past election cycle, and it wholly addresses the issue here. This should be looked at in a context beyond just ARBPIA3. A motion amending all previous cases that currently have active 1RR restrictions to include the "Consensus required" restriction would be ideal. ~ Rob13Talk 19:42, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by BU Rob13 

message: Changing the definition of the 1RR rule could have wide-ranging effects. User:GorillaWarfare has recommended a community discussion. Another option is to encourage the admins who issue page-level restrictions under discretionary sanctions to try out different restrictions and see what the results are. Note that the proposed improvements to the 1RR rule by User:Huldra (above) and the one described by User:BU Rob13 to add 'consensus required' are quite different.  While Huldra's rule is simple enough to be automated,  BU Rob13's rule  that requires consensus could make deciding a 1RR complaint more of a judgment call. Thanks to :Template:2016 US Election AE we are gradually accumulating some experience with the 'discussion required' rule, the one favored by Doug Weller and BU Rob13 though some analysis would be required to see what the actual effects are.  EdJohnston (talk) 06:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by EdJohnston 

message: The proposal makes sense, since the status quo should get the advantage in a dispute between two editors.  However, I'll mention one thing about the wording that doesn't seem to have been noted:  it would allow one editor to do multiple reverts in the same article within 24 hours provided they were to different parts of the article.  So this proposed wording is in one way less restrictive than before.  However, on balance it would still be an improvement. Zerotalk 12:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: The general 1RR restriction in the Palestine-Israel articles case is modified to read as follows:
:Editors are limited to one revert per page per day on any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition, editors are required to obtain consensus through discussion before restoring a reverted edit. Reverts made to enforce the General Prohibition are exempt from the revert limit. Also, the normal exemptions apply. Editors who violate this restriction may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense.
:
:Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 ·  t ·  c) 22:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Motion: ARBPIA

message: I recently took arbitration enforcement action pursuant to the ARBPIA case.  Part of my reasoning was that the user has violated 1RR on a page (Acid throwing) which I think is reasonably construed as related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially since the dispute related to parts of that page specifically about Israel, Palestine and attacks on Jews by Palestinians.  Several experienced editors have opined that this was wrong because there was no notification on the page that it was subject to 1RR and no 1RR restriction was logged at WP:DSLOG.
The current text of the relevant sanction reads:
That seems to me clear that any page reasonably construed to be related to the conflict is subject to 1RR regardless of editnotices, talk page notices and the like, and that any editor who has been correctly notified of the ARBPIA restrictions is expected to abide by 1RR there.  Editnotices and talk page notices may be applied, but they act as a reminder and are not required for 1RR to be enforced.
The 1RR violation was only a small part of the decision to impose a topic ban in this case and I'm not here to ask whether the sanction was correct (though of course the user in question can appeal it if he wishes; he has indicated he will not).  But as I'm fairly new to this business, and several editors who generally know better than me have disagreed with my interpretation, I'd like the committee to clarify one way or the other:  Is 1RR enforceable on any page related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, or does a page restriction need to be enacted and logged as WP:DSLOG first?
Pinging User:NeilN, User:Kingsindian, User:Zero0000 and User:Capitals00 here.  They're not parties as such but they've opined on this one way or the other.  I've chosen not to name the sanctioned user here as I'm not asking for review of the sanction imposed as such; if I've erred, perhaps the clerks would let me know and I'll rectify it.  Also note that some have opined that me closing the request only a few hours after it was opened, before the accused responded, was out of process; I'm confident that this was well within AE practice, but if arbs feel differently then we may as well cover that here as well.
: You quote, ""  But these are not page restrictions applied by an administrator, they are applied directly as a remedy by the committee.  You pointed to elsewhere WP:DSLOG where I would expect to see such restrictions being placed - but I don't.  Not in the PIA area.  I see plenty of editors being sanctioned for 1RR violations on pages that are not mentioned in the log.  Am I missing something?  GoldenRing (talk) 13:44, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused.  Are we looking at the same thing?  I don't see any "Imposed 1RR on article X" or similar in that log (the PIA section).  I see one notice of someone applying a 1RR editnotice and that's it.  GoldenRing (talk) 16:59, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by GoldenRing 

message: The editor has been notified in the last 12 months that discretionary sanctions are in effect for the *topic* of the IP conflict. So the fact that a specific article does not have a reminder (talkpage notice etc) does not matter, since the editor is well aware when they make edits (or edit-wars) anywhere in the IP area, they can potentially be sanctioned. The only credible defense would be if the editing was unrelated to the IP conflict. Its also procedurely silly to require any page that may have a section related to the IP conflict even if the rest of the article is unrelated - to have a DS warning and be logged. Thats why the DS are in place for the *topic* and not individual pages. So while this article might not already have a specific 1rr attached to it as a result of a previous administrator applying a discretionary sanction, its well within any administrator's rights to topic ban a serial edit-warrior in the IP area from the topic when they start editing problematically in a section that is IP related. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:58, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by OID 

message: AC/DS applies wherever the topic is being mentioned on any article or space of this Wikipedia. Entire Israel-Palestine is treated as 1RR so if there is a separate section for West Bank and Gaza Strip on Acid throwing, the section comes under DS of Israel-Palestine. The editor was also notified of 1RR violation which he totally rejected, and made a total of 4 reverts. Such disruption contributed to topic ban. Its that simple. Capitals00 (talk) 12:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Capitals00 

message: The particular event that led to this question is not a worthy topic for ArbCom, but the general issue that GoldenRing raises can benefit from a clarification to remove existing confusion among both administrators and regular editors.  So I hope we can focus on the general question.
On source of confusion is the  recent decision on logging sanctions, which some people have taken to mean that ARBPIA restrictions like 1RR don't apply to a page until that is logged at WP:DSLOG. That interpretation would immediately remove ARBPIA protection from the majority of the 5,000 or so A-I articles and I find it hard to believe that it is the intention of ArbCom to do that.  Please disagree if I'm wrong.  
So, please clarify that the ARBPIA sanctions apply automatically to all pages related to the Arab-Israeli conflict without the need for a tag or an administrative decision.  Or, if that's not case, explain what is.  Thanks.
NeilN points to a related problem of articles that contain a small amount of A-I-related text but are mostly not about the A-I dispute.  Not long ago there was big fight and AE case over a very long article with a single Palestine-related sentence.  Such cases are a problem only if a too-legalistic approach is taken.  Many times I have seen sensible administrators applying ARBPIA to editors warring over the A-I parts of an article and allowing editors of the unrelated parts to work in peace.  Editors who want to war over A-I text know exactly what they are doing and should be subject to ARBPIA no matter where the text is. Conversely, there is an editor (Gilabrand) who is topic-banned from A-I but edits in unarguably A-I articles every day without molestation precisely because she avoids the parts about the A-I conflict.  Nobody minds.  So it isn't really a problem if handled by the spirit of the rules, but I'm aware that it can be problematic shoehorning all this into the technical wording of the rules.
Zerotalk 14:12, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: My only comment was in regard to the 3RR restriction on the page. The article in question: Acid throwing has, largely, nothing to do with Israel-Palestine. IMO, most of the edits have nothing to do with Israel-Palestine; they are mostly internal to Palestinian politics, but some of them are about Israel. But let's leave that aside. 
The talk page of the article does not have a 1RR tag. None of the "belligerents" in this case treated the article as falling under 1RR. I can point out that Capitals00 themselves broke 1RR on the page (1st diff 29 May - reverting this edit, 2nd diff 30 May), indicating that they were themselves not treating the page as bound by 1RR. There was a request on the edit-warring noticeboard by one of the other parties in the dispute, which only talked about 3RR violation (there was no violation, and the request was declined). These things could have been brought up if the request had been kept open more than three hours, and/or the "accused" had been given a chance to reply, but apparently this step was not deemed necessary.
Now, I know that rules don't matter much on Wikipedia: the aim is simply to get your opponent on one pretext or another. There are so many rules that it's easy to find one to match the crime. Also, the discretionary sanctions system gives admins wide powers to act as they wish. And, to be fair, the way  was behaving, they were going to be sanctioned soon one way or another. However, to repeat, my comment was not about discretionary sanctions in general. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:15, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Kingsindian 

message: Page restrictions need to be logged per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive_11#Arbitration_motion_regarding_the_logging_of_sanctions: "All sanctions and page restrictions must be logged by the administrator who applied the sanction or page restriction at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log." There is no exception for ARBPIA articles. It is folly to expect editors to guess if an admin has placed a non-obviously-related article under a restriction. With no page talk notice, no edit notice, and no logging, how many of you would expect Acid throwing to be under WP:1RR? Extrapolate that to any well-meaning editor working on the Medical section of the article. The restriction reads, "Each editor is limited to one revert per page per 24 hours on any page..." It does not specify the revert has to be ARBPIA-related. There's enough editing traps in this area - let's at least make sure these traps are clearly marked. --NeilN talk to me 13:24, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by NeilN 

message: Arbcom should consider this clarification request carefully because it has implications across the project. Generally, admins assume that any page that can be reasonably construed as belonging to the sanctioned topic is automatically restricted, and that action can be taken against an offending editor if they have been warned about the sanctions in the past 12 months. It is unreasonable to expect that every page in the sanctioned area be logged (there may be hundreds, perhaps thousands of them). If we were to follow a log first policy we're going to get bogged down with logs of unwieldy length and "cat and mouse" games with editors who flit from page to page while the logging trails slowly behind. Requiring that each and every page in a sanctioned area be specifically logged is impractical, will defeat the purpose of the sanctions (which was, presumably, to minimize disruption), and will exponentially increase the burden on individual administrators. Imo, in the case at hand, the questions that should be asked addressed are: whether the acid throwing article could be reasonably construed to belonging to the sanctioned area, whether the editor was given adequate notice and whether, perhaps, a warning first approach would perhaps have been kinder. --regentspark (comment) 17:33, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by RegentsPark 

message: Thank you for pinging me to this, . With respect (and a hint of amusement, since we seem to always disagree at ARCA), I think you're badly misinterpreting this. The 1RR is not applied as an arbitration enforcement action, and therefore it does not need to be logged. Following your logic, we'd need to log each ArbCom remedy (even blocks or bans placed by the Committee!) before enacting them, which just isn't the intended or usual practice. The AE log is a log of arbitration enforcement actions authorized by the Committee but carried out at the discretion of individual administrators. In this case, the 1RR is part of a remedy to a broad class of articles. No individual admin is applying or can rescind it. Arbitration enforcement actions occur when admins push a button to enforce a remedy (including the edit button, when placing a topic ban, etc). That's why we log page protections; it's a button pushed by an administrator to enforce the remedy. ~ Rob13Talk 20:41, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I just want to make sure the outcome here is clear. If the question is "Should administrators have to log remedies placed directly by ArbCom before enforcing them?", then the answer is "No, in all cases", right? (Ignoring possible exceptions if logging is explicitly required in a remedy.) I have a feeling this will pop up a month or year down the road in another topic area if that isn't stated clearly and generally beyond just the bounds of this topic area. ~ Rob13Talk 19:17, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by BU Rob13 

message: GoldenRing closed the request with sanctions, less than four hours after the request was made. I am concerned (1) that Al-Andalusi did not have an opportunity to respond. I lurk at Arbitration Enforcement, and do not recall seeing sanctions imposed so swiftly. Whether or not an editor responds, they are usually (always? almost always?) accorded reasonable and sufficient time to do so. I am further concerned (2) that there was no comment by an uninvolved administrator, and no attempt to reach consensus among uninvolved administrators. With other requests I've seen an admin claim that the request was clearly valid, and that the sanction that should be imposed is X, and then wait for others to agree or disagree. It's a process that works, and that generates a certain amount of respect, even when individual editors disagree with the outcome. It feels like a different process from what occurred. Jd2718 (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by jd2718 

message: GoldenRing's closure was here. There is a comment (above) that GoldenRing should not have closed the AE so quickly (less than four hours elapsed) and that Al-Andalusi didn't have time to respond. The logical action on this request by the Committee would be to take no action, but suggest that Al-Andalusi follow the usual steps of WP:AC/DS#Appeals and modifications.  For example, he could open his own  at AE. The question of Al-Andalusi's conduct doesn't depend crucially on whether a 1RR existed on the I/P material at Acid throwing. I am in agreement with User:Doug Weller's comment below. My opinion is that the scope of the ARBPIA restrictions is already sufficiently clear and there is no big weakness in the system that Arbcom ought to be addressing. EdJohnston (talk) 16:28, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by EdJohnston 

message: :This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*Recuse For the obvious reason. GoldenRing (talk) 06:29, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Clerk notes 

message: * So far as I'm aware, it has never been the intention that every PIA related page should be individually logged as being subject to the relevant restrictions. (Or indeed, that any topic area's pages should be.) I understand Neil's point about communication, but realistically, a log that consists of a list of page titles sitting in an obscure corner of the arbitration pages is not practical for that purpose anyway. I am starting to suspect that the unending stream of clarification requests on the exact boundaries of these remedies, and the mechanics of enforcing those boundaries, is evidence that the whole thing needs to be redesigned - but since I don't have the time to even think about it, I should probably just keep my mouth shut ;) I'm not in favor of a strict requirement for AE requests to stay open for a particular length of time or until the subject responds, though I think it's wise to wait if something is ambiguous and not urgent. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:44, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: Hi there, could there be an enforcement of this extended to Nazi Germany or any related articles related to it? Just wondering. Wrestlingring (talk) 04:55, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nazi Germany 

message: I support 's interpretation that "the original author may not restore it within 24 hours after the other user's revert." These restrictions are designed to encourage broader talk page discussion leading to consensus, and slowing down article space reversions serves that goal. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:21, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by (uninvolved) editor Cullen328

message: Only version 2 is logically feasible.  Example of why: I make an edit at 00:01.  No one notices it until 23:59, and they revert it. Two minutes later, at 00:02, more than 24 hours has passed under version 1, so I'd be free to re-revert.  Not cool, and not the intent.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Kingsindian seems to be making a point that's not really on-point.  Yes, this ArbCom language is an "extension of" 1RR (itself based on 3RR). However, that in and of itself means it is not the same as 1RR; otherwise the new wording would not exist, and the decision simply would have imposed the same 1RR rule we're used to.  This is different: "If an edit is reverted by another editor, its original author may not restore it within 24 hours".  There is no way to interpret that, that makes any sense, other than "within 24 hours of the revert by the other editor".  This interpretation has no effect at all on "regular" 1RR or 3RR.  Since the intent is to restrain editwarring, not to punish some particular editor in relation to some other particular editor, the further consistent interpretation is that if A puts material in, B reverts it, C restores it, D reverts it, neither A nor C can re-restore it for 24 hours after D's revert. Otherwise, people can just email-coordinate an unstoppable WP:TAGTEAM.  C becomes a new "original author" from the point of their own re-insertion, but it doesn't just erase A's connection to the material.The wording could probably be clarified as "" That would cover every instance. E.g. to continue with the same example of rapid-fire editwarring: if E restores, F reverts, and G restores, G's restoration is an edit, and B, D, and F cannot revert it the same day. If H reverts, that's an edit, so A, C, E, and G cannot restore the same day.  Easy-peasy. The problem here is the word "original", which implies only A is subject to the special 1RR.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that Kingsindian's response is "SMcCandlish claims that the intent was to stop edit-warring. No ...", followed by a lot of rationalization, I'm comfortable just stopping here, other than stating the obvious: Any system can be gamed with determination, but version 2 is much less gameable because it forces each party to wait a full day, and they'll eventually run out of tag-team partners.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:52, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Re: "name me a person who edits regularly in the ARPIA area, and I'll find you an edit in their recent history which violates version 2" – That would likely be because it hasn't been the typical interpretation (and wouldn't be under "traditional" 1RR, though it arguably makes more sense in this application of the concept – thus this entire ARCA discussion). If it were already the common and certain interpretation, then people would avoid making edits that transgress it.  Kind of a "Q.E.D.", really.  As I said in a thread at my user talk page involving some of these peeps, no one cares about edits that may or may not have transgressed this principle, before it is certain that it is the principle, even as recently as one full day ago, because those edits are already stale in AE's eyes; sanctions that could be imposed are to be preventative, not punitive – if people aren't editingwarring pretty much right now, and clearly trying to game the special 1RR, then there's not any clear enforcement action to take, especially when ArbCom is still deliberating about which interpretation should really be employed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  15:51, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Zero0000's idea that version 2 could be use to permanently prevent someone from editing is implausible, since the editor wanting to game that way is subject to the same restriction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  02:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by SMcCandlish 

message: Option 2 was definitely the intent. ~ Rob13Talk 15:02, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by BU Rob13 

message: May I remind people that this rule was simply a tweaking of the 1RR rule. In 1RR, a person is allowed to make 1 revert per day. This mechanism depends entirely on their edit time, not the other person's edit time. Therefore, version 1 is the only logically consistent and easily-understandable interpretation here. I have always interpreted the rule that way, and as far as I know, everyone else in this area has as well. To take one example of out hundreds, see this AE request, where the complainant, the defendant, and everybody else in the discussion works with version 1. Indeed, if version 2 was applicable, this revert would have been a 1RR violation. Please don't change the interpretation now. There is no evidence that version 1 is creating any problems: if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Btw, there is nothing unfair about version 1. It slows down the edit-war, just as version 2 does. In the hypothetical example floated above, the second person can make a revert of their own after 24 hours from their edit. May I remind people that most consensus in Wikipedia is achieved through editing: often what is needed is simply a rephrasing which everyone can live by. If version 1 is unfair, so is 3RR, which is policy. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:02, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The comments by Arbs are extremely weird. Everyone recognizes that version 1 is the current interpretation, used by all sides in the area. (Please find me a single case where version 2 was used.) Now, ArbCom wants to change the interpretation to version 2. Why? Who asked for it? Did anyone complain that the (tweaked) 1RR isn't working properly? What's the evidence for any such thing? I remind ArbCom that the original amendment process just wanted you to tweak the standard 1RR a little bit to get rid of the "first mover" advantage. Initially you capriciously added the "consensus required" provision, which was only removed after lots of strife. Now you want to capriciously change the remedy again. If ArbCom failed to write the original remedy properly, fix your wording to match the practice, instead of trying to make everyone change their practice to match your wording. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:59, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:   Are you seriously doubting that version 1 is the current practice? Please find me a single instance of anyone using version 2. Even the people who are commenting in this section (who work in ARBPIA) saying that they would like version 2, actually use version 1. I can easily prove this assertion if anyone cares.Having established that version 1 is indeed the current practice, here's the point. Nobody asked ArbCom to change the practice from version 1 to version 2. Why would you do such a thing anyway? Where is the evidence that version 1 is not working, or that anyone has complained about it? Why are you insisting that everyone in this area change their practice to match the wording which ArbCom screwed up? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:18, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

text: There is nothing in example 1 which involves spelling errors. And that is a simple example I coulhd construct in 2 minutes. I can think of many more elaborate ones. The point is the one I made in the last sentence of my comment: while making an edit, a person has to check each edit in the past 24 hours and compare it to all their own edits in the past, and check if any of them could be classified as a partial revert. In contrast, version 1 is clean and simple: if you only edit the page once a day, you can never run afoul of it.  As for your "gaming" comment, it is a guarantee that every rule in this area will be gamed, or to go one level deeper: people will accuse other people of gaming the remedy (see the AE request I linked above, for an example). The remedies should be simple and clear. Version 2 is neither. Btw, this was the problem with the "consensus required" provision as well: it was neither simple nor clear. Version 2 is just a wannabe "consensus required" remedy. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

text: did not address any of the points I made; and their new assertion, which they think is "obvious", is wrong again. Version 2 requires no more determination, thought or work than version 1 to game. Suppose there are two editors on the page. Each of them simply waits 24 hours to revert. Since the other person can't do anything within 24 hours anyway, each of them is safe in their practice. Meanwhile, people are ignoring the really "obvious" thing here: the wider the restrictions and the more untested they are, the higher the potential for gaming. Indeed, if I was the type to make a malicious sockpuppet, I would do the following. First, I create a new account, get it to 30/500. I go to any of the pages and find an old dispute. Then I rephrase the text to take one side of the dispute (taking care to not explicitly mark it as a revert) and wait for someone to revert me. Voila! That person has "restored a reverted version within 24 hours". Rinse and repeat with another user. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  In 's example, there was no violation of either version 1 or version 2 (because A and C are not the same person). But it simply shows that version 2 doesn't help against edit-warring or tag-teaming. Btw, I make a challenge here: name any person who edits regularly in the I/P area, and I'll find you a violation of version 2 in the recent history.  Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:00, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  To eliminate a technical irrelevance in 's latest comment, please look at this edit (and the preceding and subsequent edits by other people), which clearly violates version 2 -- it removes "shifting" which was earlier removed and reverted. I mention this not to single out Sir Joseph, but to make the point that everyone in this area violates version 2 all the time. My standing offer remains: name me a person who edits regularly in the ARPIA area, and I'll find you an edit in their recent history which violates version 2. It's revealing that nobody here has taken me up on the challenge. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:08, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:   This is a clarification request, not an amendment request. If, as you agree, nobody actually follows version 2, and everyone follows version 1, then the clarification should simply affirm the practice and avoid ambiguity. An amendment request would require, at a minimum, some argument or evidence that the current remedy isn't working and needs some change. QED, indeed. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:07, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

text: Initially, you asked me to show that version 1 is current practice. I did.  asked me to address 's points. I did. In total, I have written about 2000 words trying to argue against option 2 from all angles I can think of. My point is simple: what kind of evidence or logic are you looking for? If you won't change your mind no matter what you hear (as most people tend to do), then there's no point arguing. I'm sorry, I can't show that version 2 is responsible for Benghazi or hasn't released its tax returns yet. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

text: 's comment misses my entire point (maybe I was unclear). Neither version 1 nor version 2 was violated in this case, so it cannot have anything to do with whether things "worked perfectly" or not. My point was the old issues get re-litigated all the time in this area. That's all.  Instead, consider a slightly tweaked alternative scenario: suppose, a year ago, I and some other editors got consensus that a paragraph belongs in the lead. Suppose I was part of that discussion and wrote the final version of the paragraph. One year hence, some editor with 22 edits comes along and removes the passage. I see the change on my watchlist and undo it. Then I have broken "Callanecc's version 2".  There are two points here:
* First, I doubt any admin will sanction me here, because I have taken an extreme case to make my point. But the point is still that the rule was broken by me. The fact that admins will likely ignore silly rules is a good thing, but one shouldn't write silly rules in the first place.
* I would likely talk with the person who I reverted on the talk page. That is fine, but it requires work and time; it doesn't come automatically. And it has nothing to do with the rule: it will happen because I know how Wikipedia works and how to discuss on the talk page, not because of some irrelevant rule. If I was the type of person who is disinclined to discuss with the editor (and want to avoid breaking the rule), I will just wait 24 hours to make my revert. The rule has nothing to do with my good faith or behavior at all; a point which I have been crying myself hoarse about.
Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Kingsindian 

message: 's "Callanecc version 2" does not help to fix any of the problems described in this edit (see point 3 1) and the scenario in this edit. The reason is simple: unlike 3RR, 1RR and the currently practiced by everybody version 1, "Callanecc version 2", can allow the original edit which was reverted to be indefinitely long in the past. Therefore, one must in theory (and sometimes in practice) check one's own entire edit history when making a revert: to check if the edit in question reverted one of your past edits. 
This is not merely a theoretical issue: in this area, many things are litigated over and over again, by many different people. Thus an edit can be a revert of an edit long in the past. I'll give a simple example which happened right in the middle of this ARCA (I swear I did not set this up deliberately; I didn't even realize it till  brought it up). Please read this talk page discussion. This state of affairs makes no sense, which is why everyone in this area, who don't agree on anything, instinctively and without communication, follow version 1 (it's a Schelling point).
Overall, as I point out repeatedly above, "Callanecc version 2" requires no more thought, determination or work to game or edit-war, as compared to version 1. There is no evidence that "Callanecc version 2" was the intent, or that version 1 is not working. Version 1 should not be changed, because it will require that everyone change their practice from a clearly working remedy to a clearly bad and untested remedy which requires more cognitive load by editors but brings no advantages. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: 's comment misses my entire point (maybe I was unclear). Neither version 1 nor version 2 was violated in this case, so it cannot have anything to do with whether things "worked perfectly" or not. My point was the old issues get re-litigated all the time in this area. That's all.  Instead, consider a slightly tweaked alternative scenario: suppose, a year ago, I and some other editors got consensus that a paragraph belongs in the lead. Suppose I was part of that discussion and wrote the final version of the paragraph. One year hence, some editor with 22 edits comes along and removes the passage. I see the change on my watchlist and undo it. Then I have broken "Callanecc's version 2".  There are two points here:
* First, I doubt any admin will sanction me here, because I have taken an extreme case to make my point. But the point is still that the rule was broken by me. The fact that admins will likely ignore silly rules is a good thing, but one shouldn't write silly rules in the first place.
* I would likely talk with the person who I reverted on the talk page. That is fine, but it requires work and time; it doesn't come automatically. And it has nothing to do with the rule: it will happen because I know how Wikipedia works and how to discuss on the talk page, not because of some irrelevant rule. If I was the type of person who is disinclined to discuss with the editor (and want to avoid breaking the rule), I will just wait 24 hours to make my revert. The rule has nothing to do with my good faith or behavior at all; a point which I have been crying myself hoarse about.
Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on proposal 

message: I think option-2 makes sense. Lets play this by a case scenario on case1 - suppose an edit is reverted 27 hours after it is inserted into the article - the original author is then free to immediately revert the revert - moving the article away from the status-quo? I don't think this is wise. The original author should back off, discuss, and if there is going to be a revert-war (not advisable for all involved!) - revert after 24 hours. If a 3rd editor comes along - he is free to re-revert if he sides with the author.Icewhiz (talk) 12:36, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Icewhiz 

message: Callanecc's version 2 is clearly superior. Counter should start from first revert (causing a 24 Hour discussion period or intervention by other editors) - and not from the original edit (which could be "sneaked in" - see below).
Regarding the recent example brought up by user:Kingsindian - it is a case where the rule worked perfectly. Kingsindian inserted a large chunk of text to the lead  This got reverted due to already in infobox. This is not a summary of section 3.3 (Casualties) - but rather a POVish fork relying on questionable sources.. We discussed (which is what should be done!) in the talk page over the course of half an hour - he saw some of my points (that what was added didn't match the body), I saw some of his points (that this was removed "sneaked out" in 2015 and no one noticed). I self-reverted - self-revert - will modify to match body. - and then made a series of edits to match the body, we discussed some of these edits, and I made a further edit based on Kingsindian's comments ‎Reverting the final paragraph of the lead: re - Add Protection Clusters figures for civilians.. Or in short - two editors coming to an agreement on the talk-page, in a contentious subject area, within 5 hours (2 hours (7:25-09:08) on the initial exchange, one followup to the followup edit was discussed in a laid back fashion as was finally resolved in another 3 (additional edit at 12:46)).
Now - lets imagine Kingsindian's original edit had "sneaked in" - and someone noticed it 48 hours later (just as the original removal in 2015 was sneaked out without anyone noticing). And for the sake of argument (of the original author clause) lets consider Kingsindian's original edit as an addition and not a revert (we could wikilawyer this at AE - but bringing back a paragraph from 20 months ago does seem like authorship and in any event this is an illustrative example):
# In the case of version #1, had I reverted him, he wouldn't have had to discuss with me (he would have - his conduct is generally exemplary - but not all editors are of the same cloth) - he could've reverted me right back (as 48 hours elapsed since his original authorship).
# In the case of version #2, he has to discuss for 24 hours before making any action. This fosters actual discussion - as the author instead of doing a "knee jerk counter revert" is forced to defend his work on the talk page.Icewhiz (talk) 07:13, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment on proposal

message: Version 2 makes the most sense and seems to be the only option for editing here. Sir Joseph (talk) 16:04, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I just wanted to add since Huldra mentioned it and Kingsindian did, or did and reverted, that the case in question might be used as a discussion as to which version is proper, but the article in question is not under ARBPIA sanctions, so if people are stated as violating 1RR, that might give people the impression that people in question did something wrong, when nobody in that article violated any sanction. Sir Joseph (talk) 04:54, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sir Joseph

message: Version 2 is the most reasonable. Version 1 is simply pedantic and can be used as a blunted weapon. Further I'm under the understanding in the case of a 3RR that consecutive edits by the same editor count as one edit. It would seem reasonable that the same logic should apply here. And in such a conflict ridden area of wikipedia its better not to give people a cannon to fire.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:05, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Kingsindian, What you are talking about to me would fall under gaming the system in the event that it's reported as a violation of these sanctions. A minor change, a general maintenance post to fix grammar and such, is or least should be outside of the scope of these sanctions. At some point here someone has to call bullshit and say competence is required. Be that the admins that enforce this or ARBCOM right here and now. Someone chasing a ban of someone because they changed "Csll" to "call" and later also separately actually edits the article once shouldn't be allowed. This kind of thing shouldn't be seen the same as a bickering partisan who came into promote their end of this spectrum.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 06:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Serialjoepsycho 

message: Version 2 makes far more sense; version 1 potentially allows controversial material to be reverted back into an article almost immediately (if their original edit is reverted more than 24 hours after they made it) rather than making the editor adding it to take time out to reconsider the material; this also follows Wikipedia norms like WP:BRD. Number 57 22:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Number 57 

message: I hope that everybody who supports Version 2 suffers from a painful itch from which there is no relief, just like the hell you will be creating in the arena of editing in a contentious area. What you're describing works fine if people are edit-warring over the inclusion or exclusion of the same bit of information; no editor who has already participated in the edit war may take part again within 24 hours of the last edit. It is absolutely unworkable in situations in which one editor edits another editor's contribution in a manner the first editor doesn't like, or in which three or more editors make their tweaks to a bit of contested text. What will it mean in those situations? We'll see you at WP:AE and find out. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:27, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Malik Shabazz 

message: I'm inclined to think that Option 2 sounds like a better idea, but that it is unworkable in cases where multiple editors edit. On normal articles, restoring to a past version would be considered one revert. But within the 24 hour rule, I would support an Option 3 , it should be within 24 hours of the first revert to the editor's work. This would address the concerns on both sides. Seraphim System (talk) 05:05, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the question that has been raised by Icewhiz, Kingsindian and others is when you have more complex situations involving multiple editors. For example, let's say Editor A makes an edit. Editor B makes a partial revert. Then 3 hours later there is another partial revert, perhaps changing some language or individual words. Let's say you add "The sky is blue and it rained on Tuesday". The first editor removes "it rained on Tuesday", and the second editor changes it to "The sea is purple" - when would you be able to restore your original edit? It would become difficult for Editor A to keep track - since the discussion is open now, we should have a stable and clear understanding, not introduce further confusion. I think if version 1 is changed, it needs to be stated very clearly that the 24 hour period starts after the first revert.Seraphim System (talk) 00:16, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Seraphim System

message: Let's have Option 2. It allows me to permanently prevent another editor from editing. All I have to do is revert them within 24 hours, then re-revert them (using different wording of the essentially the same content) every 24 hours. Eventually they will get tired of waiting and go away. Zerotalk 01:55, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: :This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*Renamed to "Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles". Thanks, Kevin (aka L235 ·  t ·  c) 20:24, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Clerk notes 

message: *My interpretation is version 2 - the original author may not restore it within 24 hours after the other user's revert. The purpose of this part of the motion was to replace the requirement for consensus to be achieved by making editors wait before restoring their own edit after it had been reverted. This was so it would be more likely that the two users would discuss it and (probably more likely/hopeful) that other editors will be able to comment (or revert if the edit is inappropriate). I'm open to amending the restriction to  Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:52, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: * Which Arbitrators are recognizing version 1 as the current practice? "Everyone" seems fairly inaccurate against the comments from other Arbitrators; one in five gave a preference for version 1 but did not explicitly state that's the current practice. The four of five state they "interpret" the meaning as version 2 as the current meaning. I would rather match intent of the remedy than match current practice. The reason being is that current practice isn't always the best practice. Look at WP:CIVIL for example. Also, I view version 2 as already in place but needing clarification; and not a change. Mkdw talk 19:27, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

text: *Not all clarifications are not going to reflect the practices of some. There would be no point on requesting a clarification on something if the automatic expectation was that the outcome would always result in affirming the current practice; clarifications affirm the intent and purpose of the sanction/enforcement. Doing so otherwise would be a horrible practice. People would ignore sanctions/enforcements and then come to ARCA citing 'current practice' expecting the 'clarification' to endorse their actions, regardless of the actual intent and purpose. Mkdw talk 17:30, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

text: * The very nature of this discussion is to work out the fine details and nuance regarding some of our more complicated governing policies and rules. You've been one of the most vocal opponents of version 2, so I'm not sure why you're asking about the point of talking about it with you. If you feel the current discussion of 'current practice versus intent' is exhausted, then I tend to agree. There have been other substantive arguments for version 1, and I've been following them as well. I replied to specifically to you because you asked me a bunch of questions and you continuously bring up current practice in your lengthy section, as recently as yesterday. Mkdw talk 18:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: : 
====Version 1====
;Support
# Second choice. This version would help but I think version 2 would make the biggest difference in both preventing and slowing down the edit warring. In addition I think version 2 was the original intention. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:19, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem then is not the rules, but unreasonable enforcement of the rules at AE. The procedures designed to give stability have protected unfairness. It is impossible to write rules that admins can misapply.  DGG ( talk ) 21:47, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

text: Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 ·  t ·  c) 17:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Palestine-Israel articles: Motion

message: ;Support
# Second choice. This version would help but I think version 2 would make the biggest difference in both preventing and slowing down the edit warring. In addition I think version 2 was the original intention. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:19, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem then is not the rules, but unreasonable enforcement of the rules at AE. The procedures designed to give stability have protected unfairness. It is impossible to write rules that admins can misapply.  DGG ( talk ) 21:47, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Version 1

message: :Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 ·  t ·  c) 17:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Version 2

message: I have the page on my watchlist and I noticed this request. I am not sure how to proceed. Do we have any policies for this case? (Posting it here since it is highly relevant for ARBPIA and likely to be noticed; the page has been ec protected for quite some time.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:46, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:Le Trio Joubran#Need Edits]] 

message: A recent dispute at Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party has led to a claim that this is covered under this AR, can an article about a UK political party be reasonably construed as being part of Palestine-Israel articles AR?Slatersteven (talk) 11:59, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Interested to know this too. ~ BOD ~ TALK 14:19, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Generally UK politics are not ARBPIA related - however when the article features (as of this timestamp) Israel/i 115 times, zionist/zionism 47 times, Palestine/Palestinian 42 times - and when elements in said political party claim they are not antisemitic but merely anti-Israeli/Zionist - it is not such an odd claim to make.... But lets see how others weigh in (if at all) - you might want to ask on ARCA as a more proper venue.Icewhiz (talk) 14:25, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope 

message: Original discussion
Initiated by Shrike at 13:08, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
* (initiator)
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
=== Statement by Shrike ===
In my view the only requirement to enforce the 500/30 remedy is notification via  Template:Ds/alert. In recently closed WP:AE request .Admin AGK commented that user didn't received any clear warning so the AE action could not be taken in this regard.If the ARBCOM agree with AGK then I ask what kind of wording is required and add this as standardized template if not then clarify and amend the decision that the only requirement is notification about discretionary sanctions in the area.--Shrike (talk) 13:08, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

text: But to enforce the General prohibition admin must take discretionary sanction  So someone could be topic banned without even receiving an alert? --Shrike (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

text: I prefer that it would be clearly described as AGK noted we don't expect the new users to read all the walls of texts and follow all the links.--Shrike (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

text: As a side note - given that the DS regime applies to many different topics, and often without an special restrictions - it would be nice if the standard ds/alert template (for a-i) would include a link to WP:ARBPIAINTRO as well as clearly specifying the 1RR and 500/30 restrictions which apply project wide (without a need for specific page logging) and are additional to the usual DS rules.Icewhiz (talk) 14:07, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

text: There is not really such a question here. Awareness (in the technical sense) is a precondition of DS but not of the General Prohibition.  This thread is about whether enforcing the given complaint, other than by reverting, would have been proportionate.  Some editors of the topic area think so; I was unconvinced that the Prohibition had been made clear.  AGK ■  17:19, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
*
=== Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion ===
*I'm very much of the opinion that editors should be aware of restrictions before being sanctioned by them, however, I see in this case that the individual was made aware of ARBPIA in July, with a specific extra comment highlighting the 500/30 restriction. Since the template which was left has a clear link to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles, which also goes into depth of the 500/30 restriction, I'm interested to know what more AGK would be looking for? WormTT(talk) 13:32, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

text: *To be clear i'm not looking to question any potential outcome as that's not what this ARCA asks of us, but simply the question of if the warning was sufficient to satisfy awareness. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:53, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles (October 2018) 

message: In my view the only requirement to enforce the 500/30 remedy is notification via  Template:Ds/alert. In recently closed WP:AE request .Admin AGK commented that user didn't received any clear warning so the AE action could not be taken in this regard.If the ARBCOM agree with AGK then I ask what kind of wording is required and add this as standardized template if not then clarify and amend the decision that the only requirement is notification about discretionary sanctions in the area.--Shrike (talk) 13:08, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: But to enforce the General prohibition admin must take discretionary sanction  So someone could be topic banned without even receiving an alert? --Shrike (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

text: I prefer that it would be clearly described as AGK noted we don't expect the new users to read all the walls of texts and follow all the links.--Shrike (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Shrike 

message: I'd like some clarification here, seeing that I posted  specifically due to the 500/30 restriction and Wickey's prior edits - but this got dismissed at AE as a . Now this was framed politely (and not - "if you continue editing ARBPIA articles, I will take you to AE and try to get you banned") - but I did specifically say Wickey was not supposed to edit Arab-Israeli conflict related pages. Are we not supposed to be polite? When posting this, I was suspicious this was Wickey-nl (and was considering a SPI filing), however I was framing this (per WP:AGF) in the manner I would approach any new user. Icewhiz (talk) 14:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: As a side note - given that the DS regime applies to many different topics, and often without an special restrictions - it would be nice if the standard ds/alert template (for a-i) would include a link to WP:ARBPIAINTRO as well as clearly specifying the 1RR and 500/30 restrictions which apply project wide (without a need for specific page logging) and are additional to the usual DS rules.Icewhiz (talk) 14:07, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Icewhiz 

message: The committee reviewed and replaced the prior generation of standard discretionary sanctions in its 2013–14 term.  I think we easily forget how troublesome the concept of "awareness" became in the community.  At the time, we frequently heard from editors who – out of the blue – received sizable sanctions without having been formally made aware that standard discretionary sanctions were in effect.  Obviously, a page notice on every affected article and talk page was impractical.  We therefore adopted  (and its ancillary systems,  and Filter 602).
The committee has adopted language (WP:ARBPIA3#500/30) that the general restriction should be enforced, preferably, using extended-confirmed protection – or using reverts, warnings, blocks, etc.
In this matter, petitioner requested enforcement of the 30/500 general restriction – an entirely different remedy to discretionary sanctions.  The enforcement requested was not to revert the respondent's edits or warn them about the general restriction.  The enforcement requested was a heftier sanction (for anyone can revert).  I denied that request.  I am rarely minded to decline enforcement where there has been a breach.
The petitioner complained to me that the separate DS alert, served on the editor in summer 2018, included a warning that the 30/500 restriction was ineffect.  However, the alert template links to many pages about discretionary sanctions; none discuss the general restriction.  There was indeed a single sentence appended to the alert, but it read to me like a string of alphabet soup attempting to warn about one remedy in the same breath as another.  The explanation was inadequate for a remedy that the committee, by its own language, thinks ought to be enforced by technical means.  Respondent's edits were to pages that lacked the standard talk banner or editnotice.
For these reasons, I denied the request to hand down a more rigorous sanction.  I do not think we need the general restriction modified or a new template created.  I do suggest editors like petitioner use the existing language to begin warning (clearly) and reverting at the first opportunity rather than requesting enforcement at the second.  AGK ■  17:13, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There is not really such a question here. Awareness (in the technical sense) is a precondition of DS but not of the General Prohibition.  This thread is about whether enforcing the given complaint, other than by reverting, would have been proportionate.  Some editors of the topic area think so; I was unconvinced that the Prohibition had been made clear.  AGK ■  17:19, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by AGK 

message: Well, observers of the IP area will know that I don't often  agree with Shrike and Icewhiz  (and that is  putting it diplomatically), but here I agree with them: with  
this alert on 15 July 2018, I would have considered Wickey warned, Huldra (talk) 23:23, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Huldra

message: I am also of the opinion that the warning was adequate. If the committee concludes that there was something inadequate about it, please spell out what the problem was so that we can issue better warnings in the future. Zerotalk 09:57, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: *I'm very much of the opinion that editors should be aware of restrictions before being sanctioned by them, however, I see in this case that the individual was made aware of ARBPIA in July, with a specific extra comment highlighting the 500/30 restriction. Since the template which was left has a clear link to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles, which also goes into depth of the 500/30 restriction, I'm interested to know what more AGK would be looking for? WormTT(talk) 13:32, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: *To be clear i'm not looking to question any potential outcome as that's not what this ARCA asks of us, but simply the question of if the warning was sufficient to satisfy awareness. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:53, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: [I will quote real people throughout in this ARCA request -- this is not to fault them, but simply to show that the problems I'm talking about are all real.]
This ARCA request is about this "modified 1RR" rule instituted by ArbCom in January 2018. I will first state what the rule means (because absolutely nobody understands it); give multiple reasons as to why it is, to put it bluntly, stupid; and then show a way forward.
==== What the rule says ====
The rule, stated precisely, is supposed to handle the following situation:
# A makes an edit (addition or removal) at time T1.
# B reverts the edit (completely or partially) at time T2.
# C re-does the edit (addition / removal, completely / partially) at time T3.
If A and C are the same person and (T3 - T2) < 24 hours, then A has committed a violation. 
Note that T1 is irrelevant for breaking the rule, but it is necessary to check if A and C are the same person.
==== Why the rule is stupid, and how to fix it ====
I will first enumerate the reasons, then go into details:
# The rule leads to absurdities. I predicted these absurdities and nobody listened to me.
# Absolutely nobody understands the rule, even those who strenuously argued for it, the admins who implement it or the editors in this area in general.
# Absolutely nobody asked for this rule. ArbCom imposed this monstrosity capriciously.
What's the solution? Go back to 1RR with no frills. The crying need is for a clear, simple bright line rule, which everybody understands, is proven to work, and most importantly: something ArbCom cannot screw up.
==== Elaboration ====
To illustrate the absurdities I'll take two recent AE cases, one from "each side" of the ARBPIA spectrum (just so tiresome arguments about partisan motives can be put to rest).
This AE case. The case is a violation because of the following argument: Person A is , Person B is . T1 is 20:22, 7 September. T2 is 19:48, 20 September. T3 is 22:44, 20 September.
This AE case. The case is a violation becaue of the following argument: Person A is , Person B is . T1 is 27 October, T2 is 2 November, T3 is 2 November.
Two absurdities in these cases are worth highlighting:
# An editor can break this "modified 1RR" even if their edit is the first one this day, week, month or year. In the older rule, if you edited the page once a day, you're guaranteed not to break 1RR (which is how it should be). To prove that it is not just me who finds this situation absurd, here is a comment from  which makes the same point.
# T1 can be indefinitely back in the past. Or, to put it another way, the starting point ("original edit") for the violation can be anywhere in the edit history. This is illustrated by the first AE request I linked above. T1 in this case was about 12 days before the actual violation. Some people believe that T1 was actually a year before the actual violation (hopefully, I don't need to elaborate on why this is absurd). In the second AE case, T1 was about 5 days before the violation. Where do you draw the line? Is two days ok? How about a week? 10 days? 20 days?
I predicted these absurdities when I urged ArbCom not to impose this stupid rule. At that time, I proposed (somewhat tongue-in-cheek): let's block a member of ArbCom when I am inevitably proved right. Which one of you wants to volunteer?
Coming back to the rule, absolutely nobody understands it. The first AE case should give plenty of evidence on the score. Some admins at AE, like Sandstein, have stated explicitly that they don't understand the rule and they cannot enforce it.
Finally, as I showed in my arguments at the time, absolutely nobody asked for this rule, and nobody followed this rule before ArbCom decided to capriciously institute it.
==== The rule targets a non-issue ====
The issue which the "tweak" was supposed to fix was a "loophole" in which an initial addition of text is not considered a "revert". Namely: A adds some text, B reverts, then A can immediately re-revert. Thus, A has the initial advantage in this edit war.
But notice: this advantage lasts for 24 hours at most. After that time period, A and B are on equal terms. Indeed, since WP:ONUS and rules against edit-warring exist, A is actually at a big disadvantage. After the third or fourth revert, A is gonna get blocked without the need for any fancy rules.
==== What is to be done? ====
Let's go back to the beginning. The purpose of the 1RR rule was to tweak the 3RR rule. The rule slows down edit wars and tries to encourage discussion on the page. That's all it does. It is not a panacea, and endless tweaking to handle every instance of bad behaviour should not be a goal (unattainable, at any rate). By all accounts, the institution of 1RR in this area succeeded on its own terms. So let's bring it back again.
1RR is a completely fair and completely transparent rule. 1RR is fair because everyone get a "token" every day, which they can spend for a revert. It is transparent because whether you violate it or not depends exclusively on your own actions, not anybody else's actions. All you need is to check your own 24-hour editing history. You don't need to pore over the edit history of the page, and if you edit a page once a day, you are guaranteed to be within 1RR. (Hopefully you also spend some time editing the talk page).
Also, consider the way watchlists work on Wikipedia. Let's take the case of person A who edits Wikipedia every day for an hour before bedtime. They makes some edit on a page on their watchlist. Five days later, while they're sleeping or working, some editor removes text from the page. Editor A logs in, checks their watchlist, reverts the edit, and BAM!, they're hammered by this stupid rule. To avoid running afoul of this rule, they would have to wait till the next day before reverting, which is not how watchlists work. 1RR makes perfect sense in this scenario, but the stupid rule doesn't.
==== Please fix your mess ====
ArbCom, please clean up the mess you've made. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Kingsindian 

message: ArbCom, please clean up the mess you've made. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please fix your mess 

message: As I have said above, I prefer a plain 1RR rule. However, several people have commented on  statement. It seems that none of the people have picked up on a simple fact: Warkosign's proposal is exactly the same as "Version 1", which used to be the rule before ArbCom capriciously changed it. Let's see how this is true:
Warkosign's proposal is: "Use a plain 1RR with the provision that the initial edit counts as a revert."
How did "Version 1" work?
# Editor A makes a change at time T1.
# Editor B reverts it at time T2.
# Editor C re-reverts at time T3.
If A and C are the same person and (T3 - T1) < 24 hours, A has committed a violation.
Half a minute's thought will show that the two ways of wording the proposal are identical.
----
There are two key properties of Version 1 which make it desirable, and which avoid the absurdities I listed above:
# All the action takes place within a 24-hour time period. [Since T1 < T2 < T3, and (T3 - T1) < 24 hours].
# One only needs to really look at editor A's edits. [Since Edit #1 and Edit #3 are the operative edits.]
----
To clear some more historical amnesia: this rule was the one everyone used, and it used to work fine before ArbCom decided to change it to "Version 2" for no reason at all.
Now, considering this history, you might appreciate why I would prefer that ArbCom not impose any more hare-brained rules on the editor population. Let's stop with the experimentation and go back to 1RR, which was perfectly fine and perfectly understood by all. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:55, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warkosign's comment and clearing up some historical amnesia 

message: The cases pointed out above involving GHCool and Onceinawhile are not the same. In the first case, GHCool "originally authored" (a picture link to a building!) on 23:38, 6 July 2017 - the article was subsequently edited by several editors over the next year+. The filing was claiming that GHCool's revert from 7 September constituted "original" authorship in relation to the subsequently revert on 20 September. In the second instance (Onceinawhile) this is bona fida new content introduced at the end of October 2018 and blanket reverted in the beginning of November 2018 (with little intervening editing). 
The text of the remedy reads: 
There is a question of interpretation (and admins and editors have varied) here in regards to what may be construed as the "original author" and "first revert" (e.g. is this the first time a (non-revert - as reverts are already covered per 1RR) modification (usually addition) was introduced to the article? Or does this include subsequent times? How far back does one go for "original authorship" (a year+ ago and hundreds of intervening edits?)). Per Kingsindian's (and others) reading - the 24 Hour window applies after any edit - also after the "first revert". Per a different reading of the same text, if editor A introduces text at T1, B reverts at T2, someone (A or someone else) reverts at T3 (say >24hours), B reverts at T4, and A reverts at T5 - then the revert at T5 (even if T5-T4 < 24hours) is not a violation since A's originally authored material was already "first reverted" at T2 (assuming T5-T2 > 24 hours).Icewhiz (talk) 13:55, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I would posit that much of the difficulty in enforcing ARBPIA's modified 1RR is that it is... modified from standard 1RR/3RR. I think there is merit for the "original author" provision (though possibly more clearly framed - this really should address fairly recent additions of material (or other edits that are non-reverts) that were subsequently reverted) - however I would suggest that a way forward would be to 1RR (or SRR) on a project-wide basis - ARBPIA is not unique in edit warring vs. other topic areas (or articles) with 1RR imposed - and any tweaks to 1RR (or SRR) would make sense in other 1RR projects. It would also make enforcement easier - as one wouldn't have to attempt to explain (assuming one understands the rule correctly one's self) time and time against the particularities of the ARBPIA version of 1RR vs. other 1RRs. Icewhiz (talk) 16:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Icewhiz 

message: * I think this rule is not working as it not stopping any edit wars for example see here .It only prolonged the edit war.The proper way is to reinstate consensus required rule .Its only way to stop edit wars so users will engage in meaningful discussion. --Shrike (talk) 14:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Shrike 

message: The intent of this rule is to avoid the following situation (which was allowed, and regularly happened under regular 1RR):
* Editor A makes an edit
* Editor B reverts the edit (for some good reason), using their 1RR quota
* Editor A un-reverts, using their 1RR quota.
Now for 24 hours the article is stuck with a change that A edit-warred in. In theory, A can continue un-reverting B every 24 hours, effectively forcing their version of the article - until both are banned for slow-going edit war.
Perhaps the rule should be modified so any change by a specific editor that was reverted counts as a revert, so same user un-reverting it is a violation of 1RR. This seems to me far easier to explain and track. “WarKosign” 15:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by WarKosign 

message: The current rule is extremely difficult to understand and police. I would suggest either a clarification spelling out exactly what the rule is, or more preferably, a new rule that takes us back to the simple times when everyone in the area understood the intent, rules and enforcement of such rules. Sir Joseph (talk) 16:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sir Joseph 

message: The ruling is a pain in the arse, difficult to parse (as in KI's first example above where it confused the hell out of me, and I'm not a stupid person, honest), and just needs binning in favour of something that's easy to work out.  Yes, we're still going to have the issue of tag-teams serially reverting to avoid 1RR, but this remedy doesnt' work against that either. Black Kite (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Black Kite 

message: I've been editing in the I-P area for over 16 years and three rule changes during that period stand out as making a significance difference. The first was the introduction of 1RR in place of 3RR — this was a very big improvement.  The second was the 30/500 rule, which I personally like a lot as it eliminates the need to endlessly defend articles against fly-by-night pov-pushers.
The third change was the "original author" rule now under discussion which, alas, has been a disaster.  Nobody can even agree on what it means. Rules have to be clear bright lines that every good-faith editor can understand. This was an attempt to combat some types of edit-warring and system-gaming by adding a more complex rule, but the experiment has failed and it is time to end it. Zerotalk 07:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: , it is actually the people who spend their time editing in the area whose experience should be listened to, not admins who sit at AE and don't understand the editing dynamic. The fact is that serious edit wars in the I-P area are fewer now than at any time in the past. A few bright-line rules can help to reduce that further (but never eliminate it), but poorly-defined proposals about requiring consensus are cloud cuckoo land. Leaving the actual meaning of a rule to enforcement, as you suggested, would be be the worst possible outcome. Those editors who enjoy success in eliminating opponents by AE roulette will be encouraged to step up the practice. And they will succeed often enough. Zerotalk 12:25, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your response to this is correct, but it involves an extra principle ("don't edit against consensus") that isn't part of your proposed rule. Rules are suboptimal if they require visits to AE to enforce non-bright lines. Such visits would produce or not produce a good outcome more or less at random. I acknowledge that I'm being difficult because I don't have an alternative in mind. I still think that your idea is worthy of careful study. Zerotalk 03:45, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

text:  Rob, if it was possible to get admins at AE to behave as you say, I'd be in favor of it. Alas I'm dubious that the current system, which is a form of roulette as I said before, can be reformed just by some words of encouragement. Capricious decisions will still be a problem. A better way to address the case of people being removed for making honest mistakes would be to require that editors only be reported at AE if they fail to respond adequately to a warning. Zerotalk 23:18, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: As an administrator active at WP:AE, I have on several occasions decided not to take enforcement action because I find the remedy at issue too complicated to understand and to apply fairly. I recommend that it be replaced, if it is still deemed necessary at all, with a simpler rule, such as 1RR or merely a reminder to not edit-war, because edit-warring can result in discretionary sanctions.  Sandstein  08:55, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sandstein 

message: Having seen a few of the associated ARE cases play out, I have noticed that there is a lot of confusion about this particular rule. What to do about it, there is the harder question, but the current rule is in my opinion too opaque and needs to go. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 11:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by [[User:Bellezzasolo|Bellezzasolo]] 

message: I support the rule's existence for the reasons noted by WarKosign, i.e. that it stops someone adding controversial information to force their edit back in.
However, I would also like it to go further (to stop tag teaming), so perhaps it would be clearer and simpler to simply have a 1RR rule whereby an edit can only be reverted once within a 24 hour period by any editor. So if A adds material, B removes it, then no editor is allowed to make any further revert within the next 24 hours. This would hopefully force people to follow WP:BRD rather than rely on weight of numbers to force changes on an article.
Alternatively, we could just reword the current rule so something like "If a change made to an article is reverted, the original author of the change is not allowed to undo the revert within the next 24 hours" – I don't think anyone could fail to understand this unless they were wikilawyering their way out of being caught.
Number 57 14:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Strongly disagree with Zero's assertion above that my proposal "enables B to keep something out of the article permanently even against a strong consensus of all other editors". It allows B to revert the information from the page once, at which point the discussion should go to the talk page; if there is a strong consensus there, then it can be readded. If B then removes it against a clear talk page consensus, they can be brought to AE under discretionary sanctions. Number 57 12:36, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the proposal below is a regressive move; it allows controversial additions to be added back into the article by the original author, and does nothing to stop tag-teaming. I don't believe the current rule is really that difficult to understand. Number 57 00:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Number 57 

message: The rule itself is not a bad idea, it's just worded terribly. Just change it to the following and all the confusion about what original editor means goes away:Editors may not re-revert a revert of their edit for at least 24 hours from the initial revert of their edit.You go back to the original 1RR you go back to the situation where somebody is able to force their edit in based off edit->revert->re-revert (that being the first revert by the initial editor). nableezy - 17:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I see that is a bit how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood-ish, but I think we all would understand it. nableezy - 17:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Nableezy 

message: *I agree with Newyorkbrad's question, speaking of ARBPIA,  "..is there any reason it needs special rules beyond those governing the entire rest of the encyclopedia (including all of the other topics subject to discretionary sanctions"? If the committee wants to apply new and better restrictions, they should probably wait for some candidates to emerge from actual practice rather than draft them from scratch. And if they impose a new restriction themselves, they should say what data it is based on. It has happened that a restriction that sounds good on paper will not be understood by either editors or admins. From my own review of the discussions at AE, I don't see anything yet that can compete with the tried-and-true 1RR. EdJohnston (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by EdJohnston 

message: I too am an administrator active at WP:AE.  Seemingly, I am also part of the minority who do enforce ARBPIA 1RR, albeit reluctantly.  The rule's name is indeed a misnomer.
In any event, an undercurrent to this amendment request was the perceived unjustness of the Revert Rule.  Certainly, the rule no longer meets the tests of policing by consent.  However, the committee's primary question is not really the due process (or unfairness) of the Revert Rule.  We routinely enforce some other 'special' rules – like ARBPIA 30/500 – that are persistently miscommunicated.  Respect for collaborators – well-meaning and otherwise – is imperative on a volunteer project.  But it is a secondary question of execution or detail.
I rather think that the primary question is how to best secure an editing environment that is stable, produces balanced content, and is not off-putting to well-intentioned editors.  In other words, does Wikipedia work there?  By any measure, pages relating to the Arab–Israeli conflict, on Wikipedia, are not this kind of environment.  Indeed, we've had more arbitration cases (and enforcement requests) about the conflict than any other topic.
ARBPIA 1RR was recently amended by the committee.  I believe that amendment was a well-intentioned effort to go further towards bringing about the desired kind of editing environment.  The effort failed, perhaps because it was over-concerned with minutiae.
However, there remains a need to address the editing environment.  Dealing with the obvious symptoms of user conduct can only do so much.  In my view, you should consider how to amend the restriction to instead forbid making significant changes without consensus.  Leave the detail of when "consensus" was wilfully not sought in a given case as a question for enforcement.
That said, if this change were implemented, I believe the current environment at WP:AE is too used to "discretion".  There is a wide scope of discretion allowed when dealing with more blatant manifestation of misconduct – ie the conduct that discretionary sanctions deals with.  It wouldn't do to grant that latitude here too.  But, again, these are secondary questions of practicality and implementation.  AGK ■  19:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: By what means can we uphold WP:NPOV?  Consensus.  I wonder if you are too close to the topic to completely evaluate the problem.  I discussed enforcing in my final paragraph.  AGK ■  18:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by AGK 

message: I think the purpose was partially to force editors to take 24 hours to think before hitting the revert button and I have found this to be helpful to de-escalate in the conflict area for the most part. But I also agree with concerns voiced in this discussion that sometimes it can be difficult to keep track of which edits are yours, especially if they are months old or years old and have been tweaked during that time. At what point does it stop being your edit? For me, the ideal solution would be to impose a time limit on this, but this might make it even more confusing for the enforcing admins. Maybe we can just leave it as good advice that editors can follow voluntarily? Seraphim System (talk) 19:40, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Following up on  and 's points, my understanding is that the intent behind discussing violations before sanctioning/reporting allows good-faith editors an opportunity to self-revert. Most 1RR violations are inadvertent and editors will self-revert when they are pointed out. I don't think anyone should be allowed to violate the restriction, but problems inherent to enforcement are not fixed by broadening discretion. The strong preference, in practice seems to be not sanctioning good faith editors without strong evidence of a pattern of CIR, incivility, battleground, etc. (Which, I suppose, is why the present case has garnered so much attention). Most of the time, editors will self-revert and there is no need for admin intervention. Opening the door on inconsistency only adds to the confusion, and runs the risk of deterring participation in critical areas that need attention from experienced editors.Seraphim System (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Seraphim System 

message: I would prefer a return to the simple language we started with, i.e. "Editors are limited to one revert per page per day on any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition, editors are required to obtain consensus through discussion before restoring a reverted edit." 1RR, plus not restoring any reverted edit (regardless of who made it, and who reverted it) without discussion. The key here is to stop various forms of tag teaming or slow edit wars, and force editors to the table for proper discussions. The current sanction doesn't achieve that. I think we should stand firm that reverting is not the way to establish consensus, there needs to be proper discussions on talkpages about controversial edits. As a fall back, Number 57's approach is fine, but worry it still will lead to slow moving edit wars because people prefer to let the clock tick down 24 hours that engage on the talkpage. WJBscribe (talk) 19:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by WJBscribe

message: When there are disputes between good-faith contributors as to the content of an article, there necessarily will be a dispute of some form; the purpose of Discretionary Sanctions should be to encourage this dispute to take the form of a civil discussion on a talk page.
The committee should clarify/adjust the rule so 1RR counts the addition of content as the one revert for the purpose of 1RR; if content is added, the person adding it cannot restore it within 24 hours of the initial addition.  That seems fair and is simpler for editors to understand.
There seems to be some appetite for wider reform of the editing rules, but I don't see it as necessary.  On long-standing articles with enough talk-page watchers, 1RR (with "consensus required") for additions works fairly well, despite grumbling.  For rapidly-developing articles (think Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination in the similarly-contentious American Politics area) 1RR does not work, but I don't see evidence of that kind of issue being frequent in this area. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:10, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by power~enwiki 

message: I agree the wording is convoluted. However, the intent is absolutely sound, as noted by several, above, so if it is to be amended, please find a simpler wording that has a similar effect, otherwise the slow burn edit wars will resume afresh. In preventing that specific form of abuse, the rule as written is effective. Guy (Help!) 20:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by JzG 

message: I'm not involved in this topic at all. However, I have been in other 1RR-imposed topics where the intent was to prevent this behavior, but the message often would get lost. The intent is basically if you make a WP:BOLD change, and it's reverted, you don't get to revert it back in without gaining consensus on the talk page (and blocked if you do that within 24 hours). That is functionally WP:BRD, which could be imposed as a remedy regardless of that page being an essay, but I feel like there has been concern linking to an essay in a remedy description before.
However, WP:ONUS policy is already clear that  I can't say I've seen it really integrated into 1RR DS descriptions yet. People forgot about the policy sometimes too. Would linking to that as part of a supplementary sentence clear things up at all in the remedy? Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Kingofaces43 

message: In what ever you do I think you need to ask your self if you KISSed it right and made it feel better. It's needs to be the simplest possible means with the maximum effect.
Two noteworthy suggestions here catch my eye, One by Number 57 and also the arbitrator BU Rob13. Perhaps a combination of both. In clear case of any system gaming, whether editor warring in the bounds of 1RR or what ever replacement editing restriction chosen or any other type of attempt at gaming the system for some benefit to a chosen cause in this dispute.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 09:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Serialjoepsycho 

message: I think there is too much bureaucracy, and this rule is a perfect example. However, once you get the idea, it's actually quite simple to follow or enforce. It is an additional step to keep things quite in an area which is in need of additional care, so we might as well keep this.
If we are looking for a rule that is not being enforced and should be scratched, remove #3 regarding tendentious edits and disruptive behavior. It is either not implemented or implemented arbitrarily. Debresser (talk) 01:41, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Debresser 

message: Here's the problem as I see it: 
Rule                           	Purpose of the rule                                                                                             	Negative side effects
Regular 1RR                    	Slow down edit wars, give time for discussion on talk page, encourage WP:BRD                                    	Exacerbates the first mover advantage by allowing BRR (a Bold addition by Editor A, Revert by Editor B, Revert by Editor A). It takes two editors to maintain the status quo against one determined editor making bold bold changes to an article.
Current rule (call it anti-BRR)	Eliminate the first mover advantage of 1RR by putting a 24-hr timer on reverts of reverts of bold changes.      	Apparently tricky to understand and enforce; can result in the ridiculous situations mentioned by the OP.
Consensus required             	Eliminate the first mover advantage of 1RR by forcing a talkpage discussion for bold edits challenged by revert.	Can favor the status quo too much, allowing a single determined editor do dramatically slow down article development by forcing a discussion with clear consensus to implement any change they don't like.
I would really like for someone to come up with something like the current rule that fixes 1RR (prevents BRR situations) that is easy to understand and enforce but that doesn't have the negative side effects of the more draconian "Consensus required" rule. ~Awilley (talk) 19:31, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Re: "make any edit a revert" I definitely don't like that. That's not intuitive, calling something a revert that's not a revert, and results in ridiculous situations where people are only allowed to make one edit per day on rapidly changing articles about recent events that definitely need the attention of experienced editors. ~Awilley (talk) 20:23, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Awilley 

message: I took the liberty of tabulating some of the suggestions that have been proposed above, adding a couple ideas of my own. 
 
Name                                               	Rule                                                                                                                                                	Notes
Current state or "Version 2"                       	If an edit is reverted by another editor, its original author may not restore it within 24 hours of the first revert made to their edit             	Current Palestine-Israeli rule
Restatements of "Version 2"                        	Editors may not re-revert a revert of their edit for at least 24 hours from the initial revert of their edit.                                       	Suggested by User:Nableezy
Restatements of "Version 2"                        	If a change made to an article is reverted, the original author of the change is not allowed to undo the revert within the next 24 hours            	Suggested by User:Number 57
1RR for Bold edits or "Version 1"                  	If an edit is reverted by another editor, its original author may not restore it within 24 hours of their own edit.                                 	The original Version 1 mentioned by OP User:Kingsindian
Restatements of Version 1                          	Each editor is also limited to one addition of the same material per page per 24 hours on any page in the same area                                 	Proposal from User:Huldra
Restatements of Version 1                          	If an edit you make is challenged by reversion you must wait 24 hours (from the time you made the edit) before reinstating your edit.               	My rewording of the same idea
Consensus required                                 	All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion).          	Restriction widely used in the American Politics topic area
Enforced WP:BRD                                    	If an edit you make is challenged by reversion you must substantively discuss the issue on the article talk page before reinstating your edit.      	Another idea of mine
Combinations of Enforced BRD and 1RR for Bold edits	If an edit you make is challenged by reversion you must discuss the issue on the article talk page and/or wait 24 hours before reinstating your edit	Possible combinations (either AND or OR), still weaker than "consensus required"
I would have posted this on the talk page except this page doesn't have one. I can add to the table as needed, just ping me if you want me to add something. ~Awilley (talk) 02:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: A bit of a brainstorm

message: I am not familiar with the Palestinian conflict domain but I have been heavily involved in American politics, where numerous articles are subject to the "1RR + consensus required" rule. Indeed, this rule is sometimes hard to interpret, with typical confusions about what constitutes an edit (adding or deleting material), what is a revert (restoring material that was boldly deleted is a revert, consecutive reverts count as just one), and how far in the past should an edit be construed as the stable version vs a recent bold change (depends on activity level at the article).
Despite its faults, this rule has a key quality, which matches a fundamental behavioural guideline of the encyclopedia: editors should resolve their disputes on the talk page rather than argue via edit summaries in a slow-moving edit war. With this consideration in mind, I would support 's suggestion of an "enforced BRD", including a reminder of who has the WP:ONUS to obtain consensus for any change. Suggested wording for clarity:
That should take into account most of the sources of confusion and wikilawyering that we have witnessed since this restriction has been in place. I think we don't even need 1RR if we switch to such an enforced BRD rule. — JFG talk 07:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it's been rather clear, based on activity level on each article, which version is longstanding enough to be considered the base version upon which a recent change is being disputed. Admins could certainly figure this out easily when complaints about rule violation arise. — JFG talk 12:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by JFG 

message: I don't think the essentially "be nice" motion below will help. Has an "Administrators are encouraged" or "editors are cautioned" motion ever helped? And certainly not in WP:ARBPIA, arguably the most controversial DS area. IMO, the rule is confusing simply because of the "original author" stuff creating confusion - if you restore a year later an addition made by someone else, are you prevented by this restriction to immediately revert a revert made to your edit? 
Instead, use , as proposed by  above. As far as I can see, this is far clearer, and ameliorates the main issues brought forth by  regarding absurdities, as it make sures that you can't get sanctioned if you make only one edit a day, and makes it so that T1 is limited to 24 hours. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Galobtter 

message: *Awaiting more statements, but based on everything I’ve seen over the past few months, I’m inclined to agree that the rule-set for this topic-area has become unduly convoluted. No comment on any specific current or recent situation, but editors who feel aggrieved by a sanction have the right to appeal, either to AE or to us here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Allowing the clock to run down remains a possibility in nearly all scenarios including the standard 1RR. Number 57's suggestion of "an edit can only be reverted once within a 24 hour period by any editor" seems as straightforward as possible. Mkdw talk 19:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: : 
:Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 ·  t ·  c) 06:40, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Do you think something like the requirement for DS notices for this 1RR would help resolve this issue? Mkdw talk 05:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is helpful but is not quite the issue I'm getting at. We have the requirement of "warning" or "on notice" (although that has turned into much more of a bureaucratic mess than I intended when I first suggested the concept ten years ago). My point is that sometimes an editor, even one who is aware of the discretionary sanctions, will inadvertently violate one of the rules. And, the more complicated the rules are, the greater the likelihood of an inadvertent or technical violation, by a good-faith editor who is doing his or her best to edit within policy. Blocks or topic-bans are not the appropriate administrator response in those situations and I am concerned that the last sentence of this proposal, which admittedly is the same as the current wording, seems to encourage blocking without mention of reasons not to block that would sometimes apply. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

text: What we need here is a rule so transparent that it does not rely on any admin discretion at all. I do not favor such bright line rules in general--I think we normally do need to take circumstances into account. This area is an exception.  DGG ( talk ) 01:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to disagree. In the best modern example we have of an area this contentious – India-Pakistan – the problems in the area were reduced the most by topic bans enacted via administrator discretion. Bright line rules had absolutely no effect. No bright line has worked here, no matter how clear, and I don't think any one will work. The editors in this topic area have shown a willingness and ability to maximize their disruptive behavior within the constraints of whatever bright line we set up. ~ Rob13Talk 02:51, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motion: Palestine-Israel articles 

message: #Proposed. This rolls back the remedy to the normal 1RR restriction, but it further adds what amounts to a remedy and a note on enforcement of the existing discretionary sanctions to discourage low-rate edit wars. Any editing is welcome, of course; this was thrown together fairly quickly. ~ Rob13Talk 16:28, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support 

message: #Reprising comments I've made before, I cannot support any reformulation of this (or any) restriction that contains the sentence  without qualification. Too often for my taste, we have seen editors blocked or sanctioned this year for isolated, inadvertent violations of a 1RR or similar restriction. (In fact, I believe a lengthy topic-ban imposed for an isolated 1RR violation, by an editor who didn't realize that the 1RR rule in the I/P topic-area had been changed again, is what led to this very request for amendment. An appeal from that sanction is currently pending on AE, and if the appeal is not granted there, it should be brought here.) I understand the need for stricter rules in our most problematically edited topic-areas, but not at the expense of fairness and proportionality. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:57, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oppose 

message: *I want to specifically comment on why I didn't propose Number 57's suggestion, since it gained some support. I appreciate the suggestion, but I think it has serious flaws. First, editors would be sanctioned with a bright-line based partially on the actions of other editors. If I reverted something without realizing it had already been reverted in the last 24 hours by someone else, I would be crossing a bright line and face a block. Bright lines work when it's obvious when one is crossed. This seems more like a tripwire than an obvious line, and given the general enforcement situation in this topic area, I think such a remedy would be brandished as a weapon to remove opponents from the topic area.  Second, the issues with this remedy do not represent a failure of wording or of this one remedy. They represent a failure of the entire approach the Arbitration Committee has taken with this topic area. We've continuously tried to prescribe narrower and narrower bright lines to prevent edit warring, and we're routinely met with either wiki-lawyering or confusion as the rules grow more complicated. If anyone currently on the Committee is to blame for that failure, it's myself, as I've championed that approach since before my time on the Committee. I have to accept the fact it simply hasn't worked. Number 57's suggestion continues this approach, and I think it would ultimately face the same issues. Instead, I think we need to start relying more heavily on administrative discretion. Our administrators know edit wars when they see them. Let's stop worrying about where the bright line is and start enforcing discretionary sanctions in cases like this.  ~ Rob13Talk 16:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Do you think something like the requirement for DS notices for this 1RR would help resolve this issue? Mkdw talk 05:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is helpful but is not quite the issue I'm getting at. We have the requirement of "warning" or "on notice" (although that has turned into much more of a bureaucratic mess than I intended when I first suggested the concept ten years ago). My point is that sometimes an editor, even one who is aware of the discretionary sanctions, will inadvertently violate one of the rules. And, the more complicated the rules are, the greater the likelihood of an inadvertent or technical violation, by a good-faith editor who is doing his or her best to edit within policy. Blocks or topic-bans are not the appropriate administrator response in those situations and I am concerned that the last sentence of this proposal, which admittedly is the same as the current wording, seems to encourage blocking without mention of reasons not to block that would sometimes apply. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

text: What we need here is a rule so transparent that it does not rely on any admin discretion at all. I do not favor such bright line rules in general--I think we normally do need to take circumstances into account. This area is an exception.  DGG ( talk ) 01:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to disagree. In the best modern example we have of an area this contentious – India-Pakistan – the problems in the area were reduced the most by topic bans enacted via administrator discretion. Bright line rules had absolutely no effect. No bright line has worked here, no matter how clear, and I don't think any one will work. The editors in this topic area have shown a willingness and ability to maximize their disruptive behavior within the constraints of whatever bright line we set up. ~ Rob13Talk 02:51, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments by arbitrators 

message: My clarification request concerns the article for Ilhan Omar, a member of the United States House of Representatives. She's a controversial person in part simply because she is a Muslim and in part because of some comments on Israel. I added the usual ARBPIA template at the top of the page and have told some non-ECP editors about the ruling applying to them if they edit related content in the article. I've been asked at Talk:Ilhan Omar#ARBPIA if 1RR applies to the content relating to the dispute. I've always assumed that it doesn't automatically apply and only applies if the  is added to the talk page and the edit notice  added to the article.
I'd like to confirm that:
1. The plain talk page template without  means that the only restriction on the article applies to non-ECP editors editing within the area of the dispute. 1RR does not apply and cannot apply to only part of an article.
2. If edits to the article not relating to the dispute suggest that the subject is being targeted because of her positions on the dispute (or her Muslim identity) it's permissible to apply ECP to the article without the other restrictions or simply to apply the AE restrictions template even though the article as a whole doesn't fall within the area of the dispute. It's increasingly my opinion that this should be done. Interestingly the article on her fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has a section on the dispute but Talk:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez show it covered only by American Politics but with a 1RR and enforced WP:BRD (Template:American politics AE).
: You've said that "The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page" and others seem to agree. But that isn't what the text we voted on said or what I understood it to mean at the time. The motion we voted on says "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." No mention of "all content". Suggesting that it applies to all content (which would mean even in pages where there's no talk page notice about ARBPIA) seems an overreach to me. What might be a reasonable argument is that by putting the sanctions notice on the talk page, even though I didn't add the specific restrictions, puts the entire article under 1RR. Is that the argument you are making? But that raises the question why have the two notices? We should only have the one notice, the one that spells out the sanctions. As for the edit notice, this was my interpretation of this clarification request. We discussed edit notices and awareness there extensively and the motion we passed says 
::Editors who ignore or breach page restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator provided that, at the time the editor ignored or breached a page restriction:
:::The editor was aware of discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict, and
:::here was an editnotice () on the restricted page which specified the page restriction.
:That's what WP:ACDS says now. It seems unreasonable to say that if the page is mainly about another area that it doesn't need an edit notice related to the ARBPIA 1RR restriction. Doug Weller talk 21:55, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: there's a whole section at Ilhan Omar#Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I don't see how ARBPIA could not be relevant to that or that non-ECP editors or IPs should be allowed to edit it. Could you explain your reasoning? Rob, I agree with your assessment. Having said what I said to Rick about this specific article, I also have seen articles where there has been editwarring about whether a location is in Palestine or Israel, often just about that single word. I've always seen ARBPIA as meant to also cover this sort of detail as it's clearly, to me at least, within the conflict area. So I'd agree that an article such as Omar's should have a 1RR edit notice (and it does now under AP), I'm not sure that an article where the main ARBPIA issue is the location should have one unless we can craft it so that it's clear exactly what in the article is relevant. Doug Weller talk 09:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

text: I agree that AP2 and BLP deal with most of my concerns and I've set AP restrictions. That still leaves the problem of the section in Omar's article on the Ilhan Omar#Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It's my strong opinion that this is covered by by the 500/30 restriction but not all share my opinion. In particular Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Sangdeboeuf was about an edit by Sangdeboeuf where they reverted an edit relating to the confllict by a non-ECP confirmed editor on the basis of my statement that non-confirmed editors could not edit any content relating to the conflict. User:TonyBallioni, whose views I generally agree with, disagreed that ARBPIA applied to this section. I hadn't thought that this was even a grey area but to my disappointment I can't find anything to back my assumption. So I and I think others need to know if non-ECP editors and IPs can edit material relating to the conflict if the article isn't basically about the conflict. Doug Weller talk 10:09, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, the page itself is not essentially about the dispute, but the section is, and I think that what WP:TBAN says applies here. Using "weather" as an example, it says that a tban from the topic "weather-related parts of other pages, even if the pages as a whole have little or nothing to do with weather: the section entitled "Climate" in the article California, for example, is covered by the topic ban, but the rest of the article is not." If we wish to prevent edit-warring in an area covered by sanctions, those sanctions should cover not just articles devoted to the area but sections of articles that focus on the area. Doug Weller talk 13:45, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I've been wrong in my assumptions, wishful thinking perhaps as I think ECP needs to apply to all related content in this area. The problem (and the reason I've been wrong) is that 1RR and the general 500/30 rule are not actually discretionary sanctions. I think they should be part of DS as I see a lot of drive-by editors and IP addresses (and the cynical side of me says some of these are editors logged out) changing content that's only a minor part of an article - often the names Israel or Palestine or the location of sites or towns, and 1RR and 500/30 would be a big help here, as well as in cases such as the section of Omar's article that is specifically about the conflict. Topic bans cover all content of course, is that the sort of AE action you are thinking of or is some related to the ECP issue? Doug Weller talk 13:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Doug Weller 

message: if you don't mind, I'd like to clarify the question(s) here a bit, as your original request is actually touching on multiple different issues that could be relevant for whether a page is ARBPIA... and I'd like to make clear the options among which we unsure which matches global (as opposed to local i.e. page-respective) en-wiki policy. 
1) The simplest of all, that some of Omar's comments that drew controversy were about Israel. She is an American politician though and the controversy is in America. Does this mean it is (a) not ARBPIA at all, (b) ARBPIA for specifically those comments and the ensuing controversy or (c) ARBPIA in total. 
2) Probably the comment Ilhan Omar that made the most controversy (aside from mostly religious Christian right-wingers flipping out about her hijab, which I don't personally think is relevant to ARBPIA) is her view that pro-Israel lobbyists have "hypnotized" people. To many Jews, including many progressive Jews, this is an offensive anti-Semitic canard that is all the worse because Omar herself is hypocritically the victim of religious bigotry, while for others, again including people who are Jewish, it is media (especially conservative media) taking what she said out of context. Without commenting on which side is "right", there are actually two questions here:
* 2a) Are pro-Israel lobbyists or lobbying groups covered by ARBPIA, and are comments about them by others. Does this make (a) nothing ARBPIA, (b) just the material related to pro-Israel lobbying/ists, (c) the whole article for subjects involved ARBPIA.
* 2b) Again without commenting on the "correctness" of either side, Omar is accused of antisemitism. Full disclosure my personal view is that she is more chronically inconsiderate and communalist than she is anything akin to David Duke, which is not going to be popular with either side. While obviously most non-Israeli Jews are non-Israeli and indeed a significant minority are critical of the structure of the Israeli state, issues of global antisemitism are central to Israeli identity. Do figures (wide range: Omar to Sebastian Gorka to David Duke, no I do not believe they belong in the same category but these are an easy and relevant examples that are not --yet-- covered by ARBPIA) who have commentary on their nation's foreign policy via Israel and also antisemitism become covered by ARBPIA in the capacity of (a) not at all, (b) Israel and antisemitism related material, (c) just Israel material or (d) in totality? 
3) As it stands currently, 's writeup mentions Omar's very visible Muslim faith. Islam is not definitively "Israeli/Palestinian domain", however just like antisemitism there is a lot of interaction, as there is a sense of pan-Islamic solidarity regardless of the reality of this solidarity, on both sides. Furthermore, although this fact may be regrettable, by wearing the hijab and by spearheading the effort to allow head coverings in federal government processes, Omar became an iconized living symbol of religious Muslims in the US (again, personally I find this incredibly problematic on many different grounds but it is hard to deny it has become the case) and has been punished for it time and time again by unabashed Islamophobes on social media elsewhere. At first glance this may not seem relevant, but since Doug brought it up, it is worth mentioning that issues of Muslim immigrant assimilation do play a role in debates about how Muslim Americans can relate to American foreign policy (I am not implying all Muslim Americans are anti-Israel/pro-Palestine/or anything whatever, but one cannot deny that this is relevant). Should this also be a consideration? Personally I think, no, but it has already been brought up and is worth asking because I can see another side here as well 
Hope I've made the issues here more, not less clear?--Calthinus (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Calthinus 

message: But per PIA General 1RR restriction it applies to "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" and not to the content. I btw agree with you AGK and think it should apply to the content but then the wording should be changed --Shrike (talk) 20:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Shrike 

message: Agree with AGK and Shrike:  when ARBPIA notice is place, then it is 1RR for the whole article.
As for changing the rules (so that ARBPIA is only for a part of the article)...Please don't. The usefulness of that does not make up for the added level of complication (The rules are more than complicated enough as it is!)  Huldra (talk) 21:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Huldra 

message: I'd like to introduce this AE case into evidence. The AE case involved, in part, edit warring in Acid throwing - which is mostly not ARBPIA - however Acid throwing#Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip is very much ARBPIA related. Such ARBPIA sections are common in longer pages - and applying this on the section would make sense. Ilhan Omar is in the border-zone between reasonably and broadly (as much of the coverage of her, through the years, is focused on antisemitism/Israel/etc.) overall, and specific sections of the page are very much ARBPIA related. Icewhiz (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: - the motion at present is unclear on who may place the notice. All users (as with the current ARBPIA banners)? Just admins? If just admins (which I think is a bad idea in this case) - where can one request that notices be placed?Icewhiz (talk) 12:52, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:   - AFAIK the ARBPIA banners were mainly placed by non-admin users ( and  were both prolific) - however their coverage is spotty (I would guess less than 30%-40% coverage - lots of pages clearly in scope do not have an ARBPIA banner), and sometimes wrong (e.g. Iran/Israel which was ruled out of scope by ARCA still has some banners). The current 1RR regime covers thousands of pages at the very least, and in some situations (e.g. during the 2014 Gaza war) new pages can pile up at rather high rates. At present the topic area lacks "resident admins" ( does edit in the topic area, but is not always around.  mainly edits in election related contexts, and I am not sure anyone else is active). The really "hot" edit wars tend to occur not in established long running pages such as the Six Day War but more down in the weeds - current events, terror attacks, and individual settlements and bios. If there is no mechanism here for quick rollout (either normal user, or a queue with good response times) - things will get ugly, and possibly even less clear (e.g, users 3RRing up until the edit notice going in) than today. Unlike AP2 which has fairly active "resident admins" and topics edited by regulars, ARBPIA lacks the residents and has many  "flash crowds" that show up when a current event is occuring (and editing lots and lots of pages - bio/places/units/etc related to the event).Icewhiz (talk) 18:41, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is beyond growing pains. Rfpp often takes 12 hours and if the edit notice is not streamlined there (and obvious to admins there who are often at ARBPIA what? When they respond) - it will be overlooked. ECP protection is at present very spotty and some admins at RfPP will reject an ARBPIA ECP request if there was not enough recent disruption (counter to my reading at least of ARBPIA3). I want to stress again how fast and how ugly it gets during terror waves / wars / events - and in those cases it is on several new articles and often obscure existing articles. Icewhiz (talk) 19:22, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Icewhiz 

message: I can't actually tell what everyone is proposing in this discussion.  The question is whether to apply ARBPIA only to entire articles or selectively to parts of articles.  The former would be a simpler rule, but it can also lead to absurdity. A year or so ago there was a huge edit war on List of state leaders in 2016 (or some other year) over the 3 lines that applied to Palestine. It would ridiculous to apply ARBPIA to the other 250 or so items in that list just because of those 3 lines. I think that what we need is something like this: if an article is largely related to the I-P conflict, it is covered in toto; otherwise the parts of an article related to the I-P conflict are covered. Zerotalk 08:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Zero0000 

message: There's a lot of verbiage up there (says the long-winded guy), but the key thing to me is that unusual restrictions like 1RR should never be held to be applicable at a page without the admin-placed editnotices and other templates that explicitly make them so and which are hard to miss.  Drama-frought topics are among the most likely to attract new editors, so there's a serious WP:BITE problem here.  If I'd ended up blocked my first week of editing, for violating an obscure and excessive rule I didn't know about and which applied only to a particular page, I probably never would have come back. Consider also that new editors can't tell who's an admin, and which concerns to take seriously (lots of noobs get lots of grousing and templates from lots of people; a DS notice from an admin isn't likely to be interpreted as special by someone who doesn't know the ropes yet, but a big warning every time they edit a particular article is harder to ignore).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by SMcCandlish 

message: As one of the admins who is more active in ARBPIA from an AE perspective, I'll copy what I just posted at AE here where the ARBPIA and AP2 issues colidied:I think that a lot of the focus on this article as a part ARBPIA is because the subject is visibly Muslim, and that plays a part in the news coverage, because it is a region where the ethno-religious tensions are high. This hasn't been brought up here, but I do think its something that needs to be addressed as a sort of elephant in the room.That being said, I don't think being a Muslim American politician with views on the conflict makes that politician part of it under our rules anymore than an Evangelical Christian congressman who wants all of Israel and the Palestinian territories to be part of the State of Israel because it will speed up the end of the world. The question is whether or not she can reasonably be considered part of the conflict. I do not think she or any other current member of the United States Congress can. something I do think the committee could possibly amend or clarify here is that the ARBPIA general prohibition does not apply to the internal politics of countries that aren't Israel or its neighbors. Namely, if I wanted to, I could make a fairly strong wikilawyerly argument that Harry Truman is reasonably construed to be under the sanctions.  Those of us who aren't active participants in the Wikidrama in the area think its crazy, but AE for ARBPIA is generally the same faces reporting each other on technical violations repeatedly or reporting newer users to the area who are on the other "side" that we eventually end up indefing. One country having an internal debate as to its policy on the State of Israel and its relationship with its Arab neighbors is not what these sanctions were usually intended to address. The committee clarifying "Hey, this area is clearly not part of the sanctions." Would be helpful. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:08, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by TonyBallioni 

message: Speaking with my AE-admin hat on, I would not consider Ilhan Omar to be under 1RR or the General Prohibition.
Bans are generally constructed as either "pages related to...." or "pages and edits related to....".  In this case, both the ARBPIA 1RR restriction and the General Prohibition are constructed as "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" - ie. the "and edits" is not there.  Therefore, when assessing whether these restrictions are being violated, the question is not "Are the edits related to the conflict?" but "Is the page reasonably construed as being related to the conflict?"
I have always seen a difference between "broadly construed" and "reasonably construed" and my understanding is that the "reasonably construed" language was deliberately chosen to be narrower than "broadly construed."  My understanding of this language is that "broadly construed" includes any page that has some connection to the conflict, while "reasonably construed" includes only pages on subjects that are mainly about the conflict (or subjects that are mainly notable because of a connection to the conflict).  Ilhan Omar is notable as a member of the United States Congress and has made some controversial remarks about the Arab-Israeli conflict; she is related to the conflict, but her principle notability does not come from the conflict.  Therefore, the page is not "reasonably construed to be related" and so is not subject to 1RR and the General Prohibition.  However, the page is broadly construed to be related, and so is subject to discretionary sanctions.  
Clear as mud?  GoldenRing (talk) 12:47, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by GoldenRing 

message: The way things have worked in the ARBPIA area is quite sensible, although that and the wording of the rulings are probably out of kilter, which, I think, is the reason for the current request. The rulings have been applied to ARBPIA-related content in any page, no matter whether the topic can be construed as being in the ARBPIA part of the project or not. In the former case, the rulings have been applied only to the ARBPIA-related content; editors could edit non-related content on those pages freely. As the usage notes that go along with the template for the ARBPIA notice indicate, the notice does not have to be placed on a page in order for the rulings to apply there. In the page which is the cause of the current request, the Ilhan Omar one, that means that under the practice followed in the past at least, ARBPIA rulings would be enforceable on any ARBPIA-related material there without the notice having been placed. The problem that placing the notice has caused is that editors are questioning whether any of the majority, non-related material there is under editing restrictions or not. We possibly have two problems with the current rulings: one that the wording of the rulings may indicate that those rulings apply only on pages where the subject matter falls wholely within the ARBPIA area when in fact the practice has been to apply them to content anywhere; a second whereby we either don't have a second notice which indicates that only ARBPIA-related content on the relevant page or the notice that we do have does that. The practice that has been followed is sensible and I don't think that it should be altered to conform with what the wording of the rulings actually say. Altering the wording of the rulings and the notice would involve a lot of pain which would still not necessarily end up with a sensible form of wording. Given the wording of the notice which we do have, it would be better if it was only placed on pages whose subject matter, broadly constued, fell wholly within the ARBPIA area, those being ones where it would be sensible to apply the ARBPIA restrictions to most of the material. Following current practice, the absence of the notice would not prevent the restrictions being applied to relevant content in other pages.         ←   ZScarpia   13:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: "I hadn't thought that this was even a grey area but to my disappointment I can't find anything to back my assumption." From following AE requests for years, I'm sure that the ARBPIA restrictions were applied to isolated sections of ARBPIA-related material in articles which weren't otherwise wholly within the subject area.      ←   ZScarpia   12:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

text: "The problem (and the reason I've been wrong) is that 1RR and the general 500/30 rule are not actually discretionary sanctions. I think they should be part of DS as I see a lot of drive-by editors and IP addresses (and the cynical side of me says some of these are editors logged out) changing content that's only a minor part of an article." I'm having a little bit of difficulty construing the meaning and significance of the rules being part of discretionary sanctions, which makes me wonder whether I've mistaken what the case is about and whether I've been writing at cross purposes with others here.  
My view is that 1RR, which was imposed to slow down edit warring, and 500/30, which was imposed to help combat the use of sockpuppetry to evade sanctions, are restrictions applied to to the editing of all ARBPIA-related material. Discretionary sanctions in the form of, for example, topic bans may be applied by administrators in order to ensure, inter alia, that restrictions such as those are adhered to ("Discretionary sanctions – administrators may impose sanctions on disruptive editors and apply general restrictions on specific pages in the conflict area in accordance with the discretionary sanctions procedure."). Viewed that way, the rules are restrictions that automatically apply to ARBPIA-related material which discretionary sanctions enforce, not restrictions which can be applied as sanctions at the discretion of administrators.  
It looks to me as though, at route, the problem here is the ambiguity in the phrase "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". How may a page be "related" to the conflict? One interpretation is that the a page's subject matter as expressed in the page title itself should have an obvious connection to the IP conflict. Another interpretation is that the whole of the subject matter should have an obvious connection to the IP conflict. Yet another interpretation is that a relationship may be established if just part of the content is connect. The latter is the one which I'm maintaining is the one which is sensible in terms of reducing strife in Wikipedia and also the one which was traditionally followed on the AE and AI noticeboards. Other editors here such as Icewhiz and AGK seem to be supporting that interpretaion.   
Taking the third interpretation, there then follows the problem of determining, in the case of pages where only part of the content is related to the conflict, whether the restrictions such as 1RR and 500/30 apply to the whole content or only the conflict-related parts. Unfortunately, WP:ARBPIA can be interpreted as requiring the restrictions to apply to the whole content, though that is neither necessary or sensible as far as the editing of the non-conflict-related material is concerned. A reason that it is not sensible is on display here: in articles such as the one on Ilhan Omar, editors with no interest in the IP conflict will resist the imposition of the ARBPIA restrictions being imposed if those restrictions are applied to the whole page; yet if they're not applied to the parts of those pages whose content is related to the IP conflict, the end result will be the appearance on those pages of the editing problems which the restrictions were designed to cure. Roger Waters is most significant for his music career in Pink Floyd. Because he is outspoken on Palestinian rights, though, on Wikipedia there is a struggle to insert conflict-related material condemning or defending him which threatens to swamp the whole article. Ernest Bevin was British Foreign Secretary at the time when the Cold War was developing and also when the various parts of British India gained independence, yet because he was Foreign Secretary in the couple of years surrounding the creation of Israel, there are similar problems on the article devoted to him. Jeremy Corbyn has had a long political career and is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the UK parliament, het because he is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights, issues surrounding that again affect that article. The United States is vital to Israeli interests: as a member of the UN Security Council it uses its veto frequently to protect Israel; Israel is the main beneficiary of US overseas aid; US military muscle is used to the benefit of Israel against opponents which Israel itself does not have the resource to fight; US financial muscle can be used to fend of the threat posed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; US courts can be used to wage lawfare on Israeli opponents. Therefore there exists in the US a very strong lobby which protects those interests. The knock-on effect for Wikipedia is that a lot of pages have a partial connection to the IP conflict.  
Perhaps a way of resolving the current interpretation problem would be to refer to administrators who were involved in the wording of the ARBPIA rulings and asking what their intentions were and also to administrators who have been involved long-term in enforcing them and asking what their interpretation was.  
    ←   ZScarpia   16:58, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

text: Doug, looking at the Ilhan Omar talkpage, if I've read your comments correctly, you're stating that, in ARBPIA, 1RR and 500/30 are remedies, not discretionary sanctions,  which sounds equivalent to what I was trying to say above. The article is interesting in that it contains material falling under two Arbitration Requests, i.e. American Politics and ARBPIA. I think the talkpage demonstrates why the ARBPIA remedies need to be applied to the IP-conflict-related material contained in the article.      ←   ZScarpia   01:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by ZScarpia 

message: The idea that a a notice and template should be a requirement for the 1RR restriction to apply to an article is a no brainer. I mean, the very fact that lots of people have no idea - including apparently some of the Arbs judging by User:Doug Weller's opening statement (not criticizing him, I had no idea either) -  that it doesn't work that way, evidences that the way we have it now is just goofy. And sort of... mean. On all other areas under ACDS no notice means no restrictions. Editors who make edits go by the instructions that are visible to them. Yes, yes, I know that you get informed about the 1RR applying to anything "broadly construed" ... once a year. But seriously, unless you're very active in a particular topic area, who the hell can remember some notice they got EIGHT+ months ago on their talk page??? *Especially* since the rules are so different from how it works everywhere else.
The problem of course is that this whole "we'll make up a rule but keep it secret" approach was done by admins who didn't bother to even think of how it works from a regular editors' perspective. The flawed design is a result of "what will make it easier for me to block people" thinking by cowboy admins, rather than "what will make for a more collaborative editing environment". Come to think of it, most of the whole discretionary sanctions apparatus is set up on the basis of that (witness the lack of success that DS has had in most controversial areas) thinking, this is just the most egregious example of that dysfunctional approach.Volunteer Marek (talk) 10:36, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Volunteer Marek 

message: *First: for rules this complex, we shall need to ensure the guidance (like editnotices) is unambiguous.  ARBPIA stacks general remedies on top of one another, necessitating requests for clarification like this one.  Let's also make sure we try hard to simplify 'spaghetti junction' templates like , which needs to use about three times fewer words.The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page.  The page need not have the standard 1RR template before the restriction applies, though clearly administrators should not mindlessly sanction for reverts by unaware users even if a strict reading of the procedures would permit enforcement.  Whether another remedy shares jurisdiction on a particular page does not change this position.  AGK ■ 20:18, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: The purpose of this ARCA is basically two simple queries. 1. Can an AE action be reopened once closed, and if so, 2. does a re "certified" TBAN then become effective as of the newer date.
* I was TBANNED by GoldenRing on May 10, 2019 for three months. 
* On May 14th, he vacated the TBAN on my talk page and then rescinded the TBAN and reopened the AE action.
* El_C then re-issued the TBAN and reset the clock for another three months.
The problem I have with this is that it sets a bad precedent for several reasons. We can have 1, never ending TBANS if we allow AE actions to be reopened and then TBANS to be reset, but also not have some sort of policy that once an AE action is closed, it is closed. I understand it's not a court-room so there is no double jeopardy, but it doesn't seem fair to have a system where an admin can just days, weeks months or even a year go by and then undo an AE close. If we do allow it, we do need then to set up strict guidelines as to why, when and how a closed AE action can be reopened and how it can then be re-litigated.
*Note I am not specifically appealing my TBAN, I am filing an ARCA about policy and guidelines about reopening a closed AE, (and then extending a TBAN but that's minor.)
:* User:BU_Rob13/AGF_applies_to_everyone Sir Joseph (talk) 14:56, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: *Again, you can think that, but that is not true. One thought I keep having because you were the one who started the process of the TBAN on my AE action is that my AE action had many admins and yet just a few days later, you were nowhere to be found on a similar AE action. I am sure I'm not the only one to notice. In any event, ARBCOM is the place to ask for guidelines and policies and yes, once an AE is closed, we should have some sort of policies or procedures in place as to how an AE can be reopened or if it can be reopened. I am not sure why that is such a huge ask. Sir Joseph (talk) 15:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: *Whatever, this is why this place is so toxic. And you and GoldenRing brought up Wikilawyering, in one prior case, I was actually emailing Sandstein about a block appeal  and he responded "go to AE." I then did, and he then blocked me (which I found a bit odd). You would assume a nice person would respond, "don't do that because that won't work" or "don't do that because I will block you" but this place here has gone down hill over the past few years. So how is that called wikilawyering when I'm directed to do something by an admin? How is this called wikilawyering when I was directed to do this by ARBCOM? This place just reeks of entrapment. Sir Joseph (talk) 16:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Sir Joseph 

message: As already mentioned, GoldenRing said "pending another admin closing" — I therefore closed it accordingly, having already evaluated consensus among uninvolved admins to do so. I note that both users involved in the dispute were subjected to 3-month TBAN, in the end. Which, ultimately, reflects well on how AE is able to operate in dealing with protracted ARBPIA disputes, despite its various imperfections. So, I don't think we need any additional guidelines at this time. El_C 21:25, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you trying to say to Rob, Sir Jospeh? Use your words. El_C 15:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Katie, I specifically told Sir Jospeh that he may count the TBAN as having began on May 10. So this 4-day resetting (trivial anyway) mentioned by him is a non-issue. El_C 16:07, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by El_C 

message: I reversed the sanction I had imposed because I had qualms about the outcome but considered that my judgement was so impaired by the concomitant kerfuffle at AN that another admin should deal with it instead of me.  The committee should direct Sir Joseph to WP:NOTBURO, perhaps warn about a distinct tendency to wikilawyer, and otherwise dismiss this request.  If the committee want to spend some time on light entertainment, Special:Permalink/897199190#Notice that you are now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction is a pretty good specimen of wikilawyering.  GoldenRing (talk) 15:16, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: My sincere apologies to  and wishes for a speedy recovery.  For everyone else, you've now been warned.  GoldenRing (talk) 08:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by GoldenRing 

message: I think the only thing that might be needed here is to say that in situations like this that the clock start time doesn't change unless there is explicit agreement otherwise among the uninvolved admins. I think the likelihood of an AE being reopened after a significant length of time and are pretty slim as all the reported behaviour would be stale. Thryduulf (talk) 12:10, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Thryduulf (re AE)

message: This "appeal-without-appealing" should be considered an appeal by the Committee, whether Sir Joseph wants it to be one or not. The attempt to claim this is merely a request for clarification about whether a topic ban is valid without that being equivalent to an appeal, presumably to retain the ability to appeal at other venues at a later time, continues the long pattern of wikilawyering that has repeatedly gotten Sir Joseph sanctioned. By making clear that this is an appeal, whatever the result of that may be, the Committee can send a strong message about whether it is susceptible to wikilawyering. ~ Rob13Talk 14:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by BU Rob13 

message: OMG,  Don't link to something like that "discussion" on Sir Joseph's page and call it "light entertainment", please. It has melted my brain. I would actually warn the arbs against reading it. Bishonen | talk 19:46, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Bishonen

message: *First, I consider this an appeal, because if we don't consider it one, we'll be back here next week with his "actual appeal" and we're not doing that. Second, let me get this straight. You didn't like GoldenRing's close. You raised a fuss (because, among other nitpicky things, somehow you were unaware that you'd been warned a whoooole bunch of times about DS under ARBPIA3, which defies belief), GR undid his close for another admin to handle and El C gave you the same result. (Don't go talking about the problems with DS and your warnings, because that's not what you're here for.) What exactly did you expect GR to do? He's there to gauge consensus when he's closing, and that was the consensus of the discussion. He's supposed to reopen the discussion and let another admin handle it if he feels it's necessary. I have no problem with GoldenRing's actions here, and I have no problem with El C's re-close except that the clock doesn't reset, so the TBAN is from May 10. If this had happened four months later instead of four days, maybe you'd have a leg to stand on, but trying to skirt around to get a second bite at the apple if/when this appeal/action/request/whatever doesn't go your way tries my patience. Katietalk 16:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: *  Thanks, I missed that. Sorry. Katietalk 16:17, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nothing about my comment is about an appeal [by you right now]. I gave you my direct answer; I see no outstanding problems worth addressing and any claims of impropriety in similar situations in the future can be brought to ARCA on a case by case basis. Mkdw talk 16:27, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

text: It is why I expressly stated "any" and not "your" when talking about whether future issues could simply be addressed by an appeal. Mkdw talk 16:35, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

text: * Suggesting that we archive this request:  AGK ■ 21:36, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reopening Closed AE Actions: Arbitrator views and discussion 

message: * Hello, this is one year since last discussion held, I will discuss more important issue about moving the pages relate to Arab Israel conflict. In the past year, I see that many editors, notably extend confirmed users, moving the page without consensus from wider Wikipedia community because any Israel or Palestine articles from renamed will subjected to be controversial. So I propose here to have only administrators right to move any Arab Israel conflict besides only one revert in last 24 hours. Any thoughts? 114.125.249.255 (talk) 14:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to have only administrators to move any articles relating to Arab and Israel in Arbitration request 

message: Is adding that David Ben-Gurion "worked on Yom Kippur and ate pork" a violation of an I-P topic ban? Chesdovi (talk) 20:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clarification: WP:ARBPIA 

message: The redirect Wikipedia:Zionism has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Q𝟤𝟪 22:32, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Wikipedia:Zionism]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: Don't forget to add  template above. 2001:4452:1A3:5600:3D3B:4026:4894:716D (talk) 06:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: — Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 22:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 22 November 2023 

message: :Original discussion
Initiated by Sagflaps at 16:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
* (initiator)
*
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
* Special:Diff/1211052253
=== Statement by Sagflaps ===
Does WP:ARBECR exclude editors who were granted the extended confirmed permission at WP:PERM? See Special:Diff/1205113976 and Special:Diff/1211048521.
=== Statement by Selfstudier ===
Apologies, didn't realize you had been granted ECR, you can withdraw this. Selfstudier (talk) 16:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

text: This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
* 
=== Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion ===
*ARBECR applies to non-extended-confirmed editors. If an editor is extended-confirmed, then they are not prohibited by ARBECR. Primefac (talk) 16:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles (March 2024) 

message: Apologies, didn't realize you had been granted ECR, you can withdraw this. Selfstudier (talk) 16:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Selfstudier 

message: Absolute nonesense from User:Sagflaps. They would have done better actually talking to the other editor instead of running here. Here is the chronology, it has a hint of 'WTF' to it...
a) At 15:51, today Selfstudier makes the error—albeit innocently—or reminding Sagflaps that only ECR-confirmed editor can edit certain pages;
b) At 16:11 today Sagflaps filed here;
c) At 16:16 today (why five minutes later?) they informed Selfstudier of this report;
d) At 16:17 today Selfstudier apologises at Sagflaps' talk for their original error and suggests they withdraw this report;
e) At 16:18 Selfstudier apologises on their own talk (in response to Sagflaps' notice) for their original error and suggests they withdraw this report; 
f) At 16:19 today Selfstudier apologises on this very page for their original error and suggests they withdraw this report.
g) And at 16:20 today Selfstudier self-reverts his comment on T:Israel, acknowledging in the edit summary that the  after all.
This is a litany of poor moves demonstrating little but 'GOTCHA!' bad faith by Sagflaps, compared to a succession of apologetic and conciliatory responses by Seldstudier.
Selfstudier: do not apologise any more, you've done enough. Sagflaps, meanwhile, has continued editing throughout this report so should be sanctioned either for deliberately filing a report and then walking away, or not realising the importance of communication. Apart from this filing, they have not responded to anyone. In either case, I doubt the project will gain much by having them ECRd.  ——Serial 17:00, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment by 54129 

message: I'm not following your point about Sagflaps' 8 February diff. The Sagflaps account was granted ECR on 21 January, 18 days before Selfstudier posted to his talk page on 8 February. So it is not the case that .-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by Pawnkingthree 

message: *ARBECR applies to non-extended-confirmed editors. If an editor is extended-confirmed, then they are not prohibited by ARBECR. Primefac (talk) 16:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion