GiacomoReturned (talk | contribs) |
Basket of Puppies (talk | contribs) →Statement by {Basket of Puppies}: comment to iri |
||
Line 26: | Line 26: | ||
I attempted to bring this issue to ANI (link above) but the response there was incredible. My complaint is: |
I attempted to bring this issue to ANI (link above) but the response there was incredible. My complaint is: |
||
While attempting to use [[User:EdwardsBot|Edwards Bot]] as part of my duties as a [[Wikipedia:Campus Ambassador]] for [[Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Spring 2011/Public Policy Analysis: Public Roles in Private Markets (David Weil)|Prof Weil's course at Boston University]] and running into technical problems, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421366505&oldid=421365486 I] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421370611&oldid=421367546 three] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421370678&oldid=421370611 times] asked for help from the bot operator (MzMcBride). Instead, he called/alluded to me as [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421367546&oldid=421366550 insane] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMZMcBride&action=historysubmit&diff=421371851&oldid=421371082 a moron and stupid]. None of these insults were necessary and only added to unnecessary drama, something which MzMcBride [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride_2#MZMcBride_admonished|doesn't seem to avoid]] while violating [[WP:CIVIL]], [[WP:NPA]] and [[WP:EQ]]. I am bringing the matter here in hopes of sending MzMcBride a clear and unambiguous message that insulting fellow editors who are seeking technical assistance is entirely unacceptable and extremely disruptive. I request sanctions be placed on MzMcBride for his unsolicited insults and egregious violation of policy. |
While attempting to use [[User:EdwardsBot|Edwards Bot]] as part of my duties as a [[Wikipedia:Campus Ambassador]] for [[Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Spring 2011/Public Policy Analysis: Public Roles in Private Markets (David Weil)|Prof Weil's course at Boston University]] and running into technical problems, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421366505&oldid=421365486 I] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421370611&oldid=421367546 three] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421370678&oldid=421370611 times] asked for help from the bot operator (MzMcBride). Instead, he called/alluded to me as [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AEdwardsBot%2FSpam&action=historysubmit&diff=421367546&oldid=421366550 insane] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMZMcBride&action=historysubmit&diff=421371851&oldid=421371082 a moron and stupid]. None of these insults were necessary and only added to unnecessary drama, something which MzMcBride [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride_2#MZMcBride_admonished|doesn't seem to avoid]] while violating [[WP:CIVIL]], [[WP:NPA]] and [[WP:EQ]]. I am bringing the matter here in hopes of sending MzMcBride a clear and unambiguous message that insulting fellow editors who are seeking technical assistance is entirely unacceptable and extremely disruptive. I request sanctions be placed on MzMcBride for his unsolicited insults and egregious violation of policy. |
||
'''Comment to iridescent''' Since you were involved in the ANI thread I believe you should recuse yourself from this. [[User:Basket of Puppies|<font color="brown" size="2" face="Constantia">'''Basket of Puppies'''</font>]] 22:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC) |
|||
=== Question by completely disinterested User:GiacomoReturned === |
=== Question by completely disinterested User:GiacomoReturned === |
Revision as of 22:27, 29 March 2011
Requests for arbitration
MzMcBride 3
Initiated by Basket of Puppies at 22:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
- MZMcBride (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Diff. User_talk:MZMcBride#ANI
- Diff. 2
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Statement by {Basket of Puppies}
I attempted to bring this issue to ANI (link above) but the response there was incredible. My complaint is: While attempting to use Edwards Bot as part of my duties as a Wikipedia:Campus Ambassador for Prof Weil's course at Boston University and running into technical problems, I three times asked for help from the bot operator (MzMcBride). Instead, he called/alluded to me as insane and a moron and stupid. None of these insults were necessary and only added to unnecessary drama, something which MzMcBride doesn't seem to avoid while violating WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA and WP:EQ. I am bringing the matter here in hopes of sending MzMcBride a clear and unambiguous message that insulting fellow editors who are seeking technical assistance is entirely unacceptable and extremely disruptive. I request sanctions be placed on MzMcBride for his unsolicited insults and egregious violation of policy.
Comment to iridescent Since you were involved in the ANI thread I believe you should recuse yourself from this. Basket of Puppies 22:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Question by completely disinterested User:GiacomoReturned
What pray is a "Wikipedia:Campus Ambassador"? and is Basket of puppies a suitable person to be representing the project on a campus of impressionable young people? His/her/their actions and comments here, suggest to me a negative answer. Giacomo Returned 22:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by {Party 3}
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)
- Decline, per my comments on the ANI thread linked (and every other person to comment). Arbcom is not the Civility Police headquarters, and there's nothing here to resolve. Floquenbeam gives you good advice on your talkpage. – iridescent 22:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Noleander
Initiated by JN466 at 03:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Jayen466 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
- Noleander (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Slrubenstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Statement by Jayen466
The ANI thread Slrubenstein initiated about Noleander's editing has grown to such proportions and to such complexity over the past few days that a closure by any one administrator, and a decision about the proposed topic ban by any one administrator, is likely to cause further drama rather than resolve the situation. At the same time, the evidence is so complex that it seems to go beyond what can be competently handled either at AN/I, or at an RfC/U; the format of an arbitration case seems much more suitable, as it provides a suitable format for submitting, examining and rebutting evidence. The arbitration committee can only take a case if they are requested to do so, so this request is intended to give the committee the opportunity to do that. --JN466 03:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Slrubenstein
I did not seek the normal avenues of dispute resolution, because I did not perceive this as a dispute between me and Noleander. At least, it is not a dispute in the narrow sense that usually operates at Wikipedia. Personally, I have no problem with Noleander. I do not think she has been incivil to me. She never attacked me personaly. Moreover, we have never been involved in an editing dispute. If I have ever reverted her, I do not remember. If she has ever reverted me, I do not remember.
I went to AN/I to propose a community ban; Slim Virgin proposed instead a topic ban, which I supported. I supported a ban because I perceived a pattern of behavior that I believe should be unacceptable at Wikipedia. The pattern of behavior is anti-Semitic. It has taken the form of creating what I consider anti-Semitic articles about Jews.
I do not believe that anyone would contest that there has been a pattern of behavior. This is evidenced by four differnt AN/I threads. I initiated the first on 18 October 2009, after Noleander created the article "Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood."[5] I think it is appropriate for Wikipedia to have articles about anti-Semitism, and if Noleander wished to call attention to anti-Semitic slurs against Jews in relation to Hollywood, she could have added appropriate content to the article on anti-Semitism. But in my view this article was not "about" anti-Semitism or allegqtions of anti-Semitism, it was a thinly disguised pretext to bring out the anti-Semitic slur of Jews controlling the media. This thread is relatively short, and the issue was resolved the next day by moving it to AfD, resulting in (1) the name of the article being changed to "Jews and Hollywood" and then the article being replaced by a redirect to the American Jews article.[6]
On 22 October 2009 Peter Cohen reopened the threat at AN/I, pointing out that Noleander had plagiarized from Radio Islam. This initiated a much longer thread that lasted through 24 October; I participated extensively, and of people commenting here Ncmvocalist and Tryptofish commented. As with the most recent AN/I thread, participants fell into two groups: those who considered the article anti-Semitic, and consider anti-Semitism to be a behavior deserving specific attention, and those who consider anti-Semitism to be a belief or intention that is not a concern of Wikipedia, and who instead discussed problems in the article that could be fixed through better writing.
On 12 Fedbruary 2010 Jayjg initiated the next thread on Noleander, writing "It appears, as was evident in the previous AN/I discussion, that Oleander edits Wikipedia primarily for two reasons; to include negative information about Mormons and Jews. In the past he focused more on Mormons; since the last AN/I discussion however, he has focused more on Jews. Even when the information he provides is arguably relevant, it has to be extensively edited to conform with policy (e.g. [57], [58]). While his pretense is that he is only attempting to debunk antisemitic canards, his actions indicate that he is actually attempting to promote them." This time the discussion continued until 16 February. Slim Virgin proposed a resolution:
- Noleander writes above that his interest lies in adding criticism of religions, so perhaps he could put people's minds at rest by focusing on that clearly from now on—on religion, rather than ethnicity, and using good sources that offer a critique of religion. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 22:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm amenable to SlimVirgin's suggestion. My primary interest is ensuring that the "downsides" of religions are documented in this encyclopedia (in a neutral, balanced way), and I'm willing to focus on that area. Good sourcing is always a priority for me, but I can redouble my efforts in that regard. --Noleander (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, that would probably resolve the issue, particularly if the criticism is spread around different religions or focuses on the general concept. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 00:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- Then perhaps that's the end of this, if everyone agrees...? Equazcion (talk) 04:29, 16 Feb 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, that would probably resolve the issue, particularly if the criticism is spread around different religions or focuses on the general concept. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 00:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm amenable to SlimVirgin's suggestion. My primary interest is ensuring that the "downsides" of religions are documented in this encyclopedia (in a neutral, balanced way), and I'm willing to focus on that area. Good sourcing is always a priority for me, but I can redouble my efforts in that regard. --Noleander (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
although some editors were unsatisfied:
- I think Noleander's pattern of edits are well described by the WP:DE and WP:TE. It seems to continue despite Tbdsy's warning. I have given him another, quite a stern warning and intend to block if the behavior does not change. Slimvirgin's proposal seem to be a good way to break the pattern there are probably hundreds other ways it is up to Noleander's but if his behavior would not change he should be blocked per WP:DE Alex Bakharev (talk) 07:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
The next thread was opened by Noleander on 12 April 2010, when he complained that another editor had been removing material he had added to the article Criticism of Judaism. A relatively short discussion followed, and the thread ended 13 April with this comment:
- I'm beginning to think that it may make sense to ban Noleander from all religion related articles. While his problems have been primarily involving articles about Judaism, it isn't the only one which has been treated to his POV pushing. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
but no actin taken. I did not participate in this discussion.
As I said, I think everyone will agree that there is a pattern; Noleander has said that he is concerned to publicize criticisms of religion, and in principle I see no problem with this.
I think the basic questions are few:
- Is anti-Semitism a belief, or an action? Obviously it can be both but I want to be clear that I am not at all concerned with anti-Semitic belief. For all I know, I may have collaborated with many anti-Semites working on one article or another. I do not know the real identity of other editors, I do not know what kind of people they are like outside of Wikipedia, and frankly I do not care what they believe. What I do care about are the articles we write. When I accused Noleander of anti-Semitic editing, I was refering to a behavior, to the articles he has created.
- Are the articles Noleander has created (and some to which he has added controversial content) anti-Semitic, or are they just poorly written articles? This is a major point of contention, and many of the people who opposed the proposed ban claimed that Noleander's most recent article, Jews and Money (renamed Economic history of the Jews) to be a well-sourced article on a notable topic.
- Is this a systemic problem, or an isolated incident? I do not believe anyone should be banned (or topic banned) unless there is a pattern of unacceptable behavior. As I said, even Noleander agrees that there is a pattern of behavior (articles critical of Judaism). If these articles are acceptable, then the pattern is acceptable. So everything really hinges on the second question.
There are three simple reasons why I consider the articles anti-Semitic.
- They are by and large not about Judaism, the religion, but about Jews - individual people, and the collective i.e. the Jewish race (or People etc.)
- The articles are neither well-sourced, nor do they use sources well. This was made clear by many people who have supported a topic ban, or who have supported the deletion of the article. The list of sources may appear impressive to a non-expert. Noleander cites books that sound relevant, but that were written by journalists, or by hobbyists, or by historians whose work is dated and no longer considered by other historians to be authoritative. More importantly, sources are used poorly. Noleander often provides summaries that flat-our misrepresent the author's views. Or she will provide a view that the source is challenging or rejecting, without providing the critique; the author of the work cited is thus presented as holding a view he or she actually criticizes. Finally, Noleander quotes selectively, and the selections are taken out of context. This is common in most if not all articles Noleander creates - to the point where, on this basis alone, one could reasonably characterize Noleander as a disruptive editor. One reason that Noleander has evaded this charge has been by creating articles. By creating articles, she avoids coming into conflict with editors who have put serious work into existing editors.
- The effect of selective quotes, taken out of context, and other misrepresentations of the views of the authors of the sources is not random. The effect is to highlight slurs against Jews, or the facts that anti-Semites (e.g. the anonymous authors of Protocals of the Elders of Zion, or Henry Ford) regularly select in constructing their sterotypes of Jews. Simply put: Noleander systematically misrepresents sources in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts.
The effect of promoting anti-Semitic views through encyclopedia articles, in my view, goes beyond simple violations of core content policies (NPOV, V, NOR). Certainly, every paragraph of Economic history of the Jews does violate NPOV and NOR. But if that is all that they did, it would just be another crappy article. As many supporters of Noleander have pointed out, Wikipedia is full of crappy articles, and being the on-line encyclopedia anyone can edit, we hope that over time crappy articles will be turned into good ones. The thing is, I don't think many of our editors are experts on the economic history of the Jews, or Jewish history, or economic history, and I do not think most editors have the time to research a whole new literature in order to spot -let alone fix - the errors in the article. In the meantime, people who come to Wikipedia not to edit but to learn, will read this article and, seeing all the citations - many to apparently Jewish authors - will assume it is a minimally reliable article.
And from this article they will learn that Jews historically have been drawn to money-lending, profit, and materialism, and are less moral than Christians.
The effect of this article, like so many other articles Noleander has created, is not to provide an account of all significant views from reliable sources on a particular topic, in a way that will add to the reader's understanding of the world. The effect is to perpetuate racist stereotypes about Jews.
Because Wikipedia is edited by a mass of individuals, it has come up with good policies against personal attacks, and mechanisms for resolving personal disputes. But we have never found a good way to deal with impersonal attacks, attacks against whole classes of humans rather than individual editors.
Nevertheless, if Wikipedia is one thing, it is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is nothing, if it is not a means to add to people's knowledge. If we tolerate a series of articles whose purpose is to educate people only in ignorance and hatred, whether in the form of contempt or resentment or any of its other guises, then we discredit the whole project. And we undermine whatever trust we ask people to have in us.
Some people have suggested that we use this as a "teaching moment," to encourage Noleander to learn more about Jews. I appreciate this suggestion since it at least admits that there is something really wrong here. But Wikipedia is not a chat room, it is not a rehabilitation center. We ask a lot from our editors, to donate lots of time to research and write the world's largest on-line encyclopedia. That is a big enough task. It is not for us to try to re-educate anti-Semites. As I said from the beginning, I am not interested in what my fellow editors believe, only in their acts. Noleanders acts reveal a pattern of misrepresentation of sources that has one end, the perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews.
If this does not justify a topic ban, I really have no idea what could possibly justify a topic ban. If we do not enforce a topic ban on Noleander, we might as well revoke all topic bans we have ever imposed on others. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by uninvolved Mathsci
The community has become so factionalised by the issues raised by Noleander's pattern of editing that an ArbCom case seems to be the only way to resolve the problems. From my own perspective, based on the latest article he has launched on wikipedia, Noleander has been involved in thinly veiled civil POV-pushing, where he has edited tendentiously. misrepresenting sources. I carried out a preliminary analysis of just one sentence of his article here and found that he had wholly misrepresented a source. When the opinions of theorists of the Third Reich are presented in a matter-of-fact way and Noleander goes out of his way to draw his newly produced article to the attention of a Jewish editor Jayjg with whom he has been in conflict about similar articles, something is wrong. Noleander must be aware of the offensive way in which he has written his article (since every time he produces such an article, it elicits a similar response). Given his awareness that he has produced an article which contains little more than an extensive catalogue of anitisemitic canards and racial stereotypes, his freely offered invitation to any critic to help him improve the article takes on a sinister air. Noleander cannot be unaware that he has misrepresented sources—his air of baffled innocence is disingenuous.Mathsci (talk) 06:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by uninvolved Anthonyhcole
The claim has been made that Noleander, a civil and genial editor, edits tendentiously in the direction of making Jews look bad. Examples have been offered in the most recent ANI thread [7] and in several previous threads, listed at the top of the most recent ANI thread. Those ANI threads relate, mostly, to articles authored by Noleander and subsequently deleted, so non-admins can't examine much of the evidence discussed in those threads. Noleander has also been accused of consistently misrepresenting sources, in line with this purported tendency. No editor claims, or appears, to have done a thorough review of Noleander's history - most examples of his behaviour seem to have been stumbled upon or arisen out of the examination of Noleander's contentious new articles. On the face of it, we have an anti-Semitic, anti-Judaic editor, but someone with access to the deleted articles needs to review the existing evidence. If the evidence summarised at the end of the last ANI thread [8] is found to be sound, a review of Noleander's editing outside the articles addressed at the ANI threads needs to be conducted. If it is found that Noleander is habitually editing tendentiously, and habitually misrepresenting sources, I believe a twelve month topic ban on the areas he's misbehaving in would not be disproportionate. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
RFC/U might be a more appropriate place to review this editor's editing pattern, if the arbitrators believe more evidence is needed. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist
No issues with ArbCom taking this; in fact, I suppose there isn't much choice but to take it given that the primary allegation by the involved parties is TE and non-neutral SPA in regards to Noleander.
My only issue is that some of the same parties keep turning up at ANI and other noticeboards (eg; Slrubenstein, Jayjg, etc) expecting the Community to do things their way without really paying any regard to the purpose of WP:DR, other standard processes, or even the feedback they were given; that would need to be addressed in some form in this case.
If it's clear enough, the Community will impose a measure without needing a RfC/U. But we want people to go through RfC/U if it is not as "clear". The evidence can be presented in a more coherent form if they present it in the RfC/U format, while the needless distractions which turn up at ANI can be put to a stop due to the rules of RfC/U (especially that of formatting). When enough of the Community don't see the "obvious" and clearly say "try something else - like RfC/U" - it becomes important to change the approach; it's inappropriate to ignore that feedback and continue to insist that everyone vote as if a topic ban discussion is a poll. In addition to that, we can see bickering, badgering, repeated allegations that things are "clear" and aren't being read, and that it is someone else's responsibility to file a RfC/U even though it was those users who were asking the Community to step in. One of the troubling allegations of bias was dealt with at WQA, but even after an apology, it seemed an involved party I named above did not seem interested in resolving the dispute amicably and voluntarily. Instead, he produced a wall of text while a participant from the R&I case again unhelpfully brought up a separate dispute/sanction/user.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; I'm more than willing to give a lot of slack for users who are having difficulty with tendentious editing, probably more so than a lot of others. But the moment they cannot be receptive to what they are being told by uninvolved users (even those uninvolved users who agree that their concern may be justified), then we need to consider whether they should continue working in such contentious areas. If they continue and don't take a break for a period of time, I suspect we'll just end up as an editorial version of a burned out administrator (which isn't really helpful in the long run). Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Viriditas
I would like to ask the committee to consider a long-term perspective with this case. Instead of taking a simple punitive approach, the committee is in a unique position and has an unprecedented opportunity to shape and enact a proactive solution that the community at large can apply on a smaller scale when dealing with dispute resolution in the future. For example, consider the following: we have an editor who has shown great interest in contributing to controversial articles about a certain ethnic group. Instead of enacting an outright topic ban in this matter, why not consider the "Willie Nelson" approach?[9] Noleander's interest in Judaica could conceivably be shaped and molded, such that it would improve his own understanding of this particular ethnic group and help improve Wikipedia's coverage of the subject. Consider for a moment the sheer scope of this task: WikiProject Judaism has 8,269 articles tagged under its scope; WikiProject Jewish history has 1,628; WikiProject Israel has 10,857. Is it conceivable that the committee could look at this situation from an altogether different perspective, and enact a creative probation of sorts, that acknowledges the interests of Noleander and seeks to set him on the right path rather than merely punishing him? I'm sure many are saying, are you out of your mind? You, Viriditas, want us to let an accused antisemite write about Judaism-related topics? Have you finally lost it? In reply, I say: would it not be more constructive to ask Noleander to prove himself by taking a set of uncontroversial Judaica-related articles and bringing them, to let's say, good article or featured status, instead of banning him outright? It is generally acknowledged that Wikipedia is not therapy, but do we not as human beings have a responsibility to improve not just ourselves, but to help others improve, or at the very least, give them an opportunity to contribute to their own self-improvement? Clearly, Noleander is interested in Judaism. Why not let him continue to pursue his interests in less controversial articles, and allow him to prove that he is worthy of the task at hand? To quote Anne Frank: "People will always follow a good example; be the one to set a good example, then it won't be long before the others follow..." Viriditas (talk) 07:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Comment by uninvolved Griswaldo
I agree with Ncmvocalist and urge the Arbcom to also look at the manner in which certain editors have insisted on only using AN/I to deal with this and similar issues that are much more productively brought through dispute resolution. Issues like this are too complex to be dealt with at AN/I and inevitably lead to more friction and don't solve a thing. I don't mean to insult anyone, but I suspect at the very least some amount of laziness is involved here. If editors can light a fire at AN/I they can then sit back and hope others will do their work for them. Those fires ought to be discouraged. Regarding the central focus of the arbitration, I also urge Arbcom to accept a scope that goes well beyond Noleander's editing of Judaism related entries. As the AN/I thread made clear, the first half of Noleander's career was dominated by criticism of Mormonism. If there is a limited scope regarding what Noleander has been editing, then I hope that scope includes all ethnic/religious related topics.Griswaldo (talk) 12:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Comment by Tarc
Scope;
- WP:ARBPIA
- WP:ARBPIA2
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid
- WP:CAMERA
- Dozens of XfDs, AN/Is, AE, RSN, BLPN
- This
This is not about one editor, one article, or one AN/I, this is about a general miasma that ArbCom has had to wade into time and time and time again. Save your successors the same old grief and headaches. Look through those cases and see the same names yelling for sanctions against the same names. The scope is this; can editors of a shared cultural/ideological/whatever the grouping may be, band together to oppose article work, creation, edits, deletes, keeps that oppose their personal points of view? Can editors create content that is critical of a particular subject and avoid being labeled as a critic or hater of that subject? Tarc (talk) 14:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Facepalm Then call the overall dispute area "Judeo-Muslim" or "Jewish-Arab". Denying that this has nothing to do with the general topic area is silly. Tarc (talk) 15:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Comment by Volunteer Marek
Just a quick one. What in the world does this have to do with Israel-Palestinian issues? Nothing, unless I'm completely missing something, and there is absolutely no good reason to try and hitch a ride on those previous ArbCom cases. Don't let this this one spill over - it's messy enough as it is.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't see what this has to do with Muslims or Arabs either.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement of uninvolved 75.57.242.120
Meh on whether an RFC before arbitration is worthwhile. I'm presuming it will end up with arbcom either way. Topic ban pending outcome of arbitration is probably advisable given the acrimony flying right now.
I've spent several hours looking at diffs and I don't see overwhelming evidence that Noleander is an anti-Semite. She[1] appears to be more of an equal-opportunity secular activist, editing tendentiously against the Jewish religion but not especially against the associated ethnic group. For example, one of the criticisms she added of Jewish theology is that the story of Noah's Ark might not be literally true.[10] She is recently concentrating on Judaism but previously concentrated on Mormonism. She has also edited articles critical of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and maybe a few more, plus several about atheism that I haven't looked at. (Nothing about the FSM so maybe she is a believer in secret). I have made a list of all her mainspace edits grouped by article here (400k bytes) and you can see that her most heavily edited article is Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement. Overall I would say she is editing with an agenda ("My perception is that Wikipedia is censored in regards to some topics that reflect negatively on Jews, and I'm attempting to reverse that censorship"), she has shown substandard editing judgment at times, she engages in synth, and she can be careless with sources, but I don't have convincing reasons to think she is a racist. Not that her matters--her editing presents real problems to the project in my opinion.
I'd also like to call arbcom's attention to this ongoing AfD about Economic history of the Jews, a new article that Noleander originally called "Jews and money", and the very divided response that the AfD is getting. I think the afd shows there is a conflict between differing schools of policy and process underneath all this, which arbcom might be able to help with. I've taken mercy on you and cut this post down from a much longer draft, but the basic questions are:
- Should articles related to ethnic stereotypes and discrimination that are constant undercurrents of ongoing ubiquitous real-world conflict be treated the same way as articles about Star Trek, or are our expectations towards them closer to the rigorous standards of BLP's? (I say "rigorous") and
- Jews and money, like many of Noleander's articles, was written in
articleuser space complete with sources, then plopped into article space in one big edit (130k in this case). And the question is whether that (for a contentious subject) departs from established wiki-process and presents a fait accompli to other editors and also leads to less reliability of the article (since it doesn't have continuous quality control like a wiki-developed article with many hands involved at every stage). I made some more comments about this issue in the AfD.
If anyone (hah) wants the "long" version of this post I can upload it to my user talk. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 12:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC). Copied from the clerks' noticeboard by clerk Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 16:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- I made a minor correction, per this edit request. Salvio Let's talk about it! 18:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- ^ I'm writing "she" because I've seen other editors do that, and they're more likely than me to know Noleander's gender. If I got it wrong, Noleander or anyone else with correct info should feel free to fix it directly in this section and remove this note.
Statement of uninvolved Tryptofish
Some of the Committee members have asked for opinions about the advisability of accepting this case without a prior RfC/U, and I would support the Committee accepting it, for the reasons already stated by several members of the Committee as of this time. Discussion at AN/I was about the preferability of RfC/U over AN/I, rather than over arbitration, and I think the community would actually like to see DR in general made less of an epic process, so some resolution here would be helpful.
I would also like to make it clear that this really has nothing to do with Israel-Palestine, an entirely different area of dispute. It is about the alleged representation of religious stereotypes.
Most importantly, I would like to urge the Committee to be thoughtful about determining the scope of this case. As proposed, the focus is too narrow. As with many cases, the Committee will need to examine carefully, not only Noleander's conduct, but also the conduct of those who, repeatedly, bring charges against Noleander. In so doing, the Committee will need to be rigorous in distinguishing between content that some users may find offensive, and disruptive conduct. These are two different things, although it is all too easy to react emotionally to disturbing material and jump to the conclusion that there was disruptive conduct. I believe that there was a lot of that conclusion-jumping at AN/I. The Committee will need to examine not only whether the creation of content in which Noleander has engaged is out-of-policy, but also to examine whether Noleander's responses to the concerns of other editors, once that content appeared, was out-of-policy, as well as whether the ways in which other editors have sought to disagree with that content was out-of-policy. Unless all of that gets examined, there is the risk of an outcome that says: "we don't like you, so we are not going to let you edit here." --Tryptofish (talk) 18:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Maunus
I arrived at the topic through the ANi thread. Looking at the Jews and Money article and Noleander's previous contributions to Judaism related articles I became convinced that wikipedia as an encyclopedia stands to gain by disallowing Noleander to edit in that topic area, but has nothing to loose. I believe that articles about criticism of religous and ethnic groups may be notable, but that they should only be written with the greatest care. Editors working on these topics should be able to exercise the utmost care in the use of sources and the only the best judgment in relation to neutrality and balance, and who never fall prone simply to repeat stereotypes or broad generalizations. Noleander has not lived up to these requirement as I believe ample evidence has shown, and when on several occasions he has been made aware that other editors found faults with his handling of the delicate topic matter he has politely agreed and continued to do the same thing. This is not a stable situation and if allowed to continue it will create extra work for the editors who will have to follow Noleander's edits and detect and neutralize POV problems, and in cases where it goes unnoticed for too long it threatens to compomise the integrity of wikipedia as a site where one can find neutral information even about sensitive topics. On the question of whether Noleander has edited antisemitically I refrain from answering because there are also other possible explanations of his problematic editing, lack of WP:COMPETENCE being one and a misguided aim to right great wrongs being another. It is however clear to me that we have nothing to lose by topic banning him from this contentious area and a lot to gain. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Re Tarc: I have not to my recollection had prior disputes with any involved party here, I have not been a party to any Israel/Palestine related disputes and honestly I think that it is a fallacy to think that any problems with anti-semitic editing has to do with that topic - Antisemitism and opposition to it has been around a lot longer than the state of Israel and it also affects right wing and left wing and zionist and antizionist Jews alike. It is very possible to be against antisemitism and nonetheless have a neutral or even pro-palestinian stance regarding the Israel/Palestine question. Throwing everyone who opposes tendentious or antisemtitic editing into the anti-palestine/pro-israel camp is itself an instance of unwarranted stereotyping. In this case it is furthermore simply wrong, as there have been provided unquestionable evidence of probloematic edits by Noleander and this evidence alone is enough to convince other editors that there is a problem without them being previously biased for or against his person. Adress the arguments and the evidence, provide counter evidence. But don't try to write this off as an extension of another unrelated dispute in which you apparently have a stake.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- re Viriditas: Who should undertake this mentoring of Noleander? Do you volunteer or are you suggesting that someoneelse do that large amount of work? I sure wouldn't want to make myself responsible for having to check every last one of his copious edits to detect subtle misrepresentations of sources. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by uninvolved LessHeard vanU
As it seems likely that this case is going to be accepted, I should like to present one other aspect that I feel should be covered; when a concern is presented to ANI or some other avenue of dispute resolution there should be an effort to acknowledge those concerns rather than to aver a "right" to aggravate a section of the community to continue acting in the complained of manner, and further cause disruption by insisting that the concerns are those of a minority of the project who have a cultural, religious or other affiliation to the subject matter, and may be thus ignored. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
- Recuse NW (Talk) 10:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Request to Arbitrators: Seeing as this looks like it will be accepted, I ask that you guys start discussing who will be the drafter and even possibly look at a tentative target date. Sincerely, the nag - Tiptoety talk 19:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (9/0/0/1)
- Accept John Vandenberg (chat) 03:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Viriditas, thank you for a thought provoking statement. I would like to see the evidence before deciding whether innovative measures are warranted. Irrespective of this, my main concern is whether the community can hold out two months (or more) while the committee attempts to pass a decision which tries to do more than merely eliminates the problem. I'm seeing more than a few pitchforks already. Finally, can we count on you putting forward proposals on the workshop? John Vandenberg (chat) 08:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Comment: After having looked over the ANI discussion.. my thoughts: 99 times out of 100, we don't take a case without previous Dispute Resolution. This may be the 100th time, but I've noted the comments on the ANI page calling for a RFC/User on Noleander, as well as the counterpoint that it wouldn't lead anywhere. I'd like a sense of the community if this is one of the times we take a case without prior DR, and the likely/proximate results of having a RfC here. SirFozzie (talk) 03:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept. Obviously the parties have not yet been heard from yet on this request, so this is a tentative vote. However, it does not appear that the community discussion process on ANI is going to resolve this situation in any fashion that won't wind up here anyway. The ANI discussion has become almost too unwieldy to follow or to yield a consensus result, and its tone does not leave me optimistic that anyone will benefit from prolonging it much longer. Parties commenting may wish to respond to SirFozzie's question just above (with which this paragraph edit-conflicted), and to comment on what the scope of the case should be, if accepted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC) Confirming accept vote, no longer tentative. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept. Yeah, I think this will go round in circles otherwise. Consider the committee the circuit breaker. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:34, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept, Roger talk 12:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Grudgingly accept. This shouldn't be here, but DR will just be a lot of people shouting at each other and end up here anyway. – iridescent 12:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept per Iridescent. Risker (talk) 14:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept. Due to the plague-ish nature of this topic, further DR will degenerate into partisan bickering, as it already has. Evidence should be on an expedited schedule. There appear to be serious complaints about misrepresenting references and POV plagiarism. This is either true or false, and it shouldn't take too long to investigate. Cool Hand Luke 15:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Accept - the discussion on ANI is somewhat polarised, and I'm not convinced a user conduct RfC would be a significant improvement. In this context, accept per SirFozzie and Iridescent. PhilKnight (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Jagged 85 RFC/U and cleanup
Initiated by Aquib (talk) at 02:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Aquib american muslim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
- Syncategoremata (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- SteveMcCluskey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Knight1993 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Gun Powder Ma (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Athenean (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- David J Wilson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- J8079s (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Spacepotato (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Jagged 85 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Dialectric (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- ImperfectlyInformed (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Pjoef (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Johnuniq (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Ruud Koot (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Yclept:Berr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- CambridgeBayWeather (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Wiqi55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Salix alba (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Lambiam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Al-Andalusi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Bless sins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?itle=User_talk:Aquib_american_muslim&diff=prev&oldid=419921490
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Syncategoremata&diff=prev&oldid=419919616
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SteveMcCluskey&diff=prev&oldid=419919763
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Knight1993&diff=prev&oldid=419919843
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Gun_Powder_Ma&diff=prev&oldid=419919934
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Athenean&diff=prev&oldid=419920027
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:David_J_Wilson&diff=prev&oldid=419920132
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:J8079s&diff=prev&oldid=419920245
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Spacepotato&diff=prev&oldid=419920373
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jagged_85&diff=prev&oldid=419920451
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dialectric&diff=prev&oldid=419920536
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ImperfectlyInformed&diff=420103459&oldid=418897506
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pjoef&diff=prev&oldid=419920807
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Johnuniq&diff=prev&oldid=419920881
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ruud_Koot&diff=prev&oldid=419920966
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:William_M._Connolley&diff=prev&oldid=419921136
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WMC&diff=prev&oldid=419921306
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Yclept:Berr&diff=prev&oldid=419926843
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CambridgeBayWeather&diff=prev&oldid=419926961
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wiqi55&diff=prev&oldid=419927056
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Salix_alba&diff=prev&oldid=419927125
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lambiam&diff=prev&oldid=419927507
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Al-Andalusi&diff=prev&oldid=419927728
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bless_sins&diff=prev&oldid=419927847
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
- ongoing discussions at the RFC/U talk page
- discussions when Science in medieval Islam was truncated
- initial discussion when Mathematics in Islam was moved/truncated
- ensuing RFC regarding truncation of Mathematics in medieval Islam
Statement by Aquib american muslim
An appeal rejecting
- The force and validity of the Jagged 85 RFC/U
- Certain actions taken under its alleged authority
- Policies and procedures emanating from it
hereafter referred to collectively as the Jagged 85 cleanup,
recognizing some parties to the RFC/U may neither be aware of nor condone the actions in question,
asking for neither the exoneration of Jagged 85, nor sanctions against any other individual, but rather that order be imposed upon the Jagged 85 cleanup, as follows
Effective immediately, and for the duration of this appeal
- The truncations, redirects, movements and renames of articles citing for their reason, or on behalf of, the Jagged 85 cleanup be temporarily reversed or undone by those who initiated these actions
- That all known participants in the Jagged 85 cleanup be disclosed
- That all activities (as in 1 above) to-date be disclosed by all participants in the Jagged 85 cleanup as per the article tracking procedures identified in the Jagged 85 RFC/U
- That cleanup participants be enjoined from citing the Jagged 85 cleanup, including any alleged policies and procedures emanating from it, as either a justification for their actions, or as a manner of compelling other parties to follow procedures other than those of Wikipedia
- That due diligence be enforced with regards to the removal of cited material; that expediency, a lack of cleanup resources, and the Jagged 85 cleanup are not valid reasons in themselves
And upon deliberation
The original Jagged 85 RFC/U be either
- reheard
- modified to incorporate some or all of the above temporary measures
- set aside in order for a novel and more balanced approach to be taken to cleaning up any biased, misleading or erroneous material added by Jagged 85.
Claims
- An RFC/U, as an agreement between a limited number of parties, and applying to the actions of a user, cannot trump Wikipedia policies and custom, nor can it be imposed on the community at large.
- The agreement reached under RFC/U has since been repudiated by Jagged 85 [11][12]
- The RFC/U has evolved beyond its original intent and agreed procedures [13]
- It has on occassion been cited as a pretext for abuse [14]
- The scope of the violations commited by Jagged 85 is debatable, unknown and perhaps unknowable [15]
- The RFC/U has been used as a reason to close or preclude debate of issues and control other's editing [16]
- The members of the Jagged 85 cleanup are not addressable as a group; the effort has lost its centralization and cohesion. Effective compromise between the parties is not achievable in this environment.
The detrimental effects of which include
- Throwing the baby out with the bathwater
- The replacement of verifiability with judgments on validity based on the appearance of plausibility [17], which can lead to mistakes [18]
- The inadvertent promotion of sneaky vandalism [19]
- Leveraging of the RFC/U by outside parties to advance other legitimate, but equally unbalanced, points of view [20]
- The truncation, movement and/or redirection of articles, the content of which is of an unknown quality [21] [22],[23] [24]
- A lack of discussion of specifics, through which the normal policies and procedures of the encyclopedia might effectively operate [25]
- The exclusion of other points of view, particularly those of disinterested third parties, from the actual cleanup process
- A lack of attention to WP policies, procedures and guidelines which, if left unchecked, can become more widespread.
Replies
@SirFozzie:
- Thank you for your questions and comments. I will be more direct. The renaming of Mathematics in medieval Islam into a work space by Ruud Koot occurred as described by Pjoef. Material was blatantly mischaracterized by William M. Connolley in the process. It was an instance of recklessness and abuse. While my discovery of this incident was the reason for an RFC, I have yet to receive an explanation or justification other than general characterizations of Jagged's work.
- I also have new information. In preparation for this appeal, it has come to my attention that some of the principals in the Jagged 85 RFC/U were aware of Jagged 85's edits as early as February of 2008. If his edits are really that bad, perhaps they will explain why they waited 2 years to try to stop him? -Aquib (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- The list of participants includes the members of the original Jagged 85 RFC/U, and parties from both sides who have expressed opinions on the talk pages of truncated articles. I am certainly open to editing the list as needed. Thanks -Aquib (talk) 01:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Content vs conduct: Request a 36 hour recess
I ask the committee to grant me a recess of 36 hours, in order to allow me to prepare a response on this complex question of content vs conduct. Thank you -Aquib (talk) 00:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Clarifications and modifications
1. I accept the problematic nature of Jagged 85's edits, and the validity of the original Jagged 85 RFC/U.
2. I acknowledge there is a threshold in the rate of "errors," beyond which point an article may be usefully truncated, if done so in an orderly manner (according to our principles and policies).
3. I withdraw my complaint regarding the conduct of Ruud Koot and William M. Connolley in connection with the truncation of Mathematics in medieval Islam. I reserve the right to bring a separate action for this incident at some point in the future. This, in consideration of the well being of other parties to the complaint, and because it is likely to distract us from the central issue of my appeal.
4. I have no reason to believe one who is aware of the Jagged 85 RFC/U, saw examples of Jagged's work, participated in the cleanup, including truncations, or discussed related matters with me should not hear my appeal. I ask those committee members who have recused themselves to reconsider.
A reformulated appeal
Requiring Ruud Koot, William M. Connolley (Alternately, WMC), Aquib american muslim. Already on notice.
It is my understanding the Arbitration Committee's mandate is to search for root cause and try to prevent incident recurrences. Also, they are charged with breaking the back of issues. This is a serious incident. Opportunities present themselves.
1. A question of conduct (negligence) on the parts of Ruud Koot and William M. Connolley.
Ruud Koot disputing a fact with Jagged 85, Mathematics in medieval Islam, June 2007.
Same article, Ruud and Jag, June 2007.
William M. Connolley cleaning up Jagged 85 actions in February 2008.
William M. Connolley same article February 2008.
William M. Connolley same article April 2008
RK and WMC, both experts and veterans, had occassion to dispute facts with Jagged 85 in the Mathematics in medieval Islam and Science in medieval Islam articles years ago. Were they aware of the scope of the problem at that time? Did they not realize the eventual implications of such questionable editing? Or if they did realize the implications, why didn't they try to stop the editor from making questionable edits? Do they have any suggestions as to how another similar incident can be avoided among our more fragile and valuable articles? I ask for a formal response from them in this venue. It is important.
2. An appeal on the question of content. I understand the committee has discretion to hear appeals other than those specifically relating to conduct. I plead special circumstances. Here we have several important articles, containing questionable material, but also valuable information for the public. They are victims of abuse and neglect, arising from a naturally occurring side-effect of the same forces that make our encyclopedia the amazing repository it is today. 5 months after stubbing, Science in medieval Islam is still a stub. Let us not stub many articles and leave them laying there. Is the encyclopedia better off with a hole in the middle periods of its science history, when there is little expectation of a speedy recovery? Let us not stub more than one article at a time in this one case. We need not set precedent.
Conclusion
I, for one, wish to raise policy suggestions as well as technical changes to make our English encyclopedia more culturally neutral in the long run, thereby encouraging more diversity among our ranks and more editors for articles such as these. But I hate to walk away from a situation like this without first learning what I can, and trying to find some way to minimize the damage.
Thank you, -Aquib (talk) 22:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Syncategoremata
Statement by SteveMcCluskey
Statement by Knight1993
Statement by Gun Powder Ma
There isn't really much to say other than that Jagged85, who has been one of the 60 most active WP editors until last year, has done over the years a colossal damage to WP with his Islamic WP:POV, WP:OR, and WP:SYN, and that this damage has been cleaned-up yet only to a small extent despite the efforts of around half a dozen users or more. To give uninvolved users an idea, just two days ago I stumbled at List of inventions in medieval Islam across this piece from Jagged's pen (bold is mine):
- Central heating through underfloor pipes: The hypocaust heating system used by the Romans continued to be in use around the Mediterranean region during late Antiquity and by the Umayyad caliphate. By the 12th century, Muslim engineers in Syria introduced an improved central heating system, where heat travelled through underfloor pipes from the furnace room, rather than through a hypocaust. This central heating system was widely used in bath-houses throughout the medieval Islamic world.[1]
When I looked up the reference, however, I found the cited author Hugh N. Kennedy writing something very different:
In one respect, however, the early Islamic bath had more in common with the classical one than with the later Islamic. Late antique and Umayyad bath builders continued to use the hypocaust, though on a reduced scale, for heating the hot chamber, whereas later Muslim baths used a simpler system of underfloor pipes from the furnace room.
So, a simpler system, used on a reduced scale, became in Jagged's interpretation an "improved system widely used"... That such misinterpretations were rather the rule than the exception and that they all went most predictably in favour of inflating Islamic achievements, can be seen at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence where a group of editors collected a representative sample. It's been 60.000 edits, very many like that, and only a small part of it has been reviewed and reassessed. Many articles where Jagged85 is the main contributor have been tagged for years. These articles need to be stubbed and rewritten such as Mathematics in medieval Islam recently was. If this arbitration case should serve a useful purpose, we should discuss and vote on which of the other articles now need to be stubbed. Here a small selection: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence#Top contributor on tagged articles. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- I put my proposal now on the table. Participants of the ongoing aarbitration are invited to take part in this vote concerning the clean-up effort in connection with Jagged 85's RFC/U. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Athenean
There is no case here. That Jagged's edits were tendentious and disruptive to the encyclopedia is well-established by the RfC/U. The evidence is all there, and it is massive. The conclusions of the RfC/U, shown here [26], were reached by community consensus. As the RfC/U summary makes clear, even Jagged himself admitted that his edits were unacceptable and undertook to clean them up (which he so far hasn't). Articles such as Mathematics in medieval Islam were in especially parlous state. A good example is stuff like "Dynamic Functional Algebra" [27], which, as Ruud Koot makes clear here [28] is completely made up by Jagged 85. This is just one example, and I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is that the whole article was so full of inaccuracies, misrepresented sources, outright fabrications and puffery that stubbing was the right move. What I'm guessing is going on here is that Aquib american muslim is angry about the stubbing and is trying to use ARBCOM to reverse it. But that is not what ARBCOM is for. To the extent that there is anything here for Arbitration, it is Aquib's persistent WP:IDHT and WP:LAWYER [29] (a request for him to reveal his "very nice source" goes unanswered [30]), overbearing behavior [31] and assumptions of bad faith [32], which are rapidly becoming disruptive. As for the article itself, its rebuilding, so far largely by WMC and Ruud Koot, would probably proceed a whole lot faster if these editors were allowed to focus on building content instead of being distracted by vexatious wikilawyering. Athenean (talk) 02:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by David J Wilson
Since my own relatively modest contributions ([33], [34], [35], [36]) to the Jagged 85 cleanup effort have either not yet led to any disputes, or have been accepted after cordial discussion (here, for example), my comments here will be limited.
Spacepotato has already answered NewYorkBrad and Casliber's query about why no sanctions have been imposed on Jagged 85. I would only add that the desired outcome of the RFC/U did not in fact ask for any sanctions to be imposed on him, and that details of his subsequent violations of the agreement reached in the RFC/U are presented in this sock-puppet investigation. Since the closure of that sock-puppet investigation (in June 2010), Jagged 85 does not appear to have repeated any of the unacceptable behaviour which had prompted the raising of the RFC/U.
It's not at all clear to me what useful purpose would be served by "rehearing" the RFC/U, and—in my opinion—the Arbitration Committee would be wasting its time in doing so. Nevertheless, it does seem that one of the chief reasons why disputes have arisen over how to handle the cleanup of Jagged 85's edits is disagreement over whether the damage they have caused is as serious and widespread as the editors certifying the cause for concern in the RFC/U have claimed. Therefore, if the Arbitration Committee decides to accept this case, I can't see how they could arrive at a proper decision without closely examining the evidence presented in the RFC/U.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 19:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by J8079s
Unless Jagged85 wishes to be investigated further this request should be declined. The policy of BRD is working but very slowly.J8079s (talk) 01:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- In light of Jagged's repudiation: This is a content dispute 1) This is not personal. 2)This is not anti-Islamic 3) This is not about a small number of "mistakes". 4) The scope and pattern of his edits make it clear that the editing was goal oriented and not consistent with what is reported in WP:RS. 5) Jagged will not help with clean up.
- Before you stub a page 1) check the sources. 2) check the history for recent efforts to fix. 3) check the history for a version that could be cleaned up. 4) BE BOLD
- Aquib raises a good point (in a round about way): This cannot be balanced by subtraction alone. I urge everyone to BE BOLD 1) go to the talk page and suggest a new outline. 2) Find sources (I use google books and have found that "Islamic" contributions are reported in mainstream scholarship although not always the way they are reported to wikipedia) and post them on the talk page. 3) You cannot break Wikipedia by editing. Nothing has been deleted merely reverted. 5) Mine the history, check the sources (Jagged has admitted that he does not have necessarily access to the sources he cites).
- Before you stub a page 1) check the sources. 2) check the history for recent efforts to fix. 3) check the history for a version that could be cleaned up. 4) BE BOLD
Statement by Spacepotato
I: Jagged's editing and the RfC
History.
- Other editors and I found a large number of edits by Jagged 85 that misrepresented sources dealing with the history of science, technology, etc., in various ways: for example, Jagged misquoted a source as saying that the p-n junction was invented by Isamu Akasaki in 1989 (an absurd claim, it's been around for over half a century.) As a result, an RfC was filed on Jagged 85.
- After some discussion, visible at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85, the issue was resolved by mutual agreement of all parties involved, including Jagged. Jagged would correct his problematic edits, and refrain from editing articles relating to Islamic civilization or to the history of medicine, science and technology until this had been done. This was in April 2010.
- Unfortunately, after the agreement, Jagged did not endeavor to correct his mistakes. Also, he continued to make sporadic edits relating to the history of science, etc., through September 2010, using the IP editors 93.97.55.135 and 193.164.132.6, as well as his usual account.
- Following this, Jagged took a new tack, and, starting in December 2010, he has confined himself mostly to editing video game-related articles. This is why his present editing is passing without comment.
Jagged's problematic edits are not confined to Islamic civilization.
I gave the example of Isamu Akasaki above; some other misrepresentations by Jagged of Japanese inventions can be found in User:Spacepotato/Examples_of_original_research_in_Wikipedia. I mention this point because I think this issue has for some become a clash of civilizations, a point of view which I think is unproductive.
Jagged's problematic edits are not rare among his nontrivial, relevant, edits.
Jagged has advanced the view that the bulk of his edits were unproblematic and that the bad examples were cherry-picked. To address this issue, I took a random sample of 100 of Jagged's edits, using a computer program to select them out of all his edits to date. Most of these 100 were trivial, such as spelling corrections, fiddling with punctuation, headers, wikilinks, and so forth, or did not deal with the history of mathematics, medicine, philosophy, science, or technology. Out of the 13 relevant and nontrivial edits, though, a majority (at least 7) had problems of one sort or another, such as exaggerating the source claim; one bad edit added a claim having nothing whatever to do with what was in the source. I give more details on this study in Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#Study_of_Jagged.27s_edits.
II: events prompting this RfAr
History.
- Because of perceived problems with the Physics in medieval Islam article introduced by Jagged, it was stubified on 18 July 2010 [37].
- Because of perceived problems with the Science in medieval Islam article, it was drastically cut back on 4 Oct 2010 [38].
- Most recently, the Mathematics in medieval Islam article was stubified on 15 Feb 2011 [39].
- These events provoked a great deal of discussion by User:Aquib american muslim and others, and eventually this request for arbitration.
Comments.
- One contributing factor to these truncations may be the failure by Jagged 85 to remediate his own edits, as he agreed to do.
- Removing unverifiable or inaccurate material is an editorial decision. Likewise, any editor is free to take the (drastic) step of stubifying or redirecting an article if he feels that its problems are severe enough to warrant this. The legitimacy of these actions does not depend on the RfC on Jagged 85 (which was about his actions.) Neither are they a departure from the normal policies of Wikipedia.
- There is no cleanup group. Any editor is free to edit an article to remove problems introduced by Jagged, or any other editor, at any time.
- Spacepotato (talk) 05:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- Addendum: Re #2 immediately above, my point is not that these truncations were good or bad edits, but merely that legalistically, they were in the service of usual policies such as WP:V, etc. Spacepotato (talk) 01:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Spacepotato (talk) 05:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Jagged 85
Aquib has already posted my stance on the issue above, here and here. There's not really much more I can add to it other than that I still firmly believe that the so-called "severe misuse of sources" (attributed to me by several of the users here) has been blown way out of proportion beyond any reasonable doubt. The claim that I've been "severely misusing sources" is based on a handful of cherry-picked examples of the worst possible edits I've ever made over the past five years and then these examples are presented as if they are the norm rather than the exception, despite the fact that these cherry-picked examples only represent a very tiny percentage of the edits I've made over the years. I admitted in the "Jagged 85 RfC" that I did make careless mistakes in a small percentage of my edits, but some of these same users assume this to mean as if I was admitting to their allegations of "misusing sources". They've since blown the issue way out of proportion and continue to copy-and-paste claims that I've been misusing sources all over Wikipedia in a desperate attempt to convince the entire Wiki community of my apparent ill-intentions and "severe misuse of sources" (i.e. if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth). Several of these users have gone as far as blanking out a bunch of Islamic science-related articles using the "Jagged 85 RfC" as an excuse without ever attempting to do any actual fact-checking or even attempting to gain any consensus (completely ignoring any opposing opinions) before doing so.
If we were to cherry-pick the worst possible edits by any random user, I have no doubt they'd have a similarly small percentage of mistakes as I did. What's worse is that if I had specialized in European science instead of Islamic science, I have no doubt my edits would never have provoked the same reactions they did. It's the fact that I continuously challenged the Eurocentric norms of Wikipedia that made me stand out more than others, which is what led to an extensive attempt at discrediting my credibility, thus making it easier to undo all my "undue promotion of Islamic and/or non-European science". In response to all the deleting and stubbing that has been done using the "Jagged 85 RfC" excuse (and usually, that is the only reason ever given for these extreme measures), some users (including Aquib, Pjoef, Yclept:Berr, Bless Sins, etc.) looked beyond the distorted claims and did their own fact-checking only to realize that most of my edits (or at least most of the ones they did fact-checking for) are in fact good edits that do not misrepresent sources in any way, completely contradicting the often-repeated claims about my apparent "misuse of sources". Whenever these users express disagreement over the issue (both the stubbing of entire articles and the "Jagged 85 RfC" excuse used for it), their views are nearly always ignored and some have even received personal insults in response. In other words, I don't blame Aquib at all for seeking arbritration.
Either way, considering that over half the users here were involved in the RfC, I'm pretty sure they'll win the majority vote on this issue again, like what happened at Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam, and continue to stub/blank out plenty more articles using the same "Jagged 85 RfC" excuse, even though Wikipedia is not a democracy. Personally though, it would'nt make much difference to me if a bunch of Islamic science articles were stubbed or even deleted (despite the same old flimsy excuse used for doing so), and I wouldn't even be commenting here if I wasn't requested to do so, but it clearly does make a difference for the users who do have honest intentions of actually improving the articles instead of lazily deleting/stubbing them. Regardless of the outcome (and it probably won't be a good one), I guess the least I can do is at least show some support. Jagged 85 (talk) 20:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Dialectric
I would ask that the arbcom focus here on Jagged_85, as his edits were and are the source of this conflict.
For me, the core issue here is that the Jagged_85 edits and their cleanup were already contentious, and that Jagged_85's apparent disavowal of his earlier agreement, after several months of non-participation in the cleanup effort, has made cleanup much more contentious, and slower, than it it would otherwise have been.
The evidence that Jagged_85's misinterpretation of sources was and is an extensive problem is linked in Johnuniq's entry on this page.Dialectric (talk) 20:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by ImperfectlyInformed
Statement by Pjoef
This is the first (and hope the last) time I've been involved in RFC, ArbCom or similar things, and I know very little about these procedures.
Regarding the "Jagged 85's clenup" I'm still rather confused. I have not had time to investigate this fully, but from what I've read, and in my humble opinion, "Jagged 85 (talk · contribs)" should be rewarded, praised and thanked by all of our Community for about all of his countless efforts and contributions to Wikipedia. When and if there are mistakes, and they are a little part of the total, then they are made in good faith.
I can give you an account of my edits, and my opinions and intentions regarding Mathematics in medieval Islam:
- I started editing that article on the 14th of February 2011 at 11:19 (UTC) as part of the February 2011 Wikification Backlog Elimination Drive effort, and by placing the {{Under construction}} template on top of the page; and wrote: "I will try to "wikify" it in the next few days..." in the edit summary of my first edit on it.
- I edited that page nineteen times consecutively, from 11:42 (UTC) to 13:44 when William M. Connolley corrected "placedby" in the under construction template.
- Then, I made other twelve edits when, at 16:17, I started using the tools, Reflinks, Checklinks and Dab solver, to edit and repair bare references, external and ambiguous links, and complete my work of "wikification" on that article. I saw the Jagged 85 cleanup template, which was placed on top of the page by Ruud Koot, and I decided to do that job too. I wrote to Ruud that it was my intention to solve that problem and I started grouping notes and citations in order to make easier the identification and correction of all the issues of the article (both in its text and sources.) My plan was to standardize all the sources used within the article (I completed about 5-10% of this task), and then it was my intention to check all statements and citations one by one, to tag all of its issues with the proper template and, hopefully, and at the end to control all the edits made by Jagged 85, just to solve the problem. After other twelve edits, Ruud stubbed the article and I reported him somewhere in the help desk section for his action. An administrator recommended me to let them go and to discuss with Ruud. I followed his advice, I apologized for the incident, and I asked him if I could finish the job on that article. At that point, Ruud has decided that I was neither able nor competent in that task. So, he "fired me" and I could not finish the job. From that moment on I stopped editing the article and I proposed to ask for help to the involved WikiProjects, Mathematics and Middle Ages. As a result, readers of Wikipedia are now deprived of an article that was rated B-Class by the aforementioned WikiProjects. I really think that with a little effort it could be easily lead to Good Article/A-Class. This does not seem to be a good result for us all.
If the situation in other articles is as bad as it is in Mathematics in medieval Islam, then I think we're all in bad shape. Now, it has been asked "to stub all those articles heavily edited by Jagged85 which are beyond repair". In my humble opinion, we are taking the wrong path. Sincerelly. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 19:43, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Johnuniq
Quick introduction WP:Jagged 85 cleanup has a summary of the situation, namely that a prolific editor has severely misused sources on hundreds or possibly thousands of articles. Numerous examples are available in the "Further information" links—as an example, one evidence page is here.
I do not think this is the kind of case normally taken by ArbCom, but a possible benefit from a case would be the introduction of other editors to assist with the cleanup. Each time more editors have been asked to comment on the issue, someone has found another egregious misuse of sources. A recent example is the first comment here (permalink), at 14:33, 18 March 2011 UTC.
ArbCom may wish to comment on the central issue: whether it is better to stub an article, or to leave it unchanged, and then verify each claim. Of course stubbing should only be a last resort, however this case has certain unique features that warrant stubbing in a number of articles. While it is bad to remove good information from an article, it is far worse for Wikipedia to present false information as facts—incorrect claims that are mirrored on many sites. Nearly all the claims are accompanied by a plausible and hard-to-access source, but as mentioned, numerous examples have been found which show that the sources do not verify the claims, and investigation has shown many claims to be exaggerations or blatantly incorrect.
Working through a large unstubbed article to verify/fix each statement may take a very long time. Worse is the fact that such a project is inherently almost impossible to achieve. For example, a favorite incorrect claim is that someone was the first to do something, and it would be relatively easy for an editor to check such redflag claims in an article, leaving verified information, and rewriting or removing incorrect or unverified claims. However, a second editor then has a big problem: how much of the article does the second editor need to check? If the first editor changes one sentence in a paragraph, does that mean the first editor is satisfied with the complete paragraph? Does the second editor need to verify each assertion? What about a third editor? It would be very difficult to coordinate edits, and the only practical approach in some cases would be to stub the article, then have each editor add information provided that editor has personally checked the source (in other words, the editor would take responsibility for the text they added). Johnuniq (talk) 10:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Ruud Koot
[40] —Ruud 08:52, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by William M. Connolley
Statement by Yclept:Berr
I have not participated in an ArbCom before and am a recent immigrant to the Jagged85 discussion, being a reasonably unbiased third party who asked that pjoef be given the opportunity to complete his efforts on one article and that several others not be summarily deleted. I was busy and didn't see the invite earlier, as I am not an expert in the subject matter but feel unbiased expert help is missing, anyway...
(Edit) My statement's gotten too long, I will post it in Userspace and edit it down Yclept:Berr (talk) 21:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC) before posting it here:
- RFC/U is being used to wholesale delete a section of Wikipedia for extended periods of time. This would simply not happen if the articles were on a subject near and dear to the average Wikipedian, per WP:BATHWATER, WP:BIAS.
- RFC/U is being used to delete Islamic scholarship pages per the Jagged 85 RfC/U states: "removal of all undue promotion of Islamic and/or non-European science." Per WP:DUE, This would entail wholesale deletion of the subject matter, since most of the edits are either peacock terminology attached to cited claims in a disputed area of scholarship, or can only be labled as undue in the context of a general-interest article on the subject.
- The cleanup has been used to summarily page-blank and redirect at least two articles, Islamic ethics and Islamic metaphysics. This person's actions (which constituted a drive-by) were quietly condoned by cleanup participants. I can only imagine what would happen if this were general practice.
- The errors claimed as threatening the foundation of Wikipedia are being stated with certainty, i.e. participants are asking that articles be stubbed by categorically claiming that they know which claims are accurate. When asked why the inaccurate sentences and inappropriate syntheses can't be removed or reworked, they claim there's no expert available to verify the claims and that they're going by their own smell test. Editors have been reverted or page-blanked "per Jagged cleanup", with statements that they should not attempt to cleanup a page without running it by that small group.
- A participant herein cites his Study of Jagged's Edits as evidence of the encyclopedia-threatening nature. However, the attached link avers that the edits are merely sloppy and rife with peacock terminology, not source abuse per se. This includes cavalier statements attempting to promote the subject that can be easily removed as SYNTH regardless of if a source agrees with them. People are treating pages Jagged once edited as if it were Jagged userspace.
- RFC/U participants must seek out participants from relevant WikiProjects who do not have strong opinions on emotional issues tangential to the subject matter. For instance, a participant belowcites Aquib's opinion on Sharia as evidence against him. There is a disturbing pattern of ideological warfare going on using an old RfC/U as a prop to page/blank, revert, and engage in scolarly debate. cf. "Geber's alembic"
- RFC/U has exceeded its mandate. At this point Jagged's edits are so prolific that it is irrelevant what they were; nobody owns the edits on Wikipedia. The patently inaccurate claims are easily identifiable by anyone who claims reasonable knowledge about the subject, but the cleanup participants are demanding "reasonable knowledge + a demonstrable unwillingness to tolerate "undue promotion of Islamic scholarship", as they see it, which excludes any truly non-biased historians of the subject, including Orientalists.
- Cleanup participants declined to give WP:DUE weight to properly sourced edits, for instance, rejecting Pjoef's "qualifications" to edit, and minimizing any claim in the name of being NPOV regardless of what the source actually claims, e.g. a participant above cites plumbing systems as necessarily simpler and less complex than those of the Romans, a mirror image of Jagged's claim that they are necessarily more complex, when the source cited by the participant herein says neither -- replacing Jagged's POV with opposite POV.
- Jagged cleanup should continue, but focused on removing and reworking edits made by Jagged (not to page-blank whole sections of wikipedia dealing with Islam on the basis that the persons do not know enough about the subject to evaluate individual cited claims) and modified within the scope of an active project for the Islamic scholarship pages that is based on good content, not based around whether a page contains Jagged edits. Yclept:Berr (talk) 23:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'd request a new RfC for the Islamic scholarship pages, especially ones that were deleted and not re-created. This new RfC would limit the scope of the Jagged RfC/U to individual claims actually affected by Jagged. Islamic scholarship is not WP:FRINGE, nor is it a collection of extraordinary claims that can all be assumed to have been made by a single uninformed editor.
- In furtherance of the new RfC request, I noted that the template {{Not specifically in source}} are specifically given for this sort of problem. William et al. have stated that tagging individual edits is out of the questionfor them, for the stated reason that for them it would take too long to evaluate individual cites to see if they are as inaccurate as the cleanup crew "think" they are, that it would be easier for them to start from scratch. Yclept:Berr (talk) 22:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
- In short, the content in dispute can't fairly and efficiently be resolved under an old RfC/U revolving around an editor who no longer edits those pages. A parallel RfC focused on the articles on the primary subject matter, and WikiProject participation is needed. The Jagged RFC/U can continue working on Jagged cites specifically, which can be easily done with a bot identifying citations added by Jagged. If it's a statement not a cite, it doesn't matter who wrote it. Yclept:Berr (talk) 02:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by CambridgeBayWeather
Statement by Wiqi55
I started verifying sources in articles about Islamic scientists before knowing about the Jagged 85 cleanup. So from my perspective, I'm not sure why that RFC/U is relevant or needed. I would also like to add that reliable sources do make claims that some scientist was the first to do something. But one implication of this RFC/U is causing some editors to blindly remove "first of" claims without examining the cited sources.[41] In this regard, I agree with some of the points presented in this request, and I believe that the enforcement of WP:RS and WP:V (and other content policies) should be more than enough to "clean" articles.
As for the stubbing, I have previously suggested another alternative that uses inline tags. It's one way to verify sources and insure that no useful or valid content is lost. The use of inline tags would also allow us to track progress, warn readers not to believe anything in heavily tagged paragraphs, and ask for help from other editors/readers not aware of the cleanup process (which is direly needed in light traffic articles). Most of the sources I've seen were readily available online, so interested editors can still do the verification. I also can't help but think that this stubbing action have set a bad precedent where now it's OK to delete content out of suspicion alone without examining the cited sources.
I would also like to note that the issue of misrepresentation of sources goes beyond the Jagged 85 edits. In articles of Islamic scientists, I've seen some other editors misrepresent sources to promote their own ethnicity and ideological views. I would say that verifying each and every citation is needed anyway, regardless of whether Jagged was involved or not. -- Wiqi55 (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Salix alba
It is clear that there are many problems with the Mathematics in medieval Islam which does require extensive scrutiny. I think the community effort would be better directed to carefully reviewing that article than engage in disputes over process. --Salix (talk): 08:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC) The problem for me is that stubification process does not seem to have been followed by much attempt to recreate the articles. Physics in medieval Islam still remains in a stubified state since July last year. For all its problems the Jagged version is closer to the truth than a blank sheet of paper. Some of the editors mentioned here perhaps seem more intent on removing every word in Jagged related articles than in improving the encylopedia.--Salix (talk): 07:11, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Misconceptions2
Statement by Lambiam
I think this is primarily a content dispute, and that Arbitration is not the way to handle it. For the rest, I don't think that my involvement rises to the level at which I should be considered an "involved party". My involvement has solely consisted of: giving my opinion in the stubbing RFC regarding the Mathematics in medieval Islam article[42] (note: this is not the Jagged 85 RFC/U referred to, in which I have not participated), and three reactions to various comments by three different other users in the stubbing RFC discussion.[43][44][45] --Lambiam 09:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Al-Andalusi
Statement by Bless sins
Uninvolved parties
Statement by Headbomb
There's no case to be had. Aquib "lost" (or disagrees with the outcome of) RfC on the stubbification Mathematics in medieval Islam, and several other cases where Islamic contributions are greatly exagerated, or overstated (WP:UNDUE), sourced in greatly questionable sources (WP:RS), and which pushes fringe points of view (WP:NPOV). Most of this problematic stuff results from the edits of Jagged85.
Editors other than Aquib do a great job of laying a road map to cleanup the Jagged85 mess, with concrete proposals and plan of action (which is usually, stub the articles, then selectively restore the parts which can be verified in reliable sources). Aquib systematically objects to all these efforts, saying the original version should be restored, but never justifying why it should be restored other than "but stuff will be missing", and (as far as I'm aware), never edits the articles. Editors know stuff will be missing. But editors agree that it's better to have an incomplete and accurate article than an article which covers some things not found in the stub, but which is also littered with misleading, untrue, and otherwise undesirable material. Criticism bystanders will be criticizing bystanders, but they should stop disrupting the editorial process with such abuse of process.
ARBCOM shouldn't waste it's time re-examining old cases because of wikilawyering by people who want to re-open old cases for bureaucratic purposes only. If anything, it should consider topic banning Aquid for being an unproductive time sinker with his constant RfCs/Appeals/re-RfCs/RfCs on RfCs/... (Or maybe an admin will take the initiative and impose a discretionary sanction on Aquid.) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:40, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- It's Aquib, not Aquid. Carcharoth (talk) 07:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Carcharoth
I've been half-following the Jagged 85 situation situation since I became aware of it a few months ago (this was after the RfC). I agree that the edits made by Jagged 85 need to be reviewed, but some attention should be paid to whether the clean-up is being done by those with experience editing science articles, or those with experience editing articles on the history of science. It is the latter that is needed here, not the former. The only solution here is hard work based on obtaining the most recent and reliable sources on these topics, and on reviewing all the articles edited (random sampling is not helpful here). If older sources are used (rather than more recent ones, and in particular with reference made to recent journal articles), it is possible that the articles will be no better than they were after Jagged 85 edited them. From the evidence page, I can see that User:Syncategoremata made some excellent points and contributions to the clean-up effort, but he or she has not edited since July 2010. Do any of the other users currently helping in the clean-up effort have the same interest in this topic area that Syncategoremata did? Carcharoth (talk) 07:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
- (I'm not sure what the best place to reply is, feel free to move.) I can find my way around in the academic literature on the history of mathematics. As far as I'm aware SteveMcCluskey is a published author in the history of astronomy. —Ruud 00:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
- That's good to know, thanks. As long as the thread ends here, I think it will be OK (though that's not my decision to make, a clerk will probably look at this and either move your reply, or leave this as it is). I should also say here that I agree that stubbing should be done if no-one is available to work on the articles, but no articles should be declared clean until someone who knows what they are doing has gone through them. Those without access to recent literature on this topic should probably just stub articles rather than try and repair them, though there is no guarantee of course that the stubs won't be expanded again with unreliable or misused or outdated sources. I would suggest that the most useful contribution Jagged 85 could make would be to make a list of the articles where he did major work, and actually respond to some of the accusations made. He should take responsibility for the edits he made and explain what happened here without reference to others - i.e. explain his actions first before anything else is discussed. Part of the problem here is that the Jagged 85 RfC never really dealt with that part of the problem. It is not sufficient to respond to an accusation of misrepresenting sources by simply saying you won't edit in a topic area any more. You need to either explain what happened, or if you can't explain it, face formal sanctions. Whether that should be done by the community or ArbCom isn't clear yet. Carcharoth (talk) 05:54, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by Tijfo098
I think this case can be summarized simply as: what was initially a one-editor problem (User:Jagged 85) has become a two-editor problem with the involvement of User:Aquib american muslim. The community-developed solution for handling the systematic POV/OR/V issue with Jagged 85 edits was working until Aquib started thread after thread in every conceivable venue.
While the solution for dealing with Jagged 85 may seem harsh, WP:AGF is not a suicide pact, and arbitrators like User:Casliber and User:Risker are well aware of precedents of this kind in a more sensitive area that were dealt with even more harshly after enough evidence had accumulated.
My sampling of the matter at hand here may well be biased, but I did look at one article Aquib raised at ANI (see ANI thread), and the POV problems were obvious. If Aquib wants such articles kept/reinstated, the burden should squarely fell on him to show that they now meet NPOV/NOR/V.
I however had a prior interaction with Aquib (prior to me looking at any Jagged 85 edits), which makes me incredulous that he is the right person for the job. In particular Aquib insisted that the article on Sharia give equal WP:VALIDity to views that Sharia an human rights are not at odds, and he even removed quotes from Luzius Wildhaber from the article as overbearing. This mindset may shed some light on his defense of Jagged 85. (You can verify some the above by looking up Talk:Sharia/Archive 8. I'll post diffs if the case is accepted.)
Totally serendipitously, I had to do some Jagged85 cleanup myself today. Before becoming aware of this pattern, I would have taken that passage for granted given how may sources were cited. 05:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Statement by CasualObserver'48
This is a higher level arena than I normally venture to by choice, but it is important to do so, again [[46] and See also], because this does deal specifically with Wikipedia conduct overall, concerning what we present on our pages and how that remains there. (Am I thus involved?) The subject certainly touches upon the subordinate whys, hows and whos associated with that content, but it also specifically re-visits previous official decisions. Hasn't this subject pretty much run Wikipedia's bone-of-contention obstacle course, and isn't this now the place to arbitrate it? In my understanding and generally speaking, this jagged subject has progressed from our AGF assumption to a RfC to a RfC/U, and then to an official clean-up effort, which found "the undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements." Yet in a true lapse of Wikipedia's NPOV policy, it never stated in its findings just what "the due promotion" of Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements were. It went on its merry, now-mandated way and may have become more akin to a campaign with a well-stated, but non-neutral, platform. To easily state some very basic balance that should be considered (cited here), for those who must decide, I can provide it reliably from the Middle Ages,
Of the three great civilizations of western Eurasia and North Africa, that of Christian Europe began as the least developed in virtually all aspects of material and intellectual culture, well behind the Islamic states and Byzantium.
begrudgingly in the present day,
For many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement…. In the era between the decline of antiquity and the dawn of modernity, that is, in the centuries designated in European history as medieval, the Islamic claim was not without justification.
and elloquently from days gone by, when those ages were considered darker than they are now.
For some generations before Muhammad, the Arab mind had been, as it were, smouldering, it had been producing poetry and much religious discussion; under the stimulus of the national and racial successes it presently blazed out with a brilliance second only to that of the Greeks during their best period. From a new angle and with a fresh vigour it took up that systematic development of positive knowledge, which the Greeks had begun and relinquished. It revived the human pursuit of science. If the Greek was the father, then the Arab was the foster-father of the scientific method of dealing with reality, that is to say, by absolute frankness, the utmost simplicity of statement and explanation, exact record, and exhaustive criticism. Through the Arabs it was and not by the Latin route that the modern world received that gift of light and power.
Do these previous remedial actions adequately reflect this conventional wisdom? Was this wisdom considered in their deliberations? I do believe that the apparent neutrality lapse is why this cork has popped up again in troubled waters seeking a RfA request. It now seems accompanied with attendant flotsam of bathwater and possibly a collective and unintended witchhunt; it is generally a slick despoiling our shores. In all good faith I believe that those requesting this action are seeking for you to simply arbitrate neutral weight and proper methods to get there. Based on those sources and others' previous actions and methods, maybe redress is where we are and should be. Please decide to consider the request, the broad sources certainly tend to indicate some validity. Your decision should not be the re-invention of the wheel, just preventative/corrective maintenance on its workings. Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 07:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/6/1/3)
- Was supposed to be inactive, but A) Show us that this is a conDUCT dispute and not a ConTENT dispute, and B) Tell us if having this many parties is really absolutely necessary? Right now, I'm looking at the filing party's statement, and what I'm reading from it is "They're wrong, and this is why..." We're not going to handle it if it's that.. SirFozzie (talk) 09:46, 21 March 2011 (UTC).. Going to Decline per other statements SirFozzie (talk) 04:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
leaning decline - complaints appear to revolve solely around content. Individual articles can be discussed at reliable sources or content noticeboard.accept given there's been an RfC, I can't understand (as NYB points out) how this has come about - either there is a massive problem and Jagged 85 needs to be sanctioned for misusing sources or...what? I note Jagged 85's comment above and agree this needs determination one way or the other. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)- Recuse. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:19, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- Recuse - I believe I took some part in this cleanup --Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:51, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- Awaiting additional statements. I would particularly like to hear from Jagged 85, who is alleged to have introduced enough incorrect information into articles to require a massive and ongoing cleanup campaign, yet is still editing without any attention to his current edits. Perhaps, indeed probably, the situation is more complicated than that, but I don't see where it's been addressed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:01, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- Decline at this time. I see no issues relating to the "cleanup" that call for arbitration, and Jagged 85 appears to have stopped the highly problematic aspects of his editing. Should the situation deteriorate further, a request can be filed later, but hopefully this will not be necessary. Also per Kirill Lokshin below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
- Decline. Occasional disagreements and strenuous objections notwithstanding, the community appears to have this issue well in hand. There appears to be no real desire to impose further sanctions on Jagged 85—whether because he has voluntarily refrained from editing on the topics in question, or for other reasons—and I am willing to defer to the editors actually dealing with the matter on that question. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Awaiting any further clarification. Right now I'm seeing an issue with one editor's contributions, but not seeing why it needs to be dealt with by ArbCom, who won't make any decision on the content in dispute. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)Decline. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 00:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)- Likewise awaiting input. Jclemens (talk) 16:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
- Decline per Kirill Lokshin. Risker (talk) 00:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
- Decline per Brad and Kirill. PhilKnight (talk) 17:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
- ^ Hugh N. Kennedy, Hugh (1985), "From Polis To Madina: Urban Change In Late Antique And Early Islamic Syria", Past & Present, 106 (1), Oxford University Press: 3–27 [10–1], doi:10.1093/past/106.1.3