Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

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Arbitration motions regarding Palestine-Israel articles

Original announcement

• For anyone wondering why PeleYoetz is in the original but not revised list of parties, this is almost certainly because they have been blocked as a sockpuppet. Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
• PIA5 was well-overdue. Happy that Arbcom will actually be taking this up, even with the glacial pace it's moved at. The Kip ^(contribs) 19:40, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

  Then I hope you will participate in the case to offer evidence and workshop potential remedies to quell the disruption. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:48, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  @HJ Mitchell I’ll certainly be watching with interest, but unfortunately I’m neither consistently involved enough in the topic area nor qualified enough to substantially aid in either of those (beyond my longstanding but not widely popular belief in nuking the topic area’s userbase). The Kip ^(contribs) 21:53, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  I understand why some people might advocate for that. In a topic area that wasn't at the whims of real-world events it could conceivably work but I think it's unlikely to work here though we don't know yet where the evidence will lead. As you will have seen, my reluctance to take the case was largely because, in four previous cases, we appear to have exhausted the remedies at our disposal so if you have ideas for new ones I would certainly welcome them. In the meantime, I have some hope for the new remedies just passed in these motions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:24, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Harry, I'm a bit surprised by what you say about new remedies. When I recommended ARBCOM take this case, it wasn't because I think you can devise a miraculous new tool for administrators, but simply because determining which editors are engaged in bad behavior requires parsing more evidence than AE can reasonably handle. I fully believe that the usual combination of blocks, bans, and warnings can handle the conflict between the principal actors here at least for the moment. Is there an expectation that you need a new class of remedies? Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Vanamonde93 possibly not an expectation, but if somebody has new ideas I'm all ears. This is our most troublesome topic area and will continue to be so until the politicians get their act together, regardless of what we decide to do with these editors. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:24, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

• What's an "interaction" tho? Selfstudier (talk) 19:48, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier A conversation or exchange between people. I'm guessing the ArbCom is examining the conversations and exchanges between the parties in the case. I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 21:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

  The definition of interaction ban at the banning policy page should make it clear what the committee is looking for. Donald Albury 21:15, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

  @HJ Mitchell: Hello, as drafter can you please clarify whether the scope is exclusively about the interaction of editors as mentioned here? Also, will some sort of introduction be provided prior to the opening of the case (ex: structure of the process/type of acceptable evidence/type of editors who will be able to provide inputs/etc..)? Makeandtoss (talk) 07:54, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Makeandtoss the exact scope is still a little nebulous, and your idea of an introduction is a good one which I'll give more thought to before we open the case. The way I see it is we want to consider whether there are problems with those editors in particular or with the interactions between them, but we also want to explore why the entire topic area is such a problem and whether ArbCom can impose any remedies to help with that or to help admins deal with problems. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:22, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  @HJ Mitchell: Thanks for the reply, glad to hear this is being considered comprehensively. Also relevant in my opinion to the success of this case with its specific scope is whether some limitations are necessary, such as the type and number of editors allowed to participate/amount of interventions/character limits/type of allowed evidence/good faith presentation of evidence/etc. As we can see, there is understandable eagerness to participate in these discussions, so there is a need to ensure that the case does not become overwhelming, and that these points can be considered along with their context. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:14, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

  The way I see it, the PIA area is a very dangerous combination of intractible ethnopolitical dispute (a la EE or AP2), open war in meatspace (a la AA2 or EE) and one that everyone in the world and their dog has a horse in for one reason or another (a la AB or GS). None of these are things Wikipedia and its processes have any hope of handling because the on-wiki behaviour is a symptom of real-world disputes that cannot be resolved that way. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 07:38, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  This is likely true and true for a long time, which begs the question, what exactly is it that is different now? Selfstudier (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  The answer is to focus where the focus belongs. No one should expect ArbCom to deal with intractable worldwide problems. Instead, the case should focus on whether there are individual editors whose conduct is making the editing environment worse. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  That's not an answer to my question tho (which wasn't intended as a coatrack for you to hang your well known opinion on). Selfstudier (talk) 19:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  I was responding more to what Jéské said, that there was no hope of ArbCom being able to handle the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  a) That's not all they said. b) I want to know what they think the problem is (now). Selfstudier (talk) 19:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  Selfstudier, you ask what the problem is now. The problem is editors in the PIA topic area appear to not be playing by the rules, in a way that our existing system isn't solving. We can't pretend to ignore the real world here. Obviously the war in Gaza is ultimately driving the issue. But Jéské Couriano is right: we can't fix the real world problem. A body of 15 volunteers on a website staffed by people with names like CaptainEek are not going to end a war that has its roots more than a century deep. But we can assess, in our little corner of the internet, whether our own editors are following the rules while writing about that real world topic. We will assess the conduct of editors, and whether our existing Contentious Topics scheme is keeping a lid on the topic area. I doubt that PIA5 will be the last PIA case, but with luck it will help resolve some tensions in the area for the next few years. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:00, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  I get that, still doesn't answer the question, why now? Have these editors only now decided to not play by the rules, whereas they did previously? Or is it instead, that there is a lot of noise, mainly from one side of the fence, suggesting that that is the problem, hmm? That possible? Selfstudier (talk) 20:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  Enough evidence has been presented of an apparent problem that the community has been unable to resolve. The Arbitration Committee thus considers it worthwhile to examine the topic area in more detail to determine (a) whether the apparent problem is an actual problem, and (b) if so, what remedies the Committee can enact in an attempt to resolve that problem. Such remedies may focus on individual editors, if there are any editors who are determined to be disrupting the functioning of the topic area. If it turns out that there aren't any such editors, then they wont be sanctioned.

  When someone says or implies that the whole problem is caused by editors on one side of an editing dispute that relates to a real-world ethnic, nationalist, religious and/or political dispute, in my experience this most commonly just means that they are not seeing (or not acknowledging as disruptive) the problematic behaviours from those who share their point of view. Thryduulf (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  When someone says. . You mean me? Sure, I must have been confused about that for years and years. I'm sure I'll get over it now that you have pointed me in the right direction. Selfstudier (talk) 22:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  I think that it was just a neutral general statement. Also, in this case it likely most applies to BilledMammal, as he brought up this issue in the first place, and simultaneously has a documented history of attempting to censor reliable information that is inconvenient for the heavily pro-Israeli perspective, or seemingly spending enormous amounts of effort to catalogue and thereby target many of the editors that disagree with him in this area, as I partially listed and linked to previously in this discussion.

  Anyway, I obviously heavily disagree with the "indiscriminately ban them all" solution that seemed to be suggested here previously. If an editor has not actually done anything bad, and has strictly added accurate and reliably referenced information, while being as polite as they can manage, especially given the scale of the ongoing atrocities, I do not think that they should be punished for it, and removing all of the most knowledgeable members who know how to edit properly and who follow Wikipedia's rules, would open up the floodgates for trolls, vandals, death threatening criminals, and large-scale removals of reliable content. Please see here for some examples: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] David A (talk) 07:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  Enough evidence has been presented Where was evidence presented? I've been waiting to see it. Levivich (talk) 05:15, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  Sufficient evidence has been presented at the arbitration request, at ARCA and possibly in private that the Arbitration Committee believe there is an issue that needs investigating. Nobody needs to satisfy you personally. Thryduulf (talk) 09:35, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  Cool it with the snarky responses, Thryduulf. Zero^talk 11:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  That was not intended to be snarky, and while I can squint a bit and see how the second sentence might be taken that way, and I apologise if Levivich does see it that way, it does not undermine the point I was making that there has been no shortage of evidence presented. Thryduulf (talk) 11:44, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  If people would forgive an experienced Wikipedian/netizen for giving unsolicited advice...

  @Thryduulf (and everyone else here) I'm not sure if you know about tonality indicators, but here's a carrd about them. While they were developed for people with neurodivergence negatively impacting social communication (autism, social communication disorder, etc.), they do have a curb cut effect for everyone else.

  @Zero0000 Part of assuming good faith can, at times, sometimes include being curious about tonality. A reminder to everyone that even I mess up on this, so I would appreciate a lack of dogpiling. I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 21:45, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier: This help? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 23:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  4 was procedural so I flipped to the evidence for 3 and the first thing I see is from a sock "The main problem with Palestine-Israel articles isn't necessarily the new editors or socks but rather some of the old editors who know how to play the rules and transfer Wikipedia into an outlet of propaganda instead of outlet of neutral knowledge. The only way to create a change is effective enforcement and punishment against editors who constantly violate the rules." Gosh, that sounds familiar. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  Could I get a link for that quote please. Thanks, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 14:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Evidence#Conclusion Selfstudier (talk) 14:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you User:Selfstudier for that very interesting link. That statement was made by User:Settleman, later blocked for .......socking. Huldra (talk) 22:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  I find it useful to remember that sociopathy is not very rare, and Wikipedia's open access model means we get a large sample size. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:38, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

  Would it be a good idea to use Twinkle to request a sockpuppet investigation, with all of the available evidence included? David A (talk) 10:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

• @HJ Mitchell: the exact scope is still a little nebulous, and your idea of an introduction is a good one which I'll give more thought to before we open the case. The way I see it is we want to consider whether there are problems with those editors in particular or with the interactions between them, but we also want to explore why the entire topic area is such a problem and whether ArbCom can impose any remedies to help with that or to help admins deal with problems

  Are there any developments here? Selfstudier (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• I'm no ArbCom historian, so I'm wondering if Motion 2c is the first time that ArbCom has decided to limit discussion in a contentious topic. Zero^talk 03:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  You may be right. I'm not aware of anything similar being applied to a whole topic. I hope it will make editors think more carefully about what they want to say and resist the urge to reply to every opposing comment. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:46, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  "Replying to every opposing comment" is a problem in the area, but 50 words for each of 20 opposing editors (or 100*10) is enough for that, and Motion 2b (admin imposed limits on individuals) can control that. The most effective automatic way would be to restrict editors to their own sections. What concerns me more about 2c is that editors who like to bring reliable sources and quotations from them will reach the limit quite easily but we should be encouraging that approach to content issues. Zero^talk 06:38, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Zero0000 That's a fair criticism. I'd like to see how these new remedies bed in first, but if they cause more problems than they solve I'm happy to look at them again. Admins already have discretion so I hope they wouldn't sanction editors for exceeding a word limit by posting quotes from sources but similarly, if the remedies need fine-tuning to help discussions function effectively, we can look at that. And personally I welcome new ideas for helping the topic area to function. When the workshop phase opens in the case, please do post your suggestion for editors commenting only in their own sections, and any others you have. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:31, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  I certainly wouldn't count quotations against the word total. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  Of all the CT, it would appear that PIA is the one where ArbCom seems to be handling the most. As a result, it would appear that they try their new anti-disruption ideas at PIA, and then decide if it should apply to all CTs. Animal lover |666| 21:49, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  It's mainly because PIA has a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG history of being an intractible ethnopolitical hellhole topic area that the community cannot itself handle, even more so than the equally-long-running Eastern Europe topic area.(yes, each of those letters is a link to a case that is centred in the PIA area.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 23:22, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

  What concerns me more about 2c is that editors who like to bring reliable sources and quotations from them will reach the limit quite easily but we should be encouraging that approach to content issues. I'm not a huge fan of this restriction but I do think that in that case an editor could just present their quotations in another discussion thread or on a subpage, which wouldn't have such limits, and could then link to it in their RFC / RM comment. The purpose of the restriction is to get such discussions out of structured conversations, not to prevent people from producing large lists of quotes.--Aquillion (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  This is happening right now, with me posting quotes in response to people saying "the sources don't say that", at Talk:Zionism#RFC about a recently added claim about Zionism. Levivich (talk) 18:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  Sooner or later a dispute will erupt between someone who does that and someone who thinks it is 'gaming' the word limit. Also, it would be better if the sources are where they are cited and not somewhere else. The best solution would be to fix the restriction to exclude citation and quotations of sources from the word limit. Zero^talk 23:51, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah and another advantage of having the rule explicitly say source cites/quotes don't count is that it will encourage editors to cite/quote sources in formal discussions, which would be good to do. Levivich (talk) 02:50, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think @Levivich makes a very good point and am more than happy to explicitly exclude sources from the word limit. I think the most useful thing that folks could muse on here would be draft wording. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:06, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek: I proposed language at WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Workshop#Cites/quotes and word limits. Levivich (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  The committee passed discussion restrictions in the Iranian politics case. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  Those are part of IRP's available discretionary sanctions; they aren't ArbCom explicitly limiting participants in discussions in the topic writ large. The closest thing I can think of would be IAN (via motion) and MAC2, and those both are more about restricting the discussions themselves rather than the debate within them. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 07:52, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed motions to improve ArbCom workflow

Original announcement