Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Proposed decision

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: L235 (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Guerillero (Talk) & Seraphimblade (Talk) & Doug Weller (Talk)

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New date

Presently it says that Proposed decision can be expected by 8th October; is a new date set? (or will something exciting happen in the next hour or so?) Huldra (talk) 23:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I have a PD written, I am just waiting for some last minue comments. I am currently in a middle seat in United Airlines economy, so I can't do much. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 23:13, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Heading for Washington DC, by any chance? And it is still being discussed among editors (like here), so, no hurry, and safe journey. (I much rather see some proper sanctions coming out of this, than a frantic "keep the schedule"-rule winning.) Huldra (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra: Yup, I am back in the District. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 03:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

A suggested amendment to the 500/30 proposal

What do you think about adding any uninvolved admin may remove these sanctions from a specific page if they view them unnecessary? The number of pages that would be covered by this proposal are vast, so there should be a method to remove articles which don't really attract much controversy or sockpuppetry. Please note that it is only the main Gamergate article under 500/30 sanctions, and not the related articles which in general tend to attract a lot less drama. Brustopher (talk) 20:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Simpler proposal:

Any administrator may place any article reasonably construed as related to the topic of Palestine-Israel history, conflict, or respective relations with other nations, or persons related to such a topic, under "pending changes". Collect (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

My edits are almost 100% in the ARBPIA-area, and I do not really support the "General Prohibition". I would much, much much prefer "Modified 1 Revert Rule" but removing that last sentence: "but is subject to the usual rules on edit warring". Edits from IPs or newbies are normally not a huge problem; it is not being able to remove them as many times as you like, which is the problem. Presently, the "Modified 1 Revert Rule" is useless, precisely because "seasoned socks" knows exactly the sort of border-line edits to make, so that it "is subject to the usual rules on edit warring". Huldra (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

General Prohibition --> The end of “An Encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”?

When I first started editing Wikipedia in 2008, I was encouraged to do so when I read the Wikipedia Introduction page statement “anyone can edit almost every page, and we are encouraged to be bold”. I edited as an IP editor for more than a year before registering an account, during which time I become well respected within the community. This time included participating in the controversial area of new age religions, in which I was treated as an equal to registered editors in all aspects.

Had I been treated as a 2nd class Wikipedian during this time, I am certain that I would not have continued my involvement in this project for the next 7 years. It seems that if this remedy is adopted, a hard line will have been crossed, changing a fundamental Wikipedia policy that the encyclopedia can be edited by anyone. What concerns me the most is that this policy change will have occurred in a creeping manor, executed by a governance body that has enforcement, but not policy within its remit. This policy change will have been executed without the formal approval of the community. The implications are enormous! Firstly, this change strongly implies that the foundational principle of governance through community consensus is broken, and that this bottom up governance model will have been replaced by a top down model of governance through the arbitration committee deciding by policy setting precedents who can edit what. The Arbitration committee is already overwhelmed by cases and case requests with complaints becoming more common around delays in proceeding and missed deadlines. The implication of this remedy is a precedent that in future the best way to enable change will be to throw even more requests at Arbcom rather than the now weakened process of community driven consensus on the ground. How many additional resources will be required to be roped into the arbitration processes to manage this new model without completely breaking the system? Have the implications of this remedy really been thought through? Savlonn (talk) 21:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The 500 / 30 is a bad idea. "Minimizing disruption" is trivial; full protect all pages, "problem" solved. Consider something actually important in real world; the kilogram (briefly, without a standard mass unit, roll back a hundred or two years of progress). I just read there will likely be a new definition at the next standards meeting. Checking the article, I found 71.41.210.146 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) had already done it, and look at that contribution history. No fuss, no AN / ANI / DRN, no haggling over GA / FA / DYK, no userboxes, no drama, just edits ... NE Ent 02:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

There are a multitude of serious problems with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Proposed_decision#General_Prohibition:

1. Trampling of user privileges: I have eschewed obtaining any additional user access levels. As a result, there's an increasing amount of areas on the project where I can not edit. I have bumped into problems on this issue twice of late. When I noted these issues, I was told to seek the respective user access levels to be able to do those things. The point is, after years of editing and 10s of thousands of edits, I shouldn't have to. For non-registered editors, it is worse. Welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone can edit...so long as you jump through a blizzard of bureaucratic nightmares to obtain the ever increasing stratification of rights you need to actually edit.
2. Slippery slope indeed: Guerillero is right to be concerned about slippery slope issues with this proposal. We've already seen it happen in other areas. What seems like a good idea in this case slowly, inexorably, starts to be applied all over the place. The project becomes increasingly restricted. Did you know that we recently crossed 10,000 articles either fully protected or semi-protected? At what point do we become disgusted at the limitations to "anyone can edit"? What if 500/30 isn't enough to stop disruption? The evidence presented already indicates it wouldn't stop at least some of the sockpuppets. Do we up it to 1000/60? 10000/600? Is 10000 absurd? If 10000 is absurd, why isn't 500 absurd? Or is 500 ok only because it doesn't effect most of us? Where do we draw the line? When do we stop?
3. ArbCom is breaching their authority limits: ArbCom, regardless of this being called a 'remedy', is actually setting policy. If this were passed, the de facto policy would be that only those people with the right number of edits and time on project would be able to edit anything to do with Arab-Israeli conflict articles. "The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat.". ArbCom does not have the authority to enact policy. Even if ArbCom passed this proposal unanimously, it can not be applied because of that lack of authority. What ArbCom can do is create procedures through which policy can be enforced. ArbCom attempting to limit who can edit pages is a serious breach of their authority. The community might have this authority, but ArbCom does not. ArbCom has no remit to stop any good faith editor from editing the project.
4. The community might have the authority: The community might have the authority to implement a 500/30 rule. They have done so with the gamergate controversy. It is absurd (see point above) that ArbCom felt they had the authority to decide if the policy was valid. They do not. Regardless, if the 500/30 policy were to be applied to this area of the project, the remit to do so exists with the community. It is possible, even likely, the WMF would overturn this policy. They have not yet done so with the gamergate controversy, but that may only be because it has yet to cross their desks. WP:ACTRIAL did cross their desks, and it was shot down, despite heavy local consensus to implement it. I.e., the WMF feels very strongly about the ability of new and unregistered editors being able to create content on the project.
5. No evidence this would work: The proposed findings of fact, which any remedies should be attempting to resolve, contain the issues of sockpuppetry and the one revert rule being gamed. The sockpuppetry issue is based on this evidence, which cites three accounts known for sockpuppeting in this area. None of these three accounts would be prevented by the 500/30 policy. The evidence supposedly supporting the 1rr sanction contains evidence that IPs can edit this area constructively. Long before instituting any sweeping plan to restrict people from editing, I would want to see a preponderance of evidence that points to this policy having a chance of working. That evidence is distinctly absent here.

In sum: We have a proposed remedy that is really a proposed policy , a policy likely to suffer from extended slippery slope issues, a policy that tramples the privileges of new, good faith editors, a policy that ArbCom lacks the authority to craft much less attempt to implement, and a policy that lacks evidentiary basis that it would work to solve problems plaguing this area of Wikipedia. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This is not anything new. Arbcom has put sanction on topic areas before. This is no more the end of An Encyclopaedia that anyone can edit than semi-protection. I fail to see where new policy is being created. The reality is that if new users jump right into one of the most controversial parts of Wikipedia which are plagued by sock puppets that they are going to be given less weight. There is a whole encyclopedia of topics out there. HighInBC 13:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• In the case of GG, there was clear evidence of outside influence that required a drastic measure to minimize disruption on a limited article space (specifically on the GG talk page itself, it does not extend to other GG-related pages, though the standard disclaimers under the GG decision and semi-prot of those mainspace pages do exist); 500/30 is very narrow and a very focused remedy that made sense there. But I don't see evidence provided of outside influence to apply it to as broad a space as the I/P conflict; it is a very lazy solution to deal with sockpuppetry that as Hammersoft has identified trends on the "encyclopedia anyone can edit". There are ways to handle sockpuppets that might require more admin viligence, but unless its clear that there is also a external drive of meatpuppetry or other influence directly aimed at WP's pages, this is a bad idea that is a slippery slope towards other areas plagued by sockpuppets. --MASEM (t) 14:20, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• This decision, whether or not it is a good decision on the merits of stopping the disruption, does NOT represent any fundamental shift in the power structure of Wikipedia. It is entirely within the remit of ArbCom to establish editing restrictions on an article or group of articles to stop disruption. This decision would not represent "ArbCom setting policy" or any of the undemonstrated accusations as above. Now, that doesn't mean ArbCom should enact this restriction in this one case (and saying THAT doesn't mean I am saying they should not, I make no statement in that regard). But the decision to do so does not represent any fundamental change in the way ArbCom handles every case ever. I am sympathetic to the people who may want to argue this is the wrong restriction to fix this problem for whatever reason, but to go all Chicken Little and claim that Wikipedia is ending because ArbCom is trying to stop clear disruption is reactionary and unsupported by what they are doing here. Here's an idea, instead of claiming bad faith, or establishing strawman reasons to oppose this decision, why not argue against it on its merits? It makes your case more persuasive. If you try to defend a valid point with unsupportable rationales (like "We shouldn't enact this because ArbCom is teh evul and wants to take over the wurld!!!zOMG!!!STop Them!!!") then it just makes people want to disagree with you, doing yourself a disservive. Instead, argue the point on its merits, and make a case based upon whether or not this will or will not stop the demonstrated problem. --Jayron32 14:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• I am not going to address your "evul" comments and the like. That's not the dispute, and not a claim anyone is making, thanks. To addressable points: If it is within the remit of ArbCom to ban editing by newer editors of a topic area, then it is entirely within the remit of ArbCom to ban newer editors from all of these areas as well. Where would you like to draw the line? ArbCom does not have the authority to tell good faith editors they can not edit. Arbcom has the "authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors". There is no dispute with newer editors as a class of editors. Unless ArbCom can show that all newer editors to this topic area are the problem, then attempting to restrict all newer editors is by definition outside their remit. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:49, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• Hammersoft, before we answer to your questions, could you please think about our own points and address them... We have invested hundreds not to say thousands of hours in wikipedia and in particular to this topic. Why -whereas we proved by the facts- we are WP:HERE, do we have to manage these people who are WP:NOTHERE but come with the purpose of defending the image they have of their country or of their cause ? The only thing that is proposed is that people who come in the topic area first learn to understand WP:NPoV and our principles by starting with other easier and less contentious topics. Pluto2012 (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• If you're asking me to respond to whether ArbCom is "evul", I respectfully decline. Nobody said that; it's a red herring. If you want me to respond to accusations that I am being "chicken little", I disrespectfully decline. If you want me to respond to (incorrect) claims I supposedly made that ArbCom is acting in bad faith, I respectfully decline. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• There is a fair concept Hammersoft presents that because the 500/30 was appropriate for GG, it is being seen as an option for other tough cases; P-I is one, but it was also suggested for dealing with Caste articles. And there again, as a broad remedy and not being as strictly limited as the GG 500/30 action. If 500/30 is going to be considered more and more an option to limit disruption in broad and multiple areas, and not just a highly limited exceptional case as it was on GG, it needs wider community consensus to recognize that as a possible enforcement option. I believe it does have a place but it needs to be under very exceptional circumstances and narrow usage when there is clear demonstration that it needs to be used due to external events (eg meatpuppetry or other coordinated efforts to alter WP content in one direction). --MASEM (t) 15:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to point out some examples of how ArbCom's "remedy" here will cause harm to the project. This edit, conducted by an editor with (at the time) 18 edits would have been prevented. The changes made by this edit are still extant in the article, 1.5 months later. Same editor when they had 2 edits made this edit, and three months later it is still extant. An IP editor with zero edits made this series of edits a few days ago, which are still extant. This edit, largely still extant (and certainly good faith) made by an editor with 258 edits would not have been allowed. I could go on for hours here. Meanwhile, ArbCom's claim this "remedy" will solve a problem relies on evidence pointing to sockpuppets that would NOT have been stopped by this "remedy". Banning an entire class of editors from editing a topic area in an attempt to deal with a handful of editors is wrong and damages the furtherance of the project. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I think THAT is a good argument to make; making the argument that it isn't helpful in remedying the current locus of dispute is how one should be arguing, and providing evidence to back that up is even better. The objection I had above was in the histrionics over the incorrect notion that this represented "ArbCom creating policy" or whatever. No, this doesn't represent that. The slippery slope argument is also unconvincing; Admins can protect articles, so there's a slippery slope that they'll eventually just protect the whole encyclopedia. Hasn't happened yet, strangely. But yes, Hammersoft's argument that this remedy is unlikely to stop disruption in this one case is a valid argument against it. The notion that the remedy would represent a "slippery slope" OR represents some sort of expansion of ArbCom powers is simply either unfounded, or directly contradicted by the facts at hand, and unhelpful in this regard. --Jayron32 16:02, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• I don't appreciate your attribution of me engaging in histrionics. If you can't comment without commenting on me, then please do not comment at all. As to on topic points; I feel strongly about the mission of the project. I also feel strongly about "anyone can edit". I also feel strongly that ArbCom has a role, a role which they have on occasion ventured beyond. They are doing so here. Dealing with the abstract issue of them violating WP:ARBPOL is important as it addresses the underlying problem we are facing here; do we or do we not allow new editors to edit? As to the slippery slope argument; it is perfectly valid. No, the entire project isn't protected. But, we just recently crossed 10,000 articles protected. I don't think anyone anticipated having thousands upon thousands upon thousands of articles indefinitely protected against new editors. Further, the slippery slope is already happening; the GG case solution is now being applied against a swath of articles possibly numbering in the thousands (see below). I would also like to point out that even if ArbCom does pass this remedy, it can not be enforced. If a rule prevents an editor with less than 500 edits and less than 30 days tenure, they are empowered by policy TO IGNORE IT. ArbCom can NOT write policy. They can not override it, they can not change it, they can not suspend it. ArbCom does not have the authority to tell an editor not meeting the 500/30 bar that they can not make good faith contributions that improve the encyclopedia. ArbCom can do so against a particular editor but they can not do so and lack the authority to do so against any editor who is not party to a case who has not demonstrated they are acting disruptively. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:21, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• There are 6,836,493 articles at Wikipedia. My calculator tells me that 10,000 articles is 0.2% of the articles of Wikipedia. For a slippery slope, that's pretty damned sticky. It's a shame that all of humanity can't be trusted to treat Wikipedia with respect. If you can fix that problem, we can start unprotecting those articles. --Jayron32 16:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• The salient point, of course, is that it was never envisioned to permanently cover thousands upon thousands of articles. Yet, that's how it is being used. Trying to claim no damage is being done by the policy is like saying hurricane Katrina wasn't so bad because Japan wasn't affected. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• Pick a protected article. If you have an alternate method of stopping disruption at that article, tell us. We'll enact your plan instead. --Jayron32 19:26, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

As I said in my evidence, I think that in practical terms, we are already at a point where "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is dead in this topic area. We are at the point where experienced editors "can" edit, but "won't" edit, because of the atmosphere. I think we need to test this idea and see if it helps. I think it will. If it doesn't, I won't be embarrassed after a year to admit it. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:40, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

If a test is to be offered, it should be on a limited case-by-case - specifically page-by-page - basis, instead of broad implementation. And even then, this is still a novel concept of how to prevent disruption, and because potentially the scope it has, the community first should be asked to consider if this is a reasonable tool. I will point out that the first suggested remedy, where the 1RR aspect is ignored when dealing with edits from 500/30 users seems a much more safer approach; new editors acting in good faith and adding legitimate content can still participate in the given areas, while dealing with socks that push a specific POV. It doesn't shut the door in new editors' faces across a range of articles this broad. --MASEM (t) 21:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

As far as a limited/case-by-case test, see my thoughts below about limiting the general prohibition to pages which are semi-protected. Not the same as a limited trial, but similar. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I already mentioned the huge collateral damage that will result from this ill-considered remedy back as far as the original case page, and repeated many times in many subsequent discussions. It seems to me that ArbCom is just doing this to "appear" to do something. There is absolutely no evidence (see the comments in my own section) that drastic action on this scale is needed, leave alone the notion that it will be effective. Kingsindian ♝♚ 13:20, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Core principles as stated by Jimbo Wales

From User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles:

• "Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals ... should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny". "Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other."
• "'You can edit this page right now' is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred."

--Hammersoft (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

A sampling of the articles newer editors will be banned from

I started compiling a list of articles affected by this prohibition. I expected to find a few hundred. I started with Category:Arab–Israeli conflict, which of course fits the descriptor of the general prohibition "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". I quickly realized I was wrong, and that the number is likely in the thousands. So, I tried to constrain my list to one sub-area of that category, Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Even there, I realized the list would be too enormous, numbering north of a thousand. So, I just arbitrarily stopped. Even that resulting list I have cut in half just to not overwhelm this page. Thus, the below list is just a sample of the articles from which newer editors, who have demonstrated no disruptive behavior whatsoever, will be effectively permanently banned from editing.

NOTE: I strongly object to this list being collapsed. Do not do so The point here, without disrupting this page, is to demonstrate the enormous swath of articles ArbCom will be affecting with this prohibition, with recognition that this list is but a small portion of the entire list.

Well, it says it's to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. Isn't some indication of the swath of a proposed remedy information ya'll should consider? NE Ent 00:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

It is something we are considering; however, this page needs to be readable by users that might not have a widescreen monitor or laptop. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• Much as I tried to avoid it, you just proved my point. If that, being such a small subset of the entirety of articles you intend to ban newer editors from, is so objectionably large, you can't possibly conclude that blocking them from those pages is a rational plan. As for this page not to be used for proving points, pray tell what is it for then? It says at the very top of this page that it is to "assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision." You are arriving at an extremely poor decision. Getting community input proving that point is crucial to the process, unless you just intend on ignoring the community and hatting discussions that are contrary to ArbCom's desires. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:21, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
• I've modified your hatting to suggest what it is within the hat. At least you can allow that, I hope. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I just reviewed the page using a tablet: the portion that is the list is insignificant to the overall length, and on iOS at least it's a simple scroll on bay. The hat, however, becomes invisible, thereby forcing the mobile user to either switch to desktop mode to see the list or to click the little edit pencil icon. So hatting makes it more difficult for the mobile user to follow what's going on. NE Ent 01:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Guerillero: I'm a bit reluctant to remove the hatting, but NE Ent makes an excellent point. Your intention to make it readable, you did the opposite. As was it was readable. Now, it isn't. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• FWIW, I have previously reported this issue at phabricator:T94107. More comments there might encourage the developers to actually do something about it. Regarding this specific page, you have made your point, we are aware of the issue and we are discussing it so there is no need to have the list visible inline here. If you really think it is valuable for it to be browsable by mobile users, link to a page in your userspace with it uncollapsed. However, far more useful would be practical suggestions for how the affected area could be alternatively defined so as not to encompass unnecessary pages while still covering the pages that do need to be removed from the present quagmire. Thryduulf (talk) 20:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Thryduulf: Thank you for pointing out the bug report. To the point of suggestions; I've noted that applying this sanction is outside of the remit of ArbCom. Thus, I think it needs to be removed from the proposed decision. Ivanvector proposed a version (see below) whereby only those articles which are semi-protected and under this Arab-Israeli umbrella could qualify for the 500/30 ban. I think this should be taken a half step further; that in the PD ArbCom makes a recommendation that the 500/30 ban be put in place where the community sees a need under this umbrella, and where the article is already subject to semi-protection. This avoids the "nuclear option" and answers MDennis' point that where it is to be used should be prudently assessed. This also allows the community to debate, and even remove the prohibition if the community feels it should be removed. Thoughts? --Hammersoft (talk)

• It's reasonable - have some type of enforcement board or the like where editors involved in the area can present their case of why they think a page that is already semi-prot should be further placed into 500/30 protection; have discussion with an uninvolved editor determining if that's a reasoanble step. I still also recommend that the first proposed remedy - in which problematic POV/BLP-ish/unsourced edits from those with 500/30 can be removed without counting towards 1RR from experienced editors (with common sense applications here) - would also enable the established editors to maintain the articles better. --MASEM (t) 21:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments by Kingsindian

First, a general comment. I note that no single problem precipitated this case, but it was a rather spectacular, and highly regrettable, incident where a former admin lost his cool after sustained baiting. Since that incident was rather out of character for the admin, and I would submit, not typical of the problems of this area, this case has been rather unfocused and distorted. Therefore, as simply common sense, my own feeling is that ArbCom should not legislate new far-reaching measures, but focus on strengthening existing measures. Detailed comments follow:

1. Why are there no new or strengthened measures to handle sockpuppetry? That is the biggest problem in the area, everyone agrees. Zero's proposals in the workshop were quite sensible. I am sorry to sound harsh, but instead of fixing this, ArbCom is chasing ghosts with half-baked and dangerous measures.
2. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Proposed_decision#Background: I disagree very strongly with this. Ivanvector, by their own admission, does not edit in this area, and their "evidence" is pretty subjective - I see few or no diffs there. They refer in turn to StevenJ81's evidence, who rarely edits in this area themselves. I discussed their evidence at length in the Workshop, and demonstrated (in my opinion of course) that the existing remedies, in fact, worked very well for that case. A quick look at the archives for WP:AE shows no support for the statement that sanctions have not succeeded in handling disruption. There have been very few WP:ARBPIA cases hauled up at WP:AE in the recent past.
3. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Proposed_decision#General_Prohibition: Firstly, if I understand correctly, many people in the workshop supported its use in selected cases, not the whole area. I support the exemption to WP:1RR for reverting such users, but I am utterly aghast at a proposal of a blanket restriction on such a wide area. I have already said a lot in the workshop about why I oppose this, so I won't repeat it here. Though I am in the minority there, someone has to speak up for common sense. I find it utterly baffling that the complaint that "anyone can't edit" is being addressed by a draconian restriction. The point about Aaron Swartz's research is good, and I would have made it myself. I would just add that even POV pushers serve a purpose, since they bring up old articles on people's watchlists, which get improved. And of course, new users sometimes make good edits. Not to mention that old users were once new users. Kingsindian ♝♚ 21:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Zero's proposals re socking are either policy or inactionable due to the existing privacy policy --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 00:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Guerillero: I was afraid of this. All of them are inactionable or policy? How about the one which checks for sleepers a few days after the blocking of a sock, to catch returning socks? That would, for instance, have caught Averysoda which was created the day after another sock was blocked. And what is wrong with the one lowering the threshold for CU? Kingsindian ♝♚ 03:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

It is currently acceptable to check an account for sleepers when you block it. Continuing to check after a sock is blocked has been viewed dimly by the community and the auditors. The current bar for checking IP addresses is set in the privacy policy, access to non-public information policy, the global checkuser policy, and the local checkuser policy as well as internal mores of the checkuser team. In general, the bar for checking accounts is pretty set in stone. Privacy is very important to many wikipedians, especially in Europe. Even if it was moveable, the committee could not change that policy; it would have to go through a community RFC. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 04:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Guerillero: Thanks. I have struck out my harsh comments. If it is not too much trouble, could you point me to discussions where continuing to check for sleepers after blocking has been discussed? Kingsindian ♝♚ 05:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: I am going to need to look for it. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:35, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry?

Like Kingsindian; I´m waiting for a remedy for Sockpuppetry. I expect there will be one, and that you are just "rolling out" the proposed remedies, one by one? Please *do* note that not a single editor voiced opposition to Zero's proposals...hint, hint! Huldra (talk) 22:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't believe this is the case. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's actionable. A) is reasonably frequently done. One could create a new SPI process for doing so but ultimately it's not always effective due to technical countermeasures. B) probably violates privacy policy, and would be seen as fishing. CU do have some discretion and when I run checks in these areas I'm willing to dig deeper and check more liberally than in other topic areas. However simply seeming experienced isn't going to be seen as adequate in the eyes of those that developed the privacy policy by any means. NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:21, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

..But it has´t always been like this. I recall former CU Thatcher writing somewhere, that a certain CU always made a CU of new users in his area, that is; new users who did not edit according to his own POV. Many assumed that he meant Jayjg, but Thatcher never confirmed this. I certainly assumed I was being CU when I first started editing in the IP area (about 10 years ago), (and yes: I often disagreed with Jayjg), and I know others (not pro-Israeli editors) who assumed the same.

Someone here, during the present proceedings, asked why most socks were pro-Israeli: perhaps pro-Israeli editors did not assume they were checked in the same way?

I don´t want to go back to the times of Jayjg; where one set of editors were perceived to be scrutinised, while the other side went scot free. Instead, I want all sides scrutinised. And if privacy is of an over-riding concern: well, no-one has to edit Wikipedia; it is not a "basic human right"; it is a choice we make. Huldra (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra: Since Thacher was a CU and helped form the AUSC, several checkusers have been stripped of their tools for activities such as this. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Guerillero: I am aware of that. And, as I said: I certainly don´t want to go back to the time when one CU all of ones perceived "opponents". I *am* saying that editors came to the project, and stayed here, even though those "privacy violations" took place. I didn´t mind: if you don´t have anything to hide, then you don´t have anything to hide. As long as no CU ever released my IP publicly (and no-one ever did, AFAIK); I was fine. There seem to be an idea that this project will frighten away potential editors *if* CU are more often used. I´m saying: that is not necessarily so: but it might frighten away the cheaters, Huldra (talk) 20:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't find nothing to hide arguments very compelling and neither does the WMF, the global community, and the local community. If you would like to change the policies, I suggest you start a request for comment. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This isn´t giving up ones every typed word, or email, (now, that would of course have been a totally different situation): we are *only* talking about "giving up" one´s IP, and that to a limited set of (hopefully) qualified and "non-leaking" set of CU. As I said: many of us here on Wikipedia lived fine with that level of scrutiny. The present situation only serves the cheaters. Huldra (talk) 21:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Though, if I understand you correctly; you are saying that the arb.com does not have the power, or right, to ask for CU more often in the IP area? Huldra (talk) 21:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Correct. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 23:17, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

That really disappoints me. It seems to me that someone who has been blocked or banned for severely violating the rules ought to be subject to additional scrutiny, at least for a while. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

The idea that most socks are pro-Israel, which I see bandied around here quite a bit, is not exactly correct. Most socks that get reported are pro-Israel. There are several reasons for that, the two main ones are (a) that the the pro-P editors rarely (I saw the first one ever last week) report pro-P socks, and (b) that there are few experienced pro-I editors editing anymore, so the reporting doesn't get balanced out.
Another problem is that the pro-P editors have made so much noise about socks, that people get blocked as socks with very little evidence. There are now enough "types" of socks for practically every new editor to match behaviorally. There's no penalty for a false report so many new editors get reported. I think you can see where this is going. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 05:00, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Btw, can anyone show some adequate statistics confirming an allegation (given here as a fact) about pro-I socks prevalence ? --Igorp_lj (talk) 11:29, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Apparently the pro-P socks are just too hard to spot. For example, check out this "new editor" who was concerned that Jayjg (who hasn't edited in the topic area in years, literally) will block him. He interacted on his talk page and elsewhere with some of the editors who complain here about socks, but apparently raised no alarms. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I warned this guy on his talk page here and described his comments as "ranting" (in an article since deleted). I do not know whose sock it is; in case you are not aware, WP:SPI requires that you connect a sock to a sockmaster. Why don't you go find out who it is and spare us your lectures? The guy has been topic banned anyway. Kingsindian ♝♚ 07:04, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: Possible sock amnesty?

I think the locus of the sockpuppet issue actually derives from the activities of just one or two extremely persistent sockpuppeteers - who happen to be pro-Israel.

But I think one of the more disruptive aspects of the sockpuppet phenomenon is actually the knock-on whispering, suspicion, finger-pointing, and general discord it causes. The game of "Spot the Sock" played out each time a new editor edits an article is perhaps as damaging as the sockpuppetry itself; as NMMNG says, there are now so many historic socks, virtually any new user is likely to fit into one of the known "sock profiles".

In practice, I think much socking actually works like this: User gets blocked/topic banned. User waits for a bit, and then creates sock. Sock gets caught, and blocked. User gets bored and moves on.

Thus, a simple but somewhat counterintuitive solution might be to simply reduce the number of "potential socks" to only the most persistent and disruptive sockpuppeteers. Might we consider a general amnesty for historic sockpuppeteers whose sockpuppetry was merely short term and less disruptive? It could be applied for and granted in exchange for declaring outstanding socks. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 01:30, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what this is about. Who are these non-persistent and non-disruptive sockpuppeteers? I prefer dealing with concrete cases, not vague generalities, which are mostly wrong. NMMNG treats everything as a partisan matter, including sockpuppetry. I had a long discussion about sockpuppetry with him here, and he said he is not willing to report socks at WP:SPI, because he mostly doesn't care, as long as they are not disruptive. A convenient standard, since most of the socks are not disruptive to him. It is easy to whine about stuff, to investigate and report socks requires work. My own feeling is that sockpuppetry is basically unfixable. All one can do is to minimize the impact by reporting obvious socks. I often leave sockpuppet edits alone because they are benign. I don't see what amnesty is going to accomplish here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 01:53, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense. I'm aware of at least 3 pro-P socks now editing in the topic area (or two, since one got topic banned a few days ago at ANI regardless of being a sock, but I'm fairly certain he'll be back). So once more pretending this is a partisan issue and then making the partisanship about me is ridiculous. There are a few socks from both sides editing. If they're not disruptive it is very rare indeed for a pro-P sock to get reported. Non disruptive pro-I editors get reported regularly as socks, and in many cases get blocked despite, I suspect, not actually being socks. There's no cost for false report and no recourse for the falsely judged based on circumstantial "behavioral evidence". It's a lovely loophole well exploited.

And seriously, how much work exactly do these socks cause you? You have to deal with one once a day? Twice a week? We've already established that SPI reports are barely a monthly occurrence. So please explain to me why this requires draconian measures to fix? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 04:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

If you had bothered to read anything I have written on the page, you would know that I vehemently oppose the draconian sanctions, and have done so from the very beginning of the case. As to your random claim that there are at least 3 "pro-P socks", please put up or shut up. Nobody is preventing you from opening reports at WP:SPI. I don't see anyone here who is talking about the partisan composition of sockmasters except you. Kingsindian ♝♚ 05:23, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

You have obviously not read Pluto and Huldra's "evidence" section if you think I'm the only one talking about it. You only gave examples of pro-I socks in your evidence, too, although you didn't make the point explicitly. So to clarify, you're saying there is no problem with socks mainly from one side? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 05:58, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I gave evidence of 3 "pro-I" socks because they are the three most prolific ones in my experience. I have already discussed this elsewhere. I see only you turning this into a partisan issue. Who cares which side the socks are on, in context of this ArbCom case? There are no new measures to handle sockpuppetry proposed anyway, so this is all a waste of time. Kingsindian ♝♚ 06:50, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

In my evidence, I don't talk about socks. These pov-pushers were and are not socks. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Most "convicted" socks, actually. Most tend to disappear after being caught, as it's so difficult to maintain the pretence of non-sockdom and still achieve the aims that the sock was created for. Thereafter, though, I have seen a lot of whispering whenever a new editor enters the topic area. "This new editor X reminds me of blocked editor Y from a few years back" - e.g. the current whispering over Johnmcintyre1959. I suggested an amnesty both to rehabilitate old socks, and to eliminate that source of discord - and if we're going to have old sockpuppeteers back, we might as well know who they are.

A lot of sockpuppeteers were also good and productive editors, particularly outside of the topic area: Gilabrand, for example, added lots of decent material to Jewish and non-conflict-related Israel articles, particularly photographs.

The "disruptive socks" everyone has been talking about here are in fact just two or three ultra-persistent nutcases. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 21:00, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not against an amnesty for socks; I have supported editors who have socked, coming back in the past (e.g. Fipplet). However, I do set some conditions: one year without socking, in addition to being up-front about all socks. Huldra (talk) 22:06, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

My "whispering" was in the correct place: an WP:SPI report. I don't see how one can discuss suspicions otherwise. WP:SPI has many deficiencies. The case has been open for a long time because CU is not longer possible, since old data is deleted after a while. But this is just another way of saying that sockpuppetry is unfixable. When something is unfixable, one has to look at other means to handle it. I am not opposed in principle to amnesty for socks. I agree with Huldra's comments. Kingsindian ♝♚ 03:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Gilabrand is the example why an amnisty is not as simple as that. She was warned to stop her pov-pushing. She didn't. Several complains had to be written to make her stop. The day after she was topic-banned she came back with a sock and went on. She was found. She was warned. She went on. She was banned. She came with another sock. She is there today. If there is an aministy for her, there is not legitimate sanction to take against anybody. Pluto2012 (talk) 10:44, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, if she is there today, the measures didn't work, so amnesty does not lose anything, and will gain something. Secondly, amnesty will have conditions, like Huldra said. Thirdly, if she came back with a sock the day after she was blocked and is still here today, she probably qualifies as "disruptive and persistent". I have no idea how AnotherNewAccount made the opposite determination. Maybe they can tell us. Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Gilabrand's SPI archive says nothing about any additional socks since she was first caught - there are not even any further reports. Therefore, ArbCom would have to make the assumption that she has not engaged in any further sockpuppetry. But this paranoia and suspicion about possible socks of "banned editor X" is exactly the kind of discord my suggestion was intended to eliminate. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 02:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

As I said, I am not against amnesty, but I can't resist making a crack here. "Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not trying to get you". My not-that-long experience in this area has amply demonstrated the validity of the crack. Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

boilerplate principles

Ya'll could decide to vote on them as a slate; 8 votes --> 1 vote. (each) NE Ent 01:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@NE Ent: Or better yet, we could get out of the business of passing legalistic platitudes --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 02:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

But it's Tradition! (Honestly I usually skip that section when reading decisions.) NE Ent 02:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned on Courcelles' talkpage today, there is a rationale for including at least some of the "boilerplate" principles in decisions. For those of us who spend a significant part of our wikitime on the arbitration pages, these principles understandably strike us as rote boilerplate, and maybe even as hackneyed or clichéd. But the audience for an ArbCom decision isn't just the arbitrators and the clerks and others who like to follow the Committee's work. The audience includes the parties to the case, and others interested in the dispute, and sometimes a broader range of editors, and in a few cases even members of the general public. These readers do not know as much as we all take for granted about how Wikipedia and Wikipedia arbitration work, and for them some of the "boilerplate" principles (such as "ArbCom doesn't rule on content") are not merely an umpteenth reiteration of a platitude, but can provide useful context for the decision. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

OTOH, most of the "boilerplate" could be condensed and written in simple English - and combined into one basis short paragraph.

Wikipedia is a collaboration intended to produce an encyclopedia of use to a general readership, written by editors in a spirit of collegiality and not confrontation, based on the best available sources, with a neutral point of view and in accord with policies established by the community of editors. Collect (talk) 13:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Then:

The Arbitration Committee is established by that community with the express ability to address issues of editor behaviour, and specifically not including any ability to establish, amend or alter policies established by that community, nor to make decisions which are editorial in nature about any article decide good-faith content disputes.

Too short and clear? Collect (talk) 13:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Simplifying the wording makes sense (I think that Rich Farmbrough had posted a rewrite some time ago with some suggestions). But I'm not readily seeing why "... nor to make decisions which are editorial in nature about any article" is simpler or clearer than "does not decide good-faith content disputes." Anyway, this is probably a discussion for another page. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Using older language as you suggest - but the decisions at issue are not always specifically about "content" but I would suggest also include discussions about the proper ambit of an article as well. Do you see how this might be different at times? Collect (talk) 21:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Deciding the ambit of an article—i.e., what material should or should not be included—sounds pretty darn close to content for me. But I will leave it to whichever arbitrator decides to play with the wordings in a future case to work out the semantics. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Note an arb's comment anent this which appears to precisely validate my understanding of what they actually do now.<g> Collect (talk) 12:54, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments by user Pluto

For information: a participant to the Arbitration case was a sock and has been blocked recently. This account was a really problematic one and a typical exemple of Civil Pov Pushing from somebody who masters our principles of work. He made a fool of all of us.

I understand that the privacy policy prevents the automatic check user. The other solution is to ban any contributor with less the 500 edits's from this area. That's also a strong and difficult decision for the reasons that were given by Guerillero.

But please let's not leave the area of the I-P conflict without a solution and have in mind this principle too: Purpose of Wikipedia. The community should also respect the situation of contributors who have proven they were here in compliance this principle.

Pluto2012 (talk) 05:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This proposal can't work. If you ban any contributor with less than 500 edits in this area, no new editor will be able to make 500 edits in the area and eventually the area will have no editors.

Any editor that demonstrated being reasonable in any other area should be allowed to edit. At very least it would force sock puppets to contribute in other areas before being able to have an effect here.

In practice I think semi-protected articles are already protected enough from minor vandalism and POV pushing, while a determined POV pushers will be able to edit any article a "good" editor can anyway, so the ban must be based on behavior pattern and not some technicality. I would not object to raising the requirements for WP:AUTOCONFIRM somewhat, but they should stay sufficiently low so anyone can edit. “WarKosign” 06:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

That's generally my concern with it, although we are getting low on tools. Apart from just protecting everything in the topic area which is almost equally disruptive, we're short on options. This of course presents quite a conundrum. Limiting disruption whilst allowing everyone (or as many as possible (see scientology case) to edit as possible). NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

There are many solutions and this one works:

• any new editors should first make 500 edits on other topics ;
• contributors who are considered to be too much one-sided should be asked to add information on article with pov opposed to the one they defend per WP:Writing for the opponent.
• some contributors (elected by the community and active in the area) should be given the right to ban problematic contributors (we need this because uninvolved admins usually do not follow the discussions)

That's just a question of willing to do so. Pluto2012 (talk) 12:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This can work, but I'm afraid it would only deter good faith editors while keeping the most persistent POV-pushing socks.“WarKosign” 13:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Considered *by whom* ? You would need an AE case to determine who is "too much" one-sided, which is something you already can do. Also, a good faith editor who believes the articles are heavily biased in some direction would never agree to edit toward increasing the bias, so if someone is found guilty of WP:NOTHERE you might as well topic ban them. “WarKosign” 13:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

There are already contributors elected by the community with the right to ban, they are called Wikipedia:Administrators. An involved admin must not execute administrative functions, it's a recipe for real or apparent conflict of interests. What we need is a way to encourage non-involved admins to get more involved in user conduct here without getting involved in content. Currently there are two venues for calling attention of admins: ANI and AE. ANI admins seem to avoid the area and ignore transgressions that do not violate general WP policies (and violate only DS); AE only deals with relatively major issues. “WarKosign” 13:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Another suggested limitation on 500/30

Having read the proposed decisions, it now seems to me that 500/30 as proposed is quite draconian, although I still endorse it in this case. I hear the slippery slope arguments, and the value placed on IP contributions. However, I stand by my comments in the evidence round that disruption caused by socks and POV pushers exceeds the detriment that a 500/30 restriction would cause, in terms of editor recruitment and retention, specifically because all editors are affected, not just IPs and new accounts. But applying this to the entire subject area balances the scale of damage somewhat, and maybe it's not necessary to do so.

With everyone's comments on 500/30 in mind, I propose an amendment to the proposed General Prohibition:

2) All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page which is subject to semi-protection that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of Pending Changes, and appropriate edit filters.

My idea here is that we needn't apply the general prohibition to the entire subject area, if there are only some pages which experience disruption. And for those that do, we already have a standard to determine if a prohibition on new and unregistered accounts' edits should be enforced. This only raises the bar of "new and unregistered" to 500/30 rather than 10/4, and that would have the desired effect of deterring sockpuppet edits. The downside is I think it makes a bit more work for admins, unless this can be coded into the software somehow (semiprotection level 2?) but I think that that is acceptable. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This is preferable, with the assumption admins continue to use good judgment in setting the length of semi-protection. Of course IPs a) may not always have the same IP, so their tenure can't always be determined and b) can't edit the semi pages, but this a reasonable trade off.

The 30 days makes sense, the edit count does not. There's a chronic issue with Wikipedia in general where edit counts are used as some sort of justification of privilege. Additionally, motivated POV pushers will simply crank out 500 edits of dubious -- most likely neutral --quality which will have to be reviewed by the rest of the community. NE Ent 14:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually it is the 30 days which makes little sense. There are tons of socks in this area (see NoCal100) who make sleeper accounts which lie inactive for a long time, only to be reactivated when one is blocked or whatever. It is much easier to have 30 days in the pipeline than 500 edits, which requires at least active editing. But having both is preferable. I don't know whether this will help, honestly. It is not always easy to see whether something is disruptive or legitimate, and anyway, socks can just move on to another page, in the worst case. Kingsindian ♝♚ 15:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I think that both of your points are the reason that both restrictions are preferable. It is easy to leave a sleeper alone for 30 days and then turn it on, and it is easy to crank out 500 edits in rapid succession, but it is not so easy to do both with the same account without being detected. As for socks moving on to other pages, well then we have SPI. We really must acknowledge that we can't stop very determined sockmasters, but we can both deter new ones and limit the damage caused by the existing ones. This is a step in that direction. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd be ok with this variation. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:42, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

A variation: take the current proposed remedy #1 which is to allow established editors to go beyond the current 1RR restriction to remove problem edits from 500/30 broadly on all spaces in this area and then reserve the 500/30 restriction for specific pages as determined by an uninvolved admin/community consensus if a page should start to become a hot bed of problems and semi-prot cannot fix. I can see setting up a limited subset (say, between 10 and 20) of the currently most problematic articles (those already under semiprot) to already be under the 500/30 restriction as a test of this approach at the onset of the close of this case, but it should be reminded that this should be seen as a tool of last resort. I'll also comment that it was very easy to catch someone that got to 500/30 via a series of gnomish edits in one instance of the GG situation; you're not going to be able to prevent the most determined from waiting it out and working patiently, obviously, but you will catch the ones that think they can just game those numbers. --MASEM (t) 23:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Problematic accounts are not accounts whose purpose is to game the system. These are accounts who are good faith and come to re-establish their truth on a very precise topic. They often come to edit articles dealing with hot topics in the news. They are passionate and in a hurry. Therefore for them this "exercice" will harm their motivation.

A second point is that if some accounts make 500 gnome edits anyway it will be very easy to detect them and to argue they just tried to game the system with their 500 edits. Today they are detected by the damages and the trouble they generate and use civil pov pushing, which makes them difficult to detect on behavioural factual matters. See the last one who even participated to this Arbcom and generated much trouble in different articles... (I talk about user:Settleman even if User:AnnaLiver is of course a sock too.)

Pluto2012 (talk) 02:29, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

And another still active: [1]. Pluto2012 (talk) 03:59, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

This case's page makes it sound like the 500/30 restriction is being used to stop a number of well known socks from being able to game the system with respect to 1RR, to some degree which I can see 500/30 from being helpful in limited cases. But if the suggestion is that there are new editors, not socks, that are coming to WP with little experience and awareness of WP's policies on sourcing and neutrality, and want to try to insert a specific POV, slamming 500/30 on that is a terrible idea, even if it is a persistent problem; that's completely counter to the open wiki nature. It catches new editors that have spent time to read up on policies and want to insert appropriate material, and to apply that as broadly as sought is very harmful to the nature of the project. The only cavaet I would add is that if it was like in the GG situation where there was a known external agency or similar effort that were purposely directing new editors to get involved (whether meatpuppetry or similar), then to prevent disruption such an action might be needed. But if I understand what you are saying is that this is just new editors that are on one side or the other of the P-I situation that believe they are adding appropriate material in good faith, 500/30 is bad and lazy solution. It is better to empower established editors to be able to handle that better (allowing >1RR for questionable edits from 500/30 editors for a start). --MASEM (t) 14:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mastem,

I think you didn't read the evidence that was provided and on which these proposals are based.

Some groups organise courses in order to teach how to game wikipedia: [2]. They would be taught NPoV and how to fairly edit, that would be great. But they are taught how to defend the image of their cause! We don't talk about naive newbees who come here and must learn our principles. We talk about determined pov-pushers (but of good faith as all fanatics) who come here and game the system.

Anyway, I agree with your proposal. I made exactly the same: "allowing >1RR for questionable edits from 500/30 editors". That's much better and avoid because of some the injustice of applying to everybody an unfair principle.

Pluto2012 (talk) 16:30, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I recognize that external pushing like you describe is probably happening, I see the evidence provided that links to that, and this is the same issue that was at the GG situation when 300/50 was added. However the present proposed case decisions do not make any reference to that. The decision's FOF lists socks, and the 1RR gaming but nothing about external influences. Having affirmed evidence that this is happening would support a limited use of 500/30 to prevent that outright disruption that WP is otherwise powerless to stop, though it's not the only thing that would necessary make it acceptable. But whether this is an oversight in the present decision, or something that ArbCom believes is not usable evidence, we have nothing in the present decisions that assert this to be part of the case, so having the proposed 500/30 across all P-I articles just to fend off socks would not be acceptable to the nature of the open wiki. --MASEM (t) 16:39, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

5 year old articles about someone planning to start a group to edit Wikipedia is not evidence of such a group existing. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:43, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Whilst there are undoubtedly some problems with socks, this suggestion (which now looks likely to be the only one implemented) ignores the fact that the biggest problem in the topic area is actually the current crop of editors. We need to be recruiting new editors to the topic area and getting rid of the existing ones, not the other way around... Number 57 18:44, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Getting rid of current problematic accounts may be a part of the solution and it is a problem to address too. But in that direction; I think that an even better would be to ban all Israeli and Palestinian editors from these articles. When they focus on this area they import their conflict here, no more, no less.

For what concerns the importance to see new accounts coming or better experienced accounts coming back, the first step is to (re)create a good climate in this topic area and that requires to solve the problem of the toxicity due to the the groups of pressure, the socks and the crusaders. That was discussed during the workshop. Pluto2012 (talk) 02:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Who's this "they" you are talking about? Do you think telling Jewish editors they're responsible for the rise of Antisemitism is not toxic enough? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:25, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about getting rid of the existing ones, but I agree with recruiting new ones. I myself start very few articles, but prefer working on existing ones. Casual and new editors often start articles (many of which have POV problems etc.), but the topic itself often deserves an article, in some form or other. Even POV pushing new editors' high energy and enthusiasm often results in articles getting improved. WP:BOLD is policy for a reason. Kingsindian ♝♚ 19:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• Nit pick: WP:BOLD isn't policy, it's guideline :) More appropriately, good faith and otherwise unsanctioned contributing editors under the 500/30 bar ARE empowered by policy to completely ignore the sanction ArbCom is wrongfully attempting to apply here. ArbCom can't void that policy. ArbCom's putting themselves in a very difficult corner here. The only way they can say an editor can not use IAR is by writing a modification to that policy or another policy entirely. As is, ArbCom can only interpret existing policy, and ArbCom has zero authority to sanction good faith editors who have done absolutely nothing wrong. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:35, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• Every time (semi)protection is applied anywhere at all, the possibility exists that it will affect good-faith editors not intent on doing something wrong. That's hardly something new. The question is, then, whether in that particular case the value of those potential contributions is less than the disruption prevented. I've thought very carefully about that in this instance, and have thought and thought and thought about less restrictive ways to keep this topic area from becoming an endless whack-a-mole of sock/meatpuppets. Do you have a better idea? Because "do nothing" is not a good option here, and "leave it to AE" isn't a good option here, those haven't worked. And not for lack of trying. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:26, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

That was probably directed at Hammersoft, but if I can reply, what is wrong with "do nothing"? Where is the evidence of disruption on the scale of requiring drastic action? On what basis did anyone conclude that WP:AE hasn't worked? Sockpuppetry is impossible to handle in Wikipedia. If one wants to do "something", anything, what is wrong with the tweak to WP:1RR instead of the sledgehammer remedy? If one is worried about gaming about the broader WP:1RR remedy, just pass the remedy with WP:1RR tweaked so that people can revert edits by editors who have less than 30/500 like people can reverts IPs now. Kingsindian ♝♚ 14:01, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Pending Changes. NE Ent 22:05, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

1RR wording

I think the 1RR wording ("An editor may not insert the same new material twice, or delete the same material twice, in any 24-hour period.") needs clarification. Does it only apply to single editors (i.e. allowing a different editor to come along and insert/remove again) or is it a wider restriction on the same material being added/deleted twice in a day by all editors.

I would strongly suggest a form wording that explicitly proscribes the latter, as (as pointed out by several editors in the evidence phase) 1RR is regularly gamed by tag teaming - if one side happens to have more active editors on that day, they are able to tag team to remove or add text. If it is interpreted as the former, it simply gives even more weight to tag teaming. Number 57 17:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

How about "An editor may not re-apply an edit that was already applied and reverted, in any 24-hour period" ?“WarKosign” 19:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Sounds clear enough to me. Number 57 19:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not ready to do this. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Guerillero: Why not? Number 57 21:59, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd also like to understand why not. This can still be gamed by tag teaming. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Single purpose accounts and Tendentious editing

I know these are all-but boilerplates but has any "single purpose account" ever been sanctioned for failing to edit "neutrally instead of following their own agenda"? It seems that almost all SPAs edit with an agenda in this topic area.

Similarly, has any editor even been banned for "aggressive point-of-view editing"? What about "civil point-of-view editing"? It seems to me that provided such an editor remains civil they can be as POV as they like. The possibility of being identified as a partisan SPA or a tendentious editor doesn't seem to be a huge concern to those that are indeed partisan or tendentious. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

To your first question: there are tens of SPAs which have been banned at WP:AE and elsewhere. Here is one example. The latter question is harder to answer, because by its very nature, civil POV pushing is hard to spot. Also, many of the "civil POV pushers" are actually returning socks, which get caught using SPI. See AndresHerutJaim who is always very civil in pushing his agenda: for example, see his sock LoveFerguson here. His comments on the talk page are nothing but sweetness and light. He was eventually taken out using WP:SPI. Kingsindian ♝♚ 04:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

AndresHerutJaim has had a grand total of 6 sockpuppet investigations in the past two years.[3], not all of which even resulted in any action. How is this such a huge problem that it needs draconian measures to fix? By the way, two of those six reports were submitted by Qualitatis, a pretty obvious sock himself whom nobody bothered to report, I wonder why. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 00:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Editing as you have for years, it is impossible for me to believe that you don't know how AndresHerutJaim operates, so your comment here is obviously in bad faith. He has a hundred throwaway IP socks going on at any time, mostly Argentina based. Nobody bothers to report most of them, as I've told you before. Here is one of them, and there are literally hundreds of them over the years. Please stop being obtuse and silly. And if you have evidence that Qualitatis is a sock, please provide evidence to WP:SPI. Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I know, anyone remotely pro-I from Argentina is automatically AHJ and anyone from California is NoCal. I forget where the others are from but I assume we're slowly covering the whole globe. Therefor we must block IP editors because dealing with this once or twice a week is a huge burden the few editors left in the topic area can't deal with. I get it, really. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:35, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments by ZScarpia

Some comments:

• One of the main uses of sockpuppet accounts is to shift consensus. Consensus isn't supposed to be formed by taking a vote, but, in reality (because there is usually no independent judge of which arguments carry the most weight or validity present), that is what normally happens. Participation by sockpuppet accounts stacks the 'vote', shifting the apparent consensus. Consensus-forming is perfomed on talkpages. The proposed decision focuses on the editing of articles and therefore doesn't really address perhaps the most abusive use sockpuppet accounts are put towards.
• The proposed modified 1RR rule states: "An editor may not insert the same new material twice, or delete the same material twice, in any 24-hour period." The wording perhaps provides opportunities to game the rule through arguments about what constitutes: 'insertions' of material (what types of modification to the existing text does that include); the 'same' material (if the inserted new material is not exactly the same, does it count).

    ←   ZScarpia   14:49, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

@ZScarpia: Thank you for your comments. Right now people lawyer over "what is a revert." I'm not sure there is a way to win when crafting these 1RR remedies. However, this new version removes some of the "first mover advantage" that the old 1RR had. It is really a mixed bag in the end. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Terming it as "any change" both unifies the cases for insertion and deletion and reduces the "but I only changed, it wasn't a deletion" argument. A judgement call, sometimes by an admin would still be needed but it seems unavoidable when dealing with people. I think a more important aspect of this proposal is to reduce multi-party edit warring. “WarKosign” 15:50, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Further comment:

• It is proposed that the general prohibition should apply in "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." No area of application is given for the revised 1RR rule, but presumably it is intended that that will be similar. Many articles where the subject doesn't relate directly to the Arab-Israeli conflict have sections which do. Should the remedies apply to parts of articles as well as whole pages?

    ←   ZScarpia   17:46, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

AnotherNewAccount's thoughts

I think this remedy misses the mark somewhat. I'll explain thusly.

The 500/30 requirement misses the mark for the following reasons:

1. It violates the principle of "Anyone can edit". This "cost" might have been acceptable in the long-term non-notable Gamergate controversy, which was a pathetic storm-in-a-teacup that nobody will care about even five years into the future. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a major international issue which could affect history five hundred years into the future! It is a different dispute altogether!
2. In practice, it will have the effect of shutting everyone except the existing editors out of the topic area. For reasons given by me and user Number 57, the current editors are every bit as responsible for the pugnacious atmosphere in the topic areas as the sockpuppets, but nobody was allowed to be specific due to AGF requirements and limits to the remit of the case.
3. The knock on effect of this would be to foster introversion and groupthink among the existing hardcore editors. As it is dissenters are essentially deemed troublemakers and/or potential socks.
4. The only new editors that will be minded to grind themselves to 500/30 specifically to edit will be either determined socks, or those new editors whose personal opinions are unlikely to be conductive to harmonious conduct in the topic area anyway.
5. It will not achieve the stated aim of stopping determined socks. For such an editor it is very easy to WikiGnome oneself 500 edits. On the other hand, it's taken me - on and off - over two years to reach that number!

The wider remedy fails to take into account the following problems:

• The fact that there are remains effectively two factions fighting for control of the topic area. This has fostered an all-encompassing battleground mentality amongst the current editors. Number 57 believes in his Evidence that one faction now has a numerical advantage over the other. Be that as it may, those editors working towards neutral encyclopedia are very much in the minority - or have been squeezed off altogether. Common sense says that this is likely to have had a negative effect on the content.
• The fact that many of the consensus-building processes have all but broken down.

• Various parts of the uninvolved community are not minded to help build consensus due to the hostile nature of the topic area. Those at WP:RSN, for example, won't touch the issue. As explained succinctly here: [4]
• The 1RR-plus-tag-teaming issue has no doubt forced a lot of good editors off the topic area, either through reports at WP:AE for violating 1RR (being tag-teamed was no defence) or just giving up in frustration. This damage is likely permanent.
• The 1RR-plus-tag-teaming reduced the imperative for editors on the side with a numerical advantage to find consensus in the first place. This has undoubtedly affected the content.

• That the nature of the editing culture endemically favours the most active and persistant editors and actively discourages input from new and casual editors. See for example this belittling description of an edit from a casual editor (Multimotyl) from an regular and experienced editor who ought to know better.

Would it be possible to create some form of working group to examine the issues in this specific topic area in more detail? A broad one was formed in 2008, which made some useful recommendations that are now policy. There are some aspects of the topic area that I think ought to be looked at, that simply fall outside of ArbCom's remit. I'll elaborate more if there is a positive response. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I do feel a need for comment here, speaking as someone who edits on Jewish topics but generally stays out of the Israel-Palestine Thunderdrome because it's simply not worth the effort. The belittling comment you cite is just horrific -- all the more so coming from someone whose *entire* user page is nothing thousands upon thousands of words laying out his partisan stance in starkest black-hat-white-hat terms. A Wikipedia that insists we must still somehow pretend that the editor was acting in good faith making that comment might as well insist that we believe in unicorns. But there is nothing in the new proposal that would address that editor, or those like that editor, in anyway, and that is why the proposal cannot succeed. AnnaLiver (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

What can I say? I´m just so impressed with editors like AnnaLiver, who, with the grand total of 37 edits find their way to the arb.com talk-page. Yeah, right. Together with the very aptly editor named "AnotherNewAccount". Huldra (talk) 23:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I am too new to deserve an opinion, apparently. This is the problem in a nutshell, isn't it? Does any one believe Huldra would have made the same snide comment had I praised, rather than attacked, her fellow partisan? But as long as Israel/Palestine remains fundamentally a unicorn-based transaction here, in the hands of dualing sectarians of *both* sides we must pretend are no such things, I want no part of it. AnnaLiver (talk) 11:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

As it happens, it's most likely that AnnaLiver found his/her way here after reading my rant on Talk:Zyklon B from a while back. He/she probably clicked through to review my contributions - as you do - and saw this thread. It's not difficult and certainly not beyond a "newbie" editor with "only" 37 contributions. Anyway, thankyou, Huldra, for demonstrating so pertinently how new and casual editors are treated by the veteran editors here. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 21:00, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, it's quite obvious that some of the suggestions here are meant to keep new and casual editors out of a topic area controlled by a small group of active and persistent editors. The only thing that doesn't play into the numbers game is a restriction on re-adding or re-removing material that has already changed in a certain amount of time, although even that is easily gameable and will probably just result in very protracted edit wars. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't have commented here at all if it weren't for the fact that I had *less than a dozen edits* when *the very same editor* AnotherNewAccount mentioned above, the one whose entire user page is nothing but a long anti-Israel billboard and who quite obviously failed to assume good faith in the comment AnotherNewAccount pointed to, slapped me down with a similarly snotty edit summary. That editor would be permitted to continue to edit in the area under the current proposal; I would not. That strikes me as a very, very broken approach to fixing a very, very broken area of Wikipedia. AnnaLiver (talk) 22:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments by non-involved User Blueboar

I have been thinking about this proposal in the context of WP:PROTECT.
Our admins already have the ability to limit who can edit seriously problematic pages. For pages with on-going edit wars, we have Full Protection - where only admins can edit)... for pages with more long-term problems we have ever-increasing levels of Semi-Protection (ending with "indefinite" semi-protection) - where only logged in editors with a 4 day/10 edit threshold can edit).
So... conceptually, this proposal would simply add a new level of page protection to WP:PROTECT. I see it as a step up from indefinite semi-protection... it is the same concept, but with a higher edit threshold to reach before one can edit the protected page. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• Yep, there are certainly parallels between this and protection. ArbCom is denying this is making policy, yet we have protection policy, which this new "remedy" is a form of. With protection, we have a policy, we have an area to request and discuss protection, an area to discuss removing protection, an international tool tip to note an article is protected, a bot to help manage protection markings, and only administrators can apply protection. Here, we have a policy by fiat with none of that. Moving forward, any editor will be able to revert any editor not meeting the 500/30 bar based on this "remedy". There's no place to discuss, no place to remove other than appeal to ArbCom, and its permanent unless it is removed by ArbCom. ArbCom's banning an entire class of editors from contributing to a wide swath of articles. To get an idea how wide this swath is, see Category:Arab-Israeli_conflict_navigational_boxes; every article linked on every one of those 35 templates could potentially be reasonably construed as part of the ban. All articles in Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups are subject to it. Potentially hundreds, maybe even thousands of articles are affected. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

So you are not objecting to the idea being proposed... just the venue of the proposal? That is easily resolved ... simply propose a change to WP:PROTECT, adding this new layer of page-protection.

(OK... we need a name for this new layer, so for the sake of discussion, I will call it "extraordinary semi-protection")... Given that this is hardly the only topic area that might benefit from such protection, I think the proposal would be likely to gain consensus at WP:PROTECT (I would certainly support it). And... Once "extraordinary semi-protection" is incorporated into WP:PROTECT, it would allow ArbCom members (many of whom are admins) to then apply it to the problematic articles relating to Palestine-Israel conflicts - without having to "create policy by fiat". Same end result... just a slightly different procedure. Plus, future arbcom cases relating to other perennially contentious topic areas would have a policy based remedy to fall back on... win-win. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• My objections here to this new policy have been focused on ArbCom. ArbCom does not have the power to create policy, and their actions are substantially outside of their remit. Banning good faith editors, with no record of malfeasance, was never intended to be within the purview of ArbCom. I've occasionally alluded to the reality that even if the community were to place such a policy, it is quite possible it would be overturned by the WMF. Beyond that, please do not mistake absence of commentary from me regarding the community's ability to embark on such a policy as support for the community doing so. Such discussion simply isn't appropriate here. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• The WMF has said that they won't object to it. Doug Weller (talk) 15:17, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• Can you point to that please? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:29, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• Point to what? You can't seriously be suggesting that I'm not telling the truth about this. We discussed this via our 4 weekly telephone conference last night. I've also had an email but I can't share that as there were other matters discussed in the email. Doug Weller (talk) 18:47, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• You can't seriously be suggesting I'm saying you're lying either. Come on. If there is a place available online where this is discussed somewhere, I'd like to see it. That's all I'm saying. I found it hard to untangle this to determine where the WMF actually shot down ACTRIAL. Further, while I find it hard to believe the WMF would willingly consent to thousands of articles being cut off from newer editors via one fell swoop decision, that doesn't mean I'm saying you're lying. Rather, there might be other ways to read what they said. Perhaps the WMF was saying 'yes' to one or two articles instead of thousands upon thousands. I'd rather have it from the source, if possible. Given that you can't reveal your source, it is likely that clarification will be needed from the WMF that cutting off thousands of articles is acceptable to them. Given this, that's rather unfathomable in my opinion. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
• It hasn't been discussed online. To clarify, when I asked about this issue, I specifically pointed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Proposed_decision#General_Prohibition and to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Proposed_decision#General_Prohibition_--.3E_The_end_of_.E2.80.9CAn_Encyclopaedia_that_anyone_can_edit.E2.80.9D.3F noting that "it's been suggested that 1) we are policy making and 2) the WMF might overturn it if it passes." I wanted to make sure that my request had a proper context, which I think I did. Doug Weller (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

It's clear to everyone that Hammersoft opposes this, and that he/she feels that this would be very destructive of the project. We don't all agree. Many of us think that this area is de facto closed to many people already, and that this change is designed to favor experienced editors who are WP:HERE over new editors who have not yet proved that they are here. As I said in my evidence, I am cautiously hopeful that if this area is limited to experienced editors, goodwill will prevail. As much as anything else, though, I want to see what it looks like when the pressure of all the WP:NOTHERE editors is removed. If it stays just as ugly, this is a failure. But I hope it will not.

I'm one of the people who proposed this remedy. I've written that I'm comfortable with some of the variants proposed (such as limiting it to semi-protected pages). But I think we need to do something to relieve the pressure put on the area by editors who are NOT HERE. And that's what this is supposed to accomplish. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:06, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

• ...at the severe expense of limiting thousands of articles to only experienced editors. I've demonstrated previously, and can readily expand on, that newer editors have something to contribute to this area. It's all well and good for someone to say "let's check back in a year", but a year from now with the restriction in place the newer editors who can contribute will have had no voice in the matter. It will _look_ like a good thing has been accomplished, when in reality you've damaged the project to 'save' it. As I have stated, it is impossible for ArbCom to stop newer editors from editing these areas in compliance with policy anyway. ArbCom has no authority to stop an editor who is not sanctioned from contributing positively to the project. Even the very appeals section of this PD fails to address this; only those who are sanctioned can appeal. Yet, ArbCom isn't sanctioning anyone with this "remedy". Therefore, it's policy. Worse, it fails to even address the underlying problem. The socks supposedly used as evidence to support this flawed notion would not have been affected by this prohibition. It's like saying "Hey we need to stop robbers!" and responding with "Oh, ok, well let's ban pretzels!". The prohibition will not work. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Our policies rely on the 5 pillars. And they say that wikipeida is a project of Encyclopaedia, that has to be written in compliance with neutrality and verifiability and in a sane and collaborating climate. It is not said that absolutely everyone can come and edit this. Jimbo (and others) already stated this and underlined the nuance. Editing is not a right that can be taken by any but it privilege that must be given to all. It is an important nuance. The right we have to offer is not the right to come (and shout and complain and fight) but the right given to everybody to come (and collaborate to the development of an encyclopaedia in compliance with all our working principles).

It is not a "severe expense" or a "prohibition" to ask that contributors who are interested by a difficult topic in which the climate is toxic that they get 500 edits in other areas first.

Today there is just no more contributor at all to this area. It has become a WP:BATTLEGROUND.

Pluto2012 (talk) 02:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

• From StevenJ81's statement above "...that this change is designed to favor experienced editors who are WP:HERE over new editors who have not yet proved that they are here." Not only does that go against the open-wiki nature that WP is set to have, but it also goes against the core behavioral principle of WP:AGF. It is very difficult, unless there is evidence, to distinguish between a first-time editor that honestly believes they are adding appropriate material but do not understand the nuances of our policies particularly on POV issues (we want to keep these people), drive-by first-time editors that simply want to aggressively push a POV and don't care about being WP:HERE (we don't want to keep these), and meatpuppets and other editors engaged off-site to impact articles in this spacce (which again, we don't want). Unless you have clear evidence to distinguish an editor as belonging to one of the last two groups, overzealous protection would basically categorize the first group - those we want to encourage to learn and contribute - as personas non grata. There are half-steps we can take that better empower the established editors to deal with those new editors coming from the last two groups, and we should consider 500/30 as the last option on specific articles if those half-steps do not help with well-verified offsite campaigns. But to impose it broadly on the idea we simply don't want to deal with new unproven editors is really pushing the principles of en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 16:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

WMF statement

For clarity, I requested a statement from WMF and received the following reply. [5] NE Ent 14:30, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I sought feedback from the legal team and from the director of community engagement on request of ArbCom on the proposal, and there is no objection to the proposal to limit editing in this way as a step in limited circumstances to protect article content from excessive sock puppetry, disruption and vandalism. If it were proposed as a site-wide or even broadly-used measure, that would probably require considerably more exploration. Please note that the WMF is not weighing in on whether this is or is not a good method or the best method, but whether this is a case where the WMF would object to community autonomy. It isn't. While we may not be able to assist with tool creation if requested for such a measure, the decision to tighten restrictions on a specific subject area in response to demonstrated disruption is a community governance matter best left to EnWP to determine. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I asked for a clarification of what "broadly-used" meant within this context and received the following reply. [6] --Hammersoft (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry for the lack of clarity there. I think we'd all agree that ideally we would restrict access to articles only when essential and only for as long as we must. The WMF wouldn't want a measure like this to be used as a blanket tool to restrict access to Wikipedia from specific user types, but we all understand that measures may need be adopted by communities to prevent disruption to a specific, defined topic area. This should not be a first resort for dealing with disruption, and if it became a go-to solution for every issue we would really need to talk about it to make sure we're balancing the need to keep our projects open (as one of our core values) and the need to keep content reliable and neutral. With respect to the current case, it would be a shame to shut down more articles than necessary, but the WMF has to trust that the community will prudently assess what articles need to be limited to protect the project from disruption. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Ban prudently assessed?

Noting the clarification above from MDennis and the swath of articles noted here, further up on this page, I find it difficult (if not impossible) to conclude that the general prohibition has been prudently assessed regarding what articles it is intended to cover. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion by Newyorkbrad

This is just a thinking-out-loud suggestion. It might not work at all. But for what it is worth....

I don't know whether the proposal to impose a "minimum number of edits and minimum duration of editing" type of restriction in this topic-area is a good one or not, as I haven't read through the whole case and I don't plan to start now. But I can certainly understand why it might be considered.

If this is going to be done, however, some of the points above about how broadly the requirement might be interpreted to apply, seem to be well-taken. I also anticipate there would be an enormous, destructive and distracting amount of bickering about which articles are covered or not. This could not be avoided simply by skillful decision-drafting, as some of the concepts involved simply do not have sharp boundaries.

Most troubling, a broadly worded or broadly interpreted description of the topic-area covered, would exclude new editors not only from the articles on which there are problems with new users' editing, but also from articles on which there have not been such problems.

Therefore, rather than have the restriction cover "any page that could reasonably be construed as related to the Arab-Israeli conflict," perhaps the decision should (1) define a narrower group of pages that everyone would agree at the core of that topic as being covered by the restriction now, and (2) empower admins to apply the restriction to a broader set of articles to the extent warranted by actual editing problems on those articles.

I understand that this raises problems of its own, some of which aren't occurring to me as I parachute onto and then off of this page, so I present it for whatever it might be worth. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

There have been plenty of other suggestions which either reduce the scope of the proposed restriction, or do away it with altogether. I am not sure why we need to 30/500 restriction at all, if we have the resolution to tweak WP:1RR? Indeed this was commented on the main page as well, that former would make the latter redundant. I would prefer the latter, because it is narrower and much more sensible. Kingsindian ♝♚ 21:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I still suggest: reasonably construed as related to the topic of Palestine-Israel history, conflict, or respective relations with other nations, or persons related to such a topic, and use that as a place from which admin could then impose restrictions or "pending changes" would work better than the current "kitchen sink" wording. Collect (talk) 12:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

• I note with dark humor that this general prohibition is already being misread, even before it is approved. The prohibition is on all articles "that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" (emphasis mine), not just the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The I-P conflict is just one comparatively small component of the A-I conflict. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:55, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

How does one determine whether a measure "worked"?

As of now (permalink), there have been three arbs supporting the sledgehammer General Prohibition remedy. I want to ask something very basic. How do you determine whether something "works"? Obviously, if you full-protect everything, it will "work". How do you determine whether it has been "worth" it? Obviously, the remedy will have repercussions for quality and scope of articles. How do you determine quality and scope of the articles, when you explicitly don't look at content? How will you determine that disruption has been reduced, when there has been no sustained pattern of disruption, either as WP:AE, or elsewhere (see this for evidence) - except sockpuppets, which are impossible for Wikipedia to stop, by its very nature. Will the non-meltdown of a future Malik be sufficient for you to declare victory and go home? Kingsindian ♝♚ 07:59, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Saying we do not look at content is a misunderstanding. We do not rule on or make judgements about content - i.e. we do not say that X should or should not be in an article, whether Y has too much or too little weight, whether Z is a reliable source, etc (although we can take into consideration what the consensus (or lack of cosnensus) of editors is about these things). In most disputes though we do need to look at the content to understand the background. In this case the primary evidence for whether the remedy has worked will be looking at whether the amount of drama has reduced, whether people are working together on articles, whether neutral editors are able to contribute equally, whether the quality of the articles is improving (e.g. by looking at article rankings), etc - all based on the observations of those working in the topic area, the observations of other interested editors who choose to comment and of committee members. If you look at the Gamergate topic area, where the community imposed a similar remedy, the consensus of those working there is that it has resulted in a significant improvement. Thryduulf (talk) 11:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, this is precisely what I'm objecting to - there are no standards at all. The "evidence" which was used to propose the restriction (Ivanvector's), is purely subjective. It has almost no diffs. Subjective evidence can of course be useful, but there have to be some standards, otherwise how can one argue? For instance, nobody has looked at whether WP:AE reports have increased or decreased - I did, and I found no pattern at all of disruption. If I recall correctly, Gamergate was a massive mess, which took up a huge amount of space on WP:ANI and other drama boards. Has any such sort of disruption happened here? Why the sudden need for this restriction? Moreover, Ivanvector's evidence can apply with equal, if not more force to existing editors in the area. I gave evidence (with diffs, not vague subjective speculation), that many people (Number 57 is one, but many more can be found, including many admins at WP:AE) who simply think most of the current editors in the area should be banned. I don't mean to agree with them, rather I think this is the nature of this topic. Enacting random half-baked measures with no thought, nor any sense of how one would measure their effectiveness is pretty bad. Lastly, if one wants to measure article quality, let's agree on some measures, in advance. Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

If one wanted to be scientific, here's an option: A/B testing. Apply the limitations to a certain percent of articles (10%, 30%, 50%) chosen at random, and compare some objective metric between these articles and the rest. For example: number of reverts, number of ANI and AE complaints regarding edits on these articles, average number of edits, etc. Averaged between many articles differences between these metrics will indicate if the measures have the desired effect. After a pre-defined time combine these indications with subjective metrics and decide if the measures should be applied to the rest of the articles, re-tested in a modified form or abolished. “WarKosign” 17:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

WarKosign's proposal above is one of the most sensible things I've seen on this page. —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 06:52, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Two sets of articles suggestion - discussion of definitions

In my opposition to just making available the 500/30 restriction for all articles in the PI topic area, I have suggested that the "core group" of articles should be placed under this restriction directly with it available as a discretionary option for the wider group of articles in the topic. This obviously requires there to be a definition of the two sets of articles are. My first thought is:

Core group

Pages that are directly related to the Arab-Israeli conflict or to relations between Palestine and Israel.

Wider group

Any page that is related to the Arab-Israeli conflict or to relations between Palestine and Israel, broadly interpreted. This excludes any article that is in the core group.

Can these names and/or definitions be improved? Thryduulf (talk) 14:05, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• Yes. I think the core group needs to be defined, by name. A starting point would be any article for which diffs exist in the evidence page where disruption (even loosely defined) is noted. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:53, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem with making restrictions "discretionary" is that there will, in practice, be bad faith attempts to apply for restrictions to keep clearly biased articles "on-message". It will ultimately become but another tool for the existing bunch of editors to force any "problem editor" off an article - ostensibly to "defend" it from "disruption". I've put the key words in scare quotes there, because generally, much of the "disruption" I've seen from "problem editors" turns out to be nothing more then a good faith disagreement about the article's content. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 16:59, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

@Thryduulf

Here are several proposals to reduce the core :

• Articles directly related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [comment: main issues come from topics directly linked with news or highly polemical questions; the I-A conflict is in practice over and "old" but a much wider topic than the I-P conflit]
• Articles dealing with less than 6 months events related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict [I think 95 % of the toxity comes from 2 sets of articles ; those directly linked with hot topic in the news for which there is a lot of emotions and that are the target of the war of propaganda between both sides of the propaganda war]
• (other proposals coming)

@Thryduulf

• Articles dealing with people (eg. Amin al-Husseini, Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, ...), organisations (eg Irgun, Hamas, ...), political violence (broadly speaking), political entities (eg. UNO, Israel, State of Palestine, Jerusalem), religious places (eg Temple Mount, al-Aqsa Mosque, ...) or occupied territories (broadly speaking) ; all of them directly linked to the A-I conflict. [Comment: in adding the Arab world, we add all UNO resolutions that are highly polemical)

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:58, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pluto2012: I presume by "Articles dealing with less than 6 months events" you mean articles about events that happened within the last 6 months? Would you intend that as a rolling thing, so when the event is more than 6 months old the 500/30 restriction automatically no longer applies? Also, are you intending for yout "people", "organisations", etc catetogories to be core or wider? Thryduulf (talk) 11:38, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

@Thryduulf:

(English is not my mother tongue. Sorry if I was not clear).

I mean indeed events that happened within the last 6 months and I think indeed that the restriction could disappear after that amount of time (6 months). The reason why I think so is that such events usually do not interest anybody any more when they have ended. There a few exceptions (eg al-Dura affair).

"people", "organisation" etc, from my point of cover are the whole core. I mean this could cover all cases and anything else could be out of the 500/30 restriction.

Note that in my mind, the restriction should cover both areas. They do not overlap. They rather cover 2 different "wp:battleground". The News and the Polemical topics.

Pluto2012 (talk) 13:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

This reminds me of the epicycle adjustment to Ptolemy's theory of planetary motion. If the real problem is sockpuppets, no amount of tweaking around with random sledgehammer restrictions is going to make sense, no matter how many epicycles you add. Let me throw around some basic questions. How is "core" to be determined? Is it determined by the intrinsic importance of the article (if there is such a thing), or disruption? If it is the latter category, why is simply the WP:1RR exception for the 30/500 edits threshold not sufficient? Moreover, if one decides the "core" articles here, it is a static analysis. What happens when there is future disruption on a different article, based on some real-world events? Will WP:AE be empowered to put more articles into the "core" group? Or does there need to be a new ArbCom case, or clarification request or whatever? Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:11, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

The only difference between the core group and the wider group is that pages in the former are placed under the 500/30 restriction by arbcom immediately, those in the wider group are able to be placed under the same restriction by uninvolved administrators. There is no need therefore to add anything to the core group. Thryduulf (talk) 11:38, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, it seems that I was confused about this point. I would of course like the "core" group to be as small as possible, if possible a null set. But if that is not to people's liking, I would support only very narrow criteria. I would include sustained edit-warring in the past 6 months as the minimum criterion, and sockpuppet activity as the second criterion, since the measure is supposed to address this issue in particular. Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:03, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Core article determination, a comment by Squeamish Ossifrage

Yeah, so I don't edit in this area. I just peek at RFAR periodically in an effort to remain politically aware. There's some argument to be made that draconian restrictions should, if necessary, first be rolled out to "core articles" in the category. But there's no easy way to enumerate what "core articles" are. Thanks a lot, demarcation problem! However, it occurs to me that it doesn't matter which articles are "core" in the topic sense; it matters which articles have been the loci of continued dispute and disruption. Accordingly, I would propose setting a delimiter based on the number of edits in the article history, setting some arbitrary threshold determined by polling a handful of articles the committee considered relevant, and adjusting later if necessary.

Highly-edited articles in the topicspace are either central to the topic itself (and so attract a lot of attention), or are contentious enough to have their edit history inflated by edit warring. Or both. This also satisfies the concern about disruption moving to novel targets; such secondary articles will rapidly qualify themselves for the restriction if faced with vigorous conflict. It should be a relatively trivial exercise to deploy a bot that checks for inclusion in the remedy (by combining the presence of any of an enumerated set of categories with a check against the edit history count), and updates the talk page (and potentially the edit notice) accordingly, minimizing administrator workload.

Determining the ideal edit count threshold is left as an exercise to the reader. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:44, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Given the novelty of such a restriction, I'd rather have someone determine, individually, which articles should be covered by this restriction, rather than imposing it on an indefinite number of pages. The ideal solution, as far as I'm concerned, would be to let admins impose it as an AE action, but I'm also open to having ArbCom list a set of articles covered by the restriction, allowing admins to add to it. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:12, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I would be very against having a bot decide which articles need this restriction, as edit count alone is not a good indicator of what is contentious. Thryduulf (talk) 11:40, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Not helpful in any way, shape, or form --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 15:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Actually I found User:Hammersoft's comment enlightening. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC). Since the extension of the 500/30 to Gamergate did not solve all the problems there, and since we are extending 500/30 to all Israel Palestine articles, and all Caste related articles - and given that most IPs are blocked, and that we have currently about 8 levels and methods of page protection I propose: Strap line We replace the strap-line "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." with "Welcome to read Wikipedia, the (currently) free encyclopaedia that hardly anyone can edit." Since we have then disposed of outdated touchstone we can now put a new editing policy in place. Support We just recently crossed 10,000 protected articles. Yes, a small portion of our entire set, but still absurd. In my opinion, one of the reasons for the declining editor base is we treat new editors as criminals. Protection is failing to protect the project, in an abstract view. Rather, it's slowly destroying the project. I'd much rather see a system in place where if an account is warned about vandalism, then their editing is restricted in some way. As is now, we just assume they're criminals. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2015 (UTC) The 1m/10 Rule Editing the encyclopaedia shall be limited to those with over 1 million edits and over 10 years editing experience. @Koavf: All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:29, 26 October 2015 (UTC). @Rich Farmbrough: Ha. What shall we do next--maybe make a rule that you have to have founded the site as well? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:41, 27 October 2015 (UTC) I was thinking "...and have never been blocked." All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC). You know, we joke but there is a sense of loss in this. We started this project with the assumption that the good in people far outweighed the bad. Now we assume the opposite. We have lost our way. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC) I don't think our initial assumptions have changed... in most topic areas, after all, we still do assume the good outweigh the bad. However, experience has shown that there are a few, specific topic areas where this is not the case. There are a few topics that are extreme POV and Vandalism magnets... where experience has proven that the bad, unfortunately, outweigh the good. And so, we have had to modify our initial assumptions. We continue to assume that the good outweigh the bad... except in those limited situations where experience has shown otherwise. Blueboar (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2015 (UTC) There is a place for good-natured satire on Wikipedia. Anyone who does not understand the point that the above "Modest Proposal" was making is welcome to ask. Those that do understand will see that it is helpful commentary, and does not need to be hidden fro the view of the populace. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC).

FYI: 30/500 proposal on wp:fr

Hello,

I am a little bit disappointed that only 6+1 ArbCom's members gave their mind on this proposal. It is a difficult but important proposal and it deserves more consideration and debate at the ArbCom. Each member should give his mind.

We have followed your debates on wp:fr and we are going to launch a "survey" to see what is the mind of the wp:fr community regarding the 30/500 proposal :

• fr:Wikipédia:Sondage/Restrictions imposées aux nouveaux comptes en lien avec la problématique Israël-Palestine

Our problematic has its own particularities but the heart of the matter is the same. I don't have any idea of what could be the result.

Nb: I kindly ask to those who -on this page- strongly disagree with this proposal do not go and interfere there. The decision is difficult and the discussion require serenity. Thank you for your understanding.

Pluto2012 / fr:MrButler (talk) 19:04, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello,

Just for information:

The problematic is different on wp:fr than on wp:en. We are facing a more organised structure of pov-pushers. But the results of the survey (with no binding consequence) is : 78 % in favor (26) ; 18 % againt (6) ; 4 % abstention (1)

Among those in favor of the 500/30 rule more than half suggest higher restrictions (around 90 days with 500 edits in the main and nost just edits).

The process will go on and next step is called a "prise de décition (PDD)", which is a consultation of the community (should take several months) to establish a new rule.

Pluto2012 (talk) 07:06, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Alternative restriction

Clearly I am late to this discussion, but I notice the proposals which include the clause All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing pages that have been placed under this prohibition appear to have failed. That doesn't bother me, because I think the proposed restriction is too harsh. However, sock puppetry is clearly a problem in this topic area. A similar but less draconian proposal has been put forward from time to time that I would like to see get some consideration. That proposal is basically that IP edits in the topic area be revertable an unlimited number of times. Since IPs themselves would still be restricted to 1RR, this would allow established editors to deal with disruptive editing while still allowing IPs to contribute usefully. In fact, I think the principle could be extended to apply to "accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure" as well. A simple change of this type would surely make editors much more accountable, without preventing new accounts from contributing productively. Gatoclass (talk) 05:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you, User:Gatoclass for this suggestion, which I would like to second. (May I suggest that you run for arb.com? seriously?)
• Presently, I am not sure if that is what they mean when they write: "Material added or removed by anonymous IP editors or by accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure is exempt from this restriction but is subject to the usual rules on edit warring."?
• If they had passed a remedy, say, like: "IPs or accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure can be reverted an unlimited number of times, when they edit articles under WP:ARBPIA-sanctions" it would have been crystal clear. Huldra (talk) 13:21, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Well yes, there was a proposal to exempt reverts of IPs and new accounts from 1RR, but AFAICT that was part of a larger proposal which appears to have failed for different reasons. But I think it would be worth considering a reinstatement of this provision somewhere else - preferably in my view permitting unlimited reverts of such accounts. I see no good reason, in such a perennially contentious topic area, why new accounts should instantly be permitted full editing privileges alongside more established accounts. Let them demonstrate an ability to edit responsibly in the topic area before extending full privileges. Gatoclass (talk) 15:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• This is a very hollow and toothless proposal. It doesn't make editors more accountable at all, nor does it allow new accounts to contribute. It says that all IP edits can be reverted. And "IPs themselves would still be restricted to 1RR" is meaningless: disruptive editors don't care about 1RR. This opens the floodgates for endless revert wars, and ties admins' hands because it allows IPs to be reverted an unlimited number of times. This goes against anyone can edit but also doesn't address the problem here. We're dealing with a sustained, systemic sockpuppet POV campaign against this topic area which some editors have suggested is supported by a large institution, and is not going to stop if we just give everyone a friendly reminder about 1RR and make more exceptions to our revert policy. We need a harsh restriction to stabilize the editing environment here. If we can't agree on one, then we should post a large, reader-facing notice on any ARBPIA page that says that Wikipedia is systemically incapable of managing the neutrality of these topics. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It does not go against "anyone can edit", at all. It simply places greater editing restrictions on new accounts - allows them to edit with P-plates, as it were. Plenty of websites have similar restrictions for new accounts.

And I fail to see how it "ties admin's hands". Admins will be able to sanction any IPs or new accounts which breach 1RR. Gatoclass (talk) 15:44, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Gatoclass: you might have a look at what I wrote in reply to you first...but then I changed it to the above, as I was sure I had misunderstood. The above sentence ("Material added or removed by anonymous IP editors or by accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure is exempt from this restriction but is subject to the usual rules on edit warring.") is under 3.3.1, which has passed. User:Guerillero: could you (or anyone else from arb.com) please clarify? Huldra (talk) 18:38, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

that's what I was shooting for but the proposal failed --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 18:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Guerillero: now I *really* don´t understand. 3.3.1 has passed, has it not? If so, what on earth does the sentence "Material added or removed by anonymous IP editors or by accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure is exempt from this restriction but is subject to the usual rules on edit warring" actually mean?? (Ok, English is not my first language, or even second language....: so please explain this in detail.) Huldra (talk) 19:03, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It has failed because a majority of active arbs is 6 votes; the proposal has 7 opposes. In simple terms, that phrase means that reverting new accounts and IPs is not restricted to one revert per page per day but is restricted to three reverts per day. --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake...I counted as Support, what was actually Oppose!! (Pause, for kicking myself)

This is a total disaster......to sum it up:

• Firstly, under "finding of fact" you find that "The Palestine-Israel topic area has been continuously plagued by sockpuppetry. (Kingsindian's Evidence)"........and then proceeds to tell us that you can do exactly nothing about it (see above, under "Sockpuppetry?")
• Then, under "finding of fact" you find that "The one revert rule that was added via a motion on March 10 2012 has been gamed. (Huldra's Evidence)" ....then you proceed under "Proposed remedies" do exactly nothing to stop the type gaming I gave in my evidence. I will still be "sitting on pins and needles" for hours, days afterwards, being afraid that someone will report me....after reverting an IP which has threatened to rape me and kill me, countless times...
• If you had passed a remedy, say, like: "IPs or accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure can be reverted an unlimited number of times, when they edit articles under WP:ARBPIA-sanctions"......then at least I would not have to "sit on pins and needles" the next time a nasty IP comes along.
• So thanks arb.com., for absolutely nothing. Huldra (talk) 19:21, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

  Threats like that can be reverted an unlimited number of times and can be revdeleted or oversighted depending on the content of the threat. (Threats of death or harm can also be reported to the WMF's emergencywikimedia.org email address.) --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:35, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

That is not the point! ...the point was the a certain IP (Telstra, Australia) made those threats.....and also made some rather POV-edits. Of course the threats can be undone/oversighted.... but what about the POV edits? They cannot be undone presently...not without risking being reported (and blocked) for edit-warring. You have done nothing, absolutely nothing to mitigate that. (But Gatoclass´s suggestion above would have worked perfectly for such cases.) Huldra (talk) 19:47, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

In actu, I note your objection to the "General prohibition" option and am inclined to concur. However, even that "nuclear option" managed to attract more supports than opposes. Permitting unlimited reverts of IPs and new accounts would be a much less extreme option - such users could still contribute to the topic area, uncontroversial edits would stand, and even controversial edits could be restored by an established user if the latter felt the edit was legitimate. Some safeguards could be imposed - for example, a requirement to clearly explain the reason for the revert. If there are doubts about the proposal, it could be trialed for six months. I think it's important to try new approaches as the problems in topic areas of this type have proven so intractable. Gatoclass (talk) 01:23, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

As Gatoclass states, the 1RR exemption vs 500/30 suggestion failed because of a new definition of 1RR but not because of the idea in the suggestion itself. I support this too given I proposed it during the Evidence Step in the process.

By the way, I concur with Huldra. Acting the Evidence that current measures are unefficient and there are huge problems not to have any Remidy to offer at the end is terribly frustrating for contributors in that are[n]a.

More this answers to all those who consider that the 500/30 general prohibition is against our principles given the idea behing the 1RR exemption vs 500/30 means in pratice to reduce the prohibition on these articles in coming back to 3RR for contributors with more than 500/30 but keeping the situation exactly the same as today for the 500/30.

Pluto2012 (talk) 01:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

In actu : Is there any particular reason (besides it being late in the discussion) that a remedy like the one Gatoclass suggests is not voted on? Huldra (talk) 23:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Courcelles The same question goes to you: is there any particular reason why a remedy like the one Gatoclass suggests is not voted on? (Besides the obvious: you are all sick to the bone of the Israel/Palestine issue)? Huldra (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Remedy 1 last point is essentially the same as Gatoclass proposal. The problem is that the remedy combines this with another idea and thus failed to gain support. I have been screaming from the top of my lungs for a long time to simply unbundle the remedy. Kingsindian ♝♚ 04:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Thryduulf Seraphimblade NativeForeigner Roger Davies Doug Weller Congrats, with In actu and Courcelles you go down as the most useless arb.com, like ever. You are supposed to help. But you don´t. After this, I am still forced to "play nice" to those who threatened to kill or rape me, while you don`t lift a finger to help me. Have you any idea as to what I feel for you? (....all while it would have been so easy to remedy this....<facepalm>) Huldra (talk) 23:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra: With the "General Prohibition" remedy, which seems to have passed, your "old friends" will not be able to edit at all (it will be enforced with edit filters, reverts, blocks etc.) so those cases will be handled. My suggestion had simply to do with not using such a big hammer for enforcement and simply allow other people to revert. Kingsindian ♝♚ 04:31, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: you are of course right; I didn´t see that 3 arb.com members had voted these last two days...I was despairing over the thought that we were left with no extra sanctions what so ever. Though, I agree with you, IPs and new editors sometimes make useful edits, also in the I/P section, so yes; a "smaller hammer" would have sufficed. But anyway, I am greatly relieved that this remedy is passed, rather than nothing. Huldra (talk) 14:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I was getting frustrated, too, believe me. Let's settle in now and hope this helps. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Gaming the system

I do not really edit in this subject area, but noticed two things that probably should not be encouraged by admins:

1. Nominating articles for deletion because they are about "Israeli Jews" [7],[8], and
2. Using WP:Consensus to override WP:NPOV, i.e. RfC like that - see my comments: [9], [10]. My very best wishes (talk) 13:34, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

As to 1, I can only agree with you. The problem is that a group of editors -for years- have been very systematically dedicated to using Wikipedia as a WP:MEMORIAL for just about each end every terror-victim who was Jewish or Israeli. Ten times more civilian Palestinians are killed compared to civilian Israelis killed. But if you look at the number of article about such victims....the number is the opposite! Huldra (talk) 23:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

But surely the better response is not to campaign to delete one side, but to campaign to improve the other - that is, if Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a battleground.

However, that is about to become something of a irrelevancy for me, as under the upcoming sanctions I will effectively lose any ability to edit on the topic at all and have those edits fairly considered.

Where this gets to be a problem is this. Much of my editing is about antisemitism outside the rhetorical realm of Israel and Palestine, while I avoid it inside the I/P gladitorial arena. Now, all someone has to do to the article of, say, the KKK's David Duke, is put in a quote in which Duke adds a condemnation of Zionism on top of his notorious racism and antisemitism. Now, suddenly, I have lost any editorial rights on that article, because now it is suddenly an Israel-Palestine article "broadly construed." That is to say, this change is a marvelous gift to anyone who "owns" an article and wants to maintain that "ownership" by hook or by crook.

I sincerely, deeply, strongly urge the committee to include a sunset clause, because there is the possibility of serious unintended collateral damage if the sanctions don't work at planned, and are broadened in practice. AnnaLiver (talk) 12:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

This case is already closed, so don't waste your breath in commenting here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if I offended you. AnnaLiver (talk) 00:07, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

General Prohibition

I'd like to ask that the language here be amended to, "All editors with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are..." if it's not to late. We are all editors whether we are ip's or registered accounts. The language just seems a bit cumbersome to me.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 23:13, 20 November 2015 (UTC)