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Rusf10
Rusf10 is warned against using purely personal opinion in place of policy-based argument when assessing the quality of sources. They are also warned against engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior and assuming bad faith in other editors. ~Awilley (talk) 03:41, 4 July 2018 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Request concerning Rusf10
1.June 26 Asserts, without evidence, that a living person (David Cutler) " hates Donald Trump". Also asserts that the subject (Cutler) is "fringe theorist" because "he's a professor, he's liberal, he's worked in Democratic administration". Apparently being a liberal academic automatically makes you "fringe".
2.June 25 "Drmies, is under the false impression that everything published in an academic journal must be true which is really no more intelligent than saying "I read it on the internet, it must be true"" - appears to say that stuff published in academic journal is no better than "stuff found on the internet". Again, a pretty fundamental opposition to our policy on reliable sources. 3.June 26 " You don't have any intent to follow WP:NPOV, since its clear that you here to push a certain viewpoint, so don't lecture me on policies." - Attacks other editors and ascribes motivations to them rather than discussing content. 4.June 26 Doubles down on the "hates Trump" BLP violating claim because... he looked at the guys twitter which apparently has some criticism of Trump's policies. It should be obvious that being critical of some Trump policy is not the same thing as "hating" Trump. More minor (at least IMO) but still problematic
N/A Note: @Fish and karate: despite what User:Lionelt insinuates, I don't have a topic ban on Donald Trump. User:JFG is also incorrect that I am "restricted" from that article. The only thing here is that I told NeilN, after he asked, that I'd leave the article alone for a few days. Also I have not cast WP:ASPERSIONS against anyone. I presented diffs in an appropriate forum. If you don't find these convincing, that's fine. But it's not aspersions, it's dispute resolution. You should also look at the diffs provided by User:MrX below. Note: In this diff I am pointing out that just because there is the "standard disclaimer" on the piece ("does not represent the views of blah blah blah"), that does not make it an opinion piece. Lots of peer reviewed publications have these, it's just legal ass covering. And while Newsweek may call it "an opinion piece" I was objecting and still object to the proposition that this academic source is in any way comparable to "opinion pieces" published as editorials in newspapers and magazines.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
For BLP For post 1932 American politics
Here is the broader discussion. Rusf10 appears to have a... strange, idea of how academia and academic publishing works. He also appears to be reflexively distrustful of academic and scholarly sources. Several users, including User:Drmies and User:Neutrality have tried reasoning with him and explaining to him how it works, but it fells on a bit of deaf ears.
Discussion concerning Rusf10Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Statement by Rusf10This is a waste of everyone's time and should boomerang on Volunteer Marek just for bringing this here. Is he really trying to take me to AE because I said a professor "hates Trump"? Regardless of whether or not he truly hates him, its 100% he doesn't like him, so this request is really petty. What Volunteer Marek doesn't want you know is that I'm criticizing an opinion piece being used as a reliable source. I never said everything published in an academic journal is not reliable, but an opinion piece that has not been peer-reviewed with a disclaimer is probably not reliable. Any claim that 80,000 people are going to die should obviously be viewed with skepticism. And this edit came right after VM said "And again, your comment basically indicates that you have no intent of following Misplaced Pages's policy on reliable sources (you dismiss academic and scholarly sources out of hand)." , so how is what I said any worse? The reset of the diffs VM provided are even more petty, so I'm not even going to respond to them. One thing is clear, VM doesn't like his views challenged.--Rusf10 (talk) 08:46, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: In that diff, I was trying to make the point that an opinion piece published anywhere (including a medical journal) is still an opinion piece. Perhaps I could have said it differently, but this came after Drmies attacked me. Here is his comment which I was referring to . Being that he is an admin, I took that to be a threat. And now he has come here and piled on even more personal attacks. Look at the diffs I posted, Drmies behavior is clearly unacceptable for an admin.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:22, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
@Drmies: Consider striking your response. First as reported by Bloomberg (last I checked, that's still a reliable source) "The essay, which was not a formal peer-reviewed study" . Now either you're wrong or Bloomberg is wrong, which is it? It seems to me that you are the one who chooses to ignore reliable sources if they don't fit your POV.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
@Fish and karate, NeilN, Masem, Vanamonde93, MastCell, GoldenRing, Awilley, TonyBallioni, Bishonen, and Black Kite: I'm sorry to ping everyone again, but I really want to know how any of you in good consensus are about to let USER:Drmies off scot-free when he continues to personally attack me. Statement by LioneltCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't Volunteer Marek banned from the Trump article? – Lionel 08:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC) Statement by JFGContent dispute, RfC in progress, nothing to see here. — JFG 09:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC) @Lionelt: VM is only restricted from editing the Donald Trump article. This thread is about Presidency of Donald Trump. — JFG 09:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC) To admins reviewing the case: it seemed to me that AE's goal is to discuss editor conduct, not litigate content disputes. But since the discussion has evolved into an analysis of the disputed source's validity, let's take a look. Most of the comments supporting the use of this source as a credible study lean on appeal to authority: "the authors are recognized experts", "Harvard is a serious university", "JAMA is a reputable journal". Yes, yes, and yes, that is not the issue. The fundamental problem that is still being debated at the ongoing RfC and at RS/N, is that some editors are conflating JAMA as a peer-reviewed journal and the JAMA Forum, which by their own disclaimer, is only a repository for opinion pieces. Special congrats to the reporting editor here, Volunteer Marek, who first seemed blind to what JAMA stated, then waved it away saying "it's just standard legal-ass-covering and nothing more", and finally came here while the content dispute is still in full swing to get a dissenting editor sanctioned. OK, that's an opinion piece which should have some more weight than a random blog because of the reputation of the writers, however that is still not more than an opinion piece, a fact that should be taken into account according to our sourcing policies. Usage of this particular report is problematic due to the dire consequences predicted, pinned on speculation about long-term effects of the recent relaxing of various EPA regulations. On its face, the source sounds like political scaremongering, and this is probably why it has been so much disputed, both at Misplaced Pages and in secondary sources. In light of this controversy, I would find it particularly wrong-headed to heap sanctions on an editor who forcefully defends one view of this study, while excusing other editors who forcefully defend the other side. Civility is not great on either side of the debate, so that AE sanctions for this reason would also be unfair. Again, that is a content dispute, let it be resolved at the appropriate forums. — JFG 10:52, 30 June 2018 (UTC) Statement by SPECIFICOAs documented in the diffs VM provided, Rusf10 has openly explicitly and repeatedly denied core WP sourcing policies and gratuitously defamed living persons whose professional work was under discussion on the article talk page. This user has failed to respond to the pleadings of numerous editors who have explained this problem and why such behavior is unacceptable. This editor has already drained way too much time and attention, and despite all these good faith attempts to redirect Rusf10's behavior, he has chosen to continue and to escalate his rhetoric. This user has rejected core WP policies and Guidelines and should be TBANed from BLP and American Politics articles. SPECIFICO talk 12:32, 26 June 2018 (UTC) Rusf10's insipid rebuke of Drmies is all the confirmation we need to know that he is unwilling to abide by WP norms in these articles. SPECIFICO talk 18:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC) @GoldenRing: The proposed article content stated the authors' finding as such and with attribution, not in WP's voice. These are notable scholars writing in the field of their expertise. Several times on the talk page it was pointed out, this would be valid article content even if it appeared in their self-published blog. Attempts to disparage the authors as "fringe" and WP editors as dishonest POV-pushers have nothing to do with any "content dispute". BTW, I also see similar over the top interpersonal interactions in this user's history in entirely different contexts. But at any rate, with the explicit Civility Sanction on the current article, there's not much question about his violations. SPECIFICO talk 11:56, 30 June 2018 (UTC) I'm puzzled as to why the only discussion among Admins now has narrowed to the detailed wording of a prospective warning when there were many Admins considering an indefinite TBAN. Even if the latter does not happen, there's a lot of daylight between that and a -- let's face it -- meaningless "warning". There's lots of disruptive behavior that might arguably be prevented by a warning. An explicit rejection of WP sourcing and content policy cannot be changed by a warning. (cannot be changed, that is, if we assume it was a good faith statement of Rusf10's understanding and belief and not a (blockable) bad faith gaming of the discussion thread. For the avoidance of doubt, I read it as the former. SPECIFICO talk 18:08, 2 July 2018 (UTC) @Rusf10: wrote, Statement by MrXAs evidenced by Volunteer Marek, Rusf10 is exhibiting consensus-inhibiting behaviors described in WP:GAMING, WP:NPA, and WP:BLP. Specifically, personal attacks, filibustering, ad hominems about academic sources and similar disparagement of living people, assumptions of bad faith.
A few of such comments could be dismissed as roughhousing, but the intensity and frequency have become disruptive. In fairness, I will say that Rusf10 has made a number of constructive comments at other article talk pages. Also, there is no basis whatsoever for sanctioning Volunteer Marek.- MrX 🖋 15:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Statement by DrmiesI'm just baffled by some editors' opinions which betray a complete lack of knowledge of how science, publishing, and peer review works. That someone could think that an opinion piece in JAMA wouldn't be vetted is amazing to me, and that this would be equivalent to "something on the internet" is ... well. So in that sense, given that kind of lack of understanding, it may well be a good idea to ban them from sensitive areas. I just looked at all the opposes in the discussion, and one or two make the argument that it's UNDUE right now (User:Markbassett argued along those lines)--that's valid. What is different for this editor is not just the empty argument (they're not the only one) but also sort of nihilism which in the end undercuts RS, for starters. Drmies (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Statement by SMcCandlishVolunteer Marek says, 'I ... object to the proposition that this academic source is in any way comparable to "opinion pieces" published as editorials in newspapers and magazines.' I looked and it is not an academic work. It's an opinion piece by academics published in the section for those in a journal. Just go read it. It is absolutely, positively an op-ed, not a science paper. The fallacy "It's in JAMA ergo it's a high-quality piece of academic research" is the same fallacy as "It's in The New York Times so it must be high-quality, secondary journalism." Publications have more than one kind of material, and an op-ed is an op-ed, an ad is an ad, a book review is a book review, and an advice column is an advice column (hint: all primary, not secondary). That an opinion piece in JAMA was vetted is immaterial; it's still opinion. NYT op-eds are subject to editorial review, too. The problem is the nature and purpose of the work. It's the kind of thing we'd use as "According to an op-ed by , ...", iff the quotee was eminent and quoting their view was relevant and WP:DUE. Unlike some well-researched NYT op-eds I've seen, this one does not provide citations for the potentially secondary factual claims it makes, so we can't really evaluate them. It may be high-quality, but it's still primary. Both editors at the center of this are generally constructive. I'm inclined to stay out of the inter-editorial personality clash (the more recent-ish range of the WP:ARBAP2 topic area is a cesspool). I noticed at ARCA today that ArbCom is saying "Either have AE deal with this case-by-case, or open ARBAP3", and some parties lean toward the latter. I'm not sure there's much point in AE hearing mini-cases like this in the interim, but that's up to you all. This ultimately boiling down to treating an op-ed as if it were secondary science sourcing can be addressed head-on, however. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of our sourcing policies and guidelines. It's not constructive to try to bend our policies to say what they don't and fire up a huge pissing contest in the process. Just follow the damned policies. I think this may relate to a blind spot among the WP:MEDRS crowd more than to ARPAP2. It's a guideline subject to near-total control by a handful of editors and never subjected to thorough examination by the community. There's a serious conflict with policy in it which I've tried to address several times, and it directly relates to this matter: a belief that primary sources (even press releases and position statements) by respected medical publishers transmogrify somehow into "ideal" secondary sourcing. In a post today at WP:VPPOL in a thread largely about ARBAP2, I explicated this in some detail – starting at "Even MEDRS has an error in it in this regard ..."). Update: Moved to essay page: WP:FMSP#MEDRS. I think this is worth RfCing, because the problems it's causing are clearly spreading from medical articles to other topics like politics.
Statement by KingsindianThis is mostly a content dispute. I fail to see how this behaviour rises to the level of sanctions. Rusf10 responded to an RfC and argued about the inclusion (or not) of an analysis by David Cutler. I mostly see good-faith arguments on the talk page by Rusf10. There is little or no disruption. The purpose of an RfC is to invite comments by a broad cross-section of people. This will necessarily include badly argued or incorrect comments. Claiming that a person X "hates Trump" is not ideal and Rusf10 should refrain from saying that. However, it's rather a stretch to claim that this claim is a BLP violation. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:03, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Statement by MjolnirPants@GoldenRing:"Peer review", like almost every other jargon term, has two distinct meanings. The first is a formal system of review by properly credentialed experts prior to publication as an article in a scientific or scholarly journal, which usually occurs in a well-defined system, with rules and procedures. The second is that someone who knows what they're talking about read it and was okay with publishing it. This piece certainly meets the second definition, and I'll eat my shoe if anyone can prove otherwise. JAMA forums and the associated blog is not a Forbes site, where any popular enough writer can write about whatever they want. Hell, their about us page explicitly states that "we have assembled a team of leading scholars" to write the articles that appear therein, and I've yet to see an article on that site that isn't on a subject the author has immaculate credentials in. While these articles are subject to the usual disclaimers ("the opinions herein are those of the authors...," the same disclaimers that cover a huge swathe of our sources), JAMA clearly directed an effort to produce these articles. They were subject to editorial oversight. Let me reiterate that last, with some relevant details pointed out: They were subject to the editorial oversight of one of the most well-respected publishers of scientific literature in the world. To refer to that as "peer-reviewed" in an offhand way is unusual, but hardly without precedent, and not even close to unjustifiable. Hell, with the phrase "Let me just say that..." Drmies was explicitly laying that out as a heuristic; he wasn't saying "this article was peer reviewed" (which is defensibly true, as I just pointed out) but "you can think of this article as peer-reviewed, for all intents and purposes." In light of that, your comments about Drmies look like a failure to AGF at best, and a blatant personal attack at worst. I'm going to give you the same advice I frequently give to brand new editors, because it seems you need it: don't be afraid to ask for clarification if someone says something confusing or inexplicable. A strawman is a strawman, whether you built it on purpose or not. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:45, 1 July 2018 (UTC) Statement by DlthewaveWe can certainly discuss the provenance of the source, and Rusf10 makes a reasonable point regarding peer review, but this is not how we discuss sources. Statement by Seraphim SystemI don't think the JAMA article is the greatest source for the statement Statement by Beyond My KenThis concerns me:I'm old enough to have lived through several periods of strong partisan divisions in this country, and I recognize that we're living through one of them now, perhaps the deepest one in many decades, but is concerns me that a Misplaced Pages editor would believe that simply because someone worked in some capacity in a Presidential administration, that automatically makes that person a die-hard Democrat, or Republican, or a liberal, or a conservative, to the extent that it totally overwhelms the credentials that got them the position in the first place.Yes, there are political hacks in all administrations, and some have more than others, but exceedingly few people in this country ever get called upon to work for the White House, and it's disheartening to think that any Misplaced Pages editor would believe that simply because someone answered that call to duty, they automatically chucked their learning, knowledge, good sense or morality out the window and became a blind automaton enslaved by Party dicta. Possibly that does happen to some who didn;t start out that way, but it can't (and shouldn't) be assumed that it happens to everyone, or even most of them. Just as we evaluate every source for reliability, each instance should be taken on an individual basis, determined by what is known about the person and their qualifications.To reject the views of apparently well-qualified people simply because of the assumption of bad faith based on their service in a Presidential administration or the like is simply wrong and should have no part in any discussion here on Misplaced Pages, where we should be (but aren't, unfortunately) above that sort of thing.So, in my opinion, if anything needs to come from this, a warning to Rusf10 that that kind of behavior is not acceptable here is that thing. Whether their other behavior is worthy of sanctioning, I have no opinion on, not having parsed the evidence sufficiently. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC) Statement by Sir JosephI echo everything Kingsindian said. I was hesitant to post anything, but I do feel that what KI said is what I wanted to say, among other stuff. I especially echo his part about Drmies' comment regarding Trumpers and about the "garbage" opinion, Sir Joseph 20:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC) Statement by PudeoSince the conduct of Drmies is being discussed as well, I was put off by his response to another editor with "I hear this all the time from gun nuts" at AR-15 style rifle (June 3 2018) Gun control is another topic covered by sanctions. GoldenRing is right here. --Pudeo (talk) 23:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC) Statement by Geogene"Gun nut" is a frequently used colloquialism, not a pejorative. I also think that digging an entire month into Drmies' edit history, and then complaining about something they said in a completely separate DS area, is unseemly. Geogene (talk) 00:27, 4 July 2018 (UTC) Statement by (username)Result concerning Rusf10
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Icewhiz
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Icewhiz
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- MyMoloboaccount (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 22:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Icewhiz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Standard discretionary sanctions.Not complying with Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines in regards to Misplaced Pages:Do not create hoaxes, Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, and Misplaced Pages:Civility - entering information citing a source, which does not appear in the source, falsely claiming about a source.Icewhiz has engaged in falsification of sources, constant edit warring, ethnic based insults and remarks, and presenting the most tendentious and inflammatory remarks aiming at provoking other editors, as well as edits that can't be seen as anything other but attempts to stir up conflict and fights with other editors.
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 08:35, 10 June 2018Icewhiz falsified a source stating that villagers massacred by Soviet/Jewish unit were supposedly hunting down Jews.I checked the source and there is nothing about Naliboki village on page 280.There is mention about Jewish partisans raids in Naliboki Forest on page 283 and their attacks against local population and subsequent fights which authors show as example of change from victim to perpetrator role. Naliboki village and Naliboki forest are two different locations. To make it easier, I even uploaded a screenshot from the source in question showing that there is nothing about Naliboki villagers attacking Jews on page 280. After pointing this out to him, Icewhiz claimed the statement about Naliboki village inhabitants hunting down Jews is on page 283. Here is the screen of page 283-nothing about inhabitants of Naliboki village doing such a thing.This is a gross falsfication of a source and serious accussation.
- 22:09, 28 June 2018 Here user Icewhiz removed information that Poles were target of genocide by Nazi Germany under the claim "unsupported by source"I have uploaded the screenshot of the source in question and underlined that indeed does state that there was genocide.
- 22:52, 28 June 2018 , Icewhiz claimed there is no mention of genocide in the source, and that Nazis didn't genocide Polish people, just "mass extermination of leadership" and "reprisal killings" which according to Icewhiz "wasn't genocide". Again this is falsification of the source, and inflamming of the discussion.
- "He's advancing polocaust, which is quite fringey" 20:02, 9 June 2018 Ethnic based deregatory term and statement that information about Nazi Germany engaging in genocide against Polish people is "advocating fringe polocaust". This is a gross violation of civility and a very disturbing ethnic based remark.
- Obviously, it is possible to find polophilic writers in English 18:04, 9 June 2018 (UTC) Ethnic based attack to discredit sources as non-reliable.
- I have seen him described as a "polophile" 9 June 2018 Ethnic based accussation to discredit a scholar as non-reliable source.
- Our article at present is a one-sided modern Polish narrative 14 March 2018.About about massacre of Polish villagers including women and children, where Icewhiz engages in ethnic based accussation and attributing a single view of the world to a nationality.
- 10 June 2018Stating that largest Polish anti-Nazi resistance group Home Army is responsible for deaths of 100,000-200,000 Jews, using a quote by controversial author that doesn't even have anything about Home Army in it.False sourcing, and falsification.
- 04:18, 22 June 2018 Stating that Polish civilians attacked in massacres and raids by Soviet and Jewish partisans were engaging in theft of Jewish property. Icewhiz's comment seems to be nothing more than attempt to provoke other editors here.
- we wouldn't add such a section to the Nazi Party 19 June 2018,Certainly - we describe crimes by the Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht 12 June 2018.This has been repeated several times, and seems to have been aimed at provoking other editors.
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 24 June 2018
- Quick response to Eadlgyth:
You completely misunderstood my point, I completely agree with the viewpoint that Poles in general weren’t victims of Holocaust.My point was thaf Icewhiz claimed that Nazis weren’t engaing in genocide against Polish people.While Poles weren’t part of Holocaust, they certainly were victims of genocide, this is accepted by mainstream historians and in line with verdicts made in Nuremberg Trials.We have to remember that while Holocaust was the most ruthless and total genocide carried out by Nazi Germany, it wasn’t the only one.Again, this is nothing radical,just normal mainstream theory.Historians who would claim only Jewish people were victims of genocide would be very fringe, if they exist.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 17:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Icewhiz
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Icewhiz
In regards to the diffs above:
- I mis-cited the page number (280 instead of 283 - 280 being the start of the chapter and I was using the Google auto-citation). Naliboki village is in Naliboki forest. The source is clearly referring to the well known massacre in Naliboki village, as is clear from the citations (which refer to the village). After this was challenged on this basis (forest vs. village) - I dropped this edit/source.
- This - is the source. It discusses two viewpoints - the top of the page (and bottom of previous page) - presents the widely held view that Poles&SU-citizens were not victims of the Holocaust&genocide. The bottom of the page (which is in the screenshot) discusses the view that Poles were victims of the Holocaust&genocide. The highlighted portion in the screen shot is not in N&N's voice, but rather attributed to "those who would include Polish and Soviet...".
- The same source (The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust) - in presenting the majority view does not use genocide - it does however state "mass extermination" of natural leaders and reprisal killings. The minority viewpoint, presented below, does use genocide. The authors of the Columbia guide do not include Poles in the Holocaust(conclusion - here - ).
- Polocaust/Polokaust (a contraction of "Polish Holocaust") is advanced by the Polish state, see Gebert, Konstanty. "Projecting Poland and its past: Poland wants you to talk about the “Polocaust”." Index on Censorship 47.1 (2018): 35-37.Reuters: Polish minister says backs idea to create 'Polocaust' museum - it is not derogatory - it refers to treating Poles as victims of the Holocaust.
- This term has been used by RSes (see 6), and is not based on ethnicity but on a viewpoint favorable to a particular side.
- I said I saw this individual described as such in several source, and provided a single source to back this up - . There are additional sources - Atlantic, Macleans. Discussing the POV of a source, particularly one described as biased in other sources, is essential for achieving NPOV - by balancing use of sources (as opposed to using sources from only one POV).
- I provided sources. Here's another- per Foreign Policy
"Facts about the raid are heavily disputed, including whether the villagers were acting in concert with the Nazis"
.. I will note that academic RSes that have covered this have treated this incident as "word-code" in right wing media -"Nevertheless, after the intense campaign to publicise these crimes during the Jedwabne controversy, Koniuchy and Naliboki started functioning as word-codes, symbols of Jewish savagery and refusal to repent for `their' atrocities."
. Per one academic RS the investigation into this was seen a"contemptible farce"
in most of the world. To adhere to NPOV, our article should reflect coverage of this incident in top-notch sources - and not as it is portrayed in a particular type of media. - I provided a direct quotation of Gross (who in most of the world is considered one of the leading scholars (and certainly one of the most cited) in the topic area in the past 20-30 years) - that refers to Poles as a whole (of which the AK was the largest armed group) - I should have chosen a better source referring specifically to the AK - which I indeed did - in the next post and added an example.
- Again - this is "word code" incident (see 7), which is much disputed (A Soviet unit (per witness accounts possibly with some Jews in it - some former residents of the town) attacked the village (which housed a self-defense unit (which was also cover for AK) sanctioned by the Nazi authorities - a unit which resisted partisan requisition attempts), was fired upon (around 6 Soviets were killed), and after the firefight - executed mainly men and teenagers who were mainly members of the unit in the village (in all ~127-130 villagers died - mainly male teenagers and men, but also 3 women and a 10 year old child). I did not say "theft" - I said took over. As might be seen in USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, vol II pages 1185,1203-4,1229,1248 - there were Jewish residents in Naliboki prior to 1943 - if we are tying these former Jewish residents (based on some of the witness testimony), this is possibly relevant background.
- I provided a patently absurd example - which I explained (sourced) in here and here - in regards to a section with OR (the source was a list of names) that misrepresented Yad Vashem's award. I will quote Joshua D. Zimmerman -
"Understanding of the Polish Underground’s wartime record was overwhelmingly negative. Holocaust survivor testimony and scholarly studies argued that partisans of the Home Army — those clandestine forces in Nazi-occupied Poland loyal to the Polish government-in-exile — were just as dangerous to Jews as were the Nazis. And the specific cases on which these claims were made were no doubt accurate"
(and will note that Zimmerman has a more nuanced view - he differentiates between the most positive pre-June 1943 command of Rowecki, and the subsequent negative Bór-Komorowski as well as differentiating by area/individuals). This is a widely used comparison (in regards danger to Jews) made by several scholars of Holocaust studies - and should not be seen as offensive (and in fact - if an editor rejects Holocaust studies scholarship based on "offensiveness" - that is a serious issue).
Icewhiz (talk) 07:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- I would like to point out the following misrepresentations, in article main-space, by MyMoloboaccount:
- Revision as of 22:41, 19 June 2018 - highly questionable source (
"the most vocal attack ... by the conservative newspaper Rzecpospolita, which has, in turn, been accused of anti-Semitism"
) - edit misrepresents the source as"Other witness statements by Jewish members"
while the source describes a single statement by a daughter (not a witness) describing what her mother told her. - Revision as of 22:28, 19 June 2018- not in the source (which itself - is a magazine intended for youth).
- Revision as of 22:12, 19 June 2018 - source does not use "war crimes".
- Revision as of 22:04, 19 June 2018 - source described meeting between AK district command and Lenin (Komsomol) brigade from the Lipiczany forest (a different location, which incidentally also housed other Jewish units). According to the source the discussion was about Jewish partisans and partisan groups - not about the Bielski group - in the edit this statement about Jewish partisans in general was modified to Beiski -
"Polish resistance officially complained to Soviets about alleged rapes and murders,including murder of young children, committed by Bielski's partisants and asked Soviet command to stop sending them for food requisitions"
. - Revision as of 21:46, 19 June 2018 - source describes the poor combat value of the Zorin and Bielski family groups - in the edit this becomes "Jewish partisans" at large - everywhere in the Soviet sphere of influence.
- Revision as of 22:41, 19 June 2018 - highly questionable source (
- Icewhiz (talk) 07:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- In regards to VM's comments below - some were already previous raised by him at AE (here). I will address any diff there in depth if required:
- In regards to Krajewski - I said nothing of the sort (and the omissions (...) are quite relevant) - I specifically excluded him, and provided a sourced stmt on other coverage, including an outlet present in the article (Rzecpospolita).
- In regards to Norman Davies - this is a matter of public record (
six Jewish professors . . . stood up and castigated a single chapter .... The historians' religion is relevant, Davies says, because they claimed he distorted the history of Poland, was insensitive to the Jews .... Davies's suit will charge that the defendants "met secretly and conspired among themselves'
and covered in a secondary manner- see archive(book form),NYT, I removed WP:BLPPRIMARY/WP:OR from his page (sourced to a 'court transcript, that didn't support the text either) and replaced it with secondary coverage. - Ewa Kurek's coverage in English is mainly of the this sort and this.
- Marek Jan Chodakiewicz/Bogdan Musiał/Tomasz Strzembosz(deceased 2004) - all represent the same school of ethno-nationalist writing, and argue that Judeo-communism is not an anti-semitic cliche but historical reality. Musiał has been recently covered in English here, and his dewiki entry is quite telling. Chodakiewicz has been covered by - Newsweek, SPLC2009, SPLC2017, HopeNotHate.
- That being said - some of them (particularly Davies) are usable as sources - but for discussion of WP:BIASED such information is relevant. I will note that what is truly troubling is the mass promotion of some of these figures (particularly Kurek, Musiał, and Chodakiewicz) into Misplaced Pages articles, while more mainstream views are less present. If any particular point below needs addressing, please point out and I will defend my self. I will note that, barring mistakes, any assertions I've made on a BLP are backed up with strong sources (either in the same diff, or in other diffs in the same discussion).Icewhiz (talk) 05:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- In regards to VM's comments below - some were already previous raised by him at AE (here). I will address any diff there in depth if required:
Statement by Beyond My Ken
It's getting monotonous, I know, but I'm commenting to point out yet again the number of AE complaints that have been filed in the last few months over the Poland in WWII issue, indicating, yet again, that admins really need to step up their game and more aggressively police this subject area, which falls squarely under ARBEE. And, once again, I renew my suggestion that topic bans for the regular combatants on both sides of the dispute would be a good start. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Sandsten: I believe you are correct that there's nothing specifically to be done about the general problem here at AE, however, the admins who read AE and participate in its discussions can do something about it, as discretionary sanctions were created specifically to allow uninvolved individual admins greater discretion in levying sanctions such as topic bans to disruptive, tendentious or non-neutral editors in a disputatious subject area, which Poland in WWII has undoubtedly become. I urge the admins who read this, and the comments from other editors agreeing with my thoughts, to actively patrol those articles and start to hand out tickets to those causing the problems. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by SMcCandlish
Concur with BMK, and think some other editors' activities in the area need some examination. Virtually every time I run across a talk-page mention of Poland, it's about continued disputation over events leading up to, during, and shortly after WWII. It's as if the place did not exist outside this time frame. I get a lot of WP:FRS invites to RfCs, and Poland shows up strangely (too) frequently, always about the same stuff, and featuring too many of the same squabblers. I'm not an editor at these articles other than gnome stuff, and don't have an opinion on the pro/con this and that stuff (it really does look hard to research with certainty, and I don't have a background in it). So, I tried to moderate, for example, at Talk:Blue Army (Poland) from 2015–2017 (archives 4–6), and eventually just gave up. I've mostly stayed away for a year-ish, so any diffs I have are too old to be actionable. Just want to chime in that the perception of a .pl-related WP:ARBEE issue is not illusory. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Kingsindian
Most of the diffs above look like good-faith content disputes to me. I haven't edited in Poland-related matters, but I have some experience with Ukraine-related matters, where the same issue of "whether the Ukrainian famine was genocide" is debated (both by scholars and by Misplaced Pages). Calling something "genocide" is obviously a value judgement, and scholars often disagree. The case about Naliboki should be treated as a good-faith argument, imo. Thus, I feel that no sanctions are warranted here.
I would like to, however, like to say to Icewhiz that comparing the Home Army to the Nazi party is a needlessly provocative statement, and is not anywhere near the scholarly consensus. There were segments of the Home Army which killed Jews, and some which collaborated with the Nazis, but the overall stance was neither of collaboration nor exterminationist anti-Semitism. For instance, Joseph Rothschild notes: The Polish Home Army was by and large untainted with collaboration.
(Return to Diversity p. 55). One can argue about exclusion of some text, or the overall tone and emphasis in the article, without this sort of gratuitous and unfair comparison.
I do not have any opinion about the broader matter. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Malik Shabazz
I, too, support what Beyond My Ken has written. I used to edit articles related to Polish-Jewish history, but the recent invasion and disruption of those articles by ideological editors -- led by Icewhiz -- has driven me away from the subject area (except for undoing what I consider the most egregious excesses in POV-pushing}. It's time to start thinking about topic banning the whole lot of them. — MShabazz /Stalk 08:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Piotrus
I had no time to review the diffs here. My usual attitude is that bans or TBans are not a good solution, but it's not like anyone would listen to me. Recently two editors got TBanned from this, but this clearly had not helped. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as while one of those tbans seems reasonably sound (affecting an editor who has not to my knowledge contributed much content), the other targeted one of the more prolific content creators in this topic arena, author of numerous GAs and dozens of DYKs (see User_talk:Poeticbent#Unfair_topic_ban). So it's not only that (since last year or so) we have more disruptive and battleground minded editors running loose (people who were not active in this topic arena before, and it was much more stable and less prone to appearing at AE), since the last few weeks due to one of the worst AE calls in recent memory, one of the most constructive content creators is gone - so the ratio of flame/noise to good edits has IMHO significantly decreased. None of this, unfortunately, makes me think that an ArbCom will be any less random in their judgement as AE, I am just concurring that this topic arena is overdue for its 'what a random mole' game by AE's big brother. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- Clearly, this report needs a review by an admin who has time to examine more than '3 diffs'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by François Robere
Ah, the gang's all here... The analogy of AK to Nazi Germany was tasteless, but it's pretty clear Icewhiz didn't fabricate, falsify or misrepresent any of the sources; neither was he unduly inflammatory in stating there's a nationalist component to this debate, which is both common sense and something numerous authors wrote about. It's unfortunate that Molobo would choose to file an AE where there's no policy violation, and do so without challenge or warning.
Regarding BMK's suggestion: As before, I support more active involvement by admins, and oppose mass bans. Mass bans are just indiscriminate punishment, and if that's what the "community" strives for, then it has lost its right to exist. A better course of action would be if some of the +500 or so active admins we have would just grow some balls (or ova, or whatever it is that gets Wiki admins going faster than a dead yeti). Want some good places to start? I opened this DRN following community guidelines, but some users refuse to participate. If any of them reverts an edit on the relevant page, smack them with a ban. Another? Two admins refused to enact sourcing restrictions on the entire topic area; why? Honest representation of sources is such a fundamental thing in academia, I can hardly think of a scholar who wouldn't get sanctioned if they didn't do so. Why not here? You'd rather dwell on these obtuse soaps-like ANI and AE sagas against individual editors, instead of enacting major (and needed) changes to how the community behaves.
If all admins are willing to discuss are editor vs. editor conflicts, then editors will naturally focus on other editors rather than on content. If admins were willing to mediate content disputes, then editors would've naturally focused on content and argumentation rather than on other editors. Piotr laments PoeticBent's ban; PoeticBent was corrupted by the system, and by refusing to engage on a deeper level than "he stole my pencil, he took my icecream" you're encouraging the rest of the community to follow in his path. François Robere (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ealdgyth: Your involvement is appreciated, not least because we need more unbiased editors on these articles. Your source review was useful, and will be followed up. François Robere (talk) 09:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Ealdgyth
I'm entirely too involved in the subject area to act as an admin, but it's getting beyond ridiculous in the topic area. After the last round at AE, I tried to bring the discussion around to the actual article content with Talk:Koniuchy massacre#Sourcing..., where I specifically stated I didn't want to discuss who added the problem bits - that we should just concentrate on the content. Others can judge how well that went by the replies. The article was full-protected right as I was spending a couple of hours going through all the sources, so in theory, everyone should have been forced to discuss on that article's talk page - instead it appears to have just moved to other pages with the same "discuss the other editors" behavior. This attempt at discussing sources was after a long discussion on my talk page at User talk:Ealdgyth#WP:AE which rapidly degenerated. I even tried to explain how the problems were being seen by outsiders here, but it doesn't seem to have registered or been heeded. There is entirely too much discussion of other editors going on, which fuels the acrimony and thus it becomes a never-ending cycle that just changes articles but never behavior. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: - I have no ideas on how to fix the problems. Much of the problem seems to be a mindset behind much of the editing - rather than approaching the sources, reading lots of them and those thoroughly, and then trying to reflect the varying views of those sources in our articles, it appears that much of the editing is approached from a "I know this information is true so I'll add it and then I'll use google books and google scholar and plain google to find sources that back up the statement I want to add" angle. An example - MyMoloboaccount's point #2 above. It concerns this diff. IT's sourced to The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust p. 73. MM then points to a screen shot of the page from Polish Google Books, I assume (but it's in English). Well, I actually own The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust - my page 73 has nothing like what MM is showing in his screen shot. That screenshot is actually from page 49-50 in my edition and is part of a long chapter discussing various possible definitions of the Holocaust. By using just the google books link without actually reading the whole chapter and digesting it - it's easy to think that Niewyk and Nicosia support including Polish and Soviet civilian losses in the definition of the Holocaust - which is actually not the case. N&N in this chapter discuss four different possible definitions of the Holocaust - ranging from a definition of it only including Jewish victims, to a second possible definition that defines several parallel Holocausts, each with different victim groups, to a third defniition that includes Gypsies and the handicapped along with Jews in the Holocaust, to a final definition that would include all of the victims of the German racial policies. N&N give examples of scholars who use each definition and then go on to declare that they are using the third definition, but that many scholars and works use the first or the last definiton. We cannot use N&N to support the fact that Poles should be included as victims of the Holocaust because they themselves do not use that definition. Now, I have no idea who first put that citation in to the wrong page with the wrong defintion ... but I note that no one on either side who is arguing over it actually went to the source and noticed the page number problem much less appears to have actually read the entire chapter. I could probably go on at great length, but there is likely more than enough blame for bad citations to go around to all sides. My preferred solution would be for all sides to drop the battleground attitudes and quit talking about other editors and focus on fixing the many many problems in the articles. The first step is to have the citations actually reflect what they are sourcing - rather than have lots and lots of source errors. The hard part is actually doing the work - just digging into THIS one citation took me almost 20 minutes of digging and that's when I have the book actually right on the shelf next to me. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Seraphim System
Regarding this - no, it's not "Fringey", quite the opposite. The whole thing is Lebensraum. There are multiple sources that discuss Lebensraum as a genocide, including Bloxham's Oxford Handbook so calling it the "polocaust" or otherwise refusing to get the point and work with editors is part of the problem. The debate is over the term "Holocaust", presumably, but conduct on both sides is far from stellar and as long as it continues it will drown out any hope of reaching a consensus through reasonable discussion about how to best accommodate this - a solution that would probably include clearly linking to and improving other articles instead of burying and minimizing. This is where the underlying problems become more apparent. Seraphim System 13:25, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Nishidani
There are irrational components on both sides of this, of course. My impression is that Icewhiz is seen as spending a huge amount of time and effort (some of the materials he brings up are nonetheless cogent on specific points) singularly on Jews versus (other) Poles, and seems wholly insensitive to a general overview, i.e. that the Poles experienced a level of Nazi destruction unheralded in any other area occupied by Germany; that 6,000,000 died, of which, yes, 3,2 million were Jews; that Poland, compared to many other 'Slavic' countries, both resisted German claims, was invaded, fought back, was denied an administration, and Poles were subject to the death penalty if caught sleeping with Germans, that the Generalplan Ost for postwar implementation, foresaw the deportation, extermination or ethnic cleansing (Völkische Flurbereinigung) of Polish lands of 80-85% of Poles; that no SS Polish division was ever raised, unlike what happened in many other 'Slavic' countries. Polocaust/Polokaust like Pallywood is offensive contextually (one thinks of old German stereotypes of Poles as 'pissed as a fart' (polenvoll); or polnische Wirtschaft which has the same connotation as Avoda aravit(Arab labour) in modern Hebrew, etc.etc.etc. (See, to cite just one small study - the field is far more complex than what Icewhiz makes out - John Connelly, 'Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice,' Central European History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (1999), pp. 1-33. Poles are justifiably extremely sensitive about these, as are Jews. It is understandable that in ethnic conflict articles, partisans of either ethnos see only their national perspective, but WP:NPOV apart, solid history is not written by conducting endless negotiations between maximalist positions. It's written with a cold eye to the overall picture, and a sympathetic eye for all victims of a tragedy. Nishidani (talk) 17:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- This sudden interest in the area reflects a recent clash between Israel and Poland over the representation of the Holocaust.( Moran Azulay, 'Yad Vashem slams joint Polish-Israeli statement on Polish role in Holocaust,' Ynet 5 July 2018.) Icewhiz seems to mirror the Yad Vashem position that there was no significant effort by the Polish Government in Exile or the Delegatura in Poland to save Jews. Yet the document Poland and Israel underwrote, which acknowledges Polish efforts to save Jews, was apparently approved by Yad Vashem's own chief historian, Dina Porat. So admins are not going to sort this out, since the Israeli authorities themselves apparently can't agree, and the political interests at stake seem to trounce clear neutral editing. Nishidani (talk) 14:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- I've only examined one diff (because Yaniv cited it today below, I think, and got it wrong). It's diff 10 by the plaintiff.
- Icewhiz removes from Home Army the following:
Recognition:Members of the Home Army that were named Righteous Among the Nations include Jan Karski, Aleksander Kamiński, Stefan Korboński, Henryk Woliński, Jan Żabiński, Władysław Bartoszewski, Mieczysław Fogg, Henryk Iwański, Witold Bieńkowski and Jan Dobraczyński.
- The source contains these names. The material is wholly uncontroversial and innocuous.
- Icewhiz’s edit summary is that the Home Army isn’t named, hence WP:OR (looks pretextual); the Righteous aren’t recognized for their belonging to a group (irrelevant); that listing Polish Righteous in an article on the organization they belonged to is tantamount to mentioning Nazis who saved Jews.
- Ergo, Icewhiz essentially removed those names because he thinks the Home Army acted no better than the German Nazis. That is his POV.
- In his response to 10, Icewhiz cites the authority of Joshua D. Zimmerman, The (sometimes) righteous underground Politico 16 October 2015 bolding the following:
"Understanding of the Polish Underground’s wartime record was overwhelmingly negative. Holocaust survivor testimony and scholarly studies argued that partisans of the Home Army — those clandestine forces in Nazi-occupied Poland loyal to the Polish government-in-exile — were just as dangerous to Jews as were the Nazis. And the specific cases on which these claims were made were no doubt accurate"
- No. That is sheer deception. That is Zimmerman's summary of old research before his own research altered the received wisdom (which Icewhiz is defending). I.e. he is misquoting Zimmerman to support a view Zimmerman has deconstructed. Zimmerman's article continues:
New research, however, demonstrates there was another side to the story. In my book, “The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945,” I show that — alongside documented cases of crimes against the Jews — individuals and groups within the Polish Underground played more of a role in aiding Jews than was previously known. . . The Home Army was an umbrella organization numbering over 300,000 by 1944, with members drawn from all regions of pre-war Poland and from all social and political backgrounds, ranging from socialists and peasants to nationalists. Its attitude and behavior toward the Jews during World War II thus varied widely from extraordinary acts of aid to acts of murder. Yet in focusing, as we must, on the latter, we are in danger of forgetting the former: those righteous acts performed by the Polish Underground that saved numerous Jews from a hideous death.
- He didn't even trouble himself to check Zimmerman’s book (Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945, Cambridge University Press 2015) either. It documents many actions which underline the Home Army’s role in saving Jews. I.e.
- chapter conclusion here on p.237
- chapter conclusion here p.348
- while duly covering Crimes against the Jews by Home Army regional units mainly in Eastern Poland p.297
- The plaintiff is correct. That removal seems motivated by pure prevarication and dislike, based on nothing more than a superannuated view Icewhiz's own authority has dismissed as simplistic, and which he pushed out because in his view the Home Army behaved like Nazis, and people belonging to it recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous should not be named. Anyone who comes to Polish articles WW2 with the conviction that its resistance movement was, regarding Jews, no different from the Nazi military machine, shouldn't be editing anywhere near there. Nishidani (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Vanamonde93
Posting here because since the last AE I've discovered some content interactions I had with IceWhiz, that were minor enough that I didn't remember them earlier. I flagged the first diff presented by MLoboaccount in the previous AE discussion. However, Icewhiz acknowledged the error in page numbering soon enough, and I see no reason to believe it was more than an honest mistake. The rest of this is mostly hot air: unless there's specific history I'm unaware of, I don't see that calling someone a "polophile" is a dreadful insult, though it's not ideal behavior. Similarly, I'm not seeing clear-cut evidence of source misrepresentation (and yes, I did read the screenshots that have been presented). Unless we're t-banning a bunch of editors (and that's a solution I've supported before, and may be okay with here), I don't see a need for sanctions in this case. Vanamonde (talk) 18:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- Volunteer Marek, if you want your report to be taken seriously, it needs to be concise enough to read. Moreover, while a couple of your diffs are concerning (ie this statement based on this source isn't entirely appropriate) editors are nonetheless required to thoroughly assess source quality on talk pages, and some of your diffs actually don't support what you say they do. I honestly don't see how this is portraying the subject as anti-semitic (maybe I just don't know enough) and while Icewhiz acknowledged error with respect to the
"American Jews"
statement in this diff, it is actually supported by the text in this source, which reads"may be used for another anti-Polish campaign organized by American Jewish communities"
when put through google translate. So again, I don't see how there's enough evidence here for a sanction against just Icewhiz. I would be interested to hear Ealdgyth's views on how to go about fashioning a collective restriction. Vanamonde (talk) 04:59, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Volunteer Marek
I was planning on filing the following evidence in my own WP:AE report, particularly because it focuses on BLP violations. But since this is already open I'll post it here.
Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Editing_of_Biographies_of_Living_Persons
Since he got involved in editing the topic area Icewhiz has made numerous BLP violations, in particular against living historians that disagree with his POV. The sequence of events in this regard always unfolds in the same way:
- Icewhiz gets into a dispute on some article abut Polish-Jewish relations. He is presented with a reliable source, by a historian, that does not fit his POV
- He proceeds to try to marginalize, attack and misrepresent the historian in talk page discussions. In several cases he insinuates or ascribes negatives views to these BLP subjects, which is not supported by sources. This is part of Icewhiz's tactic of trying to winning content disputes
- Icewhiz proceeds to begin editing the article on the historian he finds objectionable and tries to turn it into an WP:ATTACKPAGE.
- With one exception, in none of these circumstances does Icewhiz actually inquire about reliability or suitability of the sources at WP:RSN (one exception was Ewa Kurek, which may be the one BLP where Icewhiz’s edits were somewhat justified)
Here is the list of BLP violations and historians Icewhiz has attacked:
- Kazimierz Krajewski, historian
Icewhiz writes "One should also note that in 2008-9 there was a wave of (…) publications in Poland (…) and that at least some of these reactionary pieces (…) were accused of anti-Semitism."
Icewhiz falsely insinuate that a living subject, historian Dr. Krajewski has been “accused of anti-Semitism”. He provides a source which is about ANOTHER publication being accused of it, not Krajewski. In the relevant section, the entire discussion is about Krajewski , no other author or source is mentioned, so to a regular outside reader it will most certainly appear from Icewhiz’s statement as if it’s Krajewski who’s been “accused of anti-Semitism”.
When confronted about this BLP vio Icewhiz neither explained nor struck his comments. Needless to say, Krajewski has NOT been accused of anti-semitism (afaik). Indeed, he’s cited approvingly and extensively by Holocaust scholars such as Joshua D. Zimmerman Leonid Rein Timothy Snyder and Elezan Barkan (et. al) among others
Note Icewhiz claims that "I specifically excluded him" - this is completely false.
- Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, historian
Icewhiz falsely misrepresents a source by changing "post-Stalinists" (source) to "American Jews" (Icewhiz’s words) in order to make the BLP subject appear anti-semitic. Neither the word “American” nor “Jews” appear in the source
When asked about this edit, Icewhiz excused himself calling this smear of a living person a “mild form of OR” (!!!!!!)
Icewhiz falsely misrepresents a source by claiming that MJ Chodakiewicz "wrote a column in which he described an on-going genocide against whites by blacks in South Africa”. "This is false. In the very first paragraph Chodakiewicz writes “There is no genocide, but it is true that they have been subject to violence”. To be fair to Icewhiz, the headline attached to the article misrepresents the text as well, but then why is Icewhiz using WP:PRIMARY sources to attack BLPs in the first place? Another case of "mild form of OR" I guess.
Generally, in a series of edits, Icewhiz has tried to make sure that Chodakiewicz’s article portrays him in the worst possible light While some of these criticisms have a basis in sources (and this is just a sample of Icewhiz’s edits to the article), taken overall, it’s clear that Icewhiz engages in BLP violating WP:CHERRY PICKING where he goes out there and tries to find any critical mention of the subject in order to include it in the article.
- Norman Davies, historian
Icewhiz falsely alleges that this British historian “has alleged Jewish historians have conspired against him personally” . This is false. While Davies has alleged that Standford denied him tenure for political reasons he has not said anything about any “Jewish conspiracy”. This is again Icewhiz misrepresenting sources to insinuate a historian, a very prominent and famous one in this case, is anti-semitic.
In a series of edits to Davies’ BLP article, Icewhiz also has tried to make sure that the historian is presented in most negative light possible
- Bogdan Musial, historian
Here Icewhiz rewords the views of the historian to, again, make them appear anti-semitic. Note the original text is sourced, Icewhiz’s changes are not.
And of course, in a series of edits to Musial's BLP, Icewhiz also tries to make sure that the historian is presented in most negative light possible
(OR) (adds criticism but omits important context from source) (and quite a number of others)
Note that in Icewhiz’s preferred version at least half the article consists of “Criticism”! Again, while some of these controversies may be notable enough for inclusion, overall this is the result of WP:CHERRY PICKING of sources to attack a BLP subject – he goes out into the internet, then tries to cram every single criticism he finds into the article.
Bogdan Musial's scholarly work has been corraborated by the widely respected Jewish (Litvak) historian Dov Levin, as well as and Israeli historian Yitzhak Arad.
- Other historians attacked by Icewhiz
- Tomasz Strzembosz, historian: Again, using the article to attack a subject via a cherry picked and unbalanced criticism section.
- A similar situation has also occurred on articles for historian Piotr Gontarczyk and historian Ewa Kurek, although for the last one, some of the allegations and criticisms are probably satisfied, although (imo) the subject is not notable enough for an article.
The evidence above presents a pretty clear picture of WP:TEND editing and BLP violations. And the pattern is the same everytime - when presented with a reliable source which doesn't support the Icewhiz's POV, Icewhiz proceeds to try and turn the author's biography into an WP:ATTACKPAGE.
@Nishidani: - "This sudden interest in the area reflects a recent clash between Israel and Poland over the representation of the Holocaust." yes, exactly, this whole flare up seems to be the result of the passage of Act_on_the_Institute_of_National_Remembrance which criminalized "blaming the Polish nation for the Holocaust" (or something like that). For the record I think it's an idiotic, stupid, law which goes against fundamental principles of free speech and a whole other set of liberal values (the law was watered down later on). The arrival in the topic area of Icewhiz and Francois Robere, as well as the explosion in WP:BATTLEGROUND and the filing of WP:AE reports definitely coincides with the controversy around this law. I actually *agree* with Icewhiz in regards to the stupidity of this law, which is why initially, back in January or so, I was fine with his edits (my initial interaction with Icewhiz was actually me helping him get an article through DYK, although not in this topic area (Wrangell Bombardment)- this must be payback for the help I offered). But then it seems at some point Icewhiz decided that "Poland needs to be punished" and what better way to do that, then go through all the WW2 Poland related articles and stuff them full of POV. Go through Icewhiz's last 500 edits in this topic area. Find me one which isn't inserting something negative into some article or talk page about Poland (obviously I can't present 500 diffs). It's unrelenting. As a result, even people who are sympathetic to the view that this Polish law was bad, bad, bad, get into conflicts with Icewhiz simply because his edits are so one-sided and over the top (the comparison between Polish anti-Nazi resistance and the Nazi party itself is a perfect example).Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by My very best wishes
I think the last comment by Nishidani was insightful, but... The problem here is the collision of different POVs. Which POV, exactly? Icewhiz tells about it in his statement (#10, green, "partisans of the Home Army — those clandestine forces in Nazi-occupied Poland loyal to the Polish government-in-exile — were just as dangerous to Jews as were the Nazis."). Just as Nazi. Yes, I understand, this is a quotation from here, but one should read the entire source, and it was written to say something different ("New research, however, demonstrates..." etc.). Can such "Polish anti-Nazi=Nazi" POV be justified as a "majority view" of scholarly sources? No, it definitely can not, even considering the description of the controversy by Nishidani (diff above). The actual question under discussion is different: was the effort by the Polish Government in exile to save Jews significant enough? Yes, there are different opinions about it. Overall, the behavior by Icewhiz looks rather problematic to me. I said this before . My very best wishes (talk) 15:19, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Icewhiz
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- As regards MyMoloboaccount's complaint, for lack of time, I examined only the first three diffs and did not see any actionable misrepresentation of sources, if one accepts in good faith that the page number 280 was a mistake in the first diff. How to interpret and use these sources is a content dispute outside the scope of AE. As to Icewhiz's countercomplaint, again looking only at the first three diffs, I can't read Polish and therefore can't examine the sources. Accordingly, I'd take no action here, but warn both parties that AE is not a forum for settling content disputes, and that the fora provided for in WP:DR must be used for this purpose. With respect to the broader problem of disputes in this topic area, I don't see much that AE can do about it except examining individual complaints. Sandstein 10:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have commented on the case below and won't comment here other than to say that they need to be considered together. GoldenRing (talk) 19:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Volunteer Marek
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Volunteer Marek
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Icewhiz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 06:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Standard discretionary sanctions, WP:BLPDS. NPA, ASPERSIONS, not adhering to BLP policy, NPOV and V.
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 23:09, 1 July 2018 - WP:ASPERSIONS
emphasize the "if", Icewhiz contacted you off-wiki and asked you to comment here on his behalf and/or throw in some reverts on the article (your blind reverts, coming out of nowhere and always restoring Icewhiz's version make this a possibility)
. - 17:40, 2 July 2018 -
...and are here just to revert on someone else's behalf
- WP:ASPERSIONS, no "if". - EW report filed 18:50, 3 July 2018 - Edit warring report filed against user that was reverting apparent vandalism. VM also reverted in this dubious info and did not participate in talk.
- 00:50, 18 June 2018
obscurantist WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT on the part of Thucidydes
- WP:NPA. - 00:40, 1 July 2018: incivility:
your comments are sort of unclear and incoherent
. - 04:23, 20 June 2018 - personal attack -
"your extremist views"
, per VM - 14:12, 20 June 2018 this is not a PA, and furthermoreplease cease making personnel attacks
is a false accusation and a PA. - 15:01, 12 June 2018 - PA:
your extremist bias
...your extremist POV
. - 22:58, 9 June 2018 PA
your own extreme bias
. - 07:22, 23 June 2018 - calling academic source "garbage" or "sarcastic" + personal attack.
- 23:29, 13 June 2018 -
I have no idea what your source is or who the author is, but there's some grade-A stupidity and nonsense in it. ... Where the hell did you dig this piece of junk up?
- acdemic source. - 15:17, 11 June 2018 -
(and any source which describes AK as "conservative nationalist" is garbage. Yes, that applies to Christopher Browning.
- attack on BLP Christopher Browning, clear NPOV problem given that the AK is often described in that manner. - 04:03, 10 June 2018,23:04, 9 June 2018 - attack on Mordecai Paldiel and KTAV Publishing House.
- 15:02, 22 June 2018, 08:12, 25 June 2018(more on TP), - repeatedly denying the professional credentials of an individual (who is a
historian of literature, cultural anthropologist, photographer...
- 06:17, 4 July 2018 - misrepresentation/BLP issue - removed HUGE HOWEVER regarding "anti-Polish bias" of a BLP present in source.
- 18:08, 13 June 2018 - PA/ASPERSIONS
3rd, because it's paywalled it's hard to verify this stuff, and given the editor's track record with sources, that is a matter of concern
- 04:05, 25 June 2018 - calling a grossly defamatory WP:HOAX, discussed in this AE report as
It wasn't a HOAX. It, like a lot of articles about small towns that really nobody gives a flip about, had sloppy sourcing
. - (following cleanup of a similar denialist HOAX on another article) 15:59, 3 July 2018 + re-revert - 16:26, 3 July 2018 - VM entered a defamatory misrepresentation (the source isn't about Radziłów, doesn't speak of families, and covers why this false labeling occured). After a too-long discussion he did self-revert.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)
- Alerted BLP, EE.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
VM has also been showing up quite frequently at articles I've edited, including articles he's never edited, and his main contribution has been reverting - see editor interaction tool with 1 March 2018 start date.
There are also issues with misrepresenting Polish language sources (general stmts on Jews in an area => specific Jews, specific Jews => general stmts on Jews), which I did not present, but diffs are available (requires reading the Polish).Icewhiz (talk) 06:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- How about assessing who is right and who is wrong here? I have not engaged in personal attacks, I have been removing outright WP:HOAX material - e.g. at Stawiski and Radziłów (in both of which Polish pogroms against Jews morphed into Jews persecuting Poles and Germans massacring Jews with no Polish involvement). And I have been adding well sourced content to several articles.Icewhiz (talk) 17:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
- notified
Discussion concerning Volunteer Marek
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Volunteer Marek
Lol. Obvious "revenge report". Did I mention Icewhiz has a WP:BATTLEGROUND problem?
Since April of this year - in the last three months, there has been a total of ELEVEN WP:AE reports in this topic area. For comparison, between April 2015 and April 2018 there have been FIVE total reports in this topic area. This means that regarding Eastern Europe, there have been twice as many reports in last 3 months as there have been in the preceding 3 years! Something's obviously not working. Guess what the common factor is? That's right, all eleven of those reports had involvement from Icewhiz (6 as filer, 5 as subject, 1 as commentator casting WP:ASPERSIONS). Why is April 2018 the month in which the number of WP:AE reports in EE just exploded? Well, March 2018 is when Icewhiz began editing this topic area aggressively, quickly coming into conflict with every established editor in the topic area, from User:Malik Shabazz, to User:Piotrus, to User:E-960, to myself, to users which avoid WP:AE (such as Chumchum7 and Nihil novi). Why has he pursued this strategy? Because his behavior has been tolerated and rewarded.
And this is of course ignoring all the WP:AE reports that Icewhiz has been involved in other topic areas, such as Palestinian-Israeli topics. He uses WP:AE as a weapon. And admins here tolerate it.
Anyway. #1 not a PA. I sincerely couldn't understand what the user was saying. #2, #3 not an aspersion but explanation of policy to a user who showed up to support Icewhiz in an edit war and make WP:IJUSTLIKEIT votes in support of Icewhiz, without prior engagement on talk. #3 uhh, what?
Wait, wait, wait... #4 isn't even from this topic area. Icewhiz is just diff-stuffing.
6,7,8 - yes, comparing the main Polish anti-Nazi organization to the Nazi party is extremely biased not to mention offensive. Only reason I can think of why Icewhiz would make such a claim is that he was attempting to provoke other editors ... so that he could use the diffs at WP:AE. Hey! That's exactly what he's trying to do! Whoa! This is covered in MyMoloboaccount's report above.
9 Actually Icewhiz has already brought this one up at User:NeilN's talk page . NeilN already explained to him why this wasn't a problematic statement. So this is Icewhiz WP:FORUMSHOPPING for a sanction.
10 Same as #9, already discussed at NeilN's page. And yes, the source did have serious nonsense in it (it claimed that a local partisan commander and a major in Abwehr had the authority to negotiate over Poland's post war borders!)
11 Same as #9, already discussed at NeilN's page.
12 ... just ridiculous. Criticism and evaluation of a source is not an "attack".
13 Same as #12. The individual in question is actually a photographer.
14 Content dispute, discussed extensively on talk. After failing to obtain consensus for this material in early June, Icewhiz snuck back to the article about a month later and tried to reinsert his WP:OWN version again, without discussing on talk. I have no idea how there is suppose to be a BLP issue here. Icewhiz regularly makes false allegations along these lines. See for example this discussion where Icewhiz made particularly fantastical false claims of BLP vios. I didn't include that in my report above so as to keep it concise. But if you want to see WP:GAMEing in action, there you go.
15 This was shortly after Icewhiz was caught falsifying sources and using far-right anti-semitic sources on the Chodakiewicz BLP as described in my report above (though that happened earlier, it wasn't discovered till then).
16 Argument on User:Ealdgyth's talk page. What exactly is suppose to be actionable? There was no "HOAX". Icewhiz was just using hyperbolic language to attack and misrepresent other editors.
17 Again, not everything that Icewhiz disagrees with is a "HOAX". The fact that he chooses such language is a problem itself. This one actually demonstrates just how WP:BATTLEGROUND Icewhiz's approach is. See discussion on talk . Initially Icewhiz argued that Dov Levin was being misrepresented. I disagreed, because, well, he wasn't (certainly not a "HOAX"). Then Icewhiz said that Levin's statement does not specifically mention this locality. I say "hmm, that's a good point" and remove it myself. So, I agree with Icewhiz and do what he wants, yet... he still comes running here with that diff!!! That's some low shit. You can see him actually getting frustrated with me agreeing with him (because that makes it harder for him to try and use this diff to get me sanctioned! How dare I?!?) in this comment where he tries to keep arguing or pretends that I haven't just agreed with him, even after I have.
This report just shows how dysfunctional WP:AE has become in the past few months. You incentivize bad behavior, you get bad behavior.
(note: Icewhiz went back and changed his ordering and numbering of his diffs, so I don't know if my responses match up properly. I'm not going to waste my time chasing his numbering around)
Other WP:TENDENTIOUS and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior by Icewhiz
User:Vanamonde93 mentioned lack of conciseness above, but honestly, if I were to bring every instance of Icewhiz's disruptive behavior to AE it would go on for pages. So, the following episode would be sufficient basis for a separate report on Icewhiz, but since here we are... It illustrates perfectly why it's impossible to have a normal content discussion with Icewhiz, how combative he is, how petty and antagonistic, and how he engages in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior which drives everyone who is forced to deal with him nuts.
- So after some back and forth the article on the Koniuchy massacre was fully protected by User:TonyBallioni after Icewhiz filed a bogus 3RR report which Tony closed. Notice how Icewhiz continues commenting AFTER his report was closed, how he wants to keep on arguing and fighting: . This is part of the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT pattern that I'm referring to.
- After the full protection, User:Ealdgyth, who's been doing some clean up work at the article, lists some formatting and sourcing issues which need to be fixed that should be worked on . She specifically says: " let's work together to FIX the issues rather than playing blame-games. "
- I tell Ealdgyth that I'm fine with her editing through full-protection (she an admin) and try to help resolve the issues
- But then ooop! Here comes Icewhiz who rather than helping, immediately starts an argument and does EXACTLY what Ealdgyth asked editors not to do.
- Ealdgyth responds to Icewhiz and repeats that she's not interest in having the argument. I don't want to mis represent her (she can correct me if I'm wrong) so here a quote: "Let's NOT rehash who did what or why or when ... I don't care who did it. The thing is... it needs fixing and recriminations do not help with the collaborative nature of the project."
- Icewhiz responds by... starting ANOTHER argument, this time about whether or not he started an argument. Seriously. First start an argument and when someone objects, start a second argument about whether he started an argument! It's like a bad sitcom.
- This one's a mistake on my part - I let myself get drawn in for one comment (Icewhiz has a very annoying practice of calling his WP:OWN version "the stable version", even if there is absolutely no basis for that)
- Icewhiz keeps going
- I give up.
This is WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT to a tee. It creates an impossible situation. It's badgering. It's antagonistic. It's WP:BATTLEGROUND.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Francois Robere Obviously Icewhiz and Francois Robere edit in tandem and support each other in all discussions, both content and drama related. As the Editor Interaction Analyzer shows, in a very short time they managed to edit something like 50 of the same articles together, some of them fairly obscure, and actually spanning TWO topic areas: EE disputes, and Israeli-Palestinian disputes. Many of the edits - especially the reverts - are made within seconds or minutes of each other. And they consistently and unequivocally support each other - indeed, the reason why Icewhiz has been successful in forcing his way on some of the articles despite lack of consensus and opposition is because he always has FR to rely on.
Francois Robere also has a history of making passive-aggressive personal attacks which involves condescension, obnoxiousness and fake-concern. He's been warned about it several times previously. Here is those directed against me:
- "Your comment is indicative of occupational stress, which you may wish to resolve by taking some time off" (fake concern, basically trolling)
- "Marek, you okay?" (fake concern)
- "Calm down, Marek" (passive aggressive. He follows up with "it wouldn't be anything we haven't seen from "your" side before. You feel outraged? Imagine what I felt!" (never said anything about being outraged)
Here is me asking to stop it. The request was ignored.
And he has a history of doing this to others. Here he did it to User:Kleuske, calling her "old chap" and "darling", obviously sarcastically and as a way of taunting and trolling the user, then he edit warred to restore these taunts when Kleuske tried to remove them from her own talk page. After Kleuske asked him to desist, Francois Robere responded with even more taunting . This is not related to the topic area, but it shows how Francois Robere approaches editing.
(really quick - I definitely use strong language sometimes, but I make sure that it's either strictly about content, or if it's about a user, I back it up with diffs. FR here is engaging in gratuitous insults and taunting just for the "fun" of it) Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:15, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I can't fully respond to Rusf10's comment because of an interaction ban with another user. However, I do wish to note that this is obviously a comment made in revenge for the AE report on him above , and that this guy just now, just barely ducked a sanction. Should he really be commenting here, in a report that doesn't concern him?
I also want to note that there are 12 months in a year and 24 months in two years. Icewhiz has filed 6 reports in the last three months in this topic area alone. That's 2 reports per month. So at this rate, for a comparable 2 year period that Rusf10 brings up, and at the rate he's currently going, Icewhiz would be going for ... FORTY EIGHT WP:AE reports filed! And that's not counting any Israeli-Palestinian topic area reports he might have filed which I haven't looked at. That actually tells you something right there, so hey, Rus, thanks for bringing it up. (I don't know what boomerangs he's referring to, nor do I care, I am a little bit curious who Rusf10 is referring to when he speaks in first person plural ("we found that ...").Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Piotrus
I am curious if this time Sandstein will find time to review more then 3 diffs. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by François Robere
Please. Stop. Lying.
Please stop making shit up.
Please, come up with better excuses for reverts.
Yes, yes, we all know you're very good at cherry picking the most negative aspects of this article's topic.
How about you "focus" your RfC... so that it doesn't propose one thing, and then tries to sneak in another?
And once again you're borderline violating BLP by trying to smear a prominent historian... At least this time you're not misrepresenting sources and trying to use anti-semitic far right publications to make your attacks
As for your clumsy attempt at an explanation ... bunkum!... YOU. DIDN'T. READ. WHAT. YOU. WERE. REVERTING. And your attempts to blatantly, um, present a false picture of your actions, right here and now, just makes your behavior worse!
Earlier examples:
You've invented that part yourself and you're pretending not to understand the objection (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT)... And that's on top of blatantly misrepresenting some sources (not to mention the fact that... you were just making shit up).
There are also quotes and sources... which you appear to be purposefully ignoring
Stop. Making. Stuff. Up.
Admin notifications:
This attitude isn't helpful or fun. François Robere (talk) 11:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
@Beyond My Ken: This isn't only a matter of group membership, it's also a matter of group dynamics. Some of the other editors are perfectly amiable to discussion and compromise, but when you have people like Bella or Marek around they tend to either disrupt the discussion or affect the rest of the group in ways that are counter-productive. We've already seen some progress since Bella was removed; I believe that if this AE request is accepted things will shift. François Robere (talk) 18:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Beyond My Ken
This entire situation has moved past ridiculousness into farce. This is very close to a zero-sum situation: either Volunteer Marek and MyMolobyAccount and friends are right, or Icewhiz and Francis Robere and friends are right. These can't both be the case at the same time. One of these two parties is distorting historical fact and using unreliable sources to do so, or misusing reliable sources, and somebody with authority needs to sort through all these claims and diffs and find out who is telling the truth and who is dissembling. It is no longer enough to punt, these need to be settled, or it's going to go on ad infinitum. It is not a matter of a mere content dispute, the very legitimacy of Misplaced Pages is at stake. We cannot allow our articles to be based on the misrepresentation of reliable sources or the use of unreliable sources, so which ever group is doing so needs to be stopped and shut down. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Ealdgyth
BMK - feel free to take my source check here and figure out who added what to that article. It took me quite a while to do that and I was trying to model good editing behavior by not digging further to find blame. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by WBG
Echo BMK word by word.∯WBG 14:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment by SN54129
Those diffs of Icewhizz' require rather an elastic interpretation of the policy ("personal attacks"—upon sources?). If this filing is deemed retaliatory, then, of course, there is only one immediate course of action to be taken here. —SerialNumber54129 15:39, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by יניב הורון
User:My very best wishes: Regarding your comment, I think you made a mistake. Refering to a "green" statement Icewhiz made - which he did not actually make - he was quoting a Holocaust historian's assessment of the former literature. Icewhiz actually did not offer his own opinion (which is probably inline with Zimmerman's opinion - and differs from the quote of prior research) - he quoted a fairly respected scholar.... That's not POV pushing!--יניב הורון (Yaniv) (talk) 17:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Rusf10
I really don't have enough knowledge of the topic to know who's right or wrong in the content dispute. Yes, it should be a long-term goal to figure that out, but its not going to be decided here. What is clear is Volunteer Marek's behavior is extremely disruptive. His constant personal attacks should result in sanctions. He also made unsupported claims of collusion among other editors.
His claims that another editor is making too many AE reports is laughable. Overall, Volunteer Marek makes more AE requests that any other single editor. When doing research on AE requests related to Donald Trump, we found that he was involved with 15 cases over the past two years and of those he filed 8, more than any other editor. Over the same two-year period Volunteer Marek filed 18 AE requests overall. In contrast Icewhiz filed only 11. Many of volunteer marek's requests are frivolous, with at least two one resulting in boomerangs, so there is actually a good case to be made to ban him from filing future AE requests.--Rusf10 (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
@Tryptofish: To be clear, I am not saying that filing 11 cases is okay or that the cases were justified. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of Volunteer Marek.
@Volunteer Marek:How many sanctions have you ducked? You are not going to drag me into re-litigating the last request. And I don't believe there is any requirement for me to be involved to comment here. There were certainly a large number of people who were not involved who commented in the request you made against me, yet I didn't see you complaining then. Here is your boomerang warning. I was going off of analysis by another editor, maybe I missed something,@Lionelt: please correct me if I'm wrong. Volunteer Marek, you can't just cherry-pick data and focus on a brief three month period and predict the future based on that. Maybe Icewhiz has filed requests that are bad, but it does not excuse your behavior. Even if they haven't boomeranged a good number of the requests you filed resulted in no action meaning that they probably should not have been filed to begin with. The way you operate here is to throw out whatever allegations you can come up with and see what sticks, that to me is an abuse of the system and a waste of time. The reason you brought the request against me was primarily for a BLP violation which no one seemed to agree with.--Rusf10 (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Tryptofish
I had not planned to comment here, but the assertion that filing 18 AE requests is a problem, whereas filing "only 11" is not, seems to me to be rather creative quantitative reasoning. The link to the sandbox study is a link to something that reflects the problems with the AP2 topic area, and the data there should not be taken at face value. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by My very best wishes
I agree with the latest comment by Nishidani in the previous (Icewhiz) case just above . He nailed it. I think the core issue here is the partisan use of sources by Icewhiz when he selectively quotes whatever he likes, instead of reading and objectively summarizing the entire publication; his dismissal and fight with historians and sources he does not like, etc. As about complaints by Icewhiz about VM (diffs 1 to 17), most of the diffs are either about comments made by other contributors (although some of them do became personal) or attempts to convince other contributors that off-wiki coordination is bad (yes, it is bad in cases like that one). My very best wishes (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement K.e.coffman
The recent AE filings have brought to the surface problematic sourcing and material in articles touching on Polish-Jewish relations during WW2. Some examples:
- A fringe author Mark Paul was widely used in these articles — and defended by some editors. Paul puts forth a theory that Jews in the Soviet zone of occupation "collaborated" with Nazi Germany in 1939-41, that is before these areas were occupied by Germany; please see: Paul's thesis. There's on-going support for this position here on Misplaced Pages; see bottom of diff: (courtesy ping Tatzref).
- Undertones of "Judeo-Bolshevism" canard were / are present. For example, in the context of the murderous policies that Nazi Germany was about to unleash on the Polish and Soviet Jews, "in the personnel of the Soviet security police at the time, the high percentage of Jews was striking" reads uncomfortably close to Nazi propaganda. See also: "Juxtaposition" (TP discussion).
- Here's an example of where the content was deemed to be "anti-semitic propaganda" by Sandstein: AE. Etc.
If I were to pinpoint where the issues exists in Misplaced Pages articles, it would be the use of shoddy sources and inappropriate synthesis, resulting in distorted content such as the above. I agree that some articles (i.e. Home Army) are a can of worms due to evolving historiography and conflicting academic positions, as GoldenRing points out. However, the murder of Jews during the early months of Barbarossa is not such an area. The scholarship is clear and unambiguous.
- My suggestion would be to adopt the sourcing restriction across the ARBEE area: . That would reduce the amount of conflict and improve the quality of articles.
- An alternative is, perhaps, to have a new ArbCom case to examine the use of sources and editor behaviour. A more in-depth exploration of the topic area may be beneficial.
K.e.coffman (talk) 00:14, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement Irondome
We are in a very difficult position due to current profound disagreements between governments and academic schools of thought on this topic. ]. This, for instance is the latest Yad Vashem statement. The project can only record what is stable and consensual in the academic real world. I would support K.e.coffmans assertion that "Shoddy sources and inappropriate synthesis" being a major factor in our present trouble. I would support K.e's second proposal in the longer term, and in the meantime adopt his first proposal. Irondome (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Malik Shabazz
I support what Volunteer Marek wrote. It's time for admins, Sandstein in particular, to stop sheltering Icewhiz and encouraging his behavior. On 30 May, I warned Icewhiz about his disruptive behavior. He e-mailed Sandstein, complaining that I had violated a topic ban two weeks before the topic ban had been imposed. Even more outrageously, Sandstein accepted his accusations at face value. Either Sandstein is a moron or an idiot, but he has no business being an administrator, certainly not passing judgment on those with whom Icewhiz battles. — Malik Shabazz /Stalk 01:25, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Paul Siebert
These two AE requests actually reflect a broader collision, and this collision is a clash between local nationalistic narratives in the areas that are not in the scope of a broader scientific community. In a situation when high quality sources describing these events are scarce, local writers, journalists or fringe theorists privatised this area and advocate a very specific point of view that support one or another nationalistic myth. Accordingly, some users non-critically choose the sources advocating one or another myth, and in that situation "a plague on both your houses" seems a very reasonable approach.
In this battle of nationalistic narratives, poor, questionable and obscure sources become an essential tool. Accordingly, instead of banning certain users, which inevitably is a temporary solution, it would be more productive to apply more strict rule for source selection. That would resolve not only this particular problem, but many problems in this area. I think, Misplaced Pages in general will benefit if we decide that the articles describing historical events that are covered with ARBEE should be written primarily based on peer-reviewed sources written in English, because western authors are more neutral when they write about EE, and majority of good EE historians either publish their works in the West, or their books or articles are being cited by western peers. In contrast, questionable and poor quality local sources are being essentially ignored in the West. By applying more strict rules in the EE area, we can eliminate the ground for many conflicts.
Possible rules may be as follows:
- English peer-reviewed sources published by reputable western publishers are accepted as the sources. The sources that have been cited at least 5-10 times, according to Google scholar are accepted without reservations.
- Monographs and books written in English are acceptable without reservations if they have been cited or if positive reviews on these books are found in Jstor or similar databases.
- The sources written by local authors are acceptable if they have been cited according to google scholar (1-2 citations by foreign authors, excluding self-citations, should be enough)
- If other works authored by some local author have been cited more than 10 times, the writing of this authors in local peer-reviewed journals or books published by local publishers are also acceptable. The below example demonstrates that many EE authors can be easily screened out by applying this filter.
- Other local sources are acceptable only if a consensus is achieved between users about that. In that case, any user has a right of veto.
- Finally, more strict sanctions should be applied for misinterpretation of sources. The user who has committed more than 2 serious misinterpretations may be topic banned.
I realise that these rules may lead to deletion of some articles. However, I don't think it is a big problem, because if no good quality sources exists about some topic, Misplaced Pages as whole will benefit from deletion of such an article: it is better not to have an article at all than to have an article written based on some obscure writings.
I think we can easily clean Misplaced Pages from a significant amount of questionable content if we take these measures in the ARBEE area. For example, such a "renown" author as Volodymyr Viatrovych (one of major nationalistic historians in Ukraine) was cited in the West just 3-4 times, some of citations contain a serious criticism. That means, this "scholar" essentially is not existing for international community, however, his writings fit Wikipeda's sources policy. By applying the procedure proposed above, we can easily get rid of most of highly questionable claims that can be found in Viatrovich's books and decrease tensions around many EE related articles. I am pretty sure the same will work for the articles about Polish, Lithuanian, Russian etc history. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Result concerning Volunteer Marek
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- As has been pointed out by various editors, and as is apparent from the many recent AE requests about it, the history of Poland in World War II has become a WP:BATTLEGROUND, and the diffs provided by both parties as well as by François Robere indicate that both Volunteer Marek and Icewhiz have been engaging in battleground-like conduct. Unsubtle instruments seem to be needed. I'd start off with a topic ban of Volunteer Marek and Icewhiz. Sandstein 16:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Because it will take a great deal of time and effort to figure out who's right or wrong or neither here, I'd support a short-ish (3 month?) topic ban from the area for both VM and Icewhiz (per Sandstein), and strongly encourage both to agree to a voluntary interaction ban between themselves (in the sense they should be aware to avoid interacting like this with each other but shouldn't have to worry about tripping up over each other as strong ibans usually require), and only if this ends up here again, we're not going to take that constant amount of discourse between the two lightly. --Masem (t) 16:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- I've spent somewhere between four and five hours so far reading through talk page discussions and I'm no closer to having a handle on this. My problem in approaching this is that neither editor's conduct is egregiously awful unless you can tell which is right about the argument. They argue back and forwards a lot over which sources are reliable, and which sources are primary, and which are secondary, and which should be preferred, and which translation of foreign sources should be preferred. If one is clearly right about the sources and one is clearly wrong, then the one who is wrong is being tendentious. I doubt that any uninvolved admin is going to have a sufficient view of this subject to be able to judge which is right, and I also think it entirely possible that the historiography is disputed in the RS and so each is coming from a particular perspective that is supported by a "camp" of academics. This is also quite possibly related to the current arbitration case (German War Effort) which likewise is an area where changing historiography causes sharp divisions over which sources should be considered reliable. I'll keep digging around this, and it's possible that another admin will come to firmer conclusions than anyone who's commented so far, but if not then we have two possibilities: We could declare "a plague on both your houses" and ban them both; this is giving up but might be the only way we can prevent disruption in this forum. Or we ask the committee to open a full case to investigate something which is too complex for this forum to handle adequately. GoldenRing (talk) 19:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with this assessment. Option two would be a good approach as well, but I suspect that option one, which I proposed above, leads to roughly the same outcome for a fraction of volunteer time absorbed. Sandstein 20:12, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- I kinda want to stay out of this, for a couple of reasons. First of all, VM is a prolific editor and there's too much to dig through for this admin. Second, I've blocked Marek before, for personal attacks--but I will note that I have not seen reason since then to even consider blocking. Yes, he has feisty rhetoric (and I can't stand the Whole. Thing. Where. You. Do. This, though I'm sure he's not the only one), but again, I have not seen personal attacks. The whole area is already a battleground, so that some editors (on both sides! haha) have some measure of battleground isn't unexpected. But I have not yet seen that VM ever misconstrues evidence or uses unreliable sources, and that is hugely important here. I cannot say the same for Icewhiz because I just don't know them well enough, though I have some doubts. Drmies (talk) 20:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Adamgerber80
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request for Adamgerber80
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Nauriya (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 22:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Adamgerber80 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard_discretionary_sanctions :
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 03/07/2018 Reverted a vandal-undoing IP with a misleading edit summary.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- A stray IP vandalized Regional power by erasing a longstanding sourced content.
- Another IP then came along and undid that vandalism.
- But then Adamgerber80 steps in to revert the vandalism-undoing IP with the misleading edit summary of "Back to sourced version.
- This is shocking. Everyone can see that this was a misleading edit summary because in the edit Adamgerber80 actually removed longstanding sourced content. Since this edit involved erasing Pakistan's name from the list of regional powers in South Asia, this comes under the purview of ]. Adamgerber80 made no sign of accepting this as a "mistake", no self-revert was made and the edit war was continued by others soon after. Thus, I believe this is a case of WP:TE One diff may not be deserve a sanction but again this user is not a newbie making first timer mistakes that we just pass over it.
- Not sure how its relevant, but displaying the block log just in case its needed.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Adamgerber80
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Adamgerber80
This seems to be a misrepresentation of the series events of not an assumption of WP:AGF. First, I have numerous (greater than 10 edits) on Regional power going all the way back to 10 September 2017. Also, I have been extremely active on the article talk page regarding discussions of multiple countries (nothing to do with Pakistan's inclusion or exclusion). Yes, that edit was a mistake on my part but not out of malice. If you look carefully, there is another editor who edits (June 28) between the vandal IP edit (June 28) and the restoration of the content by the other IP (July 3). On a page, which sees a high degree of vandalism, I reverted back to an edit by a registered editor. This is what I tend to do and add a summary like back to good version or sourced version. Yes, I should have paid more attention to the content but the gap of days between those edits might have caused me to make a mistake. In my defense, when you have more than 2000 pages on your watchlist with a limited time, one can make a human mistake. Now, I have not edited since then to be able to rectify my mistake which I would not have, given no one notified me including the person who filed this WP:ARE. I do see now that another editor did revert me and there is some discussion regarding that on the article talk page which I will join in. If some admins do feel that I have a partisan view of this (give my nationality), like this editor here, then please feel free to go through my edits(,, , ). I have watched over numerous South-Asian military related pages (which is my interest) and have not shown any bias against anyone. On the contrary, I overlook many pages of Pakistani Armed Forces and have reverted vandalism on them multiple times. If it matters, please free to have a look at my block-log which was sometime ago (year 2016) because of a WP:COPYVIO and little understanding of policies. The blocking admin can testify to the fact that I have been very careful since then and even helped her with other WP:COPYVIO issues. Just as a final note, here I am not accusing anyone, but merely making an observation. The filing editor and I have no previous interaction whatsoever. Our intersect of pages is extremely limited and moreover the editor has no contributions on Regional power even now. In a different world, an editor would revert your edit and ask you to explain your edit if they are unfamiliar with you. Here the editor is not even involved on that page and yet files a complaint here based on another editors edit comment. This leads me to believe that there is something more to this complaint then meets the eye. Also, I am happy to have the CU check if the original vandal IP was me in disguise. Happy to answer any more questions or concerns anybody might have. Adamgerber80 (talk) 20:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- To illustrate my point further, I present exhibit A. An unrelated incident which happened with me soon after this WP:ARE was filed. @KNHaw: reverted my vandalism reversal on Dawood Ibrahim and left me a note at User_talk:Adamgerber80#July_2018. When I engaged him, he realized his mistake and self reverted. His first instinct was to leave me a warning on my page and my first instinct was to engage them which seemed like an honest mistake, not to report each other to WP:AE. KNHaw is in a very similar position with experience and having no interaction or intersection with me whatsoever. @KNHaw: Sorry for using that incident as an exhibit, this was not to report you or accuse you but simply show that we are all indeed human and make genuine mistakes. In addition, having some time looking around, I have a strong suspicion that this editor filed this WP:ARE at behest of other editor(s) who are unable to do so because of policy reasons. In saying so, I do "not" wish to cause a WP:BOOMERANG but illustrate a concern I had raised sometime earlier at an admin's page User_talk:Vanamonde93#Proxy_war_brewing. I do "not" wish to point fingers or file a formal complaint because I am honestly tired of following the numerous forum discussions that have occurred in the last few months. Even currently if you have look at Regional power has turned into a WP:BATTLEGROUND with many editors (including the complaint filer who has not edited the page but somehow discovered this edit) having suddenly turned up there with no prior history of editing the page. Adamgerber80 (talk) 01:06, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Kleuske
From an uninvolved standpoint, i'd say Hanlon's Razor applies. Why suspect malice when a mistake suffices to explain the facts presented? Intervening good faith anons have confused me more than once. Errare humanum est. A (lifted) block in 2016 has no bearing on this case. Kleuske (talk) 20:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by NadirAli
I do have some difficulty understanding why Adamgerber80, who says they have been active on Regional power since 2017, did not revert the first IP which did the vandalism instead of the second IP which reverted the vandalism. The vandalism in which Pakistan's name was removed from the list by the IP took place on 28 June. Another IP corrected it on 3 July. Where was Adamgerber80 during those 5 days? His edit history shows he was active in those five days. So why did he not revert the vandal IP? Why did he only step in to revert the vandalism-undoing IP?
Of course, Adamgerber80 can be given the benefit of the doubt. So I think this incident can be passed over Nauriya, especially in light of Adamgerber80's retrospective talkpage comment here. But what can't be passed over is the behavior of User:Orientls on that same article.
The real problem on Regional power is this edit by Orientls. In it, Orientls basically blanked references added by Mar4d, as well as any old content about Pakistan's status as a regional power, without even providing an edit summary for explanation. This is a vandal as well as tendentious edit.
Nor has Orientls been active on the article's talkpage nor had any activity on that article before that. What is interesting is that Orientls is an account which has only made 182 edits in the past 4 years which raises socking and sleeper account questions.
His edit history also looks aggressive. See for example his aggressive/incivil comment to Joshua Jonathan here and his condescending demands (to which he has no right anyway) on TurboCop's talkpage here.
I would recommend no action, besides perhaps a mild warning, for Adamgerber80. The real problem is Orientls. He is the one admins will need to deal with.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 03:08, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Result concerning Adamgerber80
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.