Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Case Opened on 13:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 20:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

1 Involved parties
2 Statement by Nagle (talk • contribs)
3 Statement by KimvdLinde
4 Statement by ChrisO
5 Statement by Bibigon
6 Statement by Humus sapiens
7 Response to Humus sapiens by Homey
8 Statement by SlimVirgin
9 Statement by Jayjg
10 Statement by Bhouston
11 Additional information from SlimVirgin
12 Statement by 6SJ7
13 Statement by Homey
14 Statement by FayssalF (talk • contribs)
15 Request for Arbitrator recusal
16 Request re Jayjg's relationship with the ArbComm
17 RfM
18 Statement for the Mediation Committee
19 Preliminary decisions
- 19.1 Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/1/0)
- 19.2 Temporary injunction (none)
20 Final decision
- 20.1 Principles
- 20.2 Findings of Fact
- 20.3 Remedies
- 20.4 Enforcement
- 20.5 Log of blocks and bans

[edit] Involved parties

Humus sapiens (talk • contribs)
SlimVirgin (talk • contribs)
Jayjg (talk • contribs)
Bibigon (talk • contribs)
“Homey” (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
6SJ7 (talk • contribs)
ChrisO (talk • contribs)
Nagle (talk • contribs)
KimvdLinde (talk • contribs)
Bhouston (talk • contribs)
Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg (talk • contribs)

Ongoing political controversy which has escalated to out of policy moves, move wars, revert wars, and to some extent a wheel war over move protection.

[edit] Statement by Nagle (talk • contribs)

We have a problem with Israeli Apartheid again. As some may recall, activity on this article has generated considerable controversy. A few weeks ago, the page had to be locked for a time, and one user is currently banned from editing it.

One of the several controversial issues pending is whether the article should be moved to Allegations of Israeli apartheid. There's a formal request for move poll in progress on this at Wikipedia talk:Central discussions/Apartheid#Poll: Rename "Apartheid outside of South Africa" article to "Allegations of apartheid outside South Africa" with a start date of 26 June 2006. The poll hasn't yet been closed, and no consensus has emerged.

Today, we have this action: 20:11, 4 July 2006 Humus sapiens (talk • contribs) (moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid: NPOV title). This is a unilateral move while a vote on the move is in progress. That is arguably vandalism. Discussion of the matter can be found at Wikipedia:Central discussions/Apartheid.

This began a move war, with four more renames back and forth. There may have been a wheel war in there, with page protection being turned on and off. (Some of the involved parties are admins). This was then followed by a revert war in the now-renamed article.

This nonsense has to stop. Or be stopped. I would like to ask that the involved users be carefully examined, and where appropriate, banned from editing the article.

Note: Zeq (talk • contribs) was not listed as a party to the arbitration because he is banned from editing the article. He has expressed opinions on it in other places, including here. --John Nagle 04:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: “Homey” (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) was listed as a party to the arbitration simply because he had been actively involved in editing during the period of dispute. He was not involved in the move war. --John Nagle 06:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: Bibigon (talk • contribs) was listed as a party to the arbitration simply because he had been actively involved in editing during the period of dispute. He was not involved in the move war. --John Nagle 06:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: Some edit warring is still going on in the article, the out-of-policy move is still in effect, and the text of the article is being edited to be consistent with the out-of-policy move. Some protection until arbitration is concluded may be appropriate. --John Nagle 17:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by KimvdLinde

I feel the need to add my opinion to this case as I tried unsuccesfully to mediate between the various parties. The case has escalated to revert, move, edit and wheel warring, and is unlikely to stop. Pages have been protected for extended periods, pretty much every possible policy and guideline has been violated, including but not limited to: WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, WP:DISAMBIG, WP:TITLE, WP:LEAD, WP:CON, WP:ISNOT, WP:AGF, WP:SOCK, and who know which more..... And this included editors pro and contra the article in question.

In my opinion, the page is unmediatable, as various editors are just not willing to see anything different than their own opinion, which is either that it is a valid term, and deserves its own article, or that it is just allegations that either need a corresponding title, or that the article needs to be deleted alltogether.

To a degree, this is a good example of a content dispute that is not resolvable through normal wikipedia policies, and could serve as a perfect example for the need of a Content ArbCom. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

To add, if the focus will be narrow to the last move war, this problem does not get resolved, and as such, I urge the ArbCom to consider the wider context of the dragged out edit/move/revert/wheel war dealing with all involved editors, which actually might result in adding several more editors. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Three out of the four page moves I conducted within the scope of this ArbCom case where as the informal mediator. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think all parties mentioned in the mediation case should be included in this arbitration case as well. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

My motivation (as the previous mediator!) to vote against formal mediation were:

It does not cover user conduct, which is the main issue in this case, and as such, an ArbCom case will fullfill that better. A mediation case would leave those issues pending, and I think they need to be addressed in full.
Unilateral actions violating policies and guidelines kept on being justified. If mediation is to work, the first thing that is needed is that parties are willing to recognize that they might have made mistakes at the user conduct level.
As Essjay clearly stated the level of argument and warring over the request itself convinces me that no effective mediation can take place. The same argument did me change of position from the initial neutral (which I preferred as I was the previous mediator) to oppose.

-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by ChrisO

(This is going to go a bit over the word limit as I'm providing a chronology with diffs for the ArbComm. Apologies in advance.)

I have previously been involved in a minor way in editing this article ([1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7], [8],[9],[10],[11]) and have been keeping an eye on it in case of major trouble breaking out. After Nagle posted a message about the article's move on WP:AN/I ([12]), I reviewed Humus sapiens' actions and found that there had been no consensus in the move poll (a 16-12 vote at that point), nor was the poll closed. I reverted the move ([13]) and left a note about it at the article talk page ([14]) and AN/I ([15]). SlimVirgin and Jayjg subsequently moved the article again, once each ([16] & [17]), and I moved it back again on each occasion ([18] & [19]), reaching the 3RR limit. On the third reversion, I move-protected the page to encourage the movers to discuss rather than move-war but "missed" the target and move-protected a redirect instead, and shortly afterwards overrode the move protection (effectively de-protecting it). Humus sapiens then moved it to the new title again ([20]).

There's no dispute that the move took place without consensus. As Nagle notes, the ongoing poll had neither been closed nor resulted in consensus. In deciding to move the page, Humus sapiens acted unilaterally, as he acknowledged here [21]. The subsequent discussion made it clear that he was acting in the personal belief that "we are not going to get [a consensus]" and that he was opposed to "an offensive political slogan". He also claimed that "The polls only served as a magnet for certain editors eager to besmirch Israel. No consensus was possible and no compromise was acceptable." ([22]) This is about as plain a statement of POV as you can get.

In subsequently re-moving the article, SlimVirgin gave no explanation in her edit summary ([23]), and Jayjg stated inaccurately in his summary that "there's good enough consensus" ([24]). An unclosed 16-12 vote is not a consensus by any description and the discussion elsewhere clearly shows that the move didn't enjoy a consensus.

Some additional comments:

1) I had earlier voted to oppose the move as being inconsistent with the way that we treat pejorative political terms and political slogans. This didn't influence my decision to revert the out-of-process move. If the article had been moved without consensus from the title preferred by Humus et al, I would still have reverted the move. My primary concern here is the process (or lack of it in this case).

2) I'm not involved in editing Middle Eastern articles and I don't consider myself a partisan of either side. From my outsider's perspective, there appears to be a very strong POV element to the motives of Humus, SlimVirgin and Jayjg in moving the article. They appear to regard the slogan "Israeli apartheid" as so outrageous that it can't be allowed to stand. However, we have plenty of articles on controversial political slogans and epithets (e.g. "Culture of life", "RINO", "arbeit macht frei"), indeed an entire category of them). Similarly we have articles on would-be or actual political entities which substantial groups of people regard as affronts (e.g. Republic of Macedonia, Turkish Kurdistan). Nonetheless, WP:NPOV enables - and requires - us to describe neutrally the terms and concepts, as well as who uses them, why, where and when. We're not here to pass judgment on their worth.

3) Humus, SlimVirgin and Jayjg have argued that the term "Israeli apartheid" is not used in "reputable sources" and is therefore "unencyclopedic". This is incorrect, as a search on Google News or Lexis-Nexis demonstrates. It's been used thousands of times in the world press and can be traced as far back as the late 1960s. It demonstrably has widespread usage, is well-established and is cited in many respectable outlets. This clearly meets our criteria of notability.

4) I've also seen claims that the article was created for malicious reasons by User:Homey. However, as an outsider I believe that there is an ongoing POV-based feud between Homey and Humus/SlimVirgin/Jayjg, as this exchange on AN/I indicates. I've not been involved in it, nor do I want to be. Homey's motives in creating the article are irrelevant; the only substantive issues are whether the subject is notable, verifiable, reliably sourced and treated neutrally.

5) Tag-team move reverting is unacceptable, period.

6) In my view, actively short-circuiting an ongoing move poll is unacceptable, especially when it's done to impose a personal POV (as Humus has made clear). I personally don't particularly care where the article ends up. However, as administrators we're effectively in a position of trust. I believe that overriding consensus-building and imposing personal POVs is a betrayal of the trust that we're supposed to enjoy as administrators and the values of community, consensus and neutrality that we're supposed to be promoting. -- ChrisO 02:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Bibigon

I'm not quite sure why I'm being brought before the arbitration committee on this, given that I have not engaged in any edit warring on this issue. There have been some contentious edits that I've been involved in with Israeli Apartheid, but none of them had to do with moving the article or anything of the sort. I've posted my thoughts on the matter in the discussion page, but I hadn't done any actual editing on the matter. The contentious edits I've been involved in there have since largely been settled. Homey and I were having a disagreement about the placement of OR tags, but I believe we have made sufficient progress that we will be able to clear that up through talk.

With regards to the dispute ongoing here, this article specifically deals with 'Allegations of Israeli Apartheid.' Nothing more, nothing less. It introduces the idea of Israeli Apartheid, describes the allegations that Israel practices apartheid, and describes the defenses mounted against that allegation. It is not an article on a pejorative term, similar to Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, quite the contrary, it goes into great detail the merits of the apartheid accusation. Articles on pejorative terms do not deal with the substance of the accusations -- there is no discussion on the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys page for example as to whether the French are actually what the term claims them to be – pejorative term articles only give a description of the usage of the term, the origins, etc... That is not what this article does.

As a result, I believe perhaps there should be two separate pages. The first to deal with ‘Israeli Apartheid’ the term, which would do no more than detail the term. The second to deal with ‘Allegations of Israeli Apartheid’, which would deal with the substance behind these allegations, and present the various arguments on both sides of this issue.

While I personally did not engage in any movement of the article, I believe that Humus sapiens, Jayjg, and Slimvirgin acted properly in their doing so. There was what I perceived to be a lack of good faith amongst many of the editors opposed to the proposed move, as the case against the move was exceptionally weak, and these are experienced editors and admins involved here. Furthermore, some of the debate on the talk page by the editors opposed similarly suggested a lack of good faith in their edits regarding POV matters and OR matters. Given that, and given the severity of the NPOV violation, as well as the fact that a majority (but perhaps not a consensus), existed to move the article, I believe that all three editors who moved the article were acting in good faith to improve the quality of Wikipedia’s content, and were not merely engaging in edit wars to push their own POV. Bibigon 05:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Humus sapiens

The current flareup began when Homey (who admitted that he "used to be an anti-apartheid activist") did not get his way in whitewashing New anti-semitism. As a WP:POINT on May 28 he created article under offensive title Israeli apartheid. Since then, it has been a subject to failed polls, protections, mediations, etc. I'll be the first one to acknowledge that Process is Important. I think we all agree that in this case, the process failed - we can go into deeper details how and why. I think it was stalled in order to preserve the status quo. For those who favor consensus: that status quo never had any, as a matter of fact despite all the activism it is supported by a minority. I invite ArbCom to read the article and take into consideration that Allegations of Israeli apartheid is a compromise title, while Israeli apartheid is offensively pejorative. Heated discussions about this went on for weeks at Talk:Allegations of Israeli apartheid, its archives, Wikipedia:Central discussions/Apartheid, its talk, etc. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that Homey is removing himself from this case. That would be very unfortunate because he is the main offender (or one of, if you prefer) and his activity should be in the scope of this case. It was Homey's political activism and obsession with apartheid that inflamed numerous pages across WP. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Humus sapiens by Homey

I am not a party to this ArbComm case as I am not a participant in the edit war in question, however as Humus has seen fit to personally attack me I think a response to this alone is in order. Humus makes the point that I "used to be an anti-apartheid activist". Note: I used to be an activist against South African apartheid. Nevertheless, Humus is arguing that my motivation comes from some failure the debate in New anti-Semitism but he also thinks it relevent to point out that I used to be an anti-(South African) apartheid activist. The latter suggests that my motivation in creating the articles is, in fact, an interest in the concept of apartheid, not the NAS article. His assertion that I "did not get my way" in NAS is also incorrect. In fact, I am quite satisfied with the outcome of mediation there. Given the incongruance between Humus' argument and reality (and the internal contradictions in his claims) it's clear that his submission is little more than a personal attack. User:Homey 06:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

As for what happened and why, I suggest editors and arbitrators look at this exchange in which Humus announces his decision to arbitrarily move the article despite there being no consensus to do so. It's unfortunate that rather than use his submission above to explain this action he has tried to distract from it by launching into a personal attack on me. User:Homey 15:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by SlimVirgin

I would ask the Committee not to accept the case at this time. ChrisO and I have been in touch by e-mail since just before the RfAr was posted, exchanging ideas for a solution, and we are making some progress. The situation was started a few weeks by a series of apartheid-related articles, not just this one, started by User:Homey. Since then, there have been disagreements on various pages about titles, with Israeli apartheid as the biggest stumbling block, and with multiple polls on several pages until everyone's head was spinning. What is needed is some coordination of the dispute and some sensible proposals, and I think we're about to get those organized. I was also planning today to discuss with ChrisO whether a Request for Mediation would be appropriate. It would therefore be helpful if the Committee could either reject this request, or put it on ice for a few days to allow these other avenues to be explored first. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Jayjg

This appears to be a tempest in a teapot. A half dozen page moves (of which I made exactly one), and no formal attempts at mediation, does not make an Arbitration case. It's not even (contrary to some claims) a "wheel-war", since any editor (not just admins) can move a page. I haven’t been overly involved in User:Homey’s “Israeli apartheid” article itself (a couple dozen edits out of almost 800, many of them fairly minor in nature), but it appears to me that the issue here is mostly about content anyway; one group of editors feels the term is merely a political epithet, and feels the subject should be dealt with briefly, as that, and another group feels the article should be a rather lengthy examination of whether or not Israel does indeed practice “apartheid”. The number of polls about this and related articles were confusing and seemingly endless, but at least a large majority of editors (42 to 16 at last count) approved the move to a more neutral name, as a compromise between the positions. Indeed, this seemed to me a reasonable way of defusing a situation where one side essentially felt the article shouldn’t exist, while the other side felt it should be a lengthy examination of Israel’s actions and policies. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Bhouston

My statement is pretty simple. I think the article Israeli Apartheid, alternatively renamed as Allegations of Israeli apartheid is strong enough to stand on its own. I have mostly contributed by creating solid (at least in my mind) contextual articles such as John Dugard, Crime of apartheid and Uri Davis -- these contributions have been of themselves non-controversial -- and I do believe they helped clarify a lot of confusion with regards to warring parties. In particular, many individuals (for example Jayjg) initially did not believe that there was a crime of apartheid but after my article on the topic this misconception disappeared from the debate. Many individuals, such as Humus Sapiens and KimvdLinde, have referred to my contribution of the crime of apartheid article as good. My position is pro-human rights and thus I view documentation of the credible sources of allegations as useful -- lets present the reputable information on both sides and ensure the reader is informed of the contents of the debate. I am for accurate articles, even if they are about contentious subjects. --Ben Houston 23:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

ChrisO above mentions that SlimVirgin/Jayjg/Humus sapiens are a team. I recently ran into this team (on July 4th) and got banned for 24hrs for adding sourced information. Tag-teamed by SlimVirgin and Jayjg (I still do not know how Jayjg so conviently arrived on the scene to help SlimVirgin out once she ran out of reverts), reported by SlimVirgin and banned by Humus Sapiens. First ban since joining wikipedia a year ago and banned for adding non-biased sourced information at that -- see here: User:Bhouston\3RRReportBySlimVirgin. I view their actions in this particular situation as straightforward bullying, but they view their actions as protecting their community, as per this comment from Humus sapiens "I wasn't the one who chose to radicalize and polarize this area of WP. Do not expect others to sit still while unjust defamatory accusations are being made against a community." [25] When I found quotes from Ha'aretz that the PM of Palestine, the Deputy PM of Israel and Colin Powell had an exchange about the topic HS got pretty angry even though the quotes were accurate, reported in Reuters and other sources and I did not do any editorializing or framing: "Your POV is duly noted.", "Hardly an encyclopedic usage... but hey, it's the 'shitty little country' (this is a redirect worth 22,100 google links, urgently need an article!) we are trying to besmirch here, so any dirt is good.", "This usage belongs to propaganda and List of political epithets." [26]. Is the solution for me, as an independent, to stoop to this level of bullying and begin running around Wikipedia in teams coordinated via intra-team ICQ/MSN/email messages? The AfD, the many merge attempts, the repeated questioning of motives, and coordinated team actions, all seem to be about censoring information based on political POV. --Ben Houston 13:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional information from SlimVirgin

In case it's helpful, here is the information from the move log about how many times this page was moved between May 29 (when it was created) and July 4.

Moves of Israeli apartheid: nine times
Moves of Israeli apartheid (phrase): five times
Moves of Allegations of Israeli apartheid: three times
Moves of Israeli apartheid (epithet): three times
Moves of Israeli apartheid (term): once

And number of moves per editor:

KimvdLinde: four moves (three as mediator)
User:Homey: three
ChrisO: three
Humus sapiens: three
6SJ7: three
FayssalF: one
IZAK: one
Jayjg: one
SlimVirgin: one
Zeq:one
User:Bhouston: zero (added by --Ben Houston 15:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC))

It's because there are so many opinions and a large number of editors involved (and there are others not mentioned here), that it would be particularly helpful if we could find a good mediator, so I'm going to start looking for one. I hope the Committee won't feel it's inappropriate to do that now that an RfAr has been posted. If you do, please let me know and I'll stop. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by 6SJ7

This statement is limited to the subject of whether this arbitration should be accepted, and if so, what the scope of it should be. I agree with portions of the statements of KimvdLinde, Humus sapiens, Jayjg, SlimVirgin and Zeq. That is, I think there are two reasonable choices: One is to have an arbitration that deals with the entire history of the "Israeli apartheid" and other "apartheid" articles since the articles in question were created by Homey in late May, and certainly including his particular role in what has become an ugly and thus-far intractable situation. I believe that such an arbitration would have to include the issue of content, for the reasons stated by Kim. It would also have to include, in my opinion, the questions of improper use of administrators' tools, misstatements of the policies of Wikipedia by administrators who are involved in edit wars, actions taken or recommended by at least one administrator against persons involved in disputes regarding the same article, and personal attacks by at least one administrator. All of that is a pretty big subject, but I don't see how it can fairly be divided up. The other option is to not have this arbitration at all. However, what has been proposed here -- essentially just looking at one aspect of this controversy over a period of a couple of days, out of context with what has occurred before, and with the prime culprit potentially able to evade involvement in the arbitration -- is plainly wrong and unfair. If this picture is going to be analyzed by the Arbitration Committee, it should be the entire picture, including all of the artists, and not a tiny corner of the picture involving only a few selected painters. In the latter case, given the number of editors and articles involved, and the fact that the central issue here really is article content, it would be better to try a formal mediation first, rather than an arbitration. 6SJ7 00:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Homey

This particular article aside, I think some investigation is warranted in the "tag-team" activities of SlimVirgin, Jayjg and Humus Sapiens not only in this article but in a swath of articles which touch upon Israel. They behave in a highly factional manner that seems to be co-ordinated and the fact that they are all admins and one is an ArbComm member only adds to the problem. There also seems to be some coordination and vote-stacking occuring, possibly via email or IRC - it's curious for instance that within 90 minutes 6 editors turn up in a row to support a proposal by Jayjg [27] and in the matter of a poll on the name of the Israeli apartheid article, following SV, Humus and Jay being criticised for acting (again in a coordinated manner) to change the name of an article when there is no consensus in the vote to do so, a dozen people suddenly show up in a row to vote to change the article, a number of whom have never edited the article before. (see this poll from 17:18, 5 July 2006 on_). Jay and Humus had acted several months ago to remove all references linking Israel and apartheid from wikipedia after a highly complex and coordinated edit war at the former Apartheid article that saw the Israeli material initially moved to another article and then gradually whittled down until nothing was left. The new article Apartheid outside of South Africa was ultimately redirected to Racial segregation (an article with no material at all on Israel) but was suddenly revived by Jay the day Isreali apartheid's AFD ended without the article being deleted. He then proposed merging Israeli apartheid with his recreated article - a suggestion he had not made during the AFD and, I suspect, an attempt to repeat the earlier trick to accomplish the eventual deletion of all material linking Israel and apartheid despite the AFD having failed. User:Homey 15:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

As to SlimVirgin's "additional information" above her chart is misleading as it does not indicate dates. In fact, as the mover of the RFA has said, I was not involved in this move war. I believe I did move the article about a month ago when either Humus or Jay previously attemtped to arbitrarily rename the article but not since then so I do not see how I am a party to this particular complaint.

As a temporary injuction, I would suggest a ban on editing all articles relating to Israel and Zionism. User:Homey 15:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Essjay's suggestion below for binding mediation given that much of the dispute seems to really be about content, the disposition of articles etc.User:Homey 21:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by FayssalF (talk • contribs)

First of all, as i mentioned earlier, i am neither w/ nor against the title itself. User:Nagle argues that This is a unilateral move while a vote on the move is in progress. That is arguably vandalism. I partially agree as i personally consider that a POV move instead of vandalism. The rationality suggests that what an encyclopedia does is to describe the controversy. It is also recommended that some degree of standardisation of terms is required for practical and technical reasons. So where are we now? What about consensus anyway?

Another important fact. I say to wikipedians who are keen to justify their acts based on the infamous google hits. I say to them that Allegations of Israeli apartheid gets 67 hits! I am not a fan of google hits anyway.

I had commented that this precedent would prompt many conflicts and large discussion about the use of weasel words in titles such as the term allegation.

In brief, this is not about who is right and who is not. It is about the respect of procedures and guidelines. I'd also explained my position earlier w/ details about the single "move back" i did. I'd suggest that the title gets back to its origin until a policy or a detailed guideline is produced. Nobody mentioned this potential solution (according to Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Proper nouns):

To determine the balance of these criteria, editors may find it useful to construct a table like the following:

Criterion	Option 1	Option 2
1. Most commonly used name in English	?	?
2. Current undisputed official name of entity	?	?
3. Current self-identifying name of entity	?	?
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.

Cheers -- Szvest 15:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

[edit] Request for Arbitrator recusal

I think that if I am going to be considered a party in this case User:Fred Bauder has to recuse himself. He has made several negative comments about me in the past as well as comments about "the left" that create a perception of bias in this case. I can dig up the diffs if I need to but for the time being I'll just ask Fred to take my suggestion to heart and recuse himself voluntarily.

For thing Fred told Zeq "I wish you could consider me your friend and supporter"[28] on 21 Feb 06. If Zeq is a party to this dispute then anyone who is a "friend and supporter" needs to recuse. User:Homey 23:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

More importantly, he has written the following (to Zeq) in regards to the article at issue:

"I think you made some very good points on the talk page. I don't like that article. Apartheid really should be used only in the South African context. (Not that the Palestinians don't have legitimate complaints)."[29]

Given Fred's stated bias against the article at issue he needs to recuse himself as his statement puts him on one side of the issue and it would be reasonable to conclude that it also puts his sympathies with one of the two sides in this dispute.User:Homey 23:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest you review the grounds for recusal Homey. Merely having a point of view on an article is not grounds for recusal, if it were, then just about every member of the committee would be forced to recuse themselves, given that everyone has a point of view, and that point of view is often going to favor one side or another. The threshhold needed for recusal is a great deal higher than that. Traditionally, recusal is reserved in such instances when there is a determination made by the committee member that he or she cannot rule impartially on the matter. I don't know the details of Fred Bauder's involvement on this matter, but that quote you presented there doesn't make a strong case for recusal by itself. Bibigon 02:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion as someone who agrees with Fred's statement. I suspect those who are neutral on the matter would have a different opinion as would those who disagree with Fred's statement. User:Homey 05:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

As in independant third party, I'm going to say I have to agree with Bibigon. Having read the grounds for recusal, I do not believe they represent a scenario in which Fred would be unable to rule impartially and call for his recusal. I am of faith that he can still perform his duties fairly. -^demon^{[yell at me]}_{[ubx_war_sux]} /01:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request re Jayjg's relationship with the ArbComm

I also think that if this RFA is accepted, Jay will have to either resign or take a leave of absence from the ArbComm. I don't see how ArbComm members can be expected to evaluate and judge Jayjg's actions while also deliberating with him in other ArbComm cases - also it would put ArbComm members in a difficult position to expect them to discipline someone they may have to hear cases with in the future. Since his term ends in a few months anyway perhaps he can just vacate his position early and surrender any extra permissions he has.User:Homey 23:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You are going way too far. We are never going to throw the Jews off the Arbitration Committee simply because we must deal with Zionist issues. Fred Bauder 12:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Being Jewish is irrelevent (I'm Jewish as well, Fred), it's the fact that Jay is both an ArbComm member and the subject of a complaint before the ArbComm that puts him in a conflict. He could be Presbyterian for all the relevence one's religious affilations has. It's not a matter of dealing with Zionist issues, it's a matter of being both an adjudicator who other adjudicators have to work with and an alleged offender. If Jay didn't want to put himself into a conflict of interest he shouldn't have engaged in an edit war whether it be over Zionism, Chaos Theory or the history of pottery in the 13th century. User:Homey 13:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This was just a monkey wrench since jayjg is a party to the RfA anyhow and thus clearly would have recuse himslef. Zeq 12:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is ArbComm members have to adjudicate over someone they are likely to deliberate with in the future in other ArbComm cases by virtue of his being an ArbComm member. Thus, he not only has to recuse himself from this case (oddly he has not done that yet) but also from all ArbComm cases. How can someone reasonably be expected to consider disciplining Jay on Tuesday when they might have to work with him on another ArbComm case Jay is hearing on Wednesday?User:Homey 13:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have done just that on several occasions. You are barking up the wrong tree on several fronts. Fred Bauder 14:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You raised Jay being Jewish as a complete red herring (and as an inflamatory one at that)- it had no relationship with the issue I was raising which was not Jay's bias related to the articles (of course he's expected to recuse himself here) but his relationship with the rest of ArbComm and the problem that causes. User:Homey 14:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

"I have done just that on several occasions"

That doesn't mean that you should have and it doesn't mean it's not a problem. It is essential that any process both be fair and impartial and appear to be so. You may feel that you or your colleagues have a superhuman capacity to separate to not be impacted by conflicts of interest. Perhaps you feel that just because you have an investment in a company you would also, if you were a city councillor, be able to objectively write laws that impact on that company without letting your pecuniary interest interfere. Perhaps you could, but in a transparent system that is both fair and seen to be fair such an action would not be allowed. You seem to be taking this personally when there is no inference here that you are a bad person or have done anything wrong - just that you (in regards to my requst that you recuse yourself) are in a position where you are reasonably perceived to be biased and in a conflict of inerest and that Jay (in this case) is reasonably perceived to be putting other ArbComm members in a conflict if he remains on ArbComm. User:Homey 14:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Homey, you raise an interesting point; I would imagine it is a bit awkward for arbcom members to be put in a position of having to judge each other. However, requiring that an arbcom member resign just because an RfAr has been filed would be an invitation to abuse. For example, let's say I left hideously abusive messages on User:EvilArbitrator's talk page, then opened an RfAr against him when he deleted them. Arbcom might well decide to accept the case with the intention of cautioning/punishing me. While User:EvilArbitrator would recuse from that case, requiring him to resign would be encouraging abusive and resentful editors to target arbcom members in the hopes that they could force them off the committee. I'm guessing being an arbcom member and meting out frequent punishment to editors tends to make them troll magnets. IronDuke 17:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This may be an intractable problem. Perhaps there needs to be a code of conduct for ArbComm members so that they avoid putting themselves in conflictual situations. I don't think the hypothetical situation you raise, IronDuke, would be a problem as that would be a case of a personal attack and there would be no serious or objective view that the ArbComm member had seriously violated policy but this situation, one where an ArbComm member helps fuel an ongoing edit war, is not as clearcut as the one you raise. Perhaps there should be a requirement that ArbComm members not join in on edit wars at all and not engage in controversial actions such as conducting contested moves without mediation, reviving articles against consensus, attempting to merge an article without consensus etc. User:Homey 19:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Jayjg's relationship with current serving arbcom members is unlikely to change if he resigns from the arbcom temporarily or permanently. We all still know him and have worked with him extensively. Thus, quite apart from any other reason, there seems little point in doing so.

I believe, as well, that part of what the arbitration committee are trusted with is to know when they are not able to be fair, and to recuse themselves. If any member of the arbcom feels that they cannot ajudicate fairly in a case then they should recuse. If they do not, they do not consider themselves to be in such a situation. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The Jayjg issue aside I can think of no judicial or quasijudicial system in which recusal can only occur when its voluntary. One hopes that an adjudicator will step aside whenever there is an actual or perceived conflict of interest but it would be foolish for us to declare that if an arbitrator decides he or she is not in conflict then there can be no conflict. User:Homey 20:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfM

I've filed an RfM regarding all the articles involved in this dispute. Wikipedia:Requests for mediation#Apartheid (disambiguation). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The RfM was rejected by Essjay on the following grounds:

First, two parties, identified as major parties, refuse to participate. No mediation can take place without the agreement of all the (major) parties.
Second, the level of argument and warring over the request itself convinces me that no effective mediation can take place.

It was then formally referred to the Arbitration Committee. -^demon^{[yell at me]}_{[ubx_war_sux]} /01:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement for the Mediation Committee

Having looked over the mediation request, and in particular, the enormous amount of arguing that has been done over the request itself, I've rejected it as simply un-mediate-able and am hereby making formal referral to arbitration. Several individuals identified as major parties refuse to participate, which requires automatic rejection per the Mediation Committee's mandate: We can only mediate cases where all the (major) parties are in agreement to mediate.

With that said, if the Committee would like to appoint someone from the Arbitration Committee to handle a binding mediation of the matter, and sanction anyone who refuses to participate or exercise good faith, then that might be a workable attempt at mediation. However, voluntary mediation is simply not going to work for this one. For the Mediation Committee, Essjay (Talk • Connect) 05:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(For anyone who would like to review the mediation request, please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Rejected_7#Apartheid_.28disambiguation.29, as all rejected requests are archived immediately. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 05:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/1/0)

~~Accept Fred Bauder 00:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)~~ I would be happy to support mediation if it can be arranged. Fred Bauder 23:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept. Dmcdevit·t 04:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept (as always, to consider conduct rather than content). Mindspillage (spill yours?) 07:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept, for conduct not content as per Mindspillage. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Recuse. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept. James F. (talk) 08:35, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept Fred Bauder 12:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Accept ➥the Epopt 04:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)