Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration

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السلام عليكم - שלום עליכם
(Peace be with you)
This is the home page of WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration, a bipartisan effort to improve collaboration on and coverage of Israeli-Palestinian topics. This project has been inspired by the Sri Lanka Reconciliation project.
Everybody is invited to participate in discussions on the
talk page.

This project page can be edited by all members.
To become a member, please write a short message in the Member statements section.
 
Shortcut:
WP:IPCOLL

[edit] Purpose

For the time being, all sections on this page may be considered provisional -- this WikiProject is open to your creative input and editing.

[edit] Goals

  • To provide guidelines and recommendations toward a more hospitable editing environment for Israel-Palestine topics;
  • To monitor and evaluate the tensions, battling and disruption over editing Israel-Palestine topics;
  • To actively seek the cooperation of people who are uninvolved or hold different POVs as specified under membership;
  • To mobilize members (and like-minded users) to help this WikiProject, collaborate on low-tension articles, and intervene constructively on high-tension articles
  • To prevent and resolve POV disputes, while ensuring that articles to convey a neutral and verifiable perspective.

[edit] Recommendations

  • If you see a political problem with an article, please demonstrate good faith by first helping to make the article better in an uncontroversial aspect, then offer criticism, and follow up with helping some more in uncontroversial ways.

[edit] Sister projects

[edit] Dreams, hopes, and visions

This section contains statements by individual members that summarize what each of us wants to achieve with this project. To help reconcile and fuse these into concrete goals, everybody is invited to discus these in the talk page section: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration.

[edit] Project Activities

[edit] To Do List

  • Design a banner?
  • Invite more editors/admins to join. Discuss invitations process.
  • Fill in battleground statistics subpage
  • Experiment with a /Community lounge
  • Design a watchlist (like WP:SLR)
  • Discuss issues and editing methods at /Article methods.

[edit] Ongoing monitoring and collaborations

  • Collaborative editing of a low-tension and/or higher tension article, (help choose an Article in Talk), initiated by Durova
  • Facilitated discussions/interventions at disputed articles: Palestinian people (Padillah and HG), (others-to-be-named)
  • Open discussions at /Community lounge
  • To track the level and intensity of disputes, we are compiling the "battleground" statistics. Monitoring may also serve as incentive to better user conduct.
  • /Article methods - List of various collaborative ways for handling articles, and various recurring, disputed issues.
  • Classify key sources as reliable, questionable, or unhelpful on Israeli-Palestinian topics
  • Interim tracking results: Found 76 instances of page protection in 32/56 articles examined, 12 month period (Jan 29, 2008)

[edit] What's Happening?

This section reports on recent events, successes, and hotspots in Israeli-Palestinian topics.

To view or update the ongoing status of disputes at individual articles, see the dispute monitoring page.
To discuss the events below, or other issues, please visit our Talk page.
  • Jan 29: One editor placed on 1RR/week limits, per ArbCom log, due to Six-Day War. (The article was temporarily protected before the individual sanction.)
  • Feb 2: Pallywood placed on 1RR/week limit to expire in 30 days, per ArbCom log.
  • Feb 3: Pallywood restriction lifted. See AN/I and ArbCom log. Reinstated. Feb 3. Lifted again, per ArbCom log.
  • Feb 7/9: Two IPs warned regarding the ArbCom discretionary sanctions.
  • Feb. 18: Jewish neighborhoods vs Israeli settlements of Jerusalem, WP:AE case moved to a centralized discussion
  • Feb 18 to March 18: Four editors blocked and one strongly restricted. The blocks were for 24hrs (2x), 48hrs, 1 week, and 1 year. During same period, seven editors were given notifications. See ArbCom log for full info.

Content disputes at specific articles, or similar problems with Israeli-Palestinian issues, typically deserve a thorough discussion and would be best resolved in consensus among all participants. Please report disputes/problems by adding a new section on the Talk page.

Quick resolution may be needed for user conduct problems, such as edit-warring or personal attacks. While we try to remain focused on content, it is unavoidable that we deal with such incidents to maintain an atmosphere that is conducive to peaceful editing. Please report incidents though the usual WP channels and, if need be, add a section on our Talk page, following the guideline for #Citing and reporting of incidents.

[edit] Members

The group welcomes editors with different POVs as well as uninvolved folks. Members should support the project's goals and be willing to engage in non-combative conversation. Otherwise, there are no specific criteria for membership at this time.

Members are encouraged, but not required, follow dispute-reducing principles or practices, such as WP:1RR. If a member decides to pledge such a principle or practice, he or she can list it and other pledges.

Interim agreement. Pending further discussion, let's observe the following membership expectations. (Inspired by SLDRA!)

  1. Members commit, to the best of their ability, to always "comply with Wikipedia policies such as assuming good faith of all editors including those on the other side of the real-world dispute, writing with a neutral point of view, remaining civil and avoiding personal attacks, utilizing reliable sources for contentious or disputed assertions, and resorting to dispute resolution where necessary." (ArbCom quote)
  2. All editors are asked to voluntarily pledge to no more than 1RR per day (not counting rv standard 3RR exceptions)
  3. Overall membership needs good representation from editors/admins not involved in Israel-Palestine POV disputes as well as good, roughly balanced representation from both "sides" of the battleground
  4. Before joining, prospective members should consider our membership needs. Thanks!
  5. Decisions for the WikiProject will primarily be based on the consensus of members. Nevertheless, all non-members are dearly welcome to participate in all our collaborations and discussions.

(Instructions: Add yourself to the table by copying the last two lines of the table and replacing YourUserNameHere with your UserName.)

Current members
Member Roles/Contribution Pledges Notes
HG | Talk Ad hoc facilitation NVC, 1RR
SebastianHelm Observer and adviser (as founding member of WP:SLR) AOR, NVC, 1RR
Taprobanus (talk) Uninvolved. Third party opinion on any conflict issue. (Founding member of WP:SLR.)
Steve, Sm8900 (talk) Involved editor. willing to offer some input on process. Member of WikiProject Israel. Overall approach: inclusionist. Believe in granting both sides some leeway and benefit of the doubt, so that editors from both communities can feel that their concerns have been adequately addressed. /Discussion archive
DurovaCharge! Image adjustments and restorations. GA/FA/FP coaching and impartial dispute resolution/mentorship.
Padillah (talk) (Facilitation (e.g., Palestinian people)
Tiamuttalk Editor involved in three other related WikiProjects (Palestine, Israel, and Arab World)
RolandR (talk) Involved in WikiProject Palestine, and about to join WikiProject Israel
FayssalF (talk) Observer and adviser. (ArbCom member) AOR
PalestineRememberedtalk Involved "partisan" editor, zero personal connection, scourge of hate-sources. 1RR
CarolMooreDC {talk} Anti-nuke, pro-peace/property rights; versus bias and bullies; tries to maintain temper, promote 5 pillars, esp.-> NPOV;NVC
Ravpapa {talk} Glad to do whatever I can
tariqabjotu (talk) MedCom member, frequent editor in Middle East subjects
Yonatan (talk) I'm inactive but if I'm around I'll try to help out
CasualObserver'48 (talk) Involved editor, mostly on talk pages so far; as yet few edits on 'hot' articles 1RR
Malik Shabazz (talk) Member of WP:Israel and WP:PPalestine, but not active on many related articles 1RR, Cool
Shalom (talk) I write articles about Israel. I'll offer an opinion if someone asks me.
MPerel (talk) Member of several Jewish projects, I hope to help bring calmness, middle ground to hot articles. NVC, 1RR
Timeshifter (talk) NPOV at a deeper level by politely pointing out systemic biases of all "sides." CSB, 1RR
Eleland (talk) Involved, support WP:NPOV, against WP:OWNership of conflict-related articles WP:1RR
Ceedjee (talk) Involved editor, English at a medium level in writing, support WP:V - WP:RS - WP:NPOV - WP:Undue
Yahel Guhan (talk) Just discovered this wikiproject existed.
Itzse (talk) Member of several Jewish projects, and committed to NPOV and to all rules of Wikipedia. NVC, 1RR
Xavexgoem (talk) Fairly uninvolved (new) mediator at medcab Cool, 1RR
Michael Safyan (talk) Seeking to bring accuracy, neutrality, and objectivity to Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles. NVC, VRFY, NPOV
Itsmejudith (talk) Used to wading into contentious articles. NVC, VRFY, 1RR, CSB, Cool
PhilKnight (talk) MedCab coordinator, member of the harmonious editing club AOR, 1RR
Moreschi (talk) Uninvolved admin: User:Moreschi/The Plague. No particular bias here either way, so will be happy to, ah, enforce neutrality?
Suicup (talk) Mainly editing Israel-Palestine conflict. Trying to improve NPOV, and structure.
Nadav1 (talk) Won't be editing much, but heartily support the aims of this project.
Phil burnstein (talk) I want to stop fights between cousins. I am a member of WikiProject:Judaism
Deborahjay (talk) Working interwiki on Arab localities in Israel. For now, disinclined to engage in mediation but available for consultation. Member of WikiProject:Jewish History and WikiProject:Israel. Naturalized Israeli. Wikipedia inclusionist

[edit] Guidelines

This chapter contains drafts for guidelines we would like to agree on in the project.

[edit] Cool editing

Main article: Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot

In heated editing and discussions of controversial topics, it is not always possible to avoid strong emotions. But there are several ways to get your point across while making it easy for people to stay cool.

[edit] How to avoid a revert war

Here's a list of what you can do when you see some edit that you feel you need to revert:

  1. Relax. Take a deep breath. It won't harm anyone if you wait an hour. Maybe someone else reverts it in the mean time. Or maybe the other editor clarifies his edit, making it less offensive. Please allow everyone room to breathe.
  2. If an unsourced statement has been inserted, add {{fact}} or a related template. *
  3. If the statement is sourced from a source that has not been established as RS, you can add {{biased source}}, or tag it with one of the proposed qualifications (see below). **
  4. Conversely, if someone adds {{biased source}} to a reference you provided, please don't remove it, but discuss it on the talk page.
  5. If something has been deleted, please try to understand why it has been deleted.
    1. If the summary says something like "unsourced", you can add it back with a {{fact}} tag.***
    2. If the summary says something like "your source is not a reliable source", you can add it back with a {{biased source}} tag, or by tagging it with one of the proposed qualifications (see below). **
    3. If there is no edit summary, you can revert it with the summary "rv unexplained deletion"
  6. If the edit includes unsourced defamation of living people, you can revert it (Please write "rv per WP:BLP" in the summary.)
  7. Tell us about it. If something happened that's not in this list, or if you feel something was really outrageous, you can just leave a message on the talk page. We will do our best to mediate. But please be patient - don't expect help the same day.

[edit] ArbCom caution and advice

The Arbitration Committee issued a unanimous statement to remind editors on Israeli-Palestinian topics to comply with policy and remember Wikipedia's goals. ArbCom also counsels editors, if they are finding it difficult to edit in this topic, to step away and work on less contentious articles.

[edit] Classification of sources

This section recommends which sources should be used....

[edit] Moderators

Moderators moderate the discussion on the talk page of this project and delete any off-topic conversation; in particular personal attacks will be deleted. Moderators are appointed in two steps:

  1. Nomination by a project member
  2. Consensus, which means that there are no reasonable objections.

The following members have been appointed as moderators:

  • HG ** Is it too late to object to this nomination? See here for why, protecting a bad contributor against the interests of 3 or more good contributors, two of them lost forever. 86.156.111.207 (talk) 09:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation

In content disputes and edit wars, the mediator will, as a first approximation, revert to the version, or create a version that is based on the above #Classification of sources.

[edit] Citing and reporting of incidents

When citing or reporting alleged incidents or violations of policy, please keep the following in mind:

  • Avoid speculating about the intent of editors and try to assume good faith. The latter part of a sentence that starts with "His/her additions violate WP:NOR and WP:NPOV because ..." should explain how the additions violate WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, not why you believe the editor made a policy-violating addition.
  • Do not make allegations of harassment (including stalking) unless you have fairly strong proof of such.
  • Before making accusations that an editor has violated a certain policy or guideline, be sure that you are familiar with the policy or guideline, and are aware of how particular terms are defined and applied. If you have doubts, please contact another editor or an admin for clarification.
  • When you describe an edit as "vandalism", you are implying that it was made with the intent to harm Wikipedia (see the definition at WP:VAND). If the purpose of or intent behind an edit is unclear, be wary of applying the label "vandalism".
  • When criticising particular edits, comment on the content and not identity of the contributor. Aside from the fact that attempting to challenge a particular argument by challenging the person who offered the argument constitutes a logical fallacy, it is likely to be a violation of WP:NPA.
  • Editors are free to criticise the quality of the contributions of others as long as those criticisms are intended to be constructive and made in good faith. Avoid using adjectives such as "ridiculous". Something that seems ridiculous to you may simply be the result of poor communication or a genuine mistake.
  • Blocks are intended to discourage or stop disruption; they are not intended to be punitive. If you make a comment which you later recognise to be inappropriate, the best thing you can do is to retract it and offer your apologies. While the incident may not be forgotten, it will generally be forgiven.

Editors who repeatedly violate these principles, especially if they've been previously cautioned for doing so, will be blocked.

[edit] ArbCom authorizes discretionary sanctions

On Jan. 19, 2008, ArbCom upgraded the sanctions available to uninvolved admins seeking to quiet the Israeli-Palestinian editing battleground. ArbCom's remedy begins: "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project." Read the full remedy statement here.

[edit] Reported incidents

Note: These are incidents of user conduct. For articles, please add to #What's happening, thanks. Please provide diffs for incidents where feasible.

[edit] Tools

[edit] Templates

[edit] Watchlists