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Posted by: Cla68

It appears that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#West_Bank_vs._Judea_and_Samaria for arbitration concerning the use of POV geographical terms for disputed territory in the Israel/Palestine area will be accepted. If G-Dett's statement is correct, and I believe that it is, I think she'll be making a strong case in her evidence section that at least some of the pro-Israel POV-pushers are acting in bad faith. It appears to me that the pro-Israel editors will try to focus on labeling MeteorMaker as the Bozo.

If G-Dett makes her case, and I believe she will, I hope that ArbCom will put their foot down and hand out some topic bans, if not more severe sanctions if necessary. Although I'm sure that not all of the pro-Palestinian editors are blameless, the continuous, arrogant POV pushing by the pro-Israel editors, including one in particular who is still enjoys high-level admin privileges for some reason, is greatly damaging to Wikipedia's credibility and I hope something finally gets done about it.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Very interesting. Typically, Jayjg has not yet deigned to respond. FT2's comments seem remarkably sane, but he may yet warm to the subject.

Posted by: Milton Roe

The very idea of a topic-ban on Jayjg on Middle-East political matters boggles the mind. Is there anything else he knows about? Can one imagine him writing about a tenth of the subjects that encyclopedists like Neutrality or EveryKing or even Charles Matthews have handled? I think the following would happen to him:



There would be nothing left but ash.

Posted by: Cla68

I doubt that anyone who edits Wikipedia is completely free of bias, including me, but those that knowingly pursue an agenda, especially admins, I believe should be kicked out of their areas of interest as soon as their agendas are discovered, and that includes participation in the article talk pages. I can't think of anything more insidious than Wikipedia admins pushing POV, i.e. using Wikipedia for propaganda purposes, especially admins with checkuser and oversight privileges.

In the past, ArbCom hasn't done very well at dealing with POV-pushing "established" editors or admins. Remember the first Rawat case where the committee praised Jossi for his "use of restraint"? Good grief. Hopefully, times have changed.

A hopeful sign that things have changed is the recent ScienceApologist (SA) case. I understand that some here support SA's efforts to keep fringe-science advocates from pushing their pet theories in Wikipedia. I, however, thought that he should have been more willing to compromise. The Committee apparently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FFringe_science.

Posted by: gomi

Jayjg's M.O., which I believe he will use in this case, is to go radio-silent, refusing to comment on or provide "evidence" in the RFAR, while furiously lobbying behind the scenes, through the ArbCom mailing list and other channels.

I think the odds of Jayjg being topic-banned, despite his obvious partisan position on the subject, are slim and none. Or should I say, SlimVirgin and none. It would not surprise me if Slim weighs in to carry water for J.

Jay's meatpuppets, notably IronDuke (T-C-L-K-R-D) will, as usual, proxy for him, both in the RFAR and on articles.

Posted by: Deacon

I look very much forward to seeing how this case progresses. Does anyone known btw why NYB and FayssalF recused?

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Me neither.

Posted by: the fieryangel

I don't know why anybody bothers to even follow these arbcom cases. Nothing will change over there, ever.

Posted by: Dzonatas

*me adds reply about the conflict of ArbCom case on Palestine-Israel conflict and the Wikipedia Hasbara Fellowship*

Posted by: LamontStormstar

I remember people speculated Jayjg has now been socking instead of just using meatpuppets. Are any socks of him known yet?

Posted by: Dzonatas

I think it is hard to dismiss the fact that Israel has taken http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090216/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud has even stated that it intend not to allow Arabs into the seized West Bank settlements. Some pro-Israel wikipedians might have attempted to preemptively call those West Bank areas in such a Israel-specific manner.

Those who are against the Likud movement choice of words most likely are being called "anti-semitic," since the pro-Israel group will argue about self-determination. The name-calling is probably much worse than that and undoubtedly for much more vague reasons.

There is much news about the http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/technology/01/12/09/israel-hamas-take-gaza-war-cyberspace. In such shadow of events, it also cannot be easily dismissed that those Wikipedia pages about the West Bank are part of the conflict being taken online.

As pointed out in http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23035, Hasbara is less about the truth and is more out to win public opinion. A preemptive tactic could be seen as complicit with WP:V if it has public support -- even if sources state the truth otherwise. That probability of complicity is high unless WP:V is rewritten to be more distinct.

Whatever decision made about this case is going to reverberate and be a re-beaten path for time to come, as some earlier cases have shown to exist. Given the current adminship and how they are strongly corner-stoned on the current version of WP:V, these wikipedians will try to say they are uninvolved but in reality they are very well involved even if they aren't pro-Israel, as there is unacknowledged shared ideology in the shades of WP:V.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Curious about whether or not within Israel, are the various parties in the heat of disagreement about policy always accusing each other of being anti-semitic and being self-hating Jews? Or is this just an American thing?

Posted by: Dzonatas

In disagreement with each other where it is not seen as anti-semitic then the http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/zanda.cfm. It is against Israeli law to be anti-semitic. Such law makes those that aren't 100% pro-Israel to be labeled as anti-semitic, so you can guess that there is a peer pressure, by the existence of such law, to never be caught not being pro-Israel (criminally). To avoid being seen as a criminal, it may lead some to accuse others as being anti-semitic by any means in order to show they follow the law. The U.S. Constitution's Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion is often not respected by those that hold that Israeli law above US law, but that disrespect is aimed at individuals. Such individuals that are American have no such peer pressure since there is no equivalent US law, but under accusation these Americans find out what it means when other Americans have said, "they hate us for our Freedoms."

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

For opposite reasons, if that makes any sense.
Integrity and self-awareness are the common thread.

Posted by: Deacon

That's what I thought. Good on them, that's very respectable.

Posted by: Dzonatas

From the Likud Party's charter:

Most notably, in regards to the ArbCom case:

And more:



And more:




Read more:
http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm

Posted by: Cla68

Just as I thought would happen, G-Dett and others are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Pedrito and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_G-Dett pro-Israel POV pushers http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FEvidence&diff=275054082&oldid=275033997. So much so, that one of them http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence&diff=prev&oldid=274879271.

Unless Jayjg and his buddies can come up with some credible defense, I expect to see him and at least one or two others getting some topic bans.

Posted by: Proabivouac

I'd given this some thought over the past few days.

First, I see no problem with using the term "Palestine" to mean the area which includes Israel as well as the West Bank and Gaza - it's the only term we have. The notion floated in Arbitration, that to use "Palestine" to include Israel would be unacceptably biased, is a straw man.

The West Bank is the current standard term for the entirety of the territories between Israel and Jordan; to replace it with "Judea and Samaria" is indeed reminiscent of settler rhetoric.

However, the use of Judea and Samaria on their own to designate (respectively) subregions of the West Bank is no more biased than the use of "Palestine" to mean the whole region. Something like "the northern West Bank region of Samaria" is descriptive and informative.

Characterizing them as "biblical terms", as has been uncritically accepted here, is wildly wrong. These are Latin toponyms - none of the Bible was written in Latin - used during the Roman Empire long after the books of the Tanakh (in which the Romans didn't believe anyhow) were written. Judea was the name of a Roman province before it was merged with what is now Gaza and changed to Syria Palaestina after the suppression of the Jewish revolt. Even in Hebrew, where their forms are quite different, they had no sacred connotation, but were associated with the ethnic groups which lived there (and whose descendants still do.)

Weren't these terms in use as recently as the British mandate? Are there Arabic terms for these subregions besides calques of "Northern/Southern West Bank?" Has anyone bothered to find out?

Posted by: EricBarbour

Agreed. Jayjg has too much support. Too much rot inside.

Jay could call the sun "Moon" if he desired, and get someone to make it stick.

Posted by: LamontStormstar

Jayjg did WTC.

PS: This is not about any group, this is just about Jayjg.

Posted by: Tarc

At most it gets rid of Jay's little sock monkeys that get called on to do the real brunt of the dirty work, many of which have already fallen away, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Urthogie, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zeq, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Humus_sapiens. Hopefully this case will notch a few more.

Sooner or later, the King will have no Subjects.

Posted by: gomi

At last! Peace in our time!

Posted by: Cla68

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Misrepresentation_of_Source_Material_by_User:Jayjg.

By the way, it looks like Jaakobou has been http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FEvidence&diff=275271156&oldid=275054082 for this case.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Amazing, simply beyond belief.

G-Dett must have some kind of supernatural Jew-proof flame barrier.
Perhaps she's got an overcoat made of pork chops?

And just who the hell is Nickhh (T-C-L-K-R-D) ? He spends a lot of time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_User:Nickhh about edit warring (when he isn't http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nickhh&diff=271288470&oldid=271284320 anyway).
Look at his http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Nickhh for some real fun. He likes to get into it
with Jaakobou, IronDuke and Elonka.
And he's been http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nickhh&diff=250202545&oldid=250154646 of being a "Hezbollah operative"....

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

There is no evidence that any of these characters is Jewish. We can reliably conclude from their opinions that they are Zionists, and there is no known Zionist repellent except perhaps the Torah.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Somebody inform Likud, in that case. I suspect it may come as a shock to some of them.

Many of the early Zionists were of the leftist-vaguely-atheistic Jewish sort, ala Einstein. But Irsael has its share of the "G-d Gave Us The Land, And Here's His Title Deed With Glowing Signature If You Don't Believe It" types.

Okay, leave out the glowing signature. Provinance of "deed" is in question. God's Office was contacted for this segment, but has not returned calls in time for our deadline.

Posted by: Tarc

Well, hell, being accused of terrorist complicity is just http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/Statement_re_Wikilobby_campaign#Targeted_editors for some of us.

Posted by: Rhindle

G-dett appears to be a front runner for next year's "Cojones de latón" award.

Posted by: Doc glasgow

Wikipedia has a Zionist/Israeli bias controlled by a Zionist Israeli clique? Is this news?

Biased articles are ten a penny here. Take, for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabeel, a liberal Christian group of liberation theologians pledged to stand with Arab Christians for non-violent Justice in Palestine and Israel, and opposed to Zionism (whether Jewish or Christian). The article is a hatchet job, stringing together negative comments from a bunch of Zionists, many of them utterly ill-informed or unnotable.

And who'd want to be a Messianic Jewish Wikipedian? That article might as well be redirected to [[evil]].

Ot take this

"Jerusalem is the capital[iii] of Israel and its largest city[2] in both population and area,[3] with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of 125.1 square kilometres (48.3 sq mi) if disputed East Jerusalem is included."

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel? I mean not according to the UN, or most Western states, but let's not mention that until paragraph nine. "Disputed East Jerusalem"? - you mean illegally occupied territory? This designation is disputed ONLY by Israel, but let's not mention that.

"In the wake of United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 (passed in 1980), most foreign embassies moved out of Jerusalem, although some countries, such as the United States, still own land in the city and pledge to return their embassies once political agreements warrant the move.[16]"

Why is the "although" justified? Of course, if there is a solution and an agreement about capitals then other nations will recognise it. It does not take away from 478.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Nope. The clique, which includes a former member of the arbcom with checkuser powers etc., has heretofore been unassailable. What is newsworthy is that the clique is apparently now being assailed.


Absolutely.

Posted by: Dzonatas

Early Zionists were secular, but Jewish Zionist adopted a strong religious position... Torah vs. Talmud... so people didn't choose to be leftist in the event.

A reminder about secular Zionist:
http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Zionism



EU has taken Hezbollah off their "terrorist" list in the last few days. Pro-Israel groups are in a uproar over it and further claimed the Brits have been taken over by Islamic extremist.

Posted by: Cla68

Jayjg has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_User:Jayjg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Brief_comment_on_evidence_presented_by_Jayjg on the talk page. He also seems to have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_User:JoshuaZ help in trying to label MeteorMaker as the bozo, as I predicted would happen.

Posted by: EuroSceptic

I would call JayJG's "evidence" more framing, and trying to save his sorry ass. I think nothing will stand when people have dismantled it.

Posted by: Cla68

And they are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Meteormaker_and_Pedrito.27s_campaign.

Posted by: Milton Roe

I like it. We don't call it the Battle of Volgograd, do we? Not a difficult point to understand.

Posted by: EricBarbour

That's typical Jay. He waits till the first storm blows over, then hammers his
opponent with a mountain of half-assed "evidence". In this case, all the small
edits to articles, changing "Judea and Samaria" to "West Bank".

Plus support from his usual butt-snorkels. JoshuaZ, as usual, spews ad-hominem
arguments that mean little or nothing.

Of course the bastard lied. He's done it http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=20609.

It's a little different this time, they're not getting the usual automatic approvals
and the usual falling-to-the-knees obeisance.

Can't remember that last RFA that had so much, um, filler.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I couldn't help but think of Wikipedia today when I read the letter of resignation by Chas Freeman, a highly intelligent and capable public servant who quit rather than face endless slander by the Neocons and the Likudniks. He was appointed, and confirmed, to be the head of the National Intelligence Council.

Sound familiar?

And this humorous comment brings to mind some of the better people who have bailed from Wikipedia:

Posted by: Cla68

I just http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States&diff=276636305&oldid=272661892 that Freeman quote to the Israel Lobby article. I'm interested in seeing how long it stays. After adding the quote, I checked the article's history and saw that Jayjg had edited it within the past month.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Yeah, sounds like vintage Milton Roe. I think I've been labeled as an anti-Semite for it. But as has been pointed out, that's just a right of passage for political truth-sayers in America.

Now where's my photo of Obama in a kippah?

Posted by: Rhindle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_User:Mackan79 looks pretty damning.

Posted by: Cla68

Mackan really outdid himself with that evidence section. It looks to me like CJCurrie should weigh in with his own experiences dealing with Jayjg.

By the way, it lasted about http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States&curid=6710883&diff=276683673&oldid=276658234

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Don't give up just yet. If there's one Reliable Sourceâ„¢ that will make Wikipediots prostrate themselves in in a attitude of abject propitiation, it's the http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672847973688515.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Posted by: Cla68

I already readded it using the WSJ source. It was the second item in the Google search after I noticed the revert, took me all of about 1 minute to replace it in the article.

My question is, why didn't GHCool try to find a better source for the quote rather than just revert it? Another thing, since the quote was from an open letter by Freeman, the source doesn't matter, because the letter is verifiable in and of itself. I used a political blog as a source for an open letter by a whistleblower in an article, and it was accepted at the FA forum because the letter itself was really the source, not the blog. So, GHCool was not being very helpful in his actions. Why?

Posted by: Lar

Completely unrelatedly...

User:GHCool makes interesting reading. As do the user's contributions, and this page User:GHcool/Views. I'd also point you tohttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States&diff=prev&oldid=271681621 for another example of quote removal. There is a discussion on the talk page: Talk:Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States#Long_blockquotes_in_references that may have some bearing as well.

Posted by: Cla68

Actually, I agree with his removing that long block quote. It was too long. Although, on second thought, it might have been more helpful if he had tried to shorten it instead of removing it altogether.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Why? Umm, if you don't want to do a thing, or want to do a thing, one reason's as good as another. Is why.

GHcool's an Ashkenazi Jew living in LA and a member of Wikiproject Israel, according to his userpage. He's going to be about as able to have a dispassionate political viewpoint on the subject of the Israel lobby as our friend Klein/Jeruselem21.

GHcool's Kabbal Kount is 20. Which is getting up there (though I expected better, given his background).

Articles edited by SlimVirgin, Jayjg, Jpgordon, and GHcool:

#1 Zionist_political_violence - edited by 4 of 4 users
#2 Zionism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#3 Yasser_Arafat - edited by 4 of 4 users
#4 September_11_attacks - edited by 4 of 4 users
#5 Self-hating_Jew - edited by 4 of 4 users
#6 Palestinian_refugee - edited by 4 of 4 users
#7 Palestinian_people - edited by 4 of 4 users
#8 Norman_Finkelstein - edited by 4 of 4 users
#9 Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni - edited by 4 of 4 users
#10 Jerusalem - edited by 4 of 4 users
#11 Israel,_Palestinians,_and_the_United_Nations - edited by 4 of 4 users
#12 Israel - edited by 4 of 4 users
#13 Holocaust_denial - edited by 4 of 4 users
#14 Hamas - edited by 4 of 4 users
#15 David_Irving - edited by 4 of 4 users
#16 David_Duke - edited by 4 of 4 users
#17 Benny_Morris - edited by 4 of 4 users
#18 Arab–Israeli_conflict - edited by 4 of 4 users
#19 Antisemitism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#20 Anti-Zionism - edited by 4 of 4 users

If we leave Jpgordon off, we get an impressive 58 articles. Pretty much a smorgasbord of Israeli lobby topics.

#1 Zionist_political_violence - edited by 3 of 3 users
#2 Zionism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#3 Yom_Kippur_War - edited by 3 of 3 users
#4 Yasser_Arafat - edited by 3 of 3 users
#5 Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy - edited by 3 of 3 users
#6 United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242 - edited by 3 of 3 users
#7 The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy - edited by 3 of 3 users
#8 Syria - edited by 3 of 3 users
#9 Suha_Arafat - edited by 3 of 3 users
#10 Steven_Emerson - edited by 3 of 3 users
#11 Six-Day_War - edited by 3 of 3 users
#12 September_11_attacks - edited by 3 of 3 users
#13 Self-hating_Jew - edited by 3 of 3 users
#14 Pallywood - edited by 3 of 3 users
#15 Palestinian_refugee - edited by 3 of 3 users
#16 Palestinian_political_violence - edited by 3 of 3 users
#17 Palestinian_people - edited by 3 of 3 users
#18 Palestine_Peace_Not_Apartheid - edited by 3 of 3 users
#19 Palestine_Liberation_Organization - edited by 3 of 3 users
#20 Norman_Finkelstein - edited by 3 of 3 users
#21 Monotheism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#22 Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni - edited by 3 of 3 users
#23 Mitchell_Bard - edited by 3 of 3 users
#24 Military_and_economic_aid_in_the_2006_Lebanon_War - edited by 3 of 3 users
#25 Media_coverage_of_the_Arab–Israeli_conflict - edited by 3 of 3 users
#26 Mary_Phagan_and_Leo_Frank - edited by 3 of 3 users
#27 Jimmy_Carter - edited by 3 of 3 users
#28 Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands - edited by 3 of 3 users
#29 Jerusalem - edited by 3 of 3 users
#30 Israeli_settlement - edited by 3 of 3 users
#31 Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States - edited by 3 of 3 users
#32 Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy - edited by 3 of 3 users
#33 Israel,_Palestinians,_and_the_United_Nations - edited by 3 of 3 users
#34 Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#35 Islamophobia - edited by 3 of 3 users
#36 Islamic_terrorism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#37 Islam_and_antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#38 International_Conference_to_Review_the_Global_Vision_of_the_Holocaust - edited by 3 of 3 users
#39 Ilan_Pappé - edited by 3 of 3 users
#40 HonestReporting - edited by 3 of 3 users
#41 Holocaust_denial - edited by 3 of 3 users
#42 Hezbollah - edited by 3 of 3 users
#43 Hamas - edited by 3 of 3 users
#44 Edward_Said - edited by 3 of 3 users
#45 Declaration_of_Independence_(Israel) - edited by 3 of 3 users
#46 David_Irving - edited by 3 of 3 users
#47 David_Duke - edited by 3 of 3 users
#48 Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky - edited by 3 of 3 users
#49 Bernard_Lewis - edited by 3 of 3 users
#50 Benny_Morris - edited by 3 of 3 users
#51 Arab–Israeli_conflict - edited by 3 of 3 users
#52 Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world - edited by 3 of 3 users
#53 Antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#54 Anti-Zionism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#55 Animal_rights_and_the_Holocaust - edited by 3 of 3 users
#56 Akbar_Hashemi_Rafsanjani - edited by 3 of 3 users
#57 1994_AMIA_bombing - edited by 3 of 3 users
#58 1948_Arab–Israeli_War - edited by 3 of 3 users



"Completely unrelatedly... "

Posted by: Cla68

That's good analysis. Bringing this back around to how this relates to this case, it seems that many, if not most, of the active Israeli history editors believe that POV editing is fine. IronDuke, who appears to be one of them, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FEvidence&diff=276157123&oldid=276156996 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence&diff=next&oldid=276161077 seems to advocate POV editing as a good approach. He appeared taken aback when I reminded him that Wikipedia expects its editors to edit in a way that it appears that they're not taking a side. Perhaps some of the "pro-Palestinian" editors are just as bad, but so far, in this case, they're not looking half as mendacious and deceitful as Jayjg and his friends.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

ID is also a big booster of the practice of using Wikipedia as a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cynthia_McKinney&diff=252680662&oldid=252673693

Posted by: Milton Roe

Sometimes non-POV editing is just about impossible. But there's a way around that, too. The disallowed "POV fork" only happens when a WP article doesn't reference and do a summary somewhere of the anti-view. But that's not hard to fix. Example: WP has an article on Medical Abortion, but it also has articles on Abortion debate and one each for Pro-life and Pro-choice. People of both stripes are allowed to go and put their best arguments there, and each side leaves the other more-or-less alone to do so. The same could happen in Middle East politics (and to some extend has, of course) but many of the zealots on both sides absolutely cannot stand to do it completely.

The weird thing about WP is that many "bias" problems have been solved already, in the way we do it with the formal advocate/trial/political system (where bias is acknowledged, taken for granted, and we simply move on to give everybody a say). When it comes to politics and religion (and the Middle heat is a hotbed of both, of course), WP breaks down under deletionists who really can't allow that.

Posted by: Cla68

I remember on the talk page for the "Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" article some editors were arguing over the true casualty count and trying to discredit each other's sources. I suggested that they just give all the opinions- (this person) says this many were killed, but (this person) says this many were killed. If I remember right, they ignored me and kept arguing. I guess they didn't want an NPOV presentation, they wanted their own POV to win.

Posted by: Mackan

It may be petty, but I'll always respect GHcool for his comment http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin/Archive_35&diff=prev&oldid=96241438.

Does the quote belong in the article? I don't know, my feeling is that Wikipedia tends to overuse these types of quotations. "Did he just say that! Let's add it to an article." Not that it's clear cut, of course.

Posted by: Cla68

I thought it was an appropriate quote, because it appeared to summarize the views of those critical of that lobby and was given by a notable mover and shaker in Washington politics. GHCool subsequently added a rebuttal from a Washington Post editorial. I'm a long time reader of the Post and like and respect it a lot (I like the Washington Times also). I think the Post took Freeman to task was because his criticism of the Israel Lobby was also an indirect attack on Obama for not standing up to that lobby. The Post's editorial staff couldn't let that go unchallenged because they really like Obama.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I beg to differ. I think the Post took Freeman to task because they hate what he stands for. Katherine Graham's daughter, Lally Weymouth, has a long time association with the Israeli Right.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Here is an http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-freeman12-2009mar12,0,5343044.story which discusses the question of the "Israel Lobby."

Posted by: Milton Roe

Which contains this daring quote:



All that is fine so far as it goes. But the real question is why all US candidates for president are now required, on pain of being opposed to the point of loss, to pledge their undying support for the "existence" of Israel, including all but promising to help Israel attack threatening countries, and continuing US monetary support for Israel. Israel is a county with several hundred nuclear weapons, a fact that I never heard once in the presidential debates. It can take care of itself, and should start doing so. If it wants to blow up a reactor in Iran (for example), it should go ahead and do it, as it did with the one in Iraq in 1981, which the US finished off in 1991. If it can't do it without US help, perhaps it shouldn't do it at all. It's time that Israel, if it wants to be a grown-up country, should support itself fully.

You want a metaphor for modern Israel? It's the nice Jewish boy who stays on and on in mom's appartment in NYC, because it's cheap. He's got a nice car in the basement. He makes money with various part time jobs. But he's too cheap to move out, and expects her to cook and provide unwavering support, while he plays.

Except, he's past 60 years old now, and "mom" is about 220. One wonders if he's waiting for the old yenta to die so he can inherit all she has, including the place on rent control. But she refuses to.

You don't like this metaphor? Too bad. Feel free to come up with your own.

Posted by: Dzonatas

Consider how Freeman became appointed AND confirmed to National Security Head, you'd think he would be in such a position to be able to protect himself. If the only option he had was to step down, for which the neocons and Israel Lobby claimed as a 'win' on their side, I think it actually shows that Israel Lobby is a national security threat. By Freeman stepping down there is nothing the Israel Lobby can do to now change an image of them being a national security threat except to try to get Freeman back in office.

As for the neocons, Obama seems to have already release documentation that could potential support evidence for a 'military coup'-like movement to plan an 'executive assassination'. I can't wait until the details of such plan are revealed more. Rove seems to know something about this movement... if you find that weak-link interesting.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

There are striking parallels here to the http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3327kiracoff_berlin.html back in the 1930s.

Posted by: Dzonatas

I recommend to watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film), based on a true events, despite the bad press it received. After you watch the movie, do consider that those that survived that Nuremberg trials were held in prison, and upon their release they were eventually assassinated. The notes at the end of the movie may come as a surprise to some, and I don't doubt that the onslaught of bad press was to make sure that people don't learn about such notes.

I would say more, but this is not the thread for it.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Like they care about their "image" more than they care about being politically-feared? Not.

Some time ago there was a commentator who opined that the Jews had too much power in the media. The network boss, who was Jewish, had him fired for the comment.

Now, I don't think there's any human alive who is THAT completely lacking in a sense of irony. But the issue was not about image or truth, but about making sure the fear remains. At any price.

Posted by: Dzonatas

Hasbara antagonists often use a debate method to accuse their opponents of the very nature of what the antagonist has done or about to do before their opponents accuse the antagonist of such tactic. It puts the opponent on the defensive to prove that the accusation made by the antagonist is not true. Too often, other people that haven't been fully expose to the entire debate will also have to prove to themselves that the antagonists made a false accusation, but most likely there is no motive or sense to need such proof until the opponent speaks up over the accusation. When the opponent points out (tells others) exactly how the antagonist made a false accusation, the antagonists then brings up any kind of secondary accusation, conflated with demagoguery, at the opponent. As long as the first accusation is not proven false, the secondary accusation will appear true to the events for others to personally witness. The chances for the opponent to state that the secondary accusation is also false and not appear frivolous or desperate in manner is low. It is because of this low chance that the Hasbara antagonist will attempt such tactic. The worst the antagonist has to do is remove himself/herself from debate if the opponents succeeds. The tactic is to win public opinion, not to debate truth, which it avoids or further delays.

With Freeman, he removed himself before the antagonist removed themselves. He removed any chance of being accused of demagoguery. The only 'win' the neocons and Israel Lobby got was to get him out of office, but they didn't 'win' any more public opinion or fear.

Freemen new this very well, as noted in his letter:


Earlier in his letter he pointed out how the accusations were made about him when really it was attempts for the antagonists to further control the office (already quoted here on WR):


It seems obvious that Freeman's first and only act of National Intelligence was to make any accusation at him moot and to point out exactly the Hasbara tactic noted above before it is fully used on him.

Fear at any price? Note how Freeman points out 'special irony':



LOL

Posted by: Cla68

I suspect that the ArbCom may vote on topic bans for every editor named on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Workshop#Editor_findings. Kirill's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Workshop#Proposed_principles_10 appear to be a very pointed statement of what the editors in question have done wrong. Meanwhile, it appears that the last stand of Samaria and Judea http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mount_Hebron&diff=283696653&oldid=283659335.

Posted by: gomi

While a topic ban on Jayjg and his minions would do Wikipedia a world of good, one has to believe that as long as he has an admin bit, oversight, and checkuser privileges, other members of his posse will spring up like golems in Prague, with his words on slips of paper in their mouths.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Interesting. Brewcrewer, Canadian Monkey, ChrisO, Elonka, G-Dett, Jaakobou, Jayjg,
MeteorMaker, Nickhh, Nishidani, NoCal100 and Pedrito.

This list covers virtually all the Israel-POV fiddlers--
except IronDuke and the SlimMonster.

I wonder what any of this has to do with "building an encyclopedia".

Posted by: gomi

Good for Kirill Lokshin (T-C-L-K-R-D) , http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FWorkshop&diff=285170899&oldid=285169725:

Sadly, he hasn't identified any of Jayjg's pernicious and biased editing on many articles in this area, his threats of banning against other editors, and his general tilting of the playing field. I can't wait for the final "Remedy", though, which will no doubt be "Jayjg is admonished", and things will go back to the sad, sad, "normal".

Posted by: Cla68

Those are strong words by Kirill. If being allowed to participate in Wikipedia as an admin, or in any function, is important to Jayjg, I can't imagine he's too happy to be reading that.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Not much. It has to do with Israel/Palestine conflict in the last couple of years. There is no single article that the first 8 editors above, plus SlimVirgin and IronDuke have edited. But only because SlimVirgin hasn't edited Second Intifada. The other 9 have.

If you use for your 10 editors:
Brewcrewer, Canadian Monkey, ChrisO, Elonka, G-Dett, Jaakobou, Jayjg, IronDuke, Nickhh, and Nishidani, you get:

#1 Second_Intifada - edited by 10 of 10 users
#2 New_antisemitism - edited by 8 of 10 users
#3 Hamas - edited by 8 of 10 users
#4 2008-2009_Israel-Gaza_conflict - edited by 8 of 10 users
#5 Palestine - edited by 7 of 10 users
#6 Nahum_Shahaf - edited by 7 of 10 users
#7 Muhammad_al-Durrah - edited by 7 of 10 users
#8 Israeli_settlement - edited by 7 of 10 users
#9 Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy - edited by 7 of 10 users
#10 Battle_of_Jenin - edited by 7 of 10 users
#11 Rachel_Corrie - edited by 6 of 10 users
#12 Pallywood - edited by 6 of 10 users
#13 Menachem_Begin - edited by 6 of 10 users
#14 King_David_Hotel_bombing - edited by 6 of 10 users
#15 Jewish_lobby - edited by 6 of 10 users
#16 Israeli-Palestinian_conflict - edited by 6 of 10 users
#17 Israel_Shahak - edited by 6 of 10 users
#18 Hezbollah - edited by 6 of 10 users
#19 Ariel_Sharon - edited by 6 of 10 users

It drops off rather quickly after that. Second Intifada is clearly the nexis. There are only 18 articles edited by 5 users, 42 by 4 of them, 146 by 3 of them, and then an incredibly long tail of 913 articles edited by jsut 2 of them. And yet, even there, the 913 are almost entirely Jewish topics! Lists of Jewish temples and stuff. I'll give a few to give you the flavor:

#1120 Abraham_Avinu_Synagogue - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1121 Abkhazia - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1122 Abdel_Aziz_al-Rantissi - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1123 Aaron_Klein - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1124 AIDS_origins_opposed_to_scientific_consensus - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1125 9/11_conspiracy_theories - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1126 7_July_2005_London_bombings - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1127 7_(number) - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1128 2009_L'Aquila_earthquake - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1129 2008_conflict_in_Lebanon - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1130 2007_Labour_party_donation_scandal - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1131 2007_Iranian_seizure_of_Royal_Navy_personnel - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1132 2006_Lebanon_War_photographs_controversies - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1133 2005_Sharm_el-Sheikh_attacks - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1134 2003_invasion_of_Iraq - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1135 2000_Camp_David_Summit - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1136 1982_Lebanon_War - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1137 1978_South_Lebanon_conflict - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1138 1973_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1139 1952_Beit_Jala_raid - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1140 1948_Palestine_war - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1141 1947-1948_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1142 1920_Palestine_riots - edited by 2 of 10 users
#1143 1834_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine - edited by 2 of 10 users

I think it's fairly clear that the common interest among these editors is not simply Jewish topics or even Jewish history. Rather, it's recent Middle East Israel/Palestine conflict. So it really is a recent Israel/Palestine conflict topic war. Article-banning half these people from just 20 articles would take out the core of the whole thing. Leaving everybody entirely at peace to go after exciting history like 1978 South Lebanon conflict.

Posted by: Cla68

I'm biased of course, but I believe that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Workshop#Jayjg_stripped_of_status_and_privileges is long overdue.

Posted by: The Adversary

You are right, but I don´t think it will happen. (Yes, I´m pessimist.)

Incidentally, Jay has dramatically white-washed his user-page. Jayjg started editing in 2004, but if you look at the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jayjg&dir=prev&action=history it looks as if he did not have a user-page before 2006. Not true: the first 1-2 years history of his user-page has been wiped clean. A pity; it was rather fascinating, as he used it just to list the articles he was edit-warring on.

Posted by: Cla68

Well, his userpage looks better than mine. Perhaps I should copy his layout style. If I do, I'll credit him somewhere on the page.

By the way, Kirill is also proposing a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Workshop#Jayjg_restricted for him, along with equivalent restrictions for seven other editors.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Well, tough shit. You, Cla68, edit without being an administrator and so do I. We manage to write quite easily.

Nor should a 20 or 40 article ban bother anybody who is out to write an encyclopedia with 2.4 million articles. Clip out 40 of the articles I've been most active on, and I'd hardly even notice. I'm done with them now, and changes to them irritate me more than not! The measure of any true encyclopedist is that you can remove their 40 most edit-warred and contributed to, and discussed wikis, and they'll still be fine. It doesn't cut off their oxygen because they are whole people.

Voltaire, in his 80s, made a plea to the academe of letters to re-start the grand encyclopedia. He offered to take the letter "A". Now there's the kind of guy we should be admire.

So I refuse to bleed for the prick Jayjg. Don't topic ban him from all Israel related topics-- there are thousands. Just ban him from the 40 top articles where he's been pushing the second-intifanda and recent conflict stuff along with the Kabbal (I gave a list above). And remove his admin bit so that he can't harrass and block people. Then let him go. If he can't write, after that, he should look for a job with an Israel-lobby blog. He's misplaced on Wikipedia.

Milton

Posted by: EricBarbour

Is this 6SJ7 thing a sockpuppet, Jay's attorney, or simply an animated carbuncle
on Jay's ass which has evolved to the point of operating a computer?

(And how dare the carbuncle name itself after a vacuum tube?....)

Posted by: Heat

6SJ7 is a Jayjg meatpuppet. Kirill is the ArbComm's point person in this case so his proposals are serious and could well come to pass assuming that they are the result of discussion among Arbs and not just a trial balloon.

Interesting that SlimVirgin hasn't come to Jay's defence.

I also found this response by Ynhockey interesting:



So basically Jay's habit of running and hiding when he's in trouble should be rewarded?

Hockey raises an interesting question - is Jayjg indeed one of the "best" editors on Wikipedia? No, this is absolute nonsense. Until a year or so ago when Jay started writing articles on synagogues almost all his editing on wikipedia consisted of reverts or partial reverts or other attempts to remove material. Aside from his politically motivated series of dubious "apartheid" articles (Allegations of French apartheid etc) designed to normalize "Israeli apartheid", he created only a handful of articles - mostly stubs. Jay's never been much of a producer of content, his role as an editor has been as a political policeman and ideological edit warrior. I think the only reason he started writing articles on synagogues a year or so ago was because he was stung be just this criticism - that for all his years on wikipedia he had no concrete output, content-wise.

Posted by: trenton

Well, I see that no one has mentioned one of the most farcical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/PalestineRemembered involving Jayjg.

The gist of it is that Jayjg and co (the now defrocked FeloniousMonk) were out to ban this editor (PalestineRemembered). Now PalestineRemembered (PR), being new, hasn't quite got the tricks to editing Wikipedia. He makes long polemical rants on talk pages instead of sticking to making biased edits to articles like Jayjg and co, and FeloniousMonk manages to conjure up some excuses to block him for a month (first block) and two months (second block). PR returns for his welcome-blocks and makes a mistake in citing sources where he reads a book which cites a primary source and inserts material into an article citing the book's source instead of citing the book itself (incidentally something which Alan Dershowitz did as well; see the "Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair"; and in which, curiously, Jayjg was involved in defending Dershowitz's side in the article)

Now Jayjg shows up and runs a google search on the source and it turns up in a holocaust denial web site. Jayjg, being the master of deduction and logic that he is, decides that PR's source is actually the holocaust denial web site and then, without questioning PR, bans him. When PR is questioning he admits his mistake in citing sources and produces the book where he got his material from. Somewhere between the block and someone talking to PR, an arbcom case is started, and the circus begins.

Now, its obvious that when the arbcom accepted the case they expected to be rubber stamping Jayjg; when it turned out that he might be wrong, most of them ran for the hills (similar to what happened with the Cla68 case). SlimVirgin and the usual gang suit up to defend Jayjg and turn the workshop into a meandering mess; there's a nice little conversation between SlimVirgin and 6SJ7 about how PR could still be a holocaust denier and how he could still be a visitor to the holocaust denial website, they just don't know; there's a nice little insinuation by SlimVirgin (who obviously hasn't read the book) that PR got his material from the holocaust denial web site because of some verbiage that appears in the website but not in the book (execept, ooops.... it's pointed out later by someone who has read the book that that verbiage does appear in the book). Basically the usual misdirection, false accusations, innuendo, and clouding the issue that these guys are so good at.

Most of the arbs have, of course, by this time, disappeared. There is a motion to dismiss (also strangely reminiscent of the Cla68 case), since obviously the case can only be about PR's wrongdoing and not Jayjg's. Jpgordan shows up to tell PR to basically suck it up and the whole thing disappears with basically no apology from Jayjg.

Interestingly, a couple of months later, PR is back on ANI (he still hasn't quite gotten the trick of editing wikipedia properly), and who shows up wanting to "mentor" PR....? Yes, User:Avi. The same user Avi who, it would later turn out, was in Jayjg's little gang of back watchers. His little trick seems to be showing up to discussions and pretending to be uninvolved and neutral, and yet always somehow ending up supporting Jayjg's position. The same Avi who is still apparently watching Jayjg's back in the latest case without quite disclosing that he was on the same mailing list the Jayjg used to coordinate editing articles with like-minded editors.

Posted by: gomi

Well remembered. For those interested in the original topic as observed here on the Review, look http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=8909.

Posted by: Kato

Au contraire.

I think that this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Allegations_of_apartheidwas the most farcical case involving Jayjg. This was when Jayjg and cronies, furious at not being able to remove their hated Israel and Apartheid article, conspire to create a whole series of controversial articles on every nation on the planet "and allegations of Apartheid". Swamping deletion debates with coordinated cronies to keep each and every one of the offending articles. Essentially setting light to half of Wikipedia in their fury.

This act was perhaps the most disruptive WP:POINT escapade in the site's history. And Jayjg got away with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/PalestineRemembered/Workshop. Having conceded that PalestineRemembered didn't get the cite from a Holocaust denial site and that the allegation was false, Slim notes that PalestineRemembered going to such as site is "not beyond the bounds of real possibility"!


Marvellous. It's like Witch-Trials never happened.

Posted by: Cla68

Those were indeed dark times. Note that JPGordon showed up recently to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FWorkshop&diff=286499959&oldid=286499906 to the proposed sanctions on Jayjg.

Posted by: The Joy

Shouldn't opposes have detailed rationales than just statements like "too draconian" or "too stupid?"

While input from community members is welcomed, there is no policy saying arbitrators have to listen or take into account comments from non-arbitrators (save Jimbo, perhaps).

So, Jpgordon and 6SJ7 are wasting their time. If Kirill is seriously considering these sanctions, then he must have some ample support from other arbitrators.

Jayjg's days are numbered, but will that really change anything? His POV cabal is still strong and, while losing Jayjg's technical powers will be a loss, they'll still have their power.

Posted by: tarantino

6SJ7 has been known to edit from a law office in the NY area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerusalem&diff=prev&oldid=26405917

He's made about 4000 edits. There's 115 articles in common between him and Jayjg, almost all relating to Israeli, Jewish or Middle Eastern topics.

They've both voted in 13 RFAs and disagreed once, in what was 6SJ7's first vote ever.

More telling though is in the 33 AFDs that they both have voted in, they never disagreed. I didn't check any of the other XFDs.

Posted by: Cla68

Well, I hope that the next book written on Wikipedia's history by Andrew Lih or whoever addresses the years 2005-2009(?) when a few cabals led by admins basically had a free hand to do what they wanted to in certain topic areas. If Wikipedia is able to find and implement a lasting solution to the cabalism and "vested, but problematic contributor" problems, then this chapter in Wikipedia history should deserve some historical perspective and analysis.

Anyway, if these proposed sanctions on Jayjg do pass, I wonder if that would help quell the problems that the "pro-Israel" cabal has been causing to Wikipedia? I haven't checked closely, but it appears that the FeloniousMonk desysopp was effective at correcting the ID-cab's behavior, or at least toned it down to an acceptable level, as far as I'm aware.

Posted by: KimvdLinde

Agreed, long overdue!

Posted by: Warui desu

They should, if wikipedia was actually about rational debate and not about the number of "me too!"'s posting.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Whoever writes such a book will have plenty to write about. The Israel gang is only the most obvious and egregious abuser of NPOV.

Don't forget the bestiality gang, the pedophilia gang (which has been little documented), and the various gangs focusing on fancruft subjects (Simpsons, Futurama, South Park, Star Trek, Stargate, etc.)....plus a number of disputes over ethnic-related articles (Armenian vs. Azeri, Serbs vs. everyone else, on and on).

There was a recent WR thread about the http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=22863 surrounding Barry Manilow.
It doesn't even scratch the surface of the crazy.

Posted by: The Adversary

Oh yes. And note that the person http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Community_sanction&diff=prev&oldid=130763567 was one of the few editors in WP´s I-P region at the time who actually read books: Zero0000. Name http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23868? No wonder they disliked him, for the same reason they disliked KimvdL: they revealed their lies (In Kim´s case: the lies of Guy M.)

Posted by: Kato

The "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence"* at this case is a riot.

"Giant egg"? Is that a personal attack?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Evidence&diff=276092532&oldid=prev by DocGlasgow is deemed inappropriate because it calls Jayjg a "POV pusher". If that were the case, then Jayjg and SlimV would have been banned long ago as barely a day went past without them making that accusation of others.

*"Evidence" at Wikipedia Arbitration sessions really just means numerous interferers showing up and poisoning the well with any assertions they can get away with.

Posted by: Eva Destruction

If anyone's going to play a shell game surely a giant egg is most qualified?

Posted by: KimvdLinde

Yeah, JayJG and SlimVirgin were the main reasons I was gone from Wikipedia for a long time. I am now back, but limit myself to a few fields with little if no issues, parrots and horse mainly......

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Good times.

Posted by: The Adversary

Anyone remember "Alice in Wonderland"; where the Queen punish you for the sins you might commit?

Posted by: Kato

Watch your tongue, you Giant Egg.

Posted by: Kato

More comedy here from that old PalestineRemembered arbitration case.

So Jayjg went to the Admins noticeboard to publicly make a false allegation about PalestineR sourcing Holocaust Denial websites. Then people complained vociferously about the allegation. But according to Slim, it's actually their fault, not Jayjg's:

Posted by: Lar

I could be mistaken but I believe that both SV and Jayjg have been sanctioned, or at least cautioned, (I can dig up cites if it's important) for doing things publicly (rather than first emailing or otherwise quietly contacting someone).

Perhaps it is faulty logic but does that mean SV therefore is not a responsible admin under her own definition?

Posted by: The Adversary

Cough, cough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Completed_requests#October_08

Posted by: Heat

An arb has noticed Jayjg's "lack of participation" in his own ArbComm case

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJayjg&diff=286873689&oldid=286022545

Can you hear the sound of drums?

And on the workshop page itself, it appears that Kirill's proposals have some support where it counts http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Workshop&diff=prev&oldid=286872461

Posted by: Milton Roe

In the WP Kangaroo Kourt of the Vigilante Kommittee, one is supposed to act as one's own counsel if one can't find anybody who is willing to do it. There's no pool of public defenders that the Kourt can appoint for you if there's nobody left of your side who has any credibility. Which is the case, here.

I'd shed more tears if Jayjg hadn't abused this very system himself many a time. What goes around, tends to come around. The fickle finger of wiki power has put the writing up on the wall about this sort of thing for some time, and Jay hasn't translated it.

Let me help:

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSBONE. This is the interpretation: MENE: fate and abuse have numbered the days of your Kabal and brought it to an end. TEKEL: you have been weighed on the scales of Arbcom and found wanting: PERES-BONE, your advocacy gig is divided and given to supporters of Shimon Peres and David Shankbone.

Not much time left, bub.

Posted by: Heat

Voting has begun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I am concerned about the obligatory show of "even-handedness," in that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#G-Dett are very weakly supported by the evidence (particularly when compared to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Jayjg_.28I.29) yet the penalties proposed are equivalent (except that G-Dett cannot be deprived of checkuser, oversight, etc., since she doesn't possess these gnarly powers.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Jayjg_in_arbitration ought to be sufficient grounds for a permanent, unqualified banning from the project.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

See http://davidsbuendler.freehostia.com/feast.htm

Posted by: Cla68

The thing is, G-Dett is more intelligent than 99% of regular Wikipedia editors, including myself. I don't know why she is wasting time with editing Wikipedia and humiliating Jayjg when she should be writing books, which I, for one, would be buying and reading. Banning her from the I/P articles does her a favor. If she wants to make any other subject's articles great, she should be able to do so effortlessly.

Banning editors like Jayjg, on the other hand, from the I/P articles should be no big deal. He doesn't deserve to edit them. He's a POV-pusher and an unethical internet participant. Ban him, forget about him, and let's get back to doing what we like to do, building NPOV (we try to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalcanal_campaign) articles about historical subjects that we find interesting.

Posted by: The Adversary

I´ll join the queue for those wanting to buy any book written by G-Dett.

My own favourite G-Dett-ism was during the Matanmoreland-case, when she wondered if there was any sense in her providing more evidence, or if she could rather spend her time baking bread ......for her cat

Posted by: Kato

Arbitrators need to be careful when they restrict the likes of Jayjg. Having seen the Godfather style trail of revenge against those who challenged SlimVirgin last year (FT2, Lar, Charles Matthews etc), it is conceivable that a similar fate will await those arbs who vote against Jayjg.

Wily nested troublemakers can call on a flock of disciples to do the dirty work, while they themselves remove their fingerprints from the scene of the crime when the drama subsides.

Wikipedia has shown it is helpless in the face of such social manipulation and gameplaying. Expect a coordinated chorus of resistance to any restraints on Jayjg, followed by a covert operation of revenge against those who made the effort.

Posted by: trenton

Yeah, the remedies are kinda bizarre. One side wants to introduce and use novel terminology and both side get banned. That's like banning vandals and those who revert them for "revert warring". Besides, on one side, you have an esteemed "functionary", so can you blame others for following his example? Kangaroo justice, indeed.

edit: not to mention that most of these people are first time arbcom participants, while this is Jayjg's 6th? time....

Posted by: Heat

Ironic statement of the year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria%2FProposed_decision&diff=287683607&oldid=287681189

So 6SJ7 is warning that the consequence of Jay and others being sanctioned is a Mcarthyist witch hunt using CheckUser? I'm amazed 6SJ7 could say this without the least hint of irony given that that's exactly how Jayjg has been using Checkuser for years.

And do I read a suggestion there that Jayjg might sockpuppet to evade his topic ban?

Posted by: Cla68

Well, if they hadn't edit warred they would probably be ok. I think the "Palestinian side" like MeteorMaker and Nishidani are a little stunned that they won the argument, but ended up topic-banned along with the "Pro-Israel" editors. Perhaps one lesson for interested observers to take from this is that edit warring will not be looked upon nicely by this committee.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I haven't taken the time to review their editing style (other than to note Nishi's poetic gifts.) But I fear the possibility that no one will stand up to died-in-the-wool POV pushers like Jayjg, for fear that the mere act of objecting will convict the objector of "edit warring."

Posted by: Tarc

Another gem;

The Jayjg-disciples act like a bunch of savages whose deity statue was just toppled off the pedestal and dragged through the mud.

Posted by: pedrito

And while this is going on... Tiamut http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tiamut&diff=287528129&oldid=287503685 in disgust as the usual gang of anti-Palestinian editors piled-on to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tiamut/DE a WP:GA and WP:DYN she was working on.

I mourn this loss.

Cheers, Pedrito

Posted by: Heat

And our old friend SlimVirgin is in the middle of it http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exodus_from_Lydda&action=history though since she's conducting dozens of tiny edits rather than doing a major edit at once it's hard to follow. Is she actually warring with Jaakobou?

Posted by: trenton

Yes, but what exactly do you do if you don't edit war? The other side will have the article the way it wants, and they can talk indefinitely. Try to find consensus? They have a large enough group of editors so that you won't find consensus that the earth is not flat. Take it to arbcom? They'll reject the case because everybody's talking and there's no edit warring. Is it any wonder that some people snap and act rude and edit war?

Posted by: pedrito

Have they really "won the argument"? There are no findings regarding [[WP:NCGN]] or stone-walling, so there's been nothing won by everybody getting banned.

Cheers, Pedrito

Posted by: UseOnceAndDestroy

Uh-huh - that's exactly the process that wikipedia encourages, in the absence of named expert authority with a final say on content.

Posted by: gomi

More accurately, a systematic lack of authorities, and ways to identify them, combined with an elevation of amateurs to an equal status with experts, and then a lack of process by which even learned people can reach and protect a consensus from eroding.

As has been said before: "Wikipedia is a system that ensures that twenty idiots and one expert are indistinguishable from twenty-one idiots". It's a crude, infantile parody of an academic peer-review system, with results similar to what you would get if you gave a pound of flour, some eggs, milk, and oil to a toddler and told them to make pancakes.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

This is a brilliant aphorism and is completely true in relation to any outside observer. It does leave out the subjective experience of the one expert, who can of course tell the difference. This accounts for much of heartbreak of Wikipedia.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

If you keep in mind the adage about wine and sewage, I think you will find that it's more like this:

"Wikipedia is a system that ensures that twenty experts and one idiot are indistinguishable from twenty-one idiots"

Ja Ja

Posted by: No one of consequence

Does Wikipedia even have twenty experts?

Posted by: The Joy

If it does, they are all banned, I imagine.

Posted by: trenton

They did have this one theology professor, though....

Posted by: Cla68

As far as ArbCom is concerned, you're right, they are not stating implicitly or explicitly that you won the argument.



That's the nature of a wiki. Sometimes you can't win even if you're right. Edit warring is not the answer. I recently lost an argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Martin_Luther#Nazi_mention_in_intro about mentioning the Nazis in the lead for the Martin Luther article. Me and several others don't believe that the Nazis should be mentioned in the intro. Unfortunately, there are enough editors opposing my view to keep me from declaring consensus and removing it. Me and the few editors that take my side could start edit warring, but that's against the rules. So, I/we lose. That's the wiki.

There are other ways I could address this, I could file an RfC (which I might do), go to one of the content noticeboards, or request mediation. One or all of those might work, or they might not. Anyway, that's the within-the-rules process. If I don't like it, I can leave. Or, I can secretly recruit a bunch of like-minded people to come and support me. That's against the rules. If I get caught doing that, however, I deserve to be banned. Catching people doing that is kind of difficult, isn't it? As you can see, Wikipedia has some glaring weaknesses.

Posted by: Casliber

Unfortunately arbcom cannot rule on content, so like many of these type of debates, we get left with a vacuum. I really hope that everyone gets involved in building a consensus on the appropriate terminology to use, which has started on the WP:IPCOLL page.

see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration#Draft_guidelines_for_placename_usage

Cas

Posted by: KimvdLinde

Well, the current ruling is very narrow on editwarring, and ignores the rest of the problems such as stonewalling etc, which can be sanctioned as well. However, it is painfully obvious that the ArbCom once again will just go with a braod brush and refuses to look into the details. if they would to the latter, the ruling would become dramatically different.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

The arbcom has been ruling on content for years, just not openly. They sanction the content they prefer by means of double standards in how they treat editors.

Posted by: Heat

The proposal(s) to strip Jay of his functionary status seems to have hit a wall with one arb backsliding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Jayjg_stripped_of_status_and_privileges

I'm kind of hoping Jay isn't stripped. The absurdity of having a "Functionary" who is clearly not a "trusted user" (not trusted enough to edit the topic area that has been the focus of 80% or so of his "work") and has been found by the ArbComm to be a relentless POV pusher and edit warrior just lays bare the ridiculousness of Wikipedia's power structure and the fact that it's not based on merit or trust but on a combination of cliqueishness, manipulation and sinicure.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Acupuncture?

Ja Ja

Posted by: Doc glasgow

{{citation needed}}

Posted by: gomi

It now appears inevitable that Jayjg will retain the tools and trappings of power. My advice to the ArbCom members who vote against him on this: watch your backs! Jayjg has a long memory, and will, eventually, use any available opportunity to slip a stiletto into anyone who opposes him.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Your line, Mr. Rains …

Ja Ja

Posted by: Milton Roe

I am shocked, simply shocked.

Round up the usual whipping-goys.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

Either that or it'll be a group of seemingly unrelated people who do it on his behalf.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

That would be cool. It might hopefully function in a manner similar to the way that Captain Kirk would use a simple paradox to cause the shut-down of some super-computer that was running amok and threatening to destroy the universe.


As a prime example, take a look at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others arbcom case, examine the basic points, and then see what happens when you get to the remedies.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

SlimVirgin has emerged from the shadows to offer a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Suggestion:_NPOV_enforcement which would consist of a sort of "NPOV committee." The proposal is being well received, although I can imagine that it might create new avenues of Cabalism. Wasting no time, SV has moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutrality_enforcement

Posted by: Milton Roe

.

She volunteers to be on the animal use and rights committee, just to make sure they stick to a neutral non-human-centered view.

When I saw Jayjg slipping out of this last fiasco, I was much reminded of that classic World of Warcraft episode on South Park, which features the gamer who has advanced to a level not previously thought possible, and is now immune even to site administration. Even "admins" can do nothing to him.

"How could it happen?" the MMORPG makers wonder. Answer: "He's been playing all the time, for years. He HAS NO LIFE."

"But, but.... How can we kill that which has no life?"

Good question.

Some people suggest actually quitting the game and not playing it, since it's rigged against people who DO have a life. This is rejected.

Finally they locate the Sword of a Thousand Truths, a weapon of unimaginable power, stored on a 1 GB flashdrive in some accountant's drawer.

Hey, ArbCom! If you can locate such a thing in the desk of some accountant at WP (look in Danny's old desk, maybe), you might actually be able to deal with Jayjg and SlimVirgin. Otherwise, I see continued epic überpwnage in your future.

Posted by: UseOnceAndDestroy

I note at least one player has mentioned full protection for pages. If its done right, this could be an antidote for the "anyone can edit" dogma. Big "if", obviously.

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

That is not difficult. In fact it would be hard to imagine how such a committee would not become simply another battleground between the factions, with both sides scheming to get their allies in and their opponents out.

Posted by: Milton Roe

On the other hand, it's a good mechanism to get the recursive ironies of this stupid NPOV idea out in the open. Finally, we'll have some NPOV committee toiling away to reach a group conscensus opinion (see POV) about what (or where) the NPOV officially is on some subject. Somebody is bound to notice the meta-problem. They haven't yet, but I still hold out hopes that some of these people will "get it" (finally) when the stinker of a contradiction is held right in front of their noses and they are forced to take a good snort.

Oh, they'll try to be clever, like trying to pretend that figuring out factural NPOV policy is an ordinary meta-policy decission, like how many hyperlinks should ideally be in a sentence. The problem is, that that won't work, because this is NOT a meta-problem with wiki policy. This committee is going to have to deal with epistemology and factual contect about the real world-- the very thing that ArbCom has (probably wisely) stayed away from, until now, like it was a hot potato. Which it is.

I expect hilarity if they do it.

Posted by: Cedric

Not only that, but the whole proposal seems to be a way for Stroynaya to worm her way back into the Cabal and to create a new power base for herself "on wiki", or to try to, anyway. Either way, drama appears to be guaranteed.

Posted by: Heat

I was wondering about SV's work on the Exodus from Lydda article and her warring with pro-Israel editor Jaakobou http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement&diff=prev&oldid=288564782

"Could it be that SV is actually moving away from her pro-Israel pushing POV of the past?" I wondered, thinking perhaps the criticism here of her enablement of extremists like Zeq had hit home.

And then I saw her proposals at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision

Is it too cynical to think that SV decided to, for the first time, take action against pro-Israel POV pushers as a mechanism to recast herself as "neutral" in the I/P topic area so that she could make a last minute intervention in an attempt to save Jayjg from a topic ban (or worse?)

This reminds me of her last minute intervention in the Mantanmoreland case where she generated enough confusion to save Mantanmoreland from ArbCom imposed sanctions. Of course, that didn't end so well. SV's reasonable doubt argument fell apart days later when Checkuser proved Mantanmoreland was indeed a sockpuppeteer (a revelation that destroyed what was left of SV's credibility for some time). I wonder if SV manages to save Jay's bacon this time the whole thing will come crashing down again?

This proposal seems like nothing more than an attempt to get her buddies off the hook and create an unworkable mechanism. Talking about neutrality in the I/P realm is an absurdity as no one who attempts to act neutrally on those pages is viewed as such by both sides, at least not for very long and indeed, Jayjg and his cohorts have long insisted that all they are trying to do is defend NPOV - a falsehood SV has long supported.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Nothing new there---classic back-office political manipulation.

Please remember: this is all just a game to her.

Not real, therefore she can do anything, no matter how sleazy or untoward.
SV is literally a character from a (bad) soap opera. She probably thinks she's
"glamorous", like Joan Collins or somesuch.....

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Posted by: Snowey

Risker talked some sense into Calisber, so it's 7-0 for stripping Jay of his tools. It's a shame they're not stripping him of his sysop bit, too.

Posted by: Heat

Who is going to be number 8? (8 votes are needed for the proposal to pass)

Posted by: The Adversary

Done!
#8: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Jayjg_stripped_of_status_and_privileges_2

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Dang! This makes WP perceptibly more credible. Do you think the Review deserves any share of the credit?

Posted by: Casliber

Hmm I don't think so....Risker's phrasing clinched it for me really. Can't comment for others.
Cas

Posted by: Heat

Ding-dong the witch is dead.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Um.......no. If this had happened 3 years ago, maybe.


Possibly, but don't wait for Arbcommers to admit it.....

Posted by: Milton Roe

Not quite, as he hasn't been desysopped. What good is censuring somebody for outrageous editwarring going to do if you leave him with the basic tool which allows edit warriors to get away with edit warring without being summarily blocked for it (or else rescued immediately). Yes, admins can block admins, but they rarely do, as much drama ensues. If you're a protected admin, you admin friends will do it, even if you've been on the wrong end of previous sanctions.

In Jayjg case, he's been protected from (non-mistake) blocks by rescues from David Gerard, SlimVirgin, and.... Essjay. They couldn't let him stay blocked for even a few hours. I can't see the stink he made on backchannel, but nothing else accounts for this level of game-protection. He was an admin at the time (though not long), but had been weakened by the first of his many ArbCom disputes for edit-warring in Jewish-related articles. Gaming from the beginning. This goes back to 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AJayjg

Posted by: Heat

Not a bad run for an edit warrior and POV pusher.

Posted by: Milton Roe

It's not the blocks you see. It's the ones you DON'T see because they weren't made, since he was an ADMIN all that time, since the end of 2004. Any plain-editor doing that through that time, would have been an oilslick on the highway by now.

Become an admin early and often. That's the way to game WP if you're gunna do it. And make sure you get about four more other admins traveling in a wolf pack with you. It works for lots of animals!

Posted by: Cla68

The case will be closed in another few days. To be fair, it's not just the pro-Israel editors causing trouble in those articles. A couple of months ago I added a paragraph to the article on the most recent Israel/Palestine war about allegations that Iran was using Hamas as a proxy army to terrorize Israel and the evidence of this was the recent seizures of arms shipments from Iran to the Gaza strip. I think I cited the New York Times. My edit was reverted by someone, not a party to this case, within a few minutes.

I guess there are some areas in Wikipedia where it's just a complete waste of time to get involved to any extent at all. Yes, I know some of you would say that any involvement at all anywhere in Wikipedia is a waste of time.

Posted by: Snowey

Sam Blacketer arrives to tank Jay's well-deserved sanctions. He also voted for topic banning G-Dett but against the same for Jay. Seems he's convinced Vassyana to switch votes, too. Can he peel away two more votes?

What a steaming pile of bullshit.

Posted by: Heat

Not much time. With enough votes to close this should be over in less than 24 hours.

Posted by: gomi

Well, Vassyana has always been a quivering pile of indecision. It is still 9-2 to sanction Jay, and I think that a 7-5 vote to sanction him, thus failing because of ArbCom's arcane voting system, would destroy any remaining shreds of confidence in the ArbCom, if there are any.



To be really fair, no one is claiming that the pro-Israel partisan editors are worse than the pro-Palestinian editors in their editing. Both of them are a pox on the truth. The issue here is that one side is protected by an ultra-powerful WP admin/checkuser/oversighter, and the other isn't. Said admin has never been reticent in using the tools of the WP trade to push his partisan agenda.

And yes, we have well established that Wikipedia is at its (cough) best in the accumulation of easily-sourced yet non-controversial facts about trivial subjects. I use it all the time to find out what actor was in which episode of random television programs. It's not as good as IMDB, but it is pretty good for that. For any subject beyond trivia, Wikipedia varies from bad to merely questionable.

I know that you and others do much work on (mostly) non-controversial areas of military history, and it is a shame that little one reads there can be trusted -- not because of lack of hard work on your part -- but because of the ultimate bankruptcy of the Wikipedia model, a state to which Jayjg and his ilk have contributed much.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Strange. Blacketer is by no means part of the Israeli POV Kabbal: his Kabbal score with Jayjg, Slim, and Jpgordon is an uninteresting 12:

#1 World_War_I - edited by 4 of 4 users
#2 Saddam_Hussein - edited by 4 of 4 users
#3 Racism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#4 Martin_Luther - edited by 4 of 4 users
#5 Lebanon - edited by 4 of 4 users
#6 Jesse_Jackson - edited by 4 of 4 users
#7 Holocaust_denial - edited by 4 of 4 users
#8 George_Galloway - edited by 4 of 4 users
#9 Christianity - edited by 4 of 4 users
#10 British_National_Party - edited by 4 of 4 users
#11 Auschwitz_concentration_camp - edited by 4 of 4 users
#12 Adolf_Hitler - edited by 4 of 4 users


So what's going on with him? Anybody know him?

Posted by: Saltimbanco

Hee hee hee!

The "but he didn't misuse the functionary tools!" argument is more than a bit like defending a daycare employee from being fired after he has been convicted of a violent sex crime, on the basis that the crime did not involve children.

Posted by: thekohser

Of course we http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=21101, Milton.

He probably still hopes that I'm as sick as a parrot.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Ah, thanks. Deep in the closet like Jayjg. Amazing and short climb to power. One smells personal connections in the UK ala FT2. Maybe Blacketer's real name is Paul Sinclair, hey?

I should use the "search" function of this board more, but (as you all know) it sucks, so I've neglected it more than I should have.

Posted by: The Adversary

Seriously, Prob needs a new hobby:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ARisker&diff=288858897&oldid=288843178

and:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/67.170.104.86

Posted by: Snowey

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FWest_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria&diff=289485799&oldid=289485565.

Posted by: Tarc

The proverbial ink isn't even dry yet, and out comes the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jayjg&diff=289509137&oldid=289505635 protests,
as well as the charge that it was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Malcolm_Schosha#Jayjg finally coming to fruition.

Posted by: Heat

The Jewish Arbs who voted for Jay's defenestration are self-hating Jews, no doubt.

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Leo lives.

Posted by: Heat

SV's opportunism is quite striking. She's now opposing pro-Israel editors, outing one sockpuppet of an editor banned in the CAMERA scandal, and expressed sympathy on the RFA's talk page with Nishdani over his banning without saying a word about Jayjg. As with her decision to shill for Proabivouac even after he outed her longtime friend Crum it appears that her "friendships" are entirely opportunistic and tactical and she's quite happy to see a friend thrown under a bus if they are no longer of use to her.

Posted by: trenton

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=M7&page=User%3AJayjg%40enwiki&year=&month=-1&tagfilter= (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Permissions#Jayjg.40en.wikipedia)

Well, you gotta build up your credibility and political capital before you can spend it...

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

So what is Jayjg's next move? His patented formula seems like it will need to be revised now.

CAMERA has come to mind lately because of Obama administration Svengali Larry Summers has a long-standing relationship with that organization, and argued back in 2004 that a faculty-led drive pushing Harvard to divest from Israel-linked companies was "anti-Semitic."

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Well I don't see the basis for that comparison, but I will say you have unusual taste in hyperbole. Thankfully so do I, though I've been trying my damnedest not to comment on this, I really have.

My analogy would be that the Daily Planet () didn't like his Spin Doctoring, so they took away his x-ray vision.

Could be that somebody back there is invoking the Aleman v. Cook County as an exception to the autrefois acquit defense, or just has a Pocket Full of Kryptonite (but at least his right to remain silent still applies).

Or they could be that they are laundering some evidence that they are not allowed to describe. All I can say is it was bound to happen eventually. I'm sure there are pundits who expect me to put on that party dress, fire up the bong, and dance on his grave (maybe even undergo an RFA to commemorate this event but I'm not like that).

I'll probably get a couple cat-calls over this crap though, just you watch.

Posted by: Mr. Mystery

I always did admire your fortitude after Jay casually used CU tools to torpedo your RFA. His CU access should have been removed then, in my opinion.

Posted by: The Joy

Play him off, Keyboard Cat!

Posted by: The Adversary

So, finally, finally over.
Ok, I have mixed feelings about this case. First, about the presumed issue; the naming:

A few weeks ago I met, well, lets say; "an European acquaintance of mine, with a very good knowledge about European mass-media, but with little knowledge about Wikipedia". Mentioning WP, I told him that the "high priests" of WP were now considering to allow the names Judea/Samaria as a substitute for the "West Bank".

He went absolutely speechless. (A rather rare occurence!) In the European media, Judea/Samaria is never used, except as to explain that this is the language of the "extreme right-wing Israeli settler-movement". Meteormaker documented it in excruciating detail.

Good Lord. Next: some new gang bands up on WP, and we will have an arb.com about whether the Pope is Catholic?

And about the "verdicts": it has been a development against edit-warring for some time. It started really with the 100% rule against wheel warring, now it has "spread" to normal editing. This has not been a rule set in stone (earlier). The claim that people are being punished by a retroactive law has some credence.

Lastly, I feel, what is the point of this? I see arb.com as a dozen big elephants, strong, but mostly a bit slow moving. In the end they moved a few...matches.

Why? Because they do not want to set down principles, they only punish individuals, who are... anonymous! Oh, the irony! Does anyone think NoCal or CanadianMonkey were their first accounts? And does anyone really think that they will not come back, indeed, are not back already?

These "13 to the dozen" ignorant "mob"-accounts are not punished at all by arb.com. The fact that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Tundrabuggy has been allowed to run around harassing/disrupting the project for a year, only underscores this. (And s/he was *only* caught because of an email to Slim). Those who are punished by topic-bans are the "unique" voices, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:G-Dett, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nishidani. If they tried to "do a Tundrabuggy" they would be recognized long before anyone managed to type "verbal chandeliers".

Ok, ok: arb.com did move one significant piece of lumber; Jayjg. Now; the interesting thing is: will he come back socking? If so; he is far too experienced to do a silly Tundrabuggy-mistake. I think he possibly could come back, unnoticed. His "voice" is so close to the "13 to the dozen" accounts, just with more persistence that most.

Posted by: Snowey

More like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt-VkRlCwt0, ja? And we're the cameraman.

Also, I still can't figure out why his sysop bit wasn't included in the privileges he was stripped of.

Posted by: The Joy

Was there any evidence of him misusing his admin tools or threatening to misuse them? As far as I know, you can be a complete jerk and despicable human being on Wikipedia, but as long as you don't misuse the tools, they'll never be taken away.

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

Specifically, should he be called "Catholic", or are "Romanist", "Papist", and "incense-huffing Vaticanite" acceptable neutral terms? The former is the overwhelming consensus of those who write English, the latter (okay, maybe not the last ) are used only by a handful of extremists.

Posted by: trenton

according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Audit_Subcommittee/Statistics, while Mr. Jayjg has not been editing, he seems to have been pretty active on the oversight front....

Posted by: Casliber

Arbcom can't rule on content, but we can highlight the necessity for the community to come to a consensus on the name. This was why I introduced a remedy 13.1 to push for that over the following two months.
Cas

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

This evokes memories of Ollie North (T-H-L-K-D) and Fawn Hall (T-H-L-K-D), up late at night with the shredding machine.

Posted by: Saltimbanco

I think the underlying story here is that Hasbara, Inc. has bigger fish to fry than Wikipedia right now. Jayjg (and, incidentally, a host of other pro-Israel editors) showed up around mid-2004, when Wikipedia was approaching its 15 minutes of fame period. Now that Wikipedia has been made into a joke rather than a serious information source (thanks in no small part to the efforts of Jayjg and others), what's the point of putting much effort into controlling its content? So I suspect that whatever cover had been provided for Jayjg to allow him not only to get away with but to thrive with his blatant propaganda effort has dissipated. He'll probably move on to promoting a "pre-emptive" attack on Iran somewhere.

Posted by: SelfHater

It's interesting looking at the talk pages for those sentenced. Nishidani (T-C-L-K-R-D) has received the most expressions of support or sympathy and all the pro-Palestinian editors have some. JayJG (T-C-L-K-R-D) has recieved some comments but the likes of NoCal100 (T-C-L-K-R-D) none.

Of course some people may think it pointless saying anything to an attack sockpuppet .

Look CeedJee and Schosha are so incapable of acknowledging that they may have contributed to why they are blocked. You can hardly expect them to understand oen fo their friends being blocked.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Well I didn't want to say anything that might be construed as an attempt to influence the outcome of this case, because as far as I knew it had nothing to do with the 2007 [1] allegations of checkuser apartheid.

In response to certain recent arbcom decisions one often hears such post-modern aphorisms as "well, they finally got Capone for tax evasion" which really begs the question regarding the ethical basis of prohibition (or income tax for that matter) but I digress.


Perhaps this is part of the hypothetical laundered evidence to which I alluded above. That is, if citing specific examples of abuse is verboten, if some kind of policy or non-disclosure agreement governing cloak'n'dagger access levels prohibits this, arbcom might feel the need to issue this type of sanction ex nihilo or for unrelated reasons [2]. But I'm not really sure about that as there are no previous similar decisions to compare this to, as I understand this is the first time such access has been involuntarily removed [3].

I doubt they're still worked up over the torpedo incident, in fact I hope they aren't. They did mention my name but as context for his "avoid generating drama" sanction. I had half a mind to reach in there and prune that crap from Jayjg's arbcomography as enumerated in FoF #8, mostly because it's meaningless and fuck-all to do with Israel, Palestine, beer, or the price of firewalls in the PRC.

I mean sure I was devastated at the time, but I don't think it has adversely affected me in the long-term and once again I didn't want to be seen as being "petty and vindictive", contributing to his demise, etc. On the other hand I remembered that hardly anybody reads the FoFs before concocting sanctions anyway so I'd only be drawing more attention to it (Streisand effect?).

While I'd suppose that the result was probably in the community's best interest I cannot be entirely sure how and why it came about. Thus I don't certainly don't see the "transparency in arbcom" panacea reaching its hyped and heralded level of fruition.

Jay is not my worst enemy on Wikipedia (though he may be his own), but even if he was he'd still deserve a fair trial, and this lacks the appearance of that. I don't dispute the presence of evidence supporting a topic ban of some scope or duration, but if you read the rest it says his super-user bits were removed due to conduct which was "unbecoming of his position [as oversight and checkuser]" even while unrelated to it.[2]

At face value this makes me uneasy as I've always felt users should be sanctioned in no other capacity than the one in which they misbehaved. Anything beyond that would actually reduce accountability by encouraging the exclusive use of top-secret incognito accounts for non-"custodial" tasks (content editing in particular) once the perceived risk of being desysopped (or whatever) for no pertinent reason becomes too great.

However I'm not prepared to take this at face value, as experienced readers will recall prior situations in which he used both checkuser and oversight inappropriately, plus there seems to be some evidence that he had continued to use these tools despite no longer editing. I guess if the wheel's still spinning but the hamster's dead, the CSCWEM precedent could reasonably apply, and this strongly would suggest he is/was using a new account pursuant to the previous paragraph.

Good for him, maybe he can edit something uncontroversial yet still within his areas of interest, such as Crash, Empire of the Sun, and new articles about every synagogue in the western hemisphere, etc. In fact I wish him well, but still I implore the committee to refactor this case so that it reflects/clarifies the actual reasons for their rather landmark decision, lest anyone draw naïve conclusions.[2]

[1] The year, not the number of... never mind...
[2] such as garden-variety edit-warring or a rhetorical fixation with beer.
[3] well, on the English Wikipedia anyway.

Posted by: tarantino

A week ago, arbcom removed the checkuser and oversight rights of http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&offset=20090508131100&type=rights&limit=3 because of their inactivity.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Hmm... coincidence? I will say that's a poor reason to remove it. But once again we never know the whole story.

Posted by: No one of consequence

No, that's really all there was. Basically, there is a slight but non-zero security risk created when people have the tools, and access to the logs and the confidential mailing lists, but don't intend to use them. It is my understanding that all three users were contacted and asked whether they intended to become active again soon, and none of them did.


Nope.

Posted by: gomi

156 deletions and oversights while under the cloud of a negative ArbCom decision, the logs of which are unavailable to the general public, and while the user in question was silent on the subject and not otherwise editing Wikipedia?

I would say that the presumption of innocence does not apply, at least to any normally-skeptical person.

Posted by: No one of consequence

I'm not presuming anything.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

No One of Consequence has slightly better-than-average access. But you must forgive the rest of us for speculating a bit.

Posted by: One

This is precisely why I was reluctant to vote for these findings. He hasn't been doing anything nefarious with the superbits in the recent past. Period. I tried to make that emphatically clear; his removal was simply for the activity you see on Wikipedia. Just as we would desysop an admin for prolific edit warring--even if they never misused the tools--we believe that functionaries should be held to a higher standard. Higher than regular admins, even.

His recent oversights were legitimate; removing the sort of things that can damage non-editor innocent victims. For his work in this area, I and the committee thanked him.

Incidentally, when he quit editing on Wikipedia, he also stopped sending messages in any forum that I am aware of. He was not engaging in a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign. He really was busy with real life.

I'm tired of these conspiracy theories. Please come up with some actual critique. Thanks.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Well, he is an inveterate POV pusher and bully. That requires no conspiracy theory and I think it's beyond dispute.

Posted by: EricBarbour

You might ask G-Dett, or PalestineRemembered, if Jay gave them a "fair trial".
And don't forget http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jayjg&diff=prev&oldid=243581037.

Posted by: gomi

OK, how about this: the lack of transparency of all of the "superpowers" given to Wikipedia's uber-admins, combined with the poor choice in who they are given to, leads reasonable people to conclude that the potential for abuse exists. Relying on the unsupported representations of those within that same cabal of uber-admins that no abuse in taking place at the moment does nothing to diminish the problem.

The idea, the mere concept that -- after such a long, long history of misuse of admin powers by the likes of Jayjg, MONGO, Ryulong, SlimVirgin and many others -- that these representations should be trusted is an insult to the intelligence of every Wikipedia editor and observer, as is "thanking" Jayjg for his "years of service" blocking innocent editors, edit-warring, and generally being an asshole.

Posted by: Snowey

So you'll be de-sysop'ing Jay immediately, then?

Posted by: One

Ah yes, the uber-admin cabal. The disagreements we might appear to have are actually clever ploys.

Meet the new cabal, same as the old cabal.

Posted by: gomi

Sorry, but what part of "You cannot fix a structural problem with staffing changes" do you not understand?

Posted by: Cedric

None of it, evidently. But then, that is not just CHL's/One's weakness, but one which is rather common on Wikipedia. It is a http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=20830&view=findpost&p=139462 in the ongoing process of Wikipedia's self-destruction.

Posted by: One

I'm sorry if that's your point. Your fixation with the personalities who banned you is much more noticeable.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Well if you mean they responded in the negative, I'd say it was voluntary. But a failure to respond at all would be more ambiguous.


Do you mean you believe this, or is it written down somewhere?

So is this the real reason that so many admins appear uninterested in editing content (i.e. that many of them in fact use other accounts for that) or would this theory be too optimistic?

Posted by: One

Apparently, a supermajority of the committee believes it, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Editors_with_privileged_access as such. Would you prefer we not hold them to higher standards than other users? Why?

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I always thought it odd that ArbCom "opinions" are structured like this when ArbCom asserts that the cases have "no precedential value." It seems to me to be as valuable as the paper it is not written on.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Using the term "personality" in a very loose sense, of course.

Jon

Posted by: Lar

While I am not keen on trappings, in general, and don't want ArbCom taking on all the trappings of a legal system, I think there would be value in striking down the "no precedent set" notion and switching to a precedent based system.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Well that's a loaded question. Not a higher set of standards, just a wider set. And of course each standard should be applied with the same rigor to all user-conduct governed by it. This does not mean they should be mixed, matched, or multiplied.

I'm just saying that sanctions which do not address the problem are punitive and unhelpful, and that it is disingenuous to cite regular ol' edits on a regular ol' page as a reason to remove extra user-rights. That kind of nonsense only reinforces the "big deal" fallacy.

Arbcom would have everyone believe Jay's checkuser and oversight tools were removed for a small set of flippant comments and trivial edit-warring which weren't even serious enough to earn a block. However some of us suspect this is a false front for more severe (and above all, more pertinent) misconduct which has not been cited.

Once again I do not disagree with the result per se but I encourage the committee to publish a more detailed reason for it. It's rather a quantum leap of precedent as it stands now, and I'm more worried about the future context in which it may be cited.

Posted by: One

Nonsense. Adminship would be less of a big deal if it weren't almost indestructible. ArbCom wants to hold functionaries to a higher standard. With an existing method to remove the tools, the community should be more comfortable with the existence of privileges, no matter who holds them.

Honestly, why should borderline POV warriors have checkuser? Can you articulate a reason? I get that they're regular ol' edits, but doesn't the mere existence of such POV checkusers deter those of opposing ideologies--even the checkuser does not use the extra tools to advance his or her cause? Doesn't it send a signal that POV wars are normal, and sometimes even commendable (depending on one's POV)? If you don't see a problem with this, I can't help you.

Adminship should not be like tenure, and checkuser rights certainly should not be.


It's all there. I'm sorry you don't believe it. This would probably only be cited for removing advance rights--you notice that we implicitly found the conduct within permissible bounds for an admin, but not for a functionary.

Posted by: Snowey

Perhaps you missed this, so I'll ask again: why does Jayjg, who "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria#Jayjg_.28I.29" (your words), still have his sysop bit?

Posted by: One

I didn't miss it. As I said above, we implicitly found his conduct within permissible bounds for an admin, but not for the higher standard we expect of CUs. There was almost consensus around this point, and that would not have been true of desysop.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

That's great but you're off to a rather nebulous start in terms of establishing the conditions under which checkuser/oversight should be removed.


Ideally, no.

But this is all hearsay due to the secrecy of everything having to do with checkuser, particularly in cases where somebody suspects inappropriate use of checkuser but can't get anyone to confirm or deny that it was used at all. Some people will erroneously feel paranoid or complacent based on speculation or ritualized assurance that nobody is out to get them, just as they would if these tools are held by somebody who have no opposing POVs or even common topics of interest, only a personal grudge (or for any number of other reasons which could disqualify potentially anyone).

If I were to say "Jay should not have checkuser", it would be entirely on the basis that he has abused it in the past. This has nothing to do with his content editing or his debating style, which are the only reasons cited in the arbcom case. Once again I advise you to refactor this case so that evidence supports the result rather than begging the question.


Well if problems associated with his POV/editing can still exist in spite of the topic ban you've got more work to do, eh Luke?


I can't wrap my mind around this distinction. What is the basis for it? Clearly not cause-and-effect.

Posted by: One

Some people find it incongruous to have a topic banned admin--supposedly the topic ban would indicate that the individual doesn't fully have the community's trust. I doubt that, but I would not support any sitting checkuser with a topic ban, as you apparently would. These positions are very high profile, and they should exemplify best practices. I think that POV checkusers are especially demoralizing to opposing editors in a way that POV admins are not.

So how about that as a standard? If we apply a topic ban, then the user should not be a functionary. I would apply that across the board. Reasonable start?

I did not base my votes on Jayjg's previously-examined conduct, but that does not mean that I would have voted differently in the past. I would have generally imposed a more sanctions if I had been on ArbCom. I'm not slighting your case or any others, but I looked primarily to his present conduct.

The reasons individual arbitrators voted might vary, but I can report that there was no behind-the-scenes agreement that Jayjg be removed him for any particular X. The prior cases were an important part of the complete decision, but there was no off-site evidence or agreement by arbitrators. You're looking at the thing we agreed upon; there's nothing else. I signed them simply because I don't think seasoned POV warriors should have advanced tools. Maybe some others voted for private reasons, but I'm not aware of them, nor do I necessarily agree with them.


You seem to believe that the only reason for removing tools is misuse of those particular tools. I think you're wrong both descriptively and normatively. There's nothing else I can say.

Posted by: Heat

Some time ago Thatcher referred to past questionable use by Jayjg of his oversight tool. While ArbComm may not have formally considered Jayjg's record with either O/S or CheckUser when deciding to remove those bits it would be more transparent if you could at least tell us whether any problems in Jayjg's use of those bits has been found in the past. If CU and O/S users are to be held to a higher standard than certainly they should be subject to the same transparency as other users and if there have been problems with their use of these tools this should be disclosed at the time along with any sanctions (or conversely, findings clearing individuals of wrongdoing).

Records indicate that in 2006 Jayjg http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=14901. An explanation of this would have been nice at the time - it's not too late for one now.

Posted by: One

Ask me on Wikipedia.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Can you please explain what kind of rubric you use to decide that certain edits are acceptable for a regular user but not acceptable for an admin (or are acceptable for a regular user or an admin, but not acceptable for an oversighter or a checkusererer).

Maybe you can also draft a policy to this effect to see how people really feel about the extended implications of this.

I suspect the response would be that it works well as a device to remove Jayjg but fits less comfortably in the general case (not in those words of course).

Thanks.

("You" can be plural as used above, if anyone other member of arbcom would like to explain the multi-tier editing model.)

Posted by: One

If you feel strongly about it, you should do it. Would make a good first draft for the community/committee anyway.

We don't really have a rubric as we're acting in a vacuum of policy. I could articulate standards that I find sensible, but I would only be speaking for myself. We take checkuser and oversight seriously because the community does not manage them directly, so we should be cautious about who is allowed to hold the privileges.

At any rate, I doubt many people would agree with you that POV warriors are acceptable checkusers.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Eh, no (see WP:POINT).


I didn't say that, exactly. I only said that I wouldn't consider the same behavior to somehow be more tolerable when exhibited by users of a lower level in the absence of logical relationship.

And by that I mean demoting people (or refusing to promote them) won't make them less able or less likely to edit-war. The notion that we'd even consider this approach suggests a greater need to improve existing policies/doctrines related to edit-warring.

Posted by: Heat

I can't. I've been banned thanks, largely, to Jayjg's past efforts.

Posted by: One

Ordinary editors are not expected to be good examples to others. They also generally don't have access to private information that might belong to ideological opponents. You still haven't explained what's objectionable about holding users who have higher positions of trust to generally higher standards. What's your doomsday scenario here? What terrible consequences will follow?


Why do you think that's the point? That's not it at all. Considering how gnarly these ethnic wars are, a case can be made that he's not a particularly malicious warrior (although plenty here would disagree). My primary concern is not whether low-level POV warring occurs with this specific user, but rather the signal that having such a checkuser sends the community.

These are our highest volunteer positions. Allowing edit warriors to hold them sends a signal that certain POV campaigns are OK. It would also (as I've said several times) tend to demoralize ideological opponents, make them suspicious of the project, and thereby tend to drive them away.

We try to do things in the best interest of the encyclopedia. Having checkusers trusted by users of all ideologies is good for the encyclopedia--I really think so. Therefore, POV warriors ought not be checkusers. There are others who can fill that role while better maintaining universal trust.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Well, I must admit, you're http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ryulong/Proposed_decision#Ryulong_desysopped lately.

You've still got a helluva lot of fecal matter to clean up.......

Posted by: gomi

Please explain to me why this principle does not apply to admins, as well as checkusers? Admins have the power to indefinitely ban editors, there is plenty of evidence of that having been done, and nothing drives more editors away from Wikipedia than unfair blocks and bans. Ryulong get his bits cut off, yet Jayjg remains an admin, and SlimVirgin will soon be one again, without so much as a new RFA. Do you make this shit up as you go along?

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Well, we all have ideological opponents. The usual difference is most of them don't know who they are.


So the exact same edits would all be kosher perfectly fine if he was using a different account and nobody knew it was Jayjg? This gets more interesting by the hour.

No, seriously I don't care who's sending smoke-signals to whom. I know this also contradicts your views on BLP, but reducing the appearance of a problem does not decrease its severity.

Posted by: One

The acts of admins can be reviewed by 1000 others; they don't need to be universally trusted in the same way as every individual with access to the CU log. Checkusers are in our hands alone, and I think we should be more careful with who holds these rare bits. If admins block people, we often hear about it. If users are deterred from contributing due to a CU, we might not.

Compromises aren't always logically consistent, but this one doesn't seem insane to me.


No, I suspect he would be topic banned. The topic ban addresses his POV warring, the removal of advance bits addresses the issue of trust.


That's news to me. Care to explain?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Snap!

Posted by: The Joy

I think, One, we are confused as to why you do not think of administrators like Jayjg as a problem to the project. Even if Jayjg does not use his tools to enforce his POV or uses them in such a way as to get caught, he still has the social power that comes with being an administrator and a long-time vested contributor with many allies. You can look in Jayjg's editor folder here at the Review for some cases and evidence of his misbehavior.

If Jayjg was a police officer in the real world and he shot someone with a taser in a malicious act, he would no longer be a police officer. Period. There would be no "Oh, he didn't shoot someone with a gun or beat someone to death with a baton, so let's let him still be a police officer but take away the taser." Are you suggesting that making Jayjg a Barney Fife* will keep him in check?

*

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

If edit-warring and talk-page trolling were the only problem, but he complies with the topic ban and stops doing these things, I'd say the problem is solved, for what "issue of trust" remains?

I know I have friends I trust not to lie to me plus ones I trust not to steal from me, but they tend not to be the same people.

I think there's more to this than meets the eye.


Well, the parallel seems clear to me.

Outtatha sight, outtatha mind, undatharug, same old.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Ah the big-deal delusion again. The community takes adminship at collectors' value rather than blue-book (face) value.

What is "social power" exactly, and how do you avoid getting it on you?

Posted by: One

Really?

*backs nervously away from CharlotteWebb*

Posted by: Cla68

It sounds like you all agreed that Jayjg was violating the NPOV policy. Why didn't you make a finding of this?

Posted by: One

I'm sorry, I may overstating what we found. The opinion was built on a backbone of edit warring.

I was taking POV warriors as the example because of CharlotteWebb's theory that POV warriors are acceptable checkusers. In spite of CharlotteWebb's personal experience that there's actually an inverse relationship between dishonesty and theft, I think it's reasonable to assume that Wikipedians who bend editing rules to advance a POV might seem more likely to bend checkuser rules to advance a POV. The stakes are higher with checkuser though.

Anyhow, this thread has gone on too long. My only purpose was to emphasize that there was not a secret agreement based on non-public evidence. The vote happened in plain sight for the reasons expressed.

Just like every other committee on earth, the resulting decisions aren't necessarily logically consistent; they are what the plurality found reasonable.

I have nothing else to say here.

Posted by: Cla68

Kelly Martin astutely pointed out in a post here or elsewhere that POV-pushing editors don't feel that they're doing anything wrong, because their cause is so noble to them that the ends justify the means. So, I think you're right that Checkuser is at great risk of abuse by such people, but so are any of the other admin privileges.

I understand that the decision in this case was built on edit warring. If you all had found violations of NPOV, then I think the sanctions should have been harsher, because violation of NPOV, in my opinion, is more serious than violating edit-warring.

Posted by: No one of consequence

See [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee]].

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

I like how you twist everything I say to make me sound stupid (aside from the pitfall of trusting anybody for any reason, I suppose I walked into that one myself).

Nobody is really "honest" per se, but the best of us do pick certain areas in which to try harder at the expense of other areas.

Ideally everyone finds a moral niche in which people trust them, but otherwise life goes on.

Posted by: The Joy

Running away now, are we?

Posted by: Snowey

You just said, and I quote, "we would desysop an admin for prolific edit warring even if they never misused the tools." The Arbitration Committee just unanimously found that, and I quote, "Jayjg has engaged in repeated and extensive edit-warring."

Is there some difference between "prolific edit warring" and "repeated and extensive edit warring" that I've missed?

Posted by: gomi

But the evidence regarding checkuser, oversight, and deletion use still isn't in plain sight, and what we have is your representation as an ArbCom member that there was no secret agreement.
You are a member of a court that gives kangaroos a bad name.

Now, if you had published, for example, a log of all pages Jayjg had made oversights or deletions on, and a log of all Wikipedia usernames he had checkusered (along with timestamps) -- both pieces of information that would contain nothing confidential -- there would be some evidence on which to evaluate your claim. As it is, you have made another in a long line of unsubstantiated claims by Wikipedia potentates, aimed at convincing people that there's "Nothing to see here, move along". It's all very insular, and no one but a cultist would buy it.

No doubt. Like Slim, the conversation closes when the questions become uncomfortable.

Posted by: Lar

I think that's rather an unfair comparison. Even if you only made it for rhetorical effect.

If you beat up those working for change because they aren't getting there fast enough or getting there in precisely the way you'd prefer... who is left?

Posted by: One

Why do you think he wants change? He seems to want his vision of 2005 to last forever. To Gomi, Jayjg is an unstoppably powerful overlord, and arbitrators are still his toadies as witnessed by "only" stripping him of his rights and position (an event he repeatedly predicted would not happen).

Anyhow, I don't have to comment here, and so I won't. I think it's unfair to Wikipedians who are not here; might even cause them to conclude that I'm WR's representative. If anyone wants to ask me about ArbCom cases, you can find me on Wikipedia.

Posted by: Lar

Nod.

Oh, BTW... obviously we're plotting together...

"Member No.: 4,284"
"Member No.: 4,290"

Plus I own a fedora and you own some LEGO. AMIRITE?

Posted by: Snowey

"Prolific edit warring" and "repeated and extensive edit warring." What's the difference, Luke?

Edit: If he refuses to answer for this contradiction, could someone who doesn't mind logging into Wikipedia ask him in his userspace?

Posted by: Heat

Also ask him about Jay's earlier loss of oversight (see my earlier post).

Posted by: cyofee

I would like to second this question. Did he temporarily lose oversight, what were the reasons for that, and were they true?

If you don't wish to reveal that information, or don't have access to them, please say so.

Posted by: gomi

I was glad to see I am wrong about Jayjg's sanctions, but they are far from anything representing reform of Wikipedia. I have always described Wikipedia as being very much like a post-apocalyptic warlord society, in which those on the "in" can suddenly turn on those who are caught unawares, and this appears to be the case. Jayjg needed to get thrown under the bus, so that's what happened. The reason I see Wikipedia as being essentially the same as in 2005 is because Wikipedia is essentially the same as in 2005. There have been no meaningful structural changes in how the WP society operates: no new checks and balances, no meaningful reform of the admin class, just a few hangings to focus the remaining minions on acceptable behaviour. Sure, we have some new Arbcom members who, at first glance, appear to be slightly less corrupt and/or incompetent than their predecessors, but in a year or two they will be gone and nothing will be different.

Funnily enough, you don't have a problem coming here with pronouncements that Arbcom Has Done The Right Thing ™, but when asked questions about it, you scuttle off to Wikipedia, where if the same questions were asked the questioner would be inevitably banned for "incivility" or some other made-up excuse. These are the kinds of behaviours that make me think I should join Jon Awbrey's camp.

You'll need to let me know how this case, or Cool Hand Luke's participation in it, represents "change". I see no policy created, and I see no impediment to similar and ongoing abuse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Jayjg and the rest of the POV crew on the Israel-Palestine articles got their comeuppance, I think it was long overdue and well-deserved. On the other hand, I find Luke's self-congratulatory tone to be depressing. They barely. barely did the right thing, and now he wants a Nobel Prize and a free pass here at the Review. Ain't gonna happen.

Posted by: Kato

I'm not so sure.

A big difference seems to be that power seekers now need to have proved themselves over years to get ahead, rather than months. Back in 2005, it was possible for someone to become a powerful Wikipedio on the back of a few edits and some regular interference on important pages. Nowdays, Checkusers, Arbitrators (and the like) need to have had a clean record for a long period, and are scrutinised by 100s on their ascent. I don't think a Jayjg figure, who was obviously inappropriate, could suddenly rise to such a powerful position anymore.

Posted by: trenton

or why one editor gets about ten "reminders", "warnings", and "admonishments" while others don't get any.....

or why one editor gets to edit war for years, while others make about four reverts and get treated the same....

or why one editor who pushes a fringe view gets treated the same as those who try to bring some measure of objectivity and neutrality to articles....

or why an editor who is supposed to be a "role model" is given more leeway and allowed to behave worse than regular editors...

or just accept that a kangaroo court does whatever it feels like without regard to reason.



Don't forget sucking up to the god-king on IRC. It certainly worked for Kelly Martin, Essjay, and Jayjg, none of whom were "elected".

Posted by: Heat

If people feel that the Arbcomm erred by allowing Jayjg to keep his admin bit despite his long history of admonishments and that the same principle of being an "editor in good standing" and "reputable" should apply to adminship then open an RFC on whether or not Jayjg should keep his bit.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

See latest post, here: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23967&pid=173682&st=0&#entry173682

Posted by: Kelly Martin

The first time I spoke with Jimbo, on IRC or elsewise, was when he informed me that he was considering appointing me to the ArbCom. I have never "sucked up" to Jimbo, or, in fact, anyone; it's just not in my nature to suck up.

I still wonder how Jayjg got chosen; at the time he was appointed he was then subject to ArbCom sanctions. It's as if Jimbo just conveniently ignored his history.

A side note: Jayjg objected (on arbcom-l) to my appointment to the ArbCom.

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

He was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=next&oldid=19971311 by sitting arbcom members. Who recommended him? I have my suspicions, but I can't verify them.

It probably didn't hurt that Wales and Jayjg hold many of the same opinions on certain Middle Eastern issues.

Why did he object to your appointment?

Posted by: Kelly Martin

No specific reason was given that I can remember. The log file in question may still be on a hard drive somewhere but I'm not sure where.

Posted by: Cla68

Was Morven on the ArbCom at that time? I'm still wondering about his action http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles&diff=prev&oldid=183534204. I guess I should just go ask him about it.

Posted by: zvook

I'm quite curious about Wales' ideas about "reputation effects", which according to Grep's photobucket he has been speaking about since http://s292.photobucket.com/albums/mm3/jimboswish/?action=view¤t=jimbo_fbi.jpg, and which he further refers to in his extraordinary (and yet par for the course) recent Hot Press http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=23417&view=findpost&p=163625 (scroll down). In practice, this seems to pan out in this wise: one attains, for whatever reason, Jimbo's approval. You are now a trusted user. You can then recommend others, who immediately become likewise trusted. It is akin to being "made" in the mafia, and it's very difficult to become un-"made". Made users can have undisclosed socks, block users they dispute with, protect pages they edit, etc., since all is obv. "for the good of the encyclopedia" since they are (or have at one point been designated as) "trusted". Protests against trusted users are trolling. On the occasions when they are undeniably caught in a bind, the matter will when possible be looked at in private, and explanations that would otherwise be laughed at are entertained seriously. An in-crowd is created, and the notion of focusing on the content issues rather than the personalities is undermined.

There isn't any reference to this reputation thing that I can find on Wikipedia's pages, apart from a brief mention on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Account#Reputation_and_privacy page ("logging in under a pseudonym lets you build trust and respect through a history of good edits"). And yet the idea seems to have permeated through the old #wikipedia-admins crowd and various arbcoms, presumably through Wales himself? Would appreciate if people like Kelly have anything to say on this, and links to previous discussions on WR, if any, are as always appreciated.

Edit: looks like the talk was in 2006 not 2003

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Morven was not on the ArbCom back in the summer of 2005 when my appointment was being discussed.


This is an absolutely accurate representation of one of the major social dynamics within Wikipedia. There are multiple levels inside that, too; I was never admitted to the middle or inner circles of Jimbo's trust, for example.

Posted by: Heat

So Jayjg's been gone for some time now. When does he officially become a missing person?

Posted by: Kelly Martin

You will first have to demonstrate that Jayjg was, in fact, a person.

Posted by: Casliber

meaning....?

Posted by: EricBarbour

.....the bastard is so secretive, even his admin friends know nothing about him personally.
Everyone (and I mean everyone, even Brandt) who has tried to identify him has given up
in complete disgust. He's one of wiki-lala-land's biggest mysteries.

Now, unless Tarantino would care to weigh in, there it sits.

Posted by: KimvdLinde

Come on, the people behind JayJG are already ready to start editing as soon as checkusering does not result in good answers anymore. Cue three months and a bit after the last edit.

Posted by: Heat

Kelly's point raises another question - what sort of organization entrusts senior permissions to a user about whom it knows nothing about?

Posted by: Milton Roe

A damned irresponsible one. Practically the definition of Wikipedia.

Posted by: Tarc

There really is very little style or flair to Jayjg's editing, it has always come across as the sort of stale prose one finds in press releases or advocacy papers. Likely just a middling AIPAC flunky.

Posted by: Tarc

Only a matter of time before someone got caught, first out of the gate is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NoCal100#Blocked for socking.

A little surprising as he had been racking up the DYK's lately, presumably to get back into good graces, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/West_Bank_-_Judea_and_Samaria/Proposed_decision#Lifting_of_restrictions.

Posted by: Cla68

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Canadian_Monkey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jayjg, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Nishidani all stopped editing around the time of the Committee's proposed decision. Unfortunately, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/G-Dett has also.

Posted by: nableezy

So has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Nickhh for the most part (at least on articles since Jaakabou's antics at The Independent page). I could see CM not having anything at all to offer now that he cannot play the national hero but not so much the rest of them. No surprise about NoCal, he probably has another 20 accounts waiting for the current checkuser data to go stale

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/LuvGoldStar we have SlimVirgin demanding a sockpuppetry investigation of LuvGoldStar (T-C-L-K-R-D) , on the grounds of incorrect POV. At the end of the page she makes so bold as to say " it doesn't really doesn't matter who is behind the account."

Posted by: sbrown

Fred Bauder once said in one of the many deleted Rfcs on slimvirgin

"Tsunami Butler was properly blocked as a sockpuppet. Such determinations are not based on checkuser but on aggressive editing which fits the same pattern as a banned user. Obviously a different person may be involved; the violation is mirroring the behavior of the banned editor."

So you can ban anyone you dont like as a sockpuppet whether or not they are. But we knew that.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

And in a somewhat related matter, there is an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Criticism_of_the_Anti-Defamation_League for "Criticism of the Anti-Defamation League," which seems reminiscent of the whole "allegations of apartheid" charade.

Posted by: Cla68

Splitting-off an article like that can be a POV-fork sometimes, like Jossi did to try to remove criticism form the Rawat article, but it is sometimes the right thing to do to keep a section from taking up undue space in an article, like what I did by splitting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aso_Mining_forced_labor_controversy from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro_Aso#Aso_Mining_forced_labor_controversy. As long as the main article prominently links to it and adequeately summarizes the branch article, I don't think there's a problem.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Comical. The Mad Bitch shows up to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hadashot_Livkarim#Bedolah about editing an article
dealing with an Israeli outpost. 3 hours later, Jpgordon swoops in and indef-blocks.
So predictable.

Did I or did I not http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=23773&view=findpost&p=168102 that she'd get her admin bits back, and disappear from WR?
She went right back to the same ol' dirt-shoveling, back-stabbing, and meatpuppeting.

And that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Criticism_of_the_Anti-Defamation_League has some amusing crap.....