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General sequence of events

As to the sequence of events, the statements by the neutral parties, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli#Statement by KimvdLinde and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli#Statement by ChrisO seem to cover what has happened.

Abuse of admin privileges to unprotect article for out-of-policy move

One unresolved evidence issue is that there appears to have been a misuse of admin authority to unprotect the Israeli apartheid page so that it could be moved. But the logs to determine who did that are not generally available.

The whole sequence of moves in the move war on July 4th was, in reverse order:

• 7. (cur) (last) 22:24, 4 July 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) m (moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid: this is allegations)
• 6. (cur) (last) 22:18, 4 July 2006 ChrisO (Talk | contribs) m (moved Allegations of Israeli apartheid to Israeli apartheid: A vote of 16-12 does not a consensus make - the move is clearly premature)
• 5. (cur) (last) 22:15, 4 July 2006 Jayjg (Talk | contribs) m (moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid: There's good enough consensus for this, and NPOV really demands it.)
• 4. (cur) (last) 22:13, 4 July 2006 ChrisO (Talk | contribs) m (moved Allegations of Israeli apartheid to Israeli apartheid: Out of process move - ongoing move poll is not yet concluded and no decision has been reached)
• 3. (cur) (last) 22:12, 4 July 2006 SlimVirgin (Talk | contribs) m (moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid)
• 2. (cur) (last) 21:55, 4 July 2006 ChrisO (Talk | contribs) m (moved Allegations of Israeli apartheid to Israeli apartheid: Out of process move - ongoing move poll is not yet concluded and no decision has been reached)
• 1. (cur) (last) 20:11, 4 July 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) m (moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid:

Unfortunately, users can't see admin protection events in that sequence. According to statements by ChrisO, the page was protected after move #6, which implies that someone unprotected it to allow move #7. That event needs to be tracked down. At least three (more? someone check) of the parties to the arbitration have admin authority. --John Nagle 17:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we have more information (see ChrisO section below) it appears that during all this frantic page moving, a race condition on moving and page protection between Jayjg, Humus Sapiens and ChrisO resulted in what looked like a misuse of admin authority, but was not. --John Nagle 18:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note, though, that some actions in KimvdLinde's list below, including 4-7-2006 20:11 Humus sapiens deleted "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" (Deleted to make way for move.) required admin privileges, which may indicate a misuse of admin authority. --John Nagle 19:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of out of policy move to justify edits to article

The out of policy move is now being used to justify further edits. Evidence:

• Edit by Avraham (talk · contribs) [2] "Change of "Israeli apartheid" to "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" in first line of article. Comment "More accurate reflection of title..."
• Edit by Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg (talk · contribs) [3] Talk page comment on above change: "I agree, Avi's version is what makes the most sense due to the fact that the entire title is written together.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 23:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)"[reply]

--John Nagle 00:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The page moves occured without consensus.

This is the poll about the time that this move war began. (Unless timezone issues are sloshing it around, in which case it is off by somewhere between 1 and 10 hours.) 17 agree to the move, and 14 oppose, counting a cryptic comment which lists both possibilities and seems to lean slightly towards agree as 2 agree votes and 1 oppose vote.

Humus sapiens knew there was no consensus

Humus sapiens renamed the article while acknowledging there was no consensus to do so:

There is no consensus and we are not going to get one and to pretend otherwise is dishonest. For weeks, we've been kept hostage to activists (I am trying to be polite here) who are interested only in namecalling and inflammatory soapboxing. This cannot go on forever. I am moving the article Israeli Apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid because that is what it is: allegations. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[4][reply]

Homey 16:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response to evidence by Humus sapiens

Humus claims that "In search of a compromise on June 1 6SJ7 renamed it "Israeli apartheid (phrase)"; then on June 5, I renamed it "Israeli apartheid (epithet)" - this is inaccurate and misleading, in fact, the page was first moved on 18:16, 29 May 2006 by User:IZAK[5] who provided no explanation in his edit summary, nor according to Talk:Israeli apartheid/Archive 1 did he discuss the move prior or follwing its implementation. I reverted the move. User:6SJ7 first renamed the article at 03:38 31 May and then did so a second time on 05:10, 1 June 2006[6] Again, according to Talk:Israeli apartheid/Archive 1 and Talk:Israeli apartheid/Archive 2 this move was not discussed by him on the talk pages. "In search of a compromise" suggests the move occured after discussion, however, the evidence is there was no prior discussion of the move thus the "search of a compromise" was done in a unilateral manner. Talk:Israeli apartheid/Archive 1 shows that 6SJ7 did not discuss his move prior to implementing it. Similarly Talk:Israeli apartheid/Archive 4 shows that Humus sapiens did not discuss his name change to "Israeli apartheid (epithet)" prior to implementing it[7]. Homey 22:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Israeli apartheid has survived two unsuccessful AFD attempts

The article was subjected to an AFD on two occasions:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Israeli apartheid (phrase) - result no conensus
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Israeli apartheid (second nomination) - result speedy keep (unanimous)

Homey 21:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review

The article also went through peer review:

• Wikipedia:Peer review/Israeli apartheid/archive1

Homey 21:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jayjg's tortured evidence

This edit is curious[8]. Jay had initially claimed that Kim and I had "started" numerous polls. Off the top of my head I don't recall starting any polls so I asked Jay on his talk page which polls I had started[9]. His response was to add "or participated" (see the first link above). So now my crime is having merely participated in polls? Why does Jay not mention the dozens of others, including himself, who participated in these polls, why just Kim and myself? If I didn't start any polls why does Jay see the need to imply that I might have (started or participated) and somehow link me with Kim as if we are acting in cahoots. Jayjg's presentation of his evidence is tortured to say the least. Homey 04:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An update, upon Jay's latest edit to his evidence I have now been cleared of the crime of "starting" polls[10], this crime now belongs to Kim alone. This is still a misrepresentation of the facts though as Kim is not the only person to have opened polls. A number of individuals opened polls "confusing" and otherwise, including User:Su-laine.yeo, User:Humus sapiens, User:Bill Levinson, User:Kendrick7 and none other than User:Jayjg[11] yet only Kim is singled out for poll opening and the act of opening a poll is put forward as some sort of crime. Why is this? Why has Jay singled out Kim's opening of a poll to the exclusion of all the other polls, including his own?Homey 04:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS

The concept of actual or potential apartheid in Israel is widespread in the literature and used in numerous reliable sources ranging from The Economist, BBC News, several scholarly books and articles and Jewish Israeli politicians from various parts of the political spectrum as well as several South African politicians and leaders. During the discussion process numerous sources were compiled at Talk:Israeli apartheid/RS. Homey 14:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Widespread use and more RS

• A google search returns over 300,000 hits for the exact phrase "Israeli apartheid"[12]
• Google scholar returns around 50 hits for the exact phrase[13]
• Google books also returns around 50 hits for the exact phrase [14]
• A "Web of Science" search also returned numerous academic sources [15].

Homey 14:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Why not create the article Zionist conspiracy.

• Google: 373000[16], scholar 207[17], books 512[18].

Unless, of course, suitable encylopedia topics can't be determined by the number of search engine hits.--Denis Diderot 22:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary response to 6SJ7 on article title

6SJ7 suggests that there was a discussion prior to the initial name change of the article. He writes:

The specific question of the article’s title was discussed before anyone moved anything; among the editors discussing the title were Moshe [19] [20], Homey [21] [22], Strothra [23] [24] 6SJ7 [25] [26], and Bless Sins [27]. Content disputes were already underway, and at 18:08 Homey first threatens Zeq with arbitration (mind you, this was May 29, the first day of the article’s existence.) [28] At 18:16, IZAK makes the first move of the article’s title, to “Israeli Apartheid (phrase)” (hereinafter simply “phrase”).

In fact, in none of the diffs prior to IZAK's move of the article at 18:16 was there any discussion of an alternative title to "Israeli Apartheid" as far as I can see, "Israeli apartheid (phrase)" as a title was not mentioned until after the move was implemented. Most of the diffs seem to deal more with the article's existence itself as opposed to being a serious discussion on the title and possible alternatives to "Israeli apartheid." Homey 03:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

POV pushing

[29] - described, misleadingly, as "an attempt at NPOV":

Israeli apartheid is a propeganda phrase used to deligitimize Israel's right to exist. The pharse was coined by some anti-Zionists and Palestinian activists to draw a false analogy between the policies of the Israeli government to those of the apartheid-era South African government while ignoring all the facts that make such compariosn false.

[30] After being reverted, the POV was reintroduced:

Israeli apartheid' is a propeganda phrase used to deligitimize Israel's right to exist. The pharse was coined by some anti-Zionists and Palestinian activists to draw a false analogy between the policies of the Israeli government to those of the apartheid-era South African government while ignoring Israeli_apartheid#Criticism that make such compariosn false.

This was a change from:

Israeli apartheid is a controversial phrase used by some anti-Zionists and Palestinian rights activists to draw an analogy between the policies of the Israeli government towards Palestinians to those of the apartheid-era South African government towards its Black and mixed-race populations. The analogy has been used as early as 1987 by Uri Davis, an Israeli-born academic and Jewish member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in his book Israel: An Apartheid State (ISBN 0862323177) which provided a detailed comparison of Israel and South Africa. The highly controversial World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa adopted resolutions describing Israel as an "apartheid state"[31]. Nobel Peace Prize winner and South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu wrote in some articles that the situation in Israel reminded him about Apartheid[32].

[33] User:IZAK attempted to put the article in Category:Anti-Semitism and Category:Ethnic slurs

(more to come)Homey 11:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Votestacking at the Israeli apartheid AFD

• User:Zeq was blocked for 48 hours on June 2, 2006 for votestacking the Israeli apartheid AFD[34]. Without this activity the result may not have been more decisively in favour of keeping the articleHomey 18:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Abuse and violation of privacy

Following his ban for vote stacking at the Israeli apartheid AFD, Zeq retaliated by opening an article under my real name thus violating my privacy. This was a violation of Wikipedia:Harassment which poisoned the atmosphere (for me) at the Israeli apartheid article. I will send Fred the proof of the article. Homey 18:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This has been dealt with separately Fred Bauder 14:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Past involvement on Israeli-Palestinian articles

I have almost no previous involvement in Israeli-Palestinian articles other than starting the Binational solution article on 18 December 2003 and subsequently expanding it. The Committee is welcome to check my edit summary to verify this statement.

As User:Bhouston's useful analysis below shows (under #Factional behavior analysis), I have had negligible involvement with the other parties in this arbitration until now. We don't edit in the same topics and I don't edit in Israeli-Palestinian articles as a general rule. The only other related article in which I have had any involvement is Deir Yassin massacre, which post-dates the start of the current arbitration.

My involvement in the Israeli apartheid article is explained below.

POV removal of sourced material and edit warring on Bantustan

I became involved in this dispute via a very indirect route. On 20 May 2005, I made a number of copyedits on Bantustan, including mentioning that critics of Israel use the term to refer to some of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. [35] This was one small addition among a much larger package of other additions. The reference was not opposed or questioned by any other editor until the intervention of Humus sapiens 13 months later. Contrary to Humus sapiens' false accusations (#Partisanship by ChrisO and NPOV), I was in no way motivated to add this observation by personal partisanship on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The use of the term is a well-documented fact, and the article still cites this fact. I personally don't agree with this usage, but the fact that it is used is still undeniable (and is still in the article).

On 13 September 2005, I rewrote most of the article, adding substantial amounts of new content. [36] On 3 June 2006, User:Humus sapiens moved the reference to Middle Eastern usage to its own section at the foot of the article. [37] On 14 June User:HOTR edited the section to correct a link to the Israeli apartheid article (but making no other changes), Shortly afterwards Humus sapiens deleted the entire section outright, despite it being referenced, with the edit summary "rm this propagandist section". An edit war then broke out, principally involving User:HOTR (who restored it) and Humus sapiens and User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg (who repeatedly deleted it). I requested the participants to take their edit war elsewhere [38], rewrote the section to note that the usage was controversial and rejected by the Israeli government, and wikilinked it to the "Israeli apartheid" article as a source for more information on this particular dispute [39]. I also added other examples from Hawaii and Canada of contemporary use of the term "Bantustan" [40] and User:Jayjg added more uses. The section remains pretty much as Jayjg left it, retaining the reference to Israel-Palestine (see Bantustan#Usage in non-South African contexts).

I was concerned by Humus' actions, which I felt fell well below the standards expected of an editor let alone an administrator. He made it clear in his edit summaries and on the talk page that he believed that it was unacceptable to even mention that the term "Bantustan" was used in connection with Israel, even though this usage was extremely well documented. I left a message on his talk page pointing out that WP:NPOV directs us to describe controversial points of view, not endorse or refute them or delete them because we disagree with them. [41]

Based on my interactions with him on Bantustan, I formed the impression that Humus sapiens was a highly partisan editor who showed no hesitation in ignoring WP:NPOV. Rather than rewriting or discussing the disputed paragraph, he simply deleted it outright because he felt the entire topic was "unencyclopedic" and "propaganda". As I pointed out at the time, this sort of deletionism is strongly discouraged by WP:NPOVFAQ#Lack of neutrality as an excuse to delete. To put it bluntly, he showed every sign of being a POV-pushing problem user.

Note also the initial pattern of edits on Bantustan at the start of the edit war initiated by Humus sapiens:

21:43, 5 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) (MV ==Usage as a pejorative== into its own section. There is no reason (other than political activism) to put Israel in the intro)

01:02, 14 June 2006 HOTR (Talk | contribs | block) (→Usage as a pejorative)

01:41, 14 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) (→Usage as a pejorative - rm this propagandist section: Dugard is a S. African, so he uses SA terminology.)

02:15, 14 June 2006 HOTR (Talk | contribs | block) (Meron Benvenisti also speaks of Bantustans in Israel and he's not South African)

Although I wasn't aware of this at the time, between 5 June and 14 June, Humus and Homey were involved in a dispute over Apartheid outside of South Africa. On 5 June, Humus moved the disputed section of Bantustan without deleting it. On 14 June, Humus deleted the exact same section. I would guess, given these two users' interactions, that Humus' change of mind resulted from his ongoing dispute with Homey. It's clear from the very short time scales involved that each user was tracking the other's edits across different articles. The consequence was that they exported their ongoing edit wars/feuds into other articles, dragging in non-involved editors such as myself.

Initial involvement in Israeli apartheid

Following the resolution of the Bantustan issue I followed the link from the Israel reference to Israeli apartheid. I made a small number of edits on that article. These constituted fixing minor spelling and grammatical points, plus adding a few lines on historical use of the controversial comparison, based on a newspaper search. (See [42],[43],[44],[45],[46],[47],[48], [49],[50],[51],[52].) I also voted against the proposed move of the article to "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" on the narrow technical grounds that it was inconsistent with the way that pejorative political terms are currently treated. [53] I did not participate in the ongoing editing of the article, nor the talk page discussion, but I did keep it in my watchlist to watch for major outbreaks of trouble.

I should note for the record that I have never argued that the term is justified (personally, I don't think it is). My position has always been that we should use whatever term is used by the majority of our verifiable and reliable sources, whether or not we personally agree with that usage.

The disputed moves

At 4-7-2006 20:11, Humus sapiens moved the article to Allegations of Israeli apartheid. After Nagle posted a message about the article's move on WP:AN/I ([54]), I reviewed Humus' actions and found that there had been no consensus in the move poll (a 16-12 vote at that point), nor was the poll closed. I reverted the move ([55]) and left a note about it at the article talk page ([56]) and AN/I ([57]). SlimVirgin and Jayjg subsequently moved the article again, once each ([58] & [59]), and I moved it back again on each occasion ([60] & [61]), reaching the 3RR limit. On the third reversion, I move-protected the page to encourage the movers to discuss rather than move-war but "missed" the target and move-protected a redirect instead, and shortly afterwards overrode the move protection (effectively de-protecting it). Humus sapiens then moved it to the new title again ([62]). This sequence of events is set out in detail in Kim's evidence, under #Log of major actions (not edits).

More evidence to come shortly. -- ChrisO 21:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Israeli apartheid evidence

Log of major actions (not edits)

I have digged up all major moves, protections, etc, and combined them to one single list so that the flow of actions is easy understood. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have bolded actions that require admin privilegdes. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did some testing with moving and protecting pages, and changed back the order to the original version. I had complined it from the log's, but also remembered that I could find the exact order back in the edit history [63], which shows that the page was first moved, and then protected. The subsequent move of Allegations of Israeli apartheid to Israeli apartheid required the deletion of the existing and protected Israeli apartheid redirect, and that destroyed the protection. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voting dynamics

The voting pattern shows an interesting pattern. Move request votes stand normally for 5 days (pink line), and the voters in that time frame were the regular editors of this page, and as happens more often, there was no consensus either way. At the 4th of July, a small influx of voters increased the preference for moving slightly, but by the time it was unilaterally moved (red line), there was no consensus. Only after the issue hit the admin noticeboards, the pro-move votes started to flow in. So, when the vote had been closed after 5 days, or when Humus sapiens had respected the lack of consensus as evident from the graph, the page would not have been moved. However, he let his personal opinion (NPOV title) overrule the lack of consensus for the name change. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voting dynamics:Afterwards justification of action with new data

Using the dynamincs created after the disputed move to justify the move itself as done by Jayjg is invalid, and shows contempt for the process at wikipedia. He edited repeatedly to improve his standing as can be seen from this series: 21-14 -> 24-15 -> 25-15 -> 27-15 -> 28-15 -> 41-16, while the count at the time of the unilateral move was 17-13, 56.7%, only a slight majority. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Misuse of disambig parentheses for POV

In the first boud of move-warring (may 31), 6SJ7 wrote as an edit summary: maybe this is the start of a new standard for articles about controversial phrases. The normal usage of parentheses is for ambiguation, see: Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Specific_topic.

The page naming policy of wikipedia Wikipedia:Naming conventions states: Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists. If an reader looks for a term, it will look for the name itself (Israeli apartheid), not Israeli apartheid (epithet), or whatever, and based on naming convensions, without having two topics with the same name, pages whould be straightforward.

Using parentheses to modify the meaning of a term is a form of introducing POV in the article, and is a violation of both WP:NPOV and WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS

Reliable sources is a key guideline for wikipedia. This guideline is heavy trampled on at the Israeli apartheid and related pages. As an example (see:Talk:Israeli_apartheid/RS#UN), a briefing of Amnesty International to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and provided by that office [64]. User:Humus sapiens stated AI proclaims to be politically neutral, but it was widely condemned for its anti-Israeli bias, and provided the following external links from mainly non-reliable partisan pressure groups: JCPA ngo-monitor Aish CAMERA more CAMERA SPME YNet ADL JVL. Later, he asked: but shouldn't the accused party be allowed to defend themselves?. The answer is yes, but by using reliable sources.

One major problem is the usage of sources, in which either side tries to use as many possible favourable sources, and to eliminate as many unfavourable sources, to the point that reliable sources are objected using hightly partisan sources. Allowing favourable sources and trying to eliminate unfavorable sources results in a asymetrical usage of sources and is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wheel warring

All entries with the edit summary (Deleted to make way for move.) indicate the usages of admin powers needed for obstructed moves, as they require deletion of the old page. As such, the move-warring has become wheel-warring due to the usage of admin powers to move the pages around. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on Zeq

During my mediation, I have encountered Zeq as opinionated, but I have to say, that overall, I got a fairly positive impression from him. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NPOV:Usage of value-loaden words

Usage of value loaded word is a effective way of inserting POV into the article. This has repeatedly been done by various editors. The original text read that is was a "controversial phrase", which is accurate and neutral. It then got changed to various other descriptions, including (I have left out edits from Zeq, as they have been dealt with already):

• political epithet: Isarig (talk · contribs): [65]
• derogatory and offensive political epithet: FRCP11 (talk · contribs): [66]
• pejorative political epithet
  • IronDuke (talk · contribs): [67]
  • Jayjg (talk · contribs): [68], [69], [70]
  • Strothra (talk · contribs): [71]
  • Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg (talk · contribs): [72], [73]
  • Fullsome prison (talk · contribs): [74]

My personal opinion about the article

Israeli apartheid

I think it is time that I express my own opinion on this article, as the assumptions of bad faith are flying higher and higher.

When I became involved in the Israeli apartheid title dispute, I did not even know the term existed and the article at that time was nothing more than a lose bunch of quotes, using the term. I offered to mediate informally because there seemed to be a clear standoff between editors pro and contra this term. This informal mediation was accepted by many, but not all participants. It became very soon very clear that both sides where having very set opinions about the term, and were not willing to divert from that opinion.

During that time, I tried to get a view on the sources used for the article, which were in general partisan sources, and most of them would not and cannot withstand the criteria of WP:RS for inclusion. Furthermore, the article at that time was reading more as an analysis close to or even being original research, in violation with WP:NOR.

Within that context, after some discussion about reliable sources, I decided to check Web-of-Science, a search engine for scholarly articles, to see whether there were any scholarly articles on this topic and to my surprise I found various articles (see Talk:Israeli apartheid/RS). This was a surprise because respected editors/admins had declared there were no such sources. I posted the articles at Talk:Israeli apartheid/RS, because not everybody has access to these university related search engines as I have. Just the finding of sources was already for some editors involved a reason to consider me biased.

Soon after that, it became clear that mediation was not going to bring the required solution, as both sides were unwilling to find a compromise based on facts and sources, see Talk:Israeli_apartheid/Archive_8#Ending_my_mediation for my motivation at that time.

During the mediation, I have been asked about my opinion on the article content and ideology wise, and I think a mediator should not express that opinion, as they have to be neutral. I have remained on that position afterwards, but I think the time has come to express what I think. I do not have a no strong feeling about the term itself, it does not trigger emotions in myself. However, I do think that the term is represented way out of proportion here at Wikipedia (undue weight), and if we would write down what actually is there based on reliable sources, it would not be more than two or three paragraphs.

As for the title, I think that if there is a clear term, disputed or not, that the term should be used over descriptive titles that contain a value statement; many titles at Wikipedia with “allegations of” in the title are actually redirects to more neutral titles. In addition, I believe it is not something that should be done in this case alone, but in all comparable cases as well. In my opinion, “Allegations of” is a strong term that should only be used when reliable sources make clear that the term is indeed ONLY used in that way. It is not to Wikipedia editors to make that judgement, as that is original research.

As for the content, when I first started with the mediation, I though it was just a propaganda term, used in the I-P propaganda war. However, during the mediation, I got convinced that it is slightly more, although not much more. At current, this would be my points to include in a section about this term:

1. The term exists and is widely used.
2. There are a limited number of scholarly articles and books dealing with this term. The conclusion as far as I have been able to extract is that there are clear similarities and clear differences when compared with South-African apartheid.
3. The term is used sometimes in the international context, such as reporters of the UN, and by international human rights NGO’s.
4. However, the major usage of the term is within the propaganda circuit on partisan websites and related.

As far as I am concerned, the second point does not relate to allegations, but to comparisons, and as such, should not be included in an article under the name Allegations of Israeli apartheid.

I think the above stuff can be written down in two or maybe three paragraphs, and I think it should be included in an article dealing with the various usages of the term outside the South African context. I personally think that should be in an article dealing with apartheid as a term itself (which should primarily focus on the origin and history of the term, the criminal aspects (ICC etc), South Africa and finally a small section with derived usages, where this topic has its place. I would not object when it would be added to an article about apartheid outside of South Africa.

Do I think Israeli Apartheid exists? I have no clue, as I do not know enough details to judge that, currently, I do not come further than that there might be a somewhat comparable situation, which many unique aspects, it might also not be. However, I actually do not care too much about that; discrimination, repression, war or anything bad is bad regardless how it is called. In the future, maybe when the situation in the Middle East has been resolved (if ever), historians will clarify that. It is not to us as editors of an encyclopaedia to do that, that would be original research. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AGF

Assume good faith is crucial for the well functioning of wikipedia. During my mediation, and afterwards, various editors have made bad faith remarks towards me for trying to mediate (I am not going to guess why). The incident involved the third move by me as an administrator indicated in the list above. The move was based on a poll, in which it was clear that there was no consensus to keep it at the name as it was. It was also discussed here in detail.

Violations of WP:AGF: User:6SJ7 [75], [76], [77] User:Zeq:[78], [79] User:Pecher:[80] User:Jayjg: [81] User:Leifern: [82], [83] User:SlimVirgin: [84], [85] User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg: [86]

Response to Jayjg

Accusations made by Jayjg:

1. Kim van der Linde (who thought "the only right title for the article is Israeli apartheid" [87])

   Reply: Quote is taken out of context. First of all, it was within the context of people proposing to keep it at Israeli apartheid (epithet), and other wanting to move it to either Israeli apartheid (phrase) or Israeli apartheid, with minor preferences for other options. Based on these options provided by the editors, I wrote the following:

   Having said that, based on Wikipedia policies, I am of the opinion that the only right title for the article is Israeli apartheid. Words in parentheses are used for disambiguation, to distinguish between different meanings of words that are used in different ways. The current usage is to add a loading to it that is either emotional, political of whatever, and as such in violation with WP:NPOV as well as WP:NOR and WP:ISNOT, of the latter specifically Wikipedia is not a soapbox. I have not seen any authoritative source that explicitly stated that Israeli apartheid is only an epithet. I have actually not seen any reliable source saying that. Wikipedia only describes things, and the lead can and should make clear what the general usage of a term is, not the title.

   To add, I personally do not care whether the article is called Israeli apartheid or Israel and apartheid or Apartheid, Israeli style or Apartheid Israel (Uri Davis uses this), or whatever.

2. had started a number of confusing polls in various places (e.g.
   1. [88] and [89]

      Reply: In response to a request on WP:RFPP for edits at the protected page [90], which under the tense circumstances did not seem like a good idea without some confirmation that those should be made. I could have just left the page, and ask them to come back when it was resolved, but I didn't get the impression that there was much contructive discussion going on. So, I stated those two to help out, nicely using dispute resolution tools.

   2. [91]

      Reply:Yeah right, after my first experience of ending up at WP:AN/I, I did not feel like ending up there again. Maybe I should have left the page at that time, or unprotected it and let things go by the natural flow.

   3. [92]

      Reply: --to be done--

3. and a whole page for more polls [93]);

   The first sentence reads: This page functions as a central discussion place to resolve this longstanding issue. Concrete workshopping at this page, discussion at the talk. This does not sound like a poll to me. I initiated this page at June 11 and discussion about various topics started at the talk page. At june 25, after I created Template:ApartheidMerges, and effectively two posts after I finished my proposal [94], Jayjg himself added his proposal [95]. At first, this seems to work with Nagle and Bhouston also making proposals, and discussion on the merrits of primarily Jayjg's proposal between HOTR and Jayjg. BHouston add an support to Nagle's proposal, with motivation, but soon, votes for Jayjg's proposal are flooding in [96] and the page intended for workshopping and discussion turns in a major polling place with substantial discussion.

4. she and User:HOTR <snip> had bogged the entire process down by wikilawyering on various talk pages, user pages, central pages, and who knows where else, about this and related articles; nobody could follow what was going on.

   Reply:The scope of the dispute, covering more than half a dozen articles made it completly impossible to have a idea what was disccused at what time and where. To centralise this multipage discussion, I started first Wikipedia:Central_discussions/Apartheid, and at June 25 I created Template:ApartheidMerges to weed out the overflow of merge templates (23 at a time at Apartheid outside of South Africa [97] that had been inserted by various editors, including Jayjg [98], [99] and a large number by Fullsome prison [100]) and related discussions at various talk pages. As such, I think that if anybody at all has tried to centralize the discussion, it was me.

SlimVirgins accusation that I blocked the mediation

On July 5, after a Request for Arbitration involving SlimVirgin and various other editors, SlimVirgin files a request for mediation [101]. Later that evening, I add myself and my statement [102]. At "Wikipedia:RfM/Guide_to_filing_a_Request_for_Mediation" (version of that moment) it is indicated explicitly: If you are a party to the mediation other than the party that initiated it, and you agree to mediate, add any issues that have not been included to the section marked "Additional issues to mediate.". I should have used the "Additional issues to mediate." header. I voted Neutral on the case at that time, motivated from the position that I was mediating, and in that sense, was disposable from the case, despite that I had been a major contributor at the talk pages because of my involvement.

The Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation page states explicit: Non-committee members may not remove anything from this page or accept/reject cases; this may only be done by members of the Mediation Committee.. However, SlimVirgin choose to ignore that and removed all additional mediation statements [103], where a simple insertion of an "Additional issues to mediate" header would have been sufficient to clarify the difference. Based on this, I changed my opinion from neutral (as I had been the mediator) to oppose, because this suggested for me that there was no real interest for mediation, because in that case, I would assume that she would start with trying to lessen the tensions. In any case, she should have been it to the members of the Mediation Committee to delete the comments she considered unneeded at the time.

Based on the dynamics at the page, it became clear to me that the only reason I was added to the main player list was that I had been informally mediating in this cse. This was fine with me as I though I could help out by talking to the formal mediator about my impressions and related (hence the neutral vote). It appears now that SlimVirgin sees me as the key individual for the Mediation, which was not clear to me at the time, but based on her accusations ([104], [105], [106]), this clearly seems the case. Maybe she is willing to confirm that she indeed sees me as the key to the mediation, and that without me, the mediation could not take place.

Aside of that, two other users, BHouston and Nagle (who filed the ArbCom case) opposed to the mediation, so making it sound as if I was the main obstacle is incorrect (see also Bhouston's reaction).

Humus sapiens unilateral moves

Humus sapiens has conducted several unilateral, non-consensus moves. In the last case, he ignored ongoing discussions on title for the article:

1. 16:20, 5 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) moved Israeli apartheid (phrase) to Israeli apartheid (epithet) (As the article says, this is a political epithet, not a phrase) (revert)

   Started a move war, which was possibly stopped because I protected the page (see log above). That this move was disputed may be clear from the extended discussion, and lack of finding support for this name in the discussion afterwards.

2. 06:05, 6 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) moved Wall of Shame (phrase) to Wall of shame (epithet) (1) lowercase 2nd word per WP:NC, 2) this is an epithet, not simply a "phrase") (revert)

   There is no discussion by Humus at the talk page, and the move was undone 4 days later:

   11:44, 10 June 2006 Francis Schonken (Talk | contribs | block) m (moved Wall of shame (epithet) to Wall of shame: "Wall" is not an epithet, neither is "Wall of shame". "of shame" is an epithet, but can be used on various types of walls) [107]

3. 18:56, 8 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) moved Islamofascism to Islamofascism (epithet) (As the article says, this is a pejorative political epithet.) (revert)

   There was no discussion, was moved back (see below) and discussiona afterwards showed no support see Talk:Islamofascism#Move. The discussion about adding terms had been made already before, in which he participated.

   23:12, 8 June 2006 CJCurrie (Talk | contribs | block) m (moved Islamofascism (epithet) to Islamofascism: there was no discussion about a move, and the article clearly indicates that it's about a *term* as opposed to a phenomenon) [108]

4. 16:11, 4 July 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid (NPOV title) (revert)
5. 18:24, 4 July 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs | block) moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid over redirect (this is allegations) (revert)

   This is the move in question, was not supported by consensus at the time of the move. Also, there was no discussion about whether to close the poll by him (in fact, he did not post anything at the tak page that day at all [109]). Furthermore, he needed to delete the target page. This unilareral move started a move war, in which several other admins used their admin capabilities. Editing a redirect page (yes, I am spilling beans here), or restoring old versions is an efective way of blocking a move back by a non-admin. Whether this was accidental or on purpose, I can not tell, and assuming good faith, it probably was accidental, and I saw that Jayjg is . However, I do question the need to restoring of a large series of redirects and the edits of those redirects (there is no actuall content).

Deir Yassin massacre evidence

To follow.

First assertion

Just to make it clear, no one moved the article after it was protected by ChrisO except ChrisO, which destroyed his own protection.

At 22:15 ChrisO move-protected the article (according to the move-log). However, because he protected the "wrong version", ChrisO subsequently moved the article at 22:18, which destroyed the protection.

Moves which require Admin privilige

Moves which require Admin privilige (i.e. moves that erquire delte and move during protection) have plagued this article from day 1

Log of major actions (not edits) - diffrent highlights from Kim's version of events

I have bolded moves that require admin privilegdes (i.e. delete or move during protection).

====Summary====

Several editors have used admin privilges during a move:

• HOTR - Twice
• KimvdLinde - Once (in reality 3 times but 2 should not count - cause one was a self revert of the other)
• Humus sapiens - once
• ChrisO - Twice

Zeq 15:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation page

Since the subject of this arbitration case is now limited to Name of the article and many of the moves cite WP:DAB policy as the reason for the move:

• events (and policy violations such as edit wars) that transpired in the adjcent Disambiguation page should be reviwed as well - they are an integral part of the edit-war over the naming of the article. Zeq 15:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ridiculus accusation made by Homey

Homey had claimed here [110] that I was engaged in what he calls "Votestacking at AFD" and that "Without this activity the result may not have been more decisively in favour of keeping the article".

1. Anyone can review the AFD results here [111] and see for them self that there was no "vote staking".
2. To the best of my knowledge none of the few people I informed about this Afd have actually voted.
3. Even if all 8 of them would vote it would not change anything - since the community was split in the middle about this Afd.
4. I don't even know if they would have vote to keep or delete, all I did was to inform them that the AFD exist. (that is all I did - I have not ask for any specific vote)

• It is clear that Homey argument that I "influenced the outcome of the Afd" is simply a lie and false accusation.

The issue is not if I was right or wrong to advertize the Afd. The issue is Homey's "evidence" that doing so adversly affected the result - it clearly did not.

I move that people who lie in evidence for ArbCom would be banned from giving evidence in this matter and any evidence they pretend to give would be removed. This ArbCom case is too complex to make it further complicated with lias.

Truth is a basic principle that Wikipedia should uphold. Liars should not be part of this proceedings or this comunity. Zeq 16:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Threats on me

I have received private communication that made threats on me, trying to prevent me from giving evidence in this matter. This is a very serious issue, which is an attempt to prevent due process in this arbcom case and in affecting also the content of articles in this encyclopedia by an interested party. Please contact me in person to receive more evidence in this matter. Zeq 17:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page protection and page moves

This section of evidence is based on #Log of major actions (not edits) in order to save space. As it can be seen from the log, I have not violated the page protection imposed by ChrisO. The log shows that it was ChrisO who took the protection down. I was not aware of any protection and didn't do anything to overcome it.

Stalled progress and failed process

This section of evidence is based on #Log of major actions (not edits) in order to save space. As it can be seen from the log, the article was protected between June 2 and June 5 and after several hours again between June 5 and June 23. These unusually long periods of protection and unusually long polls stalled the progress. Meanwhile, POV title stayed. In search of a compromise, on June 1 6SJ7 renamed it "Israeli apartheid (phrase)"; then on June 5, I renamed it "Israeli apartheid (epithet)". On June 7, Kim moved it back to "Israeli apartheid (phrase)", then back to "Israeli apartheid (epithet)", and on June 11 she moved it back to "Israeli apartheid". Note that no compromise was acceptable and she renamed it while the article was under protection. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Partisanship by ChrisO and NPOV

I'd like to present evidence refuting ChrisO's claim "I'm not involved in editing Middle Eastern articles and I don't consider myself a partisan of either side."

ChrisO is one of active editors in Bantustan. In his first edit there, he added text on Israel: 04:25, 20 May 2005: "It has been used particularly with reference to Israeli policies towards the Palestinian populations of the Gaza Strip and West Bank."

When I turned to edit that article, the introduction contained a one-sided accusation of Israel without any criticism. I thought that it was a violation of NPOV and moved it into a separate section 12:43, 5 June 2006.

Please compare the old version (which Chris staunchly defended as "NPOV" at Talk:Bantustan#Removed_section_bashing_Israel, User_talk:Humus_sapiens#Bantustan_again, User_talk:ChrisO#Bantustan) with today's version: Bantustan#Usage in non-South African contexts. Note that now this section contains both pro and contra references and mentions India, Israel, Canada, Hawaii, Balkans, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Background and events

At 20:11 on July 4, 2006 User:Humus sapiens moved Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid as a way of resolving a series of disputes about what the article should be called.[112] Kim van der Linde (who thought "the only right title for the article is Israeli apartheid" [113]) had started a number of confusing polls in various places (e.g. [114] [115] [116] [117] and a whole page for more polls [118]); she and User:HOTR (who created the article [119] and yet another poll [120]) had bogged the entire process down by wikilawyering on various talk pages, user pages, central pages, and who knows where else, about this and related articles; nobody could follow what was going on. At the time of Humus's move, I knew there was a simple majority in favor of the move, believed there was consensus for it as well (as outlined below), and thought it was an excellent idea to break the logjam. User:ChrisO reverted Humus soon after that, [121] and SlimVirgin, without using her admin powers, reverted ChrisO in turn. [122] ChrisO reverted SlimVirgin again, and I, without using my admin powers, reverted ChrisO. [123] ChrisO then protected the article, [124] but realizing he'd protected the "wrong version", proceeded to revert-move the article a third time, which broke the protection. Finally, Humus sapiens, without using his admin powers, reverted ChrisO.

In all, there was one move by Humus, 3 reverts by ChrisO, one revert each by SlimVirgin, Jayjg, and Humus sapiens, and one protect by ChrisO which he subsequently overturned via a move.

The article had been moved a number of times before, by various editors, to various names (e.g. [125] [126] [127] [128]), but it eventually kept getting moved back to Israeli apartheid. The main poll about whether to move the article Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid can be found here: [129] This particular poll had already been running for almost 9 days, far more than the suggested minimum 5 days.

Was there consensus for the move?

My reason for supporting the move was as follows: keeping in mind that these kinds of things are intended as discussions, not mechanical votes, I looked through the arguments provided, and who was giving, them and did a quick tally. Based on my initial accounting, it appeared that the raw vote was 17 to 13; however, I discounted User:Article20's vote, as he was simply a disruptive sockpuppet, who has continued to disrupt the whole process in various guises. I also discounted the again-banned User:Xed's vote, for obvious reasons. In addition, I didn't know what to make of User:HOTR's vote, since he had on previous occasions actually suggested the article be moved to Allegations of Israeli apartheid (e.g. [130]), yet now he was voting against it, so the vote seemed in bad faith. This gave a total of 17 to 10, or 63% (or perhaps 17 to 11, or 61%), in line with the guidelines for consensus on WP:RFPM.

The move also seemed in line with Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Descriptive_names guideline: "Choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications.", and, finally, the compromise itself seemed like a WP:BOLD way of breaking a logjam between editors on one side, who felt the article should be deleted entirely, and editors on the other, who felt it should be a lengthy dissertation on every discriminatory practice of Israel, real or alleged.

ArbCom case, attempted mediation, and final poll

User:Nagle then raised this as an Arbitration case. SlimVirgin made heroic attempts to have this whole issue mediated instead, and had gotten agreement from 12 editors who were ever involved in editing the article, but Kim van der Linde, User:Nagle, and Ben Houston refused mediation, scuttling that option.[131] Meanwhile, the publicity around the case brought in many new voters (more than triple the original number); eventually the vote in favor of moving to Allegations of Israeli apartheid reached over 70%, which was approximately the percentage when an admin finally closed the vote, in favor of the move (see Wikipedia talk:Central discussions/Apartheid).

Process fetishism and wikilawyering

Subsequent events revealed a penchant for process fetishism and wikilawyering that was, at least to me, astonishing. As examples, as stated above, once the vote became more widely known, many editors voted, and the percentage in favor of moving to Allegations of Israeli apartheid steadily increased. Yet those prosecuting the case somehow saw this increased participation as an "out of process" bad thing that had to be reversed. User:Nagle, for example, proposed an "injunction" to move the article back to its name because the move had been "out of process", again ignoring the fact that, whatever the case had been before, currently a strong consensus supported the move. [132] [133] Kim van der Linde went further; rather than closing the Request for Page Move, which by that time had an obvious consensus, she instead moved it to "Old cases" (though she was clearly an involved admin), insisting that the Arbitration Committee had to deal with it. [134] She later proposed essentially a new policy, that "out of process" moves should automatically be reverted, [135] even though she fully acknowledged that 70% of the voters supported the move, [136] insisting that because all sorts of new people had voted on it, it was somehow not a valid vote - in effect, more people giving an opinion was actually a bad thing, because it was "out of process". User:HOTR concurred, insisting that the actions of one individual in moving the article in a way he disagreed with somehow invalidated the entire poll, and the votes of almost 70 people.[137]

Process fetishism and wikilawyering 2

Here is another example of the wikilawyering that has been going on since May 29. I offer it here merely as an illustration, because it is completely incomprehensible, and I lay blame on no-one for refusing to read it, or, having read it, not understanding it afterwards. It is because of this kind of exchange, which has been going on on all the pages since May 29, that the pages in question became impossible quagmires.

"unprotecting an article" is "admin abuse"

In his evidence User:Nagle originally claimed that someone, probably User:Humus sapiens, had somehow abused admin privileges by "unprotecting an article for an out-of-policy move".[138] User:HOTR concurred,[139] as did User:ChrisO. [140]

"unprotecting an article" isn't "admin abuse" after all, because only ChrisO did it

Soon after this evidence was raised, User:MPerel pointed out that the logs showed that User:ChrisO had broken his own protection, by moving after protecting.[141] At this point User:ChrisO removed his claim that there had been an abuse; apparently, since he himself had moved after protecting, and his actions were not "out of policy", no wrong had been done. [142] User:Nagle similarly decided that "no abuse of admin authority" had occurred after all, since it was only ChrisO who had protected and then moved the article on which he was edit-warring, and that certainly wasn't "out of policy". [143]

Maybe "Deleted to make way for move" is "admin abuse", then

Meanwhile, Kim van der Linde decided that since "moved while the article was protected" was no longer admin abuse after all, perhaps she could allege admin abuse based on "Deleted to make way for move". [144] In her view the move of the protected page was no longer an admin abuse, since "The subsequent move of Allegations of Israeli apartheid to Israeli apartheid required the deletion of the existing and protected Israeli apartheid redirect" (emphasis added). [145] User:Nagle, noting this, suggested that Humus might have abused his admin powers by doing just such a "Delete to make way for move". [146]

Nope, "Deleted to make way for move" isn't "admin abuse" after all, at least not when ChrisO does it

User:MPerel then pointed out on User:Nagle's Talk: page that while User:Nagle had accused Humus of admin abuse, he had not accused ChrisO of admin abuse for doing the exact same thing 3 times! [147] User:Nagle then responded that since only Humus' actions were "out of process", they were the only ones of interest. [148] Though Kim van der Linde was the person who proposed that "Deleted to make way for move" was "admin abuse", she eventually decided that in ChrisO's case, even though he had done this 3 times, he should, in fact be commended! [149] Finally User:ChrisO proposed an amazing new policy of his own; that "The use of administrator privileges to undo unilateral non-consensual moves is permissible, subject to the limitations of the 3 revert rule", giving various reasons why the moves by Humus, SlimVirgin, and Jayjg were abuses of admin privileges, though certainly his own moves could not possibly be. [150] If accepted, perhaps this policy should be titled the "If someone else does it, it's admin abuse, but if ChrisO does it, it's policy" policy.

The state of the Workshop page

The state of the workshop page is another good example of the nonsense that has gone on at this and related pages; I encourage readers to go through it, examining the various proposals, counter-proposals, arguments, counter-arguments, accusations and counter-accusations made, each one more absurd and tendentious than the last. Then imagine trying to edit and work with these individuals.

A word about the "common name" "Israeli apartheid"

It has been argued that "Israeli apartheid" is a "common name" or a "true, proper name", that it gets many Google hits, and that therefore the article should have this title. The article itself has now existed for almost two months, been edited almost 900 times, and, in theory, has been filled with good references from encyclopedic and reliable sources using this phrase. Yet of the almost 70 references used, I can find only 9 that actually use the phrase "Israeli apartheid". Three of them are from anti-Semitic/Holocaust denial sources (David Duke, Paul Grubach, Jew Watch). Two others use the phrase with qualifiers; one referring to an "Israeli Apartheid" week held by Palestinian activists at Oxford, and another referring to it as Israeli 'apartheid', in inverted commas. Yet another refers to (and opposes) an newspaper editorial which described an "Israeli apartheid system". Two others are from small activist groups, one of which ("MAIAP") seems to be a one-man operation who apparently has not updated his website since 2002. So what encyclopedic, authoritative sources are left, that are actually willing to use the phrase in an unqualified way? It is used in the title of opinion piece in The Nation. That's it. The actual opinion piece doesn't even use the phrase, just the article title (which is chosen by the editors).

If "Israeli apartheid" is the proper name for this article, then why have the authors, and those promoting it, not been able to find any unqualified, encyclopedic use of it after all this time?

A word about "Wheel warring"

There have been many accusations of "wheel warring" in this case. Wikipedia:Wheel war defines a wheel war as "a struggle between two or more admins in which they undo another's admin actions — in particular, unblocking or reblocking a user; undeleting or redeleting; or unprotecting and reprotecting an article." It has been argued back and forth whether one undoing of an admin action is a wheel war, or whether an individual must do this at least two times to be considered wheel-warring; to my knowledge this has never been settled. However, it is clear that the policy deals with admins using their admin powers to war with one another. Using non-admin powers to undo an admin's actions cannot be considered wheel-warring; edit warring, perhaps, depending on the circumstances, but certainly not wheel-warring. If one were to attempt to re-define a "wheel-war" as any admin undoing any other action of an admin in any way, then one would be led to the absurd scenario where if one admin reverts another admin's edits, even once, then he or she might by subject to a one month banning. Alternatively, one could have the scenario where if an admin reverts another editor's, then he/she has done nothing wrong, but if it turns out the other editor was an admin, then he/she was "wheel warring" - one month ban. If we extend "wheel-warring" to include any undoing of any admin action of any sort in any way, we'll have to deal with dozens of Arbitration cases a day.

Page moves are not included in the definition above, since any registered editor can move a page. One non-admin page move is not "wheel warring". Jayjg ^(talk) 23:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My moves of the article "Israeli apartheid" were justified

The following is a response to Kim's assertion that I improperly moved the article "Israeli apartheid" to "Israeli apartheid (phrase)" on May 31, and Homey's assertion that I moved the article on May 31 and again on June 1 without prior discussion. Except where specific diffs are provided below, all of the events mentioned are evidenced by the list of major actions included in Kim’s evidence section.

HOTR (“Homey”) created “Israeli apartheid” (hereinafter abbreviated “IA”) on May 19 at 0:27. Within several hours, the article became the subject of a great deal of attention, including discussion on the article’s talk page. Discussions, even in these first few hours, included the subjects of whether the article should exist, whether it should be merged, the title of the article and its contents. The specific question of the article’s title was discussed before anyone moved anything; among the editors discussing the title were Moshe [151] [152], Homey [153] [154], Strothra [155] [156] 6SJ7 [157] [158], and Bless Sins [159]. Content disputes were already underway, and at 18:08 Homey first threatens Zeq with arbitration (mind you, this was May 29, the first day of the article’s existence.) [160] At 18:16, IZAK makes the first move of the article’s title, to “Israeli Apartheid (phrase)” (hereinafter simply “phrase”). Immediately thereafter IZAK creates a new section on the talk page, entitled “Phrase vs. a fact” [161], regarding his change to the title. Homey quickly makes clear that he does not like the new name [162] and a heated discussion of the name, particularly the use of parentheses in titles, ensues in the "Phrase vs. a fact” section [163] among FayssalF/Svest, Zeq, Homey and Pecher (including a comment that “We frequently put words in parentheses on Wikipedia.") [164]. Humus also discusses the title issue but makes clear he believes a merge into another article is preferable [165] [166], expressing in strong terms the hateful nature of the title in question. I agreed. [167]. Subsequently there was further discussion of titles, merges, etc. In the meantime, on May 29 at 23:04, Fullsome Prison starts an AfD on the article under the name it had at the time, “Israeli apartheid (phrase)” [168]. There was soon discussion of the title issue on the AfD page as well.

Homey, while expressing opposition to IZAK’s name move within minutes, does not immediately move the name back. He does so about 31 hours later, on May 31 at 3:00/3:02. Interestingly enough, and I did not realize this earlier, Homey first deletes the article at IA (then just a redirect I assume) at 3:00 and moves the article from phrase to IA (see list of moves) at 3:02. Since I do not fully understand the Workshop discussions about the use of adminisrators’ tools and what is permitted and prohibited when renaming an article, I am not sure whether this behavior falls into the same category as what ChrisO, Humus, SV and Jay, and now Kim, are accused of. It looks similar to me, but I will leave this for the admins to debate if they wish.

I cannot find any discussion of this move by Homey on the talk page. His edit summary states "Adding something in parenthesis such as (phrase) is non-standard for an article that otherwise would not have an identical title with other articles. Other controversial terms and phrases do not have (term) or (phrase) in their title. See AFD discussion". Notice that Homey does not say there is a "rule" or "policy" against a parenthetical word in a title, not to disambiguate between articles, but to distinguish between something that exists and something that is just name-calling. He cites no policy nor even a guideline at this point. He simply says it is "non-standard", which to me meant (and means) that it is "unusual", not that it is prohibited or even discouraged. My response, in light of all of the discussion that had taken place on the talk page and the AfD page, and in light of the extreme POV nature of the unqualified title "IA", was to move it back to "phrase." (May 31, 3:38) Among other things, this was the name under which it was being proposed for deletion, about which see later events. I also took into account the opinions that had been expressed, and the fact that Homey appeared to be intransigent regarding the title, but that nobody had been able to show me a rule or policy that prohibited "(phrase)" in the title (and to this day, despite attempts to glean such a rule from several different guidelines, nobody has succeeded in doing so.) My purpose was to make the title less POV, although I believed (and believe) that the whole article should be merged into an article that did not have the words "Israel" and "apartheid" together in the title, in order to achieve true NPOV. I thought that my opinions on these points were clear, and therefore my edit summary was somewhat in shorthand, stating (in response to Homey’s "non-standard" comment), "Moving back to having 'phrase' in the title; maybe this is the start of a new standard for articles about controversial phrases." Fourteen minutes after I moved it to phrase, Homey moved it to AI (May 31, 3:52). Homey then starts a new discussion on the talk page, in which he (identically to what Kim has done on this page) seized on my edit summary; they try to interpret my statement as meaning I was trying to change the rules. I was not. As I explained at the time, I was perhaps being a bit too flippant. [169]. Nevertheless I felt (and feel) that the change was justified and not prohibited by any rules, and I challenged Homey to produce a rule that prohibited what I had done. [170] [171]. Homey does cite a naming convention, and he and I debated its meaning. [172] There was much discussion of the title after that.

Less than an hour after "reverting" my move, Homey reverts himself and moves the article back to "phrase". Actually, he deletes "phrase" (wheel-war experts take possible note) and changes the name to "phrase," (4:44/4:45). His edit summary states "moved back until conclusion of AfD", which as stated above, was one of the reasons I had moved it in the first place, so the title on the AfD page would be the same as the article's title. Later the same day, FayssalF/Svest reverts Homey's move, back to AI. About 13 hours later (June 1 at 5:10) I move it back, essentially restoring Homey’s move. At this point, I specifically note the AfD consistency issue, as well as "past discussions," in my edit summary. Had I realized that it was Homey who had changed it to "phrase" "until consclusion of AfD", my own edit summary probably would have added, "per Homey".

I believe that this sufficiently explains my actions. However, I need to continue the saga of the page moves because later events make it very strange that Kim has made this accusation against me in this arbitration. We are now at June 2: Nobody has changed the name since I restored it to "phrase" (per Homey) on June 1; the AfD is going on; a lot of editing and reverting is happening (none of it by me, at this point I had not made a single edit to the text, not counting tags)... and then an uninvolved admin protects the article, with the name "(phrase)", citing "edit warring during AFD." Now, one might ask, if it was so obvious that "phrase" was a title not permitted by the rules, wouldn’t this administrator have noticed that, and changed the name? My answer, of course, is that it is not obvious, nor is it even correct. Back to the story: On June 5 the AfD is declared "no consensus" (I believe it was just about 50-50) and Kim (appearing in this saga for the first time, I think) unprotects the article at 12:19, noting in the edit summary that the article had been protected during the AfD, which is now over. Humus then moves the article to "Israeli apartheid (epithet)" (hereinafter abbreviated as "epithet"). Four minutes later, Zeq moves the name without changing the words in the title, simply eliminating the blank space before the first parenthesis. About 20 minutes later (20:43 on June 5) I change the name again, simply to add the blank space back. This is merely a technical move that does not affect the name of the article.

Now we get to the really good part. Kim has by this time begun to act in some mediator-like capacity, and it did seem to me then that she was trying to bring about a negotiated resolution at least to this particular article. At 20:43 (note, same time as my correction of the title, apparently only seconds later), Kim protects the article, with (epithet) in the title. This is five days after it was supposedly wrong for me to put "phrase" in the title. (And just to make it clear, from that moment, 20:43 on June 5, the article remains continuously protected (by Kim) until June 23.) Then, on June 7, Kim changes the name from "epithet" to "phrase", the exact same title that I had changed it to on May 31, the subject of Kim’s accusation against me on this page. The same day, Kim changes it back from "phrase" to "epithet." On June 11, Kim changes it to just IA. As I have pointed out elsewhere, she definitely used admin powers to do so, as the log says she first deleted IA "to make way for move" and then made the move. In her edit summary she cites WP:DAB, which as SV and I have pointed out on the Workship page, does not prohibit or even discourage having a parenthetical in the title. See also discussions at [173] and the AN/I here. [174]

I think these facts speak for themselves. At least for the time being, I must stop speaking for them.

The has been one meaningful AfD for this article

Homey mentions the two unsuccessful AfD's for this article. I think it should just be made clear that only the first one was started, or participated in, by the significant participants in the editing/naming of this article. The second one was started by someone I have not seen involved in this article at all, and it was over before I even know it was taking place. It lasted 36 minutes from opening to closing. Based on the language used by the person proposing the AfD, I have to doubt whether that person was even sincere in opposing the article's existence.

The "peer review" was meaningless

Homey mentions a "peer review" for this article. When compared to the very extensive and meaningful discussions that took place on the article's talk page, the very brief "peer review" was a non-event, and no inferences should be drawn from it.

WP:AGF

Kim suggests that certain comments by me and others are violations of WP:AGF. I would point out that the three statements of mine that Kim cites are all on pages dealing with this arbitration. I assume that I am permitted to express my opinions. Considering the accusations that have been thrown around by Kim and others, I think we need to treat this arbitration for what it is: An adversarial situation, in which adversarial statements are to be expected. Some statements made in this arbitration may be incorrect, unsupported, unfair, etc., but I do not see them as violating WP:AGF.

[More to follow]

Jayjg making non-admin moves impossible

Jayjg has at times made a superfluous edit to a redirect page that was left after an almost always controversial move he had made, making any move back over the redirect impossible without invoking admin powers. This means that if not caught, a move back would require admin intervention and probably a consensus supermajority in a vote poll in the other direction than it should be. -- Dissident (Talk) 10:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• [175]
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• [177]
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Response to Tomer's review below

Dissident, which of these moves cum redirects are you calling "controversial"?

Personally, I would call every "move disabling" edit here controversial with the possible exception of the user page one of which I have not enough info to form a judgement on. I've deliberately listed all of those I could find over a certain period, lest I be accused of cherry-picking. Given this, I would think 8-1 is a significant ratio.

From my review of your evidence, it appears that what Jay did was to undo controversial moves and then make a completely uniform stylistic alteration of the redirect in each case.

This does not rhyme with the fact that Jayjg has made more, lesser controversial moves that did not receive the same, what you call, stylistic alteration. Personally, I find the excuse of stylistic alteration highly dubious as it's not even visible.

All I can see here is that you seem to think he's "protected" redirects on "the wrong version".

You're trying to read my mind now; I have expressed no judgement here on the resulting title names. It's neither up to me nor Jayjg to determine what is the wrong version. That's what consensus is for.

Before I was an admin, I couldn't have moved the articles you cite back to the controversial names you seem to favor, but that's what WP:RM is for. It was annoying and inconvenient, but I used it. Evidence suggests others have as well.

If one wants to prevent consensus-violating moves, one can explicitly protect against that. However, there has to be a reason why there is a policy section devoted to it. Remember, as been pointed out by others, Jayjg himself has voted for banning someone for "creating irreversible page moves", for a month none the least, so apparently he should agree with the seriousness of such an action.

Without wanting to assume bad faith on your part too quickly, what evidence are you presenting here related to this RfAr? I ask because what it looks like is a rather transparent attempt to poison the well here regarding Jayjg. (There also seems to be a whiff of red herring on the breeze...)

Your insinuations aside, the relevance comes from Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid/Workshop#Question for Jayjg, where Jayjg was asked to explain why he restored revisions of what was at the time already a redirect, which would make an admin making a move over the redirect liable for accusations of admin abuse. The action in itself may not mean much, but above evidence suggests a possible pattern of behavior and is therefore relevant to this case.

-- Dissident (Talk) 23:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dissident, which of these moves cum redirects are you calling "controversial"? From my review of your evidence, it appears that what Jay did was to undo controversial moves and then make a completely uniform stylistic alteration of the redirect in each case. All I can see here is that you seem to think he's "protected" redirects on "the wrong version". Before I was an admin, I couldn't have moved the articles you cite back to the controversial names you seem to favor, but that's what WP:RM is for. It was annoying and inconvenient, but I used it. Evidence suggests others have as well. Without wanting to assume bad faith on your part too quickly, what evidence are you presenting here related to this RfAr? I ask because what it looks like is a rather transparent attempt to poison the well here regarding Jayjg. (There also seems to be a whiff of red herring on the breeze...) Tomer^talk 18:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page editing statistics for Allegations of Israeli apartheid

I just went to Wikipedia Page History Statistics website and generated a report. Here are the major contributors to the article contents. The first number is the total number of edits, the second is the number of those edits that were tagged as minor. This is up to date as of the time at which I posted this comment.

• 221 (34) HOTR
• 73 (30) SlimVirgin
• 48 (4) Isarig
• 40 (5) Nagle
• 34 (12) Bhouston
• 30 (6) Humus sapiens
• 28 (9) Jayjg
• 26 (6) KimvdLinde
• 26 (0) Bless sins
• 25 (4) Bibigon
• 20 (1) CJCurrie
• 19 (18) Avraham
• 19 (19) Tasc
• 18 (4) 6SJ7
• 17 (1) Leifern
• 15 (7) Coroebus
• 14 (0) Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg
• 14 (3) ChrisO

--Ben Houston 16:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't be putting evidence up, as Fred has recommended a general amnesty for issues directly related to this case, so there seems no point. However, I should make clear, for the record, that my involvement in this is that I moved a page once — Israeli apartheid to Allegations of Israeli apartheid — and it was a move that did not require the use of admin tools. I moved it because I saw Chris O revert Humus sapiens' move, which I felt was a good idea. I did not know who Chris O was, and therefore did not know he was an admin. I therefore didn't know I was undoing an admin action. In any event, Chris O was involved as an editor, not as an admin. For all these reasons, I don't see my page move as an example of wheel warring. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 08:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]