Case clerks: Sphilbrick ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrator: NativeForeigner ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Case opened on 20:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Case closed on 11:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Once the case is closed, editors should edit the #Enforcement log as needed, but the other content of this page may not be edited except by clerks or arbitrators. Please raise any questions about this decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of the remedies passed in the decision to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
I started editing the Historicity of Jesus article not because I had a strong viewpoint on the subject, but rather because the article was so screwed up and contentious, I was curious if it could be fixed. My curiosity got me topic-banned. [1]. (This is not an appeal of that topic-ban.)
The term historicity refers to the quality of historical actuality (or “facticity”) of persons or events in the past. It has only to do with “what actually happened back then.” The Historicity of Jesus is about history, not theology.
Because the title of the article includes the word “Jesus,” it attracts editors who have a strong interest in Christian themed articles. For lack of a less polarizing term: Christian apologists. These people tend to be journeymen editors, who know how things work around here, and they've been very successful at injecting theology material that is outside the scope of historicity into the article.
This is a link to a table that shows the top 10 editors, based on their number of talk page posts (as of October 10. Only recently active editors are included.) 13 editors involved in this RfA.
There are a few interesting things to note in this table:
*Another 2 of these editors have made some contributions, but have still spent about half of their edits in reverts.
The table demonstrates something that is obvious to anyone who reads can be seen by reading the talk page: the article is dominated by a group of persistent, outspoken, and experienced editors who represent a single ideologically-based viewpoint. who tend to drive-away editors who express minority viewpoints.
Because of the majority position they hold, and their experience with WP policies and guidelines, these editors often push the bounds of WP policy and guidelines.
As a practical matter, this situation can't be changed. While the article's topic is a matter of history, it also happens to be the foundation of Christianity. It's natural that it attracts the editors it does. And it's natural that those editors use their experience and knowledge to support their strongly-held point of view. It has been this way for the 11 years the article has existed, and no amount of RfC, DRN, RfM, ANI, bans, or blocks are going to change it.
For this article to have any possibility of being fixed, its chronic POV imbalance must be managed for the long term. The only tool you have that can possibly do that is discretionary sanctions.
Fearofreprisal constantly declares that this article should consider “only what really happened”, but he refuses to acknowledge that there is minimal actual “evidence” on which to make that judgment, that scholars are thus forced to tease details out of the available documentary sources (specifically the gospels) and that most scholars conclude from the process that Jesus did exist although most of what is in the gospel accounts is not actually historical. This is WP:RS material, and it cannot be excluded on the grounds that it is “merely opinion”.
My edit did not blank the article, despite the false accusation being made by Fearofreprisal to this effect. A lot of material was in fact retained, all of it being supported by a scholarly consensus. It is largely the same material that currently stands in the article today, but it was much more summarized per WP:SUMMARY to avoid duplication with existing articles dedicated to those topics.
I felt that this move was needed because of extensive duplication and because of extensive edit warring – largely from banned editor Fearofreprisal. My edit was WP:BOLD but it was well received and was supported by almost all of the editors that had been working on the article at that time.
The various over-lapping articles to which my shortened article referred readers are not in any way “Christian” articles. These articles were the following – see here: Historical Jesus; Christ myth theory; Historical reliability of the Gospels; Sources for the historicity of Jesus; Historical background of the New Testament; Quest for the historical Jesus and Jesus Christ in comparative mythology – all of which deal with material that contradicts the “traditional” Christian views. To any objective editor it would be perfectly clear that NONE OF THESE REDIRECTS was to a “Christian” article at all – in fact QUITE THE OPPOSITE. This accusation against me is thus a blatant lie, and is typical of the behaviour that got the banned editor banned in the first place.
The accusation that I am a Christian apologetic is also a lie – I am not personally a Christian, and I have edited against anything that claims that the gospels are historically true. I created the Historical reliability of the Gospels article and the article Sources for the historicity of Jesus, both of which detail a lot of WP:RS scholarly evidence that leans against the historical reliability of the gospels.
Fearofreprisal fought a long and disruptive campaign against a strong consensus to change the focus of this article and to remove much of the content. Even now that he has been topic-banned, he is still tossing out false accusations against editors who stood up to him. Wdford ( talk) 23:44, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm gone for a few days of R&R and I come back to this? Annoying to say the least. At any rate, since others have already made the points that I would have made, let me just say that I agree wholeheartedly with what Wdford and others have already stated. In fact, Wdford's edit of summarizing the page, pointing readers to the appropriate article, was probably the single best edit I've ever seen. It almost brought tears to my eyes. :) Bill the Cat 7 ( talk) 12:41, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm surprised a topic-banned editor is even allowed to initiate such a request. As User:Jeppiz notes below, the suggestion that I'm a Christian apologist is absurd, on pages related to Christianity I mainly find myself trying to remove covert and sometimes even overt Christian apologetics. Also, closer inspection of my edits (rather than Talk page entries) reveals many more interests: science and technology in general, spaceflight in particular, mathematics, (agile) software development, history in general, WW2 in particular, linguistics, cryptocurrencies and probably some more I can't think of right now. I'm not fundamentally opposed to stronger oversight, but I don't think it's necessary right now, and in any event I'd like to see clarification as to whether a topic-banned user is even allowed to initiate a request for it. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 14:06, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
In reponse to Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs's question: there are long-standing content disputes, sometimes spilling over into conduct issues by multiple users, or at least various users have at times felt there were conduct issues. The problems aren't confined to just Historicity of Jesus, the two main sister pages Historical Jesus and Christ Myth Theory suffer from exactly the same problems and are frequented by largely the same users. The same may be true for a few other related pages. Any action that might be necessary on the current page would likely have to be applied to these other pages as well in order to be useful. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 16:05, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
In response to John Carter's request below: There are several editors who have made constructive edits in recent weeks who are not on the list of parties. I'm not sure if this is important, but if edit restrictions are to be imposed on the page, I think we need to have their input as well. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 15:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I've been notified about this request by the topic banned WP:SPA who has admitted they have a main account beside this SPA. I have several issues with this request made in bad faith.
In short, the OP has made a table of users (possibly violating the topic ban), falsely accused everybody else of being "Christian apologists", falsely claimed that all other users focus on "Christian articles", falsely claimed that the OP himself does not focus on said articles, severely misrepresented Wdford's edits in particular, and left out his own disruptions and the canvassing at Reddit. Perhaps the OP's original account is here for the right reason, but the SPA Fearofreprisal is most certainly WP:NOTHERE for the right reasons, and I believe both the topic ban and this request proves it. Jeppiz ( talk) 13:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
There have been conduct issues, including regarding myself. I believe a substantial part of the problem which initiated the conduct issues, the conduct of the filer, is now resolved by the topic ban of that party. To my eyes, as a person who has spent a lot of time involved in the broad field of religion around here, many of the remaining problems could not unreasonably be dealt with by consulting the reference sources I have found to date which deal specifically with this topic under the title "Historicity of Jesus" and "Jesus, Historicity of" and basically trying to more or less include what they include in roughly the proportion they include it and the recent book of conference papers on this topic which I intended to get to today before I found that the seminary library which has the book also currently has a huge room full of books they are giving away to all comers and which I am greedily and pointedly going through for reference sources and journals and suchlike. I find the filer's apparent categorization of me as a "Christian apologist" amusing, and think that such conduct here is almost certainly one of the reasons for his topic ban. I think it would be broadly useful to have discretionary sanctions available on a rather large number of articles relating to early Christianity, including early Christian groups which are experiencing some sort of attempted "revivals" and the significant number of somewhat controversial articles relating to the varied positions of Islam and Christianity and modern agnosticism or atheism on Jesus and his era, and would support such sanctions if useful clear and comparatively limited description of the contentious topics could be arrived at. John Carter ( talk) 20:21, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I think simply implementing DS on the topic of "Jesus and history" in general might be sufficient myself. I would however wonder how an individual who has already been banned from this topic would in any way be able to address any issues which might merit such sanctions, given his existing topic ban and how any attempts at requesting such sanctions would rather obviously be violations of that ban in spirit and I believe in fact. John Carter ( talk) 01:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
If this is to be opened as a full case, I request that User:Kww be added to the list of parties involved. John Carter ( talk) 15:09, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Ferofreprisal's characterisation of my edits is bizarre to say the least. Yes, I have some Christianity-related articles on my watchlist. I also have "Hindu articles" and "Muslim articles", but most of my editing is wholly unrelated to religion. As it happens, I am not a Christian, though I deeply resent having to make declarations about my personal beliefs or lack of them. Fearofreprisal's definition of "historicity" is equally bizarre. The standard meaning is "historical existence of". No other editor has found the title problematic or in any way misleading. As has been repeatedly pointed out, support for the historical existence of Jesus is near-universal among specialists. This has nothing to do with Christian faith. It's not as if only Muslims believe Mohammad existed and only Buddhists believe the Buddha existed. Indeed, for many years the leading editor on both Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus was the sadly now-deceased User:Slrubenstein, who was Jewish. The principal problem is that Fearofreprisal redefines terms to fit his/her preconceptions, which makes it near impossible to have any reasonable debate with this editor. Paul B ( talk) 10:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
In the light of WP:RNPOV policy, my take on the article still is and I here reaffirm it: [19], namely that fundamentalist Christians create trouble inside Wikipedia because they want it to affirm the inerrancy of the Bible and inside the discussed article the fundamentalist atheists create trouble, by pushing the contrary view (its mirror image), namely that the Bible is absolutely worthless for anything pertaining to historical research, despite it being critically sifted by scholars for this purpose.
According to [20] my only two edits which could (however vaguely) be construed as attacks upon Fearofreprisal are: [21] and [22]. The first shows my disappointment that a user whose edits violate basic Wikipedia policies makes a big fuss about the removal of his errant edits, and the consequence I drew from it was that the user is unreliable and unwilling to cooperate with bona fide editors, therefore he should be topic banned if the allegation (not mine, someone's else) about his edits turns out to be true (i.e. by actually checking what the quoted sources say by actually reading them). As the links show, I am no Christian and I have no Christian bias, I am a science-loving person and I have a pro-academia bias (aka bias in favor of reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia policies and guidelines).
I have to say that none of these links does show a vicious attack upon the person of Fearofreprisal, instead I criticized his behavior, his lack of comprehension of basic Wikipedia policies and his abuse of editing privileges through misquoting reliable sources in order to push his POV. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:35, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I have to add that historical criticism is not an ideology, it is an academic discipline. See e.g. [23]. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 15:24, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
In order to answer newer claims: I have nothing against rendering minority views, but according to WP:UNDUE they should be clearly labeled as minority views, continuously pushing them to be rendered as majority views amounts to trolling, and of course WP:RANDY applies. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
There were comments that the reported users have prevented the improving of the quality of the article. I don't know if this is true, however too harsh sanctions will alienate those who are competent and care about the article and open the door to POV pushers, so the quality of the article could degrade if the adopted sanctions are too harsh. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Real life may (unpredictably) intervene to interrupt my participation in this arbitration - indeed, in any WP activity at all, as it has done for the week past. I will give the arbitration only such attention as I may within those bounds. Having been away from Internet service for most of the past month, I have also not caught up with editing developments on the article over that time. The snippets of summary I heard at FearOfReprisal's topic ban do not greatly disturb me.
I remain somewhat unconvinced of the necessity of a dispute arbitration. FearOfReprisal was promoting the notion that Christians (and even some non-Christians) who were tainted with what he called "Christian apologetics" were therefore hopelessly biased in favor of Jesus' historical existence and therefore incompetent to render any useful findings about historicity. I was unconvinced by his denial because of his circular arguments, refusal to be plain about his concerns and objectives, and his ongoing contentiousness.
The talk page was already acrimonious when I first entered my engagement there, my first entries into this article or its talk page, and my first encounter with FearOfReprisal. You will be able to see and judge all my relevant activities there and on my talk page, where FoR brought further argument.
As for settling any dispute about the article content, I wish this arbitration well. I have presented (in some fashion) most of my own arguments within the talk page's wall of text. I ventured an article edit, mostly an exploratory trial, with a view to getting a better feel for what the editing community's response would be. I felt that FoR's disruptions were obscuring their viewpoints (which were largely unknown to me) by silencing them while they waited for the storms to pass. I did not press the issue when I was reverted, but left only one civil comment in response on the talk page. It was disappointing to get only a kind of knee-jerk reaction, but I attribute the lack of anything more to the distress under which the community labored at that time.
It is difficult to see how this article can be more than an expression of opinions (scholarly, of course, not editorial). The documentary materials and artifacts left to us after 2000 years of history are scanty, to say the least. FoR insisted upon a "scientific" basis for determining historicity, derived from a mistaken notion of what scientific method is, and to what it can be applied. I am only too pleased to have science contribute whatever it can to this topic. Like all techniques and tools, though, it has its own limitations and cannot be expected to be the only supply line in the discussions. Scientific method did not erupt in a vacuum, but developed over time from within scholarly inquiry. Modern historians can and do make use of it, but not exclusive use, because weighing human motivations and societal developments are required in historical topics, and are not subject to neat categorizations or experiment. FoR could not accept the evident.
The best impartial inquiries into Jesus' historicity are de facto going to be subject to human decisions and weighing of evidence. The gospels are the best-preserved documents of the era, and constitute evidence that we have. As is normal for historians, it is up to them how to weigh that evidence. I did not hear anyone deny that they are a work of faith. I believe that the contentions, here on WP and also in the real world, are the result of differing opinions about what to do with the fact that the gospels are a work of faith. Some deny they can be used at all.
I have made no secret of being a Christian myself. I make no apologies for it. I make no apologies for Christianity. And I make no Christian apologetics, either, and most especially about this topic, wherein there is so little factual evidence upon which to exercise scholarly activity. It is my view that the article needs to reflect the existing scholarly opinions in the world, on all sides having sufficient notability, to be articulated in the article with the maximum possible neutrality, and without undue weight to any opinions. Yes, WP policy describes the goals admirably. Editing communities and arbitrations just need to insist on them. Christian apologetics do exist in the real world, and therefore have a place in the article. Non-Christian apologetics likewise. FoR's mistake is in thinking that there is anything but apologetics to include.
As for my past participation, I am not satisfied with all of it. I welcome the arbitration's comments and actions. But I doubt there is much that has not already occurred to me, or that I have not already undertaken to improve. With regards to future participation, I am rather glad of Wdford's engagement and tend to think a balanced article will be a resulting benefit. I'll watch in any case. If allowed, I'll participate, if I need to, but I don't see this article as being particularly important to Christianity, and my interest has its natural limits. It was of interest to me, however, to oppose the establishment of an anti-Christian principle (i.e. Christian belief disqualifies contributions because of bias) at its foundation, because I think that principle would have undermined important WP policies. (It couldn't have harmed Christianity itself.) Evensteven ( talk) 18:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
If this is to be opened as a full case, I second John Carter's request that User:Kww be added to the list of parties involved. This user was active on the talk page at the same time I was. Evensteven ( talk) 18:29, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I have added myself as a party to the case request. I don't agree with any of the previous actions by the filing party about this article, but I do agree that discretionary sanctions are appropriate, not for the reasons stated by the filing party, but because the article is plagued by a combination of content issues and conduct disputes that make resolving the content issues impossible. I would ask that the Arbitration Committee expand the scope of the arbitration to include all topics related to the early history of Christianity, defined as the first century CE. Other articles in that area have also been troublesome. Historical Jesus, which is not the same as Historicity of Jesus, is commonly edited by SPAs with fringe theories. Gospel of Matthew was the topic of a recent moderated dispute resolution thread that failed. There have been previous Arbitration cases concerning the Ebionites. I ask that the Arbitration Committee open a case to request evidence of conduct issues (edit-warring, personal attacks, battleground editing, trolling) in the early history of Christianity. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
The argument can be made that this filing is a violation of the filing party's topic ban. I would ask that the ArbCom accept it anyway, both as a
boomerang (for a possible site-ban of the filing party), and because the conflict preceded and extends beyond the misconduct of the filing party.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
One of the arbitrators asked whether the conduct issues go beyond those of User:Fearofreprisal. The answer is yes, especially if the scope of the case is expanded as requested. While FOR's conduct recently has been the most egregious, other editors have engaged in POV-pushing, personal attacks, and other non-collaborative editing. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I was going to it back and see ho this goes, since it seems impossible that Fearofreprisal could reinstate his preferred (bad) version of the article through ArbCom, and once the SPAs and IPs he brought to the page through his off-site canvassing dissipate we will finally be able to implement the previously established consensus of, to use Fearofreprisal's words, "delet[ing] over 90% of its content" (removing forked content that doesn't directly relate to the historicity of Jesus but to what scholars suggest he did, that ultimately gives the false impression that these scholars deny the historicity of Jesus).
However, since Fearofreprisal has continued to bait me on ANI and now here, I will comment.
I initially saw this ArbCom request and the user subpage and read them as obvious TBAN violations by Fearofreprisal. I requested that he be blocked for this, along with his continued personal attacks ("These users are all Christian apologists! I'm not a religious apologist, just an innocent scholar advocating for the historical consensus!") and his prior admission that he was specifically editing under a sockpuppet account because he believes this area to be controversial. (In fact it is only controversial among the "atheist community", some radical elements of which believe making outlandish claims about the historicity of Jesus will help them in their "battle" against "religion"; others, like noted atheist Bart Ehrman, have a more reasonable position.) I withdrew my request for Fearofreprisal to be blocked immediately because a few users pointed out that ArbCom had been marked as an exception to the TBAN. However, Fearofreprisal's separate request for a mutual IBAN with me remains open (despite universal rejection among other editors); if Fearofreprisal had any class, he would follow me in withdrawing his frivolous request. Instead, he has continued making claims about me harassing him. When I responded last night by pointing out that since "Fearofreprisal" is an (admitted) single-purpose account for editing the two "controversial" topics Joe Arpaio (an area I am not interested in) and the historicity of Jesus (an area from which the Fearofreprisal account is TBANned), an IBAN would not accomplish anything worthwhile. If in fact I have had negative interactions in the past with Fearofreprisal's main account, then he needs to disclose said account if he wants an IBAN to be imposed, but that this would also make his TBAN effective for his main account as well. I have had bad experiences with IBANs in the past, so you can no doubt understand my suspicion that once Fearofreprisal gets me to agree to a mutual IBAN he will suddenly develop an interest in classical Japanese literature, an area he clearly has no interest in or knowledge about at present.
I still think Fearofreprisal should be forced to disclose his main account if he wishes to continue editing. I don't buy his claim that I am trying to "out" him because he edits under his real name: if he were concerned about protecting his identity, he wouldn't be deliberately trolling the Wikipedia article on the historicity of Jesus.
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I also think the table in his userspace is incredibly offensive: he made the unsubstantiated claim that everyone in the list except for him was focused on "Christian articles", and then removed a couple who had specifically rejected this claim here. Those who have not specifically rejected the claim to being "Christian apologists" remain accused of having a "Christian focus" in their editing, even if their editing histories do not back this up. Of Fearofreprisal's top 10 articles edited, three are related specifically to Jesus' historicity: for all but maybe one or two of his "opponents", none of their top 10 are remotely related to Christianity. I still intend to ask that the page be re-deleted once this ArbCom dealio is done with, since it is a TBAN violation -- if Fearofreprisal wants to present ArbCom evidence that would otherwise violate his TBAN, he has a responsibility to do it on this page and this page alone. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)
All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Making unsupported accusations of such misconduct by other editors, particularly where this is done repeatedly or in a bad-faith attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute, is also unacceptable.
2) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, or publishing or promoting original research is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.
3) An editor must not accuse another of inappropriate conduct without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. Comments should not be personalised, but should instead be directed at content and specific actions. Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions can be considered a personal attack. If accusations are made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate dispute resolution forums.
4) Reviewing the edits of an editor where there are concerns may be necessary, but if not carried out in the proper manner may be perceived as a form of harassment. Relevant factors include whether an editor's contributions are viewed as problematic by multiple other editors or the community at large; whether the concerns are raised appropriately and clearly on talk pages or noticeboards; and ultimately, whether the concerns raised reasonably appear to be motivated by good-faith, substantiated concerns about the quality of the encyclopedia, rather than personal animus against a particular editor. When an editor contributes only in a narrow topic area, it may not be possible to distinguish between a review of that topic area, and a review of that editor's contributions.
5) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Additionally, editors should presume that other editors, including those who disagree with them, are acting in good faith toward the betterment of the project, at least until strong evidence emerges to the contrary. Even when an editor becomes convinced that another editor is not acting in good faith, and has a reasonable basis for that belief, the editor should attempt to remedy the problem without resorting to inappropriate conduct of his or her own.
1) This case is focused on the article Historicity of Jesus ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), as well as various venues in which conduct of involved editors was discussed (including Requests for Mediation, Administrators Noticeboard/Incidents (ANI) – see #Controversy of editing at Historicity of Jesus – and relevant case discussion pages).
2) Editor behavior at Historicity of Jesus has recently generated five ANI threads ( [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] ), largely centered around widespread accusations of bad faith or POV editing.
3) Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) was community topic banned from "any article related to the Historicity of Jesus" in October 2014 at ANI( [29]).
4) A WP:BOLD change of the Historicity of Jesus article to a disambiguation by User:Wdford ( [30]) spurred a Request for Comment ( [31]) and a Request for Mediation ( [32]). In response, Fearofreprisal filed an inappropriate anti-vandalism request ( [33]) which was declined ( [34]).
5) Fearofreprisal cast aspersions and made disruptive accusations of POV editing and vandalism without evidence or backing of policy ( [35] [36]) though later admitted it was not ideal ( [37]).
6) Some users in conflict with Fearofreprisal characterized his actions as being trolling, and the editor as being NOTHERE to contribute. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43]
All remedies that refer to a period of time (for example, a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months) are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
6) Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) is warned to not engage in personal attacks or cast aspersions of bias and intent against other editors.
7) The Arbitration Committee endorses the community-imposed topic ban preventing Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) from editing Historicity of Jesus. [44] It is converted to an Arbitration Committee-imposed ban affecting the Historicity of Jesus, broadly construed, and enforcement of the ban should be discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Fearofreprisal is cautioned that if they disrupt and breach restrictions, they may be subject to increasingly severe sanctions. They may appeal this ban to the Committee in no less than twelve months time.
0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.
0) Appeals and modifications
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee.
Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:
No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:
Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped. Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied. Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions. Important notes:
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.
Case clerks: Sphilbrick ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrator: NativeForeigner ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Track related changes |
Case opened on 20:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Case closed on 11:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Once the case is closed, editors should edit the #Enforcement log as needed, but the other content of this page may not be edited except by clerks or arbitrators. Please raise any questions about this decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of the remedies passed in the decision to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
I started editing the Historicity of Jesus article not because I had a strong viewpoint on the subject, but rather because the article was so screwed up and contentious, I was curious if it could be fixed. My curiosity got me topic-banned. [1]. (This is not an appeal of that topic-ban.)
The term historicity refers to the quality of historical actuality (or “facticity”) of persons or events in the past. It has only to do with “what actually happened back then.” The Historicity of Jesus is about history, not theology.
Because the title of the article includes the word “Jesus,” it attracts editors who have a strong interest in Christian themed articles. For lack of a less polarizing term: Christian apologists. These people tend to be journeymen editors, who know how things work around here, and they've been very successful at injecting theology material that is outside the scope of historicity into the article.
This is a link to a table that shows the top 10 editors, based on their number of talk page posts (as of October 10. Only recently active editors are included.) 13 editors involved in this RfA.
There are a few interesting things to note in this table:
*Another 2 of these editors have made some contributions, but have still spent about half of their edits in reverts.
The table demonstrates something that is obvious to anyone who reads can be seen by reading the talk page: the article is dominated by a group of persistent, outspoken, and experienced editors who represent a single ideologically-based viewpoint. who tend to drive-away editors who express minority viewpoints.
Because of the majority position they hold, and their experience with WP policies and guidelines, these editors often push the bounds of WP policy and guidelines.
As a practical matter, this situation can't be changed. While the article's topic is a matter of history, it also happens to be the foundation of Christianity. It's natural that it attracts the editors it does. And it's natural that those editors use their experience and knowledge to support their strongly-held point of view. It has been this way for the 11 years the article has existed, and no amount of RfC, DRN, RfM, ANI, bans, or blocks are going to change it.
For this article to have any possibility of being fixed, its chronic POV imbalance must be managed for the long term. The only tool you have that can possibly do that is discretionary sanctions.
Fearofreprisal constantly declares that this article should consider “only what really happened”, but he refuses to acknowledge that there is minimal actual “evidence” on which to make that judgment, that scholars are thus forced to tease details out of the available documentary sources (specifically the gospels) and that most scholars conclude from the process that Jesus did exist although most of what is in the gospel accounts is not actually historical. This is WP:RS material, and it cannot be excluded on the grounds that it is “merely opinion”.
My edit did not blank the article, despite the false accusation being made by Fearofreprisal to this effect. A lot of material was in fact retained, all of it being supported by a scholarly consensus. It is largely the same material that currently stands in the article today, but it was much more summarized per WP:SUMMARY to avoid duplication with existing articles dedicated to those topics.
I felt that this move was needed because of extensive duplication and because of extensive edit warring – largely from banned editor Fearofreprisal. My edit was WP:BOLD but it was well received and was supported by almost all of the editors that had been working on the article at that time.
The various over-lapping articles to which my shortened article referred readers are not in any way “Christian” articles. These articles were the following – see here: Historical Jesus; Christ myth theory; Historical reliability of the Gospels; Sources for the historicity of Jesus; Historical background of the New Testament; Quest for the historical Jesus and Jesus Christ in comparative mythology – all of which deal with material that contradicts the “traditional” Christian views. To any objective editor it would be perfectly clear that NONE OF THESE REDIRECTS was to a “Christian” article at all – in fact QUITE THE OPPOSITE. This accusation against me is thus a blatant lie, and is typical of the behaviour that got the banned editor banned in the first place.
The accusation that I am a Christian apologetic is also a lie – I am not personally a Christian, and I have edited against anything that claims that the gospels are historically true. I created the Historical reliability of the Gospels article and the article Sources for the historicity of Jesus, both of which detail a lot of WP:RS scholarly evidence that leans against the historical reliability of the gospels.
Fearofreprisal fought a long and disruptive campaign against a strong consensus to change the focus of this article and to remove much of the content. Even now that he has been topic-banned, he is still tossing out false accusations against editors who stood up to him. Wdford ( talk) 23:44, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm gone for a few days of R&R and I come back to this? Annoying to say the least. At any rate, since others have already made the points that I would have made, let me just say that I agree wholeheartedly with what Wdford and others have already stated. In fact, Wdford's edit of summarizing the page, pointing readers to the appropriate article, was probably the single best edit I've ever seen. It almost brought tears to my eyes. :) Bill the Cat 7 ( talk) 12:41, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm surprised a topic-banned editor is even allowed to initiate such a request. As User:Jeppiz notes below, the suggestion that I'm a Christian apologist is absurd, on pages related to Christianity I mainly find myself trying to remove covert and sometimes even overt Christian apologetics. Also, closer inspection of my edits (rather than Talk page entries) reveals many more interests: science and technology in general, spaceflight in particular, mathematics, (agile) software development, history in general, WW2 in particular, linguistics, cryptocurrencies and probably some more I can't think of right now. I'm not fundamentally opposed to stronger oversight, but I don't think it's necessary right now, and in any event I'd like to see clarification as to whether a topic-banned user is even allowed to initiate a request for it. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 14:06, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
In reponse to Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs's question: there are long-standing content disputes, sometimes spilling over into conduct issues by multiple users, or at least various users have at times felt there were conduct issues. The problems aren't confined to just Historicity of Jesus, the two main sister pages Historical Jesus and Christ Myth Theory suffer from exactly the same problems and are frequented by largely the same users. The same may be true for a few other related pages. Any action that might be necessary on the current page would likely have to be applied to these other pages as well in order to be useful. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 16:05, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
In response to John Carter's request below: There are several editors who have made constructive edits in recent weeks who are not on the list of parties. I'm not sure if this is important, but if edit restrictions are to be imposed on the page, I think we need to have their input as well. Martijn Meijering ( talk) 15:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I've been notified about this request by the topic banned WP:SPA who has admitted they have a main account beside this SPA. I have several issues with this request made in bad faith.
In short, the OP has made a table of users (possibly violating the topic ban), falsely accused everybody else of being "Christian apologists", falsely claimed that all other users focus on "Christian articles", falsely claimed that the OP himself does not focus on said articles, severely misrepresented Wdford's edits in particular, and left out his own disruptions and the canvassing at Reddit. Perhaps the OP's original account is here for the right reason, but the SPA Fearofreprisal is most certainly WP:NOTHERE for the right reasons, and I believe both the topic ban and this request proves it. Jeppiz ( talk) 13:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
There have been conduct issues, including regarding myself. I believe a substantial part of the problem which initiated the conduct issues, the conduct of the filer, is now resolved by the topic ban of that party. To my eyes, as a person who has spent a lot of time involved in the broad field of religion around here, many of the remaining problems could not unreasonably be dealt with by consulting the reference sources I have found to date which deal specifically with this topic under the title "Historicity of Jesus" and "Jesus, Historicity of" and basically trying to more or less include what they include in roughly the proportion they include it and the recent book of conference papers on this topic which I intended to get to today before I found that the seminary library which has the book also currently has a huge room full of books they are giving away to all comers and which I am greedily and pointedly going through for reference sources and journals and suchlike. I find the filer's apparent categorization of me as a "Christian apologist" amusing, and think that such conduct here is almost certainly one of the reasons for his topic ban. I think it would be broadly useful to have discretionary sanctions available on a rather large number of articles relating to early Christianity, including early Christian groups which are experiencing some sort of attempted "revivals" and the significant number of somewhat controversial articles relating to the varied positions of Islam and Christianity and modern agnosticism or atheism on Jesus and his era, and would support such sanctions if useful clear and comparatively limited description of the contentious topics could be arrived at. John Carter ( talk) 20:21, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I think simply implementing DS on the topic of "Jesus and history" in general might be sufficient myself. I would however wonder how an individual who has already been banned from this topic would in any way be able to address any issues which might merit such sanctions, given his existing topic ban and how any attempts at requesting such sanctions would rather obviously be violations of that ban in spirit and I believe in fact. John Carter ( talk) 01:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
If this is to be opened as a full case, I request that User:Kww be added to the list of parties involved. John Carter ( talk) 15:09, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Ferofreprisal's characterisation of my edits is bizarre to say the least. Yes, I have some Christianity-related articles on my watchlist. I also have "Hindu articles" and "Muslim articles", but most of my editing is wholly unrelated to religion. As it happens, I am not a Christian, though I deeply resent having to make declarations about my personal beliefs or lack of them. Fearofreprisal's definition of "historicity" is equally bizarre. The standard meaning is "historical existence of". No other editor has found the title problematic or in any way misleading. As has been repeatedly pointed out, support for the historical existence of Jesus is near-universal among specialists. This has nothing to do with Christian faith. It's not as if only Muslims believe Mohammad existed and only Buddhists believe the Buddha existed. Indeed, for many years the leading editor on both Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus was the sadly now-deceased User:Slrubenstein, who was Jewish. The principal problem is that Fearofreprisal redefines terms to fit his/her preconceptions, which makes it near impossible to have any reasonable debate with this editor. Paul B ( talk) 10:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
In the light of WP:RNPOV policy, my take on the article still is and I here reaffirm it: [19], namely that fundamentalist Christians create trouble inside Wikipedia because they want it to affirm the inerrancy of the Bible and inside the discussed article the fundamentalist atheists create trouble, by pushing the contrary view (its mirror image), namely that the Bible is absolutely worthless for anything pertaining to historical research, despite it being critically sifted by scholars for this purpose.
According to [20] my only two edits which could (however vaguely) be construed as attacks upon Fearofreprisal are: [21] and [22]. The first shows my disappointment that a user whose edits violate basic Wikipedia policies makes a big fuss about the removal of his errant edits, and the consequence I drew from it was that the user is unreliable and unwilling to cooperate with bona fide editors, therefore he should be topic banned if the allegation (not mine, someone's else) about his edits turns out to be true (i.e. by actually checking what the quoted sources say by actually reading them). As the links show, I am no Christian and I have no Christian bias, I am a science-loving person and I have a pro-academia bias (aka bias in favor of reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia policies and guidelines).
I have to say that none of these links does show a vicious attack upon the person of Fearofreprisal, instead I criticized his behavior, his lack of comprehension of basic Wikipedia policies and his abuse of editing privileges through misquoting reliable sources in order to push his POV. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:35, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I have to add that historical criticism is not an ideology, it is an academic discipline. See e.g. [23]. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 15:24, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
In order to answer newer claims: I have nothing against rendering minority views, but according to WP:UNDUE they should be clearly labeled as minority views, continuously pushing them to be rendered as majority views amounts to trolling, and of course WP:RANDY applies. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
There were comments that the reported users have prevented the improving of the quality of the article. I don't know if this is true, however too harsh sanctions will alienate those who are competent and care about the article and open the door to POV pushers, so the quality of the article could degrade if the adopted sanctions are too harsh. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Real life may (unpredictably) intervene to interrupt my participation in this arbitration - indeed, in any WP activity at all, as it has done for the week past. I will give the arbitration only such attention as I may within those bounds. Having been away from Internet service for most of the past month, I have also not caught up with editing developments on the article over that time. The snippets of summary I heard at FearOfReprisal's topic ban do not greatly disturb me.
I remain somewhat unconvinced of the necessity of a dispute arbitration. FearOfReprisal was promoting the notion that Christians (and even some non-Christians) who were tainted with what he called "Christian apologetics" were therefore hopelessly biased in favor of Jesus' historical existence and therefore incompetent to render any useful findings about historicity. I was unconvinced by his denial because of his circular arguments, refusal to be plain about his concerns and objectives, and his ongoing contentiousness.
The talk page was already acrimonious when I first entered my engagement there, my first entries into this article or its talk page, and my first encounter with FearOfReprisal. You will be able to see and judge all my relevant activities there and on my talk page, where FoR brought further argument.
As for settling any dispute about the article content, I wish this arbitration well. I have presented (in some fashion) most of my own arguments within the talk page's wall of text. I ventured an article edit, mostly an exploratory trial, with a view to getting a better feel for what the editing community's response would be. I felt that FoR's disruptions were obscuring their viewpoints (which were largely unknown to me) by silencing them while they waited for the storms to pass. I did not press the issue when I was reverted, but left only one civil comment in response on the talk page. It was disappointing to get only a kind of knee-jerk reaction, but I attribute the lack of anything more to the distress under which the community labored at that time.
It is difficult to see how this article can be more than an expression of opinions (scholarly, of course, not editorial). The documentary materials and artifacts left to us after 2000 years of history are scanty, to say the least. FoR insisted upon a "scientific" basis for determining historicity, derived from a mistaken notion of what scientific method is, and to what it can be applied. I am only too pleased to have science contribute whatever it can to this topic. Like all techniques and tools, though, it has its own limitations and cannot be expected to be the only supply line in the discussions. Scientific method did not erupt in a vacuum, but developed over time from within scholarly inquiry. Modern historians can and do make use of it, but not exclusive use, because weighing human motivations and societal developments are required in historical topics, and are not subject to neat categorizations or experiment. FoR could not accept the evident.
The best impartial inquiries into Jesus' historicity are de facto going to be subject to human decisions and weighing of evidence. The gospels are the best-preserved documents of the era, and constitute evidence that we have. As is normal for historians, it is up to them how to weigh that evidence. I did not hear anyone deny that they are a work of faith. I believe that the contentions, here on WP and also in the real world, are the result of differing opinions about what to do with the fact that the gospels are a work of faith. Some deny they can be used at all.
I have made no secret of being a Christian myself. I make no apologies for it. I make no apologies for Christianity. And I make no Christian apologetics, either, and most especially about this topic, wherein there is so little factual evidence upon which to exercise scholarly activity. It is my view that the article needs to reflect the existing scholarly opinions in the world, on all sides having sufficient notability, to be articulated in the article with the maximum possible neutrality, and without undue weight to any opinions. Yes, WP policy describes the goals admirably. Editing communities and arbitrations just need to insist on them. Christian apologetics do exist in the real world, and therefore have a place in the article. Non-Christian apologetics likewise. FoR's mistake is in thinking that there is anything but apologetics to include.
As for my past participation, I am not satisfied with all of it. I welcome the arbitration's comments and actions. But I doubt there is much that has not already occurred to me, or that I have not already undertaken to improve. With regards to future participation, I am rather glad of Wdford's engagement and tend to think a balanced article will be a resulting benefit. I'll watch in any case. If allowed, I'll participate, if I need to, but I don't see this article as being particularly important to Christianity, and my interest has its natural limits. It was of interest to me, however, to oppose the establishment of an anti-Christian principle (i.e. Christian belief disqualifies contributions because of bias) at its foundation, because I think that principle would have undermined important WP policies. (It couldn't have harmed Christianity itself.) Evensteven ( talk) 18:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
If this is to be opened as a full case, I second John Carter's request that User:Kww be added to the list of parties involved. This user was active on the talk page at the same time I was. Evensteven ( talk) 18:29, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I have added myself as a party to the case request. I don't agree with any of the previous actions by the filing party about this article, but I do agree that discretionary sanctions are appropriate, not for the reasons stated by the filing party, but because the article is plagued by a combination of content issues and conduct disputes that make resolving the content issues impossible. I would ask that the Arbitration Committee expand the scope of the arbitration to include all topics related to the early history of Christianity, defined as the first century CE. Other articles in that area have also been troublesome. Historical Jesus, which is not the same as Historicity of Jesus, is commonly edited by SPAs with fringe theories. Gospel of Matthew was the topic of a recent moderated dispute resolution thread that failed. There have been previous Arbitration cases concerning the Ebionites. I ask that the Arbitration Committee open a case to request evidence of conduct issues (edit-warring, personal attacks, battleground editing, trolling) in the early history of Christianity. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
The argument can be made that this filing is a violation of the filing party's topic ban. I would ask that the ArbCom accept it anyway, both as a
boomerang (for a possible site-ban of the filing party), and because the conflict preceded and extends beyond the misconduct of the filing party.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
One of the arbitrators asked whether the conduct issues go beyond those of User:Fearofreprisal. The answer is yes, especially if the scope of the case is expanded as requested. While FOR's conduct recently has been the most egregious, other editors have engaged in POV-pushing, personal attacks, and other non-collaborative editing. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I was going to it back and see ho this goes, since it seems impossible that Fearofreprisal could reinstate his preferred (bad) version of the article through ArbCom, and once the SPAs and IPs he brought to the page through his off-site canvassing dissipate we will finally be able to implement the previously established consensus of, to use Fearofreprisal's words, "delet[ing] over 90% of its content" (removing forked content that doesn't directly relate to the historicity of Jesus but to what scholars suggest he did, that ultimately gives the false impression that these scholars deny the historicity of Jesus).
However, since Fearofreprisal has continued to bait me on ANI and now here, I will comment.
I initially saw this ArbCom request and the user subpage and read them as obvious TBAN violations by Fearofreprisal. I requested that he be blocked for this, along with his continued personal attacks ("These users are all Christian apologists! I'm not a religious apologist, just an innocent scholar advocating for the historical consensus!") and his prior admission that he was specifically editing under a sockpuppet account because he believes this area to be controversial. (In fact it is only controversial among the "atheist community", some radical elements of which believe making outlandish claims about the historicity of Jesus will help them in their "battle" against "religion"; others, like noted atheist Bart Ehrman, have a more reasonable position.) I withdrew my request for Fearofreprisal to be blocked immediately because a few users pointed out that ArbCom had been marked as an exception to the TBAN. However, Fearofreprisal's separate request for a mutual IBAN with me remains open (despite universal rejection among other editors); if Fearofreprisal had any class, he would follow me in withdrawing his frivolous request. Instead, he has continued making claims about me harassing him. When I responded last night by pointing out that since "Fearofreprisal" is an (admitted) single-purpose account for editing the two "controversial" topics Joe Arpaio (an area I am not interested in) and the historicity of Jesus (an area from which the Fearofreprisal account is TBANned), an IBAN would not accomplish anything worthwhile. If in fact I have had negative interactions in the past with Fearofreprisal's main account, then he needs to disclose said account if he wants an IBAN to be imposed, but that this would also make his TBAN effective for his main account as well. I have had bad experiences with IBANs in the past, so you can no doubt understand my suspicion that once Fearofreprisal gets me to agree to a mutual IBAN he will suddenly develop an interest in classical Japanese literature, an area he clearly has no interest in or knowledge about at present.
I still think Fearofreprisal should be forced to disclose his main account if he wishes to continue editing. I don't buy his claim that I am trying to "out" him because he edits under his real name: if he were concerned about protecting his identity, he wouldn't be deliberately trolling the Wikipedia article on the historicity of Jesus.
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I also think the table in his userspace is incredibly offensive: he made the unsubstantiated claim that everyone in the list except for him was focused on "Christian articles", and then removed a couple who had specifically rejected this claim here. Those who have not specifically rejected the claim to being "Christian apologists" remain accused of having a "Christian focus" in their editing, even if their editing histories do not back this up. Of Fearofreprisal's top 10 articles edited, three are related specifically to Jesus' historicity: for all but maybe one or two of his "opponents", none of their top 10 are remotely related to Christianity. I still intend to ask that the page be re-deleted once this ArbCom dealio is done with, since it is a TBAN violation -- if Fearofreprisal wants to present ArbCom evidence that would otherwise violate his TBAN, he has a responsibility to do it on this page and this page alone. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 23:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)
All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Making unsupported accusations of such misconduct by other editors, particularly where this is done repeatedly or in a bad-faith attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute, is also unacceptable.
2) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, or publishing or promoting original research is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.
3) An editor must not accuse another of inappropriate conduct without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. Comments should not be personalised, but should instead be directed at content and specific actions. Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions can be considered a personal attack. If accusations are made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate dispute resolution forums.
4) Reviewing the edits of an editor where there are concerns may be necessary, but if not carried out in the proper manner may be perceived as a form of harassment. Relevant factors include whether an editor's contributions are viewed as problematic by multiple other editors or the community at large; whether the concerns are raised appropriately and clearly on talk pages or noticeboards; and ultimately, whether the concerns raised reasonably appear to be motivated by good-faith, substantiated concerns about the quality of the encyclopedia, rather than personal animus against a particular editor. When an editor contributes only in a narrow topic area, it may not be possible to distinguish between a review of that topic area, and a review of that editor's contributions.
5) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Additionally, editors should presume that other editors, including those who disagree with them, are acting in good faith toward the betterment of the project, at least until strong evidence emerges to the contrary. Even when an editor becomes convinced that another editor is not acting in good faith, and has a reasonable basis for that belief, the editor should attempt to remedy the problem without resorting to inappropriate conduct of his or her own.
1) This case is focused on the article Historicity of Jesus ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), as well as various venues in which conduct of involved editors was discussed (including Requests for Mediation, Administrators Noticeboard/Incidents (ANI) – see #Controversy of editing at Historicity of Jesus – and relevant case discussion pages).
2) Editor behavior at Historicity of Jesus has recently generated five ANI threads ( [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] ), largely centered around widespread accusations of bad faith or POV editing.
3) Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) was community topic banned from "any article related to the Historicity of Jesus" in October 2014 at ANI( [29]).
4) A WP:BOLD change of the Historicity of Jesus article to a disambiguation by User:Wdford ( [30]) spurred a Request for Comment ( [31]) and a Request for Mediation ( [32]). In response, Fearofreprisal filed an inappropriate anti-vandalism request ( [33]) which was declined ( [34]).
5) Fearofreprisal cast aspersions and made disruptive accusations of POV editing and vandalism without evidence or backing of policy ( [35] [36]) though later admitted it was not ideal ( [37]).
6) Some users in conflict with Fearofreprisal characterized his actions as being trolling, and the editor as being NOTHERE to contribute. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43]
All remedies that refer to a period of time (for example, a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months) are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
6) Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) is warned to not engage in personal attacks or cast aspersions of bias and intent against other editors.
7) The Arbitration Committee endorses the community-imposed topic ban preventing Fearofreprisal ( talk · contribs) from editing Historicity of Jesus. [44] It is converted to an Arbitration Committee-imposed ban affecting the Historicity of Jesus, broadly construed, and enforcement of the ban should be discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Fearofreprisal is cautioned that if they disrupt and breach restrictions, they may be subject to increasingly severe sanctions. They may appeal this ban to the Committee in no less than twelve months time.
0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.
0) Appeals and modifications
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee.
Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:
No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:
Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped. Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied. Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions. Important notes:
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.