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I would like to suggest renaming this case to more accurate and neutral "Polish-Jewish history", as the current name is both incorrect and potentially biased. The current name is incorrect because it is more then just about antisemitism; it is also related to topics like anti-Polish sentiment (see ex. the early evidence/argument presented by User:My very best wishes here) and a similar section by User:MyMoloboaccount. The current name is potentially biased, as it gives undue weight to only one of the aspects of the case, and creates the impression that it is a conflict between anti-antisemitic or pro-antisemitic editors, or otherwise may unconsciously prejudice the parties, neutral editors and arbitrators themselves for or towards the parties. In other words, the current name seems to frame to case as potentially accusing some editors of antisemitism or of supporting antisemitic attitudes/sources, creating a presumption of guilt, from the very onset suggesting that some parties may be 'more correct' or siding with them is expected, and criticizing them would be incorrect, when this is just one of several dimensions of the case. I therefore urge the ArbCom to rename this case to a more neutral title which will both represent the scope of the dispute better, and avoid prejudicing anyone for or against the parties. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:24, 10 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi Piotrus the clerk team has notified the committee of this request. Regards, -- Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 16:35, 10 June 2019 (UTC) reply

The discussion about this request has not yet received much attention, so I will give you my thoughts for the time being. There are some matters covered by Antisemitism in Poland that are not covered by the narrower Holocaust in Poland. However, Polish–Jewish history would be overbroad (and probably overlap with our other case, Eastern Europe).

As a description of scope, Antisemitism in Poland seems neutral in that it captures all articles pertaining to events connected with Polish–Jewish relations in Poland. Articles that do not involve a degree of antisemitism do not seem to be involved in this case; you can let me know if I have that wrong.

Generally, where questions like this are concerned, I think that the appearance of bias can be just as problematic as a biased title itself would be. However, in this specific case I do not see a problem. For these reasons, I would inclined against renaming the case pages. It is the committee's ordinary procedure to make a statement about the scope at the case-end, usually under the heading of "Locus of the dispute". There are sometimes small refinements to case scope at that point. Any similar need for refinement in this case could be satisfied when we open the Proposed Decision phase.

Finally, I disagree with your argument that the case title casts a shadow over every editor who employs sources or introduces content about POV rather than any other. The case title (and scope) draws a line around Wikipedia's articles in terms of the time, geography, and people involved. It cannot diminish the views of one POV within those articles, nor can it be an assertion that the users editing the articles somehow take on the characteristics of the articles themselves. AGK  ■ 08:13, 13 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Ping Volunteer Marek and K.e.coffman who commented on this very issue at evidence talk. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:30, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

When a party to this case considers sourced descriptions of antisemitism in Poland to merit accusations of bigotry, [2] and posits that as an editing rationale that such descriptions are "disgusting", [3], " gratuitous stereotyping and ethnic generalizations", [4] or "gratuitous and off topic Pole bashing" [5] - in the face of WP:RS coverage of antisemitism in Poland past and present - treatment antisemitism in Poland is clearly an issue here. Icewhiz ( talk) 05:08, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Hey Icewhiz, how about you save your histrionics and bullshit ( [6] <-- this is NOT a "sourced description of antisemitism in Poland", [7] <-- you WP:COATRACKing irrelevant jabs at Poles as taunts is indeed pretty messed up, [8]<-- this is indeed stereotyping) for your "evidence" section and don't try to sprawl the nonsense as a way to get around the word limit? Or are you trying to derail yet another discussion with false accusations like you did at User:Paul Sieberts talk page, lest it might actually wind up being constructive? Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

[9] - source says "long anti-Semitic tradition of blaming Esterka". ^[1] [10] - not "my COATRACKING" - but in this case Haaretz's description (which makes a point academic sources make as well). [11] - stereotyping? Made by a literature researcher, based in Poland I might add, in the context of these figurines that are based on an antisemitic motif. Academic sources abound in the topic area in general, e.g. Modras, Ronald. The Catholic church and antisemitism: Poland, 1933-1939. Vol. 1. Psychology Press, 2000. or Blatman, Daniel. "Polish antisemitism and ‘Judeo‐communism’: Historiography and memory." East European Jewish Affairs 27.1 (1997): 23-43.. Icewhiz ( talk) 06:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Oh ffs, anyone not lazy enough to click that diff and look at the linked talk page [12] can clearly see that the dispute was over the nature of the legend. The very same source also discusses all the ways that the legend has been used in non-anti-semitic ways, in both Polish and Yiddish literature and art. You just plucked out a small part of the source to misrepresented it and for some reason thought that justified removing it entirely. My response on talk summarizes your gross misrepresentation of the source accurately. And how in the world a discussion of a historical legend constitutes "sourced description of antisemitism in Poland" (sic) is beyond me. This just illustrates your fevered imagination which sees "antisemitism in Poland" under every rock and pebble. You're making stuff up. Again. At any rate, why the hell are you trying to rehash this dispute on this particular talk page? Save it for your "evidence". This isn't a place for it. This is just you once again trying to derail a discussion - about renaming of the case - by bringing up irrelevant nonsense. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 07:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

That there are subsequent uses which are not antisemitic, do not contradict the antisemitic origin of this fable - which are covered in multiple academic WP:RSes. And in any case (antisemitic or not), the made up fable shouldn't have been presented as factual in an article on a historical figure. Icewhiz ( talk) 08:03, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

That is NOT what the dispute was about and it is NOT a "sourced description of antisemitism in Poland" as you claim except in some very loose sense. Likewise NO ONE here was trying to present the fable as factual. Neither I nor anyone else here reverted your edit. Neither I nor anyone else here claimed that the legend was real. Stop trying to straw man your way out of this. You keep presenting some edits which you made and which no one disputed and then pretend that somebody who's involved in this case objected. That. Is. Completely. False. One more time: this isn't the place to rehash these arguments. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 08:43, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

And I agree with Piotrus and k.e.coffman. Unless the ArbCom has already made up its mind as to the outcome without actually looking at the evidence, then Icewhiz's egregious behavior and battleground attitude, not to mention continual violations of BLP, is as much of an issue as anything else. Even "Polish-Jewish" relations is not entirely accurate as some of his edits concern Poles and Germans (for example whitewashing and minimizing Nazi crimes against Poles) and Poles and Soviets (for example whitewashing and minimizing Stalinist crimes against Poles). Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Easiest way to deal with this would be just to name the case "Eastern Europe 3" or something. Also, please recall that ArbCom has had to rename past cases in the past precisely because of unfortunate choices of original names. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:15, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

EE3 or such might indeed be better. But it has been a week, I am worried more and more this will be a witch-hunt of 'let's crucify some antisemite and call it a job well done'. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:04, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

I too support name change of the case, as the current doesn't embrace fully the issues raised and predetermines guilt, manipulating narrative.

-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 16:50, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

• I think the issue here is quite simple. Probably only two or three pages in this case are clearly related to (or about) the antisemitism in Poland. In particular, none of the articles and diffs mentioned in my Evidence tells anything about antisemitism in Poland, although it does include many diffs about the behavior by sides in this case. Yes, the case includes a number of pages about Jews in Poland (not only the Holocaust), but the conflict also involves many pages about ethnic Poles like here. Yes, Polish–Jewish history would be much better. Icewhiz named it better when he filed the case. There should be a serious reason for renaming to "antisemitism", and I do not see it at all. My very best wishes ( talk) 19:24, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Just to clarify, the Holocaust in Poland (as filed by Icewhiz) and Antisemitism in Poland are different subjects. Yes, there are many pages in this case which belong to Holocaust in Poland committed by Nazi and their Polish and other collaborators. However, "Antisemitism in Poland" is an inappropriate and too narrowly defined title, although I can see some discussions there as well [13]. My very best wishes ( talk) 18:07, 16 June 2019 (UTC) reply

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I was thinking mainly about the ease of application of any new restrictions that may come out of this case. For example, an admin saying "You are topic banned from Antisemitism in Poland" sounds ambiguous; compare with: "You are topic banned from Jewish-Polish history". The latter is more straightforward, IMO. Some articles that do not mention anti-semitism, but have experienced similar disputes, are Casimir III the Great and Esterka, his mythical Jewish mistress; Barbara Engelking, Polish scholar of the Holocaust. Articles in the Category:Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, although not necessarily related to "antisemitism in Poland", have seen extensive use of problematic sources and are part of the disputed area. A potentially adjusted name could also be a benefit in the BLP area. Those writing on Polish-Jewish history would be covered under the case in question, without admins having to figure out how antisemitism comes into this. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 00:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC) reply

You are quite correct that the application of sanctions is best happening under a clear and descriptive case name. Once the breadth and content of our proposed decision becomes clear, I will consider whether we need to include an instruction that the case be renamed as part of the closure process. I do not believe it will become apparent whether a rename is required until after we finish sifting the evidence; the phase does not formally close for a few more days. Thank you for your comments. AGK  ■ 22:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Now Antisemitism in Poland links to Racism in Poland. But a big part of the subject is religious, ecnomical or political, not racist. A recent academic book Intimate Violence "is a novel social-scientific explanation of ethnic violence and the Holocaust. It locates the roots of violence in efforts to maintain Polish and Ukrainian dominance rather than in anti-Semitic hatred or revenge for communism." https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Violence-Anti-Jewish-Pogroms-Holocaust/dp/1501715259

If any anti-Semitism were racist, so anti-Polish (and broader anti-Easterneuropean) steretypes used in this Wikipedia are racist so a number of leading Wikipedia enforcers should be topic-banned as racists. Xx236 ( talk) 07:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Xx236, the name of those articles is a question of content. You will need to raise the question under the normal wiki processes. AGK  ■ 08:19, 8 August 2019 (UTC) reply

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Just wanted the Committee to be made aware that this was happening. El_C 21:48, 6 August 2019 (UTC) reply

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(If this is helpful, please consider this a request to add the following as late evidence.) What happened between Icewhiz (IW) and Volunteer Marek (VM) at the article in the ANEW report above ( Islamophobia in Poland) has happened elsewhere. IW created Islamophobia in Poland on Aug 3. On Aug 5–6, VM removed large chunks of the article [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19], added tags with the edit summaries like Who is this? Like three people and a dog? [20] and given that the same editor inserted false information (with a source!) into the article, we need to verify this info [21], and posted a 3RR warning on IW's talk page [22]. Talk:Islamophobia in Poland speaks for itself.

That article may not be in the scope of this case, but the same thing happened at Rafał Pankowski, an article about a Polish sociologist and political scientist who received an Anti-Defamation League human rights award honoring people who fight antisemitism in Europe. IW created it on May 19. Later that day, VM made a series of removals with edit summaries like BLP UNDUE, just silly [23] and da f is this? [24]. In 24hrs, VM made one, two, three deletions. On the second day of the article's existence, Icewhiz started the first talk page thread: Talk:Rafał Pankowski#Recent edits. VM's first reply: ... Come on, who you're trying to kid? ... [25]. It goes on from there. By the fourth day, an admin applied 1RR DS to the article [26].

Same at Jew with a coin, an article IW created on May 20. The same day, VM deleted content with edit summaries like nonsense [27], bad grammar [28], most likely a self promo [29], rmv POV, rmv gratuitous stereotyping and ethnic generalizations [30], and POV COATRACK [31]. IW started the first talk page thread at Talk:Jew with a coin/Archive 1#Recent edits. It goes from there, and the talk page speaks for itself.

IW posted a thread at VM's talk page called "Hounding" on April 23, asking him to stop doing this sort of thing. [32]

I looked at VM's latest article creations ( Iwaniec Uprising, Kacper Miłaszewski, Aleksander Smolar, 2018–19 education workers' strikes in the United States, and Jafta Masemola) to see if it went both ways. IW only edited one of them, Iwaniec Uprising, a year ago: [33] [34]. – Leviv ich 02:57, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Icewhiz's addition of false info

Since we seem to be back to adding "evidence" (why are you here Levivich?) then let's add the following:

In this edit Icewhiz added (copied) text which was clearly false and not supported by the source. The text, which is about a marginal non-notable "politician" from a fringe party submitting a request to the Ministry of Justice to delegalize Muslim faith organizations, is:

In October of that year, his (Banasiak's) request was denied, however, after the "positive and supportive" intervention of the Ministry of Justice, the case was to be reopened and reassessed

There is absolutely NOTHING to support that in the source. Here is what the source actually says (my translation, 10th paragraph if you want to confirm with Google translate):

"The ministry confirmed that its workers met with Banasiak. Its press bureau however presents the course of the meeting differently (than Banasiak). It stated: "the claim that the ministry's experts declared their willingness to help in efforts to delegalize Muslim faith organizations is false. During the meeting the experts only affirmed that, according with procedures they will analyze the documents submitted by Pawel Banasiak. After analyzing these documents, the Ministry of Justice did not find any reason to undertake any actions (to support Banasiak)". The ministry's press bureau added that "the freedom of religion is guaranteed by the (Polish) constitution". ^[1]

In other words, the source says THE OPPOSITE of what Icewhiz inserted into the article.

There's further falsification in the same edit. The inserted text states:

Banasiak's actions, as well as the Ministry of Justice's "supportive decision", were both concerning to the Polish Tatars, as well as Rafał Pankowski

The source is an article from Vice [35]. This one's in English so it's even easier to verify that it says nothing like it. There is ABSOLUTELY no mention of "Polish Tatars" in the article. There is NOTHING in it about Ministry of Justice, much less anything about its "supportive decision".

Note that in both cases quotation marks are used which falsely indicates that these are direct quotes from the sources. They're not. They're falsifications of the source ( WP:HOAX anyone?).

This is just false false false false. There really is no other way for me to express that. It's false. That's it. False. And somebody tacked a source at the end to fake-source it.

Icewhiz inserted this info into the article. When asked WHY he added that in, he has refused to answer.

There's only two possibilities here:

Possibility 1 - Icewhiz verified the sources, saw that the info was NOT in them, but decided to include the false text into the article anyway because it fit his POV. This would indeed constitute another WP:HOAX pushed by Icewhiz. Possibility 2 - Icewhiz failed to verify the source and just copied-pasted it without checking because it neatly fit into his POV.

Now, assuming good faith, I expect that the true explanation is Possibility 2. Icewhiz just copy-pasted text which fit his POV and didn't check whether the source actually supported it. Normally this would be cause for a short block or topic ban, but not an indef ban the way that pushing HOAXes/Possibility 1 would be. However, given that Icewhiz has (falsely) accused me of "not verifying" sources [36] and screamed bloody murder about it, this once again illustrates the double standards that Icewhiz edits under. Put it simply, he's regularly guilty of what he falsely accuses others of. Any sanctions on him should take this cynical approach into account.

As to Leviv's accusations, I've already addressed this accusation in my evidence. I've been editing this topic area since 2005. Icewhiz has followed me to far more article than vice-versa. In fact, Icewhiz has clearly looked through my contributions from 8-10 years ago and went back to restart edit wars and disputes. And what exactly is suppose to be wrong with the edit summary "bad grammar" or "BLP UNDUE, just silly" or any of the other ones for that matter?

And yes it's true that Icewhiz created this article. AFTER the proposal for such an article came up at Talk:Racism in Poland [37] where I was involved!!! So why WOULDN'T I be interested in this article? I was part of the conversation that led to its creation ffs! This is just insanely silly.

But let's put that aside. If you see somebody putting blatantly false information into an article, and pretending that sources support it when they don't, what are you suppose to do? Leave it in? Say nothing? No. You remove it. That's not "hounding". That's actually improving the encyclopedia.

Hey User:Levivich, what's worse, inserting false info into Wikipedia articles and pretending to source it, or pointing out that someone has done that? I mean, if the second one is worse - which it appears from your comment you believe - then OH MY GOD should Icewhiz be sanctioned for "hounding" Poeticbent and accusing him of the very thing! Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:45, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

(also, whenever somebody claims stuff like "XYZ speaks for itself" that's really a way of saying "I got nothing, but I'm gonna pretend there's something really bad going on". It's a rhetorical trick which hopes that readers will be too lazy to actually click and check for themselves) Volunteer Marek ( talk) 07:01, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

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In regards to Iwaniec Uprising (over a year ago) - I got to it via NPP (back then - I was more active on NPP) - ticked it as approved, added standard flags given article state, made a very minor improvements, and then moved on. VM indeed shows up on most articles and major edits I do to existing articles when they are related to certain topics. A very limited set of examples (diff count limits - containing only articles that VM never edited before) is in my Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland/Evidence#Volunteer Marek's harrassment of Icewhiz) , but it is much wider - as Levivich points out. Icewhiz ( talk) 04:16, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

In regards to the wall of text by VM above and below - the content VM is discussing was copied ( diff with clear copy attribution) from Islam in Poland( perma version) - into an early an initial version of the Islamophobia article. Icewhiz ( talk) 06:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

VM's contributions to Islamophobia in Poland are various tags, and removals such as:

1. [38] - content sourced to Central and Eastern European Migration Review, Washington Post, BBC.
2. [39] - content sourced to Gender, Place & Culture, Patterns of Prejudice (x2 articles), Central and Eastern European Migration Review.
3. [40] - content sourced to Patterns of Prejudice, Central and Eastern European Migration Review, Palgrave Macmillan book (section on Islamophobia in Poland), International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
4. [41] content sourced to Patterns of Prejudice (x2), Central and Eastern European Migration Review.
5. [42] - content sourced to Patterns of Prejudice.
6. [43] - content sourced to Patterns of Prejudice.
7. [44] - content sourced to Patterns of Prejudice.

VM has added no content (other than tags). Whereas academic journal articles on Islamophobia in Poland treat the content removed as relevant to Polish Islamophobia (for instance the size and makeup of Poland's Muslim population (removed here and here), or the re-purposing of old antisemitic tropes into Islamophobic discourse, or Islamophobia expressions being linked to a rise in xenophobia and antisemitism) - VM seems to think this is an "off-topic" COATRACK. On Wikipedia we are supposed to follow sources. Icewhiz ( talk) 07:07, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Yes, we know it was copied. WHY did you copy it? As you yourself have pointed out on numerous occasions - hell, you got GizzyCatBella topic banned with this argument - if YOU put it in, YOU are responsible. Did you verify the sources when you inserted it in? Yes? Then ... WHY did you put it in as it's clearly false? Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:55, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

And since you're trying to predispose people against reading my comment by calling it "a wall of text", let me be succinct:

You inserted false info into an article.

The source which was used to pretend-cite the false text said opposite of what the text you inserted said.

You have refused to provide an explanation for why you did this.

In this very ArbCom case, as well as in other instances, you've tried very hard to get people sanctioned for allegedly "failing to verify" sources, or for restoring other people's older versions. By the standards you set yourself, you should be sanctioned. If you had just said "sorry, I screwed up" right of the bat then it wouldn't have become a big deal, but it's your WP:TENDENTIOUS refusal to admit you did anything wrong that exemplifies ADDITIONAL problems.

Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:59, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Having re-reviewed the source - Who wants to ban the Koran in Poland, 5.9.2017 Rzeczpospolita (newspaper)) - most of the content copied (and not restored after VM challenged) - is actually well supported by the cited newspaper piece. AFAICT - there is one fragment that should've been attributed in a better fashion. There was a legal initiative by Wolność to ban Islam, the Justice ministry met with Wolność politicians, and human right groups - e.g. Rafał Pankowski of "Never Again" Association were deeply concerned with this initiative and such meetings taking place. This received coverage in national Polish media. Icewhiz ( talk) 10:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

is actually well supported by the cited newspaper piece Complete and utter horseshit. No, it is not. Stop lying. Because that's EXACTLY what you're doing here. There's not a damn thing in there about:

1. "positive and supportive" intervention of the Ministry of Justice"
2. "case being reopened and reassessed"

As outlined above the article says the opposite. It's mind boggling that you think you can get away with such a shameless misrepresentation of sources, and continue to insist on your own WP:HOAX falsifications even when it's been outlined in detail about how it is false.

And you want to show us where the Vice (the one in English) source [45] says ANYTHING about "Polish Tatars" or just Tatars in general??? You want to show us where that source talks about the Polish Ministry of Justice??? It's. Not. In. There.

Icewhiz, thank you for perfectly illustrating your WP:TENDENTIOUS nature here. Not only did you insert false information into an article, not only did you fake-source it, but you are now here, shamelessly still claiming that the source backs the false information. It's like you think editors and admins are so gullible and lazy that they will not click on the link and check for themselves. You are taking what *might* have been a simple - though serious - mistake on your part, and because you appear to be unable to admit that you did something wrong, exacerbating your initial disruptive edit and making it much much much worse.

Seriously, how can anyone be expected to edit collaboratively with someone who will just sit there and make blatantly false claims with a straight face?

Am I wrong? If so please point out where #1 and #2 are covered in the source. Please point out the relevant parts of the Vice article about the Tatars or the Ministry of Justice. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 23:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

And Icewhiz, this: "Having re-reviewed the source" is pretty much an admission, or at least as close as we're likely to get out of you, that you only now bothered to actually look at the source, three days after you put the false info into the article and claimed the sources supported it. Fail to WP:V, right? Something which you yourself believe to be sanction worthy. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 00:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC) reply

You guys should get a room… — JFG ^talk 18:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

It stopped being funny when Icewhiz made false extremist accusations against me which should have - and normally do - resulted in an immediate indef block. But instead the ArbCom twiddled its thumbs. Those thumbs must be mighty sore by now. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 23:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

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Unfortunately the case didn't manage to stop others from making continued edits that seem to serve no other purpose but to incite and enflame interaction with others

For example, Icewihiz creates an article [50] loaded with extreme statements and cherrypicked statements presenting in the worst way imaginable Poland and Poles

• Polish government is named as nationalist regime that tries to shift light of Holocaust from Poles to Germans(!)
• Antisemitism is named as character of Polish religious identity atholicism practiced in Poland and diaspora often differentiates between "us" and "them", with antisemitism being a feature of cultural identity (this is actually named as part of antipolish stereotype in some studies)

However looking at the pattern in previous articles and edits that were done in similar, I am not surprised by this. The article is written in a way that is bound to provoke less reserved users into heated debates and disputes, and at this point seems to have been purposefully loaded with as many controversial statement as possible.The extreme statements pushed in the edits and articles are presented in a way that presents Holocaust as some kind of German-Polish endeavour, information about Nazi atrocities against Poles is removed, as is about Nazi occupation of Poland, and Poles are presented as having antisemitism as their cultural identity.If this was not Icewhiz's intention, then unfortunately,it hard not to perceive these edits as such.

As Joanna Michlic(an author Icewhiz quoted several times when she was extremely critical of some Polish historians) writes in her book Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present: "This book also opposes an attitude that can be found in popular collective Jewish memory that that presents Polish anti-Semitism as “unique” or “uniquely extreme,” as equal to or “even more severe” than Nazi anti-Semitism, with its full-scale genocidal solution to the "Jewish question". Editors on Wikipedia should be careful not to repeat such stereotyping(even unwillingly).

Unfortunately the continued edits about Poland and Polish society that constantly present the most extreme claims and statements such as describing (in context of World War 2 Nazi racist atrocities) the Holocaust as mainly German(excluding Polish role) [51], trying to describe 13th century Poland as state motivated by racism [52], n aming genocide of Poles "limited action" by Germans, and writing that when describing Poland in WW and writing about Polish victims of Nazi Germany "Poles should appear last" [53], or comparing Polish resistance against Nazis to SS and Wehrmacht [54] seem to indicate a troubling lack of neutrality on the subject and unwillingness to pursue in dialog and edits in constructive, noninflammatory manner.

We of course all have our biases, but editors should be able to identify extreme positions, and the above sadly look ones easy to spot.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 21:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Disruption of Holocaust conference in Paris -the created article very closely follows its cited sources (all of which are on the event) - an academic book chapter, writing by academics, and mainstream press (French, Swiss, Israeli, UK, US) - which use this language in relation to an attack on an academic conference in Paris. MyMoloboaccount, going as far as saying this is "bound to provoke less reserved users" - seems to have issues with Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Haaretz, Le Monde, Washington Post, The Independent, etc. In fact the rejection of mainstream media and academia by a small group of users here - is a symptom of the problem here. Outside of far-right sources (which we should not be using as a source) - this is the way this is covered. Icewhiz ( talk) 04:06, 14 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Molobo, the problem is not only with "agenda", it's with WP:VERIFIABILITY. You, for example, push particular agendas all over, but your sourcing is often lacking. For example, one particular statement in Racism in Poland now has no less than 13 sources attached (!), [55] of which only 2-3 actually support it. Instead of revising your sourcing practices, you just keep piling more and more sources... and then you repeatedly accuse other editors, who follow RS, of anything from "flaming" to Holocaust revisionism. François Robere ( talk) 09:56, 14 August 2019 (UTC) reply

The problem with that article is that, aside from being written in a completely lop-sided manner, it simply doesn't past WP:NEVENT and WP:NOTNEWS. It's a vehicle for Icewhiz's persistent and continuous attempts to WP:COATRACK as much negative info about Poland into Wikipedia as possible. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 20:09, 14 August 2019 (UTC) reply

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Additional WP:HOUNDING following closure of evidence and workshop:

1. Existing articles (without prior edits by VM): 18:25, 14 August 2019 (1 minute after my edit), 20:06, 14 August 2019.
2. New article: LGBT-free zone, created 07:29 14 August 2019. VM - 20:13, 14 August 2019. At the time of VM's edit it was not linked to any article VM edited previously in mainspace.

I will note that VM's edits during this case - to the newly created LGBT-free zone and Islamophobia in Poland‎ exhibit issues with mainstream sources (NEWSORG for the former (new topic), and academic sources for the latter) covering the brand (and consequences thereof) of Catholic-nationalism advocated by the PiS party in Poland - and not just issues with antisemitism specifically. Icewhiz ( talk) 05:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

ONE MORE FREAKIN' TIME. Stop. Falsely. Accusing. Me. Of. "Hounding". This is well into WP:NPA and WP:ASPERSIONS territory. Yes, you created some very problematic and WP:POINTy articles. Yes, I edited them. Both these articles are in a topic area which I've been editing for FOURTEEN YEARS. Both of these articles are chuck full of POV and WP:COATRACK problems and other issues which you put in there. Just because you put your POV into a newly created article that doesn't mean you WP:OWN it, nor does it mean that Wikipedia policies cease to apply... because you think so, nor does it mean that other editors are not allowed to fix these problems you've created. And falsely accusing other editors of "hounding" isn't some magic pixie dust that you can sprinkle on your own disruptive and tendentious edits to "protect them" from regular editing by other editors.

Instead of making false accusations, continually insulting other editors, creating WP:POINTy content and comments which are obviously meant to provoke others, why not try - just once, just once - WORKING WITH OTHERS??? You know, collaborate? I actually think there's some good content in the LGBT-free-zones article, it's just that it doesn't belong in that article, it should be in LGBT rights in Poland. If you weren't so insistent on playing some PvP game on Wikipedia and didn't have your WP:BATTLEGROUND mode on 100% of the time, we could actually collaborate constructively on how to improve the existing content and how best to include it in LGBT Rights in Poland. Instead, you appear to be dead set on turning this into yet another drama fest. That's WP:NOTHERE Icewhiz. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:09, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

I should also add that I think I'm showing extreme patience here with your WP:POINTy behavior. For example, the highly POV article you recently created [56], under a blatantly POV title (until Francois Robere (who else?!? ;)) moved it for you to something more neutral sounding [57]) pretty obviously does not pass WP:NEVENT, fails WP:NOTNEWS and WP:10YEARTEST. That much is obvious I think to any one with an iota of detachment from this particular dispute. However, I did not actually nominate it for deletion, even though it clearly should be, precisely so you wouldn't have an excuse to run around screaming about "hounding!". Instead I've brought up the issue on the talk page [58] and said we can wait a month or so to see if any new coverage of this event pops up (there really hasn't been any since the immediate aftermath). Well... a lot of good that did. Here you are, again, with your invective and hyperbole, pretending like the fact that someone disagrees with you - that Wikipedia policies disagree with you! - is some kind of horrendous crime against nature. It's not. It's following Wikipedia policies. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:19, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Volunteer Marek, the article about "LGBT-free zones" in Poland that Icewhiz created said: "In Kielce, near where Nazis murdered minorities including gays and Jews and where the killing continued after the war in the 1946 Kielce pogrom, activists held the first LGBT+ parade in the city in July 2019.", sourced to a Washington Post article ( free reprint) about Kielce's first-ever LGBT+ rights march, headlined Polish cities and provinces declare ‘LGBT-free zones’ as government ramps up ‘hate speech’, which says: Nearby, the Nazis exterminated Jews and other minorities – including gay people – during World War II. But the killing did not stop with the end of the war. Dozens of Jews were murdered in Kielce in a pogrom on 4 July 1946. The killings convinced many of Poland’s remaining Jews who had survived the Nazi Holocaust that there was no future for them in the country. You deleted this sentence with the edit summary " blatant coatracking". How is this sentence coatracking? Icewhiz reverted your deletion, pointing out it's in the source, and then you tried turning the whole article into a redirect with the edit summary " not notable ...", which has now been reverted (thankfully). This is all within 24 hours of the article's creation. This is the umpteenth article of Icewhiz's where the first thread on the talk page is Icewhiz trying to start a discussion about one of your edits: Talk:LGBT-free zone#Recent edits. You are, in fact, hounding Icewhiz, on a daily basis, and should stop. – Leviv ich 06:26, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

It's coatracking because the article isn't about WW2 or the Nazis. The Nazis murdered gays and Jews... pretty much everywhere. What do LGBT rights in 21st century have to do with that? I am NOT hounding Icewhiz. I've been editing these very topics for very long time. If Icewhiz doesn't want other editors discussing and modifying his edits then perhaps he should refrain from making WP:POINTy, disruptive edits in the first place. Please stop making false accusations. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:36, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

The Washington Post thought they were related! Please stop taking a machete to every article he creates–at least until this Arbcom case is over. How about next time, you start the first talk page thread? – Leviv ich 06:38, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

The fact that a newspaper mentions something does not automatically mean the content is encyclopedic. The Washington Post is not writing an encyclopedia article. This is at best necessary not sufficient reason for inclusion. We have policies - such as WP:COATRACK - which Washington Post doesn't.

And as I point out above already - how about Icewhiz stops making WP:POINTy and disruptive edits... at least until this ArbCom case is over. He went quiet for awhile, but then when he realized that the ArbCom was't going to sanction him yet, he went on a POV spree with these articles. Content which is against wikipedia's policies *should* get "machete'd" (sic). And I did start the first talk page thread!!! Here. You're simply incorrect in that respect. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:46, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Your talk page post began, Aside from being written in a tendentious over-the-top POV manner ... May I suggest for next time the following format: I disagree with [text] because [reason]. – Leviv ich 06:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

You keep coming up with these request. The article *IS* written in a tendentious over-the-top POV manner. I got to ask you again Levivich, what's worse? Writing a tendentious over-the-top POV article as part of some WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS crusade, or pointing out that someone is doing that? This concern of yours is the same as the one above where you appear to think that it's okay to insert blatantly false information into an article with fake sourcing, just because it fits your POV, as Icewhiz did here, but if someone points out that is what someone did.... oh my god call the police and the firemans, how horrible, how dare they!?!?!

You keep highlighting your minor disagreements with wording but refuse to actually criticize your friend for serious violations of Wikipedia policy. Don't shoot the messenger.

Look. This has been going on for far too long. Icewhiz should've been indef banned when he fabricated quotations to smear a BLP [59]. Icewhiz should've been indef banned when he used far-right anti-semitic sources just because they happened to support the POV he was pushing [60]. Icewhiz should've been indef banned when he wrote half a dozen attack pages on historians who don't agree with his POV [61]. Icewhi should've been topic-banned when he made provocative and insulting comments to other editors which taunted them on an ethnic basis [62]. Icewhiz should've been blocked when he dishonestly insisted on one set of standards for other editors ("you have to use only high quality peer reviewed journal articles from a list pre-approved by me!!!!"), while he himself violated these injunctions repeatedly ("I get to use any trashy garbage source I like! It's sourced! It's sourced! How dare you remove it!??") [63] (not actual quotations). Icewhiz should've been banned from WP:AE when he participated in over fifty reports in a WP:TENDENTIOUS manner. Icewhiz should've been blocked when he contacted an admin off wiki and tried to get another user (Malik Shabazz) banned for a topic ban violation, even though he knew damn well that the edits he was block-shopping were made several weeks before the ban was imposed. He should've been indef banned when he requested this case with unfounded smears and attacks against me [64] which he STILL hasn't bothered to support, and for which he STILL hasn't apologized. Icewhiz should've been topic banned or indef'd when he inserted blatantly false information into an article with fake sourcing, [ this was just the latest instance.

But apparently, the thing that really concerns YOU is that Volunteer Marek wrote " Come on, who you're trying to kid?" in an edit summary. Really? Come on man.

Admins dropped the ball on this one. That's why we're here. Wait, no. That's why we got this case. The reason we are here now, a month after we were suppose to have PD's is because the ArbCom can't seem to find that ball dropped by the admins. And it's just enabling disruptive behavior by Icewhiz. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 08:39, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

In regards to the tirade above and in particular - "creating WP:POINTy content and comments which are obviously meant to provoke others" - I don't think LGBT rights in Poland is a particularly provocative topic. If we ignore right-wing press inside of Poland, mainstream WP:NEWSORGs (BBC, WaPo, NYT, Telegraph, etc. as well as liberal press in Poland - e.g. Gazeta Wyborcza) - are really all covering the issue in the same manner. However, VM's comments that this content is somehow meant to "provoke" has resonated with a quote I just saw in the Financial Times as I'm trying to expand the article:

“In the past [LGBT people] lived in silence. What is happening now is a provocation, it’s not necessary,” said Jarek, an engineer from Plock, as he watched the marchers gather. “Poles don’t want this. We’re a Catholic country. What is this? . . . They are trying to provoke us.”

Poland’s ruling party fuels anti-LGBT sentiment ahead of elections, FT, 11 August 2019. Icewhiz ( talk) 08:56, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Icewhiz. Stop lying. I never said that talking about LGBT rights in Poland was a "provocative topic". In fact I said the opposite - I said that the content should be added to LGBT rights in Poland. What's provocative is the comments YOU make in these discussions and how YOU try to present the content. And now you come here with some quote about "LGBT people living in silence" and are trying to fucking blame me for that, or equate it to the fact that I objected to your little anti-Polish crusade??? Where the fuck do you get off with that? How the hell are you not indef banned from this site? Volunteer Marek ( talk) 09:04, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

In addition to The Washington Post [65] linking LGBT-free zones to the Kielce pogrom, Attitude (magazine) [66] published an entire article linking LGBT-free zones in Poland to the Kielce pogrom, BBC News [67] linked LGBT-free zones to "Jew-free zones", and the Italian national newspaper la Repubblica [68] [69] linked LGBT-free zones in Poland to the Third Reich's " Judenfrei". To me, this doesn't seem COATRACK, tendencious, POV, or POINTy; it's what the sources say.

In addition to that coverage, LGBT-free zones in Poland are the subject of WP:SIGCOV by The Daily Telegraph [70], CBC [71], The New York Times [72], and CNN [73]. But you turned it into a redirect because it's "not notable"?

@ Volunteer Marek: All of these are cited in the article. Can you back up your accusations you've doubled down on here, that LGBT-free zone is tendentious, POV, POINTy, etc.? – Leviv ich 16:37, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Levivich:, I've already explained this multiple times and I'm not sure why you are bringing it up here rather in the appropriate venue - this is a content discussion. Look. Coverage in news media does not automatically make something notable. It has to have lasting effect and be, well, significant. I've given the example of the recently passed abortion laws in several US states before. Those are actual laws, with criminal penalties. They got widespread coverage in ALL major American newspapers and magazines and many many non-American ones. These laws *might* actually have lasting notability if they end up at the US Supreme Court. Yet, Wikipedia does not have an article on these individual laws (for Georgia, Missouri, etc) Why? Because at this point, individually none of them are notable. The info about them belongs in Abortion in United States. Just like most of this info belongs in LGBT rights in Poland.

Same thing here. Except, actually, in this case, these "LGBT free zone" declarations are just that "declarations". It's just shitty politicians saying shitty things. Unlike the US abortion laws, there's no criminal, civil or ANY kind of penalties. They're symbolic. The symbolism is messed up, but it's all they are. And vast majority (but not all) of them have been in some podunk villages and small towns nobody's even heard of (even if you're Polish).

The newspaper coverage is not enough for notability, per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NEVENT. What it does mean though is that the content can be included in articles like, well, LGBT rights in Poland. Which is what I've suggested here.

Now, the actual issue here is Icewhiz falsely claming that I said that "LGBT rights in Poland is a provocative topic". I didn't. This is just the usual Icewhiz smear. Likewise, the actual issue here is Icewhiz bringing up a quotation from FT about "In the past [LGBT people] lived in silence" and insinuating in a underhanded and dishonest manner that this is something I'm doing. THAT right there is your big behavioral issue as it clearly indicates Icewhiz's unwillingness and inability to edit in good faith or to drop his WP:BATTLEGROUND for even a second, not to mention simply the lack of basic decency of not lying about other editors. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:58, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

No, my comments are about your conduct: hounding Icewhiz on his new article creations, such as LGBT-free zone, and casting aspersions against him (the aspersion are tendentiousness, POV, POINTy). J'Accuse, VM, of doing this, today, at LGBT-free zone, and in this conversation where you've repeated the aspersions. You've explained your thoughts on the article's notability, but you have neither substantiated nor stricken your repeated accusations that creating LGBT-free zone was tendentious, POV, or POINTy. You can't just go around saying that stuff without backing it up. – Leviv ich 17:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

":No, my comments are about your conduct" <-- yes, but that is precisely the problem with your comments:

You complain about minor things from me, like the fact that I used an edit summary that said "who you're trying to kid", but ignore much worse from Icewhiz, like his completely false accusations and extremely insulting insinuations (his underhanded insinuation with regard to "LGBT voices have been silent" among many others) and other personal attacks, not to mention his continued condescending and passive-aggressive dismissal of my comments as "just a tirade".

You complain about content related disagreements I have with Icewhiz, like the fact that I simply don't see how Icewhiz's article comes even close to passing GNG, and you act like this is some "sanctionable conduct" (it's really not - editors are allowed to disagree on such matters), but you give Icewhiz a pass on the fact that he's inserted false information with fake sourcing into an article or that he's used garbage sources (even as he insists that others use only "high quality" (sic) sources that he personally certifies as reliable) and fabricated quotations to smear BLPs

You repeat Icewhiz's false accusation that I am "hounding" him because... I edited articles in a topic area that I've been active in for fifteen years, but you see no problem with Icewhiz following me to discussion he wasn't a part of [74] and taking contrary to what he said just a few months ago simply to disagree with me.

Sorry Levivi, it seems your priorities have been thrown out of wack here by your own biases. Let's just say that you're not exactly a "neutral observer". Volunteer Marek ( talk) 18:58, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

---

Icewhiz started the article LGBT-free zone, about some municipalities in Poland doing stupid shitty things. Essentially some local politicians making anti-LGBT declarations. There is some good content in the article but overall it's not notable. Stupid shitty politicians say stupid shitty things all the time. In US, we have had a series of states pass insane anti-abortion laws. Wikipedia doesn't even have articles about them. Because on their own they're not notable (as long as they don't go to SCOTUS). Same thing here. But hey, this is Icewhiz chance to write another "hey look at how bad the Poles are!!!" articles that he's been mass producing lately, while the ArbCom case stalled.

So I raise the notability objection and I propose to merge the content (which, like I said, some is good) to LGBT rights in Poland. Icewhiz removes the tag within minutes, literally while I was getting a drink from the kitchen, [75] and THEN has the audacity to lecture me on the talk page [76] about "not starting proper discussion". Obviously if he hadn't immediately started edit warring to remove the tag I would have started such a discussion.

If this isn't a textbook example of disingenous, bad faithed, WP:GAMEing, I don't know what is.

But hey, it's Icewhiz, so it actually gets worse.

Now that he knows I think this article is non-notable, he starts spamming it into as many articles as he can think of: [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83]. Now, on some of these, like Homophobia, or maybe even Bialystok *some* of this content belongs in there. But the rest... it's gratuitous.

"Oh, you don't think my article is notable? Well, I'm gonna stuff the same thing into as many places as I can, just to piss you off!" You can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that he is not being deliberately provocative.

But hey, it's Icewhiz, so it actually gets worse.

Icewhiz, even tried to stuff this into ... the article No-go zone [84]. What is the article on the No-go zone about? It's about, quote: A "no-go area" or "no-go zone" is an area in a town barricaded off to civil authorities by a force such as a paramilitary, or an area barred to certain individuals or groups.

What. The. Hey. Does. This. Have. To. Do. With some stupid politicians in Poland being assholes about LGBT rights?

That clearly shows that these edits were made solely with the purpose of provocation, and were not indented seriously. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done something as ridiculous as adding this content to the No-go zone article.

This is of course par-for-the-course for Icewhiz. Over the past few weeks he's gone on a tear and most of his edits are of the similar problematic and disruptive nature. The topic ban is three years over due. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 09:22, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

To be precise - diff - @ Oranjelo100: added the content initially to No-go area. However, Oranjelo100 did not provide sources there - so I copied over the (adapted) short lead from LGBT-free zone. Icewhiz ( talk) 09:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

I will note that I started Talk:No-go area#LGBT-free zone with sources explicitly connected the two. I also want to point out two false statements by VM in the tirade above:

1. I have not edited this topic for 3 years. My first edit to enwiki was in 2017 (and it took me a while to get involved with Poland - circa 2018 IIRC). This seems like a conduct accusation. I will also note the personal attacks in: diff.
2. VM seems to think I know what he's doing (getting a drink from kitchen) or create articles to provoke him (in fact - I got to LGBT-free zone from Gazeta Polska where this was preexisting and I thought it would be interesting to write up). Interestingly I am not only psychic but also prescient - as while VM's first edit was at 20:13 14 August and second edit blanking+redirecting at 05:51, 15 August in "Now that he knows I think this article is non-notable, he starts spamming it into as many articles as he can think of" VM lists (first three diffs): 14:45, 14 August, 14:44, 14 August, 14:44, 14 August 2019 (particular regions declaring themselves "LGBT-free zones") - which pre-date VM's involvement in the article.

Icewhiz ( talk) 12:49, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Please stop trying to blame other editors for your actions. You added the text here. And the notion is transparently ridiculous. The No-Go Zone article is about:

A "no-go area" or "no-go zone" is an area in a town barricaded off to civil authorities by a force such as a paramilitary, or an area barred to certain individuals or groups

This isn't it.

Areas undergoing insurgency where ruling authorities have lost control and are unable to enforce sovereignty

This isn't it.

Areas that have a reputation for violence and crime which makes people frightened to go there

This isn't it.

Areas that are inhabited by a parallel society that have their own laws and which are controlled by violent non-state actors

This isn't it.

A no-go area, a region where the ruling authorities have lost control and are unable to enforce the rule of law [85]

This isn't it.

Areas where fishing is made illegal due to overfishing

Is that the one that links the two topics together???

You are being patently and transparently absurd. One thing has nothing to do with another. You just tried to spam this into as many articles as you could, as part of a WP:POINTy provocation, in response to me suggesting that the material be merged to LGBT rights in Poland.

Another one of your disruptive actions which is more than deserving of a sanction. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 14:16, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

A "no-go area" or "no-go zone" is an area, barricaded off
- This isn't it.
Areas undergoing insurgency where ruling authorities have lost control
- This, isn't it.
Areas that have a reputation
for violence
and crime
- This isn't it.
Areas inhabited by a parallel society
- This? Isn't it.
A no-go area, where authorities have lost control
- This isn't it.
Areas where fishing
and overfishing
- Is that the one?
You are being patently and transparently absurd.

— Volunteer Marek, August 15th 2019

(Transcribed by François Robere ( talk))

User:François Robere, I'm okay with this, as long it's to the tune of the Shaggy song. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:24, 15 August 2019 (UTC) reply

---

Initiated by Volunteer Marek at 20:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland/Proposed decision#Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Volunteer Marek ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland/Proposed decision#Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned

• Volunteer Marek's IBAN regarding Icewhiz is rescinded

Statement by Volunteer Marek

Per the recent comments on my talk page by User:TonyBallioni [86], User:Piotrus [87] and User:Worm That Turned [88], I am submitting this request to amend the Proposed Remedy 3.3.2 [89] of this case to read:

Icewhiz (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from interacting with, or commenting on Volunteer Marek anywhere on Wikipedia.

This effectively converts the two sided IBAN into a one sided one.

As User:Worm That Turned points out, with Icewhiz indefinitely banned from Wikipedia the grounds for a two way IBAN are no longer valid and its original rationale is no longer applicable. Related to Tony Ballioni's point, there occasionally arise discussion/interactions on Wikipedia where I (Volunteer Marek) am brought up or discussed in some connection to Icewhiz by other editors (some of them apparently brand new accounts) and where, because of the IBAN, I am unable to comment, reply or defend myself (this happened for example on User:Jimbo Wales's talk page). This is particularly egregious since Icewhiz was indefinitely banned for extremely nasty off-wiki harassment of myself (as well as other editors).

Likewise, since the end of the case, and Icewhiz's indef ban, the topic area has seen a proliferation of new accounts and sock puppets (although not all of them are Icewhiz). Some of these appear to be engaged in baiting behavior, for example by restoring Icewhiz's old edits, which raises the possibility of an inadvertent IBAN violation. In other cases, these sock puppets/new accounts have made edits which target me personally but because of the IBAN I am unable to bring up the possibility that they are connected to Icewhiz on Wiki (some of the diffs from these accounts have been oversighted due to their extremely nasty nature).

I want to state that if this amendment carries, I have no intention of "seeking out" Icewhiz, or gravedancing, or "interacting" with his old edits or initiating discussions about him. For the most part I will be all too happy to continue to ignore his existence. However, as stated above, there is no longer a need for this restriction and occasionally (like with SPIs) a situation may arise where I should be able to comment.

Statement by Valereee

I'm not comfortable with this being so broad. VM ought to be able to comment in some cases, but simply allowing them to comment anywhere for any reason doesn't sound reasonable. Volunteer Marek says there occasionally arise discussion/interactions on Wikipedia where I (Volunteer Marek) am brought up or discussed in some connection to Icewhiz by other editors (some of them apparently brand new accounts) and where, because of the IBAN, I am unable to comment, reply or defend myself; why can't we amend to say that on such occasions, VM may comment. --valereee ( talk) 18:26, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I get that, WTT, and I have little doubt IceWhiz is behaving badly. But to simply remove the limitation altogether...I dunno. I guess we can address it when it happens, but honestly there was plenty of bad behavior going around. --valereee ( talk) 19:14, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• This is a reasonable request. Now that Icewhiz is banned a two-way IBAN serves no purpose in reducing disruption, and per the above comments, is unfairly restricting VM's ability to respond to harassment and disruption targeted at him. –  Joe ( talk) 07:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• valereee Simply put, the committee has received sufficient evidence that we put forward a motion removing Icewhiz from the encyclopedia. Since then, problematic behaviours have continued and have been targetted at VM. It's no longer about disputes escalating, it's about someone being able to protect themselves. Worm^TT( talk) 19:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Antisemitism in Poland: Motion

Remedy 2 of Antisemitism in Poland ("Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned") is renamed Icewhiz banned from interacting with Volunteer Marek and amended to read:

Icewhiz ( talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from interacting with or commenting on Volunteer Marek ( talk · contribs) anywhere on Wikipedia (subject to the ordinary exceptions).

For this motion there are 8 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	5
1–2	4
3–4	3

Support

1. Proposed. –  Joe ( talk) 07:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
2. This kind of motion runs the risk of signalling to Icewhiz that we will not entertain an appeal in the future. The committee is not voting on that question. However, an interaction ban where one of the two parties is absent is obviously without purpose. And the current state of affairs risks being manifestly unjust to Volunteer Marek, for reasons that do not need detailing. Vacating the interaction ban would be useful and appropriate. AGK  ■ 10:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
3. I'm hesitant about this. Firstly, we applied a 2 way interaction ban for a good reason - it was the right thing to do and it wasn't long ago. Secondly, I don't like 1 way interaction bans. However, as AGK points out, this state of affairs risks being manifestly unjust to Volunteer Marek. I may be hesitant, but this is the right decision. Worm^TT( talk) 10:33, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
4. Per AGK. Katie ^talk 11:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
5. Per AGK. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 15:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
6. Not to be a broken record, but, per AGK. Opabinia regalis ( talk) 22:53, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
7. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
8. Mkdw ^talk 17:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Oppose

Recuse

Comments

---

---

Initiated by My very best wishes at 22:12, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• My very best wishes ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by My very best wishes

According to the Article sourcing expectation remedy [90], "The sourcing expectations applied to the article Collaboration in German-occupied Poland are expanded and adapted to cover all articles on the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions."

The question. Does that sourcing restriction covers only content on the "Polish history during World War II (1933-45)" or it covers any other content that appear on the same page where anything related to the Polish history during World War II was mentioned? For example, there is a page Gas chamber. It includes a section about Nazi Germany that seems to be related to the Polish history during World War II [91]. However, it also includes sections about other countries, such as North Korea [92], USA and Lithuania [93]. Would these sections also be covered by such sourcing restriction? Meaning, should the section about North Korea be removed?

In other words, can content completely unrelated to Poland be removed based on this sourcing restriction, as in this edit (note edit summary)? Note that the page in question is not about Poland, but about Gas chamber. It only includes some content related to Poland.

Why. I am asking because the subjects related to other countries often have only a limited coverage in RS and were not subjects of significant scholarly studies. A lot of subjects are simply not science.

I would also suggest an amendment. I think this sourcing restriction for Poland should be removed for the following reasons:

1. In many cases, the "non-academic" RS, such as news or popular articles published by historians for general public, tell essentially the same story as the academic RS, but they provide a number of additional important details. I do not see why they should not be used. Excluding such sources makes the coverage of the subject less complete and contradicts the WP:NPOV because the "non-academic sources" frequently simply elaborate the "majority view", but in more detail.
2. The inclusion of reliably sourced content on the subject is generally allowed per policy. Should individual admins and Arbcom modify the policy (WP:RS)? Is not it something for community to decide, as it was for WP:MEDRS? Also note that WP:MEDRS is only a guideline, not a policy. The decision by Arbcom (which is immediately enforceable on WP:AE) makes this an alternative policy, one where WP:NEWSORG is no longer valid. It means all claims sourced to something like The Guardian ( this publication used on the page) must be removed. Personally, I do not care if the article in Guardian was about Poland, North Korea or another country. Would such removal of content improve the encyclopedia?
3. I do not see this editing restriction to be used on any specific pages after closing the arbitration case; it was used before only on one page noted in the Arbcom decision.
4. (added later). A contributor just was blocked for violating this restriction. According to blocking admin, [94], " Rzeczpospolita (newspaper) is, judging from its article, a leading mainstream Polish newspaper and therefore a "reputable institution" in the sense of the remedy". OK, that sounds reasonable, but completely unexpected to me. What exactly represents a "reputable institution" or an "academically focused book" is not obvious for participants. It is one thing when people are debating this on RSN or talk page, but it is quite another when they are receiving sanctions for potentially misunderstanding such things (although probably not in this case, when the participant did clearly violate the remedy).

• The scope of this request. This is a general question and suggestion that I think need to be resolved, regardless to any specific page or a dispute, such as Gas van or discussions on RSNB. The gas chamber is only an illustration.

• A clarification. I am not talking about Questionable and self-published sources as defined in the policy. Those are already disallowed by the policy and no clarification is required about them. I am talking about sources that clearly qualify as WP:RS, for example per WP:NEWSORG, such as the article in The Guardian about North Korea in the example above. If one looks in Perennial sources there is a consensus that The Guardian is "generally reliable".

Responses
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Paul Siebert Paul wants to make this removal. In this edit Paul removes everything referenced to works by historian Nikita Petrov (a publication in Novaya Gazeta), to Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, to historian Lydia Golovkova, to a book by Mikhail Schreider who was an important witness to the crimes by the Soviet NKVD, to a book by Petro Grigorenko who was one of the founders of the Soviet dissident movement, and to publications in Kommersant which is arguably an RS. These so called "non-scholarly sources" tell essentially the same as "scholarly sources" (ones that remain on the page after his edit), however they provide some additional important details and corroborate the entire story. @JzG Who thinks it would be a bad thing if this were applied over more articles or sections? That would be any reasonable person, because we have WP:NEWSORG as a part of WP:RS for a very good reason. And that depends on which articles and sections. If subject X has been covered in a huge number of sources, including academic ones (or this is a purely scientific subject, rather than magic), then such restriction might work OK, even though excluding journalistic sources could violate the balance and work against WP:NPOV. However, consider one of sub-subjects related to Human rights in North Korea, let's say Kang Chol-hwan or Lee Soon-ok (I would like to stick to the same example). There are no sources about them beyond publications in good journalistic sources like BBC and a couple of human rights reports. Personally, I prefer good journalistic sources. Or consider a notable movie covered only in multiple journalistic sources and Rotten tomatoes. @Assayer. Discussing "whether a particular source was reliable, whether a particular author was qualified, and whether a source is being misunderstood or misrepresented" is normal process. RSN did not "fail to settle these questions". It worked just fine, as it should, and provided some advice from the participants and uninivoled contributors.

@Worm TT. Enforcing WP:RS would be great, but you want it in WP:AE setting to sanction people. Therefore, you need to establish very clear rules which would be obvious for everyone. This is nearly impossible. Even something as simple as 1RR/3RR causes a lot of confusion. A more complex "consensus required" remedy caused more harm than good in AP area. But this is even a more complex restriction. A lot of sources are not inherently reliable or unreliable. Their usage should be discussed on a case to case basis and be decided per WP:Consensus. In other words, to impose such restriction you should answer the following questions:

1. Is it required for admins to post this editing restriction on specific pages to apply sanctions to contributors, as described in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions?
2. Do you really exclude all WP:NEWSORG? If your answer is "yes", this will negatively affect coverage of all low-significance subjects, and quite obviously, is not an enforcement, but a change of WP:RS.
3. In your current version, what does it mean "recognized institutions"? Please see comments by Piotrus in his request below. Yes, one should exclude all "predatory publishing" and self-publishing. Enforcing that would be fine as indeed an enforcement of WP:RS. But other than that, there is no bright line.
4. What does it mean "recognized academics"? Someone with a PhD from Harvard? Someone who published a couple of books in history? This is all debatable. Someone can be an authority, even after graduating from a provincial College. Someone with degree in another area can be an excellent scholar in History, etc. Also note that usage of original publications in "peer-reviewed scholarly journals" is explicitly discouraged by WP:MEDRS, and for a good reason.

The bottom line (in my opinion). Arbcom and admins should not change the "five pillars". That restriction changes rather than just enforces WP:RS policy (and adversely affects the WP:NPOV by default). My very best wishes ( talk) 14:39, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@Worm TT. In addition, the already existing procedure tells "Any uninvolved administrator may impose on any page or set of pages relating to the area of conflict page protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project." Based on that, any uninvolved admin can post a sourcing restriction on any page already (exactly as NeilN did). Therefore, this editing restriction by Arbcom is simply unnecessary. On the other hand, I still believe this restriction should never be used because the problem is never the source(s), but always the user(s). So, I think you need to establish as a clear set of standard discretionary sanctions. Just saying "any reasonable measure" is not good enough, as the request just below shows [95]. My very best wishes ( talk) 17:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

However, if you absolutely want to keep some restriction, I think Nick-D get it almost right (I omit only his first phrase as too ambiguous):

"Preference should be given to peer-reviewed scholarly journals and books. Other reliable sources may be used to augment scholarly works or where such works are not available."

• This restriction is also open to gaming (see my comments below).

• Update. I started an RfC here as recommended by El_C. In my opinion, the removal of reliably sourced information about crimes by the Soviet secret police is unacceptable per WP:RS and WP:NPOV. My very best wishes ( talk) 18:03, 29 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Paul Siebert

It seems the request was inspired mostly by this.

Briefly, My Very Best Wishes' edits of the Gas van article are heavily dependent on questionable primary sources (an RSN discussion of one of key sources used by MVBW can be found here). The "Soviet Gas Van" topic is based literally on few sentences taken from one tabloid article, which were reproduced by several secondary sources, and handful of testimonies, part of them state that "Soviet gas van" was used to incapacitate victims before execution, not to kill them, and some of them say that NKVD documents the whole story is based upon cannot be trusted. For comparison, this article about Holocaust in Yugoslavia performs detailed analysis of real and perceived cases of gas van usage in Holocaust, and concludes that some witness testimonies should be treated with great cautions, and usage of gas vans to kill non-Jews is, most likely, a post-WWII myth. As compared with that article, the sources telling about Soviet gas van look like a school student essay.

A comparison of sources that tell about Nazi and Soviet gas vans demonstrates that the level of fact checking and accuracy are incomparable. In my opinion, combining poor sources telling about Soviet gas van and good sources telling about Nazi gas van is tantamount to combining articles from Physical Review Letters and popular schientific journal for kids in the article about Uncertainty principle: the level of sources should be more or less uniform in articles, otherwise we just discredit Wikipedia.

Second, I found the MVBW's rationale (the subjects related to other countries often have only a limited coverage in RS and were not subjects of significant scholarly studies) very odd, because he is literally advocating inclusion of questionable sources to support some exceptional claim (the claim that gas vans were invented and used in the USSR is exceptional) because this claim is not covered by multiple mainstream sources. In other words, the argument against inclusion of this material is used to support inclusion of poor sources.

Third, during the discussion of the Collaboration in Poland Arbitration Case I already proposed (01:17, 8 June 2019 (UTC)) sourcing restriction as an almost universal solution for conflicts in EE area. It already has had positive effect in Holocaust in Poland area, and I am 100% sure expansion of sourcing expectaions on whole EE area will quench lion's share of conflicts. At least, the long lasting conflict around the Gas van story will immediately stop is this criteria will be applied to that article. Importantly, in contrast to various topic bans or 1RRs, which are totally palliative measures, more stringent sourcing criteria really improve quality of articles and quench conflicts.

"The level of sources used in a discussion has an enormous influence on the level of the discussion. It is hard to have a low level discussion when both parties are using high quality sources. In contrast, poor sources are seeds of various conflicts. Among the features of marginally acceptable sources are wague logic, lousy facts and poor wording, so the disputs around such sources are inevitably more hot. Therefore, it would be correct if ArbCom added "sourcing expectations" clause at least to the ARBEE case as whole, because such a restriction is a very efficient quencher of many conflicts."

Comments on MVBW's comments

1. When some reputable scholar publishes some data in non-peer-reviewed media, current sourcing restrictions do not prevent usage of that information. However, a proof should be presented that that author is reputable;
2. Universally imposed sourcing restriction is not more ruling of content that universally imposed 1RR;
3. No comments;
4. This

-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Regarding Brief reply to comment by Paul Siebert below, a comparison with my most recent proposal demonstrates MVBW's statement is FALSE: I do not propose to remove Solzhenitsyn. Other two sources are primary, and per WP:REDFLAG they cannot be used for such exceptional claims, and the newspaper article just briefly repeats what other sources say. In general, editorial style of MVBW can be characterized as manipulation with poor sources to push certain POVs. A typical example is this edit, where MVBW added one primary source and one newspaper article, each of which provide the identical text. Although the latter may formally be considered as a secondary source (more precisely, op-ed, per NEWSORG), the author does not comment on the cited memoirs, so there is no analysis, evaluation or synthesis (which are necessary traits of any secondary source). In other words, MVBW uses a primary source to advance some exceptional claim, and he duplicates the source to create a false impression of wider coverage of this topic.

I think this behaviour deserves more detailed analysis of ArbCom, and I am going to prepare and submit full scale case, because the discussions on talk pages and various noticeboards aimed to convince MVBW to abandon this type behaviour lead just to repetition of the same arguments, which MVBW ignores.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 19:07, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Assayer: RSN has failed to settle these questions, actually, as our ongoing discussion at WP:V talk page with SarahSV demonstrated, the burden of proof rests with the user who adds a source, and that includes the proof that the source is reliable. That means consensus is needed not to remove a source, but to keep it. Actually, no consensus was achieved to keep that source during the RSN discussion you refer to, so that source can be removed. That can be done even if without additional restrictions, but applying such restriction would facilitate that process dramatically.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:24, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ François Robere: In the case of newspapers, per WP:NEWSORG, one has to discriminate news, editorials, and op-eds. If sourcing restrictions allow reliable primary sources, then editorials are ok.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Mkdw:,@ Worm That Turned: and other ArbCom members. This and some other related discussions forced me to reconsider my initial opinion. I propose a different, more global, solution at WP:V talk page.

In addition, independently on the outcome of the discussion at the policy talk page, a solution for the Holocaust in Poland related area should be:

1. Remove the "Source expectation" clause from the ArbCom decision, because standard expectations already address that issue (below, I am explaining why). In connection to that,
2. The admins who are active on the AE page should be explained that the violation of WP:REDFLAG are NOT just a "content dispute" (as many of them mistakenly think), and they should be strictly enforced per guide.expect.

To explain how that should work, let's take a look at the recent MyMoloboaccount case as an example (see this page below). Instead of reporting him, FR could just revert MyMoloboaccount's edits, and make a reference to DS and WP:REDFLAG in the edit summary. If MyMoloboaccount tried to re-add the contested material again, FR could file a standard AE request, and, had admins approached this issue in accordance with DS's letter and spirit, they would block or topic ban MyMoloboaccount. In other words, no specific source restrictions are needed, and, therefore, the users who add non-controversial or non-contested materials to the Holocaust related articles are not at risk to be sanctioned. Only those who made contested edits using low quality reliable source will be at risk, and, in my opinion, that would in accordance with DS spirit. Remember, the very idea of DS is to prevent conflicts, which means a user who is editing without being involved in a conflict should not be sanctioned. Based on my own experience, overwhelming majority of conflicts occurs in the areas covered by WP:REDFLAG, which means enforcement of REDFLAG violations resolves lion's share of conflicts.

In other words: the actual DS spirit should be as follows:

"You can edit safely until you have stepped into the REDFLAG area; once you stepped into it, and faced opposition, be careful not to violate our content policy. If you have violated it, be prepared for sanctions per AE, for such violations are not just a "content dispute"".

The problem is that, as a rule, many admins do not see REDFLAG violations as deserving AE attention. However, that is a problems with DS implementation, not with DS themselves. -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:09, 7 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by El_C

This question was already posed at WP:AE#Gas_Van_and_sourcing_requirements — I closed it with (nominal) consensus that restrictions in topical articles do cover untopical sections therein. Mind you, the question became moot with the article having been split into topical and untopical entries. El_C 01:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

A lot has happened since I wrote the above, including me both undoing the split and rejecting the application of the sourcing requirements. As MVBW notes, they have followed my recommendation and launched an RfC. Hopefully, its closure will help codify consensus in a clear and long-lasting way. El_C 18:09, 29 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nug

This is a thorny issue. If the presence of the section Gas_chamber#Nazi_Germany requires the entire article Gas_chamber to be subject to the same strict Antisemitism-in-Poland sourcing expectation, then the section Gas_chamber#North_Korea would have to be deleted, as is it entirely sourced from newspapers and first hand witness accounts. Alternately Gas_chamber#Nazi_Germany would have to be split out into a separate article Nazi gas chambers (which currently redirects to Gas_chamber#Nazi_Germany). -- Nug ( talk) 05:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• The flip side to François Robere's concern is the concern over possible gaming of the sourcing restrictions intended for WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland on essentially unrelated topics. -- Nug ( talk) 23:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• JzG's suggested abundance of sources does not exists in all areas. A large volume of high quality sources on the Holocaust and WW2 in Poland exist due to the fact that archives of original Nazi documents have been open for decades, eye witness accounts systematically documented, war crimes investigations documented, etc, making it a rich area for academic study. That just isn't the case with the Soviet Union, archives in Russia remain restricted for many controversial aspects of that regime. And even more so with highly secretive regimes like North Korea, where most of the topics like Hoeryong concentration camp are sourced from news agencies, many of them local South Korean newspapers, as well as eye witness accounts, rather than academic sources. If we were to adopt JzG's approach, we would have to delete or gut most articles on North Korea. -- Nug ( talk) 21:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• Assayer claims that having a section about a topic of the Great Purge in an article on a Holocaust topic is legitimate because of Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism. However Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism is about ideology, totalitarianism and personality cults, not execution technology. No Holocaust scholar makes reference to, let alone compares, Soviet gas vans when discussing Nazi gas vans. There is no connection, they were independently invented. This demonstrates how disruptive gaming the Poland-in-WW2 restriction is, two topics that would normally be split is being artificially kept together to take advantage of the stricter sourcing requirement introduced by one of the topics.

In fact Paul Siebert essentially admits to gaming the Poland-in-WW2 sourcing restriction, in offering a quid pro quo: " Actually, if you agree with that (the sourcing restrictions), and you agree that Nazi gas van is a primary topic, I do not insist on merging the articles." If they desire stricter sourcing requirements for all articles on the topic of the Soviet Union, using the back door of the Poland-in-WW2 case is not the right approach. -- Nug ( talk) 21:45, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by François Robere

I've not been involved in the particular discussion mentioned here, though I have been involved in the topic area and the ArbCom case that resulted in the sourcing restrictions subject of this ARCA request. The discussions span four articles: Gas chamber, Gas van, Nazi gas van and Soviet gas van. Two of these were split [96] [97] from the main article [98] [99] - splits which may or may not be justified on content grounds, but which were done during an ongoing discussion on sourcing, raising the concern that they were done to avoid the sourcing restrictions placed on the main article. I've reverted all of them while discussion is ongoing, [100] [101] [102] and asked for clarifications on the main TP. [103] François Robere ( talk) 15:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ Mkdw and Worm That Turned: I would like to ask for clarification on another question that arose at AE recently: ArbCom's sourcing expectations "expand and adapt" [104] NeilN's sourcing restrictions, but they only explicitly refer to the first part, on source selection. Do they also apply to the second part, on source representation? Source misrepresentation was a huge issue in the topic area, as demonstrated by case evidence, and continues to be a problem with certain editors (see for example here). I had assumed this was covered by "expand and adapt" (and you can see other editors' had assumed so as well), but it seems that's subject to interpretation. François Robere ( talk) 13:02, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• One more needed clarification: can newspapers and similar contemporary sources be used for contemporary affairs? This article is concerned with events from 1998 onwards, and about 85% of the article is about the 2018 amendment, so very recent events. Nevertheless, one of several newspapers articles referenced there was removed, citing "required criteria as recentely [sic] defined on Wikipedia". [105] I have argued that the TA sourcing restrictions were enacted thinking of historical events, and so newspaper articles dealing with recent events should be usable. [106] François Robere ( talk) 15:26, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• @ Worm That Turned and Slatersteven: "works by recognized academics" is a bit too general. I would suggest "works by recognized academics in good standing" or "works by preeminent academics" instead (see these for examples why: [107] [108]). "Recognized institutions" is too general as well, so eg. "reputable institutions for historical research". François Robere ( talk) 13:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• @ Worm That Turned: No need to amend year to 1939 - the events in question started before (for example the 1934 German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact, which was discussed in the TP of Collaboration in German-occupied Poland). The end year should be amended, however, to include the immediate repercussions of the war for the Jewish community (eg. the Kielce pogrom and nationalization of Jewish property by the Communist regime). Note that even 1933-1949 is exclusive of relevant events, such as the enactment of antisemitic laws during the Second Polish Republic (1918 onwards), which at one point were comparable to those enacted in Germany. François Robere ( talk) 20:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by JzG

The core argument here seems to be that because something is covered only in questionable sources, we should relax the sourcing requirement to allow it to be included from those questionable sources. I think I'm reading that right.

I don't think it needs ArbCom to tell us that's a terrible idea.

What are the restrictions, you ask?

• Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals and academically focused books by reputable publishers. English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when available and of equal quality and relevance.
• Anyone found to be misrepresenting a source, either in the article or on the talk page, will be subject to escalating topic bans.

Who thinks it would be a bad thing if this were applied over more articles or sections? Given the abundance of excellent sources covering these topics and this timeframe, anything that does not appear in sources of this quality is very likely to be WP:UNDUE even if it's not POV-pushing. Guy ( help!) 00:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Thryduulf (re Antisemitism in Poland)

I think the pragmatic thing to do here would be to apply the sourcing restrictions to (i) content regarding Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland; and (ii) sections of articles which relate exclusively or primarily to Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland.

This would mean that on the Gas chamber article, the restrictions would apply to the whole of the Nazi Germany section (as that section is primarily related to Polish history during WWII), but not other sections of that article. Thryduulf ( talk) 13:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Assayer

The Antisemitism in Poland case found, that much of the evidence and thus much of the dispute, centered on disputed sourcing and use of low-quality sources, specifically, whether a particular source was reliable, whether a particular author was qualified, and whether a source is being misunderstood or misrepresented. The dispute which fuels My very best wishes’ clarification request is very much of the same kind. RSN has failed to settle these questions, in part because the sources are largely written in Russian and there are few uninvolved editors able to read them. The sourcing restrictions imposed on the article Collaboration in German-occupied Poland have been found to have had a positive effect by stabilizing the article and limiting disputes. Since the Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism is a highly controversial and a much disputed field, content on Stalinism that is raised and connected to Nazism within an article largely dealing with the Holocaust in Poland should not be exempted from these restrictions, and these restrictions should certainly not be removed altogether.

I may note that not only is the article gas chamber, which should provide some sort of overview, an ill-conceived example for the urgent need of detailed information. The way My very best wishes expanded [109] the article basically by copying huge chunks of text including notes from the stand-alone article - all the while knowing that the “invention” of gas vans was disputed [110] - is quite revealing as is the way they put the sections “in a chronological order” [111], effectively ignoring the Nevada gas chamber of 1924. Nevertheless, quick research turns up better sources for Lithuania and North Korea, sources which would meet the high-quality sourcing restrictions. Thus, the use of better sources would improve the encyclopedia.-- Assayer ( talk) 18:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

The contradictory comments by My very best wishes and Paul Siebert on the power of RSN illustrate my point. I agree that restrictions would facilitate the process. Otherwise I do not see a good reason, why My very best wishes would bother to request a clarification, if their sources were vetted as being as perfect as they claim.-- Assayer ( talk) 21:06, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@Nug One of the contentions during the Historikerstreit was the notion that the Soviet terror and the Gulag preceded the concentration camps and was even “more original” (E. Nolte). One of the main arguments against this notion was that in the Gulag there were no gas chambers, i.e. the Gulag was not about extermination. Thus, to speak of Nazi and Soviet gas vans as being essentially the same and to conceive of Soviet gas vans as "mobile gas chambers" for mass killings, is an exceptional claim. Scholars like Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Gellately, who mentioned Soviet gas vans in their comparisons of Soviet and Nazi policies, both called for further investigations and Gellately specified that the Soviets had no gas chambers. Authors like local historian Dmitry Sokolov, whose article in a Crimean newspaper is central to some of MvbW's editing, argue much less restrained. Sokolov, for instance, claims that the first death camps were operated in the Soviet Union. An article introduced by Nug himself, namely on “The genocide of the Polish people in the USSR in the years 1937–1938” by Marek Halaburda, published in a journal by Halaburda’s employer, the Pontifical University of John Paul II, links the Soviet use of gas vans directly to Polish history.

I do not see that the sourcing restrictions specify that only publications based upon full access to historical archives can be used. Academic research published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and so forth, must and will deal with the available sources just as well. I would think that Wikipedia should be even more strict on sourcing, the more difficult documentation of facts is, and not the other way around. It would be interesting to learn, though, what kind of “advantage” I might gain from the stricter sourcing requirements.-- Assayer ( talk) 03:47, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@Mkdw: The definition of the scope of the "topic area" is crucial and should be clarified. As I explained above, North Korea is not the problem here, but rather comparisons of Nazism and Stalinism. Is a section on Soviet history, e.g. Stalinism, inside the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland, if comparisons to Nazi policies, in particular the Holocaust, are drawn or when claims are made which contradict the findings of high quality scholarly literature on the Holocaust in Poland? -- Assayer ( talk) 21:09, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Francis Schonken

@ Mkdw: I think what you write would work fine, except that I would add (for completeness) that whatever is summarized from the WWII/Poland related sections elsewhere in the broad article (e.g. in the article's introductory paragraphs, in a table grouping data from several sections of the article, etc), irrespective of whether such summaries carry their own references or rely on references elsewhere in the article, would also be subject to the strict sourcing requirements of the "Antisemitism in Poland" ArbCom case. Similar for Standard appendices and footers, e.g. a "Further reading" section should not list literature of a lesser quality on WWII/Poland topics. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 13:18, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nick-D

I've been active on Wikipedia since 2005 with a focus on World War II, and for as long as I can remember our coverage of Poland, and especially 1920s-1940s era Poland, has been a deeply troubled topic area. I think it's entirely sensible to require a strict adherence to WP:RS as an attempt to ease these problems. I don't see any reason for good faith editors to struggle with this remedy: it might slow them down, but they should be pleased that it will result in better quality articles. As I have noted at WT:MILHIST#Implications of recent ArbCom case for content creation on WWII Polish topics I wouldn't support this kind of restriction being rolled out more broadly, but in unusual circumstances like this it's a worthwhile experiment. Nick-D ( talk) 09:20, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

On further consideration, including a comment from an editor at WT:MILHIST who pointed out that the current wording would exclude some 'gold standard' military sources such as Jane's Fighting Ships on the grounds that they are non-scholarly, I think that the wording of the restriction regarding sourcing should be loosened somewhat to ensure that this doesn't have undesirable consequences. Peacemaker also makes a good point below about WP:RS already doing a lot of the lifting this remedy is seeking to do. I'd suggest something along the lines of "Only high quality sources may be used. Preference should be given to peer-reviewed scholarly journals and books. Other reliable sources may be used to augment scholarly works or where such works are not available." Something like this would make it clear that editors should use scholarly sources, but provide some flexibility when these aren't comprehensive or available. Nick-D ( talk) 08:42, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Slatersteven

I am wary of any topic specific polices at the best of times. But when it is loaded with subjective criteria (As this is) I start to get very alarmed as to intent. I have no issue with "peer-reviewed scholarly journals", but what is an "academically focused book"? As to "reputable institutions", who decides this, what is reputable (and why is a newspaper not a reputable institution?)? This is all too fuzzy and ill defined for me. I find it odd that it did not just read ""peer-reviewed scholarly journals or works by recognized academics". Slatersteven ( talk) 10:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Unsure about "recognized institutions", it would be best if we stuck to as narrow a definition as possible. One answer may be "academic institutions", but may still be open to abuse. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Ermenrich

Worm That Turned, I do not think that adding works by recognized academics is a good idea. Take this source. It is a set of lecture notes, yet an editor is arguing that he should not have been sanctioned for adding it (and some worse sources) because the scholar is well known. Such sources are not reliable and should not be used, but this change would open the door to using them. This would make the sourcing restrictions effectively meaningless. I also think that the phrasing or published by recognized institutions needs to be tightened, as at the moment that same user is using it to argue in favor of using a newspaper, and it was indeed understood to include them by Sandstein. This was not the intention and the wording needs to be changed to "reputable historical/scholarly institutions" or something like that.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:10, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by DGG

The wording was too rigid. Making a sharp division between academic and no academic sources is not necessarily helpful--there are multiple works in any field that defy easy classification, and also many works not strictly academic that are of equal standing and reliability. Nor is being academic a guarantee of reliability--I mention for example Soviet Lysenkoism and Nazi racial science, both with high national academic standing, and, in the case of Nazi science, considerable international recognition. I'd suggest a much more flexible wording Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions. and works of similar quality and responsibility". Considering the examples given in the request, I think that this would deal with much of it. Newspapers, however, are a more difficult problem, and the responsibility of content of serious topics published is newspapers is variable. Depending on the topic covered, I think there is no reason not to use them, if they are used with caution, and for some related topics, they may be essential. I'd would perhaps say Newspapers andmagazines can be used ,but with caution and agreement, and in context..

I understand the felling of the arbs who have commented that this is too early to make the change, but I think the original conception was overly simplistic, and would impair rational consideration of sourcing. DGG ( talk ) 22:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Peacemaker67

I've been following this and the original case with interest. I have plenty of experience with disputed sourcing in ARBEE from my work on Yugoslavia in WWII articles and have never once thought this level of ArbCom intervention was needed. I am fundamentally opposed to this remedy because it enters into content areas, and the arbitration process exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia conduct disputes, not content ones. If ArbCom wants to get involved in content matters, then it should ask the community for the scope of ArbCom to be expanded and receive that imprimatur before sticking its oar into content areas. We have a perfectly serviceable reliable sources policy, and questions about whether a particular source is reliable are determined by consensus, supplemented by outside opinions via RSN and dispute resolution mechanisms like RfC if a consensus cannot be arrived at between the regular editors of the article in question. As has been noted above, if the editor that wants to use a source cannot get a consensus that a source is reliable, it cannot be used. The Article sourcing expectations remedy should be voided as it was made outside the scope of ArbCom's remit. If article sourcing guidance beyond WP:RS is needed for a particular contentious area, it should be developed by the content creators who actually know the subject area, not by ArbCom. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 07:37, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

This is also fundamentally flawed, because, as I've mentioned elsewhere, if a Luftwaffe pilot or German general served in Poland, then went on to serve in the Battle of France, this restriction would apply to the section on their service in Poland, excluding non-academic but nevertheless reliable books that might provide information about their activities during that campaign, but the section on their service in the Battle of France would be able to use the same reliable book that was banned from use in the earlier section. The same would apply to a Polish pilot who flew during the invasion of his country, but then escaped to the UK and flew in the Battle of Britain. This is just a nonsense remedy the consequences of which just haven't been thought through. It should just be binned. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 00:49, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• The expanded article sourcing expectations apply to all articles on the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland. When a broad article has sections that relate to these topics, the restriction applies to only the relevant sections. Other sections outside of the topic area would not be subject to the expanded article sourcing expectations. For example, in the article Gas chamber, the section about North Korea would not be subject to these restrictions (and the standard Wikipedia requirements for sourcing and verifiability would still apply); whereas the Nazi Germany section would need to comply with the expanded article sourcing expectations. Mkdw ^talk 02:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
• On the clarification of the scope, I absolutely agree with Mkdw - all articles on Polish history during World War II, including Holocaust in Poland. Outside those articles, it applies only to relevant sections of the articles. Worm^TT( talk) 11:19, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  On the suggested amendment to the types of sources used, I'm not willing to expand to news sources at present - my hope was to start with a extra strict adherence to WP:RS, which could be relaxed in the future. I will accept that there are improvements that can be made, which I'm still pondering on. I do like Slatersteven's suggestion for "peer-reviewed scholarly journals or works by recognized academics" as an alternative - however it does The issue that was raised in the case was allowing works from institutions such as United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. As this already needs one tweak (World War 2 did not start in 1933), I'm considering updating it to "peer-reviewed scholarly journals, works by recognized academics or published by recognized institutions" Comments would be appreciated. Worm^TT( talk) 11:39, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thank you for your comments so far. I will note, My very best wishes‎ that sanctioning the reliable sources is something that needs more thought - and I see there is a different ARCA lower down on the page on exactly that issue. Worm^TT( talk) 15:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  I've been holding off on these two ARCAs as I've been trying to think of an alternative solution and I was slightly hoping that the new committee would jump in with an amazing idea we hadn't thought of. At the moment, I think that the best solution is to leave things as is. I appreciate the concerns raised by the members of the community - but I'm simply not seeing a better way forward. I would absolutely advise that blocks should not be the go-to solution for sourcing violations, however, they are a tool in the uninvolved administrator's arsenal and if they think that a block is the best solution, then that has an option for them. Worm^TT( talk) 13:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC) reply

• On the question about scope, concur with Mkdw (above). On the broader grievances about the remedy, JzG's view is compelling and I am not supporting any amendment at this early stage to our recent Antisemitism in Poland decision. AGK  ■ 13:03, 8 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• The question of scope appears to have been resolved by Mkdw's comment above. I don't see a compelling need to relax the sourcing expectations to include non-academic works or works by academics that have not been published. – bradv 🍁 21:18, 1 January 2020 (UTC) reply
• I've commented previous in the regular section, and am therefore abstaining from this section. DGG ( talk ) 18:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC) reply

---

---

Initiated by Piotrus at 04:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Piotrus ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Sandstein ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• MyMoloboaccount ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification Sandstein
• diff of notification MyMoloboaccount

Statement by Piotrus

The Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland#Article_sourcing_expectations remedy from the recent case seemed like a good idea at a time. When I thought about the restriction passed, I thought it would reinforce WP:BRD: someone (re)adds a problematic reference, they get reverted, their source is discussed on talk or at WP:RSN, and they are warned that they should not re-add it or such until a consensus is reached. A sort of 1RR for problematic sources, particularly in case of WP:REDFLAGs.

However, this recent AE ruling, where an editor ( User:MyMoloboaccount) was blocked for a week in about an hour after the request was made, for restoring a problematic source or two, with no discussion on talk anywhere, just a straight report and near insta block, gave me a major pause. It is good to require editors to use quality sources; there is a ton of bad sources to be weeded out, and adding more low quality ones needs to be discouraged (I habitually remove low quality refs and there's a lot of garbage in this topic area: ex. [112], [113]). But discouragement should not be achieved by a wiki equivalent of nuking people for small infractions. Now, I have personally written hundreds of articles related to this topic area, and I am speaking with my content creator hat now: the above AE ruling has made me scared of creating any new topics in this area, expanding them or even of reverting problematic edits by likely socks/SPIs. Because if one can get a week long block for a first infraction with no need for an explicit warning, this is an invitation to create a battleground populated by said socks/SPIs, and in a short while we will have nobody else editing this topic area.

If one can get blocked for a week+ in an hour after adding a borderline source, this opens a major can of worms. Sure, we can all agree that some sources like personal webpages, blogs or forums are unacceptable, but there are plenty that fall in a gray area, and I find it scary that a single admin is now not only apparently empowered to decide what is reliable or not, bypassing prior talk consensuses, RSN and such, but per DS could even impose year blocks and topic bans of up to a year at a whim. Let me illustrate this with some practical example of what has been used in this topic area.

In the linked AE thread, for example, a newspaper was among the sources reported as 'bad', through the closing admin judged it acceptable. That was for Rzeczpospolita (newspaper). But which other newspaper will make the cut and which will be seen as not reliable? If someone uses a more controversial paper like Sieci or Do Rzeczy as a source, will they get a week long block? A year long topic ban? For the first infraction? What about an article from a news portal like Onet.pl? Can a city portal be used to reference information about unveiling of a local monument or celebration of a remembrance event? Or a March of the Living coverage? Yes, newspapers and such are not the best sources, but are they now a gamble with a potential block or ban? Is an average admin that does probably does not speak Polish empowered to make such calls based on what they see in an English Wikipedia article on a Polish newspaper, magazine or portal (if one event exists)? If it mentions words like controversial, right-wing, left-wing, or whatever is it that they see as a red flag, it's ban hammer time?

More examples. In my talk post at Talk:Home Army where I reviewed some sources recently challenged on that talk page (and that were shortly after discussed in that AE thread) I noted that I think course notes by a reliable academic are probably ok. Apparently, they are not, since lecture notes are not peer reviewed. Ok. How about [114], a source used in recently created Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study (by the same editor who made the complain about said course notes...)? That appears to be a non-peer reviewed lecture delivered at an unspecified place (I have attended such events as a grad student and later, they can be very informal and address a room of <10 people). Ban editor for using such a source or not? What if someone cites a popular history magazine such as Histmag? Reliable or not? Toss a coin? How about a source published by Institute of National Remembrance? That institution has been criticized for some recent politicization (as described in the article body), what if the reviewing admin decides that an editor using this source, until now generally seen as acceptable, merits a ban because they find the criticism section in the IPN article convincing and feel that IPN is no longer a reliable source? How about articles from a a museum website? How about an educational website maintained by IPN, like [115] or [116]? How is it better than the course notes that were ruled 'not good enough'? Did I mention popular history magazines? IPN publishes several ( pl:Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, pl:Biuletyn IPN „pamięć.pl”). What about a portal like [117], which contains information on Polish Righteous Among the Nations, co-financed by by Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also by a controversial NGO associated with unreliable Radio Maryja? Is that portal unreliable because it received financing from a problematic NGO? Even if it is unreliable, an average editor using it may not even be aware of the connection. Block people because they didn't investigate who funds a website sufficiently? I am an academic and an editor experienced in this topic area and in finding reliable sources myself, yet I didn't even realize some of those sources were problematic until someone else pointed it out (that a magazine I assumed was peer reviewed might not be, or that this website received some financing from a shady NGO). Can a website about local tourist attractions be used a source to note that some World War II fortifications survive as said tourist attractions ( [118])? How about websites on shipwrecks? I recently became aware of articles like List of shipwrecks in August 1941 that use many substandard sources ( [119]). If someone adds a source like this about a Polish WWII shipwreck, how many weeks of a block are they looking at? Shortly after the ArbCom case closed I asked one of our milhist ship experts to create an article on a minor ship SMS M85, and he replied that "I think that the recent Arbcom ruling on articles associated with Poland in WW2 makes writing an article impossible." He created it nonetheless, but if he used a less then impeccable source (perhaps [120] that I see in German minesweeper M18 (1939)), would he be looking a ta block? Is using a site like [121] to reference some non- WP:REDFLAG technical details about a ship or another minor detail a major offense now? How about if the article I created on Japanese pilot Naoshi Kanno was Poland-related? I referenced his appearance in an anime series to a source or two that another editor objected to ( [122]). If it was a Polish pilot, would I be blocked now? Topic banned for a year, perhaps, if it was my second or third infraction?

I hope that the above illustrate clearly that the entire Poland WWII topic has become a minefield now that very few editors will dare to edit until this issue is clarified. In particular, we need to know the answers to:

• per [123], is this indeed correct that "the remedy does not require any particular notification or proof of awareness...and therefore [is] enforceable whether or not an editor was aware of it". And if this is not correct, how to make new editors aware of this? Would {{ Ds/alert}} for "topic=b" be sufficient?
• is it the intent that AE can now be used to bypass WP:RSN and such, and any admin can now speedily rule on what sources are reliable or not and impose DS-level blocks and bans (up to a year, including topic bans) for a single infraction without a specific warning?
• for this topic area, should RNS be bypassed and questions about reliability of sources directed to AE? Since the admin reviewing a complain is empowered to ignore RSN/talk consensus/etc. and make their own calls, why bother discussing sources anywhere else? Making a complain at AE seems to be the best way to get anything done in this topic area now (preferably by reporting one's opponents to AE until something sticks).

My constructive suggestion is to revise this remedy to make sure that this applies only to editors who have been warned and who engage in edit warring restoring bad sources. In other words, I think that editors should be allowed to add or readd any sources they wish, but once they have been made aware that there is an issue with a source they added through a talk page message, then a 0RR rule should apply pending an outcome of a RSN discussion that the editor who challenged the source should start. If, after made aware that a source is under review, they restore it, then they can be reported to AE. This should be done on a source basis, not editor, i.e. if an editor adds one problematic source, and few weeks later, a different one, it should be treated as separate case, not as a repeat violation (unless it is the same source). Further, an AE ruling in such a case should be not to block an editor for a first infraction, but to add the problematic source to a dedicated blacklist for this topic area. Only editors who re-add a source from said blacklist, after being made aware of its existence through a DS-like warning, should be eligible to being blocked (in practice, one should get warning "you added a source from this blacklist, if you do it again or add any other source from it you may be subject to escalating blocks and bans). To block editors for a first violation, when a source's reliability is often unclear and can merit further discussion, seems like a major battleground escalation, ignoring BDR, and encouraging editors to report their 'opponents' to AE in hope of a quick block. And yes, given the borderline and difficult to investigate nature of many sources, we need a blacklist that specifically states "this website/book/author are bad", because otherwise people will be blocked for plain ignorance or a simple mistake ("you reverted a likely sock that among other edits removed a problematic source. One year topic ban for you. Sock wins. Move on".

I end this with a reminder that I am a content creator and a professional writer, familiar with RS on and off wiki, and in my professional opinion anything more restrictive than the proposal above will create a chilling effect and a major battleground, with editors reporting one another for innocent borderline sources, until no-one is willing to touch this content area with a 10-foot long pole. Remember the adage about good intentions, please. It's enough to look at recent history for Home Army. I am a long standing, experienced contributor, and right now I am abandoning this article, and all related, to likely socks/SPI who have nothing to lose. And I am not going to revert anyone, I will just consider reporting them to AE, since any other course of action is an invitation to get myself blocked. Maybe they will gut this and other articles, removing bad sources, good sources, and whatever else they want, but I am frankly scared or restoring anything, if it is up to a semi-random admin to decide that maybe I merit a year-long topic ban because I added or restored a single borderline source. Is this the type of editing environment this remedy was meant to foster? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

PS. Molobo cannot make a statement as he is currently blocked, unreviewed appeal pending.

PPS. There is also a simple date error with this finding that I raised here (date 1933 should be 1939). I don't think that merits a separate thread.

-->

Statement by Sandstein

I was not notified of this request, even though I am listed as involved. This is an appeal of an enforcement action couched in the terms of a clarification request. It should be dismissed because, per applicable policy, only the sanctioned editor may appeal an enforcement action.

In fact, MyMoloboaccount is trying to make an appeal on their talk page, but hasn't said in which forum they want to make the appeal. Maybe an admin can help them out with that. The question of whether I was right to block MyMoloboaccount should then properly be discussed in the course of that appeal.

As to the broader point raised by Piotrus that it is not a good idea to make individual admins decide which sources are inadequate and therefore blockable, I don't really have a view. It's for ArbCom to decide whether such a measure is necessary in this topic area. I assume they chose to do so after careful consideration because the normal method of determining the appropriateness of sources through consensus has failed. But the authority given to admins here isn't really any broader than under discretionary sanctions, which already apply to the topic area. Sandstein 16:18, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

The proper appeal has now been copied to AE: WP:AE#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by MyMoloboaccount. I have commented there. Sandstein 18:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by MyMoloboaccount

Statement by JzG

Mymoloboaccount has been here long enough to know better. [124] is a flagrant misrepresentation of the source. Mymoloboaccount is lucky to have received only a one week block for this. Guy ( help!) 11:50, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Ermenrich

Molobo is well aware that their editing is seen as problematic, see here. Their current arguing over the block only demonstrates either a lack of understanding of what a reliable source is, in which case competence issues seem present, or else willful disregard for it. There is no reason to hollow out these requirements because you're "scared". Molobo's block is, if anything, a sign that they are effective. He is fully aware of the remedy and the block, having participated in the case, and he's been here for years and years, so he ought to have a better sense of sourcing anyway.

If you have concerns about other editors' edits, you are also free to report them. The hope was this would clean up the area. Relaxing the restrictions would undermine this goal.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Nug, Paul Siebert is right - there are plenty of ways to get to good academic sources. There is no reason why these restrictions should stop anyone editing with good faith from editing.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 22:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by François Robere

In general, users who are new to Wikipedia or to a topic area aren't blocked immediately upon infringing on a rule - they're notified and asked to participate in the TP, as it should be. Molobo isn't either - he's familiar with the topic area, took part in the ArbCom case, [125] and later used as justification for an edit. [126] He's well aware that his edits are problematic - I can count at least six editors and two admins who expressed their concerns about him, in his presence, in several fora.

Editors who regularly discuss their edits, and who do not engage in source misrepresentation or needless edit wars - and I count Piotrus and myself as two - should not feel threatened by these DS. While we in theory we could be served with DS without prior warning, in practice it doesn't happen often.

As for the "chilling effect" of the sanctions: the ArbCom case subject of this amendment request had two editors T-banned, who after the case were blocked (one indef). ANI and AE cases resulted in another editor T-banned, and two more blocked. Another editor, who was already T-banned, postponed her appeal. Five editors were "left standing", but they are joined by a handful of editors who frequent the TA less often, and an unknown number of editors who edit in specific articles or on specific issues. All in all, anywhere from 5-15 editors are active in the topic area at any one time (not counting copy editors, reference fixers and bots), some of which have only become active in the TA after the ArbCom case. In short, there's no evidence of a "chilling effect" on the regular editing activities within the TA. François Robere ( talk) 15:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ Nigel Ish: I can tell you from experience neither is required to edit on this, or any other TA. Are there any particular sources you're worried you'll not be allowed to use? François Robere ( talk) 19:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Nigel Ish: I see what you mean. It can be argued that Conway Maritime Press (or Jane's, or Lloyd's) are "reputable institutions" per the language of the ruling, but perhaps it would be clearer to add an exception for widely accepted reference works. François Robere ( talk) 20:29, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • @ Nigel Ish: I entirely agree, and have argued many times that persistent editor bias is a "conduct" issue (eg. here: [127] [128]). Unfortunately, it's impossible to get admins convinced of that, [129] so we need a bureaucratic solution to help them move along. François Robere ( talk) 22:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nigel Ish

As written, this sanction is incredibly vague - it could be argued to apply to almost any subject associated with either the Western or Eastern front in World War II - any area where Polish forces fought, any ship that served with the Polish Navy or with the German navy at the start of the war, any piece of military equipment in service during the German invasion of Poland or the Soviet campaign - and demands that only academic sources be used - a standard that is well in excess of anywhere else on Wikipedia, and if applied strictly will make it impossible to edit in many areas, including most of Military History, as someone can always argue that a source isn't academic enough and demand that the content it supports must be removed on pain of an Arbcom block. Statements by Arbcom members on the case above make it clear that the ruling is expected to be applied widely. This has a clear chilling effect and makes a mockery of Wikipedia being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, as it means that only someone with access to a high quality university library and with the backing of a large bunch of supporters who can support them at Arbcom. Nigel Ish ( talk) 18:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ François Robere: ::Since we are only allowed to use academic sources it effectively limits the user to using journal articles or books by academic presses, which effectively eliminates any sources that present detailed technical data. While the sources used in SMS M85 for example are reliable - it can be argued that they are not academic (and one source is in German, when an English language edition is available (although I don't have access to it), so I can be punished for writing this article if anyone with a grudge takes me to Arbcom. Nigel Ish ( talk) 20:12, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• The solution is for people in authority (i.e. admins and Arbcom) to actually deal with behaviour issues (including things like Civil POV pushing) as behaviour issues using their existing powers, which are entirely adequate if they are prepared to use them properly, and not to invent ever more arcane discretionary sanctions regimes (which in this case can lead to someone being blocked without any warning whatsoever) which are capable of abuse as weapons in content disputes - if a sanction can be abused, it will be abused. Nigel Ish ( talk) 20:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nug

I agree with Nigel Ish. This remedy does have a chilling effect and is an impediment to those who don’t have access to a university library.

Articles published in academic journals necessarily present new and/or novel perspectives on some topic, the dissemination of these new viewpoints to other academics is the raison d'être of these journals. As such a particular article doesn’t reflect the main stream view, but the viewpoint of the author, by definition a minority viewpoint at the point of publication. It is only when that article is cited by other articles and books that we can get a measure of the acceptance of that viewpoint. It must be noted that the peer review process in history journals isn’t intended to provide a measure of acceptance or endorsement of the view, but, as Anthony Grafton from Princeton University puts it, to assure the authors are not out “wearing their magenta socks”, i.e. to assure themselves their article doesn’t contain glaring mistakes in presentation.

Arbcom has always been about conduct, not content, and proscribing the sourcing of an article is surely not what Arbcom should be doing. Wikipedia already has mechanisms in place to deal with sourcing, and whether to impose stricter content source rules on a particular topic area should really be the decision of the wider community via a RFC.

A way forward in this case would be for Arbcom to suspend this content related remedy pending an outcome to a RFC to the wider community. -- Nug ( talk) 21:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• I challenge Paul Siebert to add something to any Poland-in-WW2 article from this general book The Polish Army 1939–45 by non-academic Steven Zaloga, let's see if he will earn a one week block under the present remedy. -- Nug ( talk) 22:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• @Sunshine, the difference is that retrictive sourcing policies like WP:BLP were developed by community concensus, not imposed by ArbCom because a tiny handful of editors managed to persuade them it was necessary in some arbitration case. It is like using a hand grenade to crack a nut. Topic banning all the participants of that particular case for a year would have been more effective than imposing a content sourcing restriction that impacts everyone else not involved. -- Nug ( talk) 21:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Paul Siebert

It seems Nigel Ish and Nug are talking about totally different subjects. Indeed, I concede what Nigel Ish's arguments are partially reasonable: it may be problematic to find, for example, some technical characteristics of some concrete WWII time battleship in peer-reviewed publications. However, it is equally hard to expect a hot dispute about that. In contrast, the Holocaust in Poland topic is an area of incessant conflict between two POVs, both of them are strongly politically motivated and, they seriously affect some national feelings. Obviously, the worst POV-pusher is using the worst sources, and the best way to stop an edit war is not 1RR or "Consensus required", and not even topic bans. The best way to fight against POV-pushers is to deprive them of their main weapon - their sources. Which sources national POV-pushers are using the most frequently? Some obscure books, local newspapers, questionable web sites. If such sources are not allowed - the conflict ends.

Regarding Nug's "This remedy does have a chilling effect and is an impediment to those who don’t have access to a university library." Exactly. If you want to write about such a sensitive topic as Holocaust - go to a local library, find good sources - and write. Jstor provides a free subscription (several articles per month), some journals are free, google scholar provides citations - those who want to write good content have a lot of tools. If, instead of that, they prefer to collect various rumors at the very dark recesses of Internet, then WP:NOTHERE is the only option.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 21:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ DGG: I got a much better idea: if some source has been cited by peers, and the references can be found via google.scholar (or some other scientific/scholarly search engine), such a source can be used. This is the approach I myself use (I very rarely use sources that cannot be found by gscholar or jstor search), and this approach was recognized as good in this peer-reviewed publication, which is specifically devoted to the analysis of content disputes in Wikipedia. With regard to newspapers, there is currently a discussion about a modification of that part of the policy, and it seems a consensus is that only very reputable newspapers are "mainstream newspapers" (good sources per WP:V), and even for them WP:NEWSORG should work, which means editorial and op-ed materials are primary sources about author's opinion.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Re Zaloga, this author is being widely used in WWII related articles, this concrete book was cited by many peer-reviewed publications, and at least one generally positive review on Zaloga's earlier book with the same title was published in The Polish Review, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1983), pp. 103-105. If some admin will try to block me for using that source, I will successfully contest this block, and will request that admin to be banned from reviewing cases that relate to WWII history per WP:CIR. Most likely, that my request will be implemented. However, that is a purely hypothetical case. If you want, you may directly ask admins who are active on this page if any of them is going to block me for Zaloga.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Nug: I accepted your challenge and duly answered. Your turn.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:58, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ DGG: You are obviously wrong. One of the most cited works is this.

However, you are right that the number of citations per se is not an indication of validity. However, it is an indication that the source X is the part of a scientific/scholarly discourse, which creates an opportunity for verification: every participant of the content dispute can randomly pick several articles/books that cite the source X and see if that source is rejected or accepted by peers. Actually, that is how I work, and, as a rule, in majority cases citations mean not criticism but support. Obviously, if the source X is used as a source of information in the source Y, which cites X, that is an indication of validity of the source X.

Regarding newspapers, this part of WP:V is being discussed currently, partially to address the arguments similar to the one you presented. Indeed, "mainstream" is vague, but my point is that in any scenario, "mainstream" refers to just a small fraction of newspapers, and a significant part of materials published in newspapers are primary sources, and should be treated as such. Therefore, the question about citing newspapers belongs to the realm of WP:NOR, not WP:V, and the core idea of NOR is: "be careful when you use primary sources." -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:58, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

As I already explained in the previous case, I reconsidered my initial opinion, and I think no specific sourcing restrictions are needed in the Holocaust in Poland area. Instead, admins should be advised to strictly enforce any reported WP:REDFLAG violations, because, in my opinion, it is the position of admins who are active on the AE page which makes DS effectively not working, and the "Sourcing expectation" clause is a non-optimal attempt to partially fix that problem. All needed rules are already present in standard DS, concretely, guide.expect say that editors must strictly comply with all applicable policies and guidelines, and one our policy says:

Thou shalt not use low quality sources to support exceptional claims

Indeed, if someone made an non-controversial edit using a poor but reliable source, that is ok, as soon as such edit has not been contested. Let's take the recent Molobo vs FR case as an example: there were no reason to report him for usage of a single garbage source, a simple revert with explanations would be sufficient. After the revert, Molobo was expected either to demonstrate his claim was not exceptional, or to provide multiple good sources, and, up to that point, there is nothing in this conflict that deserves AE. However, if Molobo ignores FR's concern, FR has a right to report Molobo, and AE admins must take such a report seriously. In my opinion, that scheme, if it is adopted, will decrease both a risk for good faith editors to be sanctioned and admin's burden, for in situation when both parties know that REDFLAG violations may inflict serious sanctions dramatically facilitates their willingness to achieve consensus.

Unfortunately, a current admins' attitude makes such scenario unrealistic, because the standard response would be "that is just a content dispute, not actionable". That attitude makes all conflicts in DS areas so long and painful, that that creates an artificial situation when one party looses patience and... and admins perfectly know how to deal with such cases.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:33, 7 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statment by DGG

With respect ot the specific request here, I agree with Piotrus that the wording was too rigid. Making a sharp division between academic and no academic sources is not necessarily helpful--there are multiple works in any field that defy easy classification, and also many works not strictly academic that are of equal standing and reliability. Nor is being academic a guarantee of reliability--I mention for example Soviet Lysenkoism and Nazi racial science, both with high national academic standing, and, in the case of Nazi science, considerable international recognition. I'd suggest a much more flexible wording Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions. and works of similar quality and responsibility". Considering the examples given in the request, I think that this would deal with much of it. Newspapers, however, are a more difficult problem, and the responsibility of content of serious topics published is newspapers is variable. I wouldn't rule them out entirely, but I don't know quite how to word it. {Possibly '"and other responsible sources bywide general agreement"' . ) DGG ( talk ) 22:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Paul Siebert:, It's not whether something is cited, but what is aid about it. The most cited sources are sometimes the ones that are obviously wrong, because everyone refutes them. As for newspapers, in the soviet era, Pravda was a mainstream newspaper, and, in fact, the national paper of record. Peoples Daily is a mainstream newspaper. They can both be cited, but they can not be used to give a honest view of reality. There is no shortcut to a detailed consideration of how sources are used in context. There is no shortcut to NPOV. Perhaps shortcuts here are all arb com has to work with for affecting content, but they won't by themselves do it. DGG ( talk ) 05:37, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Paul Siebert:, the most cited sources are sometimes.... They also sometimes are the famous works everyone cites without actually reading. There's n onecessary relationship, except that the uncited ones can be assumed to have no influence. DGG ( talk ) 06:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by ThoughtIdRetired

What of the "casual" editor of one of the articles to which these restrictions apply - by that I mean someone who is not deeply involved within the narrow confines of the subject, but adds what they believe to be helpful content from a source that would be OK elsewhere in Wikipedia? How would such an editor know that these restrictions apply or, even, how to comply with them? If the casual editor is going to be sanctioned, how does this fit with WP:GOODFAITH? Surely a central principle of Wikipedia is being subverted in order to control a few rogue problem editors. Feel free to point out to me if you think I have misunderstood (but me saying this emphasises the apparent complexity of rules with draconian penalties). ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:13, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

So these restrictions should only apply to persistent and knowing offenders who ignore warnings. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by My very best wishes

This should be a request for amendment. I think this sourcing restriction should be removed and never used again for the reasons I explained in my request. The discretionary sanctions already existing in this subject area are more than sufficient to handle any problems.

• In addition, this "sourcing restriction" is open to "gaming". Here is how.

Step 1. Consider user X (even me, for example) who uses sources which qualify as WP:RS and are normally accepted on various WP pages. A couple of other users do not like what these sources say, want to remove this content [130] and are trying to discredit these sources by resorting to ridiculous arguments, such as a criticism of these sources (e.g. a notable book by Petro Grigorenko) found in a blog post by unknown person [131], and they even bring this blog post as an "RS" to RSNB and argue that the blog post was "good" [132]. They claim that even academic sources are not good just because they cited an article from Komsomolskaya pravda. They claim that an article in Kontinent is not good, etc.

Step 2. After not receiving a support from community in this and several other similar threads [133], [134], these users are demanding on WP:AE to follow the "sourcing restrictions" on content completely unrelated to Poland [135].

Step 3. These users demand to sanction user X on WP:AE [136]. That would not happen on WP:AE if we had no the "sourcing restriction" for Poland.

• @Sunrise. Thank you for bringing the comparison with sourcing per WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS. Those are excellent examples to explain the differences:

1. The WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS have been developed and can be modified at any time by consensus of contributors who edit in these areas. Therefore, these rules were carefully and openly debated and can be fixed at any time if needed, unlike this restriction.
2. The practical applications are completely different. I have never seen a long-term contributor being sanctioned on WP:AE for a single BLP violation on a single page. One really needs to demonstrate a serious pattern of placing poorly sourced (rather than WP:NEWSORG) defamatory materials on BLP pages, and ignore warnings. As about the WP:MEDRS, this is only a guideline that no one actually follows on many thousands of WP pages by making references to original peer reviewed publications in scientific journals, which is not really a big problem. No one normally reports people for doing this. WP:MEDRS does come to play only on the highly controversial matters, when a dispute arises. Then, the disputes do need to be resolved by using good review articles per WP:MEDRS. My very best wishes ( talk) 21:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• I also agree with thoughtful comments by DGG just above. Yes, one absolutely can use even such sources as Pravda, for example, to cite claims by Andrey Vyshinsky during Stalinist show trials, assuming that his words (like "shot the rabid dogs") are placed in the appropriate context, as defined by modern secondary sources on the subject. This is yet another argument not to use such "sourcing restrictions" anywhere. My very best wishes ( talk) 05:00, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• @AGK. Could you please clarify these two questions to avoid any future confusion on WP:AE:

1. Is it required for admins to post this editing restriction on specific pages to apply sanctions to contributors, as described in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions?
2. Do you really exclude all WP:NEWSORG in this restriction? I am asking because Sandstein interpreted a Polish newspaper as a "recognized institution", which is not unreasonable. My very best wishes ( talk) 17:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Assayer

A lot of scenarios have been developed, where scores of unsuspecting editors are going to be blocked immediately for using anything other than peer-reviewed scholarly studies. This amounts to scare tactics without actual evidence that these threats are real. But, as a matter of fact, RSN and dispute resolution mechanisms like RfC often fail when it comes to certain disputes about whether a particular source is reliable or not. I can name various examples of questionable sources which were determined acceptable and reliable, including interviews with convicted Holocaust perpetrators commenting on “Operation Reinhard”. Instead of discussing abstract scenarios and opening loopholes, the question thus should be: What is the objective of these restrictions? Is this objective acchieved? -- Assayer ( talk) 20:29, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

In my experience there are two main arguments to fend off a more restricted use of sources, e.g. of scholarly sources only. According to the first argument even primary sources are admissible when they are used for “uncontroversial”, “factual” information which may not be covered by scholarly sources, but is allegedly needed to provide for a “comprehensive” article. The second argument, namely “consensus”, is used to subdue criticism by stating that the use of such sources has been decided upon by “consensus” and that critics should “drop the stick”, even though the criticism and the debate itself demonstrate that “consensus” has changed. Thereby primary sources like SS personal files hosted at state archives, self-published publications, publications by SS veteran organizations and scores of militaria literature have all been declared permissible reliable sources. Yes, article sourcing guidance should be developed by “content creators”, but sometimes some “content creators” become a gated community at odds with the guidelines of the community as a whole and in need of some input from the outside.

@MvbW If I understand correctly, Molobo has not been blocked, because they inserted references to ‘’Jane’s Fighting Ships’’ in an article on a German minesweeper sunk in 1939. And you have not been blocked at all, yet.-- Assayer ( talk) 13:05, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@Peacemaker67: I was thinking of sources used and propagated by User:OberRanks. In particular I remember Karl Wolff, where the use of SS service records hosted at the National Archives at College park was vigorously defended. The discussion was closed by Eggishorn as without clear consensus. These SS personal files were still used. The discussion found some continuation at the article on Theodor Eicke [137], where I was able to demonstrate divergences between dates given by OberRanks and dates given in scholarly sources. About one and a half years later OberRanks was blocked indefinitely for fabrication of offline references. [138] You will still find references to SS service records in the articles on Amon Göth, Reinhard Heydrich and Rudolf Höß although the latter’s service record has since been removed. The Heydrich article refers to Lina Heydrich's and Walter Schellenberg's memoirs alongside scholarly literature like Aronson and Schreiber.

One should not expect this in an article on German pilot Hans-Joachim Marseille, but here we find Karl Wolff being cited on the Aktion Reinhard. [139] I challenged that extraordinary story by Wolff [140] which contradicts established evidence that Operation Reinhard was top secret. I took the source, which I consider militaria, to RSN where it was considered “acceptable and reliable”. [141]

Turning to self-published sources, I might refer to Veit Scherzer’s work as it was discussed between us. [142] It’s been used in many articles, e.g. in Johannes Blaskowitz or Hermann Fegelein. The latter also features Florian Berger’s self-published work just as Joachim Peiper.

All of the examples I gave are within the subject area of Poland 1939-45 or feature claims which pertain to this subject. This affects other subject areas like Yugoslavia as well, but I’ll leave it at that. The point is not to encourage “mission creep” by anyone, but stricter rules in certain subject areas which would, hopefully, make certain prolonged debates superfluous. You consider this to be a peanut, I consider it to be a stonewall that needs to be breached.-- Assayer ( talk) 00:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@MvbW: You are seriously misrepresenting arguments and I would suggest that you to withdraw your misleading statement. [143]-- Assayer ( talk) 00:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@Peacemaker67: If an editor is able to use and place fabricated sources in a sensitive subject area for more than ten years, in your own words one of the most egregious betrayals of Wikipedia any editor can commit, [144] how has that not been deleterious to the project as a whole? My point is that your notion, that the reliability whether a particular source is reliable should best be determined by consensus, is naive, because this “consensus” has been used to work around even basic guidelines like WP:SOURCE, stating “Unpublished materials are not considered reliable”, and WP:PRIMARY. As Sunrise has pointed out below, this is less an issue of content, but of behavior, because the use of poor sources is likely to cause disruption. To minimize disruption, e.g. example to spare us endless debates about reliability of unpublished archival records, testimonies or memoirs, stricter rules should be in place in certain subject areas where such disruption has occurred.-- Assayer ( talk) 12:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

In the case of OberRanks there were several attempts to remove the “offending material” and we went through RfC, which was without clear consensus and labelled “mission creep” (see links above). Even after OberRanks’ ban you suggested to merge “unique reliably sourced material” from his article on Heinrich Himmler’s service record into the main article on Himmler. [145] OberRanks have been banned by the community only because User:Future Perfect at Sunrise took a closer look. [146] -- Assayer ( talk) 04:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Peacemaker67

Mostly copied from the first ARCA thread on this case, because it is just as relevant here as there. I have plenty of experience with disputed sourcing in ARBEE from my work on Yugoslavia in WWII articles and have never once thought this sort of ArbCom intervention was needed. I am fundamentally opposed to this remedy because it enters into content areas, and the arbitration process exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia conduct disputes, not content ones. If ArbCom wants to get involved in content matters, then it should ask the community for the scope of ArbCom to be expanded and receive that imprimatur before sticking its oar into content areas. We have a perfectly serviceable reliable sources policy, and questions about whether a particular source is reliable are determined by consensus, supplemented by outside opinions via RSN and dispute resolution mechanisms like RfC if a consensus cannot be arrived at between the regular editors of the article in question. As has been noted elsewhere, if the editor that wants to use a source cannot get a consensus that a source is reliable, it cannot be used. The Article sourcing expectations remedy should be voided as it was made outside the scope of ArbCom's remit. I think the comments about the chilling effect of this remedy reflect quite reasonable concerns, and these sanctions have a great deal of potential to be used as weapons in content disputes. If article sourcing guidance beyond WP:RS is needed for a particular contentious area, it should be developed by the content creators who actually know the subject area, not by ArbCom. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 01:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

There are a lot of generalised WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments here being used to bolster extremely thin arguments about this subject area and to try to encourage "mission creep" by ArbCom into content areas where the members of the committee have virtually no demonstrated expertise. For example, I encourage Assayer to point out where the consensus exists that SS personal files, self-published publications, publications by SS veteran organizations and "scores of militaria literature" have been used in this subject area and a consensus has been arrived at that they are reliable and this has caused conduct issues or even has been deleterious for articles in the subject area. I'll be happy to withdraw my objections if there is compelling evidence of same. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 07:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

An example of the nonsensical results of this remedy is that an article on a Luftwaffe pilot that flew during the invasion of Poland cannot use a reliable (but non-academic) book which details his movements and activities during the invasion, but if he went on to fly during the Battle of France, the same article can include the same sort of detail for that campaign using the same book. The same could be said of any German individual, squadron, unit or ship that fought in Poland and went on to serve elsewhere, or any Pole or Polish squadron, unit or ship for that matter. It is ridiculous. This remedy is like using a piledriver to crack a peanut. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 22:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

In response to Assayer, we have differences of opinion about what is a reliable source, but where have any of your examples resulted in persistent conduct issues or been deleterious to the project as a whole? They just haven't, and as a result, ArbCom shouldn't be getting itself involved in what is clearly a content dispute. It certainly is "mission creep" into content areas that you are encouraging, and it should be opposed vigorously as outside the remit of the committee. This whole remedy is completely out of ArbCom's lane, and they should just void it and back off until they have community approval to get involved in content rather than conduct matters. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 08:09, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

In response to Sunrise, BLP and medical content sourcing requirements were determined by the community via consensus, and were not dictated by ArbCom. I have no problem with the community deciding that particular areas should have higher standards than RS, but that is for the community to decide, not ArbCom, which doesn't know the complexities of the subject area. ArbCom is well out of its lane here and should back off. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 03:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Assayer's example of OberRanks is a perfect example of what happens when there is a pattern of conduct issues on WP. After a pattern of unacceptable behaviour, OberRanks was indefinitely banned by the community as he should have been. So that conduct problem was resolved by the community, and didn't even need ArbCom attention. So why bring it up here when we are talking about sourcing issues apparently so serious that they need ArbCom intervention (which is outside its lane, as I've already stated). My question is why Assayer has not followed the usual BRD process by attempting to delete the offending material and then gone through dispute resolution like a RfC if it was opposed, rather than bring his unique interpretation of the reliable sources policy to ArbCom to get ArbCom to try to get a hammer to beat other editors who are using reliable sources, just ones he doesn't personally agree with or considers "militaria"? Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 00:38, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nick-D

Like Peacemaker's comment above, the comment I made at WP:ARCA#Clarification request: Antisemitism in Poland also applies here. In short, while I think that a remedy requiring quality sourcing is justified, the current remedy is too narrow as it rules out high quality but non-scholarly works. I'd suggest changing it to something like "Only high quality sources may be used. Preference should be given to peer-reviewed scholarly journals and books. Other reliable sources may be used to augment scholarly works or where such works are not available." I have no opinion on the mechanism for enforcing this, noting especially that this topic area has subject to very long-running and serious problems so strict penalties are likely justified, but the usual arrangement where editors who are not aware of the sanction are warned first should obviously apply. Nick-D ( talk) 09:22, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Sunrise

I'd like to point out, since it doesn't seem to have been mentioned in the above discussion, that we already enforce sourcing thresholds requiring a higher level of quality than that of WP:RS alone - they're used in two of the largest areas of Wikipedia, those being BLP and medical content. Since those areas seem to be working fine, many of the claims about major problems arising from this sanction would therefore seem to be incorrect. While the exact threshold is different in this case (being roughly in between the two in terms of restrictiveness), any argument that would apply equally in those areas needs to establish why this particular topic should be considered to be uniquely different.

The sanction seems to have been successful at preventing the use of poor sources to cause disruption (an issue of behavior, not content), and that should be recognized. Of course, it is entirely possible this particular threshold could be refined, but requests to do so should be based in reasoned argument as to why specific categories of sources have an equivalent level of reliability to the sources that are already permitted, as opposed to the (IMO quite hyperbolic) rhetoric used in some of the comments above. Sunrise ( talk) 09:27, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Buidhe

I'm not convinced by the arguments above that using university sources places an undue burden on editors. For one, the militaria sources preferred by these editors are more difficult to obtain and not necessarily cheaper. For another, we have WP:RX where volunteers are happy to help you get the source you need, and an increasing number of academic publications in continental Europe are open-access. I'm also not convinced by the hyperbole that someone is going to be immediately blocked for using a non-compliant source. To the contrary, source restrictions can be very helpful for getting rid of the ethno-nationalist POV pushing that plagues this area, simply because academic sources are not likely to contain ethno-nationalist POV pushing.

That said, minor uses of news sources can sometimes be helpful for recent updates on a topic (I cite two of them in this Good Article in the subject area). How can we allow that flexibility while discouraging their use for disputed content? I think that it could be amended to explicitly allow the use of RS but non-academic sources on minor parts of an article that deal with technical information or recent updates that are not covered in academic sources. I hesitate to expand that to all areas of an article that are not covered by academic sources because that would likely lead to unbalanced articles where the areas that are not sourced to as good quality sources are covered in more detail and depth than they should be. Like @JzG, I don't think we should relax our sourcing restrictions at all for areas that are only covered by questionable sources. b uidh e 17:47, 7 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• For the case triggering this grievance, I think the sanction operated as intended. The content of Wikipedia articles needs to be sourced to formal, mainstream academic works; and failing that to mainstream, non-academic works. The changes in question did not meet that standard and were appropriately met with a sanction. For the broader concern, I am unconvinced by submissions here that the arbitration decision contains problems. Where possible, we should give recent decisions time to bed in. AGK  ■ 12:59, 8 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• I agree with AGK that the sourcing expectation is working as intended here. However, I would prefer to see violations of this remedy handled through talk page discussion as a first course of action, rather than a block for a first offense. – bradv 🍁 21:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC) reply
• Per my comments on the other ARCA - I think that the best solution is to leave things as is. I would absolutely advise that blocks should not be the go-to solution for sourcing violations, however, they are a tool in the uninvolved administrator's arsenal and if they think that a block is the best solution, then that has an option for them. Worm^TT( talk) 13:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC) reply
• I've commented previously in the regular section, andwill theefore be abstaining here. DGG ( talk ) 18:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC) reply

---

---

Initiated by TonyBallioni at 23:18, 15 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Add additional remedy

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• TonyBallioni ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• Add additional remedy

• Requesting an additional remedy be added by motion to include a general prohibition

Statement by TonyBallioni (Antisemitism in Poland)

This is coming out of the frustration that is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Icewhiz/Archive. As a bit of background, since Icewhiz's ban we've had a myriad of accounts come out of no where with a sudden interest in this topic area. Invariably they are on proxies and pretty much any account that remotely resembles Icewhiz is being reported to that SPI. Some of them are likely him. Some of them are likely some other banned editor editing in violation or a block, and in some cases might actually be a legitimate alternative account that agrees with Icewhiz's positions, but is editing under a new account and a proxy for privacy reasons in an area where there may be legal consequences off-wiki. The thing is, we can't tell, and this is an issue. I sent this in an email to Berean Hunter, Mkdw, and Joe Roe about the ongoing Icewhiz case, but I only see two possible ways to deal with the influx of new accounts in the areas: either we apply 500/30 to the topic area like we do for the Israel-Palestine articles, or we start blocking obvious sock accounts on the proxies in this area until they declare the account owner to ArbCom/the blocking CU. Neither is a particularly fun option and they both have their downsides, but I think 500/30 has the advantage of not blocking individuals who may have a valid reason for an alternative account or may be a legitimate good faith user on a proxy or VPN. It is also pretty likely to work for the specific Icewhiz related part of this problem: his other main area of interest was Israel-Palestine articles and we've had zero problems with him showing up there. Note that I don't think all of these accounts are him, I think there are likely a fair amount of users using sockpuppets in this topic area. We just can't connect them to the original account because of the technical limitations of CheckUser. Employing 500/30 in the area that's probably had the most issues with socking and content disputes in the last year would pretty much put a stop to it. I know it's a fairly big step to take, but the area is smaller than Israel-Palestine, and the positive impacts in my view would likely outweigh the negatives.

• SoWhy, not trying to be flippant here, but the problem with the PC idea is that pending changes doesn’t work from a purely technical level. It’s a clunky system that usually leads to more problems on an article than just leaving it unprotected, and also doesn’t prevent anything from the edit warring perspective. There’s a reason the existing PC1 is the least used form of protection: it usually just creates more work for people than dealing with live vandalism. Compare the pending changes log to the protection log. The last 50 entries for PC go back a week. For protection it goes back ~12 hours. There’s a reason for that. TonyBallioni ( talk) 12:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply
• Bradv going off of Nigel Ish’s point, maybe go with The history of Jews and Antisemitism in Poland, including the Holocaust in Poland, broadly construed which I think would both expand the scope to areas where the current wording wouldn’t help, and also narrow it to get away from stuff like random Polish army brigades. TonyBallioni ( talk) 18:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply
• Bradv, that’s no different than we have now with DS. The issue here is that we can’t tell where these users (and it’s not just Icewhiz) will show up, and they’re causing a real strain in the topic area. On the WW2 vs. “Jews in Poland” scope: I think WW2 is a bit broad, because what you’re really fighting over is the historical relationship between individuals who are Jewish and Poland as a whole. This of course includes the Holocaust, but you have other articles where there have been flare ups and socks are likely to show up at some point: Paradisus Judaeorum and Jew with a coin being non-WW2 era articles where this conflict has extended. I think you can change the scope to be that to address the valid concerns about WW2 being very broad, while also addressing the area that’s at the core of this conflict. TonyBallioni ( talk) 19:46, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Piotrus

I support this. Please note that yesterday I presented new evidence and analysis of patterns at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Icewhiz that is (at this point) not yet archived in the link Tony provided. I will also concur with Tony, wearing my hat of an editor active in this topic area for ~15 years, that I have never seen any significant socking until Icewhiz got banned - then boom, dozen+ possible socks appear. Yes, this TA has been problematic for ages, but socking is a new and unwelcome twist here. My only concern is that WP:500/30 may not deal with the more invested socks; ex. the one Tony just blocked, I dream of Maple ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), reached the 500/30 threshold before being blocked. A number of other reported accounts are past 500/30. Extended semi will help weed out some fly-by-night socks, and we had a few of those appear, but I feel, overall, that the other solution ("blocking obvious sock accounts on the proxies in this area until they declare the account owner to ArbCom/the blocking CU") will need to be implemented as well since IMHO most of the disruption (see linked SPI) came from accounts that would not be stopped by 500/30. This TA has sadly seen enough recent socks immune to 500/30 that "guilty until proven innocent" seems necessary for a few years. And after all, we don't generally allow Wikipedia:Open proxies, TOR, or such; and those policies say that users "in good standing" can apply to CU for exemptions per Wikipedia:IP block exemption - so if some Chinese dissident is really interested in this topic area, they can follow the procedure, can't they? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:45, 16 May 2020 (UTC) reply

PS. Just noting that the SPI above has ended and ben archived, with another block for Icewhiz sock KasiaNL ( talk ⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki) that would not be stopped by 500/30 (that account did not reveal its "true nature" until passing the 500/30 threshold). Again, I think 500/30 will help, but it will not stop the most disruptive and dedicated attempts to disrupt the TA. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:15, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Bradv: I concur with Nigel that we should not cast the protection net too widely. Crucially, most of "Polish history in WWII" articles do not intersect with Polish Jews, and have not seen any problematic editing. The disruption is limited to the topic of Polish-Jewish history, mainly related to WWII (which, btw, for Poland starts in 1939, not 1933; there were no Polish Jews or Poles in China or Japan...). I suggest the scope of whatever remedy is here to be limited to "Polish-Jewish history in World War II". I don't think articles related to this topic before or after the war were significantly affected (ex. ghetto benches or Polish 1968 political crisis), though there was some disagreement re the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, but that article wouldn't be covered by your proposed wording anyway, and I am not sure if a remedy for "Polish-Jewish history 1939-present" or even wider would be justified. I think PJ39-45 is enough since most of this is really related to what happened during the war (or immediately afterward, Kielce pogrom, hmmm, but it didn't see disruptive editing yet). -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:45, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by François Robere

Full support. There are a lot of IPs, "socks", newbies and other unfamiliar "faces" around who are very definitely not Icewhiz, [147] [148] [149] [150] [151] [152] [153] [154] [155] [156] who for whatever reasons rarely get reported.

For the sake of everyone's sanity, get it going and stop complaining about editors who are long gone. [157] François Robere ( talk) 10:56, 16 May 2020 (UTC) reply

• @ Zero0000, Nigel Ish, and Nosebagbear: The definition of the TA by admins (and later ArbCom) was always lacking. The scope of these discussions goes beyond WWII both towards current affairs ( LGBT rights, Islamophobia, Law and Justice) and historical events ( Paradisus Judaeorum, History of Jews in Poland). A better definition of the TA would be "World War II and the history of Minorities in Poland, including current affairs". François Robere ( talk) 13:31, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

• @ SlimVirgin:

1. I also ran "Wikiblame" on the Anti-Polish sentiment edit. [158] The account that added it was active for less than a month, and made one more edit that bears the same characteristics - suspiciously anti-Jewish and unsourced. [159] That edit is still in the article. [160]
2. The Numerus clausus bit was first added by PeterC in 2004, [161] but the source was only added in 2016 by Zezen. [162] I couldn't check it, but given that the Numerus Clausus is fundamentally antisemitic and the publisher is a Jewish institution, I find it difficult to believe that it stated it as-is.
3. The addition to Polish Armed Forces in the West has some issues around WP:APL#Article_sourcing_expectations and WP:PRIMARY, but seems interesting enough that it should've been brought to Talk rather than removed as WP:UNDUE.

It's true that none of these would've been done had it not been to some IP or "sock"; but given the preponderance of destructive edits from these classes of editors (including plenty of right-wing ethno-nationalists), as well as the fact that the community has few tools to deal with editors for whom Icewhiz (and anything that vaguely resembles Icewhiz) has become such a major concern that the question of content has been pushed aside, I think that some sort of PP (whether 500/30 or something else) would serve an important role in stabilizing the TA. François Robere ( talk) 10:18, 23 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by MyMoloboaccount

I support making sure Icewhiz socks are finally dealt with, this individual attacked people's families and personal lives in real life and has manipulated numerous articles on Wikipedia that will need years to be corrected, even going as far as claiming that Nazis in Poland only killed Polish "political dissidents". The numerous socks that have been active show a unprecedented level of obsession we know only from some very determined sock masters like English Patriot Man and have already attacked users on their personal talk pages. This shouldn't be happening on encyclopedia. Any form of sock puppetry or meat puppetry for Icewhiz should be dealt with firmly to avoid further manipulations and harassment for the good of the project. -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 11:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Beyond My Ken

(As perhaps the only commenter so far not really involved.) I think that TonyBallioni may be correct, that of the two options offered, 500/30 is the least disruptive. Some editors may worry that 500/30 is becoming too widespread, but my observation is that it's really only used for the most controversial subject areas, and it's largely on our presentation of information in these areas that Wikipedia will judged by our readers. We need to be as squeaky clean as possible on those topics, so that our reputation for accuracy, neutrality and relevance remains as strong as is possible. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 01:24, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Levivich

Sarah made a good point here. Also, WP:PC should be considered as an alternative to 30/500. Levivich  ^{dubious – discuss} 03:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by K.e.coffman

I've been involved in the topic and I'd encourage Arbcom to adopt this amendment. At the very least, SEMI should be applied to remove disruption from IPs in the mainspace, with 30/500 applied to BLPs; see for example my post to RFPP in re: Barbara Engelking:

• A BLP that is a subject of antisemitic editing, such as [163] from an IP or incoherent, also vaguely antisemitic confirmed accounts such as [164].

Still, given the amount of apparently dedicated SPAs and socks, ECP seems the way to go across the board. It works in the Israel-Palestine area and will work in this topic area. It's simply not an area for newbie accounts to cut their teeth on. Good-faith accounts would still be able to post comments and request changes on Talk pages. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 04:24, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Zero0000

I don't edit in this area, but I have a lot of experience with the 500/30 rule in the ARBPIA domain. Any restriction will discourage some good editors, but overall 500/30 has been of benefit to the area. It doesn't prevent all disruptive socking (a particularly bad one was blocked just recently) but it raises the effort enough to keep away all but the most dedicated. Good editors who want to contribute before achieving 500/30 can use the "edit request" feature on the talk page and such requests that are reasonable are usually performed. That also gives us a chance to teach newbies about things like NPOV and RS before they are allowed into articles by themselves. Zero ^talk 14:26, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Regarding the scope, it should include events in the aftermath of WW2 such as the 1946 Kielce pogrom, and it should include modern debate on the subject. I don't know if that follows already from "broadly construed" but any motion should make it clear. Zero ^talk 02:53, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nigel Ish

The problem with the proposed amendment is that the potential scope is colossal - it effectively prohibits IPs and new registered editors from editing anything to do with World War Two in Europe - because Poles fought almost everywhere in Europe, or from editing any article on Polish towns and cities that have a history section that touches on the Second World War - and all this to stop what appears to be a single editor? If this is passed then the disruptive editors will have won. Note that if low traffic articles are locked then edit requests on the talk pages either won't be seen or will be ignored. If you have to use ECP - then you need to make the scope tight to minimise the damage that it causes, otherwise the disruption to the encyclopedia will be too great. Nigel Ish ( talk) 18:08, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Reply to Bradv - The difference is that in practice that the existing rules aren't applied to the whole impossibly diffuse and broadly construed topic area - the actual disruption which this proposal is intended to stop doesn't occur on articles like ORP Błyskawica (Polish warship - "Fewer than 30 watchers") or Supermarine Spitfire (flown by Polish pilots), or SMS M85 (German warship sunk during the invasion of Poland - again "Fewer than 30 watchers") which under this proposal would be under permanent 30/500 protection, which on little watched articles would be an effective prohibition on new editors from editing. Nigel Ish ( talk) 19:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Guerillero

I would ask Arbcom to consider forwarding Icewhiz's past conduct to T&S. They seem to be a good candidate for a SanFranBan and WMF action if they refuse to comply.

That being said, I am slightly worried by the new-found use of Icewhiz's involvement as a "grandma's nightshirt"-type defense by people who, have more than a decade of history editing in a battleground-like way. Icewhiz's socking and harassment are horrible and deserve a SanFranBan, but he showed a clear nationalistic POV and a deficiency in our article on Warsaw concentration camp. I am worried that rolling out 30/500 here will further entrench that POV here on Wikipedia in ways that Israel-Palestine did not because of the smaller pool of interested people. -- Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nosebagbear

If we must have one of these two awful solutions (and yes, despite a couple of comments, ECP definitely is being used too much), then 30/500 should be applied to the narrowest possible branch. The history of Jews and Antisemitism in Poland, including the Holocaust in Poland, broadly construed, is more preferable to the slightly broader one below in the Arbs' section. It's not that it would be applied to every random Polish brigade, but that it will be applied to anything not firmly justified by the case. If it could be handled by usual processes, it should not be handled by a more severe method.

I'd suggest The history of Jews and Antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. as the narrowest viable route, and hope it would be considered. Nosebagbear ( talk) 10:12, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by SarahSV

The Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski wrote an article about Wikipedia for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza in February. He alleges that Polish nationalists are distorting Holocaust history on the English Wikipedia. The newspaper has a daily print circulation of 107,000 and 110,000 digital subscribers ( as of 2017). Is it not possible that some of these new accounts are people in Poland responding to that article? Poland's Act on the Institute of National Remembrance makes it a civil offence to imply that Poland shared responsibility for the Holocaust, which could explain the use of proxies.

Recent examples of good edits that would not have happened with 30/500 protection in place:

1. On 20 May at Numerus clausus, a one-edit account removed what seemed to be a justification for antisemitism (because of the way it was written), supported by a link to a Polish-language book with no further citation details. Piotrus reported the account as an Icewhiz sock and called the edit "POV-pushing".

2. On 19 May at Polish Armed Forces in the West, a new SPA, Semper honestus, added a paragraph about a Polish WWII concentration camp in Scotland and the antisemitism faced by Polish-Jewish soldiers. I haven't checked the edit or the sources, but it has the potential to be an interesting addition to the article. Piotrus removed it. Semper restored. Piotrus removed. Semper followed up on talk, then restored and expanded it.

3. On 12 May at Anti-Polish sentiment, an IP removed an unsourced/poorly sourced and arguably antisemitic passage. It was supported by a bare URL that leads to several articles in Polish, so it's unclear what the source is. The edit concerned a saying, "our tenements, your streets" ("Wasze ulice, nasze kamienice") that was attributed to Jewish landlords in Poland: you own the streets, but we own the buildings ( source). This saying was apparently very damaging. It was added in 2012 without a source by Cambrium, a little-used account. The bare URL source was added in 2019 by Xx236.

Piotrus restored the edit. KasiaNL, now blocked as an Icewhiz sock, removed it with the edit summary "source abuse". Piotrus restored. Another SPA removed it. Folly Mox, a sporadically used account, restored. François Robere removed it as unsourced and started a discussion on talk.

50/300 would have prevented all of the above, and there are many more such examples in this topic area. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Noting that I (and I'm sure other arbs) have read the thread, but I'm waiting a couple of days for more input before commenting. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:38, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply
• I find the proposal reasonable. Maxim_(talk) 13:11, 17 May 2020 (UTC) reply
• Waiting for more input like NYB. Both PC and SEMI do not require any ArbCom motion and can already be applied under WP:PP where disruption allows for it although of course that won't stop autoconfirmed socks. While I'm not a fan of flagged revisions as used by other projects, maybe these kinds of problems make it worthwhile reconsidering authorizing WP:PC2 as a tool like ECP (i.e. only to be used with strict ArbCom oversight and authorization)? Regards So Why 08:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply
• This is a very reasonable request. Since the ban of Icewhiz, good-faith editors in this topic area have spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with edits from new users and trying to figure out whether they are legitimate new users or a very experienced editor pretending to be new, and we need some new tools to be able to deal with that. Even without the sockpuppetry aspect, it makes considerable sense for new users not to be able to edit the content directly given the extra sourcing expectations in effect. I also concur with TonyBallioni's assessment that pending changes is not the blanket solution here – while it may work for some low-traffic articles, the system completely falls apart when the article is subject to edit warring or edit conflicts, particularly between autoconfirmed and non-autoconfirmed editors. I shall work on a motion. – bradv 🍁 16:01, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

  @ Nigel Ish and TonyBallioni: this is the same topic area that is currently subject to the article sourcing restriction of this case. Would it not make sense to keep these two in sync?

  I realize that this is going to prevent some good-faith editors from making their edits directly, but it's a trade off against the amount of disruption present in this topic area. Extended-confirmed edit requests usually get tended to quite promptly, and there is a much larger pool of editors capable of dealing with these requests than there are admins familiar with the behaviour of Icewhiz socks. – bradv 🍁 18:51, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

  @ Nigel Ish: Rather than change the topic area, the other option would be to only authorize this for areas with a history of disruption or sockpuppetry, or where an uninvolved administrator believes that such disruption will be likely. I agree that an article about a warship isn't likely to cause a problem. TonyBallioni, thoughts? – bradv 🍁 19:32, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

• Also waiting for some more input, but I hear the complaints about disruption and I'm leaning toward supporting Bradv's motion as something we should try. @ Guerillero: T&S has been aware for some time. Katie ^talk 15:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Motion: Antisemitism in Poland

Enacted - Moneytrees🌴 ^{Talk🌲 Help out at CCI!} 18:57, 30 May 2020 (UTC) reply

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4

Support

1. Proposed, per my comments above. – bradv 🍁 16:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply
2. Reluctant support. Reluctant because 500/30 represents a serious step back from our general policy of welcoming new editors to contribute to the encyclopedia, and it's a shame it is ever necessary to impose it. Support because I accept the consensus of those most experienced with this topic-area that such a drastic step has become necessary in this instance. I hope that it won't be necessary to continue this level of protection permanently and that at some point we will be able to relax it. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 16:37, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply
3. Basically what NYB said (more eloquently than I could have). Regards So Why 19:23, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply
4. Maxim_(talk) 19:13, 22 May 2020 (UTC) reply
5. Support. unfortunately seems to be the best solution. DGG ( talk ) 18:08, 26 May 2020 (UTC) reply
6. Katie ^talk 17:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Oppose

Discussion

• I've wordsmithed this a bit so as not to provide overlap with DS already in effect for the Eastern Europe topic area. Blocks, topic bans, and other remedies should be handled through DS – the intent of this motion is to allow preemptive extended-confirmed protection of articles in this topic area. Further comments and wordsmithing welcome. – bradv 🍁 17:58, 18 May 2020 (UTC) reply

  I think we should adopt Nosebagbear's suggestion of a narrower topic area. We can always add new areas if it proves necessary but I agree with Nosebagbear that there are sufficient examples of articles that this would apply to that are not (currently) the focus of these disruptive activities and are also unlikely to become the focus in the future. Regards So Why 10:45, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

  Amended to use Nosebagbear's wording. I know this is still a bit broader than Piotrus suggests, but this should also cover the rise of antisemitism prior to 1939, which has also been a point of contention. – bradv 🍁 15:17, 19 May 2020 (UTC) reply

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Initiated by Volunteer Marek at 07:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland/Proposed_decision#Volunteer_Marek_topic-banned_2

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Volunteer Marek ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland/Proposed_decision#Volunteer_Marek_topic-banned_2

• Topic ban is removed

Statement by Volunteer Marek

This is an appeal of my topic ban “from the history of Poland during World War II, including the Holocaust in Poland” as enacted on September 22, 2019, per the portion of the decision which states This topic ban may be appealed after one year has elapsed. [165]

Both myself and User:Icewhiz were topic-banned as a result of the case and we were both subject to an interaction ban. Subsequently for reasons which the committee should be familiar with, and which I mention below, Icewhiz was indefinitely banned from English Wikipedia, and then by the office, from all WikiMedia projects. Also relevant is the fact that WikiMedia’s Trust and Safety team assisted me in addressing the off-wiki harassment that Icewhiz was pursuing against me. [166] [167]

At the outset I would like to bring to the committee’s attention the fact that my topic ban which resulted from the case was NOT based on any issue with the contents of my edit to article space. There were no findings of facts relating to POV or abuse of sources or any other similar issues. Instead, the topic ban was the result of the nature of my interactions with User:Icewhiz, on talk pages and various discussions. In particular I received the TB because the committee found that both of us displayed a battleground attitude, that I was incivil to Icewhiz, that I accused him of “making stuff up” (incidentally, Icewhiz’s own topic ban was based at least partly on the committee having similar issues with Icewhiz’s edits, particularly on BLPs [168]). At same time the committee acknowledged that Icewhiz had made false accusations against me, [169] made ethnically derogatory remarks, used inflammatory rhetoric and attempted to make extremely insulting insinuations against me. [170]

Essentially, the committee did not find anything wrong with my edits but did issue the topic ban for my incivil attitude towards him. This is understandable as I acknowledge that I did not always react well to Icewhiz’s provocations, especially given their extremely serious nature. I want to stress that Icewhiz was the only person that has managed to provoke such a reaction in me, and that even committee members acknowledged that there were no such problems with my editing outside of this narrow dispute (Arbitrator PreMeditatedChaos wrote in one of the relevant Findings of Fact: even Icewhiz has pointed out that VM's behavior is not an issue except in this topic area [171])

As such, in addition to more than a full year having elapsed, with Icewhiz being indefinitely banned from all WikiMedia project the reason for the topic ban has ceased to exist. In fact, given the subsequent events – the campaign of harassment that Icewhiz launched against me and numerous other Wikipedia editors (including several admins) – I had considered appealing the topic ban even before the one year deadline elapsed. In the end, because I was (and still am) very busy in real life with work and family issue, I decided that I might as well wait out the full year.

Even though Icewhiz is no longer on Wikipedia (although there was extensive socking in early 2020, however, the arbitration motion you guys passed in May [172] which implemented the 500/30 restriction seems to have been quite successful in curbing it) I do want to note that I have had quite a bit of time to rethink and reflect upon the events leading up to the arbitration case and the topic ban. I fully admit that I overreacted at the time and should have worked harder at keeping my cool. Lack of subsequent issues (*) in the year following should show that.

At the same time I also want to mention that my overall engagement with Wikipedia has been substantially reduced. This is mostly due to being much busier in real life for reasons related to the covid pandemic.

Thanks for the consideration and take care of yourselves

(*) In the interest of full disclosure I should note that early on, about a week or two after the enactment of the topic ban, I did violate it and was given a short block as a result of an AE report, enacted by Bradv. The topic ban went into effect on September 22, 2019. The block was on October 10, 2019. I have not been sanctioned for any violations of the topic ban since then (more than a year) and that instance happened in part due to my misunderstanding of the scope of the ban (the edit concerned an author’s work about World War I, although the same author was also known for writing about World War II)

@ Beeblebrox: Honestly, since this was in April/May of last year, which is eons in Wikipedia time I don't even remember off the top off my head what this was about (apparently, Levivich couldn't remember it either since he had to go do digging for it only after your prompted them to follow up their vague accusations). Checking back through history, it seems that with regards to his diff 2 and diff 3 (same thing) there was an allegation that an edit of my violated the topic ban. I thought at the time they didn't since my edit concerned POST WAR Polish history, which would be outside the scope ban. There was some discussion on the issue, with finally User:El C saying that "the topic ban violation is not clear cut" [173]. Basically, while my edit was NOT about the topic there was a chunk of (newly added!) material in the relevant article that was (which I didn't touch, as El C explicitly noted "Volunteer Marek limits himself just to a discussion of the post-war time period (which he has been doing)"). However, he also pointed out that the fact that a different portion of the article dealt with WW2 would make it difficult for me to discuss some of the relevant issues on talk w/o violating the TB. That was a fair point. As a result I said ok, just to be sure, I won't edit the article anymore [174].

Sometimes it's very difficult to know what is covered and what is not covered by a given topic ban, especially since, as I noted elsewhere, World War 2 casts such a huge shadow over Polish history and culture that editing almost anything related to Poland will sooner or later bring you close to that topic. If this here was a topic ban violation (and it's not clear it was) then it was inadvertent one and I think I proceeded correctly - after it was brought to an admin's attention and they said it was "borderline", I disengaged from the article. I haven't edited it since. The matter was resolved and it hasn't come up again.

Levivich was NOT involved in this dispute in any capacity. I'm not sure why he feels that he in particular has to bring it here or what his motivation for doing so is. Volunteer Marek 01:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Buidhe

Unfortunately, I am not able to support this appeal, because I do not think it would be a net positive for the project or the topic area. Just over a week ago, they inserted this unhelpful comment on a dispute that they are not involved in. [175] Note, no evidence that I was edit warring was presented, nor did VM file a complaint against edit warring at another page, to be decided by an administrator. (I believe this is a spill-over from a content dispute on List of genocides by death toll, where VM is arguing for the inclusion of Polish Operation as a genocide. Arguably this skirts their topic ban because of the proximity to World War II.) ( t · c) buidhe 19:26, 11 December 2020 (UTC) reply

The point is that VM is accusing me of edit warring across a number of pages. If it was true, he should have filed a report with all the evidence so that an uninvolved administrator could take appropriate action. (It's irrelevant whether or not there was edit warring on one particular page that VM never edited.) This comment seems to me to be a symptom of battleground attitude, which, I hope you agree, is not the behavior that is needed in this topic area.

I am skeptical that the long-running POV and content problems, as described by Ealdgyth just four months ago, will be fixed by the current crop of editors, especially now that it is proposed only Icewhiz remains blocked from the original case and new editors are frequently accused of being their socks. Some are but what environment is being created for good faith editors? [176] [177] ( t · c) buidhe 17:23, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Levivich

I was going to stay out of this, but it's just not true (as arbs state below) that VM hasn't violated his topic ban since Bradv's block in October 2019. He's been warned for tban violations since then (for example, see his UTP history). There are also AE/AN/ANI threads in the last year; I don't remember offhand if they were for problems in or outside the topic area, or if they had any merit. But neither I nor any other member of the community should have to go digging to present this history to Arbcom. VM ought to list all of these things for the arbs to review. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 16:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Beeblebrox: OK: April 2020: User talk:Levivich/Archive 6#Support your allegation or strike it; May 2020: Special:Permalink/956951981#Topic ban and Special:Permalink/956952564#Please .... If an editor appealing a TBAN should be able to demonstrate that they have edited non-disruptively in other topic areas, then we should look at their editing in other topic areas, e.g. August 2020 Kenosha riots ANI (re copy and paste move and move warring) which resulted in a formal warning (for moves at the Biden and Kenosha pages); August 2020 ANI (re Steve Bannon, inc. group tban proposal that did not succeed); and Sep 2020 UTP thread about edit warring at Turning Point USA and Steele dossier articles. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list; it's just the things that I happen to recall. (I'm not pinging the various admins involved so as not to be accused of canvassing.) Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 21:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Piotrus

The topic ban is one of the few remaining vestiges of the Icewhiz-era. It made mild sense as a way to prevent BATTLEGROUND that Icewhiz was creating and too often goading VM into engaging him (IIRC it came as a set combo with the interaction ban and Ice received the mirror equivalents of both of these as well). Now that Icewhiz is gone (the main account, as he still continues socking and real-life harassment and manipulation, for which he was site banned - Trust&Safety can provide further details if any ArbCom member requires them, I am sure) it makes no sense to keep VM restricted; all it does is that it still empowers Icewhiz behind the scenes and as such it is one of his 'victories' we can and should undo to move on.

Regarding preceding comments by Buidhe and Levivich, they are either disappointing petty attempts to keep people one disagreed with under the heel and out of one's hair, or worse, evidence of proxying for Icewhiz. Levivich has not been much active in the topic areas VM frequents/ed, and I think neither had interacted much with VM, yet now we see some obscure diffs from articles they never edited or discussions they did not participate in (!) concerning editor they should not care about. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by El_C

I commend members of the Committee for expressing views in favour of, as well as an immediate motion, to rescind the ban. That is the right call. Not least because I don't think there's any indication that Volunteer Marek is likely to edit disruptively in the topic area. I'd like to also add the following emphasis to the record: the level of harassment that Volunteer Marek has endured (that I know of) is so beyond the pale, it's truly sickening. So needless to say, wide latitude should be extended to him for any past misconduct or near-misconduct which were directly impacted by this sinister and nefarious abuse. Anyway, looks like all is going well as far as this amendment is concerned — apologies in advance to VM in case I just jinxed it! El_C 05:17, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Piotrus, while I disagree with Buidhe and Levivich here, I think it's inappropriate of you to raise the specter that one or both of them might be "proxying for Icewhiz." Beyond sensing intuitively that this is highly (highly) unlikely to be the case, they are both editors in good standing. They should not have to suffer such aspersions, just because you perceive the veracity of their position to fall short. El_C 05:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Cullen 328

It seems obvious to me that removing this topic ban, imposed when the editor was under extreme harassment by the banned Icewhiz, is a good thing for the encyclopedia, and I hope that the arbs will come to the same conclusion. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nihil novi

The now-banned Icewhiz's misbehaviors on Wikipedia, prior to his ban and since, have been truly egregious and should be counted as an extenuating circumstance to some of VM's responses to Icewhiz's provocative actions. I believe it is time to welcome VM back to a subject area to which he can make substantial contributions.

Thank you.

Nihil novi ( talk) 22:29, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by Peacemaker67

I am a great fan of TBANs, which usually work well to protect controversial areas of the project subject to Arbitration cases from egregious disruption by POV-pushers. However, I don't think this description applies to VM's behaviour that led to the TBAN. Considering Icewhiz has been ejected, and VM doesn't appear to have clearly breached the TBAN, I think Arbs should accept VM's request in good faith. Of course, in the tradition of supplying people with enough rope, VM should be under no illusions that any future disruption in the TBAN space will likely result in an indefinite TBAN. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 01:40, 14 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Noting that I'm amenable to lifting the topic ban - but want to hear community thoughts first. When I supported the topic ban, I did not feel strongly that it was required - but given VM's history in similar areas I thought a suggestion of moving elsewhere would be helpful. Given subsequent events - and assuming there has been no flare up, I am willing to concede it is no longer (and perhaps was never) needed. Worm^TT( talk) 08:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply
• The topic ban (and most of the other remedies in Arbitration of Poland) was based almost entirely on the two-way dispute between VM and Icewhiz. Since Icewhiz has been indefinitely banned, and there have apparently been no issues with the topic ban for a year, I agree that it no longer serves a purpose. I support lifting it and have proposed a motion. –  Joe ( talk) 12:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply
• Buidhe, the administrator who closed that report also concluded you were edit warring, so that comment doesn't seem off the mark to me. ( Report 1, Report 2). – bradv 🍁 16:33, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply
• @ Levivich: I barely know where to begin replying to your remarks. Suffice it to say that if you are going to make accusations the onus is indeed on you to back them up with evidence. Beeblebrox ( talk) 20:07, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• @ Volunteer Marek: I think we need to know what you might have to say about the diffs now provided by Levivich. It does look like there were further violations of the tban that went unreported. Beeblebrox ( talk) 22:58, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply

• Thank you for your reply. Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:58, 13 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Antisemitism in Poland: Motion

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4

Enacted - KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:28, 18 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Support

1. Proposed. –  Joe ( talk) 12:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply
2. As VM mentions, I blocked him for violating this topic ban over a year ago, and as far as I'm aware he has not violated it since. In my opinion the topic ban has outlived its usefulness. – bradv 🍁 16:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply
3. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC) reply
4. I've mulled this over a bit and I think the risk in removing the tban is minimal. I can't really hold the more recent possible violations against Marek as the community members who saw them felt it was not egregious enough to report them, and I do believe there were, and still are, mitigating circumstances. Beeblebrox ( talk) 02:48, 15 December 2020 (UTC) reply
5. Katie ^talk 01:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply
6. I think it's worth a shot but I echo Peacemaker67's comment regarding WP:ROPE. DS are still authorized in this area per WP:ARBEE, so if problems occur, a new topic ban can be instated under the regular DS regime. Regards So Why 08:18, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply
7. I thank the community for their comments, and have taken them on board, but since I was reticent about the need for this when it was put in place and given the non-egregious nature of breaches (thanks for the discussion on those), I'm willing to rescind this Worm^TT( talk) 08:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Oppose

1. the history in this area of editing is too long. DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Recuse

Comments

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Initiated by Girth Summit at 15:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland#Article sourcing expectations

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Girth Summit ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Girth Summit

The background to this request is in the lengthy discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#The Volunteer (book), and there is some further discussion at User talk:DGG#Request for help with a request for clarification. I am not asking for the committee to make a decision on the specific source under discussion at those locations; however, the discussions seem to have reached something of an impasse because of people's differing understandings of how we should interpret the remedy's wording. I am therefore asking the committee to consider three questions:

1. Is it within the scope of the committee to impose restrictions on the use of certain types of sources within a particular topic area, as this remedy does? I have no view on this point, but the question has been raised in the above-mentioned discussions, so I ask that it be considered and, if it is found to be beyond the committee's scope, that the remedy be vacated.
2. Is the remedy still needed to prevent disruption? Again, I have no view on this, but if the committee feels that the restriction is no longer required, I request that it be vacated.
3. If the committee finds that the remedy is legitimate and that it remains necessary, I ask for some clarification of how administrators should interpret the phrase 'academically focused books'.

In the above-linked discussions, a number of different possible interpretations of that phrase have been put forward. Some have suggested that its intention is to allow the use of any book which is written about an academic subject (such as history). Others have argued that it allows the use of any book that is written using academic methodologies. I myself have interpreted it more narrowly, believing that the intention was to restrict sources to work intended for an academic audience, which would usually (but not quite always) have been written by an academic and published by an academic press. It seems unlikely to me that the committee would have intended to restrict any periodicals aside from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, but then to allow the use of popular histories and/or heroic biographies which, however well-researched, are not 'academically focused' in my understanding of the phrase.

Please note that I have intentionally not named any other editors as parties to this request, simply to avoid giving anyone any unnecessary alarm. I have no reason to believe that any of the parties to the discussions I've linked to are acting in anything but good faith, we have simply reached an impasse because of our different interpretations of this particular phrase. I will notify all users involved in the discussions about this request. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

I'll respond briefly to Volunteer Marek's point about the Fairweather book: it is a mischaracterisation of the linked discussion to suggest that the book's publisher is the only (or even the main) reason why people have argued that it is not academically focused. Anyone can read through that discussion if they choose to; I suggest that we keep this clarification request focused on the wider issue of the remedy and its wording, and resist any temptation to rehash those disagreements here. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Thanks Barkeep49 for the ping. Thanks also to the many editors who have contributed to this discussion, and to the Arbs for reading through and considering everyone's thoughts patiently, I think this has been a really illuminating discussion. However, I agree with Piotrus's recent comment that the proposed new motions do not really address my question 3, which is really what sparked this request for clarification: it does not help us understand what is meant by 'academically focused books'. Periodical sources are well-defined - 'peer-reviewed scholarly journals' is not open to very much interpretation, but in the discussion that led to this there was essentially an impasse about what books were acceptable within the remedy. If this restriction is to remain in place by any of these proposed motions, I'd be grateful for some form of verbiage to help guide editors and administrators as to how that phrase is intended to be read - is it about the book's subject matter, the author and their methodologies, or the book's intended audience? Or, is the conclusion of this discussion that it is about an undefinable combination of factors, which means that an RfC may be required each time there is disagreement? If this last possibility is the case, it would be worth noting that somewhere to alleviate Piotrus's concern that he may one day be dragged to AE for use of a source that another editor sees as prohibited - admins acting in AE should be made aware that it's open to interpretation, and that case-by-case discussion is required rather than knee-jerk enforcement. GirthSummit _(blether) 05:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Barkeep49 Sorry, I wasn't trying to twist your arm into doing something you've already declined to do (well, not trying very hard). If the committee isn't able to offer any further clarification of the intended meaning of that phrase, I can accept that position, and will continue to act with caution as you advise. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by El_C

First of all, kudos to Girth Summit for the no-fault design of this ARCA (and thanks for letting me know about it). I see you! Now, I don't presume to speak for the Committee, about WP:APLRS or whatever (except when I do, often!), but questions 1 + 2 just seem like an obvious yes to me. It is question 3 that is really of interest here, I think. Elucidation from the Committee on this would serve well to better editorial practices, content-wise, and admin ones, enforcement-wise.

Finally, returning to questions 1+2: it is no secret that I strongly believe that the darkest chapter in our species' history demands WP:MEDRS-like sourcing requirements (APLRS' community-passed sourcing requirement counterpart). I think this was well within Committee discretion to mandate, and one of the best and most important Arbitration decisions bar none, in fact. Especially, considering the intensive whitewashing efforts by the Polish state, as can be seen in its Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance. El_C 16:15, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Great post, Guy. Like. I resisted the usual WP:TLDR impulses and was rewarded with probably the best statement in this ARCA thus far (it'll be hard to top). El_C 15:38, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the ping, Barkeep49, I sorta forgot about this ARCA and had no idea there was a Motion to repeal. I suppose my response to this Motion is that there's basically a continuum with too possibilities: 1. a not needed source of contention. 2. a source of contention because it's needed. Obviously, I lean 2, but if Committee members lean 1 and/or are just shying from asserting ArbCom's authority (a recent and disturbing trend, I note unrelatedly), then it is what it is. But I will say this: if this repeal happens and this ends up blowing up, I'm unlikely to take it upon myself to help in too significant of a way, for all of these reasons and more. El_C 19:08, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Piotrus, I think you're sidestepping the point. From an enforcement perspective, I approached the APL sourcing requirement as needing to be invoked by editors in order for it to come into effect. If nobody minds something, nobody minds something (tautology). Anyway, much of the remedy not needed argument seems counter-factual to me, because how do you truly account for its influence, say, in quiet editorial work? In the final analysis, we would be foolish to look at the English Wikipedia in a vacuum, disconnected from the stance and actions of the modern Polish state about this, with all the unique challenges that bring. This isn't a binary one side wants to maximize, other side wants to minimize Polish culpability in the destruction of the European Jews and-let-the-scholarship-decide matter. It just isn't. El_C 09:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC) reply

About the scope of ArbCom's authority: maybe I'm the one who is out of step with current thinking, but (to simplify) my thinking has always been that the representative democracy of the elected Committee was designed to deal with matters that are too nuanced or too research-intensive or just plainly too contentious for the direct democracy of the community to resolve. I think we all know that APLRS would probably not pass an RfA if it gets desysoped — I know, kind of a dumb analogy, because the community didn't !vote for APLRS, but it did vote (vote-vote) for the Committee (thus, bringing it all back around). El_C 03:29, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Piotrus, it all adds to up toward culpability or lack thereof, not necessarily directly, but in more nuanced ways. So, a bit of abstract thinking is called for for correctly generalizing major tendencies and trends. On APLRS as anxiety-inducing: I've clarified on multiple occasions that APLRS would not bring about immediate sanctions whenever it is invoked in a page. It is not that kind of sanction, and in that sense, it is closer to Consensus required than 1RR or TBAN violations (at least that's how I've been treating it). From an enforcement view, it is not a blunt instrument. It cannot be that.

Again, I return to the concerted efforts of the modern Polish state, which few here seem to want to touch on. But that's a mistake. The Polish state is very committed. Other countries also espouse WP:FRINGE content, too. But a country, say, like Iran (twice the population of Poland), for example, does so to a far lesser extent, I find. And yet, we have WP:GS/IRANPOL (which I helped create, so I'm familiar with it more than in passing), which just goes to show the seriousness of the problem. Removing the governor is a mistake, then, in my view.

Because also, once APLRS is removed, it may be very challenging to restore, even if it proves sorely needed (which I suspect it will). Once removed, my sense is that the deck will be very much stacked against its restoration. Note that I understand an ArbCom-directed community re-confirmation of APLRS as an effective "removal" (i.e. RfA of someone who got desysoped, as in the analogy above). El_C 16:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Volunteer Marek, I wasn't talking about press freedom indicators, because obviously Poland is just a bad dream compared to the nightmare that is Iran. I meant, the concerted efforts of espousing historical revisionism, especially outside of the country's own borders (at least as affecting the English-speaking world and, hence, the English Wikipedia). El_C 17:20, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Paul, I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure how practical it is. And, further, I'd emphasize that APLRS is needed as a more focused remedy for that topic area, for all of the reasons I've outlined above (which I'll spare you the repetition of). El_C 18:06, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Piotrus, please don't use 'serial killer'-like to describe any editor — even banned ones, even Icewhiz. That is totally inappropriate, and a BLP violation. Anyway, I mentioned before how I felt Icewhiz [et al.?] was more of a symptom (of key changes to Polish law and to the aims of the Polish state), but I don't really wish to expound and expand on that in this forum (if at all).

You say espousing FRINGE/historical revisionism on the part of the Polish state is debatable. Well, I don't think it's debatable, but I'm not inclined to debate it right here right now, either. I'll just link to Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance again, which I think speaks for itself.

Regardless, please don't draw me into a back and fourth here, Piotrus. I don't really want to do that (content weeds, etc.). Finally, about APLRS violations not being immediately-sanctionable — if it's a problem, that's something which the Committee could easily resolve by amending the remedy to account for that extra softness. El_C 03:34, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I think the "reliable-source consensus required" Alternate motion is a good compromise. Instead of APLRS serving as a blanket prohibition for all related pages, it can be more surgically applied (upon request and so on). Not to jinx it, but it looks like this motion is likely to pass, which is good. So, I want to strengthen Committee members who have voted for it and ones who may yet do so. This will wrap up this highly contentious issue in a way I find satisfactory. And unexpectedly creative, so kudos. El_C 11:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by François Robere

First of all thanks to GirthSummit for opening this and notifying everyone.

1. I suggest anyone who is less familiar with the case re/acquaint themselves with the evidence regarding problematic sourcing that led to APLRS being enacted.
2. Sourcing continues to be an issue in the TA: [178] [179] [180] [181] [182] [183]. There are also ancillary discussions on contemporary Poland: [184] [185].
3. I recommend that the restriction be kept, and expanded with the following:

1. Editors removing a source for failing to comply with this restriction must specify the reason it fails to comply. Sources thus removed may not be reinstated without prior discussion.
   • This is meant to encourage discussion and prevent edit warring, but in a way that's flexible enough to keep the process short and make "stonewalling" difficult (thanks to editors who helped hone this).
2. Repeated removal of compliant sources under a pretense of non-compliance is equivalent to repeated insertion of non-compliant sources.
   • This will not prevent editors from removing compliant sources for legitimate reasons (OR, DUE, BLP...), only from abusing APLRS (thanks to Paul Siebert for proposing this).

François Robere ( talk) 16:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Added explanation. François Robere ( talk) 22:30, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• @ Barkeep49: I agree regarding representing minority viewpoints, and I don't believe we've done a disservice to such by sticking with these restriction. However, fringe positions tend to be minority positions, and those we are trying to filter out.
  Regarding Glaukopis: "only peer reviewed sources should be used" does not imply that "peers reviewed sources should be used". Glaukopis may present itself as equal to other academic publications, but there's no getting away from its inherent problems and low standing in academia, and ejecting it from this sensitive TA based on those was a clear application of APLRS: only high quality sources, only reputable institution, and not every fringe publication set up by 'renegade historians' with the express intent of promoting like views. François Robere ( talk) 22:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Barkeep49: Add Guy, Ealdgyth and Sarah to the list of admins who know the TA and have approved of this remedy. François Robere ( talk) 22:19, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply
    • @ L235 and Barkeep49: If you could review my previous suggestions (in block quotes, above) in light of your new drafts. The suggestions are meant to encourage discussion and prevent edit warring, "stonewalling" and GAMING of the rules:
      1. Mandatory consensus prior to reinstatement of sources would be beneficial, but it also opens up avenues for " stonewalling". I opted for a more flexible "discussion needed" to prevent that, though accepting RSN consensus could be similarly useful.
      2. Requiring a specific justification for removing a source is meant to prevent mass removals and GAMING. The level of specificity doesn't need to be high to be useful: for example, instead of an edit summary saying just "APLRS" or "not APLRS compliant", one could simply specify "news source, not APLRS-compliant" or "not peer reviewed (see APLRS)".
      3. Equating the removal of compliant sources with the insertion of non-compliant ones is also meant to prevent mass removals and GAMING. The rationale is that repeated removal of compliant sources creates a similar bias to repeated inserting of non-compliant ones, so it should be treated as similarly disruptive. François Robere ( talk) 14:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply
      • @ Barkeep49: For the removal of doubt, when a source that is a "high quality source" is added and subsequently challenged by reversion, then it may be reinstated under the usual rules ( WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS, etc.) rather than those specified below for all other sources. Correct? François Robere ( talk) 16:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

• @ Maxim: "Exceptional claims" are already covered by the regular guidelines, and we routinely incorporate the concept into how we read APLRS. I don't think it's a good idea to shift the emphasis from general practice to that, since the definition is ambiguous and could result in abuse, without much improvement in the overall quality of writing. What we could do is exempt non-controversial or uncontested details, but again that's something we already do, though less frequently.
  Overall APLRS is not that difficult to abide by, but it does get difficult if you've something to prove. François Robere ( talk) 22:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Maxim: We're at a point where the back of the dispute has been broken Hardly. A short while after WP:APL was concluded three other editors were blocked or T-banned; [186] [187] [188] [189] in June another one was blocked (the imposing admin, who was knee-deep in the TA, has since been desysopped); [190] in August an I-ban was imposed between three editors; [191] in February an editor was blocked T-banned for canvassing; [192] and by March one editor had received so many warnings (including for a dedicated attack page [193]), that an admin had literally asked "how many times do I need to tell you?". [194] This dispute is so far from "broken" it's not even funny. François Robere ( talk) 11:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply
    • @ Beeblebrox: Re: "if this was needed, it probably isn't now", see my reply to Maxim above. François Robere ( talk) 22:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Maxim and CaptainEek:
    1. The "problems" with the remedy only apply to corner cases like The Volunteer, since these are the ones that you see discussed. What you don't see is the long list of blogs, websites, SPS, politicians, and other unqualified sources which would've been fought for under RS, but are summarily removed under APLRS. Consider not only what we argue about, but what we don't.
    2. Consider, for example, the technical specifications of a Polish naval ship from WWII... any reliable source for naval history should do Yes, it should. We've discussed it before, and there's little reason not to see eg. Jane's or Lloyd's as "reputable publishers" under APLRS.
    3. Regarding "uncontroversial facts": How do you define "uncontroversial"? Witold Pilecki being a "volunteer" is pretty uncontroversial in Poland, as are various perceptions of Polish exceptionalism regarding Jews; we can find any number of sources that promote these ideas and would be accepted under RS, but not under APLRS.
    4. I don't think APLRS should be used to "blank" pages, nor do I think it requires it. The fact that a couple of editors have done it isn't reason enough to jettison the entire policy. Instead, just instruct editors to use {{ unreliable sources}} for a reasonable length of time (30-60 days?) so the article can be re-sourced. François Robere ( talk) 14:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• @ Piotrus: I created Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study and Havi Dreifuss; am the top contributor to Collaboration in German-occupied Poland, and one of the top contributors to Home Army, Collaboration with the Axis Powers, Racism in Poland, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017, Jan Grabowski, Szmalcownik, Koniuchy massacre, Żydokomuna, Institute of National Remembrance and a few others, and I stand by my statement that "overall APLRS is not that difficult to abide by, but it does get difficult if you've something to prove". François Robere ( talk) 12:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Piotrus: Unfortunately not all of us get paid to lurk work around here, and we want to make sure whatever time we can spare for the project is spent on meaningful contributions, not on arguments on whether Michael Schudrich or Jeremy Beadle are RS on WWII. [195] I don't think APLRS presents insurmountable difficulties to experienced editors, as evidenced by the support of such veterans as JzG, El C, Buidhe, SarahSV, and (presumably) Ealdgyth and K.e.coffman.
    I replaced a couple of sources at Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study at your prompting, [196] since I apply the same standards to my work as I apply to everyone else's. It incurred some added work, but if we moved the goalposts every time they didn't suit our purpose, [197] we'd end up where we were before APLRS: with much worse sources throughout the TA.
    And BTW, that 1946 book? That's the actual publication of the Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study, and it's used only as a reference for itself under WP:ABOUTSELF. François Robere ( talk) 15:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply
    • @ Piotrus: No COI implied, merely stating the fact that it's easier to clock hours on an activity when it's both one's hobby and one's trade, than when it's just one's bad habit.
      Both WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:BLP [198] [199] are valid under APLRS, for two reasons: first, because APLRS augments certain aspects of WP:RS, not replaces the whole policy. Second, because APLRS is focused on a particular time period and context, and extending it beyond those can have in deleterious consequences without marked improvement in article quality. This is the case with both current affairs and WP:ABOUTSELF (bibliographies, recollections and responses would all have to be removed), and I don't think that was the intent of APLRS. François Robere ( talk) 17:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply
      • @ Piotrus: For sure. I'm only concerned in that section with instances where APLRS is invoked unduly. The fact that we're required to use only high-quality sources does not mean we should use every high-quality source. François Robere ( talk) 10:20, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Pinging TonyBallioni to #Alternative motion, since he has a list of pages covered under APLRS, which was compiled in collaboration with Piotrus and myself. François Robere ( talk) 12:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by My very best wishes

On #1. I believe that any sourcing/content restrictions should be decided by community, just as WP:MEDRS was developed. The discussion would help to properly decide if such restrictions are actually needed and improve the quality of such restrictions. This sourcing restriction by Arbcom arbitrary changes Wikipedia:Verifiability, one of the "five pillars". Is not it something for community?

On #2: Subject areas are different. Yes, I can understand the rationale behind the WP:MEDRS ("Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based...".), even though I do not necessarily agree with it. Now, let's imagine not allowing journalistic sources and original peer reviewed articles (as WP:MEDRS does) in the area of history and politics. That would be a disaster. This is because many notable but less significant sub-subjects are covered only (or mostly) in such excluded sources. Sure, if there are scholarly and non-scholarly sources, then the scholarly ones are preferred, but this is already written in the policy.

On #3 (@CaptainEek) and #2. Yes, we must use the best sources. But the best sources depend on the specific narrowly defined subject or question that needs to be described. For example, the best and most detailed biography of person X can be a book written for the general public by someone without a PhD degree (just like the "Volunteer"). Moreover, a specific question or aspect can frequently be described in detail only in a few journalistic publications and mentioned in passing in several books. But with such sourcing restriction, such content simply can not be included to a page, even though it frequently should. Furthermore, it is important to use not only the best sources, but all RS on the subject (we are not talking about questionable sources here). By removing certain types of RS, we betray WP:NPOV and make our pages more biased. I agree with DGG.

• But as a practical matter, this is just a too complex remedy to be useful on AE. All highly complex editing restrictions are ineffective. They must be very simple and understandable for users to be enforced on AE.

• @Barkeep49. I am not sure how one can answer "yes" to #2 without clarifying question #3. For example, Beyond My Ken (see below) gives a reasonable interpretation of Arbcom wording on #3. Well, if that is what Arbcom wanted, then fine, let's follow this interpretation when someone will be reported to WP:AE for using self-published sources by academics.

• With regard to #3, we must know what did you mean by "academically focused" (there are many alternative interpretations, including one by BMK below) and by "reputable institutions". Do such "reputable institutions" include reputable journals, like NYT? If this is not clear even to VM, then how that can be clear to other participants? They need to know exactly what they can not use in order to avoid sanctions on AE.
• However, if you and other arbitrators find it difficult to answer question #3 and believe this should be determined by discussions in community (as you seem to imply), then it should be framed as an RfC and be supported (or not) by the community in a properly organized discussion.

• As about diffs, I can only give these two links: [200] and [201] because they involve myself. This is the case when such editing restrictions were improperly claimed to cover another subject area that is not about Poland. The result: (a) I simply stopped editing all affected pages to avoid the trouble; (b) the affected pages were degraded by excluding well-sourced and relevant content [202], [203].

• @Maxim. While there is a justification for making sourcing restrictions for medical claims (what if people are looking for a medical advice?), there is absolutely nothing special about subjects related to Poland, and therefore there is no justification for treating this subject any differently from other hot political topics (Armenian genocide, ARBPIA, USA politics, etc.). This is an attempt to fix behavior problems by ruling on content. Arbitrary narrowing the types of sources is ruling on content because this excludes a number of reliably sourced claims from WP pages, simply because such claims were not mentioned as less significant in academic books. For example, this edit by Bob not snob removes a lot of non-controversial and relevant information that should be included to the page. But it well may be that such info does not appear in academic books, but only in good RS denoted as "Tier 2" here. As another example, making MEDRS restrictions (instead of WP:Verifiability) for the wider area of biology would not allow covering a number of narrowly defined, but notable subjects (like many Category:Human proteins) because MEDRS disallows using original peer reviewed articles. In all such cases the restrictions on sourcing do not "protect" content. To the contrary, they degrade content. WP:Verifiability is a key policy, and it is very thoughtfully written.

@Maxim. Yes, using "high-quality sources for exceptional claims" is much better, but this is already in WP:RS. So, if you are saying "Let's enforce WP:verifiability in this subject area", then I think it would be an impeccable remedy. That is if admins on AE are ready to enforce it. But as a practical matter, I think only obvious misrepresentation of sources can be easily enforced on AE or ANI.

• I think the discussion below clarified a couple of points:

1. As nicely illustrated by VM (last part of his comments) and Nigel Ish, one needs all types of RS to create a good page in this subject area, just as in all other subject areas.
2. Most part of the extremely long RSNB discussion here was not about if the book qualify as RS (yes, it certainly does), but if it satisfy your sourcing restriction (no, it probably does not). That creates a cognitive dissonance: why we can not use a source that we must use per WP:NPOV, WP:verifiability and of course WP:IAR? My very best wishes ( talk) 02:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• The sourcing restriction by Valereee [204]: For any disputed content, only scholarship from the past 20 years can be used as sourcing, with preference for the past 10 years I think it is much better than the restriction by Arbcom for Poland because: (a) it is only for one specific page and can be lifted by the imposing admin at any time; and (b) it applies only to "disputed content" (this is a huge difference). Nevertheless, as any other sourcing restriction, it is highly arbitrary and open to alternative interpretations, which makes it difficult to use for sanctioning someone on AE. My very best wishes ( talk) 15:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I'm not opposed to the sourcing restriction in principle but I do have a few comments and observations:

1. The original problem that this remedy was looking to remedy was the use of self published sources or sources from fringe outlets. Most of those are gone best I can tell (and if there are any left let me know). In fact, most of them were removed even before the remedy was passed. At this point the remedy has hit diminishing returns as sources which otherwise would not be considered in the least bit problematic (the Fairweather book being discussed at RSN is a good example) are being targeted in what look like a bit of WP:WIKILAWYERing. This is similar to the earlier issue that was raised when this remedy was proposed in its original form. Back then the problem was that institutions like Yad Vashem would be excluded by the restriction, so "or reputable publishers" was added to the wording after I raised the point. But there are also other sources out there which are very good but which aren't necessarily "academic" in a strict narrow sense (again Jack Fairweather (writer) - an award winning journalist with many years experience, who worked as bureau chief for The Telegraph and Washington Post and who wrote the book with help and research assistance from numerous scholars and academics... but alas, it wasn't published by a university press, so "non academic!!!")
2. Most of the content problems in this topic area are now due NOT to use of shoddy sources (though I'm sure you can anecdotally find some instances) but rather straight up misrepresentations of what sources say. The main problem is that to catch this you have to actually read the sources, sometimes carefully. And while editors who are active in this topic area might be willing to do that (though even for us checking someone's work can be exhausting) I don't think most admins who "patrol" it have the time or the inclination to actually go reading through numerous books and articles to make sure that no sourcing shenanigans are afoot. And EVEN IF they do, the offending editor can plead that they misunderstood or miswrote or that it's a judgement call. Which would be fair enough, except when this "not what the source actually says" stuff becomes a pattern (this is acerbated by the fact that most "academic" sources are paywalled and even with university access since this is a somewhat esoteric sub-discipline access may not be easy to obtain)
3. I would also like to see clarification on what "academically focused" means. Like... published by university press? What about think tanks or research institutes? What if it's an unaffiliated publisher but the work has been reviewed in academic journals? Etc.
4. I want to state my view again that, on principle, I don't think it's ArbCom's business or within its purview to make decisions on CONTENT disputes. And this is what sourcing is about. El_C brings up MEDRS above, but wasn't that developed as a "content guideline" by the community? It seems like it would be the job of the community, not the committee, to make similar content related decisions here. Volunteer Marek 17:10, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply
5. Honestly, I'm still not clear on what this restriction really accomplishes that isn't already covered by existing WP:RS policy. All obvious examples of "really bad sourcing" I can think of consists of stuff that wouldn't be allowed under WP:RS anyway. Volunteer Marek 17:10, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

With regard to Francois Robere's proposals above - #1 is okay, conditional on the restriction remaining in place, but #2 ("Repeated removal of compliant sources under a pretense of non-compliance is equivalent to the repeated insertion of non-compliant sources.") is a VERY bad idea. There are all kinds of reasons why a text based on a source which meets sourcing requirements should still be removed - WP:UNDUE, WP:COPYVIO, cherry picking, misrepresentation, using a source as a springboard for WP:OR. We don't even have anything like that for regular RS (having a reliable source is a necessary but not sufficient reason for inclusion). This would turn it into an administrative nightmare. Volunteer Marek 21:51, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: - in terms of diffs to support my point #1 above, it's not so much diffs as examples. But let me try (this is going to be a bit of a work in progress, since I'm busy and there's a lot of examples here).

• So first look at this proposal at RSN here. First, it's kind of nonsense because it 1) assumes all "Polish government media" is homogenous and equally "bad" (according to OP) and 2) the sources it lists as problematic... aren't even government owned!!! (Though in some cases they can be described as "pro-current government"). For our purposes here, the main point is however that these sources are not even used on Wikipedia and if they are they can be removed for straight up WP:RS reasons and don't need this extra special restriction.
  • Take a look at the use of Nasz Dziennik periodical. Now, in the past it's true that this was used on multiple articles related to Polish history. But now all that is pretty much gone. As User:Tayi Arajakate pointed out in this comment from Jan 28 [206] Nasz Dziennik (as well as other sources listed there) is hardly used on Wikipedia. As of Jan 28 2021, there were 24 articles that "used" Nasz Dziennik. That's actually an overstatement. Ignoring talk pages, ND is linked to from 20 articles [207]. All but 2 of these articles are either about ND itself or articles which mention that the subject wrote for ND at some point, per WP:ABOUTSELF. The remaining 2 instances of where this is used as a source are an article on a defunct political party ( Libertas Poland) where ND is used to cite a non-controversial fact about who founded the party, and a related article ( Libertas.eu) about who the spokesperson for that party was. In both cases it's non controversial info. In both cases this could easily be removed (and I just might shortly). In both cases the articles have nothing to do with "Antisemitism and Poland" or "History of Poland". So we have a source that a lot of people are complaining about and which they are PRETENDING is polluting the topic area of Polish history... but it's not actually used anywhere!!! And IF it was, you could remove it per WP:RS, you don't need this extra special restriction! The same thing is true for other sources listed at that RSN.

This illustrates that, again, at this point the restriction is NOT being used to remove legitimately illegitimate sources like Nasz Dziennik, rather it's being used to try and remove legit reliable sources, like the Fairweather book, just because someone WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT. It's basically a form of a strawman fallacy - "oh look, there exist out there in the world (but not on Wikipedia) some unreliable sources about Poland so I get to remove SOME OTHER sources about Poland that I don't like". Volunteer Marek 15:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• Also take a look at the discussion concerning Glaukopis journal at WP:RS. Ok, this one's kind of funny because it turns the whole WP:ALPRS restriction on its head. The thing is, Glaukopis is an academically focused journal!!! It's published by academics, it's editorial board is academics [208] [209], the authors published there are academics [210], it's peer reviewed by academics and it's read by academics. If we go by WP:APLRS restriction, then this journal should certainly be allowed since it clearly meets the requirement that it's "academically focused"!!!! But... these tend to be, or straight up are, "right wing" academics. That's the slant of the journal. And yup, some of these right wing academics apparently have made some "problematic" statements in other outlets (like their Facebook page or whatever). So the issue that some people have with the journal, is that while it's "academically focused" ... it's not the "right kind of academically focused". Politically. And honestly, I'm somewhat sympathetic (I wouldn't use it myself, though also want to note that the nature of the journal has undergone an evolution over time which is also a consideration). But clearly according to the ArbCom restriction as written it should be acceptable. But according to standard WP:RS policy it may not be (that gets into the deeper question of whether all academic publications are automatically reliable or usable, which is something that User:DGG;s statement touches upon). This again highlights the fact that this restriction is irrelevant here - if we decide not to use this journal it'll be for vanilla WP:RS reasons, not because of the restriction. Volunteer Marek 15:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim: User:Levivich below asks what content is being excluded on the basis of this restriction which could otherwise be included. Well, if Levivich actually looked at the edits under dispute, the answer to their quary would be easy to find. In this edit, the account "Bob Not Snob" removed 11k+ worth of text from the Witold Pilecki article. In their edit summary they explicitly claimed they were removing this material because of the ALPRS restriction. So what kind of content was removed because, according to Bob Not Snob accout, it "violated APLRS"?

• That Pilecki "attended a local school" <-- non-controversial
• That "In 1916, Pilecki was sent by his mother to a school in the Russian city of Oryol, where he attended a gymnasium" <-- non-controversial
• That "In 1918, following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, Pilecki returned to Wilno" <-- non controversial, no source actually questions this
• That "The militia disarmed the retreating German troops and took up positions to defend the city from a looming attack by the Soviet Red Army. (...) and Pilecki and his unit resorted to partisan warfare behind Soviet lines." <-- non controversial
• That "He and his comrades then retreated to Białystok where Pilecki enlisted as a szeregowy (private) in Poland's newly established volunteer army. He took part in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, serving under Captain Jerzy Dąbrowski" <--- Again, I have no idea why this had to be removed as no one, no source, has ever questioned this.
• That Pilecki "briefly served in the ongoing Polish-Lithuanian War as a member of the October 1920 Żeligowski rebellion." <--- again, no one questions this
• That Pilecki "completed his school examinations while continuing his military service, completing courses required for a non-commissioned officer rank at the Cavalry Reserve Officers' Training School in Grudziądz" <--- very very non controversial, no one questions this
• That Pilecki "briefly enrolled with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Stefan Batory University but was forced to abandon his studies in 1924 due to both financial issues and the declining health of his father" <--- non controversial, no source contradicts this
• "his unit took part in heavy fighting against the advancing Germans during the invasion of Poland. The 19th Division was almost completely destroyed following a clash with the German forces on the night of September 5 to 6." <--- Not questioned by any source
• "He and his men destroyed seven German tanks, shot down one aircraft, and destroyed two more on the ground." <--- I .... guess... this... could be maybe kind of sort of controversial... except no source disputes this.
• That Pilecki "hid his real identity and instead used the identity documents of Tomasz Serafiński" - ok, maybe this one is controversial? But notice, that 1) the account Bob Not Snob completely changed the meaning of the sentence by making it seem like Pilecki was "accidentally" mistaken for Serafinski whereas the whole point is that he assumed that identity on purpose (!) and 2) this is based on a source which SHOULD meet APLRS. So, like I mentioned above, the problem here is willful MISREPRESENTATION of solid sources, rather than shoddy sources.

And so on. It goes on for awhile. I mean, it's a pretty thorough gutting of the article, removing 11k of text, most of it non-controversial stuff like the fact that he went to a school and what units he served in. It's hard to see this as actually constructive. Rather it seems like someone using APLRS as an excuse to make an article look like crap because they don't like the subject. Like, you can't actually write "bad stuff" about Pilecki, because the guy was in fact a hero, and the sources - even the newer "revisionist" ones like Fleming and Cuber - are pretty clear on that, so instead you gut the article by removing basic, non-controversial, biographical info and try and make it look like shit. Or maybe it's WP:BAIT so that if someone reverts these edits as "non-controversial" you can use it as an excuse to file a spurious WP:AE report (and there's been a ton of those) and try to get someone sanctioned.

So yes, this restriction is VERY MUCH being used and abused to remove non-controversial info from article. Not a hypothetical. Volunteer Marek 02:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ El C: Quote: " Other countries also espouse WP:FRINGE content, too. But a country, say, like Iran (twice the population of Poland), for example, does so to a far lesser extent" - El C, I'm sorry but this claim is completely bonkers. Comparing Poland's government or situation to that of Iran is what's "FRINGE" here. Wayyyy offf the charts. There certainly are serious issue with the current Polish government's actions but it's not even in the same league. Hell, according to Reporters without Borders, in terms of Freedom of Press, Poland ranks significantly above... Israel [211] (Poland # 62, Israel # 88, Iran # 173). I think a good chunk of the problem in this topic area is folks who bring in their preconceptions and prejudices to the editing (and sometimes administratin') without actually checking facts first (I can give more examples of this). Volunteer Marek 17:09, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

User:CaptainEek the rationale for your oppose is that " By limiting the possible remedies we can implement, we weaken ArbCom ". I'm sorry but are you suggesting that ArbCom should have unlimited power? There is a very good reason, as alluded to by User:Risker (former arb com member) why the committee's power - like any other rule making institution's in a functional society - is circumscribed. I think you're also flipping the narrative here. A more accurate way of describing the situation would be "by imposing remedies that have not traditionally been within our remit, we are making ArbCom even more powerful". I find this kind of seemingly power-hungry attitude in an arb deeply worrying. Volunteer Marek 15:06, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

User:CaptainEek - as others have pointed out, ruling on content, which is what this is, has traditionally been outside the scope of the committee's "power". This fundamentally changes that. If you want "more tools" then that's fine but these should be developed in agreement with what the committee's powers are suppose to be, rather than just expending the power.

In regard to Francois Robere's comment here. Unintentionally, this actually is an argument for the opposite view. First, it's not true that Pilecki being a "volunteer" is only uncontroversial in Poland. The book under discussion was written by a British author with help from American and Israeli researchers. The other book used in the article (confusingly, also called "Volunteer" but with a different subtitle) is by an Italian historian. Pilceki as "volunteer" is uncontroversial, period. Not "just in Poland" but among standard historical works. Yes, there's some revisionist "new history" articles which seem to pull back at that view somewhat but it's those articles that are - because they are new that ... maybe not "FRINGE" but non-mainstream. Likewise, FR also claims " What you don't see is the long list of blogs, websites, SPS, politicians, and other unqualified sources which would've been fought for under RS". Nah. This is some version of WP:CRYSTALBALLing. In fact when these sources exist, they are removed on straight forward grounds and nobody objects. The controversy really IS about sources like the Volunteer book. Volunteer Marek 19:19, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Buidhe

I will give an example from another area. In the Raoul Wallenberg article it was previously claimed that Wallenberg saved 100,000 Jews. This claim is made in many popular works that would ordinarily qualify as WP:RS, such as New York Times, [212] [213] popular books [214] [215], and a resolution that passed US Congress. [216] But peer reviewed scholarship disputes this claim, saying the actual number of people saved was <10,000. If popular sources are given equal weight as academic sources, our article will end up saying something that's factually incorrect. (I think this kind of mythification is especially common when someone is considered a "hero"). In the Hungary topic area, such a requirement isn't formally necessary because no one has been trying to override the academic sources with popular ones; however, if that started to happen I would support a sourcing restriction there as well. Because in the Poland area there are many examples of editors trying to use deficient sources to trump peer-reviewed ones, (see above) it is necessary to restrict to WP:SCHOLARSHIP only for claims about what actually happened in the past. ( t · c) buidhe 19:19, 12 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Piotrus

This entire remedy should be revoked as unnecessary. First, regarding issue #2, no, it is not necessary, nor was it ever so. WP:RSN exists, is active, and was never swamped with discussions of works related to this topic area. Nor was there any general RfC on this or such. While the ArbCom finding did say "RSN and talk page RfCs have often failed to settle these questions", unfortunately no data or justification for this conclusion were ever indicated, nor was I able to find even a single party making such a claim at the Evidence and Workshop page, where instead, several RSN/RfC discussions were linked - and described as having successfully resolved the issues raised (generally concluding that several sources were unreliable). The problem was thus solved without the need for any extra remedies. Existing policies (RS, REDFLAG, FRINGE, UNDUE, etc.) work well enough and ArbCom should have simply reminded us of them; there was no need to "reinvent the wheel".

Second, regarding issue #1, I do have serious concerns about whether it is ArbCom's (or consequently's AE's) role to judge what sources are acceptable. I am afraid that ArbCom reached too far and this is causing major problems, many more than it attempted to solve. It is in fact encouraging disruption in the topic area (instead of preventing it), empowering disruptive socks, and scaring away established content creators. Proof below.

What the remedy has caused is that sources perfectly acceptable in every other area of the project are being challenged, with editors increasingly bypassing RSN/RfC and just claiming 'they violate my view of what academically focused' means. Consider the former FA Witold Pilecki, where a new account (registered just when the last ArbCom was ending...) not previously active in this TA suddenly appeared and effectively gutted the article, removing about half of the content with the edit summary "After discussion, WP:APLRS" (and did so again here). First, the removed content was uncontroversial. Second, the removed sources included the recent, award-winning, first-ever, English-language monograph (biography) of the subject, written by a respected journalist (aided by numerous scholars), published by a HarperCollins/CustomHouse which is a "reputable publisher" (wording from APLRS itself!), a book which received many positive reviews ( The Economist, WSJ, etc.), including by scholars, and which would be acceptable for any other topic area (my reading of the RSN discussion on this book is 'reliable, but may or may not meet APLRS, depending on what one understands by "academically focused"). Sigh. While this is a specific case, I use it to show that if such sources are not allowed, then we are forcing editors to either use hard to access and verify (and older) Polish-language sources or simply not to include helpful and uncontroversial information in the article (since no, there are better English-language sources). In either case, we are making it extremely difficult to write articles in Polish WWII history, simply because a few editors, most now retired or banned, have used some low-quality sources in the past (sources which are now considered unreliable, after discussions at RSN, and that nobody is restoring).

Further, while the Holocaust topic area is controversial it is no more so than many others (Isreal-Palestine, American politics, Balkans, Scientology, whatever). And most certainly, the remedy's broad scope - the entire Polish WWII area - is way too large, as it affects numerous articles on uncontroversial topics like minor battles, ships, or biographies, where next to no English sources exist, and due to poor digitalization of Polish literary and academic corpus up to date, history-focused newspaper or magazine articles are still very useful (of course, if contradicted by scholarly research, they should be discarded - but we don't need a remedy for this, RS already has this logic covered). Strictly interpreted, we should ban authors of totally uncontroversial articles like Defense of Katowice, Railway sabotage during World War II or SMS M85 and thousands of others, which heavily rely on mass-market books or educational websites or like. A lot of valuable articles about Polish military history can be sourced from books in Polish published by the Bellona Publishing House, which published numerous monographs on particular battles of the '39 invasion of Poland, and which often are the one and only monograph for said battle in existence; but Bellona's books are directed at the mass market of people interested in military history, so are they "academically focused"? A great source I've used over the past few years is Bellona's specialized encyclopedia Boje polskie 1939-1945: przewodnik encyklopedyczny, edited by historian Krzysztof Komorowski, but surely, encyclopedias are not 'academically focused'. My recent milhist A-class article, Battle of Hel, relies on this source heavily (as well as on another monograph from Bellona about the fighting on the Polish coast, Derdej's Westerplatte, Oksywie, Hel 1939) - is it ArbCom's intention to prevent such content from being written, and to punish editors like myself for writing it? Oh, and just in case someone thinks we can limit the damage by narrowing the scope to the Holocaust, you do realize we often use, among others, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum webpages, like its Holocaust Encyclopedia, as a source? For me, it is a much less "academically focused" source than the mentioned book from HarperCollins (for example, the book has endnotes, which USHMM's pages usually do not). The remedy, which was intended to discourage fringe, red-flag claims, threatens to lay waste to the entire topic area. This was already mentioned during previous requests for clarification by MILHIST editors like Nick-D here, Peacemaker67 here, Nigel_Ish here, Nug here, as well as former arbitrator DGG here, just to name a few, and what was feared a year ago is happening right now.

This is all compounded by the threat of being reported to AE for simply adding a book one did not realize came from a non-academic publisher (assuming that they are not allowed since the remedy does clearly allow "reputable publishers"). In other words, this encourages disruptive editors to create throw-away accounts which just need to meet 500/30 and then they can report established editors they have a grudge against to AE for using a source that may or may not meet the fuzzy definition of "academically focused". Doesn't work? Create a new sock, rinse and repeat. The sock wins if it manages to get a single ruling in its favor (which ruins the reputation of the established editors for years, and likely topic bans them too), or if the targeted editors give up and leave the topic arena. Win-win for disruption, lose-lose for the encyclopedia.

The current remedy creates an unfair burden on the editors in this topic area. It does so by creating a chilling effect with the threat of 'if you use a source that is accepted anywhere else you may be reported to AE and topic banned or worse". It discourages experienced editors to write about Polish-Jewish WWII relations or even Polish WWII history in general which is obviously bad for the project (see comments here) and encourages aggressive socking (creation of throw-away accounts to add possibly problematic sources or reporting established editors to AE).

Lastly, re #3. If the remedy is retained, ArbCom needs to clarify what the term 'academically focused' it invented (or adopted from following its invention by a single admin) means (and good luck with that...). The recent RSN discussion has shown that many editors disagree on this, which is compounded by the fact that many participants are not academics and make claims like 'narrative style means the work cannot be academically focused' which is wrong ( narrative ethnography is an academically recognized style of writing). In the end, I strongly recommend that discussion of sources should be left to RSN, not to few well-meaning admins who, while experts on Wikipedia, are not always experts on things like 'what is academic' or not. ArbCom and AE are overworked already, those venues don't need broader competencies and increasing workload that comes with them (like this very request for clarification, third in the series about that particular remedy). RSN has been and still is perfectly capable of weeding out FRINGE sources and reminding people about REDFLAG, UNDUE, and relevant policies. We don't need the threat of 'a sock will bring you to AE' hanging over people who want to use an in-depth monograph, the only one in existence for its subject, just published by a non-academic publisher, or edit an uncontroversial article about a German minelayer which sunk off the coast of Poland in '39 referencing Jane's Fighting Ships or a book by Steven Zaloga/ Osprey Publishing, for pity's sake. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:42, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Maxim Narrowing the scope to "[requiring] high-quality sources for exceptional claims for articles related to anti-Semitism and Jewish history in Poland, specifically in relation to World War II and The Holocaust" seems like it should solve most of the issues. Although isn't it just repeating WP:REDFLAG? The only ArbCom level issue is " that is enforceable via AE". But we should make it clear that AE should only be invoked if someone is edit warring over this issue, to avoid weaponizing this remedy by socks who want to roll the admin dice over a single edit. First, a talk discussion should be started on whether a problematic source is being used for an exceptional source. IF there is consensus this is the case but someone persists on adding it back to the article, then and only then AE should be alerted. So pretty much what the remedy (if retained, because I still do not believe anyone has demonstrated, with recent diffs, the necessity of it?) should be saying is that repeated violations of REDFLAG in this topic area are subject to DS/AE/etc. Lastly, you asked for more diffs of how the current remedy is being abused. VM already provided the best example. I'll add to it:

1) the edit with summary "After discussion, WP:APLRS" In the WP article VM mentions, the original "gutting" edit by Bob removed 25k bytes - that's over 50% of the article! Removed content included parts that are (per prior clarifications) clearly outside the scope of the article (pre-war, post-war, not to mention the entire "bibliography" section). And I don't believe anyone on the talk mentioned that a single removed fact was actually controversial. Btw, AFAIK the The Volunteer (book) which caused such a big RSN thread was used only to reference... the very fact it existed, in the legacy section...

2) edit summary "not neutral, not APLRS, and factually dubious." - removal of a paragraph that deals with post war event (1960s+), so again simply outside APLRS. No talk page explanation was provided for what's not neutral or factually doubious.

3) edit summary "Update using APLRS sources" - another article gutted; removal of 14k worth of prose. The article might have had some NPOV issues, but there is no reason to remove half of the content again, almost all of it uncontroversial details such as that the subject was born in the Austrian Partition, that "He graduated from high school in Sanok" or that in September '39 the subject fought "near Łowicz with the Polish Prusy Army (Armia Prusy) under Gen. Stefan Dąb-Biernacki".

So the bottom line is that almost all content removed under APLRS is uncontroversial. The editor who removed those details (and who was not active in this topic area before February when he took to APLRS with gusto) seems to misunderstand APLRS (since it does not apply to pre-war or post-war content or sections like 'bibliography'!), and in most cases did not explain on the talk why the content was removed, or what was wrong with the references in text (some do seem low quality, but others seem reliable, at least the first glance). Sure, maybe one or two facts removed in the giant guttings of the article could be seen as such - but that was not even explained on the talk. Low-quality references for uncontroversial content can be removed while retaining the content and substituting a {{ citation needed}}. I concur with VM that what is happening now, however, can give an impression of a WP:BATTLEGROUND attempt to tempt some editors into restoring content, hoping that maybe in restoring 15k-25k worth of deleted prose (almost all of it about uncontroversial details) they restore something that'll produce an AE-worth diff. The fact is that uncontroversial content was gutted and it took weeks to restore some of it (not even all of it, yet). This is both the chilling effect I noted and an example of active destruction of articles in this topic area that the current remedy is empowering. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Levivich Re "identifying the problem on the ground". First, the diffs presented by me, VM and others showing that, for example, the remedy was used to argue that totally uncontroversial information about early life education (which school they attended) of some individuals should be removed. So here, this is what is happening on the ground right now. Second, it is not feasible to say something like "in theory, this remedy prevents the use of otherwise reliable but not highest-level sources for sourcing uncontroversial information like specs of a Polish military ship, but in practice, since nobody was reported to AE over this yet, it won't happen". This is just asking for someone's stalker or such to create a sock for such a report. And then admins at AE are saddled with what is the letter and what is the spirit of the remedy. Lastly, do tell me: what disruption has this remedy prevented? Can you, or anyone, show a single diff where REDFLAG content was warred over before the remedy was implemented, but such warring stopped afterward, with the last edit that ended the warring citing APLRS? The facts on the ground are simple: this remedy is not preventing any disruption, it is preventing (though a chilling effect) editors from adding - or restoring - uncontroversial content. Like from the Naval Institute Press. Do you want to be the editor who used this source and then is reported by a sock to see what AE admins think (and repeat this for dozens of similar-level publishers, some in foreign languages like Polish, like the Bellona Publishing House, to see which one will fail the test)? I know I don't. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:27, 25 March 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere "Overall APLRS is not that difficult to abide by". Such claims would hold more weight if they came from editors who actually create content in this topic area. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere That's very nice. And as someone who created, roughly, about 1000x times that much content, yes, I think that the current restrictions are very difficult to abide by. On the subject of your Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study article, I think the one and only new article you started in this TA, I remember you decided to remove some newspaper sources from the article [217] despite, in all honesty, them not being used for anything controversial and the newspaper being generally quite reputable. Pointless make-work. And that article still contains some references that may not pass ALPRS muster (a strange website; a book from 1946 not published by an 'academically focused publisher'; etc.), even though I don't believe they are used improperly; and removal of content sourced to them would not be of interest to the project and the readers. Alas, this is what the remedy may require, according to some. Bottom line is that the article you created was perfectly fine, sourcing-wise, and you should not be forced to remove the newspaper source cited there, nor be penalized for adding them there in the first place. Adding further, academic-level references is of course good, but that you felt compelled to remove a perfectly fine newspaper article, replacing it which harder to verify, offline or paywalled sources, is exactly why this remedy is bad - it creates an unnecessary burden on content creators, makes the article and its sourcing less accessible, and worse, does so under a threat of heavy-handed sanctions. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere I am not sure what you meant to say, but I don't get paid to "work around here", and I suggest you refactor your post for clarity, as I doubt it was your intention to suggest anyone here has a PAID COI? And I don't see any exception in ALPRS that permits the use of ABOUTSELF. If ALPRS overrides normal RS, why wouldn't it override it subclause ABOUTSELF? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere I would like to think you are right, but such clarifications are for ArbCom to make, which is why we are here. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49 and El C: re "a little nervous about just rescinding it". Can you point me to concrete evidence that this remedy is producing some positive effects? What disruption has it stopped that wouldn't be stoppable if this remedy did not exist? All I see is that the remedy is instead used to cause chilling effects (I am the only content creator active in this TA that is also taking part in this clarification requests, authoring DYK to A-class level content in said TA, and this remedy makes me not want to edit this TA anymore due to fear of being reported to AE by some sock) and disruption (for that see VM's comment here signed 11:59 am, 25 March 2021 for a good case study, or my own posts above which mention this and several other incidents). And there is also the "dead letter" problem: 90% of content in this TA is created by editors who are not aware of this remedy, and nobody is telling them about it. As I am the only person who seems to monitor the activity in this TA on a regular basis (using the new article bot feed), here's a list of new articles in it created in the last month or so: Battle of Pułtusk (1939), Kalman_Sultanik, Fortress_Division_Warsaw_(Wehrmacht), Medal_for_Oder,_Neisse_and_Baltic, List_of_claims_for_restitution_for_Nazi-looted_art#Poland, Max_Silberberg, Spring_1941, The_Holocaust_in_Austria, Leo_Bendel. Guess what - they all fail the remedy - plenty of unreferenced content (not sure if this is even covered by the remedy), newspapers, educational websites, non-academically focused books... Anyone wants to warn/sanction their creators and/or delete this mostly uncontroversial content? In summary, there is no problem (disruption) to stop (outside those created by this remedy and its abuse), and nobody is enforcing this anyway. Good intentions... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:57, 19 April 2021 (UTC) reply

El C Forgive me, but I have trouble parsing your last comment addressed to me. Regarding the fragment that I think I understand, "how do you truly account for its influence, say, in quiet editorial work", I can only stress what I said earlier: if "quiet editorial work" means improving and creating generally uncontroversial and quality-assessed articles (which is what I like to think I tend to do around here), the way this remedy affects my "quiet editorial work" is to make me scared of edit anything in this TA, since each time I make a substantial edit I am thinking "will Ice's newest sock report me for it to see if it can make some dirt stick"? An while culpability in the destruction of the European Jews sounds serious, I can't even recall right now the last time we had any serious editorial disagreement about something so serious; I am referring to items like using a newspaper article or a book published by some non-academic author or press for sourcing uncontroversial information on someone's alma mater, burial place, or who was their commanding officer or such. The APLRS remedy was invoked for removal of exactly this type of content - not just references, entire uncontroversial paragraphs were deleted - by an editor who was just indef blocked by ArbCom. So again, we have hard evidence (diffs above) that the remedy was abused. Now, I am still waiting for someone to show what good did the remedy do. And if all we get is "but it sounds like a good idea", versus evidence of clear disruption (gutting of articles etc.), I think the solution is quite clear. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:02, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

El C "I've clarified on multiple occasions that APLRS would not bring about immediate sanctions whenever it is invoked in a page". That's appreciated, but in the end, you are just one administrator. You can burn out, take a wikiholiday, or just be overruled by other admins who don't agree with your interpretation. Sadly, I have seen too often that some admins, at least, prefer to solve all problems quickly with the use of excessive banhammer. As long as the remedy exists in its unclear form, it may be interpreted harshly enough that for me, at least, it will remain "anxiety-inducing".

Re: "the modern Polish state.. espousing FRINGE content". That's debatable (can you actually give a specific example of a FRINGE/revisionist claim, supported by the "Polish state" alone? Bonus points if it has been a subject of an on-wiki dispute) - and when such debate happens, it should be at RSN. Trying to replace RSN as the appropriate forum with AE only results in the "anxiety induction".

There is a perception that the Polish-Jewish TA is one of the 'worst neighborhoods' on Wikipedia, and needs strict policing. This is a simple misconception. It was peaceful for years, then we had one 'serial killer'-like editor who got into a bunch of fights and then got himself indeffed, and while he keeps on socking, that's it. Any other disruption is very low-key and seems pretty normal for other topic areas. It's time to stop making mountains out of molehills and stop framing this area as particularly problematic. It is not. It was a perfectly fine and peaceful topic area until a few years ago and there is no reason it cannot go back to it; we just need to remember WP:AGF (while keeping an eye out for returning socks that are NOTHERE). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:13, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

CaptainEek "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Isn't, something, broken here? The context for those diffs is above. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere 1) "What you don't see is the long list of blogs, websites, SPS, politicians, and other unqualified sources which would've been fought for under RS, but are summarily removed under APLRS." Seriously? Do show us the diffs. A long list, as you say, shouldn't be hard to produce. Please make sure that each diff is accompanied by an edit summary that makes it clear APLRS was invoked and put an end to the expected, or previously occurring, edit warring about that particular "blog, website, whatever". Please note that you need to show that what is happening is that APLRS is producing something beyond what the usual enforcement of RS and other policies do. Just now, for example, I replaced a newspaper reference with academic sources. But I did so simply because the cited source was low quality, so I upgraded it, following best practices. I would have done it regardless of APLRS' existence, I improved refs like this before APLRS was introduced and will do so after it is gone. In other words, I claim that the existence of APLRS did not change any real practice of any editor (outside making it less likely that they'll add information on uncontroversial fact like someone's burial place that is not mentioned in any academic publication). 2) "We've discussed it before, and there's little reason not to see eg. Jane's or Lloyd's as "reputable publishers" under APLRS" Where did such a discussion take place? Bonus points if you show us where did you endorse the use of such works under ALPRS. 3) "Instead, just instruct editors to use {{ unreliable sources}} for a reasonable length of time (30-60 days?) so the article can be re-sourced." Generic templates are too open to abuse; someone can just spam it on dozens of articles and then gut them later. What does make some sense is to mark individual, problematic sources with {{ Unreliable source?}} (if in doubt; one can just remove them outright if they are particularly bad). When a tag is added, a detailed explanation should be also added to the talk page (on why the source is potentially problematic). If a source is tagged, and no objection is provided to the well-articulated criticism on tag (that should be more than just a claim "this is not reliable" - a criticism has to explain why, such as "the source is a blog" or " the author is controversial and not an expert", etc. ), then the source can be removed. All that said, there is no need for ArbCom to add any sanctions here - the procedure I described (heck, even the one you described) can be carried out by anyone, right now, and in fact, it does happen every now and then. Low-quality sources are steadily tagged and/or removed, they were long before the original ArbCom case happened. 3) What is "uncontroversial"? Shrug. How about you show what reasonably or even borderline controversial information was referenced to sources that pass RS but not APLRS, and how that was fixed after the remedy was introduced? Because what we have, right now, are diffs showing that plenty of clearly uncontroversial information as removed with edit summaries mentioning APLRS. Me and VM have given plenty of diffs here already (my post just above, for example). So show us the dfiffs or otherwise it's all ilikism/fearmongering ("hear ye all, this remedy is good, woe and despair will befall us if it is gone"). -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:33, 22 April 2021 (UTC) reply

@ L235 and Barkeep49: One nitpick re "subsequently challenged by reversion" wording. Can you add "subsequently challenged by reversion accompanied by a clear explanation specifying the disputed source and its alleged problems on talk" or such? Feel free to reword, but we should avoid the situations we had when an editor guts an article, removing dozens of sources, with a vague mention of this remedy (or no rationale at all), and without specifying anywhere which sources were a problem. In other words, the proposing wording doesn't avoid weaponizing / disruption in the scenario someone guts the article, then complains that a problematic reference was restored, and calls for admin-level enforcement in the form of sanctions on the person who restored the content. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Barkeep49, Actually, there was one incident a year ago where a user was blocked for a week after an AE report, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive258#MyMoloboaccount. User:MyMoloboaccount restored weak sources - and got reported there by Francois and blocked. Crucially, the restored sources weren't even edit warred over (at least I don't see the report suggesting they were) - it appears MMa was blocked solely for a single diff (one-time restoration). While right now I don't recall another incident that ended up with an AE report and block, well, it's a worrying precedent, isn't it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

François Robere, I totally agree with your point 3 ("Requiring a specific justification for removing a source is meant to prevent mass removals and GAMING. The level of specificity doesn't need to be high to be useful: for example, instead of an edit summary saying just "APLRS" or "not APLRS compliant", one could simply specify "news source, not APLRS-compliant" or "not peer reviewed (see APLRS)".") - that's the very minimum of acceptable justification we need to require before any sanction-language can be invoked. However, I don't think we need to penalize removal or compliant sources - this can be totally fine, when UNDUE is concerned, for example. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: While I agree with your sentiment, remember where the proverbial devil lies. 2a is an improvement (well, anything is an improvement over what we have) BUT it still has a major flaw: it uses the ill-defined term "academically focused". The discussion about The Volunteer (book) which was held at RSN after all concluded that the book is reliable but may not meet the remedy b/c it is unclear whether the book is "academically focused" or not. How would the 2a remedy help here? Let me remind you that several parties have asked ArbCom to clarify this wording, which has not been done. This problem needs to be solved in whatever fix is adopted - in the form that the remedy, if revised (and not just repealed) must either clarify such ambiguous terms or not use them at all. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49, L235, David Fuchs, Maxim, BDD, SoWhy, and CaptainEek: I assume the "Alternative motion" Barkeep49 proposed on 1 May 2021 is the one they just asked for feedback about? Thank you for pinging the parties, and I'll start by saying "good progress". It is good that we are moving a step away from allowing people to be directly reported to ANI. However...

First, pretty please with a cherry on top, avoid using imprecise and undefined terms like "academically focused". With all due respect, I consider the wording "an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journals, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution" simply sloppy (if I saw it in a paper I am peer-reviewing I'd request it to be changed or the paper rejected due to failing to define key concepts and hence introducing confusion to the relevant discourse). Please stop for a moment and read this phrase again (bonus points if you find the irksome grammatical error in it too). According to it, an article doesn't need to be "academically focused" (this is just required of books), an article is fine as long as the publisher is "reputable" - which also means that the entire part about "an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journals" ( sic!) is redundant, because it is just a subset of "article published by a reputable institution". As the Volunteer discussion demonstrated, we had a lengthy and not a very productive discussion on whether a book written by a journalist (reviewed by academics, co-written by hired historian researchers, with plenty of footnotes, and prize-winning) is acceptable, but a newspaper article written by the same journalist and published in any reasonable newspaper (aka a "reputable institution") would apparently be fine. The current wording allows most articles, even from newspapers, but sets a very high standard for books allowed. If the wording of the remedy remains ambiguous, it may likely result in more time being wasted on pointless and borderline disruptive discussions about what is "academically focused" (effectively solving nothing - someone challenges things on talk, no consensus, takes this to RSN where the discussion will run into the unsolvable problem of "what is academically focused", eventually necessitating the community needing to ask ArbCom to clarify this term yet again). How about simplifying the definition of "a high quality source" in parenthesis to just "books and articles published by a reputable institution"? Although I can still imagine discussions about what "reputable" means and why aren't we simply asking the editors to use reliable sources? I'll also note that the title of the proposed sanction is "reliable-source consensus required". So you invoke the term "reliable" (and not "super-reliable" or whatever) but then in the text require adhering to a poorly defined "better-than-reliable" concept. Bottom line is that the problem of poorly defined higher standards (the "a high quality source") remains unsolved. The Committee is effectively telling the community to use "higher-quality" sources without clearly defining what they are. Please note that this request for clarification started with a request to clarify this wording, which hasn't been done. If you cannot define a concept well, please don't introduce it into the "body of wiki-law", and when given the opportunity, if unable to define or clarify it, please remove it.

Second, please see my comment to François above. The part about "subsequently challenged" needs to be clarified that said challenge has to meet some minimum standards (i.e. be better than IDONTLIKEIT) to avoid abuse by drive-by socks or battleground-minded editors who can just say IDONTLIKEIT, stone-wall (ISTILLDONTLIKEIT) and then go to AE. Fortunately, this issue can be solved by adding a qualification like "subsequently challenged with a reasonable justification better that WP:IDONTLIKEIT" or such.

Thirdly, a technicality but I don't think "is added" is necessary. It would make the remedy technically toothless for purposes of challenging sources that have been added years ago. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Peacemaker67

Responding to Piotrus' ping. I am on the record in the original discussion (linked in Piotrus' contribution alongside my username) as opposing, as a matter of principle, the incursion of ArbCom into content issues which this remedy represents. It IS a content issue, and we have processes for dealing with them that don't involve ArbCom. The remedy should be vacated until and unless ArbCom's scope is widened to include content as well as conduct issues. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 04:38, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Paul Siebert

I think sourcing restriction is a very good idea, but this tool sometimes may be harmful. The core problem here is an indiscriminate approach. According to WP:APLRS, the whole WWII period is covered, be it a history of some small Polish town, or a technical article about Polish tanks. Is it needed? Of course, it is totally redundant. And "Polish" users quite legitimately object to that. However, there is one aspect that really requires our attention: Polish-Jewish relations during WWII. Social processes in modern Poland lead to resurrection of nationalist myths, and many Polish sources describe the WWII events at somewhat different angle that Western sources do. That is especially true for newspapers, blogs, popular web sites and other sources that are seen as marginally acceptable per our content policy. Normally, we allow that type sources, but in this situation, the abundance of that type sources and high activity of "Polish" editors (I use quotation marks, because I speak about their POV, not nationality) creates a situation when the description of Polish-Jewish relations during WWII in English Wikipedia differs considerably from what majority of scholarly sources write. During the discussion of the Antisemitism in Poland case, I made a post that drawn attention of professional US historians and journalists. They contacted me, and they expressed a concern about English Wikipedia bias. In connection to that, I think it is absolutely correct to keep the restrictions, because they deprive POV pushers of the main tool: their sources.

Moreover, I propose to think about sourcing restrictions as a universal tool for extinguishing edit wars. Usually, high quality sources use more cautious wording and factually correct statement, so if only top quality sources are used by both parties, that decrease the tension. According to my experience, the better sources some user uses, the more they are prone to arguments, and the reasier to reach a consensus.

There is one problem with this approach: these sourcing restrictions may be used for gaming the system (reporting a user who made an innocent edit using questionable source). I propose to think how to amend these restrictions to minimize a possibility of gaming. One possibility is to remove restrictions from any content that is not related to Polish-Jewish relationships.

With regard to the arguments about "content disputes", I have a question: what criteria discriminate cautious, experienced and polite POV-pusher from a user who is involved in a long but sincere content dispute? I think it is totally impossible to draw such a line without a careful analysis of arguments and sources. According to my experience, experienced POV-pushers are totally invisible for AE admins, and that fundamental reason is that AE admins have no necessary knowledge and time to carefully analyse the evidences, each or which, taken separately, look totally innocent.

With regard to User:Girth Summit's questions #1 - 3, my opinion is as follows:

1. Sourcing restrictions may be a better idea than topic bans. First, all sanctions are supposed to be more preventive than punitive, and most disruption is associated with usage of poor sources (it is hard to edit disruptively using only academically focused sources). Second, if a disruptive user has to use only good sources, that will requite more efforts to obtain them and read. In addition, it increase one's educational level, and may lead to correction of their POV. I am telling that based on my own experience.

2. The remedy may perfectly prevent disruption in many cases. And I see no harm in that remedy for high importance history topics. I would say more: I de facto am writing Wikipedia articles using only academically focused sources (exceptions are very rare), and I don't think that self-imposed restriction negatively impacts my work.

3. To answer how these rules should be applied, let me first explain how I select "academically focused sources". I use the following procedure: (i) no googling (only the sources available at google scholar, jstor and few other specialised databases are acceptable); (ii) if a book or article is more than 2-3 years old and there is no citations, it should be avoided; (iii) journal impact factor must be taken into account; (iv) for books, check reviews at jstor and gscholars: no reviews or negative reviews are an indication of possible problems. As I already wrote elsewhere, this my approach described as quite adequate by Brendan Luyt, the scholar who is studying the mechanisms of improving Wikipedia credibility. How all of that can be applied to the Polish-Jewish area? I think, if some user expresses a concern about some source that does not meet the above criteria, it is better to remove it. If another party resists to that, they are supposed to prove the criteria i-iv are met. If they failed to do that and continue using the disputed source, a topic ban must follow.

Below, there is an example of how it works.

Example 1. User:Volunteer Marek asked if the books by Jack Fairweather (writer) are considered "academically focused". A brief check demonstrates that Fairweather's "The Good War: Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan" was cited 46 times, mostly by the sources that obviously are "academically focused publications". The first source in that list available to me online uses his book as a source of information, and does not question the facts provided by Fairweather.

Conclusion: the criteria i-iv are met, and if VM is accused of usage of that book, he can always present these search results as a proof that sourcing expectations are met.

Example 2: Now let's check if The Volunteer passes the same test (Disclaimer. I was not participating in the RSN discussion, although RSN is in my watchlist. Therefore, I can be considered neutral.)

• I don't see this book in my googlse scholar search, I only see the Portugal translation at the very end of the list. I could not find anything in Jstor either The criterion i failed.

• Since The Volunteer is not found in gscholar and Jstor using a direct search, it automatically means there are nearly zero citations The criterion ii failed.

• Since The Volunteer is not a journal article, the "iii" criterion is not applicable.
• When I look for the sources about the book, I see the same sources as the one presented at RSN. The review is published in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs by Taylor & Francis, its impact factor is not impressive, but acceptable for that topic. Therefore, the review passes reliability criteria, but the review contains serious criticism of factual accuracy of The Volunteer. The criterion iv failed

Conclusion: The Volunteer does not meet the criteria, and it should not be used (at least for now, because it is a new book, and some fresh positive reviews may be published in future).

Example 3: User:CaptainEek's "Lincoln".

• (i) Google scholar says it was cited 816 times (first and second steps are successful; the third criterion is not applicable, because it is a book);

• (iv) There are several reviews on that book in Jstor. I looked only through the first one, (by William Hanchett, Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Jun., 1996), pp. 216-218). This review is mixed: the reviewer noted several weaknesses and several strengths of that book. I am not going to go into details, for the lack of unambiguous criticism is an indication that the criterion "iv" is met.

Conclusion: "Lincoln" meets the sourcing expectation criteria and can be used.

I propose everybody to try that approach using obviously good and obviously bad sources, and I am sure it will allow efficient discrimination of the former from the latter. This approach is transparent, which exclude a possibility of a bias or gaming.

Example 4: This discussion is an example of what may happen if the proposed procedure will be used. User:Piotrus pointed at some problems with interpretation of the review on The Volunteers, and that criticism may be partially justified. However, that does not change the fact that The Volunteer is not found in the google scholar search list, and is was not cited in any peer-reviewed publication. Therefore, the criteria "i & ii" are still not met, and the book is not acceptable (at least, for now; a situation may change in future if other authors will start to cite the book. That possibility cannot be ruled out).

The enforcement of these rules is straightforward. Before I describe the procedure, let me give the example when some user was accused of violating sourcing restriction in an incorrect way (and that is why the request was declined). Instead, a correct procedure should be as follows. The accusing user was supposed to:

• Point at concrete sources that do not meet the sourcing restriction criteria.

• Explain why they do not meet the rules (criteria "i - iv", see above).

• Give the accused party some time to make sure these sources really fail the criteria "i - iv".

• If the accused party rejects the arguments, or provides insufficient arguments AND continues to re-add these sources, the AE report is justified.

In my opinion, this procedure can be easily implemented, and it will not require too much work from enforcing admins.

Last, but not least. The attempts to remove the sources that clearly meet the criteria "i - iv" should be considered equally serious violation, and it may be reported at AE too.

This argument is totally frivolous, because scientific publications in protein crystallography are usually being published in journals with an average impact-factor above 3 (which statistically means each article is unlikely to be non-cited). In addition, any published X-ray structure (and even those which has not been published yet) is deposited to the Protein Data Bank, which also implies some fact checking. Anyway, this analogy is so remote that it seems like an argument for a sake of argument. I propose to ignore this argument, as well as KC argument, and focus at the main topic.

Frankly, I do not understand the point My Very Best Wishes is trying to make. Does he really think that fairy tales are used as a source in scholarly articles? With regard to the Nature article cited by him, there is a direct misinterpretation of what it says. It says:

"Web of Science records suggest that fewer than 10% of scientific articles are likely to remain uncited. But the true figure is probably even lower, because large numbers of papers that the database records as uncited have actually been cited somewhere by someone."

It also says that the number of uncited articles steadily decreases. Finally, that article was written based mostly on Web of Science data, which are focused on natural and exact sciences, and humanities and similar disciplines are poorly represented there. I think the Nature article is totally irrelevant to the current discussion.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 02:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim:@ BDD: We already have a policy saying that highly controversial topics require multiple high quality sources. If ArbCom answers "Yes" to the questions 1 and 2, that just confirms the obvious fact that the Holocaust in Poland is a highly controversial topic, and many claims about Polish-Jewish relations that challenge mainstream views (an that is exactly what happening now, when many Polish sources seem to contradict to what Western scholarly literature says) need to be supported by multiple high-quality sources. Therefore, the only value of the ArbCom's sourcing restrictions would be a clarification of criteria outlined in WP:REDFLAG. In connection to that, Maxim's explanation seems a really valuable response.

Maxim's interpretation seems very close to what I describe above, and to K.e.coffman's deinition. However, I still have some questions/comments:

• Excludes coffee-table-style books or other books where the intended audience is the general public instead of academics I anticipate serious debates over the books that are authored by respectable journalists, because many of them, by their quality are comparable to monographs.
• Excludes non-peer-reviewed literature See below
• Includes peer-reviewed monographs written by an academic and published by an academic press Usually, monographs are not peer-reviewed. Instead, reviews may be published after publication of the book (but that is not necessary). Therefore, I would propose "monographs ... that have generally positive reviews".

• Includes the type of book that has an academic as an editor and has chapters contributed by other academics, is peer-reviewed, is published by an academic press, and is generally a secondary source (review) versus something that's more of a primary research report (but consider that the primary research report might have a section with a good review and summary of the existing literature) Again, the editor usually does not peer-review the chapters authored by individual contributors, he invites the authors whom he trusts.

• Includes academic textbooks, preferably aimed at the senior undergraduate to graduate levels, but we can live with a first-year textbook depending on what claims are being cited No comments

• Depending on the claims, would favor most recent scholarship. The most recent scholarship may contain some controversial claims that may be challenged by peers in close future. I would say "reasonably recent scholarship that has been widely cited by other authors".

To that, I would add the following. Many journals exist that have all traits of peer-reviewed journals, but that publish the works authored by a narrow local group of authors, who perform "peer-reviewing" of each other's works. Formally, they fit a definition of "peer-reviewed publication", but they may be totally marginal. As a rule, these journals have no impact factor (of an impact factor below 1), and the articles published there are not cited by the authors who do not belong to that group. Obviously, the quality of content of those journals can be very low, significantly lower than the quality of publications in mainstream newspapers. Meanwhile, your rule allows the former and forbids the latter. In my opinion, "peer-reviewed" articles published in low level journals (the journals with low or absent impact factor) should be allowed only if they have been cited by some other scholarly publication, and that reference contained no obvious criticism. With regard to the User:Nigel Ish's argument, I think all of that can be easily resolved by specifying that the above source restrictions are applicable only to potentially controversial claims (the claims that have been challenged by at least one user, who substantiated them with appropriate sources). We all are reasonable people, and we do not expect that a user who added a marginally acceptable source telling about technical details or combat history of some Polish warship may be reported to AE. I think, a procedure of source removal should be as follows: "I (user name) find the claim supported by the source X controversial, and it contradicts to commonly accepted views expressed in mainstream scholarly literature. I am removing the source X and request other users not to restore that information unless it is supported by multiple high quality sources (as defined by WP:REDFLAG and ArbCom's decision)". Obviously, a user who is removing non-controversial or purely technical information from the articles about Poland under a pretext that the sources are marginally acceptable can be accused of gaming a system. Therefore, I find Nigel Ish's argument somewhat artificial.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:21, 22 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Nigel Ish:, I understand your concern, and it seems the ideas expressed by @ Maxim: in his last post can resolve the problem. I also would like to point out at the @ Tataqp:'s opinion: it seems this good faith user is not fully familiar with our content policy yet, because the main idea of his post is that ArbCom's source restrictions pose a strong barrier extensive usage of "firsthand accounts, memoirs, documents, government reports or hearings" and other primary sources, usage of SPS, which, as we all know, violated our policy. That is a proof that the restrictions are a very valuable tool.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:24, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim: What you say about REDFLAG is correct, however, can you please explain me something? The Holocaust in Poland, as well as the EE topic in general is under standard DS. Among other restrictions it means that all users who are active in those topics must meet expectations, including "to comply with all applicable policies and guidelines". WP:REDFLAG IS a part of our policy, and that means REDFLAG violations committed in ANY topic covered by DS can be reported at AE and, ideally, they must be treated as seriously as personal attacks or topic ban violations. REDFLAG is quite concrete, and in some aspects it is more rigorous than the restrictions that we are discussing here. It says exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources, whereas the restrictions we are discussing do not contain the word "multiple". Had REDFLAG worked properly, this discussion as whole would not be needed, because ALL content that is a focus of hot debates is usually found in some single source (or a couple of sources) AND most sources are of borderline quality, which means they all could be eliminated per REDFLAG. But that usually does not happen, or it is achieved at a very high cost. Moreoever, I know no examples when some user was subjected to sanctions for the REDFLAG violation. Of course, I may be wrong (I am not reading all AE requests), but I am not familiar with such cases. I have a feeling that admins prefer to treat such type cases as "content disputes". That means the problem is probably not in DS themselves (it seems general DS are quite sufficient to prevent lion's share of disruption), but in their implementation. Maybe, instead of imposing new and new restrictions, it probably makes sense to think what can be done for proper implementation of existing restrictions? What if ArbCom issues an explanation that REDFLAG violations can and should be reported at AE, and admins should not treat such violations as "content disputes"?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 02:21, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

El_C, consider the following situation. A user A reports a user B at AE for adding some information that was supported by an article published in some local newspaper or by some foreign government web site, and the user A claims that this information visibly contradicts to what majority scholarly sources say. The user A also says that the claim added by the user B is extraordinary, and, therefore, it falls under WP:REDFLAG. Since REDFLAG is our policy, and because DS requires that all users acting in the DS covered topics must strictly observe it, the user A concluded that the user B does not meet some important expectations, which makes their activity at the pages covered by DS disruptive.

You are very active at the AE page, and you must agree that usually that type requests are just ignored by admins as just a "content dispute". Meanwhile, if we make REDFLAG violations sanctionable, any addition restrictions, including the one we are discussing here, will become redundant.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 17:52, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by GizzyCatBella

I am very concerned about using newspaper sources and similar for factual claims. Still, at the same time, there is nothing wrong with using them to source uncontroversial matters about events that happened after the war, correct? At Witold Pilecki's article, for example, a new editor, invoking this remedy, eliminated nearly the whole of the section about his legacy [218], which initially concerned things like monuments erected or posthumous awards received after 1989. This is just one of many examples I can think of where this remedy is being severely abused. Instead of preventing the addition of fringe theories that are generally restrained by WP:RS anyway, it is used to justify removing relevant and uncontroversial content someone doesn't like. The very existence of WP:RSN tells that many years after WP:RS was adopted, we are still debating what "reliable" is. To invent a new term, "academically focused" is an absurdity. The community has difficulty handling "reliable" without burdening it with clarifying a new notion. And such an endeavor is impossible anyway. We could just call for the use of "very reliable" or "best quality" sources - all meaningless qualifications that invite subjective opinions like "this award is good enough" - "no, it is not" or "one review in a peer-reviewed source is enough"-"no, we need seven" or "the author needs to have a Ph.D."-"no, Ph.D. is not enough". He needs a Nobel Prize". And worst, the remedy means that the question of what is reliable is no longer discussed at RSN, where at least most editors are reasonably experienced with the concept of "reliability". Now we ask administrators at AE, many of whom are not content creators, nor academics, to make such a call. At first, I assumed this remedy might help, but now I realize it was a prescription for failure. It's a typical "good intention" that, in reality, is only useful for paving the proverbial hell. We need to bite this in the back. In the end, whether the remedy is helpful or not can be judged by looking at its impact. What sources did it exclude that otherwise would be allowed? Right now, I can only think of the recent case concerning the Volunteer (book). The book has been written in consultation with many professional historians, was published by a major publishing house, gained a notable award, and got a significant and overwhelmingly positive reception. Is this indeed a source the remedy was supposed to rule out? If the answer is no, then the remedy is broken. Last thought - I am pretty unsure whether that source (Volunteer book) is allowed or not - the RSN discussion reads like no consensus, so what's the default ruling here? Use it, get reported to AE, and see how the dice roll? And since the source is used to reference content, and if removed, said content could be too, per WP:V (which clearly states "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed"), how is this remedy, or any imaginable AE ruling based on it, not a verdict on content? - GizzyCatBella 🍁 07:24, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• @user Bob not snob - I'm sorry that 12 minutes after registering your account on November 5th [219], you inmediatelly had to step into such a problematic area by reverting [220] Volunteer Marek. - GizzyCatBella 🍁 08:56, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply
• @Paul Siebert - You write that "the [Flemming] review contains serious criticism of factual accuracy", but as Piotrus pointed out, Flemming doesn't find any "factual errors" in the book; he just criticizes the usage of the word volunteer and concludes that "Despite the problems outlined above, the book has several merits. It is written in accessible prose and includes numerous pictures and informative maps. It has many references (though some are imprecise and unclear) and provides some additional insight into courier operations and Pilecki’s peacetime life." This merely sounds like a negative review but more like a balanced one. Not that I think this is the place to address this or your (interesting) method for assessing source reliability. - GizzyCatBella 🍁 07:55, 14 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by DGG

There are two separate topics here: one is the role of arb com with respect to issues involving content. The other is how to determine what sources to use, with respect to either our general preference for academic content, or a community or other mandate to use only or preferentially academic content in a particular situation.

Content can be affected directly or indirectly, by interpreting policy in such a way that it does indirectly affect content. An example is this very case. WP policies almost always involve terms of art, words used in special ways in Wikipedia, and whose exact meaning is endlessly disputable: A particularly ambiguous phrase is Reliable Sources, and it's a particularly important phrase, because serious content arguments are usually argued in terms of which sources to use--if you can use the right sources, anything can be supported. This sort of interpretation should in theory be outside the scope of arb com, but it sometimes must be, because of the need to deal with editors who insist disruptively on using sources inappropriately--whatever we may say in theory, or write in a decision, in practice we treat editors who edit in an aggressive or repetitive manner in different ways, depending upon what we think of their arguments or their sources. Despite the wording of guidelines, there is in actuality no such thing as a reliable source, or an unreliable sources. Sources are reliable to different degrees for different purposes. In some fields academic sources of a particular type are universally regarded as preferable, as with MEDRS; in others, such as some areas of technology or business or current affairs, such sources may be very incomplete as compared with other possibilities. My career was as an academic librarian; it may not be realized by those not familiar, but the parts of the academic world dealing with the humanities and social sciences live not by consensus, but by controversy. There have been many books published on all major topics in history, and the only way to get a new book published is either to find new primary material, or to reinterpret existing ones. For a reinterpretation, or the use of new primary material, the book will be most widely reviewed, most widely read, most likely to lead to tenure, and most profitable for the publisher, the more sensational or at least controversial it is. For those topics in history which have implication to current politics , or the memory of people still living --or their descendants--reinterpretations that affect national stories are always controversial, and in these fields books by those with lesser academic qualifications can be just as influential, even to the academic world, as those by the highest level historian--some fields will even be mostly researched by those with a legend to defend or oppose.

It's obvious that the present field is like that, or we would not be here. It's clear to everyone with even remote interest that publications in this field are often affected by ideology, which can affect both academics and nonacademics. Governments or political parties have views to support, as do their constituents, and they will read whatever supports them. Accurate discussion of such issue is only possible if all sides are open to evaluation. Some of the most interesting work on controversial movements is done by their supporters, some by their equally extreme opponents. The material will be of a varying degree of sophistication, and can only be judged by informed comparison. A polemic work will use those sources which support its position. An encyclopedia cannot do that, or it is worthless. We are not of value to anyone but ourselves if we discuss only positions which most or even all of us support. Any sensibly skeptical person will realize that anyone or anything that presents only one side of the argument cannot be trusted. Regretfully, WP does not always act as if it realizes this--we are subject , as groups tend to be, towards adherence to popular orthodoxy, where some positions in various areas --not just history--arise such strong emotions that they cannot be discussed, for people will not look further at the argument because anyone presenting it will be assumed to be a supporter. To put this in the plaines words possible, I find this really stupid, because how can we defeat our enemies if we do not know what they are doing and saying?

Therefore, if we are to discuss what could be considered as Nazi remnants or past or present Nazi behavior, we must use Nazi sources as well as others. The skill of an honest historian or honest encyclopedia consists of using them in context--using them in such a way that the reader will come to their own conclusion about their nature. If we cannot trust the reader to judge fairly without our laying our hands on the balance, any outside objective viewer would conclude we are probably suppressing the truth. The Soviets, for example, opposed the tendencies of such as Trotsky, and printed long denunciations of their views, without ever letting people see what they were actually saying. The Catholic Church in past centuries had its Index, even though they must have know it suggested that the works on it might be telling the truth, and apparently argued, as did the Soviets, that the truth was too dangerous to their system.

I do not know how WP can ensure that propaganda is presented as propaganda; but the first step is surely to at least include all positions, even if we must resort to labelling them as wrong. (I don't really support this either, of course, but doing anything better might require a subtlety that our usual editors may not be capable of handling, and would actually require true experts). My colleague Piotrus is a sociologist and historian, and knows the sources much better than I, and can do more accurate evaluation of sources than I am capable of. We have different backgrounds, but the reason I can trust him is that he wants others to speak also. I see no reason to discuss the details here, because the entire principle behind the arb com remedy is in total error. DGG ( talk ) 07:50, 13 March 2021 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 08:42, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

I consider JzG's conclusion below a misnterpretation. He says "Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopaedia - by design, we're going to represent the mainstream scholarly consensus." This is quite different from our ideala and our written policy, though it does seem to represent some people's editing. Actually, the encyclopedia privileges the current scholarly consensus, but presents all significant viewpoints. A remedy that satisfies those who believe in the unchanging nature of what sometimes passes for temporary consensus of a vocal academic minority , is probably not a NPOV. Even arb com, in the original pseudoscience case, admitted the need to distinguish when consensus changes. And I would personally add that the attempt to find consensus among English speaking editors on the enWP is not necessarily representative of the world-wide situation on nationalist issues. DGG ( talk ) 08:11, 14 March 2021 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 08:13, 14 March 2021 (UTC) reply

It was mentioned by Barkeep that I and others were being reluctant to give diffs. This is deliberate on my part for if we did, they would extend to essentially all .the diffs in the previous arb com cases mentioned. There are certainly some I would very much like tor have reopened, but this is not the place for them. If they are really wanted, they can be supplied in a collapsed section. I am particularly reluctant to do this because . besides the cases mentioned, it would also reopen American Politics, and many other recent cases. They would also include the instance where the use of DS was merely threatened, which can have as much of an effect of keeping material out of Wikipedia as actually using it.

It was similarly mentioned that I had not discussed the difference between minority, and fringe. There is no sharp difference between the two, and how one classes a viewpoint cannot be clearly defined; the practice seems to be, that if you don't want to include something, you call it fringe; if you do, you call it minority. I understand why the original arb cases made this distinction, but trying to make it generally applicable opens the possibility to do anything. In some of the AP discussions, the views supportive of the Republican Party were called fringe by some editors; at least one editor commented that the view was so far fringe that anyone supporting it was unqualified to edit WP at all. Much more fundamental, the concept we should totally exclude fringe is in my opinion also a negation of nPOV; as an encyclopedia , people should be able to find at least some information about the more absurd side of things also, and, in line with the general principles of inclusion, what does not warrant an article, may still be appropriate for at least a mention, and key references so those interested can go further.

I think it would be important to know the opinions of some other members of the committee. not just the two who have so far commented. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Seeing the opinions, I have some doubts about the suggestion of a MEDRS -style requirement in this area. Medicine is at present an experimental science, with generally accepted rules about evidence and the relative significance of sources. How to interpret medical publications is well-established, and there is not really significant dissent. There's excellent outside evidence for the rules and expectations. History is not a science. History depends upon the evaluation and then the interpretation of source material. The are rules for determining whether a source is authentic, but there are an essentially infinite number of possible interpretations, many of which are plausible. There is inherently by the nature of the subject nothing that can resemble a controlled study. One can indeed sometimes -- but only sometimes-- prove that something factual did or did not happen, but one cannot prove what were the true motivations of the people involved, or the causes or effects of the events, or what this might ultimately mean in the context, of human affairs. One can talk about these things, and many people find such discussions fascinating, but there is no clear basis for definitively choosing between approaches. There is certainly a field, historiography, that studies the changes in interpretation as a social phenomenon, but it doesn't lead to conclusions about which views are correct--if anything, it show the impossibility of every reaching such a conclusion. One can say that today most academci favor one approach, and some another, but this is a statement about politics and intellectual fashion, not validity. DGG ( talk ) 05:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Minority vs. Fringe. The examples usually given to support the non-coverage of fringe are absolute absurdities, like the flat earth theory.-- but even here, readers should know that there are still people and publications that support it. This isall the more important when the numbers are significant, as for the equally absurd homeopathy. A disagreement in an ethnic aspects of history abou the relative responsibilities of the various sides is another matter entirely, because people's views are not necessarily rational, and they will always regard their opponent as fringe. I may have mentioned that I have a very strong conviction about the utter wrongness of the position of the current Polish government and the historians it sponsors, based on the experiences that have been told me and my own attitudes; it would take very strong evidence indeed to make me think otherwise. But I want others to hear what can be said for them, as long as it is in context; the more I am sure of my view, the more I would want the other side to display their ignorance and bias. I don't want to be in the position where someone from another background might ask, as in fact I have been asked, did this really happen, or is it the evidence that would show otherwise being suppressed? It's a perfectly reasonable presumption for someone who really does not know , that if WP, claiming to be a NPOV encyclopedia should show only one side, the people who run it are the ones who are biased. DGG ( talk ) 06:39, 5 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by nihil novi

The present situation enables disruptive or frivolous editors and sock-puppets to report established editors, thereby potentially discouraging established editors from adding otherwise valid sources that could be questioned on flimsy or bogus grounds – grounds whose inadequacy may easily escape the body being appealed to.

The remedy posits the vague criterion of an "academically-focused" source, which has been described as showing "a superior research quality in the tradition of the best academics". Who determines what is "superior", "tradition", or "best"?

There are already satisfactory long-standing mechanisms in place to guide discussions about the appropriateness of sources, without our having to employ impracticable mechanisms.

Respectfully, Nihil novi ( talk) 07:59, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Bob not snob

Blocked
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Thank you Girth Summit of notifying me of this request that appears to be coming after Piotrus requested it. I am mostly uninvolved in this topic, and have become involved after a few discussions at RSN on dubious sources and APLRS. From my recent experience this topic is highly toxic, unwelcoming, and full of editors who are pushing the cult of the " doomed soldiers". These "doomed soldiers" were mostly bandits, common thieves, murderers, and in some cases mass murderers of minorities. The nationalist right pushes them because they were also anti-communist. The problem isn't limited to hate against Jewish minorities, Romuald Rajs is known as a mass murderer of Belarusian people, yet the article prior to cleanup presented a picture of him almost being innocent. I cleaned it using academic sources, yet some of this questionable content was returned afterwards. To give context to the present, Rajs is used as a symbol by haters in the east of Poland, his name is sprayed on the houses of Belarusian people living in Poland today to intimidate them. My experience has been that subpar sourcing isn't the only problem here, the greater problem is that specific editors are willing to argue that these subpar sources are acceptable. I don't think User:Paul Siebert calling them "Polish" is correct, as it isn't Polish in my eyes to do this, and some of them are not Polish. My Very Best Wishes made this recent edit in which he restored information sourced to Publicystyka Antysocjalistycznego Mazowsza. This is an "anti-socialist" webpage or blog, that is right-wing extremist, and is not a reliable source for anything. He then posted on my talk page saying "I do not know Polish". Pattern of problems: At AN discussion on Piotrus using an alternate account to call Polish Wikipedia ediotrs to vote on Axis powers, a specific group of editors showed up saying this was no big deal and not really wrong. At RSN discussion on Glaukopis journal, more or less the same specific group of editors showed up to argue that this is an academic journal. However this is academic in the same sense Mankind Quarterly is. It has an awful reputation, and so do the people involved with it. Dr. Wojciech Muszyński, theeditor/publisher of this magazine suggested that left-wing Polish politicians ( Left Together) should be dealt with in a manner similar to the Pinochet regime with death flights [221]. At RSN again the same sepcific group of editors shows up arguing that the The Volunteer (book) is reliable, and when pointed out by admins that it is not APLRS, then arguing it is academic. However the book is a mass market thriller, in no way academic. Furthermore, it can't be considered reliable at all as it is "partially fictionalized", containing entire episodes that are made up "literary fiction" (see Cyra's pretty glowing review aside from the fiction point). The sole academic review by Michael Fleming (historian) states that this book presents the myth of Pilecki (a Davy Crockett like figure) to English speakers. This isn't history, it is a narrative of an heroic myth. This specific group of editors shows up and make facetious arguements, on the level that black is white, regarding any source they consider furthers their cause. Using heroic myths as sources for " doomed soldiers" is flat out unacceptable. Maybe the committee should authorize sanctions against this group that is making repeated false arguments? During this discussion, specific editors ( GizzyCatBella, Piotrus), make false claims on what Fleming wrote ( source), saying Fleming "just criticizes the usage of the word volunteer". This is more saying that black is white, see actual quotes from review: Beginning: "In The Volunteer, journalist Jack Fairweather presents some, but not all, of the features of the Pilecki myth to English-speaking readers." "Fairweather’s problematic title signals the main weakness of the book, as does its first sentence, which endorses the dominant narrative of the Pilecki myth: “Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz.” This assertion cannot be sustained." "The second feature of the Pilecki myth that drives Fairweather’s narrative is that Pilecki was especially preoccupied with reporting on the fate of Jews in Auschwitz. In reality, Pilecki’s “mission” in the camp was to sustain morale, provide extra food and clothing to members of his organization, prepare to take over the camp... These activities were collective ... Gathering information about what was happening to Jews at the camp was part of his general intelligence work." "The third feature of the myth relating to Pilecki—that his story was exclusively suppressed by the Communist authorities—is placed under some pressure in Fairweather’s account..." "There is no doubt that Pilecki was courageous and patriotic, but by obfuscating the structures of the Underground State of which Pilecki was a part, and by failing to adequately explain the responsibilities and division of labor between its military and civilian wings, the author excludes much relevant material. Fairweather reduces the “cast of characters,” oversimplifying in order to advance the narrative in a manner sufficiently compelling for a mass-market book" Conclusion (after praising "accessible prose and includes numerous pictures and informative maps"): "It is unfortunate that in addition to having an inaccurate, sensationalist title, the book is framed as a “new chapter in the history of the mass murder of the Jews and an account of why someone might risk everything to help his fellow man.” This has resulted in a hagiographic narrative in an Anglo–American idiom." Astounding, these new accounts self-identifying as non-academic publishers on Poland in WWII show up ( Tataqp AK_at_Aquila_Polonica_Publishing) here to promote the use of these vanity presses to counteract the "devastating long-term impact of postwar communist disinformation warfare". How did they show up here? These kind of publishers are precisely the problem with non-academic sources in this topic, academic sources differ from heroic fairytales.-- Bob not snob ( talk) 12:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC) reply ( Personal attack removed). As for the substance of his claims, the article Romuald Rajs before cleanup was "astonishingly whitewashed" according to User:Buidhe on talk, and I would say even worse, it cast into doubt that this figure of hate was a mass murderer. Reliable academic sources (not Aquila Polonica Publishing) are unanimous in describing Rajs as a murderer. After cleanup it was made neutral, and there was a discussion at Talk:Romuald Rajs, where I am still waiting for an answer for the removal of Kozik in Journal of the Belarusian State University as a not good enough source.-- Bob not snob ( talk) 12:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC) reply @ Dreamy Jazz:, can you look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AK at Aquila Polonica Publishing and their posts here? The two publisher accounts posting here have been  Confirmed to be the same. Both posted here in short succession ( AK at Aquila Polonica Publishing, Tataqp) as supposedly different people in different sections. This a person with a conflict of interest, associated with a tiny publisher named after the Polish Eagle (a national Polish symbol, often sported like this) using https://www.polandww2.com/ domain as their home. There are posting here saying they should be used as a source because of " devastating long-term impact of postwar communist disinformation", which they say is present "on this topic on Wikipedia" too. They also think their work is valuable because "academia has become more of a closed system tolerant of only certain viewpoints". Could you also look into how these very inactive accounts (12 and 2 edits total, a large portion of these conflict-of-interest edits) were informed of this discussion and were motivated to post here multiple times with these different, but  Confirmed, accounts?-- Bob not snob ( talk) 05:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by JBchrch

I am somewhat inexperienced in these matters, so I will remain in my place and keep it short. I think that the WP:RSN discussion shows that the language of the WP:APLRS rule is not detailled enough for a meaningful consensus to emerge. This is not surprising: people can’t even agree on the meaning of basic words, ^[1] let alone unusual terminology like this one, let alone when tensions run high. So I support Girth Summit’s 3rd proposition.-- JBchrch ( talk) 11:36, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by JzG

Questions 1 and 2 seem like an obvious "yes". There is no sense in which the vexed issue of antisemitism in Poland is anywhere near calmed down yet. The remedy's sourcing requirement has materially improved the quality of these articles, but not the inflammatory nature of the constant disputes between the warring parties. Let's remember to separate the two. The continuing battle between the two factions does not mean that the remedies are unnecessary or ineffective.

Question 3 comes down to a subject-specific interpretation of WP:RS, and can normally be resolved by looking at the remedy in its entirety: Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions. That normally includes any legitimate mainstream scholarship, and will exclude the kinds of books published by imprints owned by the author or some group of axe-grinders. In the case of the specific book at issue, it doesn't meet those criteria. Arguing about the interpretation of individual subclauses in isolation is akin to the Supreme Court's Solomonic opinions on the significance of the Oxford comma. That's not how Wikipedia works. Importantly, this should be the standard for any section of the encyclopaedia that aspires to be a record of fact. Articles on wrestling are a dead loss and RS long since left the building there, but this is an area where we can and should aspire to academic levels of rigour, and all this remedy does is codify what that means: a good Wikipedian would interpret RS as mandating exactly this level of sourcing in this area, and the remedy's principal effect is to rapidly close down pointless argument on marginal sources.

This is a common problem at WP:RSN. "Is X reliable" usually makes sense only in the context of "reliable for what?". The source under discussion does not to meet the remedy's requirement for statement as fact, but that does not prejudge whether it can be discussed as a significant opinion. You may view it as an edge case, but, from the article on the book, Cyra argues that the book "should be considered as non-fiction literature"; that it is "only partly fictionalized", and Michael Fleming [...] writes that the book is a hagiographic narrative that reinforces the myth about Pilecki volunteering to be imprisoned in Auschwitz, whereas he posits the more correct and neutral description of what happened was that "Pilecki was pressured to allow himself to be arrested in the hope of being sent to a camp". That's a textbook WP:UNDUE/ WP:ATT question, even without the specific remedy at issue. The book's thesis should clearly not be taken as fact in Wikipedia's voice per the remedy, but the remedy and normal Wikipedia practice do not preclude inclusion as a significant opinion or debate, subject to consensus on framing. Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. This seems like a significant viewpoint, at least in respect of Pilecki.

The best solution in my view would be a standard Wikipedia fudge: a paragraph wordsmithed collaboratively between the various editors which references the book and its status as a popular history with some acceptance and some dissent, with an RfC to determine any disputed wording. In the alternative, we should apply the rule of sticks, if necessary using narrowly targeted remedies such as page bans or reply limits to help people towards a more thoughtful and measured form of engagement, rather than the characteristic rapid-fire and rapidly-escalating rhetoric that is all too common in this area.

Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopaedia - by design, we're going to represent the mainstream scholarly consensus. The sourcing expectation remedy delivers exactly that. Some editors don't like it, but that is very much the point: a remedy that everyone loves, is probably not a necessary remedy. Guy ( help! - typo?) 11:49, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm astonished to hear DGG, an editor I hold in the highest regard, saying that "Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopaedia" is incorrect. It is. That's exactly what we mean by "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". That is what mainstream means.

Mainstream is not the opposite of conservative. Mainstream is the opposite of fringe. We do not represent counterfactual nationalist propaganda as equivalent to independent scholarly views. Guy ( help! - typo?) 22:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by FOARP

I have not been involved in the present discussion, but in recent months I have observed RFCs over whether or not Poland should be listed as one of the Axis powers, whether or not Poland should be listed as a successor state of Nazi Germany, and a number of other such discussions. It is clear from the direction of these discussions that, on English Wiki, at present, Poland's role in WW2 is the subject of dispute typically involving people expressing views typical of those expressed in a range of different Central/Eastern European countries, and not Poland alone. Polish nationalism is not the only nationalism that needs to be guarded against here.

Academics are not the only people concerned here, either, nor should their interests be artificially elevated over those of others beyond what their expertise and institution requires. They may be experts (or in many cases may not actually be experts on this specific topic per se) but they are not the only experts, and the assumption that they are automatically free of biases or more reliable than non-academic sources is not one that historically has always proved true. Academia includes many institutions that are highly susceptible to the influence of various governments, not least because they are often government-funded and depend on goodwill with governments for access. Any one following Chinese issues in recent years will be familiar with the growing problem of self-censorship in return for access amongst academics. Academics are also human beings and given to the same rivalries and conflicts that ordinary people are (to take one example from this particular space, it is apparent from a reading of their negative reviews of each other's work that Anita Prazmowska and Anna Cienciala had a rivalry of sorts).

It would be highly anomalous that in this particular area of discussion, in respect of one particular Eastern European country, sources that we would typically consider reliable sources on the subject (e.g., newspaper articles written by non-academic experts in reliable outlets, books written by reputable non-academic journalists/historians and published by reputable publishing houses) should be artificially subordinated to academic ones (which may not be from particularly reputable institutions). This remedy, if it is interpreted as requiring this, was clearly excessive, disproportionate, and wrong even on its own merits, and should be set aside. However, I don't believe it requires this. Either the decision should be rescinded or it should be amended to clarify that sources with an academic nexus are not automatically more reliable than independent non-academic sources, that editors still need to exercise judgement.
Therefore:

1. Yes.

2. I could go either way, but this has not prevented disruption nor calmed things down really, as a simple review of the above shows.

3. "Academically focused" need to be clarified to specify that this is not simply elevating ANY academic source (however dubious/informal) over ANY non-academic source (however reliable). Really what we are talking about here is blogs and the like, which are anyway dealt with by WP:RS. FOARP ( talk) 12:15, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Coretheapple

I don't edit very much in this topic area, but was pleased to read that there was a well-drafted Arbcom decision pertaining to sourcing on the subject. It is a good decision, it still is amply warranted, and was written with great specificity so that it does not mandate further clarification. Arbcom is not required to interpret clearly worded decisions for editors who don't like their wording. This discussion was warranted by use of the book The Volunteer, which is a readable journalistic account that does not in any way, shape or form meet the criteria you set. Your decision is not broke and there is nothing to fix. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:29, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• I agree with Beyond My Ken that expertise of the author of any text is paramount. I would suggest, based upon my limited experience in this area, that when problems arise in this subject area it seems to be a result of editor behavior issues, POV pushing in particular, and not lack of clarity of arbitration decisions. The arbcom criteria at issue here are fine. Can they be wikilawyered? Sure. So can anything. That is the fault of the wikilawyers, no one else. Coretheapple ( talk) 16:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• This is by way of confessing that until it was mentioned by User:SlimVirgin below I had not read User:El_C's comment, in which I heartily concur. This was indeed "one of the best and most important Arbitration decisions bar none." In my defense, I point to the tl;dr blocks of text and repetitious arguments above dulling my senses. Coretheapple ( talk) 22:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• I agree with Levivich in his supplementary comment below. He's adding to it, so I hope I don't edit-conflict with his very good thoughts on the subject. Let's focus on what has actually happened, please, not on what could happen as a result of this dastardly decision, which seems to be the primary focus of the tl;dr walls of text on this subject. What horrors have been perpetrated by this arbcom decision? The only takeaway from all the impassioned, very very lengthy comments here is that people are passionate on the subject. Which to my mind is a good reason to keep these strictures in place. Coretheapple ( talk) 19:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Levivich

I agree the answers to 1 and 2 are yes for the reasons others explained above. As for #3, the most important part of the source expectation is, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, separating out academic from non-academic (e.g. mainstream books and popular press). I've been working on User:Levivich/Tiers of reliability, ranking different classes of sources, which might be the start of an essay or info page that editors can refer to when discussing levels of reliability among different types of sources. If anyone is interested in expanding it or otherwise working on it, they're most welcome to edit the page. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 17:35, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Barkeep49: I think arbcom should, and perhaps must, answer #3 by clarifying what is meant by "academically focused". To the extent admins are having trouble enforcing an arbcom restriction because they think the words used in the restriction are vague, only arbcom can help with that by clarifying the language used in its own restriction.

"Academically focused" might mean: (a) authored by academics, (b) published by academics, (c) academics are the intended audience, (d) some combination of a, b, and c, (e) "academically focused according to criteria to be determined by the community" is one possible way to go, or (f) something else altogether. I think, reading your comments, you mean (e), which I think would be a clarification and thus an answer to Q3. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 18:07, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

---

Before we consider loosening this source expectation, we should answer two questions:

1. What sources do editors want to use that they cannot use because of this source expectation?
2. What article content should be included but cannot be sourced to an academic source?

And I don't mean hypothetically, I mean in reality, in past experience. There's a lot of people talking hypotheticals, but I see no actual examples of, for example, a source that was removed from an article under this source expectation that should not have been removed. Even in the case of The Volunteer, I ask, what facts do we need to source from that book, that we cannot source from other, academic books? (Ships, for example, have nothing to do with it. AFAIK, no one has ever used this source expectation to argue that we can't use something like Naval Institute Press to source an article about a ship.)

I believe that once we identify the "facts outside academic sources", that is, facts that cannot be sourced to academic sources and can only be sourced to non-academic sources, it'll become apparent that these non-academic sources are totally unnecessary, if not counterproductive ... or they're so minor/uncontroversial (like ship specs) that no one is using this source expectation to argue against them anyway.

I believe in this topic area, the only time people go to non-academic sources is when those sources conflict with academic sources, and they want to use the non-academic sources to make the conflict seem like there is no academic consensus, when in fact there is academic consensus, it's just that some non-academic sources don't agree with that consensus. In those cases, we should be presenting only the academic consensus; significant minority views are only significant if they're significant in academia. We all know that academic publications will identify both mainstream and significant minority views explicitly. To say, "Ah! But there's a book that says something different! It's a significant minority view!" is to mislead our readers, IMO. It's a type of OR, IMO.

The reason this expectation was put in place in the first place is because people were using non-academic sources to argue against academic sources, and to make academic consensus appear to be just one of a number of competing viewpoints. This is misleading to our readers. This rather widespread practice had to be proven at the arbcom case before this expectation was put in place. Please, let's not undo that based on editor's hypotheticals and speculation, let's look at how this has been used, on the ground, in practice, before we decide whether it needs to be changed.

Whenever people say, "well, sometimes you need to include a fact but it's not in the sources," I think to myself, "so how do you know we need to include the fact, if it's not in the sources?" It seems like that's "backwards editing": first figure out what you want to say, then find sources to back it up. We should be doing the opposite: first find the sources, then summarize them. If a fact is not in the sources, it shouldn't be in our article, either. And while there are always exceptions for minor details here and there, I don't believe this source expectation has ever been used to exclude minor or uncontroversial factual details. There's a big difference between using a non-academic source to fill in some minor gap, and using it to argue against academic sources.

For example, the question "was 'the volunteer' really a volunteer or was he assigned?" is not a minor uncontroversial detail; we should only be writing what academic sources say on that point; we shouldn't use non-academic sources, such as the book, The Volunteer.

If the problem on the ground is limited to the use of non-academic sources for non-controversial details (I do not believe this is actually what the problem on the ground is), then it might make sense to clarify the expectation to say that it's OK to use high-quality but not-strictly-academic sources (like Naval Institute Press) for non-controversial details (like the technical specs of a battleship). But before we change anything, please identify the problem on the ground, in practice; don't change this based on hypotheticals.

And before anyone says anything, yeah, I know arbcom can't decide content disputes. But it can decide if any content disputes have arisen (is the current source expectation actually getting in the way of anything?), and what they were about (mainstream v. significant minority viewpoints, or minor/uncontroversial details like ship specs?). Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 18:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

---

The relevant topic area here is Holocaust in Poland. That's a topic for which only academic-focused sources should be used. To the extent the source expectation is too broad, including all of WWII and thus things like ship specifications, the scope should be narrowed, rather than just ditching the whole thing. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 14:47, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

---

Thanks for pinging all the participants! +1 to the #Alternative motion; seems like a best-of-both-worlds resolution. (Not to be confused with a The Best of Both Worlds resolution.) Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 20:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Atsme

I align with the views expressed by DGG. But I will add Houston, we have a problem, and it is threatening NPOV. I totally agree that we must use high quality sources, and scholarly sources are unambiguously high on the list. But we must not forget that there are scholarly sources and books that reflect opposing views; therefore, we must exercise caution about eliminating other significant views that may not align with the most prevalent. Throughout history, scholarly views have been rejected because of strongly held views by some of our prominent leaders in science and medicine. See Bohr–Einstein debates. Keep in mind that our job is to provide all significant views, and allow our readers to explore the possibilities, conduct their own research, and form their own conclusions based on the material we've added per NPOV, and the cited sources we've provided. We should not limit them to a single POV if other views are also significant, regardless of our own personal opinions. Atsme 💬 📧 13:24, 15 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Beyond My Ken

Far too many words already, so I'll be brief: 1.Yes, 2.Yes, 3.Anything written on the subject by academic or other subject experts, in whatever format (academic book, popular book, journal article, magazine article, newspaper op-ed, interview, tweet, verified Facebook comment, etc.) should be considered to be an "academically-focused source". It's the expertise behind the words that's important, not the format in which the words appear. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 05:30, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nosebagbear

I can't say as to whether a restriction in this vein should continue, but I do concur that it is not within ARBCOM's remit to be deciding such - they are making content decisions, just by the back door. Should they think the sanction should continue, then they should request the Community endorse it, in lieu of a formal rule change. Nuances within that, and expansion on clarification are well covered by the others, so I won't duplicate words Nosebagbear ( talk) 20:30, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ CaptainEek: - this may be a bit of an ideological dispute that I suspect was argued all the way when BLP DS was made, but our disputes are either conduct or content oriented. Conduct goes to the conduct route, content the content route. I struggle to see how a change to required sourcing level is a conduct issue, so it must be a content route, and therefore outside ARBCOM's remit. At best, ARBCOM could authorise sanctions that would enforce a higher sourcing requirement but that the actual sourcing level would have to be determined by the Community. Play around with the sourcing levels and you could (if you wrote long-enough/tailored enough rules) functionally control content while still claiming it was under ARBCOM's remit - that isn't what's happening here, but it does to me seem to be in the same bucket. Nosebagbear ( talk) 16:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply

[I realised I made a partially duplicative, though thankfully not contradictory, statement. I have merged the two] Nosebagbear ( talk)

Statement by SarahSV

I agree with El C that this was "one of the best and most important Arbitration decisions bar none"; with JzG that "this is an area where we can and should aspire to academic levels of rigour, and all this remedy does is codify what that means: a good Wikipedian would interpret RS as mandating exactly this level of sourcing in this area"; and with Coretheapple that the decision is "not broke and there is nothing to fix". SarahSV ^(talk) 20:47, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Biruitorul

I object to the remedy because it’s a clear example of the creeping bureaucratization that we should be avoiding. While we all recognize the sensitivity of the topic area, the fact remains that there are already policies in place regarding sources, venues for discussing the reliability of sources, sanctions for deliberate misrepresentation of sources, etc. Moreover, the proposal gives bad-faith editors an additional tool with which to threaten their productive counterparts. ArbCom has generally stayed aloof from content disputes and should, in my view, continue to do so. — Biruitorul ^Talk 07:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Nigel Ish

I've said this before, but the problem is that the committee is trying to solve behaviour problems with a sourcing requirement, and a very vague one at that - we wouldn't be having this discussion if everyone was clear what "academically focused books" actually meant as can be seen by the discussion at RS/N that provoked this. While it is appropriate to expect high quality sources to be used for the nexus of the problem (i.e. the Holocaust in Poland, anti-Semitism in Poland and collaboration with the Germans), it is equally important (and perhaps even more so) that sources are used appropriately (i.e. is the best source for the fact being cited being used and has the source been used appropriately. It is also important to note that even peer-reviewed articles and other academically focussed works will have biases, or have been written to argue a point and even the best sources can make mistakes. Nigel Ish ( talk) 22:41, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

:@ Maxim: - The strengthening of sourcing restrictions which you are demanding along with the colossal scope of the restriction "all articles on the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland" will effectively mean that if this is actually enforced then we will not have any articles covering large parts of the Second World War - for example strict enforcement on ORP Piorun (G65) a warship operated by the Polish Navy operated during the Second World War - means that all sources must be removed - they are of the highest quality but not "academic" "peer reviewed" sources that are solely aimed at academia - they are written by experts in the field and published by reputable specialist publishers - but it appears that that doesn't count - therefore by your reasoning the article must be deleted. How does that improve the encyclopedia? We should be using the best sources, not just the ones that happen to be "academic". Nigel Ish ( talk) 15:26, 23 March 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Paul Siebert: - The problem is that is not what the requirement actually says. It doesn't say it only applies to controversial points, it says that it applies to all articles on the topic. Editors can only assume that it will be applied as written - otherwise the requirement is meaningless and should be removed as such. It is also noted that any change may be controversial to someone - when the community as a whole is quite happy to allow editors to wikilawyer and game to drive others away and promote their viewpoint, then editors have to assume that requirements like this will be used against them. (And the fact is that the community HAS failed to stop the disruptive behaviour, which is why the buck has been passed to ARBCOM_The changes will also drive the editors to use poorer sources - the assumption that only purely academic sources are of any use and other sources - no matter what world class expert has produced them are somehow suspect is wrong and damaging to the encyclopedia. It should also be noted that this restriction as written would prevent any article affected from being considered for any sort of GA or FA as it prohibits the use of the vast proportion of high quality reliable sources. Nigel Ish ( talk) 17:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC) reply

The 'Alternative Motion' should, hopefully, by making the restriction a DS-type affair, limit the potentially overlarge scope of the existing requirement, while still giving appropriate tools to stop disruptive use of inappropriate sourcing, while the appeal to RS:N will help to minimise the potential for inappropriate application of the academic sourcing requirements. One question - would the restriction be applicable if needed to any article "broadly construed", and if so, does the motion need to state this? Nigel Ish ( talk) 21:12, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Pundit

I entirely understand the sentiment and the need for protecting our content by focusing on academic sources. However, my concern is that specifically in Poland there are very few purely academically-focused presses. Some of those which, in theory, should be a paragon of scholarly effort, may be biased. Some others, even though they are commercial publishers, stay up to high scholarly standards. Books are tricky, but I'd say that books published by renown academics and peer-reviewed should be generally acceptable, irrespective of the publisher. We wouldn't want to exclude "The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest" by Yochai Benkler just because it was published by Penguin, right? Pundit| utter 08:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Tataqp

I hope you will bear with me as I have never commented on Wikipedia before. But the question before the arbitrators of what sources should be admissible, which has only recently come to my attention, is a very important one on which I would like to provide my thoughts-—which perhaps come from a perspective different than that of some of the other commentators.

The genius of Wikipedia comes from recognizing that crowd-sourcing is a highly effective (perhaps the most effective) way of reaching truth. But in order for this approach to work, the “crowd” must be wide. Limiting all sources on Wikipedia to “academically focused” or “peer reviewed” would be a grave mistake. It would be an even worse transgression, and a gross abandonment of Wikipedia’s purpose, to prejudicially impose such limit only in one topic area.

As a publisher of books in the subject area of Poland in World War II, I am acutely aware of the devastating long-term impact of postwar communist disinformation warfare, which even today colors international perception of Poland in the media and elsewhere—and indeed, including some of the discussion I see on this topic on Wikipedia.

Many of the problems with allowing only academically focused sources have been mentioned by others here. One of the most important to my mind is the fact that academic sources are by no means immune from personal bias or outside influence, including trends in research topics which are often dictated by available funding (which sometimes comes directly or indirectly from state actors with agendas). These dangers are more obvious in recent years, as academia has become more of a closed system tolerant of only certain viewpoints.

In addition, academic sources tend to be second-, third- or fourth-hand knowledge. They are highly dependent on the methodology by which the academic chose his/her sources and the scope of sources to which the academic had access—especially if, in a topic such as Poland in WWII, the academic is not multilingual. By the way, getting at the truth is one of the reasons why I like to publish firsthand contemporaneous accounts of events.

Peer review suffers from these same problems. Its unreliability was starkly illustrated by the recent retractions of Covid-related articles from the highly respected peer-reviewed journals Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine. The value of peer review in the academic social sciences is even more questionable, where one’s peers are likely to be subject to the same biases and influences, and where there is no replicable scientific data involved.

There are many, many useful and important non-academic sources, such as firsthand accounts, memoirs, documents, government reports or hearings, newspaper articles, ephemera, encyclopedias, museums, etc.—including trade books (in publishing, the term “mass market” refers to the small format paperbacks most commonly used for genre fiction).

Trade books can certainly constitute useful sources and should not be banned merely because of who published them or who buys them—for example, The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather, who is a highly respected researcher and journalist; or X, Y & Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken by Sir John Dermot Turing, nephew of famous Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing, whose well-researched book focuses on the Polish mathematicians who first broke Enigma in 1932; or The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Captain Witold Pilecki, his most comprehensive report about his undercover mission at Auschwitz; or the 2018 edition of Fighting Auschwitz by Jozef Garlinski with an introduction by Prof. Antony Polonsky (Chief Historian of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University), who says “It remains the definitive study of the topic and has not been superseded by more recent scholarship.” Other examples are the Osprey series of books on military history, the Jane’s guides, and there are literally thousands of others that can serve as useful sources.

I truly value the efforts and intent of the arbitrators and editors to provide to the maximum extent possible "truth" on all the various topics covered in Wikipedia. But I believe that if there are questions or doubts, the remedy is not to ban the information, but to provide a reference to a competing source and let the reader decide for him/herself. -- Tataqp ( talk) 20:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Evrik

The remedy is way too broad and unnecessary, and it prevents usage of perfectly reliable sources for uncontroversial topics which form majority of this case. -- evrik ^{( talk)} 05:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by AK at Aquila Polonica Publishing

I am a prolific Wikipedia reader but not a Wikipedia contributor. I enjoy learning about Polish history and manage a social media account that shares Polish history tidbits. There is very little online about niche subjects of Polish history in English, and most of it is on Wikipedia. Articles on individual ships, skirmishes, and Polish people who lived during WW2 are appreciated reading material that may simply not be on the radar of English language academics. Facts like a ship being sunk on a certain date, or a person being born in a certain town, should be fine using sources that aren’t up to the standards of hardcore academia. If more authoritative sources prove these wrong, all more power to the editors. The current strict standard applied to over a decade of history seems very harsh. I hope this arbitration leads to more interesting reading and higher quality curation, while avoiding collateral damage. AK at Aquila Polonica Publishing ( talk) 20:30, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Risker

I'm a bit flabbergasted by the original remedy - it really does venture far too deeply into content control, and isn't even appropriate for the nature of the topic area. Irrespective of my thoughts about the original motion, though, Maxim's motion is entirely correct. When a remedy is no longer materially relevant, it should be removed. Risker ( talk) 23:23, 17 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• In response to CaptainEek, I think there may be some misunderstanding about the purpose of the Arbitration Committee, which is to address user behavioural issues, not to solve every "big" problem of English Wikipedia. Yes, the committee's authority is limited. It should not be treading into content management; the last time it tried to do that, there was an open and public rebellion on the part of the community. Frankly, the committee as a whole doesn't have the knowledge to do that, and by approving remedies that are specific to content (e.g., the nature of reference sources that are appropriate for a particular topic), it essentially declares itself the final authority on the content of articles within that topic area. Now, I trust CasLiber to be the final authority on banksias, and I suppose NYB is probably better at assessing the quality of reference sources particular to the United States Supreme Court, but nobody would consider the committee as a whole to have that level of knowledge or experience to assume authority on the quality of sources in those topic areas.

  It is reasonable to pass a remedy that sanctions a specific editor for inappropriate use of reference sources, or for otherwise editing inappropriately in a topic area; that is already considered to be disruptive behaviour, and it is the behaviour you are sanctioning. It is reasonable to pass a remedy that permits independent administrators to assess the level of disruption caused by the editing practices of a particular editor; we call that discretionary sanctions. Both of them require evidence as to the disruption, specific to the sanction. But MEDRS is a creature of the community, as is the assessment of reliability of sources and the appropriateness of the sources used. The committee does not have authority over these areas of the project. At most, it can recommend or encourage the community to consider developing certain guidelines or policies related to sourcing of content. An editor using a non-academic reference as a source of information for non-controversial matters or for matters that are not normally included in the scope of academic references is not being disruptive. The result can be (and in a few cases, has been) gutting articles because there are no academic references that discuss non-controversial or even comparatively trivial statements in the article. Please keep the intentionally limited scope of Arbcom in mind; one might consider it the "Human Resources Department" of the project when it comes to discipline. Risker ( talk) 05:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC) reply

In response to Barkeep, I think the best remedy is found in the original motion by Maxim; however, the first alternative by L235 would be my second choice. I think it still takes the management of article content out of the hands of knowledgeable topic editors; it is, however an improvement over its being in the hands of Arbcom. Risker ( talk) 06:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by RandomCanadian

I don't have much if any involvement in this (blame the AE thread), but WP:BESTSOURCES already seems to deal with the issue of controversial information - and that is also entirely common sense and honest academic practice (no serious academic would cite a newspaper article as a factual source for serious academic writing). Agree with CaptainEek that holding parts of the encyclopedia to stricter standards is not unprecedented (MEDRS is the obvious example), and should be an option in any areas which have shown to be prone to disruption (and history, as we all know, is prone to nationalist propaganda of all kinds, including revisionism and manipulation; so we should absolutely encourage more respectable sources); and further note that challenging high quality sources with poorer ones (and the popular press is okay for non-controversial facts, but journalists are not exactly subject matter experts with all the credentials and experience to provide an accurate picture of more difficult historiographical issues) is indeed a disruptive, conduct issue and not just a mere content issue. If the restrictions are doing good and preventing disruption and POV pushing (in what appears to be an extremely tense area), they should stay. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 02:43, 19 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Thryduulf

I've only tangentially followed this dispute, but the crux of the matter seems to be that "academic" does not work as a useful way to distinguish between good and bad sources (at least in this topic area). MEDRS works (when correctly applied) because it reliably separates good sources from bad ones (and is treated as a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule). This, or any similar restriction, that excludes many good sources and/or allows many bad ones is going to cause more problems than it solves, especially if it says "X is good Y is bad" rather than "good sources generally do X, sources that do Y are bad more often than not". Thryduulf ( talk) 14:29, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by Sunrise

Assuming that the alternative motion passes: since the sanction describes itself as an expansion of a page-level DS at Collaboration in German-occupied Poland, it may be worthwhile to clarify the status of that specific page - whether the original page-level sanction will remain in effect, whether it is being replaced by the "reliable-source consensus required" sanction, whether it is being vacated with the others, or something else. I think it's implied that the original sanction will remain, but I don't know if others will think the same way.

Actually, it might also make sense to consider whether the pages at the nexus of the original dispute should be presumed to retain it as a page-level restriction, which could then be appealed at WP:AE as necessary. The idea would be to prevent the issues that led to the sanction from reoccurring, unless the Committee's opinion is that a renewal of the disruption on those pages is unlikely. Sunrise ( talk) 18:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Re GS's questions: 1: Yes. We regularly hold certain areas of the encyclopedia to higher standards, and I see no issue with requiring higher standards of sourcing. That to me is not a content issue. 2: Probably. 3: Aye, there's the rub. I was not on the committee when it was written, but my interpretation follows. It absolutely precludes the use of blogs, self published sources, and other non-RS material. But it should also been seen as discouraging anything but the highest quality sources (which the community can decide what that looks like). For historical research, that should be academic journal articles, and well researched books. Books can be tricky, and I'm not going to weigh in on this one in particular (that would be a content decision), but I think the community can handle what a high quality book is. For example, I'm writing on the American Civil War and Lincoln at the moment. My sources include several books that are the best I could possibly find, including a Pulitzer winning book and several others by Pulitzer winners and a Lincoln Prize winner ( David Herbert Donald's "Linclon", James M. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", among others). Not inherently academic, but of a superior research quality in the tradition of the best academics. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 03:04, 13 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Volunteer Marek: I think "power" is the wrong measure here. ArbCom is tasked by the community to solve our most intractable problems. We understand that we serve at the community's behest, but must make unilateral decisions at times. This requires the Committee to have an appropriate toolset. I am a fan of creative remedies that don't rely so heavily on banning, because our job is to Arbitrate and solve problems, not Ajudicate and act as an executioner. The less tools we have, the fewer problems we can fix. If you only have a banhammer, every problem is a nail. AdmiralEek ( talk) 17:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  While I am opposed to outright removing this remedy, I am open to reforming/clarifying it. I agree that the committee should not have a hand in content, and while I think this remedy does not meddle in content, I also think it reasonable to give the community greater say in how to craft the specifics of the source restriction. I would welcome input that builds a motion to that, or similar, effect. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 05:16, 22 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• I have now read the initial request here and the links it offers (namely to DGG's talk page and more significantly the RSN discussion). I have no interest in answering question #3. I think the discussion at RSN is appropriate and is a consensus forming exercise about content. Any further clarification from us would subvert that process, possibly decide content rather than form which is beyond our remit, and I am not seeing that this is necessary to prevent disruption in the topic area. I will over the next few days, as time permits, read what others have to offer here before offering any thinking about questions 1 & 2. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:24, 14 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  Alright I've now read through the comments here. I will note that those suggesting we get rid of this sanction are much lighter on diffs, on the whole, than those saying we should keep them. The comments of Volunteer Marek really made me think and if there were diffs to back up those assertions I would be willing to give more thought as to whether this sanction is still appropriate/needed.

  I said in my initial remarks that I wasn't interested in answering question 3 and that largely is true. However, I will note something spurred on by DGG's comment: this sanction should not be taken as a reason to exclude minority viewpoints. Minority viewpoints and fringe viewpoints are two different things; fringe viewpoints may be excluded (and will likely only be noted when we're covering them as a topic as in Modern flat Earth beliefs). So minority viewpoints, under our general content policies/guidelines (most notably WP:NPOV, can and should be covered while being noted as such even under this restriction.

  The reason I said I was uninterested in answering question 3 is because I view further clarification as a content ruling and that is outside our remit. The discussion at RSN is not disruptive. It is thoughtful and challenging, yes. But not disruptive. And since it's not disruptive it is not in our remit to short circuit it by getting 14 people to decide rather than our normal community process. I respect those who say the restriction itself is beyond our remit. On the whole I disagree - I think diffs have been presented here and in originally enacting the motion showing that disruption has been lessened by this restriction. In its place is a chance to have the kind of conversations like what has happened at RS.

  So absent community consensus telling us otherwise (and the DS review I keep mentioning when DS is brought up is moving forward and will be a chance for that consensus to be expressed) my answer to question 1 is that such sanctions are in our remit. For now my answer to q2 is yes, but as noted above I remain at least a little open to rethinking this. Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:52, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ My very best wishes: As I tried to explain above I don't see a discussion here that needs an ArbCom nudge (or outright decision). The right questions are being asked, the decorum is appropriate. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:23, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ DGG: none of my comments should be taken as a criticism of what you wrote. You were writing in general and that spurred my own thinking. My ask of diffs was from those who were focused on this topic area in their own thinking. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  I have sent a friendly nudge about this but that the committee has a few other issues that have been occupying arb attention which, combined with the complexity of this area, is probably why comments have been slower to come in despite the clear community interest in this topic. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:21, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Volunteer Marek: thanks for the diffs. I read the RSN about Polish media a little differently than you but the information and analysis about Nasz Dziennik and Glaukopis are helpful indeed. I will think more about this and look forwarding to hearing from other editors about this as well as what other arbs might say. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 21:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ François Robere: well I presume every editor commenting here, admin or otherwise, is familiar with the topic and I value the feedback everyone has given us. In general I don't favor someone's opinion just because they are an admin. However, admin who are actively enforcing DS do, I think, deserve special consideration in a venue like this from ArbCom. To determine who such people were I used the enforcement log for 2020 and 2021. Out of those only El C had participated here which is why I named him. Barkeep49 ( talk) 23:52, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ François Robere and Piotrus: you have both suggested some reasonable changes to prevent GAMING. With sanctions if we legislate too much it actually, I think, promotes GAMING (see our AWARENESS rules). The one incident I'm aware of in this area where the concerns you presented played out ended with a warning to a user not to do that again, which given the circumstances seemed like a reasonable outcome. I am a little more in favor of preventing stonewalling in discussions - people being unreasonable about good sources is disruptive - but think that the RSN escape hatch (which lest we forget is how we got here in the first place) might be enough to prevent that. Barkeep49 ( talk) 14:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Piotrus: to be honest a single example from November 2019 of potentially overzealous enforcement doesn't strike me as a worrying precedent. If it was we'd have more recent examples from the intervening time. However, I do want to create space for high quality content creators to write, something I know is top of mind for you. I would hope that a three pronged approach of, a) having the restriction have to be manually placed rather than be topic wide b) having the ability for a talk page consensus to form that a source is appropriate to use and c)having the ability for a wider consensus and among a larger group of editors at RSN that a source is appropriate would create that. This would mean, I would expect, in most places you wouldn't have to think about the sourcing requirement at all. In some places you would but you'd have a quick and easy way to get consensus and a slower place to turn, but which could more definitively vet a source. And if someone repeatedly objected to/removed sources that eventually were deemed appropriate that this would be evidence itself of disruption that AE could handle. Truth be told in typing out this reply I've actually become more enthused about this as an appropriate change to everything that has been discussed here. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Piotrus: the idea behind 2a, which I will be amending what I formally based on your feedback so thanks!, is to provide a default presumption that sources are OK. If it is an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journals, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution then it's going to stay OK. If it's not that and it's challenged a talk page consensus OR a RSN consensus can decide it's a reliable source and should be included. So in this case, and it's been a while since I read the Volunteer RSN discussion so I'm going off memory, the book could be included because the RSN consensus was that it was reliable even if whether or not it was academic is/was debatable. The goal of 2a is to rebalance the WP:ONUS in a way that is more typical in other subject areas rather than having it be so slanted towards those that want to exclude information. It should, I believe, address the kind of situation you outlined in your initial statement (i.e. Witold Pilecki). Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:11, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Pinging all people who've participated in this ARCA: you may be interested in providing feedback on the proposed motions below. Thank you to those who have already given their thoughts. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:17, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Girth Summit and Piotrus: we've already been accused (not entirely unfairly) of making up policy in this case. I think this push to answer question 3 is asking us to make up more and, as I have stated from the start, is a question I don't think ArbCom needs to answer. So I am going to continue to decline to answer it no matter how nicely and thoughtfully and insistently we're asked to answer it. If this motion had been in effect would we have reached consensus about this source? Yes. Could there be a future case/AE report that hinges on whether a removal is or isn't appropriate based on whether or not the source is in the safe-harbor of academically focused et al? Sure. My message to that would be for editors to act cautiously unless they know they have consensus and to trust in future committee or admins at AE to respond in thoughtful appropriate ways. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:04, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ François Robere: that would be my expectation. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

• To answer the questions from the initial request: 1. Yes. That's not to say it's something we should resort to often—it isn't—but I see it as a valid tool available to us, and don't see it as worth second-guessing. 2. I defer to participants here in saying yes. I'll try to give some more thought to #3. I have been giving all of this thought despite my lack of response thus far, for which I apologize. I really want to say "not within our scope" to #3, but can appreciate how frustrating it probably sounds to get an answer of "yes, this is still needed, but we won't tell you what it means." Ultimately, I would prefer that be settled by the community rather than ArbCom if that's at all possible. -- BDD ( talk) 18:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC) reply
• I have given very considerable thought to question 3, and will try to summarize my views as follows. I think the spirit of the remedy is to impose a MEDRS-style sourcing restriction on articles in the topic of Polish history over WWII. For the MEDRS (or the natural and physical sciences) spheres, the definition of an "academically focused book" would be something that, in general,...
  • Excludes coffee-table-style books or other books where the intended audience is the general public instead of academics
  • Excludes non-peer-reviewed literature
  • Includes peer-reviewed monographs written by an academic, and published by an academic press, and have generally positive reviews
  • Includes the type of book that has an a prominent established academic as an editor and has chapters contributed by other academics, is peer-reviewed, is published by an academic press, and is generally a secondary source (review) versus something that's more of a primary research report (but consider that the primary research report might have a section with a good review and summary of the existing literature)
  • Includes academic textbooks, preferably aimed at the senior undergraduate to graduate levels, but we can live with a first-year textbook depending on what claims are being cited
  • Depending on the claims, would favor mostmore recent scholarship that is widely cited.
• The next question is whether such a framework translates to a very contested history topic—my feeling from this discussion is that it may be an overly blunt tool not quite akin to using a sledgehammer to kill a fly but more like using a sledgehammer on carpentry nails. Would loosening the current remedy to permit other reliable sources for information that is unlikely to be controversial (e.g. basic uncontroversial biographical information??) and is not found in the three types of sources permitted by the remedy be a workable solution or would that cause undue difficulties to enforcing administrators? Maxim_(talk) 14:11, 22 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• I have made edits to my list above per Paul Siebert's excellent feedback. What I want to emphasize again—and it's something I wish I was perhaps more blunt about—is that I don't intend for this list to be seen as a prescription for the topic area at hand as it was written with medical or physical/natural science topics in mind. On the other hand, it may have established that such an approach does not translate as well to history and that the range of articles covered within the remedy may be too broad.

  I wonder if a more usable remedy would be along the lines of "[requiring] high-quality sources for exceptional claims for articles related to anti-Semitism and Jewish history in Poland, specifically in relation to World War II and The Holocaust, as well as on biographies of scholars studying these topics" that is enforceable via AE. This would: (1) narrow the scope as to not sweep up everything to do with Polish history in WWII; (b) not require specific types of sources within the topic area for material that is unlikely to be controversial; and (c) a reinforcement of the WP:V policy within the given topic area. Maxim_(talk) 14:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• Just popping a note here to apologise for my tardiness on this - since I was one of the arbs who implemented it, I took a break at an ill opportune moment and since returning, haven't had the time to get through it all. I have now done so, and will put some thoughts on all the motions below. Worm^TT( talk) 09:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

---

Motion: Antisemitism in Poland

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	7
2–3	6
4–5	5

Support

1. Per my comments above: while well-intentioned, it's an overly blunt tool which readily creates edge cases, e.g. non-controversial biographical information of subjects related to WWII and Poland, or details of ships in the Polish Navy during WWII. We have WP:REDFLAG for a reason. We could craft a remedy that could make failure to use exceptional sources for exceptional claims an issue for AE, but I don't see using AE as necessary.
   Also important to note is that as far as the original case goes, there were three parties: one was removed from the case per Remedy 1; one was topic-banned from the topic but has since successfully appealed; and one has been banned by the WMF. We're at a point where the back of the dispute has been broken, and this remedy, now the last remaining that requires enforcement, seems to cause more trouble than it's worth. Maxim_(talk) 21:50, 17 April 2021 (UTC) reply
2. Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 07:58, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply
3. I was not an arb at that time and did not follow this case, but I have a hard time imagining myself ever supporting such a remedy, as the lone oppose by Joe Roe said "Excellent advice that should be applied to a lot of topic areas, but I think this goes beyond the committee's remit. I'd instead encourage the community to develop sourcing guidelines along the lines of WP:MEDRS or WP:SCIRS for controversial historical topics." And also the points above by Maxim, if this was needed, it probably isn't now. Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply
4. While I'm sympathetic to the idea that this is still helping, I come back to the idea after reading the above that it's a remedy that exceeded our remit from the get-go. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:02, 19 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Oppose

1. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. ArbCom definitely had the authority to implement this remedy. We are tasked with coming up with solutions to our most intractable problems, and that sometimes requires us to be creative. By limiting the possible remedies we can implement, we weaken ArbCom and do a grand disservice to the encyclopedia. Saying "this area has been extra-problematic and needs extra-good sources" is not a content decision. Now, I think the interpretation of the remedy has been uncertain, and ArbCom could probably clarify the interpretation. But I think we have just done that in our comments here. The restriction is not meant to be draconian, and not meant to enforce the sole use of university publishers. It is meant to ensure that sources are, as I said earlier, of a superior research quality in the tradition of the best academics. That means lay authors are acceptable, as long as their work is well researched in an academic fashion. From there, it is up to the community to decide what sources are acceptable. This remedy ensures that the community errs on the side of more reliable over less reliable. Just as WP:MEDRS requires more stringent sourcing, so too does this dark and difficult topic which multiple governments and many political actors have a vested interest in manipulating. I can see amending the precise wording, or some sort of explanatory supplement to the remedy. But to repeal this remedy would be a definite failure on our part. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 05:01, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply
2. I strongly prefer either of the two motions being voted on below. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:44, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
3. I roughly agree with CaptainEek here. Regards So Why 18:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
4. I think the alternative motion is better and am opposing here in attempt to make vote counting easier for our clerks. Barkeep49 ( talk) 21:04, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply
5. There weren't many of us around at the time and we had a huge dispute that needed breaking. This was a solution, one that I noted would come back to bite us. I'm happy to accept there are better solutions out there, and will comment on the ones below, but all out repeal does not seem like the right solution to me. Worm^TT( talk) 09:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
6. Per Barkeep, to keep things moving along. I can't see myself coming to this point, not this time around. -- BDD ( talk) 20:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Abstain

1. Primefac ( talk) 15:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
2. I'd be open to reconsidering this down the trail if the alternative that is being adopted proves unsuccessful. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Discussion

I take seriously the reasons that have been submitted for why this restriction needs to go, including it being hard to interpret, it being outside our scope of authority, and that it is hindering the creation of high quality in this topic area, but I don't know that this motion is the correct response. I am nervous about supporting this and not doing anything else given that, El C, the only uninvolved admin who we have that is currently working this area who has weighed in here (per the DS log) has stated that the restriction remains needed. I'm not sure I like the other options I can come up with better - doing a full case (we're not at at Palestinian/Israel levels of need from what I've seen) or coming up with some other motion (what would it be? I have no idea) - but I am a little nervous about just rescinding it. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:32, 18 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• I agree with Barkeep. I'd be more interested in something that loosens the remedy rather than jettisoning it altogether. That should give us all useful data, either "oh, this isn't so bad" or "yikes, we really made a mistake". -- BDD ( talk) 15:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• I have considered this carefully and have come to the conclusion that this remedy must be vacated. First, I want to make this point: the original source restriction imposed by NeilN was in my view not permitted by the DS procedure. When placing DS page restrictions, administrators may only impose page protection, revert restrictions, prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists), or any other reasonable measure that the enforcing administrator believes is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project (emphasis added). The authority to prohibit the addition of content is expressly denied to administrators when consensus for the edit exists, and for good reason: to declare otherwise would place the administrator's decision above community consensus on a matter affecting content. Because the original sourcing restriction did not allow editors to add non-academic sources, even with consensus, it was ultra vires.
  Now, ArbCom is not limited by the DS procedures when it adopts page restrictions directly. But after reading this discussion, it is my view that the sourcing restriction falls outside prudent limits that ArbCom should place on its own powers. This remedy categorically excludes many sources that the community deems generally reliable ( WP:IRS, WP:RS/P). Therefore, the remedy in its current form cannot stay.
  However, as many community members point out, the topic area is still the subject of significant ongoing disruption, so I would like to see this remedy replaced by something instead of simply vacated. I would be curious to hear how editors would view a "(strong) consensus required for addition of non-academic references" requirement. Further ideas are also welcome. I'll hold off on this motion, but if there are no good alternatives I think I will eventually have to vote for it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:11, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I would also perhaps support holding a community RfC on stricter sourcing requirements in this topic area (like MEDRS), and keeping the current remedy as a temporary restriction until the conclusion of the RfC. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:17, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply
    • I find such RfCs a good idea in theory but not in practice. The last such remedy for a community RfC was passed for Portals, and before that, for one of the infobox cases. Neither RfC actually happened. The post-Fram RfC happened, but anything Fram-related is a poor comparison to everything else. That RfC was also launched by Arbcom, albeit with considerable delay, arguably as a result of general burnout and malaise that followed the aforementioned case. The community looks to us to resolve disputes, and remanding an issue back via RfC doesn't quite accomplish the "resolution" thing. Maxim_(talk) 14:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ BDD, @ L235 (and others obviously) thoughts about a motion along the lines of " Remedy 5 of the Antisemitism in Poland case ("Article sourcing expectations") is repealed. However, administrators remain empowered to issue sanctions, including topic bans, to editors who disruptively edit by using biased, POV pushing and/or low quality sources"? The last part is taken from the FoF for the case. I'm kind of spitballing here but hopefully this would signal our support for administrators in this topic area to stop disruption while removing the blanket restriction across the topic area. I'm also not opposed to Kevin's consensus required for non-academic references piece though that doesn't address the "ArbCom is not empowered to pass this kind of remedy" concern. Barkeep49 ( talk) 14:54, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Probably, yes. That's maybe a little further than I'd go, but I think it meets the spirit of my recommendation to loosen rather than abandon altogether. -- BDD ( talk) 20:26, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  The second sentence of your motion is already status quo, and I wouldn't oppose including it but I don't think it's enough. On the remit question, our previous decisions ( WP:AC/DS) establish that we are empowered to impose "prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists)", and indeed we have through DS delegated this authority to administrators; I see no reason why we are not able to do so in this case. The difference is that a blanket source restriction essentially supersedes policy (by rendering some otherwise reliable sources unreliable without recourse), while the consensus-required-for-nonacademic-sources remedy only serves to create a mechanism to enforce the RS policy. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:50, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• @ CaptainEek:, the remedy as stated does make something broken. The sanction covers a history topic, which is fundamentally different from topics like medicine or the natural or physical sciences. The remedy as written would appear to be inspired by those other topics, which doesn't quite directly translate for a history topic. In practice, this remedy requires a certain type of source for (relatively) uncontroversial material, which may be trivial to mention in a "required" source. Consider, for example, the technical specifications of a Polish naval ship from WWII; absent competing or otherwise extraordinary claims, any reliable source for naval history should do, and it doesn't have to be reminiscent of MEDRS. In the same vein, the remedy also leaves the door open for someone to gut an article, even if the material could not be reasonably construed as controversial. If anything, the clarification suggests that defining an acceptable source is open to considerable debate, and thus having arbitration enforcement swinging over one's head in this matter doesn't seem to be a healthy option. Note that the topic area is already under a discretionary sanctions regime—misuse of sources is something that is generally sanctionable at AE. Maxim_(talk) 14:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Alternative motion

Enacted - KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Support

1. This motion would scale back the scope of this remedy from the entire topic area to articles designated by an admin (and which designation could be appealed at AE as with other article based sanctions). It also would continue to give preference to sources peer-reviewed in scholarly journals (and the like) but would also formalize two options for obtaining consensus for using other reliable sources (at the talk page or at RSN). This second piece is important in terms of our committee jurisdiction and scope of authority, it would have, in my opinion, provided clarity about the source which spurred this discussion, and I think creates room for high quality content creation in this area without a sword of damocles hanging over their head. However, it hopefully preserves enough of what was identified as working under the previous remedy. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:54, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
2. Second choice. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

   Noted he was fine with amendment via email to ArbCom listserv Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:46, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

   First choice (to speed this along). KevinL ( alt of L235 · t · c) 20:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply

3. Second choice. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:20, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
4. Second choice to above. I can live with this motion because I don't think the outcome would be substantially different from a straight repeal, in that under the existing DS regime, administrators imposing a "reliable-source consensus required" discretionary sanction is likely already permissible (see note about FoF2 of the Kurds and Kurdistan in the discussion further below). My preference for my motion is that it's more to point and avoids instruction creep, but it's not a strong preference. Maxim_(talk) 14:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
5. BDD ( talk) 15:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
6. So Why 18:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
7. Changing the scope from "all articles" to "articles that need it" seems like a very sensible step. I'd support this. Noting, per Barkeep49's comment below, this should include the potential scope of the current remedy. I'd argue it's already implicit that we're not changing it, and we should simply add that to the motion. If we want to change it, it would need reconfirmation from arbs who have already voted, or a fresh motion - and given the amount of motions there already are... Worm^TT( talk) 09:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
8. Editors in this topic area seem to feel they need something, and this is something. Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:52, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
9. I am glad to see that we could brainstorm an alternative, props to folks for drafting a variety of options. I think this should narrow and specify the remedy's application, without altogether removing it -- a course of action I feel would be deletorious. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 18:06, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply
10. I'm open to trying this. I'm also open to reevaluating in a few months if need be. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Oppose

Abstain

1. Primefac ( talk) 15:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Discussion

• A good point was brought up that the scope of this isn't in the revised remedy. Since there were some comments about it, I hesitate to just amend it to "all articles on the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland" which is what is in the current remedy. ​ Barkeep49 ( talk) 22:38, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ BDD, SoWhy, David Fuchs, Maxim, and L235: I've amended the motion per this comment and WTT's comment to be explicit about scope. Seem substantial enough that some confirmation is needed. Barkeep49 ( talk) 14:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  I am happy with the change. Maxim_(talk) 15:22, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  Okay with me too. Regards So Why 17:33, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

  Me too. -- BDD ( talk) 20:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Motion (structured repeal)

Support

1. Proposed; first choice. This motion does not mandate or invite an RfC; rather, it only provides for a delay, and that if an RfC closes with consensus for a source restriction, violations of that consensus can be subject to DS enforcement. It wouldn't be an "ArbCom RfC" in any sense. Personally, I think an RfC makes sense given that many community members seem to favor continuing the sourcing restriction (though of course others disagree), but if people disagree and no RfC is held, the restriction will automatically be repealed in one month. (Considering how long this ARCA has been open, that doesn't seem like very long.) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

   Second choice (to speed this process along). KevinL ( alt of L235 · t · c) 20:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Oppose

1. I'm not a fan of asking the community to hold an RfC, on the grounds that such remedies have not been effective in the past. Maxim_(talk) 14:33, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
2. I agree with Maxim. I respect that this has a " if no RfC" is held caveat but I would rather we pass one of the motions above. Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
3. I'm not happy with ordering the community to do an RfC, though if an RfC is held, come back here and I would ratify its outcome in a heartbeat. Worm^TT( talk) 09:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
4. I appreciate the thought behind this, but replacing one arbcom overreach with another one doesn't strike me as the best solution. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:48, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
5. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 00:06, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply
6. Asking the community to hold an RfC usually does not work well. Now, if the community holds an RfC on its own prerogative, we can act on it. But forced RfCs are rarely as effective as grassroots RfCs. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 18:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply
7. This is overly complex and invites ambiguity. If we want an RfC, we should be direct about it. -- BDD ( talk) 18:31, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Abstain

1. Primefac ( talk) 15:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply
2. I'm open to reconsidering this in a few months if the motion we're adopting proves unsuccessful. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Discussion

Alternative motions discussion

Draft motion 1: repeal original expectations, consensus required for disputed nonacademic sources (for discussion, not voting)

Is there any interest in a motion like this among other arbs? These will all need some copy-editing and maybe changes to definitions of "high quality source". Imposing consensus-required is unambiguously within our authority, so this solves the "authority" problem. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:12, 26 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I could also see this being "without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or on a content noticeboard" like RS/N, and if a source is approved at a content noticeboard, it doesn't have to be relitigated at each individual talk page. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I especially like that second refinement and think that these two motions are in scope for ArbCom, being more similar to remedies we've done elsewhere, allow for a LOCAL consensus, as appropriate. I particularly like the second motion so that this remedy can't weaponized and instead would be in response to disruption. Barkeep49 ( talk) 21:11, 26 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I'll preface my comments by saying that I do prefer a straight repeal. That said, how would bad-faith removal of sources be handled under this remedy? This remedy bakes in a very strong second-mover advantage where someone can revert an addition, that for the sake of argument, is uncontroversial. Maxim_(talk) 13:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I assume they'd be handled the way we handle any sort of bad-faith action. There will probably be some degree of first- or second-mover advantage for any remedy along these lines. -- BDD ( talk) 15:22, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim: I ended up discussing this in my response to Piotr above but essentially I see the idea of RSN as a way to provide third party confirmation about sources and would expect someone who was digging their heels in and going to RSN for sources that regularly (or semi-regularly) were then found to be fine would be eligible for sanction at AE. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:26, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Draft motion 2

repeal original expectations, allow admins to impose consensus required for disputed nonacademic sources

Sourcing restrictions are arguably already permissible under DS regimes—consider FoF2 of the Kurds and Kurdistan case. I can live with targeted and proportionate restrictions like these, but I find that blanket requirement over an entire topic area is excessive. My other comment would be along the lines of remedy 1; how would you deal with a bad-faith second mover? Arguably one could ask for a topic ban based on the EE discretionary sanctions on the grounds of sustained tendentious editing, but would it be cleaner to just allow administrators to impose sourcing restrictions targeted to the specific dispute without us piling on more instructions? Maxim_(talk) 13:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Draft motion 2a

• This is the motion that I've had in mind in my replies today on this topic. Putting it out here for comment/refinement but would like to move towards formally proposing this as an alternative to revoking above. Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  As above, this is a little further than I might want to go, but I would support. Thanks for helping move things along. -- BDD ( talk) 00:24, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Draft motion 2b

• I think this is what Maxim is suggesting above? Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Draft motion 3: community RfC invited

This allows the community to set its own sourcing standards, but keeps the ArbCom sourcing expectations in place until the community has a chance to formulate its own, in order to prevent a fait accompli situation where everyone rushes to add disallowed sources in the interim before the community has time to reach consensus on its own rules, if any. Clearly, there is at least some support for continuing the restrictions as a community action. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:12, 26 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Draft motion 3.1: structured repeal, allow community to hold RfC if desired

This motion is the same as motion 3, except it doesn't explicitly "invite" an RfC; it only provides a process if the community wants to have one. We can also think of this as a "structured repeal". Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I find Arbcom-ordered RfC a good idea in theory but not in practice. The Portals and both Infobox cases had such recommendations which I don't think were acted on, and the RfC following the Fram case took forever to set up and then close. Maxim_(talk) 13:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim: I'm hoping you can support motion 3.1 over motion 3, then. I'm perfectly happy if no RfC takes place – under this motion, if there is no RfC, then the sourcing expectations expire in 30 days. If an RfC is held, it wouldn't be an "ArbCom RfC", either; it'd be a community RfC held on the community's terms, and the motion simply states that disruptively going against consensus established there is sanctionable – just like going against any other consensus. This just allows the community to have a discussion if it chooses to do so without a free-for-all period between us rescinding the remedy and the community creating its own. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:05, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply