Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee

Contentious topics designation for Talk:Turkey

I'm going to add a contentious topic designation for Talk:Turkey, similar to Talk:Climate change. My understanding is that Turkey may involve several contentious topics: 1) the Balkans or Eastern Europe, 2) the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed, and 3) Armenia, Azerbaijan, or related conflicts. Is that correct? Should I add one or all 3 to the talk page? Thanks! Bogazicili (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

You could add all three. You should use the "section=yes" parameter of the template to indicate that only parts of the article are covered. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: thanks! I added 1 long and 2 short notices. There doesn't seem to be an option to include multiple topics within one template. Bogazicili (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

There isn't. It's on my wishlist for sure. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Protection of AfD discussions due to contentious topic restriction

I have lately seen a number of AfDs being ECPed with summaries relating to arbitration enforcement, especially WP:RUSUKR and WP:ARBPIA4. I am wondering why such discussions get protected, unlike most talk pages of contentious topics? Toadette ^{(Let's discuss together!)} 17:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@ToadetteEdit. WP:ARBECR gives the answer, I think. When an EC restriction is in place in a topic area, it applies to the whole topic area with the exception that editors who are not extended confirmed may use the "Talk" namespace to make edit requests. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Petition to amend ARBPOL to add options for U4C

Please see WP:Village pump (policy)#Petition to amend ARBPOL to add options for U4C. Thank you. _signed, SpringProof ^talk 04:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian Greek page

Both contain inaccurate information and poor sources. I am banned from ediiing which is clearly an attempt to silence me. Spinning history or distorting it should not be allowed. Habesha212 (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The guidance you are looking for is here. Amortias (T)(C) 17:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Complaint #1: User:Nishidani conduct

This user has consistently demonstrated behaviors that appear to be in violation of Wikimedia’s Universal code of conduct and general policy, especially in the form of "Psychological manipulation" and "Hate-speech”. Since at least 2018, the editor has shown a significant bias in topics related to Israel/Palestine and has expressed extreme views on Jews, Jewish heritage, and explicitly, Jewish genetics. In their editing, the user states seriously contested assertions as facts, uses judgmental language, and gives undue weight to a particular view- in this case, the anti-Israel view. Furthermore it seems that this user has also violated some of Wikipedia’s’ “five pillars”, requiring editors on Wikipedia to treat each other with respect and civility (WP:5P4) and editing from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV). It seems that these non-neutral and sometimes offensive edits rise to harassment, therefore violating art. 3.1 of the UCOC.

Inflammatory commentary on Jews/Judaism

• The user recently used disrespectful, threatening language that borders anti-semitism. goody. I can't wait to peeve on the discussion there when it gets to his beliefs about the genetic superiority of his own ethnic group. Dumb goyim beware.”
  The term "dumb goyim" can be used to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to a narrative of a Jewish superiority over non-Jews, a theme found in antisemitic rhetoric, where Jews are sometimes falsely accused of harboring a sense of superiority towards non-Jews. This comment is uncivil and violates Art. 2.2 of Wikimedia’s UCOC. Moreover, the threatening nature of this comment’, it’s attempted “trolling”, and insulting antisemitic reference, rise to Harassment, violating article 3.1 of the UCOC. Although a complaint filed against him for using this phrase was closed with warning, with one admin stating that “if it happened again, I would not take so charitable a view”. But this is not the first time that User:Nishidani has used this phrase.
• The user has also stated that the article Jews is "untouchable in its POV sacrality". They also attributed the survival of Jews to what they termed "diasporic promiscuity," a phrase that reflects a deeply biased and offensive perspective on Jewish history and genetics.
• More on genetics, the user has written that the Middle Eastern component among Ashkenazi Jews is “estimated to range from 3% upwards”, a distortion of common scholarship that half of Ashkenazi ancestry is Middle Eastern, promoting a fringe outlier instead.
• According to the user, “As any rabbi competent in modern historiography will confirm, Jews have their origin in Judaism, not in an ethnos”. However, Jews have always seen themselves as a people with shared ancestry.
• The above raises serious concerns regarding genetics-related articles such as Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism, originally “Zionism, race and genetics”, where Nishidani has 62% authorship. The article has an essayistic tone and sparked controversy due to its synthesis of three topics that are not commonly analyzed together in existing literature.

Extreme bias against Israel, including analogies to Nazism and Fascism

• User:Nishidani has stated that "The word 'settlement' is an Israeli/US euphemism born of the necessity to camouflage or underplay the fact that the old ideology is still kicking (out Palestinians) for lebensraum". This comment uses the term ‘lebensraum’ which is primarily associated with German nationalism and later with the territorial expansion policies of Nazi Germany.
• The user labelled Zionism "a Jewish heresy" that may generate antisemitism. He also wrote that Zionism has a "historical mission to utterly disintegrate the indigenous population of Palestine", wondering "to what degree Israel will succeed in convincing the diaspora that all this Germanic thoroughness in wiping away an authentically semitic people is for the good of the Jewish people."
• The user wrote blatantly inflammatory comments here, for example calling Israeli media outlets: “militant mouth organ-grinders or trumpeting blowhards for a constituency of religio-fascist landgrabbers”. Israel Hayom is Israel’s most widely distributed newspaper, while Arutz 7 has the third-largest weekend circulation in the country.
• The user labelled an NYT article on sexual violence during the October 7 attacks "pseudo-journalism".
• Nishidani edited large portions and added much content to an article titled: Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse, while violating one of the main “pillars” of Wikipedia; NPOV and at times also being disrespectful and uncivil when referring to Israelis and Jews. This was after he wrote on his talk page that he will "make a wiki page on the history of this variety of subhuman stereotype as it has developed in Israeli discourse on Palestinians". In his first edit he writes that both Palestinians and Israelis tend to refer to each other by the usage of animal stereotypes, yet the title of the article and the rest of it, solely accuses the Israeli-Jewish side of this mutual practice.
• Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem, created by Selfstudier, and Nishidani (who joined 40 minutes after the article was created), presents contested claims in WP:VOICE. Source [a], for example, is from al-Haq, a Palestinian group. Stating opinions and contested assertions as facts, rises to violation of Wikimedia’s policy of writing from a NPOV. Similar concerns arise with the Palestinian enclaves article, which seems to endorse a biased perspective and presents one-sided viewpoints in violation of WP:NPOV guidelines. The first paragraph immediately draws comparisons to the Apartheid, and then cherry-picks a quote from Amira Hass, a journalist known in Israel for her radical left opinions. Despite these issues, it is classified as a good article. Nishidani, a significant contributor to this article, has strongly resisted efforts to address concerns regarding its bias, as can be seen here, also adding personal attacks, violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of UCOC.

Previous resolutions

• In the past, User:Nishidani has been reported and warned multiple times for using unconstructive or inflammatory language. They were also blocked several times, but those were either short-termed or quickly lifted. Many of their inflammatory personal attacks were regarded as "in-jokes". Their user conduct has since persisted.
• The user presents themselves, and another user he frequently collaborated with, User:Nableezy, as I/P specialists. When users approach them asking to pay attention for their conduct, they responded aggressively. In one example, they told one user to "stop shitstirring", to refrain from editing certain pages, and blaming them for "appalling ignorance", violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of wikimedia's UCOC.
• On August 29th 2018 at 16:41, administrator named Sandstein wrote: “I will consider imposing a block or an indefinite topic ban, with or without any prior discussion, in the event of continued battleground-like conduct by Nishidani in this topic area”. A few hours later, at 20:12 the user stated he retired. Despite that, and putting a retired tag on his page, he is clearly still active.
• On April 14th 2019, Nishidani was "banned for a week...they are misusing Wikipedia as a battleground and casting aspersions on others“.
• On August 19th 2023, Tamzin page-banned Nishidani from editing “Zionism, race, and genetics” due to his conduct. A day before he received a logged warning for fostering a “battleground environment” on the same page. In response, Nishidani said he would leave Wikipedia permanently. Two days later, former admin Tamzin lifted his page ban after receiving comments from other admins urging Tamzin to withdraw the ban.

The actions described raise significant concerns due to ongoing violations of Wikimedia's Code of Conduct and Wikipedia's fundamental policies. User:Nishidani's conduct negatively impacts Wikipedia's reliability and the editing environment, and contributes to the distortion of Jewish and Israeli related topics on Wikipedia.