Case Opened on 19:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 20:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification.

Involved parties

Zeq (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Zero0000 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Requests for comment

Statement by Dmcdevit (initiator)

See current ANI commentary at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Notice_of_block.

Zeq, despite his previous arbitration case of a year ago, continues disruptive behavior like edit warring, and shows no likelihood of changing, after so many blocks [1] and bans in accordance with his probation (log). I think a long term ban is appropriate. Zero0000, also a party to Zeq's arbitration, for edit warring with him, and previously desysopped for blocking while involved, has also been engaging in persistent edit warring, using his admin rollback button, and has used his adminship to first ban Zeq from the article, and then block him, while revert warring with him. He continues to claim that because the ArbCom ruled that Zeq's arbitration may be enforced by "any administrator", it gives involved admins the power to block Zeq, which patently violates the spirit and common sense of the AC ruling, and the idea of adminship. He continues to assert, in what sounds like lawyering to me, "My actions were according to the letter of the Admin ruling on Zeq." I am reproducing my ANI comment below for the specific details:

It's not either-or here; in fact, I think it's both. Zeq's long term disruptive behavior, frankly, merits more than an admonishment and a short block. Short blocks do nothing to fix the underlying behavior, and we know that because he has eight independent blocks before this. The edit warring at 1929 Hebron massacre, in light of repeated blocks, warnings, instruction, arbcom ruling, and even a not-subtle-at-all week-long ban by arbcom in a later motion, and I must conclude that he is incorrigible. Look closer at that edit warring; most striking in Zeq's failure to grasp collaborative editing and conflict resolution is his lack of atempts at good faith communication. Note that at the same time he was warring, he made a total of, well, zero edits ever to the article's talk page [2]. Note also the same behavior at Mohammad Amin al-Husayni concurrently, where his talk page communication is to accuse the others of vandalism. I propose we give Zeq the ban he deserves, and dispense with this drain on the community.

At the same time, Zero0000's actions here are indefensible and require further scrutiny. First, notice that he is not simply in a content dispute, but is, as an admin, engaging in an edit war with Zeq and others at 1929 Hebron massacre: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. Those last two reverts are inappropriate uses of the admin rollback in a content dispute. He made no attempt at dispute resolution, despite the fact that this dispute lasted weeks, and indeed, also never edited the talk page at all, his last edit there being 12:41, November 26, 2006. He first rolls back Zeq and then bans him from the article two minutes later, essentially enforcing his preferred version, and then later blocks Zeq, reverting him minutes later. Of course, we already know there is a preexisting conflict, since arbcom ruled more than a year ago "Ian Pitchford, Zero0000 and the others who were involved in this dispute are cautioned to use the procedures in Wikipedia:Resolving disputes." Zero's lack of communication I noted before is more concerning in light of the fact that he has been admonished by arbcom before for substantially similar behavior in a conflict with the same editor. And of course, Zero0000 was previously desysopped by arbcom, at the recommendation of Jimbo, for using his blocking powers in a content dispute in which he was involved. I fail to see why the community should continue to place its trust in Zero0000 as an admin. Dmcdevit·t 07:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

I will give my personal account of what happened, then I will answer some of Dmcdevit's specific claims. I have decided to not comment on Zeq except as necessary to explain myself.

What happened. The thing about editing in the mideast section of Wikipedia is that there is always at least one, and often several, editors around who have no other purpose but to mould the article according to their political views. I'm not talking about biased editors (who isn't?) but disruptive POV-pushers who are determined that the article will not be balanced or accurate. In recent times the worst of these have been Amoruso (now left?), Shamir1, and Zeq. This situation makes editing very stressful and tedious, and most good editors soon give up trying. Usually I just patiently persist in the hope that the some edit will stick by good fortune or some fanatic will leave. On this occasion I found Zeq yet again disrupting the article with material that was in obvious violation of several rules. I was not sympathetic, since Zeq is an experienced long-term editor who is completely aware of what he is doing. After removing the material several times unsuccessfully, I went to read the previous Arbitration Committee ruling on Zeq and noticed the long list of bans and blocks, which I think I didn't know about before. I then read the ruling to see what was permitted: "He may be banned by any administrator for good cause from any article which he disrupts by tendentious editing." I took this at face value and told Zeq on his talk page that he was banned from the article. He replied in his usual arrogant fashion [10] that he would do whatever he liked and proceded to disrupt the article again. Then I blocked him for 48hrs (intentionally a much shorter period than an average admin would have chosen on Zeq's track record) and reported my action in the prescribed places.

That is what I did. Was it permitted? Dmcdevit claims that "any administrator" doesn't actually mean "any administrator". He may be right. In fact, after reflecting on it for a few extra days I am willing to concede on this point. However, at the time I took the text in good faith to mean exactly what it says. If my judgment was impaired, it was innocently so. I also believed (and I still believe and can't imagine anyone disputing) that the criterion "for good cause...which he disrupts by tendentious editing" was met quite objectively. I would like to ask the present ArbCom to clarify the meaning of "any administrator" even if they consider it obvious already; I will of course abide by the decision without exception.

Dmcdevit's claims.

As I stated just above, I am willing to concede that Dmcdevit is likely to be right about the meaning of "any administrator". However, his reasoning is not overwhelming. His first error is to assume that the ArbCom can't make an exception to a general rule if they want, including permiting actions to people not normally allowed to perform them. His second error is to forget that such exceptions already exist (example: afaik there are no limits on which admins can block a known sock of a banned user).
Dmcdevit claims that an earlier ArbCom case involving me was similar to this one. He is wrong. This time I honestly believed I was acting as permitted by an explicit ArbCom ruling; otherwise I would not have so acted. On the previous occasion I had no such excuse and served my time without complaining.
Dmcdevit is wrong to describe the repeated removal of obviously unacceptable material as "edit warring". Actually it is called "enforcing the rules". I'm not claiming I did this as well as I could have, but that's what I believed and still believe I was doing. My understanding is that enforcing the rules is something admins are specifically enjoined to do, but Dmcdevit judges me as if I was an ordinary user.
Dmcdevit says that I didn't use the article Talk page in conjunction with my edits. He is right, but he forgot about the edit summaries. In each case I gave a precise reason for the edit at least the first time (and often more than just the first time) I made it. As I stated at AN/I, I believe my overall record in using Talk pages is as good as that of any other editor in the mideast section. In the case of disagreements with good-faith editors I have often spent many hours on Talk pages and I believe my record in bringing good sources to discussions there is probably one of the best in all of Wikipedia.
Here is an example of what "discussing with Zeq on the Talk page" actually means in practice. Zeq claimed that a photo taken personally by Doron was not what Doron reported. Over the following 14 edits, Zeq produced a single web link that doesn't even mention the subject, while Doron and I produced excellent sources to show how he is mistaken. Then Zeq started up on it again as if nothing had been said, see this edit and responses in 10 of the following 12 edits; then Doron and I wrote a whole article on the subject based on the latest professional archaeological sources. After all this effort, Zeq came back with exactly the same claim all over again. In other words, neither the "discussion" nor the production of the best sources that exist had any effect on Zeq whatsoever. Having experienced Zeq behaving like this over several years, I felt a reluctance to try reasoning with him over his recent blatant disruptions.
Dmcdevit's claim that I misused the administrative rollback is highly debatable. First, I had already explained those edits in previous edits. Second, the "undo" feature available to everyone provides almost the same functionality, so this can no longer be considered a special admin action. Third, the use of administrative rollbacks to remove material they consider to be objectively unacceptable is something that most admins do regularly, including Dmcdevit himself.

--Zero^talk 12:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amoruso. Unfortunately Amoruso is not gone as I thought. I have been remiss for not writing an Arb case against Amoruso long ago, as he is the most unprincipled POV-pusher to hit the mideast section of Wikipedia since the banned Lance6wins. Worse than Zeq. Amoruso appears to be a professional representantive of the extreme right, self-appointed or not I don't know. As a first example of how he operates, one of his first actions today was to reinsert stuff he found in a novel [11] (this source is identified as a novel right on the front page). This is far from the worst charge that can be made about Amoruso, but the worst (including deliberate lying about sources) can wait for his own case. --Zero^talk 11:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Admission of guilt by Zeq

I take full responsibility on my behavior which, at times, have been collaborative but at other have been disruptive.

This is my 2nd ArbCom.

This is Zero 3rd ArbCom – he edited Wikipedia longer and been involved in many more conflict and disruptions than me. (due to his strong conviction on ME issues)

To save time: I admit that at times my dispute resolution efforts failed and my behavior in wikipedia on occasion have been disruptive. There are many times in which disputes ended-up without disruption in a collaborative way.

During next year, I will stay away from any article in which I had previously been in disruptive disputes.

Additional aspects

Zero and other editors edit-wars on ME issues have debilitated the community ability to NPOV many ME articles.

These edit-wars occur even in articles that I do not participate – clearly banning just me from these articles did not solve the situation.

Zero and Ian have been warned by ArbCom to avoid edit-war, not to remove WP:RS sources and to follow dispute resolution – they choose not to accept these warnings.

This is not the 1st time Zero ban me for so-called "probation violation" - as in previous time he was overruled by other admins (rare that admins override so Arbcom must make note of that).

It was also explained to him personally[12] (in detail by user:Fred_Bauder) that applying probation ban is not the first step in any edit dispute.

This violation is not the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd time user:Zero0000 looses the cool head required by an Admin. (see also his repeated 3RR violations)

His stream of attacks on me (violation of WP:NPA) will also be documented. Several admins requested him to cease using edit summaries for personal attacks - still he continue up until very recently. (diffs will be presented as well as AN/I discusions - here is a preview where Zero attacks me, my work, my language skills and violates WP:AGF: [13]

One caveat

In 1929 Hebron massacre Zero baned me after just one single edit to the article. On April 5, at 11:32 I made single edit: [14]

This was enough for Zero to issue "a notice of ban" 50 minutes later at 12:20 [15].

This was the only edit I made to this article in 2007. This single edit is not disruptive.

An edit poped on my watchlist [16] - Zero removed a well known fact backed by a WP:RS source (other sources exist as well). This was a minor issue to restore it. (Haaretz used widely in wikipedia).

Only now, I saw that Zero has been in an edit-war for weeks over this issue: [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22]

Zero had similar disputes in other article. After He removed similar WP:RS source he got this reply from an editor: [23] "Haaretz is a internationally recongnized newspaper, let it remain".

1. Zero is a clearly "involved admin" (and had been displined by ArbCom before about exact same pattern of action)

2. He should not have used his admin tolls to block me

3. Zero decision that this single edit has been a violation of my probation is also at best questionable. If the edit is not disruptive Zero had no authority to issue a ban.

4. Zero's unjustified ban was the disruptive venet that brought us where we are today.

5. There are more serious policy violations by Zero.

The power given to some admins toward users under probation makes the uneven playing field a place where conflicts can get out of hand. Zero was not the only admin who used the pretext of my probation as an excuse to take admin action against me without justification.

Summary by Zeq

I take full responsibilty on my actions - but disrupting 1929 Hebron massacre prior to the issuance of the ban was not one of them.

Zero's edit-wars on this article prior (and after) my single edit should also be carefully looked at. More on this will be provided in evidence.

I will note that after Zero issued the unappropriate ban I at first tried to resolve it in a non disruptive way (on his talk page) but that attempt failed (he refused to comunicate with me - not for the first time) and I indeed engaged in reverting him after the ban was already issued - the revert was a mistake on my part (however a reviewing admin concluded that: "Zero's article ban of Zeq was invalid as he was an involved admin and did not post it to the noticeboard for review"). Zeq 08:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

Accept. Charles Matthews 17:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Mackensen (talk) 11:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Accept.--jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 06:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)