Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander/Evidence

Undue weight, SYNTH, source misrepresentation

Criticism of the Talmud contained a passage mentioning an ADL report (see p. 10) documenting notorious white nationalist David Duke spreading an anti-semitic canard, a claim that "Sanhedrin 59a describes punishment by death for non-Jews that read the Talmud". Noleander in November 2010 upgrades this passage to a new subsection titled "Death for non-Jews that study Jewish law". The new section says

====Death for non-Jews that study Jewish law====
The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia article on Gentile: Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah discusses a verse in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 59a) that suggests death for non-Jews that study the Jewish law, which includes the Talmud.[143] The ADL documents a modern instance of criticism of this passage made by David Duke, who claims that Sanhedrin 59a describes punishment by death for non-Jews that read the Talmud ("A heathen who studies the Torah deserves death, for it is written, Moses commanded us a law for an inheritance; it is our inheritance, not theirs").[144] However, this text is in the context of a dialectical debate between two rabbis, positing opposing, extreme views.[71]

Noleander cites this url in the Jewish Encyclopedia for the claim that Sanhedrin 59a suggests death for non-Jews that study the Jewish law, turning the David Duke analysis into follow-on commentary. The Jewish Encyclopedia actually says at that url,

R. Johanan says of one so teaching: "Such a person deserves death" (an idiom used to express indignation).

i.e. the "idiom" is not a literal call for capital punishment. Noleander leaves that part out. Another editor added some more viewpoints on the issue in February 2011 and fixed the Jewish Encyclopedia misstatement a day later. Through the section heading and the unqualified reference to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Noleander seems to be presenting, with quite high prominence backed by the Jewish Encyclopedia's authority, an interpretation that actually came from David Duke.

I can understand that the misstatement of the Jewish Encyclopedia might have happened by accident, but leaving that issue aside, the whole approach taken has other big problems. Some more comments on this may follow in the analysis section of /Workshop.

Added: if I understand Jayen466's comment, Jayen466 is saying Noleander actually meant this Jewish Encyclopedia url instead of the one given. But I think that would have been an out-of-context quotation if the "idiom" explanation were still omitted. And the whole construction of the section is still terrible, of course (analysis in workshop TBD) 75.57.242.120 (talk) 18:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

More source misrepresentation

Note: I'm using the word "misrepresentation" to mean that the Wikipedia article contents represent the source as saying one thing, when the source says something different, thereby misleading Wikipedia's readers. I'm still not claiming Noleander is doing this on purpose, but IMO it's a natural consequence of an editing style focused on presenting preconceived conclusions and citing them to anything handy that looks related to the topic, instead of figuring out what the sources actually say and summarizing them. That is not neutral editing and Noleander should be held accountable. I don't think I should use a softer term than "misrepresentation" since permitting this kind of thing makes Wikipedia guilty of misrepresentation.

Same article as before, Criticism of the Talmud, noticed while examining this but present in the initial non-redirect version of the article. The version after Noleander's 24 September 2010 edit says:

<!-- ====Withholding wages from a non-Jew==== -->
Gil Student documents a criticism that says that the Talmud permits Jews to withhold wages from non-Jews.^[1] which relies on Sanhedrin 57a "[i]t applies to the withholding of a labourer's wage. One Cuthean from another, or a Cuthean from an Israelite is forbidden, but an Israelite from a Cuthean is permitted."<ref name="Sanhedrin 57a online"/> Student describes this text as applying only to the situation where the Jew is no legal obligation to pay the wages (due to a contract oversight) - the Talmud instructs Jews to go beyond their legal obligations and pay when the laborer is a Jew, but Jews do not have to pay when the laborer is not a Jew.

Noleander cites this Angelfire page written by Gil Student. Checking Gil Student's Angelfire page, we find:

• The page says "...it is important to note that the commandments regarding not withholding a worker's wages [see below] DO NOT touch upon the issue of whether a worker is paid; they deal solely with WHEN a worker is paid." (emphasis per original including the bold font).
• It goes on to explain (my synopsis) that you're supposed to pay "righteous" laborers the same day that the work is done, which it calls "treatment beyond reasonable expectations". The page doesn't say what the normal payday is for the non-righteous, but it's quite emphatic that everyone gets paid.
• "Righteous" seems to mean "monotheistic" (which I guess includes Christians) while "Cutheans" (according to Gil Student) means "idolaters" (some of whom are apparently Jewish). The page has a quotation from Deuteronomy 24:15, prominently displayed in a box and written in both Hebrew and English, saying

  A Ger Toshav (righteous gentile) falls under the prohibition of "On that day you shall pay his wages"

  under two boxed Talmud quotations saying similar things. In other words, Student is quite emphatic that righteous non-Jews get the same expedited payment as righteous Jews. He also notes that Jewish "idolaters" don't get this extra-fast payment. He concludes,

  What we see unequivocably from the above passages is that the Talmud is not distinguishing between Jew and gentile regarding paying wages. Rather it is distinguishing between monotheist and idolater... Nowhere are gentiles discriminated against and even idolaters maintain their basic right to be paid for their labor.

Noleander's version makes it sound like Gil Student says the Talmud lets employers stiff non-Jewish labors by exploiting contract loopholes to not pay them at all, when the meaning and tone of Gil Student's page is completely the opposite. Whether other sources say something different about this issue, I have no idea, but Gil Student says what he says. If I were Gil Student, I'd be pretty annoyed by this.

(Note: the page says "copyright 2000" at the bottom, but just to make sure it hadn't changed recently, I checked the Wayback Machine snapshot from May 1, 2009. It says the same thing.)

Noleander's editing pattern

Inspection and arithmetic on User talk:75.57.242.120/Noleander shows:

• At least 45% of Noleander's mainspace edits are to Judaism related articles (mostly clear from the titles)
• At least 25% are to Mormonism-related articles
• Over 80% are to articles clearly pertaining (based mainly on title) to religion or atheism one way or another
• Of the remaining 20%, based on examining a random sample (20 edits) I estimate that about half of the edits are religion- or Israel-related. Some of the edits are religion-related despite not being in religious-topic articles, like , in a section of Mitt Romney related to Romney's Mormonism. Others are in articles that are not obviously religious by title but turn out to be religious on closer inspection: First Vision could be about an eyeglass brand, but it's actually about the founder of Mormonism.

Going just by edit count is imprecise in figuring out how Noleander's effort is distributed, because Noleander prepares material in user space before placing it in mainspace, so a lot of work can show up in a handful of mainspace edits. User talk:75.57.242.120/Noleander/Contribution surveyor is a list of Noleander's edits adding 500 or more characters to articles. E.g. Noleander had made just 12 edits to Economic history of the Jews but one of those was the 130k edit creating the article in place of a former redirect. There's another like it for Criticism of the Book of Mormon. (A non-example is Noleander's 154k addition to Christianity and violence, which turns out to be a reversion of a big deletion someone apparently did by accident, so edit sizes don't tell the whole story either.)

Examining the two lists above shows that with Cladistics as the main exception, almost all of Noleander's sizeable text contributions are to religious topics. (There are also some smaller exceptions, like the new article Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting, about a theatrical play about Jackie Robinson). A significant area of interest in Noleander's non-religious editing is in articles like cladistics, clade, paraphyly. I hope that the connection of these topics to hereditary biology is not relevant to the main subject of this arbitration.

Also, the majority of the religion-related articles Noleander edits concentrate on negative or contentious aspects of the religions in question. This is obvious from viewing the edit lists, but I haven't bothered trying to make numerical statistics that I think would not be very useful.

Conclusion: in my assessment we're not quite in an SPA situation but we're pretty close to it. A broad topic ban on religious-related editing would impact around 90% of Noleander's mainspace edits, and probably an even higher proportion of the work that she puts into them.

Clarification (re Tijfo098): I'm not saying this edit pattern is sanctionable in its own right, if the edits themselves don't have bad problems. But they do, as is being shown elsewhere.

COATRACK, POV-pushing, and attack articles

Noleander has had multiple articles deleted for policy-violating unacceptable content such as POV-pushing, COATRACK, OR, SYNTH, and so forth. See the participant comments in these AfD's, cribbed from SlimVirgin's section:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Misuse of antisemitic accusations
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies related to Israel and Zionism

The first deletion was endorsed at DRV by solid consensus of a lot of participants. The DRV closure says "Based on consideration of the arguments in the DRV and AfD, it seems clear that policy-based arguments were weighted in an appropriate manner." I don't see DRV's for the other two but maybe I'm missing them.

More recently, Economic history of the Jews (originally called Jews and money) was deleted on similar grounds:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Jews

Tijfo098 raises a valid concern that these afd's are tilted by partisan commenters favoring deletion. I think arbcom should still accept this evidence. Arbcom can adjust for partisan tilt in the afd's by using its knowledge of the personalities involved. Plus of course there are also partisan "keep" !voters, both those favoring the article POV, and the AfD regular retentionists who just never want to see anything deleted if it has the thinnest pretext of notability. This religion stuff is way outside my normal editing area, but my general experience at AfD is that seeing articles with tons of on-subject references deleted is remarkable. Deletion indicates the article can't be salvaged--if only half of the article is POV crap, that's still unacceptable editing, yet afd usually closes with "keep". 75.57.242.120 (talk) 09:58, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

We can check verifiability of a statement by looking at its sources, but we ultimately have no mechanism other than consensus to check NPOV. AfD is intended for a different purpose (deciding if the article has even any hope of repair), they're imperfect for it (NPOVN is probably better in less blatant cases), but AfD's are legitimate consensus discussions about the suitability of article content. Repeated deletions like these really do tell us something. If people are gaming consensus discussions (AfD or anywhere else) that needs fixing too, of course.

Editors calling for analyzing "diffs" instead of whole articles should keep in mind that the diffs that introduce most of the problems in these articles look like this, i.e. they contain the whole article.

Responses

Responded to Tijfo098 re stats on evidence talk page. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 11:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Jayen466 - that sounds like Johanen uses the same idiom twice.

Tijfo098, I don't understand what you're getting at about average vs. worst case. I'd think we only care about worst case. Maybe you could clarify.

Tijfo, Hamas and the Taliban analogy is userfied, click the red link to reach the move/deletion log.

General -- my address has changed to 69.111.194.167 (talk) due to an ISP problem. 05:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

Unsolicited advice to would-be prosecutors

You guys really need to present evidence of WP:NPOV/WP:OR/WP:V violations, not merely statistics as to which articles Noleander edited. I can easily come up with "damning evidence" of that statistical sort concerning admins that edit against the interests of the Transcendental Meditation movement, and I can also come up with similar evidence concerning at least one admin that edits with a similar pattern on Scientology articles. (Never mind the scores of editors editing with anti-Israeli or anti-Palestinian slant.) Past ArbCom cases did not find such behavior by itself unbecoming of the status of an admin, let alone punishable at the plebeian editor level. 10:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Jews and the slave trade

Shocking title, isn't it? It is a creation of Noleander, and (1) it survived AfD so I could read it as non-admin, (2) it was heavily edited afterwards by User:Marokwitz, with whom I had interacted before. (If you want Marokvitz's calling card, have a look at Hamas and the Taliban analogy--admins only.) So, I was expecting to read diametrically opposed article versions by these two editors. I confess, the topic doesn't interest me much, so I've only read the lead of and of the current version . Yes, there are differences, but nothing I haven't seen before in these types of sensitive articles. This is just a sample point, but if this is average-case behavior of Noleander, then worst-case would have to be really bad, and it would have to happen a lot to justify sanctions. 22:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Replies to MathSci

Reply to SlimVirgin's analysis of Perry (mis)use

Noleander's selection from Perry appears much less odious if you consider that (1) the quote selected was for the "1.1 Rabbinic and Talmudic guidance" section, and (2) Noleander does present additional possible explanations (or counter-arguments) in the soapy-titled section "3.5 Why were Jews so influential in the rise of capitalism?" citing Perry p 143-4 in footnote 118. And substantive discussion continues in the uninspiredly-titled "Culture" subsection that follows, where Perry is cited again (footnote 122), this time in more obvious contrast to Sombart . So, while there is less contrast in Noleander's presentation (compared to Perry), I don't think it amounts to a misuse of the source, not if you consider that Noleander also discussed the credibility of Sombart (see section above). The fragmentary nature of the presentation by Noleander can easily confuse the reader; no doubt, this isn't WP:FA material. 20:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

JN466's example (Krefetz source)

That is the closest thing to a smoking gun I've seen here (besides the Radio Islam blooper). I strongly agree with Pseudo-Richard's analysis of this issue (made at 21:07, 2 April 2011 (UTC) below). 07:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Lists of Jewish <whatever>

I'd like to point out that this is a huge area of wiki strife by no means limited to Noleander, just have a look at Talk:List of Jewish Nobel laureates for AfD links (see also Talk:Ashkenazi intelligence for related WP:SOAP comments), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish American entertainers, related DRV drama, and about a dozens more such lists. Quoting from a closing admin "The headcount here is about 9354235-9354234 and is affected by a number of partisan and reflexive !votes on either side." I think it applies to the rest of these lists; see ANI drama. 06:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Griswaldo

Noleander wrote "documents involvement", followed by "the thesis was that Jews played a major role". Jayjg essentially removed the "documents involvement" part, leaving only the book's thesis. If you read Jews and the slave trade, which has seen Marokvitz's attention as well, the claim of documented involvement of Jews in the slave trade is not outlandish (of course, it was minimal). I agree that Noleander not summarizing the criticism in the lead of the book article at a certain point in time looks bad. That version of the book lacked a synopsis section as well consisting essentially of lead/synopsis + criticism section. Had that stubby version contained a __NOTOC__ it wouldn't have given the impression that it was trying to hide criticism, which followed immediately after the TOC. Based on several articles that Noleander wrote, I think he has some trouble following WP:MOSINTRO.

I do share the feeling that Noleander was sugarcoating the book article with unimportant elements, even though these were properly cited from Austen. But I've seen downright WP:ADVERT book articles on controversial topics with no substantive critical reception featured on the main page via WP:DYK; YMMV as they say. 18:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply to IZAK

Yes, Wikipedia needs to be a giant Kumbayah of religious dogma with no critical views. 17:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Maunus

And what about all the other article authors who have had one or more of their articles deleted at AfD on NPOV grounds, some of whom had the chutzpah to present evidence here? 18:46, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Background

Noleander (talk · contribs · count) began editing in February 2006. He has made just over 3,800 edits to articles (c. 10,300 overall). He initially wrote about biology and software, with large gaps in his contributions: no edits Feb–Oct 2006; Oct–Dec 2006; and Dec 2006–Nov 2007. He made his first religion-related edit in Nov 2007 at Talk:Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement, alleging the article was biased and suggesting, among other things, the need for material about "Mormons baptizing jews, and the resulting controversy." He proceeded to make 432 edits to the article between then and Feb 2011, and to several related articles, including Mormonism and polygamy, Black people and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Origin of the Book of Mormon.

His first edit about Jews that I can find was in August 2008 when he added a POV tag to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; tag, talk. Then he edited Israel and the apartheid analogy, and Jewish lobby, then there was another gap in his editing. In December 2008 he began posting to Talk:Bernard Madoff:

Is there any article in Wikipedia that discusses the prevelance of Jews in the financial world? I dont mean in a disparaging way, or "jews control the worlds finances", but more like "Jews are very successful in the financial sector, and tho only 1% of the worlds population, hold 20% of leadership roles in financial institutions" ... that sort of thing?

It seems that a large proportion of financial crimes in the US are committed by jews (25%), but that is nothing more of a reflection of the fact that jews are so successful in the financial sector, and occupy many leading roles (e.g. Secty of Treasury, Fedl reserve, etc).

I understand that that sort of data could be construed as anti-semitic, but it is an amazing fact, and really shouldn't be obscured. Though it does have a negative aspect, it also has a very positive aspect: The Sikh religion is well-represented the Indian military, LDS in the FBI, and so on. Jews are very successful in lots of fields, like classical music, law, physics, finance.

Yet it appears to be taboo in Wikipedia to mention that. Or am I missing the web pages that discuss that?

Also in Dec 2008 he posted to Talk:List of Jewish American businesspeople, arguing that there were names missing, and questioning the need for sources demonstrating ethnicity. There was another gap in his editing between Dec 2008 and May 2009, another gap until July, then another between July and Sept 2009, when he began editing Criticism of religion (109 edits in all). In Sept 2009 he created his first article about Jews, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood.

2009–2011: AN/I discussions

His editing from October 2009 onwards triggered four AN/I threads:

1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive571#user:Noleander and antisemitism-related articles, opened October 18, 2009 by Slrubenstein
2. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive572#User:Noleander, opened October 22, 2009 by Peter Cohen
3. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive597#Noleander redux, opened February 12, 2010 by Jayjg
4. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Noleander, opened March 25, 2011 by Slrubenstein

Oct 18, 2009: First AN/I thread

The first thread was triggered by Noleander's creation in October 2009 of Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood, moved by Equazcion to Jews and Hollywood (now a redirect), then deleted at AfD. Slrubenstein opened the thread, arguing that the article was "a thinly disguised pretext to bring out the anti-Semitic slur of Jews controlling the media." Noleander responded that he was seeking to describe an anti-Semitic canard, not promote it. The thread was closed with no action.

Oct 22, 2009: Second AN/I thread, plagiarism of anti-Semitic material from Radio Islam

Shortly after the thread was closed, Peter Cohen noticed that Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood contained anti-Semitic text that Noleander had cut and paste directly from Radio Islam. See this version, the section called "Michael Medved". Radio Islam's article was about an article by Michael Medved, an American radio host, in Moment magazine, an American-Jewish magazine. Noleander used the Moment article as his reference, though clearly his source was Radio Islam. So the edit violated several principles: (a) it referenced a source that had not in fact been used; (b) it plagiarized material from a website; and (c) it contained text, in Wikipedia's voice, that was clearly anti-Semitic. The white nationalist forums, Stormfront and Vanguard News Network (VNN), also copied the text from Radio Islam, [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t98084-2/] so—thanks to Noleander—Wikipedia, Stormfront, VNN, and Radio Islam carried the same material.

Peter Cohen therefore opened a second AN/I thread on October 22, 2009. During the discussion, Noleander acknowledged having cut and paste the material: "Yes, I wrote that article, and yes, I cut-and-pasted some text from the RadioIslam web site." He said he had failed to proof-read, that it was a mistake, and he apologized. This thread was also closed with no action.

Note the language Noleander copied: "the Jew Michael Eisner" ("the Jew X" is a common construction in anti-Semitic texts), and the reference to "Australian Jew Rupert Murdoch" (Murdoch isn't Jewish, but it's a common theme of anti-Semitic websites that he must be, because he's rich and powerful).

Feb 12, 2010: Third AN/I thread, suggestion that he focus on religion, not ethnicity

After the second thread closed on October 24, Noleander stopped editing for several weeks. He made six edits between then and January 30, 2010, then began regular editing again. He started editing Antisemitic canard, making 23 edits to it in all. This is an example of his edits, in which on Feb 3, 2010 he adds sections called "Jews control the media," "Jews control the Hollywood motion picture industry," and "Jews control the world financial system".

Two days later he began adding 61 names to List of Jewish American businesspeople, mostly the names of Jews influential in Hollywood, the media, and finance, e.g. On Feb 9 he added a "Pornography" section.

This triggered a third AN/I thread, opened on Feb 12, during which he insisted his interest lay in criticism of religion, not ethnicity. I therefore suggested that he focus on religion from now on, and avoid editing about ethnicity entirely. He seemed to agree to that (emphasis added):

March 25, 2011: Fourth AN/I thread, creation of Jews and money

Despite his apparent agreement to avoid ethnicity, he continued as before. Examples of his edits about Jews as an ethnicity since the February 2010 AN/I thread:

• He continued editing Antisemitic canard. On Feb 19, 2010, he added an "expand" tag to the section on "Accusations of excessive militarism and cruelty." On Feb 23 he added a section called "Kosher Tax" (that kosher certification is a con designed to make rabbis rich). On Feb 25 he added a section about allegations that Israelis were harvesting organs from Palestinians. Also on Feb 25 he added a section called "Jews control the music industry." Other similar material was added, always in the tone of reporting the anti-Semitism, not spreading it.
• He added a link in 2010 Haiti earthquake, on Feb 25, 2010, to Antisemitic canard#Haiti, about a claim that began on YouTube that Israelis were stealing organs from Haitians, which he called "Haiti organ harvesting conspiracy theory."
• He created African-American – Jewish relations on July 10, 2010, and made 105 edits.
• He continued editing List of Jewish American businesspeople, making 35 edits in all.
• He created Jews and the slave trade on Aug 14, 2010, and made 30 edits.
• He began editing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on Oct 26, 2010, and made 29 edits.
• He continued editing Antisemitic canard, making 23 edits in all.
• He created Allegations of Jewish control of the media on Nov 1, 2010, and made 137 edits.
• He added a link to Jewish control of the media to Template:Antisemitism on Nov 8, 2010.
• He created Jews and money on March 25, 2011, and made 12 edits.
• He added links to Jews and money to Shylock, Court Jew, Secular Jewish culture, Usury, Rothschild family, Loans and interest in Judaism, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff, The Dearborn Independent, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Nation of Islam and antisemitism, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Abraham Foxman, Werner Sombart, Antisemitic canard, On the Jewish Question, Grand Sanhedrin, Antisemitism in Europe (Middle Ages), Template:Jews and Judaism, and Template:Jewish culture.

He also continued to edit about religion: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Among the Judaism-related edits are Jesus in the Talmud (158 edits), Criticism of the Talmud (155 edits), Judaism and war (95 edits), Judaism and slavery (72 edits), Judaism and violence (49 edits), The Talmud Unmasked (21 edits), and Jewish religious terrorism (15 edits). Note that I haven't checked the quality of most of the edits I'm listing here, or what percentage of his overall edits are about Jews.

It was his creation of Jews and money —later moved by him to Economic history of the Jews, then deleted at AfD—that triggered the opening of the fourth AN/I thread. During this, Maunus and I proposed a topic ban. I proposed a 12-month ban on adding content or categories related to ethnicity, particularly anything to do with Jews; Maunus proposed a ban on articles related to Judaism broadly construed. It was in the course of discussing this that the RfAr was opened.

Misrepresentation of source material

Sept 2009–March 2011: Articles created about Jews or Judaism

Examples of articles Noleander has created about Jews since September 2009 (see list of all articles created):

• An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, created September 25, 2009; first version, kept at AfD.
• Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood, created October 5, 2009, deleted at AfD.
• Misuse of antisemitic accusations, created October 18, 2009, deleted at AfD.
• Judaism and war, created April 1, 2010; first version.
• Controversies related to Israel and Zionism, created April 15, 2010, deleted at AfD.
• Disputation of Paris, created June 9, 2010; first version.
• African-American – Jewish relations, created July 10, 2010; first version.
• The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, August 11, 2010; first version.
• Jews and the slave trade, created August 14, 2010; first version.
• Abram S. Isaacs, created September 16, 2010; first version.
• Allegations of Jewish control of the media, created November 1, 2010; first version.
• International_Jewish_Anti-Zionist_Network, created December 6, 2010; first version.
• European_Institute_for_the_Study_of_Contemporary_Antisemitism, created December 7, 2010; first version.
• Gerald Krefetz, BLP about someone who has written about the economic status of Jews, created March 18, 2011; first version, speedy deletion request, kept.
• Jews and money, created March 25, 2011, moved to Economic history of the Jews, deleted at AfD.
• Various redirects, including Antigentilism, Jews and capitalism, Capitalism and jews, Jewish stereotypes, Violence in Judaism, Judaism and peace, created as a redirect to Violence and Judaism; see list of redirects.

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 12:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Rebuttal of evidence by 75.57.242.120

75.57.242.120 seems to have overlooked a passage on the cited Jewish Encyclopedia page, and thus appears to have misattributed the source of Noleander's statement.

75.57.242.120 quotes

"R. Johanan says of one so teaching: "Such a person deserves death" (an idiom used to express indignation)." from the section "Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah."

This refers to Jews teaching the Torah, not gentiles reading it. On the topic of gentiles reading the Torah, the same Jewish Encyclopedia page includes the following, in the section "Johanan":

"The wise among the heathen is called and must be honored as a wise man" (Meg. 16a), is one of Johanan's sayings, though he is also the author of another which holds that, as the Torah was given as a heritage to Israel, a non-Israelite deserves death if he studies it (Sanh. 59a).

This being so, the argument that "deserves death" is characterised as just an idiom in the source, and that Noleander should have noted that in his edit, lacks substance. There was no such qualification in the passage that relates to Sanh. 59a. Note.

Questionable summary of a source

Noleander wrote, in the very first version of the Jews and money article,

"Gerald Krefetz comments that Jews are particularly prone to push the boundaries of morality in law in the realm of international banking."

The source quote was given and read,

"While there is no real evidence of an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers, some Jews in banking have conspired. The money game holds a fascination for Jews And since the Diaspora scattered Jewish communities, their financial concerns have always had an international flavor. But some Jews have overstepped the bounds of morality and law in the realm of international banking."

Now the source does not say that "Jews are particularly prone to push the boundaries of morality [and] law" in international banking. It says that some Jews have conspired. It says that Jews are involved in international financial matters, and some have overstepped the bounds of morality. The statement in the article however implies to my mind that the percentage of Jewish bankers pushing the boundaries of morality is large, or at any rate greater than the percentage of bankers from different ethnic backgrounds. The cited source does not support that.

Rebuttal of SlimVirgin's points re Perry and Sombart

I don't think it's reasonable to require an editor citing a work for a statement of fact to reflect the POV of the entire work in their writing. All that is required is that the article as a whole should be a sincere attempt at a neutral presentation of the topic.

SlimVirgin's description of Werner Sombart is not helpful. She writes, "Werner Sombart (1863–1941), a German economic historian who became a Nazi". She neglects to mention that The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911) met with both positive and negative reviews from the Jewish community (see contemporary New York Times article); Rabbi D. M. Hoffman wrote in Die Jüdische Presse that it would remain the standard work for all time on Jews and Judaism. Sombart is cited as the sole source for the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Finance, and is cited again in its article on Commerce.

Misrepresentation of sources and failure to use existing principal sources with due weight

• The original article Jews and money was not written in the standard way for a long wikipedia article. I already indicated that the article gave undue credit to Third Reich theorists, such as Adolf Hitler and Werner Sombart and analysed one specific sentence here, which I found completely misrepresented the source. In Noleander's case, he found a section in a book on "antisemitism" devoted to Werner Sombart, where the authors had explicitly identified his message and intepretation of the Talmud as antisemitic; Noleander cherry-picked phrases from a paragraph which in fact entirely misrepresented their message, stating the opposite of what the two authors were arguing.

• As a second random example I took the section on Shylock. Where available, I have reproduced material from the sources here. There is one scholarly source by Penslar which has Shylock in the title. But Shylock is only mentioned en passant twice, in the first sentence of the introduction as an antisemitic stereotype and later on, in the same way, within a very carefully argued historical discussion. Instead of cherrypicking the introductory sentence, which is not at all the topic of this book (from the University of California Press), Penslar's superbly written book, a mine of information, could have been used as a valuable source for the Economic history ofthe Jews (its subject more or less). All the other statements also concern Shylock as an antisemitic stereotype, as is made clear in the sources by their context, e.g. chapter headings. No proper historical context was made for introducing Shylock or The Merchant of Venice in the article. The book of Attali does so; and, in the long second segment from Penslar, Shylock and The Merchant of Venice are mentioned within the correct historical and religious context of usury and moneylending in medieval and Renaissance Europe. What Noleander produced was a list of one-liners concerning the antisemitic stereotype without any proper context, either in economics, in literature or in history. Noleander's first sentence on Shylock is completely unsourced and probably self-written.

• The academic book of Derek Penslar was quoted in the lede of Jews and money/Economic history of the Jews. Very little from that book can be recognized in the article. The major problem is that the article was not written chronologically, which is unusual for something that ultimately claimed to be an economic history. Noleander mixed disparate sources, serious academic books and personal accounts (airport books?), and thought it appropriate just to take isolated statements out of context to make a series of seemingly preconceived points. But the true economic history contains many periods and includes figures from the 17th, 18th and 19th century that most readers will not have heard of, yet who nevertheless played a role in that history. This is discussed in detail in Penslar where liberalism and the emancipation of the Jews is discussed at length. Noleander's account is almost disjoint from Penslar's, suggesting no serious attempt was made to come to terms with the content of his book, i.e. the economic history of the Jews. The true economic history might be a bit dull, dry and scholarly in parts, but rather that, than an endless string of potentially offensive caricatures and stereotypes.

• There is a long discussion of Henry Ford in Perry & Schweitzer. In the article Noleander has not presented their critical analysis but just a simple uninterpreted set of his utterances and activities, together with a partial description of the known influence on Hitler. On the face of it, apart from being one of the most well known and influential anti-Semitic figures in the United States, the material on Henry Ford has nothing to do with the Economic history of the Jewish people. It would be appropriate for an article on anti-Semitism. There is no mention of the honours he was granted by the Third Reich, etc. Other figures known for their anti-Semitism are also mentioned (Ezra Pound and Charles Coughlin en passant), but again their relation to economic history is tenuous. The material on Hitler is again uninterpreted with no proper context, a lengthy quote from Mein Kampf accompanied by an image of the book. If reliable sources had been used properly, the material would have been introduced with the commentary and context provided there. The presentation of the Ford-Hitler material by Noleander is a textbook example of how not to write wikipedia articles.

• The source article "Economic History" by Baron and Kahan, 44 pages long, from the Encyclopedia Judaica is available online here (see also if this link is unavailable). I have prepared a brief summary of the economic history prior to the early modern period here (it is not written according to wikipedia rules!) in order to make a comparison with Noleander's treatent of the same period. Having prepared the summary, there appear to be major deficiencies in Noleander's account. There is no discussion of agriculture which was a mainstay of the Jewish economy for a long period. Nor is the medieval period under Muslim rule with comparitive freedom mentioned at all. Periodic expulsions under Christian rule are not mentioned; nor is there any explanation of why medieval kings relied heavily on Jews as creditors, while barons objected. The rich and detailed economic history in Baron's account in the EJ can hardly be traced in Noleander's article. There is no historical context nor any attempt at a vaguely chronological account. There is no mention of the oft-repeated statement in Baron that pronouncements in the OT, the Talmud and Maimonides were idealistic and did not reflect common practice. Indeed Baron states that rabbinical scholars were adept in interpreting bibilical and talmudic material to reflect the changing times and circumstances. Perhaps the omission of the fact that from the thirteenth century onwards Jews were periodically expelled from England, France, Germany and Spain is one of the most serious. In Baron that explains why, under Christian rule, Jews could not rely on landholdings, so had to abandon agriculture, and why in the money trade moneylending was the only possibility left for making a livelihood. Noleander's concatenation of statements by largely non-academic authors shares little common ground with the content of Baron's article, which gives a fairly detailed account in 20 pages of Jewish economic history up to 1500. Almost all of Baron's carefully written historical account, including trade, crafts and agriculture, has been ignored.

Before returning to France on Monday 28 March, I had ordered "les Juifs, le Mondee et l'Argent; histoire économique du peuple juif" by Jacques Attali from amazon.fr (for about 5 €). It is just under 800 pages long, a personal account by an expert in economics, going through the whole history. As he writes in the preface, "Voici l'histoire des rapports du peuple juif avec le monde et l'argent. Je sais que ce sujet a de sulfureux. [...] Il est aussi essentiel pour le peuple juif lui-même d'affronter cette partie de son histoire qu'il n'aime pas et dont, pourtant, il aurait tout lieu d'être fier." An English translation of the book was published a year ago with the title, "Economic history of the Jewish people". There is no doubt it could have been used as a source for a wikipedia article with the same title. Normally lengthy wikipedia articles on a particular topic rely on locating a few good references which cover large chunks of the subject. Other references can be used in addition, to add further detail. That does not appear to be the way Noleander wrote Jews and money. It seems to have been glued together from disparate sources and, as the above example shows, might have misrepresented a large number of those sources by quoting completely out of context, Authors like Attali make very clear statements: "Thus Sombart's book—riddled with factual errors and anachronisms—is more or less an involuntary collection of antisemitic caricatures." (my translation from page 479) There are other prior references to English accounts of the economic history of the Jews, but I have not had an opportunity to see them. (I have no personal view on Sombart.)

I was reluctant to enter any evidence, because it is evident that editors have become so polarised and factionalised that personalised remarks are replacing dispassionate analysis. I believe that a good article entitled "The economic hisory of the Jewish people" can be written. Noleander's article fell far short of any serious attempt to write such an article (expecially considering its original title): his article was offensive and unbalanced.

This case is not related in any way to ARBPIA or ARBPIA 2

I have no idea where this confusion has come from. Here is one example of this misnomer. Since the same sentiment has been expressed in several places already by multiple users, it seems related to the polarisation and factionalisation which threatens to plague this case.

Noleander's interaction style can be prickly and less than collegial

I have recently had negative interaction with Noleander and two other editors over the article Christianity and violence. This negative interaction can be found at Talk:Christianity and violence/Archive 1 and Talk:Christianity and violence/Archive 1. This is not the appropriate place dispute whether I was right or wrong in the interaction. My only point here is that Noleander's interaction style was something less than collegial and collaborative but, IMO, this is only grounds for a Wikiquette alert not for an ANI report and certainly not rising to the level of an RFARB.

Noleander has worked on articles related to various religions

I am not able to list all the articles that Noleander has worked on but they include Christianity and violence, Judaism and violence and (I believe) Islam and violence. There is not, IMO, a clear agenda of antisemitism in the articles that he chooses to edit or in the edits that he makes to Judaism-related articles. The only way to get a feeling for this is to review the entire corpus of his edits to a number of articles. I have scanned his edits to Judaism and violence and I don't see such an agenda. I would recommend that ARBCOM consider not just the edits on which the allegations are based but the other edits as well in order to develop a complete picture of Noleander's contributions to Wikipedia.

Noleander has been willing to discuss POV issues with other editors

Well... for reasons that are not totally clear to me, he was less than collegial in discussing the POV issues related to Christianity and violence. However, his interactions with other editors don't exhibit the same hostility and unwillingness to discuss. In fact, his responses to allegations of POV have generally invited editors to discuss their concerns. This thread is an example.

Noleander's early version of Jews and money was not uniformly antisemitic

ARBCOM should consider this revision of the article (this is the revision that was nominated for deletion). While it is true that there are issues of sourcing and issues of POV, my reading of that revision concludes that Noleander made a sincere effort to provide a balanced NPOV view. The fact that he did not achieve an NPOV article is not reason, IMO, to tar and feather him as an antisemite. The article that he wrote might have been canted in favor of the antisemitic view but the article does not, IMO, have a clear antisemitic POV or agenda. I do believe that the article could be better organized and provide a better overall summary of the topic but that is a criticism of writing style not of latent antisemitism on Noleander's part. It is also true that there are a number of places where Noleander's text states opinions and theories as if they were fact. However, these sorts of things can be fixed and Noleander has shown a general willingness to discuss issues raised by other editors. Noleander's initial version of the article may have given undue weight to facts used to support the antisemitic canard of Jewish domination of international finance. In a number of places, he stated an assertion as fact rather than characterizing it as the opinion of a particular author. However, assuming good faith might suggest that these issues could be fixed by rewording the sentences in question to attribute the opinion to the source rather than asserting it as factually true. At the end of the day, I am inclined to view these as correctable errors that should be resolved on the article's Talk Page rather than dragging the editor before ARBCOM and accusing him of incorrigible antisemitism.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 05:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The Krefetz source

I still maintain my position that what is appropriate here is a warning to Noleander to be more careful with his use of sources and to strive harder to maintain an NPOV stance especially when editing controversial articles.

However, it is worth pointing out that his defense of his paraphrase of the "Krefetz source" (as presented in his evidence section below) exhibits a certain tone-deafness to NPOV. He argues that his wording is softer than the original source:

the original source positively stated that "some Jews haveoverstepped the bounds of morality …" and my paraphrase is the softer "[some] Jews are particularly prone to push the boundaries of morality". If I were attempting to portray Jews in a poor light, I would have retained (or exaggerated) the source's stronger wording "have overstepped", but instead I softened it. Furthermore, I included the original quote from the source in a footnote: - if my goal was to distort the source I would not have provided the quote. Clearly this is an example of a good-faith oversight, not a deliberate display of bigotry.

I still assume good faith on his part that he was not trying to be antisemitic but I think his defense exhibits a certain blindness to what may be perceived as antisemitic assertions. In this particular case, I read Noleander's text to be stronger and more antisemitic than the original source and I think others do as well which is why this text has become a point of contention.

Look at it this way... if I assert that "Noleander has (at times) overstepped the bounds of NPOV and made (some) antisemitic edits", is that assertion stronger or weaker than "Noleander is particularly prone to making antisemitic edits"? Now, if we assume good faith, this atrocity with the Krefetz source is just an egregiously poor choice of words. However, Noleander needs to understand what the result of that choice of words was and concede that the result was likely to be read as antisemitic even if it was not intended that way.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 21:07, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Overview

Responses to evidence from other users

Noleander's focus, when it comes to Jews, has been mostly ethnic and not religious

I don’t doubt that Noleander is a critic of religion(s), but his activities on articles related to Jews do not seem to focus on Judaism the religion as much as the activities of ethnic Jews. It might be that Noleander is incapable of sorting through the ambiguity involved in trying to distinguish between Jews, Jewishness and Judaism as he earnestly tries to criticize the religion, or it might be that he is ethnically prejudiced. I’m unsure of Noleander’s intentions in this area but it results in what seems to be a sustained effort to push a POV critical of Jews, as an ethnic group. Here are some examples that trouble me.

Replies to Noleander

• Regarding the relevance of the Jews and the slave trade example, which Noleander questions, it has to do with the claim that others have made about Noleander's interest in Jewish topics coming from an interest in the criticism of religion. Whatever his intentions, the end result has been more of a focus on an ethnic group than a religion, and this is simply another example of that.
• Regarding the claim that The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews "fairly represents" the point that "multiple critics of the book stated that the book attempted to appear credible by quoting (accurately but selectively) from specifically Jewish scholars," I clearly do not agree. If this is the relevance that secondary sources find with the extensive quoting, then this is how it should be presented upfront. Instead Noleander chose to present it simply as a fact that the book quotes heavily from Jewish sources, and then in the next paragraph of the lead state more vaguely that, "common criticisms were that the book used selective quotes ..." thus obscuring the point that Noleander claims was "fairly represented". Indeed presenting as a plain fact that the book quotes heavily from Jewish sources, is in my view, boarding on perpetuating exactly the kind of false credibility that reviewers were criticizing. If Noleander had presented this issue in the entry with the clarity he has here this would not have been an issue.

LessHeard vanU's evidence: allegations of bias don't equate to allegations of conspiracy

This issue was raised on the talk page, and has also been raised on the Workshop page but never rebutted or otherwise dealt with on the evidence page. User:LessHeard vanU supplies two diffs showing User:Silver seren unfairly suggesting that Jewish commentators at the most recent AN/I thread were "biased" against Noleander - here and here. These diffs clearly show an allegation of bias, but what they do not show at all is an allegation of "conspiracy". LHU, however claims that "User:Silver seren alleged a 'Jewish conspiracy'", and has created three workshop proposals based on that premise. The very premise is clearly false. I hope that in their final decision the arbs address the actual situation with Silver seren and not the phantom one.

The pattern of behavior

Nevertheless, I think many others e.g. SlimVirgin and MathSci have provided an overwhelming amount of evidence of a pattern of behavior. The recent decision to delete Economic history of the Jews, né Jews and money, epitomizes the problem. I want to emphasize that virtually everyone agrees that "economic history of the Jews" is a notable topic worth an encyclopaedia article. Sometimes articles on notable topics are nominated for deletion because of problems with content, but in such cases the article concerned is almost never deleted. This article was deleted because the problems went far beyond content.

Evidence presented by SlimVirgin, MathSci and others indicate a consistent pattern: Noleander compiles a bunch of books with "Jews" in the title - some are by just the major and well-respected scholars we would want to use as reliable sources for significant views. Some are works by people who were respected historians fifty or a hundred years ago but who are now insignificant. Some are by journalists or popularizers. In the case of this particular article, many were not by historians and were not on economic history. Noleander then takes selected sentences and presents them out of context and out of chronological order - two problems in any article on history. In the case of this article, there was no acknowledgment that the Tanakh and the Talmud and Medieval commentaries by rabbis like Maimonides are primary sources written at very different times under very different conditions. There is no acknowledgment that the general conditions of the lives of Jews changed from the Biblical times, during which at times Jews had economic and political sovereignty, to the Middle Ages, when Jews had neither autonomy nor equal rights with non-Jews, to the post-Emancipation period when Jews increasingly enjoyed the same rights as non-Jews. What is really funny (funny strange not funny ha-ha, except perhaps to antisemitic readers) is that the best books Noleander claims to be using (and which defenders of the article used as examples of the notable sources that "prove" that the article is scholarly) like Derek Penslar's Shylock's Children actually are very attentive to the different contexts of the sources, to changes over time, to the influence of the Emancipation and Modernity, and so on. So Noleander is not ignorant. He is using material from this book, and therefore is aware of Penslar's analysis, his presentation of context, his attention to chronology, and his attention to the different sources. He knows this, but disregards it.

why this problem is a problem for all of us

During its first ten years Wikipedia has fought a continuing battle to gain some respect as an encyclopaedia that people turn to not because it is convenient but because it is reliable and informative. During our first few years everyone understood that many articles were new and based on incomplete information. Now we boast of the number of articles and the number of editors and we ask readers to take us seriously. One part of this struggle has been the push to use multiple sources and provide citations. That Noleander's work does this is not a virtue, it is a vice - it is precisely what makes his work dangerous, because innocent people will come upon his articles and believe that they are scholarly and reliable.

This indiscriminate use of qualitatively different sources - cutting edge academic history next to work that is almost a hundred years out of date next to the personal opinion of a politician or advocate, as if all were equally scholarly; this cherry-picking of quotes taken out of context and used to forward views contrary to that of the author of the source, is intolerable. It is why university professors still discourage students from using Wikipedia as a source. It is why many experienced and respected scholars have no interest in giving their time to Wikipedia.

But if this were all Noleander did he would just be a disruptive editor, leaving his trail of deleted articles in his wake. But this is not all that Noleander does. His misuse of sources and of quotes taken from sources is not haphazard and indiscriminate. On the contrary, they make a consistent point. As MathSci demonstrated, Noleander cherry-picks quotes and presents them out of context in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts.

For example, the "Economic history of the Jews" put the section on the Talmud before the section on the Tanakh, even though the Talmud was redacted several hundred years after the Tanakh. He then cherry-picked a quote suggesting that one whole volume of the Talmud was devoted to money-lending. Later sections cherry-picked quotes to suggest that there has been a continuous and widespread attraction of Jews to money-lending up to the present time. Noleander drew on scholarly sources that discussed the extent to which the historical source reflected an individual opinion or widespread practices, scholarly sources that discuss other economic roles of Jews, scholarly sources that contrasted the relative roles of Jews and non-Jews in the economy, but he did not quote any of them on these matters. He just stuck to money-lending.

Now, some of you readers may be moneylenders and let me just say right now I am not attacking you. Wherever you have a market economy, you have moneylenders. But money-lending, which makes money off of other people's toil, is sometimes an object of derision. And historically, there has been a double-standard, where Jewish moneylenders are despised and non-Jewish moneylenders are admired for being enterprising. As Jean-Paul Sartre noted in Anti-Semite and Jew, facts are irrelevant - the antisemite does not care how many Jews are moneylenders compared to how many non-Jews, or how much wealth is controlled by Jewish moneylenders compared to non-Jewish moneylenders. What matters is the idea that Jews are avaricious and rapacious.

Now, I actually have no idea what Noleander actually believes. I can judge only his behavior at Wikipedia, and specifically what he has written. There is no question that Wikipedia does not accept slurs against ethnic groups. When these are made on talk pages, they are classified as personal attacks. Noleander has simply focused his energies on the mainspace of the article. His slurs are not against me or SlimVirgin or MathSci or any other editor, they are just against "Jews." But the NPA polic begins by noting that "attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia." This is not just true about attacks against me. A fortiori, this is true when it is against all Jews. That it is accomplished by a quote makes no difference. If someone quotes Mein Kampf as if it were fact, the quote is removed. Well, historians and even Jews writing against anti-Semitism quote antisemites ... they just put the quotes in context, and provide an analysis. When Noleander quotes the slur out of context, it is just the same as if he were quoting an antisemite as fact.

A number of editors have supported Noleander. Some appear to be indifferent to antisemitism. I ask the members of ArbCom and ask them to read our NPA policy and ask themselves how we can take have a policy that prohibits slurs against ethnic groups that are directed against an editor, but allow slurs against ethnic groups that are directed against the whole ethnic group - that is to say, a portion of our readers (if we really wish Wikipedia to be an encyclopaedia for all people). Some question whether the evidence is representative. Notably, after MathSci went to considerable effort to show how profoundly Noleander misrepresented a major source in one quote, some editors felt MathSci was obliged to spend more time analyzing more of Noleanders use of sources. I argue that this proves my point: until someone takes the time to check all of Noleander's sources, people will accept his use of them as proper. Indeed, the AGF principle implores us to. This is precisely why this kind of behavior calls for a ban.

Finally, some support Noleander by providing quotes that support his edits. But this kind of support should be discounted out of hand. Such people are simply doing exactly what Noleander is doing; cherry-picking quotes and presenting them out of context.

Some of the actions taken against Noleander have been punitive, rather than preventative.

• NW recently blocked Noleander for a week: . This block occurred while a ban discussion (ultimately inconclusive) was in progress at AN/I: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Noleander#Blocked. It is difficult to conceive what was being "prevented" by this block, which was, fortunately, quickly self-reverted: .

• Peter cohen started the second AN/I case here: . Previously, Noleander had already apologized for and described his efforts to correct the same matter: . Please note the timestamps carefully. The AN/I was initiated after Noleander had already acknowledged his error, apologized for it, and took action to correct it. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Contrary to the caricature presented in some of the evidence, Noleander has advocated for the addition of material that is sympathetic to the Jewish people.

• At Talk:Criticism of Judaism, Noleander has repeatedly argued for balancing criticisms with rebuttals to those criticisms, basing his arguments on policy and sourcing, and has tried to help other editors come to consensus: , , , , , , , , , , , and . --Tryptofish (talk) 15:55, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander makes positive content contributions.

• As an example, Noleander made extensive edits to Criticism of religion in the fall of 2009. Here is a version of the page before those edits: , and here is a version after most of them: . Taken as a whole, the page became considerably more comprehensive and encyclopedic. Overall, these edits did not focus on a particular religion or small group of religions, and, on a closely watched and contentious page, have not been particularly controversial amongst other editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

There has been a battlefield atmosphere at the articles involved in this case.

No surprise.

• At Criticism of Judaism: , , , , , , , and .
• At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Jews: , , , , , , and .

--Tryptofish (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It occurs to me that I should explain that I think that the significance of this evidence is that there are numerous editors other than Noleander who contribute to this atmosphere, some of whom are incivil in ways that Noleander is not. Although this combativeness occurs on both sides of the debate, there are particularly many such editors among those who have criticized Noleander and his edits. It is possible that some of these editors should become parties to this case; at present, I'm ambivalent about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

In particular, repeating some of the same diffs shown above:

AzureFury has engaged in incivil battlefield conduct:

and .

Camelbinky has denigrated other editors in a manner contrary to WP:OWN:

.

IZAK has made WP:POINTy and disruptive edits:

, and evidence elsewhere.

Jayjg has cast aspersions on other editors based on having fewer edits and not being administrators:

.

Mbz1 has been incivil and made WP:POINTy edits:

and .

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander's problematic edits

In evaluating all of the evidence on this page, arbitrators will need to differentiate:

• between resolving conduct issues, and intervening in content disputes,
• between old behaviors, and ongoing conduct, and
• between deliberate misrepresentation of sources, and failure to examine sources according to our best practices.

It seems to me that there are currently two major ongoing issues about Noleander's editing which are relevant to this case:

• Noleander sometimes displays a "tin ear" when writing content that touches on areas where readers are understandably sensitive. In particular, I note the use of the word "documented", which Griswaldo also discusses in his evidence, above. Similar constructions occur in this edit to Antisemitic canard: , and at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander/Evidence/Early version of Economic History article#Stock exchanges and joint-stock banks in the early version of the deleted page. Does "documented" simply mean this source documents the content in this article? Or that it documents that a canard existed? Or that it documents that the canard was true? Having a tin ear, per se, should not be grounds for sanctions, but it is reasonable to expect that Wikipedia content will be well enough written that it will not leave our readers wondering about things like this.
• Noleander continues to create new content that triggers the same dramas that were triggered by the creation of similar content in the past. (No need for diffs; it's self-evident from this case.) It's like repeating the same action over and over, but expecting the outcome to be different. This appears to me to be the nub of the matter. Of course, there wouldn't be so much drama if other editors did not respond dramatically to the content, but it is reasonable to ask that such drama, predictable as it is, should not continue to be repeated, just so long as that is done in a way that does not allow one side of a content dispute to use it to advantage. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:59, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Rebutal to Tijfo098

Pattern of efforts in particular topic areas

Noleander's efforts segmented into "periods of interest" in that he finds a topic he finds interesting and focuses it with near WP:SPA focus. The Judaism being the most recent "periods of interest." When Nolender edit these areas often in multiday sprees improvement are to the articles enhance coverage.

Awareness of historical context is needed to judge Noleander's assertions

I recall having interacted with Noleander just once before, when we butted heads a bit over the lead of an article. So I'm not qualified to comment on his broad edit history, but since this began over his Jews and Money article, I'd like to add something that I am qualified to comment on. I don't mind using only a Jewish source to do so, either: Erich Fromm writes that as late as the 17th and 18th centuries the norms of medieval Christianity still had considerable influence on economic standards among Christians:

Thus it was supposed to be un-Christian and unethical for one merchant to try to lure customers from another by force of lower prices or any other inducements. In The Complete English Tradesman (1745), it is stated that since the death of the author, Defoe, in 1731, "this underselling practice has grown to such a shameful height, that particular persons publicly advertise that they undersell the rest of the trade." The guide also cites a concrete case in which an "overgrown tradesman" as the guide puts it, who had more money than his competitors, and was thus not forced to use credit, bought his wares directly from the producer, transported them himself, instead of through a middleman, and sold them directly to the retailer, thus enabling the latter to sell the material for one penny cheaper per yard. The comment of The Complete English Tradesman is that the result of this whole method is only to enrich this "covetous man," and to enable another man to buy his cloth a little cheaper, "a very small advantage" which is in no relation to the damage done the other businessmen. We find similar prohibitions against underselling in ordinances in Germany and France throughout the whole eighteenth century.^source

The idea in medieval Christian culture (and lingering into later periods) was that everyone's place was assigned by God and indicated by his birth into a certain family. This is the same idea that St. Paul expressed when he said that if a person is a slave he shouldn't really go out of his way to become free, and that gave us "the divine right of kings" that everyone is familiar with. There was no notion of social mobility at all, and to try to affect one's social position by economic competition would have been seen as an attempt to rebel against God's will and cheat other practitioners of the same trade.

Noleander has tried to contrast these historical Christian norms with the fundamentally different view of economic life that derives from Jewish tradition. Not being a Jew himself, he appears to have done so somewhat clumsily, and even insensitively in a few instances. But the topic is a wholly legitimate one, and unlike certain editors who've made the contrary assertion, I don't see his attempt as having evidenced any sort of racism. He does appear to disapprove of religion's influence on culture, but there are great huge hordes of editors on Wikipedia who do the same, and I've not seen anything so far to convince me that he's any more biased than a typical editor who contributes to I/P or religion articles. Further, his willingness to calmly discuss and admit any mistakes in either sourcing or weight seems to me to be something that many other editors in those areas would do well to emulate.  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander has violated WP:UNDUE

Other editors have discussed various articles Noleander created that were deleted, and the distortions and misrepresentations of sources he put into these and other articles, so I'll focus on a more mathematical/statistical analysis of one article in particular. I created an AN/I section about Noleander on February 12, 2010. At the time, he had been on a 3 month break, which began during another AN/I section about him, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive572#User:Noleander in which he stated "My perception is that Wikipedia is censored in regards to some topics that reflect negatively on Jews, and I'm attempting to reverse that censorship." This was a clear indication that his editing focus was on adding material that "reflect[s] negatively on Jews".

As I pointed out at that time, after his return to regular editing, his first actions were to add three new antisemitic conspiracy theories to the Antisemitic canards article, that Jews control the media, Hollywood, and global finance: While this may seem innocuous enough, he then focused on adding to the List of Jewish American businesspeople any Jews who were senior members of financial firms, media owners, or heads of Hollywood studios, an eye-winking way of saying "we don't believe this canard that a Jewish cabal controls all this stuff, it's just that there happen to be so many Jews in senior roles here". In the week before I opened the thread, he added 47 names, consisting of:

• 32 Jews in senior roles in the media/Hollywood (in support of the "Jews control the media/Hollywood" canard), including 4 Jews added because they produced "Pornography" (2 of whom had served prison time).
• 12 Jews in senior roles in the finance industry (in support of the "Jews control international Finance" canard), including 6 Jews who had been convicted of serious crimes, and a 7th who had paid a $53 million fine as part of settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice.
• 1 Jew in fashion, 1 billionaire casino owner, and 1 billionaire real estate developer (the latter from a book called "The Vulture Investors").

68% of the names he added were in media/Hollywood, 26% in finance, for a total of 94%. In addition, 17% had served time in prison (not including the individual who paid a $53 million fine), and 8% were "pornographers". The names didn't come from a single source, and were not in any way random, but had to be searched for specifically, from a dozen or so books on Google. And I may perhaps be naive, but I'd never even heard of the "pornographers", and doubt many here have either.

While the AN/I thread was on-going and soon after, Noleander added two relatively innocuous names to the list, retail magnates. A month later he returned to the list, ostensibly to add the names of two fashion designers (one a billionaire), but in fact to restore the names of the "pornographers" (now under "Adult Entertainment") that had been removed from the list during the furor two months earlier. The following month he added a billionaire casino owner who was at one time the third richest American. I had actually mentioned that last name as a possible addition when I opened the AN/I thread, along with 5 other names. Of the 6, Noleander only managed to add the guy who owned casinos.

For the next 10 months, Noleander was apparently unable to find the name of a single American Jewish businessperson worth adding to the list, despite the fact that he was well aware that the list had once had over 200 names (albeit uncited), and had argued that they should be cited and added. Then, last month, he added 3 names, two in finance, and one a convicted criminal. The convicted criminal was given extra visibility by being put in a special section, "Kosher food suppliers", despite the fact that Noleander had previously merged food retailers into the general "Retail" subsection. A couple of hours later he returned to the list, and added 2 retailers.

In total, Noleander has added 57 names to this list. Of these, 32 (56%) are/were media moguls, 14 (25%) have/had senior roles in the finance industry, 9 (16%) had served time in prison, and 4 (7%) were in "Adult Entertainment". These numbers in no way reflect the actual breakdown of professions of Jewish American businesspeople (even those with Wikipedia articles). Fifty-six percent are not media moguls; 16 percent have not been in jail; seven percent are not pornographers.

This kind of fairly subtle agenda pushing is often hard to see, which may be why some have insisted this all was innocuous. It's easy enough to say about any individual addition "well, that one was accurate", but the cumulative effect produces a serious distortion. WP:UNDUE states "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Deliberately skewing membership in lists in order to support canards or negative stereotypes about ethnicities is a violation of this policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to LessHeardvanU

I'm going to try and keep this short, since i've already explained myself thoroughly elsewhere and i'll just be linking to those places. I'll just be focusing on the evidence presented by LessHeardvanU, since that is the only evidence on this page that applies to me. If the Arbitration Committee wishes me to respond to other issues or areas, please let me know and I will expand this section.

Mainly, I will be focusing on what I said in the Wikiquette report, since I had summarized everything there and my main conversations are there. My response to the report has both my apology, my explanation that I never meant anything I said to be a personal attack against anyone, and also some of my reasons for previous comments I had made. The diffs I refer to in that response are the ones raised by Maunus at the beginning of the report.

Then, after some discussion amongst other users, some who agreed with me and others who did not, Slrubenstein presented his interpretation of my responses that had been given in the topic ban proposal at ANI. In my response, I explained that one of the diffs he was using was misrepresented and didn't apply to the discussion. I then explained my reasoning (and confusion) to him.

Slrubenstein then asked me a series of 4 questions, to which I responded.There were no further responses from Slrubenstein after this.

I believe my responses to those are sufficient to explain that I neither meant nor intended for my question to be taken in the manner in which it was. When I asked it, I innocently believed that I would either get people saying yes, there was such a possibility, perhaps something should be considered in regards to that or people saying no, there doesn't appear to be such a bias present, you are mistaken. Instead, I was almost immediately accused of making personal attacks and being anti-semitic. This, clearly, upset me and my responses became increasingly more flustered as matters went on at ANI. However, I then disengaged from the discussion and calmed myself down. It was then that the Wikiquette report was submitted by Maunus and my responses, as already linked to in my evidence above, were much more calm. After my last response to Wikiquette, I disengaged from the matter entirely and haven't been involved for the past week. Silverseren^C 04:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Proper Dispute Resolution Process

Since it has been suggested that I bring up certain evidence here about the case at hand specifically (and not about myself), I shall do so based on my prior observations. Clearly, it is impossible for me to refer to any specifics about the Economic history of the Jews article, since it has been deleted, i'll just speak in generalities.

When the issue was first brought up at ANI, I looked into the article in question. Since I am not overly informed about specific literature in such a department, I instead looked to the article talk page and Noleander and Slrubenstein's talk pages in order to determine the exterior extent of the dispute. What I found was...nothing. The only response that Slrubenstein ever gave to Noleander in order to discuss the issues with the article was to notify him of the ANI discussion here. The article talk page was also devoid of such responses, though I did see other users commenting on the talk page with issues about the article and Noleander then congenially fixing the issues that were raised.

After the fact, I might also say that this discussion on Slrubenstein's talk page is concerning to me, especially Mbz1's comment of "My feelings are the same. I totally agree with "if the community cannot recognize anti-Semitism in action, I am more worried about the community than about Noleander." noleander is the user who floods wikipedia with antisemitic articles under indifferent and sometimes even supporting watch of the community. It is what's making me sick." Such a comment makes me concerned that this is being made more into a personal issue than one that is about Wikipedia and article editing.

Anyways, as I stated before, I found no evidence of proper dispute resolution process being followed on the part of Slrubenstein, the concerned party. There was no attempt to discuss issues with the article either on the article talk page or on Noleander's talk page. As we all know, ANI should be taken as a last resort and not a first action. The action of not even attempting to discuss with Noleander is concerning to me, since it gives the appearance of the ANI report being an attempt to give punishment to Noleander than to be an attempt to correct his editing. Silverseren^C 01:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander's personal crusade against various religions

1. Opens a barrage of controversial criticisms against the Mormons , makes accusations of a cabal , keeps on tangling with Mormon topics bound to raise the heat , keeps on making accusations and baiting them , hundreds of edits in this area that are on the one hand improvements but also bound to antagonize.
2. Gets into the field of criticism of the Catholics , attacks their religious doctrines
3. Creates article about "new" religious doctrines citing atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins, without offering the same or any level "Criticism" of it that he dishes out to the Mormons and Catholics.
4. Enters into controversy with Scientology articles bound to cause more friction .
5. Moves to tangle with the Jehovah's Witnesses:
6. At this point he's ready to take on almost all religions: Let's list some religous behaviors:..Mormon fundamentalists rape young girls..Kosher slaughter of cows: ripping out esophagus and letting the animal stumble around..Israel zionists think they deserve all land from Nile to Euphrates: nuclear war ensues..Scientologists ridicule mentally ill people for taking medications does this guy want to set off WW III or what?
7. Takes on Unification Church .
8. He loves a book that attacks religion Chapter Eleven: Religion's Corrupt Beginnings In chapter sixteen, Hutchins documents how religions has been used to cause harm to children. He cites examples such as genital mutilation, circumcision, and imposition of fear of healthy sexual activities such as masturbation. He also criticizes the way that adults use religion to terrorize children and adds copiously to that article. No "Criticisms" of that POV either, it's reserved for Israel and Madoff, and the Mormons and Catholics.
9. Naturally he loves the Criticism of religion article and adds to it , , adds section about Blood Sacrifice to Jerusalem syndrome section why is that? etc etc, but no Criticism from him on the Criticism of religion either.
10. Again refers to Dawkins that "Religion is a Mental illness".

Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander courts controversy effecting the Jewish people

1. Gets involved in questioning the controversy over the guilt over the Rosenberg nuclear spies always a volatile topic.
2. Adds controversial Summary of Apartheid-like Conditions in Israel and the Occupied Territories, adds citation that Israel gives poor medical care to Palestinians , Israel does not educate the Palestinians enough , that "Orthodox Jews" get better treatement than Palestinians Military service exemption for ultra-orthodox Jew is also "Apartheid", and offers NO "Criticism" of the Palestinians to counter-balance his one sided support for them. Dozens more entries that prove where he is coming from and it is not to "Criticize the Palestinians" like he does to the Mormons and Catholics.
3. Obsessed with and ties together the Jewish lobby and Israel lobby in the United States and American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the conspiracy theorizing "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" .
4. Adds conspiracy theory book defaming Israel Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee....
5. Creates Palestine Monitor article advocates for the Palestinian people, and publicizes conditions in the Gaza and West Bank. Topics featured by the Palestine Monitor include poverty, torture, the apartheid wall, checkpoints, refugees, and East Jerusalem that at least reflects his own POV.
6. He spreads the canard that it's because of Israel that the US was attacked on 9/11 analysts cite the United States' support of Israel as one of the motivations for the attacks . Of course nowhere does he offer "Criticism" of the 9/11 terrorists, he only finds time to attack Israel, Judaism and major religions, especially the Mormons and their beliefs. Although Islam and Hinduism get off very lightly with hardly any efforts to "Criticize" them as he does to the Mormons and Judaism. Oh well.
7. And then finally the issues over the Genesis creation narrative start there is no reason for a Judeo-Christian slant to dominate the article -- hullo, what is this article about in the first place...?

Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Noleander veers into Antisemitism (for lack of a better word) consciously or unconsciously

1. This becomes blatant with his edits and comments at the Bernard Madoff article: It seems that a large proportion of financial crimes in the US are committed by jews (25% and much worse, jews are so successful in the financial sector, and occupy many leading roles (e.g. Secty of Treasury, Fedl reserve, Wall Street firms, Investment Banking, etc)., and here he starts itching to create an article about Jews in finance and then into this hot potato stuff: Jews have achieved far, far greater representation in leading roles in the financial industry. I suppose the same could be said for their success in Hollywood., wants to add Madoff to list of successful Jews
2. Creates a controversial article about An Empire Of Their Own "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood", read on and see how much stealth antisemitism he brings in on and on about how the Jews did everything in Hollywood and it came from troubling sources.
3. Attacks circumcision, one of Judaism's holiest rites Christopher Hitchens critcizes Judaism for encouraging circumcision, calling it "grotesque" and a "mutilation" and claiming that it is painful, unnecessary, and decreases sexual pleasure in adulthood. Cites weird connections between killings and circumcision . Drags in sources even about non-existent female circumcision in Judaism , but he obviously hates circumcision, what can you do.
4. Adds segments about Shylock and Fagin to Stereotypes of Jews .
5. He wants to have his cake and eat it too loves the Misuse of antisemitic accusations , article that was deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Misuse of antisemitic accusations and where at the AfD his arguments reveal his bent of mind, and of course he likes good ol' Norman Finkelstein .
6. His defenses at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood, too bad for him it was deleted, reveal how far he will go with all sorts of twisted arguments to cover up his direct attacks against Jews but he won a reprieve at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/An Empire Of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood because it's about a so-called "book" -- can't keep a good man down, can you now. One thing you can say, he never gives up.
7. And then it had to happen he was finally called on the carpet for his antisemitism in articles at ANI where he remains in total denial. He has been at ANI many times: i Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive571#user:Noleander and antisemitism-related articles; ii Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive572#User:Noleander; iii Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive597#Noleander redux; iv Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive683#I suspect Noleander of anti-Semitic editing etc. Makes for very revealing reading as he runs rings around everyone with all sorts of mind and verbal games and tricks that are classics of WP:LAWYERING.
8. Moves on to introduce "Jewish canard" topics Add canards "Jews control Hollywood" and "Jews control Fed. Reserve"?: There are a couple of canards missing from this article, and - as far as I can tell - from the entire encylopedia. They are: Jews control Hollywood and Jews control the U. S. Federal reserve too clever, and very scary, by half.
9. Provokes and baits other Judaic editors with his own canards: BTW: I read on the internet that you used to communicate with other editors via email to "watch your back" when you were starting to do some controversial editing. Was that true, or was that just made up?
10. Finally gets in a mention of the Elders of Zion book one way or the other:
11. Sure, the Rothschilds need to have antisemitism thrust at them Needs some (appropriate, small, and neutral) mention of antisemitism. Gets in his wish about Allegations of control of world's banking system.
12. Revisionism that antisemitism is not just about Jews, yeah right, Lead section says that the term is "exclusively" applied to Jews. Yet there are many examples where it is not. Notes the notorious Durban meet-up At the Durban NGO forum, anti-Israel advocates arranged to have inserted into the final Declaration and Program of Action the words 'anti-Arab racism is another form of antisemitism', sure, and the moon is made of cheese.
13. Removes classical explanation of antisemitism .
14. Orthodox Judaism can never win with him Judaism, particularly the Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox formulation, has been criticized for treating women unfairly, and it's never Islam or mainstream Christianity that gets the heat from him about this, wonder why? Well, he does think Islam should be criticized for something at least, defacement of art Has "impact to public art" been discussed in Talk pages? How noble and high-minded indeed.

Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion

Based on his ongoing contributions and his own words, some of which I have pointed out above, I can safely state that it is correct to assume that User Noleander (talk · contribs) has:

1. A strong antipathy towards almost all religions.
2. He spends huge amounts of his time on articles that are critical of Mormonism, Judaism and Jews who are depicted as part of a vast conspiracy that controls Hollywood and the world of high finance, on focusing proverbial unrelenting fire on "bad" Israel that "occupies" the poor little "good" Palestinians and "Israel" is the reasons why "innocent" Arab terrorist madmen committed the crimes against humanity on 9/11 in the USA and other such "helpful" contributions to WP that just could not live without all this amazing information that Noleander manages to dig up from his never-ending stream of his-own-POV-sources.
3. He is very tepid in the amount of time he spends on articles critical of Islam, Hinduism, or of non-Catholic Christianity.
4. Let's see him write some criticisms of Christian Protestantism or of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if anyone knows where he has done so, please let me know!
5. It always comes back to "Criticisms" of the Mormons, the Jews, the Catholics, the Zionists and the Scientologists who he never tires of "researching" and finding endless "sources" to attack their beliefs, values, texts, actions, rituals and ideas.
6. He respects and idolizes many secular atheistic topics and thinkers such as Dawkins and Finkelstein -- NEVER criticizing them but will defend them to the hilt.
7. He is a master of, albeit very obviously tendentious, yet very patient stealthy almost ingenious skillful discussions and editing to try to get his way and will use WP's rules against itself to destroy the credibility of Mormonism, Judaism, and the others in his very focused almost obsessive cross-hairs.
8. He would really win some credibility if he focused equally and proportionately on criticizing (with all the great sources he manages to find): Fascism, Hitler, Nazism, Communism, Atheism, Secularism, Scientism and a host of other eclectic topics that he is surely aware of, but forget it, for him it's obviously much more fun taking constant editorial pot-shots at Mormonism, Judaism, the Catholics and the Zionists and a few others like the Scientologists, Jehova's Witnesses and nationalistic or religious Israelis that he obviously hates based on his own editing history that anyone is free to see for themselves.
9. His very controversial views almost always ignite controversy and WP:WAR wherever he shows up.

Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Solution

User Noleander should be topic-banned from editing articles relating to any religion as well as to all topics relating to Jews and Israel because he edits only to "Criticize" those religions, beliefs and people simply because he does not like them, never offering anything POSITIVE and HELPFUL to say in those topics revealing that he is inherently incapable of functioning in a WP:NPOV manner in these domains where his presence provokes controversy and smashes the fabric of WP:CIVILITY as other editors try to reason with him to no avail, based on his own comments and edits to date. Sincerely, IZAK (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep both eyes on the ball

This arbitration case was recognized from the start as a ball of worms with wide, cross-cutting implications for Wikipedia, concerning both administration and content, and also cutting arcoss established norms to do so; nonetheless it was specifically accepted as such, despite those complications, based on my reading of it. Given that, I do believe that the arbs also must consider other issues in that same wide, cross-cutting light. One assertion is that this case should be viewed with one eye toward DR-decisions to be made concerning an individual, as well as with one eye toward the general content that was added so that a neutral presentation of N, V'd and RS'd material is possible. This assertion assumes that questions of what, how or why, and the perceived damage it might cause may be separated from the valid content that either was added or could be, and a proper relevant neutral context for it.

Look at it broadly

Another assertion is that the Significance of Judaism in History, along with parallel articles for its two younger siblings, might be a good avenue to consider. The neutral notable words are there, the chronology is known, set and RS'able, and periods of sibling cohabitation, brotherhood and rivalry fall into place within the broad monotheistic Western world context, in which this arb must grapple. But the recent triple decisions to delete possible subsidiary content wholesale, and to make valid access to it impossible, bodes not well for helping establish that proper relevant neutral context, especially so early in this arbitration.

Balance it

I assert that both sides have valid points behind them, but additionally assert that support for the addition of content should not be seen as support for the previous locations, types and phrasings provided for the content in contention. Similar notable content, neutrally presented in context, has absolute five-pillar support for being on our pages. There must exist some consensual RS'd middle ground between the two and, I believe the arbs are attempting to define where that should be, and may you do so well.

I assert, beyond the specific grounds and technicalities being asserted here, that this is a simple but important tug-of-war between the addition of valid content and displeasure at seeing that content because it has led to antisemitism in the past. That it may lead there in the future however, is prognostication based only on the past; the world and history itself has changed the tennor and the basic conditions themselves. While this concern is of great import, what must be equally weighed is the relevant and notable content that the many RSs provide without such assertions, just history. These various premises must by considered, and then accepted, rejected or balanced as Wiki-appropriate, but valid RS'd content can not be kept off a page based on concern or fear, regardless of its historic precedence. The history was there first and flowed from it.

There are reasons with astonishing and consistent gaffs

I assert and reference things that also should be weighed: That similar assertions have been organized and used over significant time (p.91), widely orchestrated, (p.191) and with changed political considerations, as the circumstances of the times themselves changed. These reliable sources point to both a notable historic example of missing content, as well as the difficulty of adding such content even where it is appropriate to do so, as the latter subject's edit history will attest. Taking the opposite tack, I assert that there are astonishing lapses of basic significance and notability in our coverage. Taking another example of Wikipedia's existing three-sibling coverage of a different important subject, I find it astonishing that within the eldest sibling's article there does not exist a mention that escape from slavery is enshrined in Exodus and motivated all that followed. Is the term "Let my people go" so insignificant to the subject that it need not be included? It certainly set precedent for the two younger siblings over history, as well as in its more recent internal uses for the term. Is it really referring, as we say, to something else. Another far-reaching example of uneven neutral context and gaff-evidence, can be found at this basic history article concerning mankind's totality; it does NOT mention any Jewish history specifically, yet they lived through and documented it. This gap exists despite the sheer span of Jewish history and law readily available, from Abraham to the present; together these covers nearly four millennia, and more than three-quarters of the entire history of civilized humanity. Why have related projects not already done so, should they not, who should? In prologue, a knowledgeable and relevant author notes: "I am a historian who believes in long continuities and delights in tracing them. The Jews created a separate and specific identity earlier than almost any other people which still survives. They have maintained it, amid appalling adversities, right up to the present. Whence came this extraordinary endurance? What was the particular strength of the all-consuming idea which made the Jews different and kept them homogeneous? Did its continuing power lie in its essential immutability, or its capacity to adapt, or both? These are sinewy themes with which to grapple." I believe this arbitration must grapple similarly; if done so in a cross-cutting light, it may help both determine the specifics of this arb, but also arb toward a future neutral context under which the inevitable editing may continue more collaboratively. This article suffered from a similar non-inclusion gaff, but was noted, temporarily, but we shall see.

I wish all the wisdom of Solomon. Respectfully, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 04:51, 12 April 2011 (UTC), 04:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.