Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ebionites 3/Evidence

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You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

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Evidence presented by Ignocrates

Current word length: 859; diff count: 41.

Gaming Wikipedia by initiating a pre-planned edit conflict to support new Religion MoS guidelines and discretionary sanctions by ArbCom

Argument

The edit conflict on the Gospel of the Ebionites article (“GEbi”) was deliberately started by John Carter to create support for drafting new Religion Manual of Style guidelines (“RMoS”) for religious articles, see Current discussions.

Evidence

The time-stamps of the diffs from the “Current discussions” subsection of the guidelines proposal and the beginning of the edit war on the “GEbi” talk page are almost identical. link1, diff1, link2, diff2

Argument

Along with the proposed "RMoS" guidelines, John Carter proposed to ask ArbCom to impose discretionary sanctions on topic areas mentioned in “Current discussions”, including articles on early Christianity.

Evidence

John Carter’s statements that filing a case with ArbCom is the best chance to obtain the ability to impose discretionary sanctions: link1, diff1, diff2, link2, diff3, link3, diff4, link4, diff5, link5, diff6

Comment

A similar article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (“ABD”) on the “GEbi” was used to create a straw-man dispute over content; however, the dispute is about demonstrating my lack of fitness as an editor to the participants in the “RMoS” discussion and the ArbCom, predicated on an assumption of intrinsic bias based on my presumed personal religious beliefs and group affiliations. link1, diff1, link2, diff2

Abuse of process by prematurely filing for a Feature Article Review

Argument

John Carter filed for FAR prematurely, arguing on the talk page that the article was far below even GA quality and needed a total rewrite.

Evidence

Promotion of the "GEbi" to Featured Article. link, diff

Deliberate premature filing for Feature Article Review. link, diff1, diff2, diff3

Comment

The Feature Article Review was subsequently closed with a result of “Kept”. link, diff

Refusal to participate in the dispute resolution process in good faith

Argument

John Carter continued to insist that the “ABD” be included as a source in the "GEbi" article even after it was added to the article with clear notifications in edit summaries and on the talk page (compare date stamps).

Evidence

My addition of the "ABD" as a source and content deriving from the "ABD" to the article. diff

Continuing to insist the "ABD" be used as a source long after it had been added to the article. link, diff

Argument

John Carter refused to consider the merits of good faith attempts to address his criticisms on the talk page by making improvements to the article or respond to questions about how to make further improvements to the article.

Evidence

Ignoring good faith attempts to address general criticisms with specific solutions. link, diff

Refusal to provide any specific suggestions for improvements when asked. diff

Argument

John Carter refused to participate in dispute resolution at WP:DRN, even though he challenged the neutrality of the article content by applying a NPOV tag.

Evidence

Stating that the problem is that I am unqualified to edit because I am an SPA. link, diff

Comment by the noticeboard when the filing was closed for non-participation. diff

Argument

John Carter refused to acknowledge a good-faith attempt to address his concerns about scope of the Gospel of the Hebrews article ("GHeb") based on content from the "ABD".

Evidence

An attempt to resolve the dispute over scope by linking to the "ABD" content in a companion article was rejected. John Carter tagged the article despite an ongoing RfC to resolve the scope issue. link, diff

John Carter requested comment regarding the scope at Wikiproject Christianity Discussion (WT:X); diff however, he refused to participate in a subsequent community-wide RfC on the article talk page, diff arguing, contrary to AGF, that it was not a legitimate RfC. diff1, diff2, link, diff3

Comment

John Carter migrated the dispute to a new article, the Gospel of the Hebrews ("GHeb"), to argue the scope of the article should be changed to conform to the “ABD”, again using an article from the "ABD" to create a dispute over content. diff

Disrupting Wikipedia to make a point by tagging articles when reviews were already in process

Argument

John Carter applied a NPOV tag to the "GEbi" article to dispute article content after a Featured Article Review he initiated was in process to influence the prospect of it failing in FAR.

Evidence

Filing for FAR: link, diff Placing the NPOV tag on the article: diff

Argument

John Carter tagged the Gospel of the Hebrews article ("GHeb") during a GA-review and attempted to disrupt the review process.

Evidence

Initiation of the GA review by Pyrotec. diff

John Carter tagged the article with an "unbalanced" tag using a similar approach as the "GEbi" article. diff1, diff2

Pyrotec's comments about the article being tagged. link, diff1, diff2, diff3

Promotion of the article to GA despite the tag remaining. diff

Comment

John Carter migrated the dispute to a new article, the Gospel of the Hebrews ("GHeb"), interrupting a GA-review in-progress to argue the scope and layout of the article should be changed to conform to the “ABD”. diff1, diff2

Alleging a conspiracy among editors and with an outside religious group to push a POV

Argument

John Carter has demonstrated a battleground mentality by making unsupported accusations of biased editing based on an assumed religious affiliation. He made unsubstantiated claims of collusion with other editors as well as a religious group and the group’s leader.

Evidence

John Carter's accusation of my collusion with a religious group and the group's leader. link, diff, and his accusation of collusion with other editors to push a religious POV. link, diff

However, John Carter admitted during the request phase of arbitration that the problem was not my editing, per se ("... honestly, the problem with Ignocrates is not necessarily his editing per se, but his problematic conduct."). diff

Disrupting Wikipedia with incivility and personal attacks

Argument

John Carter used incivility and personal attacks as deliberate tactics to gain leverage in content disputes

Evidence

John Carter's admission of deliberately using "really, really, venomously condescending behavior" link1, link2, diff

Evidence

Other evidence of incivility and personal attacks: link1, diff1, diff2, link2, diff3, diff4, link3, diff5, diff6, link4, diff7, link5, diff8, link6, diff9, link7, diff10

Using Wikipedia as a battleground to revive an old dispute

Argument

John Carter repeatedly attempted to revive a dispute over the Ebionites article long after the other involved parties walked away

Evidence

John Carter's attempts to propagate the dispute link2, diff1, diff2, diff3, diff4, diff5, diff6, link3, diff7, and my attempts to stop it. link1, diff1, link3, diff2, link2, diff3

Suppressing the use of reliable sources as justification to delete article content

Argument

John Carter discouraged and disparaged the use of Bart Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, which was suppressed in order to blank reliably sourced content on the Oral gospel traditions article

Evidence

John Carter argued on RSN and the article talk page that Ehrman's book is not a reliable source. link1, diff1, link2, diff2, diff3

Comment

The evidence in this section ties directly to Smeat75's evidence below. It's important to understand that this entire thread was a response to, or, in John carter's case, a justification for, the blanking of reliably sourced article content and not simply a discussion about reliable sources. diff

Evidence presented by John Carter

Current word length: 490; diff count: 1.

Ignocrates' inability or outright refusal to assume good faith

I am really amazed how many times Ignocrates has in the past, and continues to in his evidence above, jump to conclusions regarding the motivations of myself. I have very serious questions on that basis whether he is even remotely competent to adhere to WP:AGF of others, a primary conduct guideline. One such statement in which he rather baldly asserts as fact paranoic conclusions which are not at all supported by reality can be found at User talk:Nishidani#Request for a review, in which he accuses me, among other things, of trying to eliminate secondary sources. At no point have I ever said secondary sources should not be used, but it would be reasonable to request that they source information which can be found in reference works.

This diff is not only a blatant personal attack which serves no purpose whatsoever, but is also I believe one in a long line of recent edits of Ignocrates in which he himself makes reference to something he "just learned" somewhere else, like in this case the Randy to Boise reference, and attempts to "show off" his own knowledge, rather transparently and stupidly, actually. In this discussion, Ignocrates makes an irrational assertion of my motivations which was clearly counterindicated by the real evidence, as I indicate here. His "observation" is yet another evidence of his own willingness to engage in any sort of misconduct, including in this case outright dishonesty, which seems to be what he has to do to try to pass himself off as in some way reliable.

Dubiously rational threats from Ignocrates

This threat to take In ictu oculi to ANI for disagreeing with him.

Lack of understanding of policies and guidelines of Ignocrates

User talk:Nishidani#Interesting observation is a very interesting conversation in which Ignocrates seems to be arguing that we should permit foreign language sources based on the comments he saw elsewhere. As I point out later in the thread, we have, according to guidelines, permitted them for some time. Ignocrates reacted in a rather hostile manner when I said that, apparently because I indicated his own lack of understanding of wikipedia, but it is interesting to note that he apparently had never checked to see that the guidelines did allow it, or, for that matter, apparently even looked at the relevant guidelines at all. That failure to even attempt to determine what guidelines and policies do and do not permit is I believe a very serious concern.

Claims of collusion argument by Ignocrates

Ignocrates argument regarding "unsubstantiated claims of collusion" are rather clearly and obviously misrepresented by [[1]], in which he was one of the two parties in the mediation (the only other being me) who indicates that creating an article which clearly did not meet notability guidelines, and thus apparently had no reason to be created, was created by consensus in mediation, and I believe rather honestly that raising this issue is a possible violation of the arguments going back one year stipulation. I would welcome input from the arbitrators regarding this matter.

Violations of talk page guidelines by Ignocrates

Ignocrates violates multiple conduct guidelines, including making irrational, dubiously founded judgments regarding the motivations of others, and explicitly refusing to address matters of substance raised, in the section Talk:Gospel of the Hebrews#Unbalanced tag. It should be noted that earlier in the page several recent sources were presented, presenting material not contained in the article directly relating to the article, which was the reason the tag was added, and that there is in the history of the talk page little if any evidence of Ignocrates actually addressing those matters. Also here, here in which he engages in spin control regarding his earlier rather attacking edit here, and similar edits in numerous threads already linked to in evidence.

Regular incivility of Ignocrates

Ignocrates regularly impugns the conduct of others with such words as stalking, harassing, etc., without any clear evidence that the term is used correctly. Simply reviewing the conduct of others who have already demonstrated a history of problematic conduct, such as Ignocrates, is not grounds for accusing them of being motivated by other than acceptable reasons.

Ignocrates' allegations of overriding motive

As per Ignocrates' own comment when this comment was written here above "Per Poisoning the well: “An assumption or accusation that another editor (or the subject of an article) is involved in a real or imagined conspiracy poisons the well so thoroughly — and involves so serious and complex assumptions of bad faith and beliefs in a conflict of interest — as to disqualify the editor holding such beliefs from editing articles related to the subject and/or editing in the proximity of the editor so accused.”" It should be noted that one of Ignocrates' principle claims above regarding my (alleged) overwhelming passionate obsession with providing clear cut guidelines, and his allegations that this is the driving force in my own actions, seems to fairly clear violate this guideline as well, and can just as reasonably apply to him and his accusations. Also, as the alleged "conspiracy" regarding the EJC AfD is well over a year old, and the "conspiracy" itself (as opposed to individual POV pushing on his part, another matter entirely) is well over a year old, I seriously question whether that statement meets the guidelines for matters within the past year.

Disruptive conduct

Talk:Gospel of the Ebionites#Neutrality tag provides what seems to me to be a good example of both how Ignocrates believes that he is the best, if not only, person who should determine content, but that his reasoning for such conclusions is at best dubious, particularly regarding the number of sources Nishidani produced which support the inclusion of the material under discussion. John Carter (talk) 16:47, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Smeat75's comments below

A review of my talk page history and Smeat's will reveal that this point was discussed repeatedly, including at User talk:Smeat75#Tertiary sources, which Smeat has, apparently, ignored, and that at one point Smeat made a rather amusing comment implying that Bart Ehrman is an "expert" on the entire field of early Christianity, a statement which, honestly, few rational people would make. Smeat also regularly ended the comments defending Ehrman with a statement that he is a NYT best selling author, which actually has little or anything to do with being reliable. Smeat's history on this matter can be found on my talk page here, in what can only be described as a threat and/or attempt at intimidation which in itself is a violation of conduct guidelines, and at User talk:Ret.Prof/archive6#Recusing myself from Wikipedia because of allegations of disruptive editing. I beleive it worth noting that Smeat75 seems to indicate in some of these comments that Bart Ehrman is a source at least on a par, and possibly better, on apparently all aspects of early Christianity than the individual authors chosen to write specific entires in reference books intended as reference books who are specialists chosen to write material, and that apparent "fan club" approach to sources is one of the problems I believe much of the content relating to early Christianity and religion in general has around here. The specific discussion which got Smeat involved was my saying Ehrman is not considered a "fringe"y source for his recent comments regarding the oral gospel tradition, an idea which, while acknowledged, has gotten little real support in the academic community beyond him and a few others. John Carter (talk) 15:10, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Smeat75

Current word length: 426; diff count: 10.

John Carter and personal attacks on Ignocrates

Just in one recent discussion between John Carter and Ignocrates on my talk page, John Carter referred to "Ignocrates's comments on his user talk page in which he clearly violates AGF and once again seems to indicate his rather laughable belief in his own psychic powers should be recognized for what it is, paranoid bullshit"[2],said ":Ignocrates, I realize that truly pathological self-absorption is one of the few things that can be expected from you"[3], told him "Denial of reality is kind of all you have been about for some time now, unfortunately" [4] and referred to Ignocrates' "longish history of POV pushing, dishonesty, and I believe collusion to violate policy"[5].

John Carter's attempts to prevent other editors from using reliable sources

The reason why John Carter was arguing with Ignocrates on my talk page was that I had become concerned when I saw that another editor felt that he was being prevented from using leading New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman as a source. Now it may be this other editor was trying to cite Ehrman inappropriately, that I do not know, all I know is that I saw John Carter tell the other editor that Bart Ehrman, lauded, award-winning, famous scholar, had as much reliablity as Tom Cruise talking about Scientology.[6] When I challenged him about this, he kept comparing Ehrman to comic books[7][8] and said "if we can find an academic source which says what Ehrman says, they would be the better sources. If Ehrman says something that academic sources don't say, then there might be a problem"[9]. I couldn't understand it, Bart Ehrman is an academic, with seventeen books published by the Oxford University Press! If that is not "an academic source", then what is? Since then I have learnt that John Carter thinks that religion pages on WP should follow other encyclopedias, especially the Anchor Bible Dictionary, a multi-volume work from more than twenty years ago.[10] I don't agree with this at all, but judging from the unenthusiastic comments from other editors where he mooted this idea,[11] I do not think there is any danger of this actually happening, however I feel that John Carter should not be intimidating other editors into not using sources that he does not feel are "the best" (which equals the Anchor Bible Dictionary, apparently.) The question "Is Ehrman fringe?" was discussed at FTN in April[12], consensus no,and "Is Ehrman a RS?" at RSN around the same time [13] consensus, yes, with some incredulity as to why the question needed to be asked. This has not made any difference to John Carter however as can be seen from the discussions in August linked to above where he is still trying to ban Ehrman from being used as a source. When I look at the articles which seem to have been the cause of this dispute Gospel of the Hebrews and Gospel of the Ebionites I see well written, well sourced articles. Why John Carter gets so worked up about these articles about fragments of Jewish Christian gospels is a mystery to me.Smeat75 (talk) 07:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by llywrch

My apologies for submitting this evidence at such a late date. Part of the reason was that I have been very pressed for time (work & family often reduce my free time to about an hour late in the evening), but also because I don't know what material I can add that hasn't been supplied already by Smeat75 above, or was provided in the original Request for Arbitration.

John Carter's response to the Gospel of the Ebionites FAC was unnecessarily disruptive

Out of the blue, I received a request from Ignocrates for help with this article.[14] At the time I was very discouraged with Wikipedia, & very cynical about it, but I had time on my hands so I helped him, as can seen from this page. I like to think that I helped him significantly with his goal, while respecting some serious concerns I had for the subject matter. These concerns included being explicit about the speculative nature of the subject, avoiding fringe sources, & reflecting contemporary scholarly thinking. Ignocrates handled my input with respect & cheerfully accepted most of what I had to say, to my delighted surprise. I found the experience quite refreshing, & it renewed my faith in Wikipedia's ability to be a collaborative medium. After some other changes required by the FAC process, the article was promoted to FA status.

Some time after this, John Carter learned of this promotion & responded quite fiercely.[15] I found his objections to consist of a lot of handwaving & verbage. He never explains how the "Anchor Bible Dictionary" article on this topic is better than the Wikipedia article. I still don't understand what relevance John Tabor has to this article: he isn't mentioned anywhere in it, & if he -- or Robert Eisenman -- had been, I would have objected to mentioning him. (Maybe John Carter mentioned Tabor because of the long-standing feud between him & Ignocrates over religious topics. Will the ArbCom accept as proven these two have feuded for several years, or would they prfer I submit proof of it? The rules of this case otherwise restrict evidence only to the last 12 months.) Although Ignocrates offered to modify the article in response to John carter's objections, that only led to further arguments between the two, which included at least one saying that this will end up in arbitration.example The article was taken to FA Review,[16] where no action was taken.[17]; the person handling the closure remarked, "if multiple editors still believe this article is unworthy of FA status, the article can be returned here, but that should be a timeframe of months, not days or weeks." (Italics mine.) The two continued their argument over marginally involved user talk pages: mine, Ret.Prof, & NewJersyLiz, section "Commentary", are the few I know of off the top of my head. And it appears that John Carter's excessive suspicion of "Jewish-Christian" materials has driven one editor into an indefinite Wikibreak (namely Ret.Prof).[18]

Despite having contributed to Wikipedia for almost 12 years, this is my first submission of evidence to the ArbCom, so please contact me if this needs further diffs or other alterations to allow it to conform to the rules.

Evidence presented by Liz

Incivility

I wasn't going to present evidence in this case because I've already made a statement and I was told that the hearings were going to center on a content dispute. I am not an expert or even learned in this area of early Judeo-Christianity and I did not contribute to the articles in question. My participation involved attempts to mediate disputes between Editors on article and user talk pages which, discouragingly, were quite unsuccessful.

But after reading over the comments here, I see that user conduct is actually a point that is brought up so I will add my 2 cents. I have one [diff1] and it is to a rather lengthy exchange on my own Talk Page. But I hope you will at least skim through it because it offers a sample of the in-fighting (but not at its worst, believe it or not). Even I, an uninvolved party to the content disputes, got ill-tempered and frustrated, especially when I realized this dispute has lasted for years, not weeks.

I'm fairly new to active Wikipedia editing but what I gather from my participation in this discussion is this:

1. Both John Carter and Ignocrates have made worthwhile contributions to Wikipedia in many different areas.
2. In this particular area of knowledge, they clash and have clashed over a long period of time.
3. What I've observed on the article pages is that Ignocrates makes constructive edits while John Carter critiques the quality of those contributions but he makes few edits to the actual articles themselves. I can't assess the accuracy of John Carter's critique but it is, more or less, constant.
4. While I've seen Ignocrates be snippy at John Carter, I've also seen him attempt, through RfC, RSN and DR, to come to some sort of resolution over their differences.
5. John Carter is repeatedly uncivil to Ignocrates both directly and indirectly, when talking about him to others (all of which you can see in my diff). Common claims are that Ignocrates is "biased", "illogical", "POV pusher", "not rational", "dubious", "harping", "harassing", "ignorant" and, over and over again, "dishonest".
6. John Carter is always civil and respectful to me, in spite of my criticism of his behavior. But regarding Ignocrates and a few others, like Ret. Prof., he has one, big, enormous blind spot and doesn't see how bitter, cruel and discourteous his words are. Comments from me and others asking him to focus on the content have had no effect.
7. Ret. Prof. is an Editor who comes into and out of this discussion on this dispute. He retired from Wikipedia after a particularly blistering attack from John Carter on his Talk Page [diff2] . Again, it is a lengthy exchange but even skimming the remarks will give you a sense of the tone of the discussion which I would judge to be blistering.

Remedy: I think what is clearly needed is an Interaction ban between Ignocrates and John Carter and a topic ban for John Carter on this small area of early Judeo-Christianity. Ignocrates has successfully brought articles to FA status and I do not think that the problems Editors had with his editing years ago are still an issue. John Carter's main contribution to this area is in his critique (of Ignocrates and others) and I think there are plenty of other Editors who can provide this. John Carter is also active in a variety of other areas both in the WikiProject Christianity and in other areas of Wikipedia and I don't think a limited topic ban will be an undue hardship.

Thanks for looking over my evidence. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I changed my name last month so all comments by User:Newjerseyliz are made by me. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

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