This case is now closed and pages relating to it might no longer be watched
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Case clerks: SQL (talk) & Cthomas3 (talk) • Drafting arbitrators: Joe Roe (talk) & Premeditated Chaos (talk) & Worm That Turned (talk)
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Case opened and suspended on 07:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Case unsuspended on 04:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Case closed on 06:30, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 19:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Case clarified by motion on 18:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 10:15, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Case amended by motions on 04:17, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 06:04, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 16:58, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Case amended by motion on 00:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
This case is closed. No edits should be made to this page except by clerks or arbitrators.
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This is not some sort of complaint/argument/etc. Just trying to get an authoritative statement on this decision's scope.
Airbnb is a US-based company that acts as a broker for people who have spare rooms in their homes and people who want to rent those rooms. Apparently there was some controversy related to Israel-Palestine and this company, so the article has a section on this issue. Ymblanter recently protected the article under ARBPIA following some disruptive editing to this section. I questioned this action, saying basically "did you accidentally protect the wrong article", and Ymblanter responded basically "I protected it intentionally, because the disruptive editing was related to Israel-Palestine". His response mentions some consultation with Galobtter regarding the duration.
So the question...are this decision's stipulations on page protection meant to apply to all articles that have bits related to Israel-Palestine, or is it only intended for pages to which Israel-Palestine is an integral component? This article is definitely the first — one can understand the company quite well without a tiny Israel-Palestine section sourced only to news reports and an advocacy organization. By the latter, I'm talking about Israeli politicians, places in the West Bank, events in the history of Gaza, etc. The situation here reminds me of the "weather" situation at WP:TBAN — if we had similar sanctions on the topic of weather, I suppose we'd not consider all articles with "climate" sections liable to ARBWEATHER protection.
If we assume either Ymblanter's perspective or mine, there's no room for dispute over whether this is an appropriate protection; if Arbcom meant to include all pages with Israel-Palestine sections, of course this is an appropriate protection, and if you didn't mean to include pages like this, obviously this should be treated like any other victim of disruptive editing rather than an Israel-Palestine issue. So once again, no hard feelings exist yet, and I don't envision them arising in the future; I just want the scope to be clear.
The consultation with Galobtter which Nyttend mentions is at my talk page, User talk:Ymblanter#Protection of Airbnb. Concerning the issue itself, I indeed interpret the decision such that if an article contains a significant part (in the case of Airbnb, this is a dedicated section) the discretionary sanctions apply. However, I do not hold strong opinions here, if the result of this clarification request is that only dedicated articles can be extended-confirmed protected (or anything else) this is perfectly fine with me.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:40, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
@Huldra: Without giving my opinion of the motion you mention, if someone compiles a list of articles where the notice must be placed I volunteer, after a reasonable check, place the notice to all these articles (which obviously is going to take time but it is still better than nothing).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
@AGK: Yes, it is time to conduct review of all remedies. We are slowly moving towards professionalizing of AE in general and PI in particular, when one first needs to study for five years and then run an internship in order to be able to act there responsively. This is not really good.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Retired arbitrator |
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Note: We are trying to reach a consensus, so placing comments by a retired arbitrator into {{Hidden}}. AGK ■ 11:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC) |
Proposed:
The committee opens proceedings on pages relating to the Arab–Israeli conflict, naming it Palestine-Israel articles 4. Proceedings will take place in the normal form. Evidence (and related submissions, including at the Workshop) must remain within the proceedings scope. The following matters will initially be within scope:
1) The Committee retains jurisdiction over prior cases, in this instance, the three previous cases related to Palestine-Israel articles: Palestine-Israel articles, West Bank - Judea and Samaria, and Palestine-Israel articles 3.
2) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda or furtherance of outside conflicts is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.
3) It is not the role of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.
4) All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view. Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view. Articles should always verifiably use the best and most reputable sources, with prevalence in reliable sources determining proper weight. Relying on synthesized claims, or other "original research", is therefore contrary to the neutral point of view. The neutral point of view is the guiding editorial principle of Wikipedia, and is not optional.
5) Editors should contribute from a neutral point of view. Single-purpose accounts can create the impression that an editor is following their own agenda with a non-neutral focus on a single topic. Editors operating such an account should take care to ensure that their edits are compatible with the project's broader goal of writing an encyclopaedia.
6) The general rule is one editor, one account, though there are several legitimate uses of an alternate account. The creation or use of an additional account to conceal an editing history, to evade a block or a site ban, or to deceive the community, is prohibited. Sockpuppet accounts that are not publicly disclosed are not to be used in discussions internal to the project.
7) Users who disrupt the editing of articles by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing and edit-warring may be banned from the affected articles, or in extreme cases from the site, either by community consensus or by the Arbitration Committee.
8) In cases where all reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may be forced to adopt seemingly draconian measures as a last resort for preventing further damage to the encyclopedia.
1) This case relates to behavioral issues occurring around articles relating to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This area has been the subject of three previous arbitration cases, the Palestine-Israel articles case, West Bank - Judea and Samaria case and Palestine-Israel articles 3 case.
2) Editors working in the topic area have expressed concern that the rules governing editing and sanctions for pages relating to the Palestine-Israel conflict (summarized at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles) have become overly complicated and confusing, making them difficult to enforce effectively.
3) Drawing a distinction between pages "broadly construed" and "reasonably construed" as relating to the Palestine-Israel conflict has been unintuitive and unhelpful, particularly for pages where only a portion of the content is relevant. (Ymblanter's evidence, paragraph 3, and )
1) For the sake of easy referencing, the following existing remedies are vacated (with the intention of replacing them elsewhere in this decision):
Existing enforcement decisions relying upon these remedies are not vacated and will be appealable as if this remedy had not carried.
2) Editors are reminded that when editing in subject areas of bitter and long-standing real-world conflict, it is all the more important to comply with Wikipedia policies such as assuming good faith of all editors including those on the other side of the real-world dispute, writing with a neutral point of view, remaining civil and avoiding personal attacks, utilizing reliable sources for contentious or disputed assertions, and making use of dispute resolution where necessary.
Wikipedia cannot resolve the dispute between the Israeli and Palestinian people or any other real-world conflict. What Wikipedia can do is aspire to provide neutral, encyclopedic coverage about the areas of dispute and the peoples involved in it, which may lead to a broader understanding of the issues and the positions of all real-life conflict parties. The contributions of all good-faith editors on these articles who contribute with this goal in mind are appreciated.
3) Editors who find it difficult to edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and adhere to other Wikipedia policies are counselled that they may sometimes need or wish to step away temporarily from that article or subject area. Sometimes, editors in this position may wish to devote some of their knowledge, interest, and effort to creating or editing other articles that may relate to the same broad subject-matter as the dispute, but are less immediately contentious. For example, an editor whose ethnicity, cultural heritage, or personal interests relate to Side X and who finds that they become caught up in edit-warring on an article about a recent war between Side X and Side Y, may wish to disengage from that article for a time and instead focus on a different aspect of the history, civilization, and cultural heritage of Side X.
Amended by motion | ||
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4) For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" is the Arab–Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted. |
4) For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" is the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Superseded version of item A |
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A: Discretionary sanctions: Standard discretionary sanctions are activated for the area of conflict. Any uninvolved administrator may apply sanctions as an arbitration enforcement action to users editing the area of conflict whilst aware.
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Superseded version of item B |
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B: 500/30 Rule: All IP editors, users with fewer than 500 edits, and users with less than 30 days' tenure are prohibited from editing content within the area of conflict. On primary articles, this prohibition is preferably to be enforced by use of extended confirmed protection (ECP) but this is not mandatory. On pages with related content, or on primary articles where ECP is not feasible, the 500/30 Rule may be enforced by other methods, including page protection, reverts, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters. Reverts made solely to enforce the 500/30 Rule are not considered edit warring.The sole exceptions to this prohibition are:
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5) The following set of sanctions will be considered the "ARBPIA General Sanctions".
The {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} editnotice and the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} talk page notice should be used on pages within the area of conflict. When only parts of a page fall within the area of conflict, if there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator.
Rescinded by motion |
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6) All primary articles will be subject to the ARBPIA General Sanctions. {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} should be added to the talk page of affected pages, and {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} should be added as an editnotice to affected pages. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles. The templates may be added to primary articles by any user, but may only be removed by an uninvolved administrator. Users who lack the appropriate permissions to create an editnotice should place the talk page template as normal, then make an edit request for someone with permissions to create the edit notice. |
Rescinded by motion |
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7) All edits made to related content (i.e. pages not otherwise related to the area of conflict) will be subject to ARBPIA General Sanctions. When disruptive edits are being made to such content, any editor may invoke ARBPIA General Sanctions for that content. They must place {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} on the talk page and {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} in the editnotice to do so. If there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on related content. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator. Users who lack the appropriate permissions to create an editnotice should place the talk page template as normal, then make an edit request for someone with permissions to create the edit notice. Editors should apply the ARBPIA General Sanctions templates to related content only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools. Administrators should only utilize the ARBPIA General Sanctions to reduce disruption caused by edits related to the conflict area. Problematic edits made to unrelated content on the same page should be handled by normal administrative means. |
Rescinded by motion |
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8) In the case of disputes regarding whether or not an article is a primary article, or whether a portion of content is related to ARBPIA, editors should use normal dispute resolution methods to come to a consensus. |
Amended by motion | ||
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9) Uninvolved administrators are encouraged to monitor the articles covered by discretionary sanctions in the original Palestine-Israel case to ensure compliance. To assist in this, administrators are reminded that:
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9) Uninvolved administrators are encouraged to monitor the articles covered by discretionary sanctions in the original Palestine-Israel case to ensure compliance. To assist in this, administrators are reminded that:
Remedy 1 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case is amended by inserting, at the end of the list titled "ARBPIA", the following list item:
The phrase "other internal project discussions"
, as used in Remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case ("ARBPIA General Sanctions"), shall be construed to include requested moves.
Remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case (ARBPIA General Sanctions) is amended by replacing item B with the following:
Extended confirmed restriction: The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on the area of conflict.
21) Each reference to the prior discretionary sanctions procedure shall be treated as a reference to the contentious topics procedure. The arbitration clerks are directed to amend all existing remedies authorizing discretionary sanctions to instead designate contentious topics.
When imposing a contentious topic restriction under the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic, an uninvolved administrator may require that appeals be heard only by the Arbitration Committee. In such cases, the committee will hear appeals at ARCA according to the community review standard. A rough consensus of arbitrators will be required to overturn or amend the sanction.
Uninvolved administrators may impose word limits on all participants in a discussion, or on individual editors across all discussions, within the area of conflict. These word limits are designated as part of the standard set of restrictions within the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic. These restrictions must be logged and may be appealed in the same way as all contentious topic restrictions.
All participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion. This motion will sunset two years from the date of its passage.
Remedy 4 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case ("Definition of the 'area of conflict'") is amended to read as follows: For the purposes of editing restrictions in the ARBPIA topic area, the "area of conflict" is the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted.
Remedy 5 is amended by appending the following text: The {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} editnotice and the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} talk page notice should be used on pages within the area of conflict. When only parts of a page fall within the area of conflict, if there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. Once added by any editor, any marking, template, or editnotice may be removed only by an uninvolved administrator.
Remedy 6, Remedy 7, and Remedy 8 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case are repealed.
Because contentious topics and the extended-confirmed restriction are broadly construed unless otherwise specified, the following are amended by removing the words broadly construed
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Remedy 4 of Palestine-Israel articles 4 and remedy 14 of Pseudoscience ("Definition of the 'area of conflict'" and "Contentious topic designation", respectively) are amended by removing the words broadly interpreted
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This motion is for the sake of consistent language only. It does not change what is covered by the above remedies and motions.
An administrator should warn an editor whose behavior is not egregiously disruptive if the administrator believes the editor does not understand what editing in a contentious topic means. Otherwise, the administrator should issue an appropriate restriction.
To conform with these changes:
An editor may be warned even if the editor was not previously aware that their editing occurred in a contentious topic.
However, breaches of a page restriction...is amended to read
However, breaches of a page restriction may result in a block or editor restriction only if the restricted page displayed an editnotice ({{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} or a derived topic-specific template).
aware
The contentious topics procedure permits uninvolved admins to use a wide variety of tools from the "standard set" to address disruption, including protections, blocks, topic bans, and revert restrictions.
1) COVID-19 is designated as a contentious topic, replacing the community COVID-19 general sanctions.
All sanctions issued under the COVID-19 general sanctions are governed by the contentious topic procedure. Administrators who enforced the COVID-19 general sanctions are thanked for their work and asked to continue providing administrative assistance enforcing this contentious topic.
BLP contentious topic reminderand amended to read:
13) Editors are reminded about the contentious topic designation from the Editing of Biographies of Living Persons case. Administrators should give serious consideration to issuing contentious topic restrictions to editors named in this decision in the event of further misconduct.
Editors aware of the previous contentious topic...)
Editors aware of the previous contentious topic designation are not automatically presumed to be aware of the expanded scope, but may still be sanctioned within the subtopic of which they were previously considered aware. This does not invalidate any other reason why an editor might be aware of the expanded scope. Administrators are reminded that they may issue logged warnings even to unaware editors.
Administrators are strongly reminded that warning before sanctioning is almost always best practice. This change only removes the formalities associated with awareness.
0) Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, should any user violate a restriction imposed directly by the Committee, that user may be blocked as an arbitration enforcement action. Such blocks must be logged in the arbitration enforcement log.
0) Appeals and modifications |
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee. All active arbitration enforcement actions may be appealed. Only active restrictions may be appealed, and all labelled enforcement actions (including ones alleged to be against policy) must be successfully appealed under the applicable arbitration enforcement appeals procedure before they can be modified. Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, the following procedure governs arbitration enforcement appeals. An editor may:
Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction. A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the Committee, once the Committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction, who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever other period the Committee may specify. Changing or revoking an enforcement actionAn administrator may only modify or revoke an enforcement action if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:
A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the enforcement action:
Any administrator who revokes or changes an enforcement action out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped. Standard of review On community reviewUninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify an arbitration enforcement action on appeal if:
Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn an arbitration enforcement action only if:
References
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.