Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom: Difference between revisions

India is a very populous country. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its twelfth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here (also for future issues), as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG, HaeB, and Groceryheist: I've made some copyedits to the Holocaust in Poland review which I feel are advisable – from a BLP point of view and because there is a pending ArbCom case whose outcome we can't and shouldn't try to prejudge. Diff. Please see what you think. Andreas JN466 14:01, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And another two: Diff 1, Diff 2. Note that Richard C. Lukas is recommended background reading on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website. What they say about him there is:

Lukas, Richard. Did the Children Cry? Hitler’s War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994. (D 810 .C4 L82 1994) [Find in a library near you]

Focuses on the experiences of Polish children, Jewish as well as gentile, under German occupation. Organized into thematic chapters such as “Invasion,” “Deportations,” “Hiding,” “Germanization,” and “Concentration Camps.” Includes a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and several photographic images.

Lukas, Richard. The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944. New York: Hippocrene, 1997. (D 802 .P6 L85 1997) [Find in a library near you]

An account of the systematic persecution of the Polish nation and its residents by the German forces. Features endnotes, a bibliography, appendices including lists of Poles killed for assisting Jews, primary source documents, and an index.

If the guy is recommended without caveat on the USHMM website, then I don't think it is helpful in the overall scheme of things for us to describe him flat-out as "distortionist" in The Signpost's voice and argue that The title of his most-cited work, "The Forgotten Holocaust," refers to the suffering of Poles under Nazi occupation and so insinuates a false equivalence between Polish and Jewish suffering. Arguably, Wikipedia should not reference this at all, at least not without blinding clarity about how it contradicts mainstream sources. Doing so surely would put us outside the mainstream. --Andreas JN466 16:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the stylistic improvements. I'm not comfortable adding "allege" everywhere. This is a positive review, not a neutral one and I don't see how an arbitration case should influence it.

As for Lukas, it's interesting that the Holocaust Memorial Museum website has a bibliography about the Poles and the Holocaust that includes Lukas. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that this legitimizes Lukas as a Wikipedia source, however. I left these sentences in for now, but I'll think about removing them later. Groceryheist (talk) 17:44, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lukas' book was published by an American university press (Kentucky) and has 325 scholarly citations according to Google Scholar. Looking up the "mainstream" people he's being compared to, i.e. Doris Bergen, Samuel Kassow, Zvi Gitelman, Debórah Dwork, Nechama Tec, I find their most widely referenced works in this topic area all have similar citation numbers in Google Scholar:

• Doris Bergen's War and genocide: A concise history of the Holocaust: 351 citations
• Samuel Kassow's Who will write our history?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes archive: 241 citations
• Zvi Gitelman's A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present: 332 citations
• Debórah Dwork's Children with a star: Jewish youth in Nazi Europe: 387 citations
• Nechama Tec's Resilience and courage: Women, men, and the Holocaust: 198 citations

If I put that together with the (multiple) references to Lukas' works on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, then any argument that Wikipedia shouldn't reference him looks unreasonable. What am I missing? Andreas JN466 18:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have Googled for mentions of all the above scholars on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, taking this to be reasonably representative of the mainstream in the U.S., at least. The result (based in each case on clicking through to the last results page):

• 22 hits for "Richard Lukas"|"Richard C. Lukas"|"Lukas, Richard" site:ushmm.org
• 52 hits for "Dwork, Deborah"|"Deborah Dwork"|"Debórah Dwork"|"Dwork, Debórah" site:ushmm.org
• 66 hits for "Bergen, Doris"|"Doris Bergen" site:ushmm.org
• 27 hits for "Samuel Kassow"|"Kassow, Samuel" site:ushmm.org
• 27 hits for "Zvi Gitelman"|"Gitelman, Zvi" site:ushmm.org
• 224 hits for "Nechama Tec"|"Tec, Nechama" site:ushmm.org

The only scholar who is in a different order of magnitude here is Nechama Tec, and this surely reflects the fact that she "was appointed to the Council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". Lukas' hit count seems to me perfectly respectable, given that the main thrust of his scholarship appears to have been the Holocaust experience of ethnic Poles, which can obviously be only a secondary topic of the Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Nathan, I'd love it if you could reconsider that sentence. Regards, Andreas JN466 21:39, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've concluded that I want to leave the sentence in. I want to make a point that the error in Chart 3 doesn't invalidate the point that Wikipedia's over-relying on these dubious sources.

University of Kentucky press is not a very high-status academic publisher and an 1980s book from them doesn't necessarily inspire a lot of confidence, especially in conflict with more recent scholarship. I've pursued a handful of reviews of The Forgotten Holocaust available online, and my assessment of these is similar to Gabrowski and Klein's. The positive reviews don't provide academically rigorousness evaluations and are often very excited that the tale of Polish suffering compared to Jews has finally been told. An important takeaway from the negative reviews is that the book relies on both reliable and apocryphal data, but does a poor job distinguishing between the two.

As far as citation counts go, these are not a very good indicator that the source is reliable. If you peruse the recent citations that are publicly available, you'll see that they either cite Lukas briefly for a number (e.g., number of Poles killed in concentration camps) or cite him negatively, as evidence of efforts to broaden the definition of the Holocaust (e.g., [3], [4]).

[Edit: Attempt to fix links Groceryheist (talk) 02:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)][reply]

It is a bit puzzling that Lukas gets cited on the USHMM website. Maybe this suggests that there's a need for new high-quality research about the Polish experience of the 20th century and Lukas is among the best available.

To be clear, I'm also not 100% convinced that this book shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. I'm just leaning that way. Hence, my hedge of "Arguably." The argument should be had, but the review isn't the place to have it. Groceryheist (talk) 23:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nathan: Well, thanks for considering it. Here is another thing I would like you to consider. Grabowski and Klein say Lukas' book The Forgotten Holocaust is cited in some 80 articles. (I agree that seems excessive compared to the other authors.)

I am currently going through these 80+ articles, one by one, with WikiBlame. Among the first 15 articles I have reviewed, there is not a single one where Lukas' name was first added by either Piotrus or Volunteer Marek. In two cases it was User:Pernambuko (inactive), in three it was User:Matalea (blocked), in two it was User:NYScholar (blocked), in two it was User:Poeticbent (no longer active), in one or two it was an IP ...

Yet readers of your review will conclude that Wikipedia's relative over-reliance on Lukas is due to these two editors. How certain are you that that is a fair accusation to make? Can you say how many cases there have been where the editors you name have either added that source (which, let's not forget, is also used by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) to an article, or advocated for its retention? Andreas JN466 00:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Andreas I'm only naming these 2 editors in reference to their defenses / critique's of G&K's essay. So I don't think a reasonable reader would conclude that they added any particular citations. This review isn't about them, but G&K's essay. Groceryheist (talk) 00:39, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the review text is quite clear about them only being two out of a small group of committed Wikipedians "with [according to the paper] a Polish nationalist bent". And it also already mentions Poeticbent as another member. By the way, regarding Matalea, it is worth being aware that the account was blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet of Poeticbent, so it looks like Andreas has been unearthing additional evidence in favor of Grabowski and Klein's thesis here. (Not that anyone should assume that the on-wiki evidence presented within the paper's 317 footnotes is comprehensive, anyway.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that may have been the intent, but it wasn't how it read to me. Have a look at the flow of the text. Piotrus and VM are the only editors mentioned by name in the body of the text. Their mention is preceded and followed by comments about citations of Lukas as a key driver of the distortion. Following the discussion of Lukas, there are then multiple references to "these editors". Piotrus and VM are the only referents available – to me it sounded like you were talking about them. (Poeticbent – thanks for the sock list, HaeB, I hadn't realised – has a mention in the picture caption only.) Andreas JN466 07:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully disagree, Piotrus and VM are only mentioned in the final paragraph about the distortionists, the subject of which is clearly their critique. Everything in that paragraph and the following one applies to these two. There is no implication they had anything to do with adding the citations to Lukas because it is explained that they brought up Lukas in their critique. Everything preceding clearly refers to the overall group of accused distortionist editors. How much more can I spell this out for you? Groceryheist (talk) 07:38, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I made a minor edit to clarify that the final sentence of that paragraph refers to the entire group of accused distortionists. Groceryheist (talk) 07:43, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the edit. (I was just about to say there're at least two paragraphs where you're explicitly talking about them – once by name and then by referring to "these editors' Wikipedia careers (spanning over 18 and 17 years, respectively)".) Andreas JN466 07:55, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Andreas, it's reasonable to ask that judgments and opinions are attributed and I'm open to adding an "in this reviewer's opinion" etc. here or there, but overall this should already be clear from the byline and the topic. I'm also unclear what you mean by "prejudging" an ArbCom case - I do recall quite a bit of Signpost writing from yourself that expressed strongly held opinions about a topic (including many with BLP implications) for which there was no community consensus yet.

And please refrain from making direct edits with rationales of the form "but this review doesn't align with my opinion about topic X", especially not based on cherry-picked pieces of evidence. I'll leave it to Groceryheist if he wants to remove his tentative (Arguably,...) remark about the book in light of your objection. But clearly Grabowski and Klein offer some weighty arguments why they consider the book as distortionist. And your claim surely would put us outside the mainstream doesn't make sense - at

WP:RSN

it would be a rather mundane event if the use of a source is discouraged based on scholarly criticism in a number of peer-reviewed publications (Grabowski and Klein are far from being from the only researchers who have raised concerns about this book) even though it is also listed in a bibliography web page by some institution. - Anyhow, this is obviously a complicated topic with many subtopics about which reasonable people can disagree, but we need to distinguish differences in the weighting of evidence from clear factual errors; I'm not seeing any of the latter in this review so far.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:11, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with HaeB. GroceryHeist's review is fairly reflective of my reading of the G&K article - it is not that every single claim made by G&K is accurate (some of Piotrus' and VM's rebut do have merit) but a preponderance are, as is the overall thrust. Lukas can be listed on the HMM website but is a bottom-tier source. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's Piotrus's and VM's arses that are on the line here. It's one thing to report in Wikipedia's community newspaper that two IRL-named volunteer editors have been accused by two scholars of being "holocaust distortionists". It's another for them to simply be described as "two of the [holocaust] distortionists" – which is one step away from being called "holocaust deniers", and a nuance probably lost on a lot of people out there (even though Groceryheist did take the trouble to explain the difference), once the thing has gone through Twitter and Instragram. Given that all of us can readily see that some of the claims in the essay don't stand up to scrutiny, and it takes hours to go down each rabbit hole, I'd rather have us reserve judgment until they have all been properly looked at and ArbCom has rendered its verdict.

You can't unpublish this if ArbCom decides in half a year's time that the paper substantially misrepresented what happened on Wikipedia. Andreas JN466 19:19, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious why you are trying to blame Groceryheist for the thing [potentially going] through Twitter and Instragram [sic] when it has already been the subject of extensive media coverage and highlighted in other Signpost articles including by yourself. And no, we don't need to withhold coverage of academic publications in "Recent research" until ArbCom has rendered its verdict. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say we shouldn't publish a review. I said we should reserve judgment and attribute opinions (unless we had performed an exhaustive study ourselves and were reporting our own findings). Andreas JN466 22:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The ArbCom case is in part there to judge whether these editors were or were not "distortionist". They have been accused, but the jury is literally still out.

Adding an "in this reviewer's opinion" or "in Grabowski and Klein's opinion" here or there would help.

I also wonder whether we should provide direct links to the rebuttals if we're explicitly not trying to remain neutral on the case being litigated.

(I don't know when JPxG intends to publish, but having these discussions at the eleventh hour doesn't make this easier.) Andreas JN466 18:55, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, the review already highlights and discusses these rebuttals, linking to your own summary of them (Piotrus and Volunteer Marek, have defended themselves by enumerating many omissions and some possible errors in the essay). I have added some attribution clarifications per your suggestion, but again, there is no requirement that every Signpost piece must agree with or wait for hypothetical future ArbCom judgments or other forms of community decisions. Quite a bit of your own past opinion writing for the Signpost might not have adhered to such a maxim either. (Did ArbCom even say that they would specifically rule on whether Grabowski and Klein's term "distortionist" is correct or not?) Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the edits. I was wondering whether a courtesy link to User:Piotrus/Response and https://volunteermarek.substack.com/p/main-response-to-grabowski-and-klein might be more appropriate. My summary begins with Grabowski and Klein's abstract, then describes the ArbCom happenings, then mentions Piotr's article in a Polish newspaper, then mentions where people can find the Polish newspaper text, and only then mentions Piotr's English response and VM's piece. I think we should make it easier for those interested in what they have to say to find their English-language responses. What do you think? Andreas JN466 21:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have changed this to the two direct links you suggested. Either way, I think that the review text already duly acknowledges these objections, and that it is not obliged to agree with their overall conclusions over those of an academic paper published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitary break 1

I'm sorry but this piece is extremely bad. "Grabowski and Klein provide very strong support for this first claim,". Well, no, no they don't. First third of the article is general complaints which mostly involve text added like 15 or 14 years ago by people who are NOT the editors mentioned in the paper and many weren't even Polish. Second section is almost entirely lifted from Icewhiz's 2019 ArbCom case, evidence that was reviewed and rejected by the committee (and in numerous WP:AE reports previously). Dozens of uninvolved (and non-Polish) admins and arbitrators have looked at this "evidence" and saw through it - it's fabrications and manipulations. Third part is a hodge podge of misrepresentations, and involves some arguments started by Icewhiz's sock puppets, after he was indefinetly banned from all Wikimedia Projects for making death threats and other forms of harassment.

The fact that Grabowski and Klein rely so much on User Icewhiz in their piece, and try to portray him as a innocent "defender of historical accuracy" (in reality he was banned in multiple ways for multiple forms of abuse of policies and people) is not even mentioned in GroceryHeist's article.

Same thing applies to claims like "Grabowski and Klein persuasively argue". Or this One notable error is that the method for counting citations is imprecise and considerably underestimates Richard C. Lukas' academic citations. I'm sorry but, that's small potatoes compared to the other ridiculous accusations and false allegations in that paper! If you're going to try and describe how we defended ourselves please at least do so honestly and provide REAL reasons why I am objecting, not some trivial red herring.

Oh my god, you actually call Icewhiz a "defender of historical accuracy" too. "Short word-limits in case statements were too constraining for defenders of historical accuracy to be able to explain to non-experts the problems with the heroic Polish narrative in the articles". Is this serious??? The short word-limits is what saved Icewhiz's butt from getting indef'd right then and there and allowed him to squeak away with just a topic ban! The indef ban would have to wait till his abuse of multiple people off wiki came to light.

User:HaeB - initially you said I would have a right to reply to anything the Signpost posted. I asked to do so but you never replied. I said oh well, and basically decided to wait for the ArbCom case. But now you're going to publish THIS? This is something that GroceryHeist should put on their User page if they want, that's it.

There's going to be an ArbCom case. You don't know how it will turn out. Evaluation of the G&K paper will be part of that. As will be the activities (both on and off wiki) of Icewhiz and his sock puppets and of other editors in this topic area. To write and publish this super irresponsible piece is a really bad look. Volunteer Marek 18:50, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:HaeB - initially you said I would have a right to reply to anything the Signpost posted. I asked to do so but you never replied - that's not at all what I said in this discussion. I invite others reading along here to compare my actual statements there with Volunteer Marek's summary, as an illustration of how some of the editors whom the paper criticizes as distortionist also distort on-wiki evidence. (In the linked discussion I had pointed out another example, search for "rehas".)

Groceryheist was well aware of your rebuttal attempts, of the Icewhiz case and of potential BLP concerns when writing this review. Icewhiz isn't even mentioned in the review at all. I understand that there were grave misconduct issues with that particular editor that affected Piotrus and yourself personally, but these have been covered elsewhere and are ultimately not very relevant to the overarching questions that are the focus of the paper, the review and the upcoming ArbCom case.

Obviously you are entitled to your opinions and should feel to post them in the comments section, or submit a separate opinion piece, which I had suggested the Signpost could consider for publication (without speaking for JPxG or otherwise anticipating judgments about the suitability of a not yet unwritten piece). But you'll need to understand that the Signpost regularly covers severe criticism that the criticized people may not agree with. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:28, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what you said was this: I think it could be a good idea for the Signpost to offer them (meaning me - VM) (and/or other editors covered) to write a response, to be considered for publication as an opinion article. Maybe I read a bit too much into that. But that offer never came.

The fact that Icewhiz isn't even mentioned in the review is part of the problem (although he is... as a "defender of historical accuracy") How in the world is that not relevant?

There's a difference between publishing criticisms and writing "oh my god these guys are so right!". Seriously, this is a really really bad piece and it can even be seen as an attempt to prejudge the upcoming ArbCom case. Volunteer Marek 20:42, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand this contrived argument about having to mention (or not mention?) Icewhiz, and it's worth pointing out both the paper and the review talk about defenders of historical accuracy in plural, which you changed to singular in your quote above. E.g. the paper also highlights K.e.coffman in that regard (whose efforts to combat misinformation in this area is held in high esteem by many). What's more, regardless of Icewhiz' inexcusable misconduct against particular editors on a personal level, it also seems indisputable that he did find and address important historical inaccuracies on a content level. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, K.e.coffman was not a party to the case, the plural is just Icewhiz talking about himself in third person. The argument about Icewhiz is NOT "contrived" as literally half the paper is lifted straight from his "evidence" in the 2019 case. It is essentially this except wrote up in paragraph format rather than a bulleted list. And if this guy was topic banned for presenting this evidence, because it falsely accused people of crap [5] [6] [7] then the fact that G&K repeat these false accusations is kind of relevant. And no, he didn't really uncover major historical inaccuracies - he did find some sketchy sources, he removed them, nobody reverted him, they haven't been used in the past five year, then he went around pretending like he saved Wikipedia itself and demanded that anyone who disagrees with him gets banned. Oh and then, facing that topic ban he tried save himself by claiming credit for discovering the false information in the Warsaw Concentration Camp article, even though that was K.e.coffman not him.

And of course there's also the fact that many editors find and address important historical inaccuracies on a content level all the time - myself included - but we do it without being creepy sociopaths that make death threats and threats to rape other people's children, and we don't use our volunteer work to try and excuse the POV pushing in other aspects. This guy was at WP:AE like fifty times. He was before ArbCom. And ANI and AN and countless admin's talk pages. And people saw through that BS. But here is Signpost, reposting it, or at least a gushing review of it. Volunteer Marek 02:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said that K.e.coffman was a party to the case (my emphasis). Rather, the paper cites from the evidence she provided as a non-party editor at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_K.e.coffman (footnote 243), where such comments were indeed subjected to a strict word limit (the page mentions it was enforced against several other editors):

K.e.coffman reached similar conclusions, writing, ‘VM [Volunteer Marek] has behaved in an aggressive and belittling manner towards others, using article TPs [talk pages]/edit summaries to accuse them of: lying; being hysterical; edit warring/dishonesty; holding consensus hostage/sabotaging productive dialog; being offended by sources positive towards Poland; and losing it.’

(Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?)

And no, he didn't really uncover major historical inaccuracies - uh, just looking at the following part of the paper, I would definitely count that as a major inaccuracy discovered by Icewhiz (it also looks like you and Piotrus actually agreed with Icewhiz in that case, eventually):

Poeticbent’s false caption, combined with the photograph’s particular composition – Hebrew letters directly under the USSR’s emblem – bolster the entrenched stereotype identifying Jews with communism. Furthermore, in a country brutally occupied by the Soviets, Poeticbent’s edit painted Jews as perpetrators. The image remained in Wikipedia, wrongly captioned, until 2018, when the editor Icewhiz corrected its description.

I also noticed K.e.coffman started her above mentioned arbitration comments by providing evidence that Icewhiz identified problematic content & sourcing (not just "some sketchy sources"). That doesn't excuse harassment behavior of course and I understand why you are upset about the latter, but you have to understand that many people and the general public will ultimately be more interested in the overall content questions (has Wikipedia's holocaust coverage been distorted by the "heroic Polish narrative" over the years, and if yes, what were the mechanism and actions causing that) than in the off-wiki misconduct of one particular editor.

I think this discussion has reached a point of diminishing returns. I have now spent time debunking several claims raised in objection to publishing this review that were not even about statements in the review itself. For others reading along, the above provides yet two more examples about how some of the editors whom the paper criticizes as distortionist also distort on-wiki evidence. Yes, the Signpost should do some due diligence if it reports about criticism of Wikipedia, ArbCom cases, etc. But that has been done at this point, and we are not obliged to ride along a gish gallop of objections that continue to fall apart upon closer scrutiny. As always, not everyone will agree with everything in this Signpost piece, but that's OK - it's why we have a lively comment section that sees such disagreements in every issue. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:14, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

K.e.coffman accused me of being mean to Icewhiz, yes. Guess why I was "uncivil" to him? Oh, it was precisely because he was making vile false accusations against me, and also faking sources etc. Annnnddd guess what did Icewhiz get topic banned for? Yup, it was for making false accusations and getting sketchy with sourcing on BLPs. The whole decision on the case was "Volunteer Marek accused Icewhiz of lying and that's uncivil so he gets a topic ban. But, well, Icewhiz WAS lying so he gets a topic ban too". Why did she not criticize Icewhiz's behavior? I don't know, ask her. Good question. Why overlook seriously disruptive behavior on his part and focus on some incivility on mine? Why are some people still trying to rehabilitate Icewhiz on Wikipedia after all he's done? I don't know, ask them.

And I don't appreciate your little snide "Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?". First, you're being sarcastic here as a way of trying to dismiss real genuine and serious concerns about the truthfulness of these accusations. You're trying to imply that when I say that Icewhiz lied about me, I'm just making it up. No, this is exactly what he was doing and this is what ArbCom found and the fact you can so blithely dismiss this really doesn't put you in a good light. Again, ask yourself how would you feel if somebody accused you of awful things? And then someone like me came along and made fun of you being accused of these things and put up little taunts the way you're doing now. Second, I never said anything about BLP violations against me so I have no idea what you're talking about.

With regard to Poeticbent's caption, I don't know how many times I have to say this - no one objected to it being corrected! What was at issue was Icewhiz false claim that the miscaptioning was intentional (IIRC the miscaptioning was in the original source that Poeticbent used). Guess what the ArbCom case found? Icewhiz interpreted an apparent error by Poeticbent as a deliberate hoax. And man, did Icewhiz try to milk this one correction he made for all the good faith that was worth. Hell, he's still trying to milk it and you're right there for it.

If you think that this was a case of "the off-wiki misconduct of one particular editor." that just shows you have absolutely no idea of what has been going on here for the past four years. It's not just one editor (Icewhiz has some friends) and it's not just off-wiki.

And you haven't debunked diddly. All you did is taunt me with your "Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?" You want more examples? Here:

• The claim I called Ewa Kurek a “mainstream scholar” is simply untrue. A lie. G&K provide a link to a discussion where no such thing is said, hoping, I guess that no one will check them. In fact I explicitly stated that Ewa Kurek is a source which should not be used on Wikipedia [8] (regarding Ewa Kurek I believe I've expressed the opinion that she should not be used as a source given some of her statements in the media) and removed her as source myself [9].
• Regarding the Naliboki massacre article, the authors falsely claim that I added “Jewish partisans” to it. This too is just another lie Icewhiz tried to peddle on Wikipedia before he got banned. I *removed* the claim that Jewish partisans were involved, not added it! Here and here and here. Please explain to me how claiming I did the opposite of what I actually did is not a lie?
• More examples? Sure. I never called Gazeta Wyborcza unreliable (just said it wasn’t comparable to Washington Post), I didn’t “guard” the article on Wojciech Muszynski for months (I made two edits on one single day, reverting sock puppets), I actually said Christopher Browning was a reliable source, I never added or removed anything about Obama from the Muszynski article (I don’t even know where this fabrication comes from), I never said that Glaukopis was a reliable source and “shouldn’t be a concern”, in fact I explicitly said that it should not be used. Etc. etc. etc.

The fact that some people don't know how to actually click on diffs and examine what's in them really shouldn't be my problem. But apparently it is. Volunteer Marek 06:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's funny Volunteer Marek says “The claim I called Ewa Kurek a “mainstream scholar” is simply untrue”. G&K give this link where Volunteer Marek writes: “After I posted this here, he chilled out for a couple of days, but once it started to look like the admins here were not going to do anything he resumed his attacks on BLPs of historians that disagree with his extremist views. Gunnar S. Paulsson (and [53]), Norman Davies, and also Ewa Kurek. Now some of his edits on these articles may be justifiable. But there are plenty that aren't and taken as a whole it's one obvious attack by Icewhiz on multiple mainstream scholars (Polish, Swedish, British) whom he decided should be attacked because what they wrote doesn't let him push his POV. ... .Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)”. Caught red handed much? 122.56.201.114 (talk) 07:22, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stop socking Icewhiz. You know that this was me referring to your general practice of turning multiple BLP articles into hit pieces, something you got sanctioned for. You know that this statement does not call Kurek a "mainstream scholar" unless one tries really really hard to read that into it. You know very well that in the very same discussion [10] I said that Kurek should not be used as a source. This was your lame attempt at a pathetic "gotcha" when you first made it in 2018, it was pathetic when you brought it up at AE again in 2019, it was still pathetic when you included it in your 2019 ArbCom statement, and it is pathetic now. Volunteer Marek 14:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See. My review is actually quite generous. The defenses have a few things right, but also a lot wrong. It's important to point out when work has errors. Yet I didn't specifically mention that the critiques have errors. I have edited my draft to correct this. Hope that is okay at this time. If not please revert. Groceryheist (talk) 08:17, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your review is anything but generous. The fact that you sincerely appear to believe that indicates that you've completely lost the plot. Volunteer Marek 14:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[11] is a clear and unambiguous statement specifically about Kurek and only about Kurek, with VM saying he agreed she shouldn't be cited. The one you link is not a clear and unambiguous statement specifically about Kurek. It's also noteworthy that the diff where he clearly deprecates Kurek is from a few days earlier, so it's not a case of his having changed his tune.

I see what you're saying but looking at both diffs I don't think the essay's presentation is quite fair to him. Andreas JN466 08:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In, the IP's link VM, refers to "Polish, Swedish, British" authors. From the hyperlink previews I can see that Kurek is the Polish one and the other two mentioned are Swedish and British. Groceryheist (talk) 09:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One of the others, Norman Davies, was granted Polish citizenship in 2014, a fact that was in his article by January 2018. Andreas JN466 11:19, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guess VM could have been more clear if he had pointed that out. But then who's the British historian he's referring to? Groceryheist (talk) 15:31, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Grabowski and Klein already note themselves that VM had on some occasions described Kurek as unreliable source, which makes his above protestations (In fact I explicitly stated that Ewa Kurek is a source which should not be used on Wikipedia ...) look rather disingenuous:

Within less than 30 min, Volunteer Marek had deleted Nihil novi’s mention of Kurek. ‘I don’t think [Kurek] can be considered an RS [reliable source],’ he said, echoed by GizzyCatBella (‘Agree’) and Piotrus (‘It would be best to cite others’), although the three of them had vigorously defended Kurek in the past.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:31, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Grabowski and Klein present VM's comment (made at an Arbitration Enforcement thread touching on edits to various scholars' biographies) as though he had made it at the 2018 Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion started to assess whether Kurek was a suitable source. VM had already given his opinion on the quality of Kurek's scholarship, and it was the exact opposite of what Grabowski and Klein make the reader believe his opinion was. That is inexcusable. Andreas JN466 11:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, Haeb, what it makes is Grabowski and Klein look manipulative. They accuse me of calling Kurek a "mainstream scholar" which I didn't. Then later on they acknowledge that I removed her as a source but claim, without evidence, that I only did so because of a "losing hand". They further manipulate the reader by claiming, again falsely, that I had "vigorously defended Kurek in the past". I have NEVER defended Kurek and had said previously she shouldn't be used as a source! How much clearer can that get? And you think *I* am being "disingenuous"? I'm sorry guy but this right here, you, Grabowski, Klein and your way of describing this situation, this manipulative way of misrepresenting a situation to make it appear the opposite of what actually happened, that right there is the very definition of "disingenuous". Volunteer Marek 14:38, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I took a closer look at the second "lies" example that Volunteer Marek offered above, and there too he distorts and misrepresents what Grabowski and Klein write. VM said:

Regarding the Naliboki massacre article, the authors falsely claim that I added “Jewish partisans” to it. This too is just another lie Icewhiz tried to peddle on Wikipedia before he got banned. I *removed* the claim that Jewish partisans were involved, not added it! Here and here and here. Please explain to me how claiming I did the opposite of what I actually did is not a lie?

The corresponding part of the paper is this:

Wikipedia’s coverage of the Naliboki massacre should not even mention Jews; yet Jews occupy a third of the article. Various editors over the years tried to fix these edits, but they were brought back by Piotrus and by his like-minded colleague, Volunteer Marek.⁹²

So first, Volunteer Marek misrepresents the paper as saying that he had added this, whereas Grabowski and Klein merely say that he brought back the "Jewish partisans" claim. And secondly, that "brought back" is evidently true - Grabowski and Klein back this up with this diff in footnote 92, a fact that VM omits in his aggressive accusations against the authors. (After VM's edit, the "Jewish partisans" were again removed by Icewhiz.)

Now we can debate possible reasons why VM removed the claim in some edits and later restored in another - perhaps he changed his mind on the matter, or made inadvertent editing mistakes; we can also criticize Grabowski and Klein for not going back far enough in the edit history to find these other edits. But Volunteer Marek's lie accusation against them is unambiguously false here. HaeB (talk) 12:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Holy crap, you're trying to, again, Wikilawyer a semantic difference between "added" and "brought back". Does this distinction matter? No. You're just being disingenuous and playing ridiculous "gotcha" games where you seize upon an irrelevant word. And then you claim, that because I said "added" rather than "brought back" I am "misrepresenting the paper". You're being ridiculous and the amount of bad faith you're showing here beggars belief.

Second, you're playing little rhetorical tricks were you describe my criticism of Grabowski and Klein as "aggressive". Guess what? Making false accusations against other people is "aggressive".

Third, you know why I restored it in that one case, it's right there in the edit summary. This guy (yup, another user banned for abuse and sock puppeting), an Icewhiz meat puppet jumped in and reverted on his behalf without discussion. That's it. It was neither an endorsement nor a rejection of the text, it was just "stop meat puppeting for Icewhiz, join the discussion". You omit that part.

Fourth, a minimum standard of honesty would require that even if you try and misrepresent that diff, you also acknowledge that I removed this info on several occasions. Grabowski and Klein don't do that which violates that standard. Along with the multiple examples presented by Andreas, this clearly shows a pattern of them trying to hoodwink readers via lying by omission. You are endorsing, celebrating and engaging that approach. The disturbing part is that you yourself are active in what is suppose to be a "newspaper". Is that how you approach your "journalistic" work here? By playing semantic games with words or omitting relevant context to misrepresent people? This is deeply troubling. Volunteer Marek 13:54, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

a minimum standard of honesty would require that even if you try and misrepresent that diff, you also acknowledge that I removed this info on several occasions - I literally did just that above (VM removed the claim in some edits and later restored in another). Yet another example of one of your accusations that squarely contradicts the facts. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:00, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also note that you have failed to address the main point, which is that your "lie" accusation against Grabowski and Klein was unambiguously false here. You did in fact bring back the "Jewish partisans" claim in one edit just as they said, for whatever reason (and I had already acknowledged that there may have been various possible ones). As for "added" vs. "brought back", the former implies that the editor authored the text in question, whereas the latter assumes that it was already present in the article before. That difference is relevant.

For others reading along here: I think it is by now clear that while the paper's copious collection of evidence (contained within 317 footnotes) may indeed contain several errors (as Groceryheist's review points out too), we must not rely on Volunteer Marek's claims about Grabowski's and Klein's alleged scholarly failings without fact-checking them. HaeB (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I can play petty word games too HaeB, when I said "acknowledge" that means the same thing as "not dismiss", which is exactly what you did. So no, it doesn't "contradict the facts". And my accusation against Grabowski and Klein was not false, either unambiguously or otherwise. They are blatantly and dishonestly misrepresenting my edits on that article and anyone who actually looks at those diffs can easily see that. I don't think you're aware how your behavior here looks to outsiders and how bad it really is. This is serious stuff, real people, real issues, but you keep playing these silly "gotcha" games and keep Wikilawyering over words. And you're doing it all in order to defend a really bad decision you made and have been unable to back down from. Volunteer Marek 15:31, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From these editors' defensive responses OMG, this is like a bad junior high school essay. Volunteer Marek 23:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see we have descended into mere name-calling now. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's easy to act all high and mighty and detached and disinterested when you're not the one being lied about. If you were accused of these things how would you react? Volunteer Marek 03:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG: This should be publishable now (I also just added title and blurb, feel free to adjust). Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So can I write a response or not? Volunteer Marek 23:31, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions is that way. As indicated before, acceptance will really depend on the content and the decision will not be up to me.

I will also point out that since I floated that idea on February 10, the Signpost (Andreas) has already prominently featured your and Piotrus' objections in the last issue's "In the media", where the top headline read

WP:ALLEGE). Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

I'll just mention here that I didn't write that headline. (The draft headline I wrote read 'Academic paper alleges Wikipedia's Holocaust coverage suffers from "intentional distortion", Wikipedians publish rebuttals', with the second part a later addition.) Andreas JN466 06:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Andreas Yes, I saw that, but your draft headline already had the same bias ("alleges" vs. "rebuttals").

But anyway, while I would have written that headline differently, I did not mean to argue that you violated BLP or such. Rather, I'm pointing out the extremely different standards that some people (not necessarily you) are trying to hold this "Recent research" issue to, compared to that "In the media" piece from the last Signpost issue - which after all already quoted the paper's abstract, i.e. prominently highlighted the thesis of Grabowski and Klein, including:

[...] In the last decade, a group of committed Wikipedia editors have been promoting a skewed version of history on Wikipedia, one touted by right-wing Polish nationalists, which whitewashes the role of Polish society in the Holocaust and bolsters stereotypes about Jews. Due to this group's zealous handiwork, Wikipedia's articles on the Holocaust in Poland minimize Polish antisemitism, exaggerate the Poles' role in saving Jews, insinuate that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), blame Jews for their own persecution, and inflate Jewish collaboration with the Nazis. [...]

If that was OK in the last Signpost issue, why is it such a big problem now? Just because Groceryheist arrives at the conclusion that the paper's thesis largely has merit, despite various Wikipedians having a different opinion? If so, why was it OK to prominently feature Piotrus and VM's conclusions ("rebuttals") about the paper in the last issue, even though obviously there also lots of editors who disagree with these too? (Yes, these are rhetorical questions, and are not addressed at Andreas per se.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:07, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ALLEGE

actually says, alleged and accused are appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people awaiting or undergoing a criminal trial. Given the upcoming ArbCom case, I thought that fitted.

I guess the reluctance is about asserting guilt in the Signpost's voice now, given that there is a "trial" looming. The New York Times wouldn't report ahead of a major trial that a particular defendant is guilty. Of course you can argue that ArbCom is not a real court of law, only a pretend one in our little make-believe world; but on the other hand, we at the Signpost are subject to ArbCom's jurisdiction. Andreas JN466 12:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that you perceive an asymmetry between "allege" and "rebuttal". I hadn't intended that.

Merriam entry "rebut":

1: to drive or beat back : REPEL

2a: to contradict or oppose by formal legal argument, plea, or countervailing proof

2b: to expose the falsity of : REFUTE

The meaning I had in mind was 2a; I should have used a less ambiguous word. Andreas JN466 13:35, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitary break 2

Nathan T's review is disgraceful, violating every consideration of neutrality. It reads as a paraphrase of both Icewehiz and Grabowitz/Klein's contentions. I edited the opening paragraphs just to show that but the review is not worth a nob of goat's shit, in that it consciously espouses the authors' conclusions, everywhere endorsing the thesis proposed with glowing terms of appraisel ('persuasively') that Arbcom is now set up to examine. It anticipates in a Crystal Ball reading a commendatory verdict it assumes Arbcom must make several months ahead, and in that sense forms part of the indictment, rather than being a cool-headed and topic-informed overview of Grabowski and Klein's claims and the responses of the editors named. I'm quite surprised that editors could even imagine this partisan trash could be seriously considered for inclusion in the Signpost.Nishidani (talk) 09:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And I note that my correction of that essay's in-your-face hackwork partisanship was duly reverted as 'extremely slopping editing' by HaeB whose eye for style is so acute they can even write something like 'initialismized' on their main page.Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, no. Fecal curses are not a substitute for valid arguments. You are trying to make big scandal of the fact that the reviewer .... largely agrees with the overall conclusions of a peer-reviewed academic paper in the Journal of Holocaust Research, after extensively examining the paper and the two editors' objections? It anticipates in a Crystal Ball reading a commendatory verdict it assumes Arbcom must make several months ahead - it does nothing of the sort. As discussed above, this review is not about the ArbCom case and there is no valid reason for demanding that it must only be published after that case's conclusion. What is true is that the arbitrators obviously took the paper seriously enough to re-open (and potentially reconsider) their earlier case.

For those unfamiliar with the Signpost's "Recent research" section, it has used this format (reviewers are, well, reviewing papers, and are welcome to include a well-argued judgment of their validity and value, as one does in a review) for over a decade already, and welcomes contributions from all editors in good standing - see the note on top of this section. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Any competent academic review or peer-review does not, as this paper does, endorse at the very outset the viewpoint of the paper under examination. If you cannot see the distinction between an endorsement and a detached evaluation, then you haven't learnt much about NPOV in two decades.Nishidani (talk) 10:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To the contrary, it's absolutely common to begin a review with the reviewer's overall conclusions about validity and importance of the reviewed work, be it in academic contexts for reviews of papers or books. The reference to

WP:NPOV is another absurd argument - Signpost articles are not mainspace encylopedia articles and regularly feature opinion pieces etc. That doesn't mean that no other policies apply, but your arguments here do not make sense. HaeB (talk) 01:40, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Every review takes an overall point of view, and there is no prima facie reason to condemn Nathan (Groceryheist) for taking a pov favorable to G&K. What we expect though, in a good review is some degree of critical analysis, some evidence that the reviewer actually investigated the claims rather than just deciding to believe them, and at least a little attempt at balance. Search as one will, none of those things can be found. Jayen466 made a very modest attempt to address the balance but was brushed off with petty excuses. It gets worse; consider this: "because it recasts Poland's role from the occupied location of Nazi genocide to that of Holocaust victim and hero." Wow, two million non-Jewish Poles died (which G&K admit) and Nathan thinks "the occupied location of Nazi genocide" is a fair summary! Let's be kind and assume this was ignorance speaking, but then why is someone so ignorant writing this review? Zero^talk 12:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The paper reviewed took 2 years of laborious examination by two scholars looking at two decades of wiki editing, and the vast cited scholarship. Arbcom's ten or so admins, in taking up the issue, will foreseeably be obliged to spend several months of exceedingly arduous checking, both of talk pages and the whole editing record. Nathan TeBlunthuis/Groceryheist's review represents an opinion formed in a few weeks, I presume. A serious review presumes area competence for one. Where are Groceryheist's credentials as a knowledgeable expert on the Holocaust and Poland? Unless they have some background in the topic and indeed, competence in evaluating complex historical claims in an immensely intricate area, their remarks look like massive presumptuousness, an assertion of an authoritative voice in an area the said editor appears to know nothing of other than reading G and K's paper and making a few personal checks on tidbits here and there. At this point, by highlighting it, Signpost is saying any Tom, Dick or Harry's personal views are welcome as news.

I myself have absolutely no opinion as to the numerous claims made, as opposed to decided views about the methodological flaws intrinsic to their paper. It would be extremely facile to make a similar claim of nationalistic conspiracy about any other controversial area where nationalist interests are high and which wikipedia covers. The paper does endorse, evaluate in a highly positive light, the claims of an editor permabanned for his disruptive on-wiki and menacing offline behaviour, and, there is a distinct possibility that the paper's publication will set a precedent allowing wikipedia to be coerced or challenged via the instrumental use of scholarly journals by editors with a grievance, which can be reformulated as 'factual', though dismissed by internal wikipedia processes of conduct and content review, and be imposed on any one contentious area. That alone means Signpost should not lend itself as a venue for frivolous editorializing by anyone who gets a notion or two.

It is disturbing that Signpost should allow an incompetent review - incompetent because Grocyerheist, apparently in two weeks or so concluded by a hasty glance over a few edits cited in the paper that its authors are stating facts, and not an hypothesis. My attempt at a minimal rewrite of the blatantly partisan language of Groceryheist's review was reverted as 'extremely sloppy editing' with an amateurish edit summary abuse. Sloppy editing consists of grammatical errors, discursive incoherence, misspellings etc., for which no evidence was provided. It is a quixotic description of what was a straightforward attempt to rewrite neutrally the first paragraph, after which the editor, with their two weekish mastery of Polish holocaust scholarship and two decades of editing diffs is welcome to declare that, in their view, the case is closed, the facts ascertained and the paper's authors correct in arguing this area of wikipedia is toxically antisemitic.Nishidani (talk) 13:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's clear at this point that there's no way it can be published in this issue; we can look into it for next issue.

FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP! 14:51, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

I agree. The essay describes claims by G&K as factually correct claims, essentially as the truth, whereas they are not. I think the article by G&K is not even an RS [12]. The article by G&K is about WP, not about Holocaust in Poland, but authors are not experts about WP, they do not understand a lot of things. To get some insight on the subject of WP, authors interviewed the banned user and several other participants, so that the publication probably reflects just their views as a typical "opinion piece". The misguided here is the trust in the publication by K&G just because it was peer reviewed. But it does not mean much given the well known deficiencies in the peer review process. The poor quality of many original peer reviewed publications is the reason we have

WP:MEDRS. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

In response to the above criticisms, let me point out that I am not an historian, but I am a scholar that is confident in my ability to assess this paper and reach the conclusions about quality and evidence that I wrote. I'm not currently a very active Wikipedian, but I have enough experience to check G&K's footnotes.

I didn't check all 317 of G&K's footnotes, but I checked enough to justify each sentence of the review. I didn't check all of VM's and Piotrus' defenses but I checked enough to know that they often stretch facts and interpretation to such an extent that they make G&K look meticulous. I am generous in my coverage of these responses, emphasizing an actual error they found instead of explaining their manipulative strategies. Groceryheist (talk) 15:30, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah? How exactly did I "stretch facts and interpretation"? Care to actually support that with, well, anything? And please, don't try to bring up number of citations for Lukas or something here, as I said, that's like the smallest issue in this whole mess. Volunteer Marek 16:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Groceryheist, Volunteer Marek, Piotrus, and HaeB: Usually, Recent Research being ready last minute (this month's was written on the 4th; publication was meant for the 5th) isn't a problem. But we absolutely must get this one right, and that means discussion; more discussion than we can have in the time before publication.

Our fortnightly schedule's biggest benefit is that we can cover things in a timely manner. That both means covering things sooner, and being able to wait. In this case, I think the latter is vital. There's BLP issues (Marek and Piotrus are living people) and, if we get called up to ArbCom over this - and there's an ongoing case just waiting for us to be pulled into - that we pointed VM and Piotrus to the Submissions page and rushed to publication isn't going to hold up very well.

I'm not an expert on the subject. I'm not trying to choose a side. But we need more time. I think the best thing we can do is to use our more rapid publication schedule to our advantage, and split off Groceryheist's contribution into next issue's recent research.

FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP! 16:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Sorry, no. Whatever the process timeline for "Recent research" has been in other cases, your "last minute" point glosses over the fact that Groceryheist did submit his review on the day of writing deadline, the deadline that we communicate to any contributor to "Recent research" or the Signpost in general. And at this point his contribution has seen more pre-publication scrutiny and discussion (and edits in response to several suggestions) than almost any other Signpost piece in recent times - including your own, I might say (looking at these reactions to one of your own recent stories that also very much had BLP implications, I think you are very much applying a double standard here).

Yes, we owe it to VM and Piotrus to take their factual objections to this peer-reviewed paper seriously, but that has been done at this point (FYI, I told Groceryheist from the outset, weeks ago, that the review would need to take these into account, and also made sure he was aware that Icewhiz had been banned for harassment). We can't allow the Signpost's process to be torpedoed by the kind of tactics that VM has been sanctioned for before when trying to get his way in this topic area (including by ArbCom, see also [13]). As I documented above in detail for two cases, his objections to this piece have contained several false or seriously misleading claims, strawmen arguments and goalpost-shifting.

that we pointed VM and Piotrus to the Submissions page and rushed to publication - just to correct another misrepresentation here, my suggestion that the Signpost should offer them to publish their own piece about the paper was actually made on February 10, more than four weeks ago.

I will defer to the editor-in-chief on this, but it is not your decision to make. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

at this point his contribution has seen more pre-publication scrutiny and discussion (and edits in response to several suggestions) than almost any other Signpost piece in recent times Yes, and pretty much all of this scrutiny and discussion has said, "this is bad, don't publish it". What is the point of scrutiny and discussion if you're just going to completely ignore it?

And I wasn't sanctioned for any "tactics", I was sanctioned for my "incivility" to Icewhiz. Icewhiz was sanctioned for "tactics" and worse. This has already been pointed out to you, so I don't know why you insist on pretending otherwise. Likewise, you didn't "document" anything, you just started nitpicking some irrelevant point about whether k.e.coffman was a party to the case or not.

And User:HaeB, not counting me you got FOUR FIVE experienced editors here telling you "this is really bad, don't publish it" (ok, Adam may be just saying "it's too important to run it as is). On the other hand, it's you and the author (and if you count him, you should count me), and a sock-puppeting IP. You seem hell bent on digging in your heels and are refusing to listen to others and this may have reached a point where your refusal to change your mind becomes a matter of pride rather than reason. Volunteer Marek 18:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By "too important", I mean it's too important that we do this correctly. One well-accepted rule in journalism, which also appears in libel laws and such, is that public people get a bit less protection than random members of the public. Marek and Piotrus are random members of the public. If we're going to publish anything about them, we absolutely must get it right, or we shouldn't publish it at all.

FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP! 20:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]