Misplaced Pages

:Arbitration/Requests: Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
< Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 01:38, 30 May 2008 view sourceSceptre (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers, Template editors79,222 edits Intelligent design editors: fux← Previous edit Latest revision as of 03:40, 31 January 2023 view source AmandaNP (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Bureaucrats, Checkusers, Oversighters, Administrators45,707 edits What the actual fuckTags: Replaced Undo 
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Short description|Wikimedia project page}}
{{/Header}} <!-- front matter of this page-->
<noinclude>{{pp-protected|small=yes}}{{pp-move-indef}}</noinclude>
{{/Header}}
{{/Case}}
{{/Clarification and Amendment}}
{{/Motions}}
{{/Enforcement}}


]
== Current requests == <!--Add new requests immediately below, before any outstanding requests.-->
]
=== Intelligent design editors ===
'''Initiated by ''' ''']''' <sup>(])</sup> '''at''' 01:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Involved parties ====
<!-- use {{admin|username}} if the party is an administrator -->
*{{userlinks|Sceptre}}, ''filing party''
*{{userlinks|Guettarda}}
*{{userlinks|Orange Marlin}}
*{{userlinks|Filll}}
*{{userlinks|Jim62sch}}
:There may be several other parties; the ones listed

;Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
<!-- All parties must be notified that the request has been filed, immediately after it is posted, and confirmation posted here. -->

;Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried
<!-- Identify prior attempts at dispute resolution here, with links/diffs to the page where the resolution took place. If prior dispute resolution has not been attempted, the reasons for this should be explained in the request for arbitration -->
*I believe this matter to be divisive and urgent enough to bypass requests for user conduct; I also feel that the requests for user conduct system just generates unnecessary drama while producing nothing positive.

==== Statement by Sceptre ====
Apologies for the title, I can't think of a better one right now. As for the case, I'm uninvolved for all intents and purposes.

I'm filing this case because of the manner of the aforementioned editors and their general attitude to editors. I myself have noticed a pattern of incivility and (for lack of a better word) cantankerousness among several editors in the project; I've personally encountered Guettarda twice before (once about my bot, once about the article {{la|List of people and organizations associated with Dominionism}}), and I was pertubed by his attitude.

The attitude seems to be the same among all of the parties. While they are all respected and established users of the community, they should not be allowed to hold such an acidic attitude against people while claiming to protect the encyclopedia. While striving to protect the encyclopedia is fine, personally attacking or being immensely uncivil towards other editors in the process, especially established and respected users and even administrators, is simply not on.

Finally, as a subnote, there appears to be a large amount of cabalism between the editors, even more so than one would suspect from a WikiProject; they tend to support each other on everything. While not inherently wrong, it may need a look at.

==== Statement by {Party 2} ====

==== Clerk notes ====
:''This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.''

==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0) ====
*
----

==<span id="REQ" />Clarifications and other requests==
{{Shortcut|WP:RFAC|WP:RCAM}}
''Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at ]. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the ]. To create a new request for arbitration, please so to ]. '''Place new requests at the top'''.''
{{Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/How-to_other_requests}}
{{RfarOpenTasks}}<br style="clear: both;"/>

=== Request to amend prior case: ]===

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
*{{userlinks|Theresa knott}} (initiator)
*{{userlinks|SevenOfDiamonds}}

==== Statement by ] ====
I am fully in favor of giving the editor formerly known as ] ]. He has been a fine, if illegal, contributor under the guise of ] for two and a half months, and was only caught out again because he was over zealously defending another user from rather tenuous charges of sockpuppetry very similar to the case under which he himself was banned, which seems a noble gesture if anything. Prior to this he used other accounts, which have also been blocked for no reason other than being the supposed sock of an indef blocked editor who once upon a time threatened the project with wanton disruption.

None of those accounts carried out the threats of the editor who ArbCom ruled he was a sock of:
*{{Userlinks|NuclearUmpf}}
*{{Userlinks|Zer0faults}}

All along this editor has contributed to the project constructively, with all of one 3RR block.
Block logs:
*{{userlinks|SixOfDiamonds}}
*{{userlinks|SevenOfDiamonds}}
*{{userlinks|N4GMiraflores}}
*{{userlinks|I Write Stuff}}
*{{userlinks|Grimlight}}
*{{userlinks|JessicaRamos}}

And additionally has created 42 articles:

], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ].

Hopefully this shows that he is not the disruptive editor he was accused of being. He would like to return to writing articles without the stigma attached and the constant on the run article creation. It's completely unclear, beyond reasons of personal egos of certain involved administrators, why this block continues. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 23:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to ], I'm uncertain whether sneaking back into the project and being a productive wikipedian is necessarily less respectful of the project than sitting on the sidelines moping for some indefinite period per ]. Having to constantly look over his shoulder for the ] for the past year seems punishment enough. Insisting he sit out now just seems ]y, and while he went a ways overboard with the G33 case, the history here makes it obvious why that case pushed his buttons. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 20:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to ], there's been scant evidence of actual disruption, certainly none which ever rose to the level of a blockable offense apparently. Even the original ArbCom ruling made no finding that SevenOfDiamonds had in fact been disruptive, despite the arguments and evidence given in the case by certain editors of opposite political views. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 23:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to ], yes, an apology would be great, but it's uncertain what SevenOfDiamonds is supposed to apologize for, since he continues to maintain he's not NuclearUmpf; Mr. N.U. could be on a beach in ] trolling ] on his laptop and not be about to apologize for anything. Insisting SoD confess that's he's this other guy and apologize for that guy's behavior seems a bit of a ] situation. People with ]s make the worst prisoners; therefore, if it's solely a matter of doubt at to whether or not we've managed to properly break his spirit, at the very least the block should be shortened to some value of time less than infinity, so he can comply with the ban with some reasonable expectation of eventual re-admittance (even with certain restrictions) to the community. I sincerely believe that's in the best interest of the project. -- ]<sup>]</sup> '']'' 02:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to ], I wholeheartedly agree that the community should cease wasting time with this, and I suggest some sort of amendment to the case would quite exactly make that possible. What we need to ask ourselves is whether, as our critics claim,[REDACTED] is about ]ping and ] or whether, as I secretly hope, it is about ]. Because, despite our best efforts, that's what SevenOfDiamonds keeps doing -- writing an encyclopedia. And we need to face the reality that it's unlikely we will be able to successfully stop this behavior; we're just not getting through to this guy that our critics are right. Please raise your hand if you want to be preventing him from doing this for the next forty or so years because I think that's the true waste of time. As the lyrics of the one hit song by ], "Banditos" says:
::So give your ID card to the border guard
::Your alias says you're Captain John Luc Picard
::Of the United Federation of Planets
::Cause they won't speak English any ways
He'll make a few dozen articles, we'll figure him out again, and the process will repeat. -- ]<sup>]</sup> <small>''you didn't think I'd get that third Picard reference in did ya?''</small> 03:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====

I was contacted by SevenofDiamonds about this on my talk page and will comment here. SoD contests the findings at ] that they were a sock of ZeroFaults/NuclearUmpf. That's fine, but that was the ArbCom's decision, and quite frankly I don't think we should rehash it here. Rather than focus on whether or not SoD is ZF/NU, we should focus on the behavior of the user SevenofDiamonds and consider their request for an unblock.

I would support that request with some conditions. There is no doubt that SoD has written dozens of articles and thus contributed constructively to the encyclopedia. However they have also been mixed up in a number of rather contentious disputes centered around ]. Indeed this article (and perhaps some related ones) have been the source of all of SoD's troubles. That user has engaged in some uncivil behavior in the past (see ] for example, and there might be some stuff under the account ], but nothing egregious unless I'm missing something). I would suggest that it would be reasonable for SevenofDiamonds to agree to the following as a condition of an unblock:

#Indefinite topic ban on ] and related articles (defined as articles to which the dispute from the main article has carried over, such as ]. SoD may feel their behavior was not disruptive enough to warrant a topic ban, but given that this is an unblock request and that this article has been the source of trouble this seems reasonable.
#No interaction with ], who presented the evidence at the original arbitration case. It's possible that this should be extended to other users as well (perhaps ]), but at the least SoD should stay away from MONGO and articles he edits.
#SoD picks one account, informs ArbCom of it, and agrees to edit only with that account. Other accounts would remain blocked.
#I assume all of this would be logged at the original arbitration page, and perhaps a link to that would be necessary at SoD's user page so that editors and admins know the situation should future problems come up.

There might be other necessary conditions but this seems like a reasonable start. Violation of any of the terms would lead to another indef block. It seems obvious that SoD will continue to maintain that they are not ZF/NU, so asking them to admit to that will be a non-starter. Maybe they really are, or maybe ArbCom got it wrong. Like I said it perhaps does not actually make much difference either way. SoD likes to write articles and I'm fine with unblocking to let them do that, so long as they completely avoid the areas which have got them into trouble in the past (if the user is going to keep writing articles no matter what, it seems silly to make them post the articles on my talk page). The committee could even say they still stand by the decision in the SevenOfDiamonds case that the user is NuclearUmpf, but so long as the user agrees to stick to one account, avoid problem areas, and not cause disruption they can be unblocked and allowed to contribute. These are just initial ideas and there might well be other issues to consider. I have no idea if SevenofDiamonds is agreeable to these terms or not because we have not discussed this issue, the user just informed me of this request via a talk page message and I am apparently here as a "friendly" party.--] <small>| ] | ]</small> 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
:In reply to Merzbow, I would not really have a problem with a waiting period but don't know what we gain by holding off for 6 months. If anything it makes more sense to have SoD agree to the above terms (and perhaps others) now rather than just letting them create more new accounts which could be disruptive. We should think in terms of what's actually workable. If we can find an agreement that lets SoD contribute but keeps them out of troubled areas then why not do it now? And we should definitely add William M. Connolley, yourself, and anyone else who wants to the list of people SoD should keep away from (within reason of course, we can't have a list of 20 people and I think it would only be a handful anyway - I think basically just a few people from the US State Terrorism article). Also if SoD was causing disruption in 9/11 articles a topic ban there would be justified as well. In general I'm quite open to broadening the restrictions I mention above.--] <small>| ] | ]</small> 20:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
::I would add that, while I don't know if it was intentional or not, I find it amusing that SoD has created ] articles. Given the popularity of ] here at Misplaced Pages that should surely count for something.--] <small>| ] | ]</small> 21:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

'''Update'''. Given the strong objections below (and particularly given DHeyward's comment - I had no idea that NU had <s>engaged in real-world harassment</s> published private information about a Misplaced Pages editor '''') I now think it makes sense to, at the least, hold off on this. I would suggest that SevenofDiamonds go about 6 months without creating new accounts and without violating the ban with IP edits. I would note though, and perhaps the committee can provide some guidance on this, that SoD (using another account) on my user talk page informing me they intended to submit articles to my talk page in the hopes that I would post them. That would put me in a rather odd position. I would certainly never proxy edit for a banned user, but on the other hand if they are decent articles (which seems generally to have been the case with SoD in the past) it would seem somewhat absurd to not put them in article space. Even if ArbCom rejects SoD's request as I assume they will I'd appreciate some guidance on that issue.--] <small>| ] | ]</small> 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====

I urge ArbCom to reject this motion for now. It is true that IWS/Seven can contribute good content, but he also cannot stop the disrupting and harassing activity that got him banned in the first place: see ] for an overview of examples of both during the Giovanni33 ArbCom case; he also has a vendetta against WMC, starting an RFC ], then following WMC to an article IWS has never edited to revert-war against him (, ), then warning WMC ; etc. His unwillingness to respect a legally imposed ArbCom remedy and instead sockpuppet prolifically also does not bode well for his ability to work within the community. My advice to him is to stay away for six months to a year to show his respect ''for'' this community, ''then'' appeal for a second chance, which must come in conjunction with a topic ban for the areas that he only disrupts and never contributes to (i.e. articles on U.S. foreign policy and 9/11), plus a ban on interaction with those he's harassed (i.e. Mongo, me, to start). Yes, basically BTP's remedies, but not now, because that would be a reward for his deception, disruption and socking. He needs to take a long time-out first.

:To BTP: 9/11 was in reference to actions under the NuclearUmpf account, which was infamous for pushing conspiracy theories in that area; some SoD's early edits did the same. Anyways, we don't give into blackmail here. A threat to continue to create new accounts "unless" should not be met by capitulation, because then every other banned user is going to feel it's OK. The bottom line is that via his actions, he has already shown he does not feel the rules of the community apply to him, so why should we give him a second chance until he can demonstrate otherwise by, you know, not sockpuppeting for a while? - ] (]) 22:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

::For those who believe the NuclearUmpf/SevenOfDiamonds connection was weak: I was not involved with that case, but looked at recently, and they are the same person. If we have to go through it again, we will, and with evidence five times as detailed as that presented in the original case, if necessary. I implore ArbCom ''not'' to put the community through this exercise again unless they have new and extremely convincing evidence. For just an example of what we would see, I noticed that as part of the Mantanmoreland ArbCom evidence, somebody ran an exhaustive computer analysis of time-day-edits between thousands of accounts, and their conclusion (with graphs) was "User:SevenOfDiamonds and User:NuclearUmpf had remarkably similar editing patterns, with 0.7758 correlation coefficient, which is a bit better than the 99th percentile." (]). (I would also note that Mantanmoreland was ] after further evidence came to light of socking.) - ] (]) 00:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I've not seen positive contributions by this editor which would outweigh the immense amount of time wasted in dealing with his independently disruptive socks. I'm also not clear on why we should condone the admitted evasion of an ArbCom-imposed ban, particularly when the editor in question continues to rationalize his ban evasion and deny any fault whatsoever. So ] managed to edit constructively for ''one whole month'' before lapsing into disruptiveness. Have we sunk to the point where that's exceptionally praiseworhty? Editors able to contribute useful content without repeatedly running afoul of basic policy are not so rare that we need to waste more time on this. But admittedly, I'm grouchy at the moment since the USA lost 2-nil to England, so take that with a grain of salt. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 22:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
I would strongly recommend that the arbitrators reject this appeal. The almost continuous disruption caused by this account (under many names, the two most recent being ] and ]) far, '''far''' outweighs the positive contributions. Sockpuppetry (especially of a particularly disruptive nature, as is the case here) is not something that can be excused, and allowing this user another chance opens the door to appeals of a similar nature. Does anyone really want to have to deal with JB196, WordBomb, LBHS Cheerleader, Pwok, Grawp, or any of many abusive sockpuppeteers asking for another chance, citing this as precedent? ''']''' <small>]</small> 23:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
It is reasonable to unblock this user. He has proven himself a net positive to the project through content creation, and I've seen many positive contributions. See his cooperative statement and evidence of his valuable contributions:At a minimum, 42 excellent articles created by this user refutes those who claim, "no positive contributions." These many contributions are not negated by the possibility that may have been NuclearUmf in the past, and made poor choices then that led to him being banned back then. In so far as this possibility is true, it's only relevant to the extent that he replicates the problematic behaviors. He has not. At the very least his current conduct under the new accounts should weigh a lot more than previous conduct, if the original problems are no longer evident; he may not be perfect but he is certainly a lot better than many other established editors who we are not sanctioning in any manner. Thus, it's also a matter of equal protection and fairness for me, as well as pragmatic reasons. Ironically the "disruption" stems from the fact of his 'illegal' status here: it's the de jure insistence that he remain blocked and what follows from that fact, against his de-facto unblocked status that is the source of disruption. It is therefore counter productive in light of his actual positive contributions, which he will continue to make, and wants to make, no matter what. Administrative decisions, if they are in the best interest of the project, must be flexible and look at the bottom line: what is best for the project? Even if we believe that he was the indef.banned user (Nuclear), the new accounts were only banned on the basis of asserting such a link.

Also, if he is telling the truth about his original blocking based on mistaken socket-puppet conclusions, then I certainly can relate to that, and give him credit for proving himself loyal to the project inspite and despite the rules. It's a classic and ultimate case of ] being put into practice. That is an area that is problematic, but the best way to deal with it is to make an evaluation on pragmatic grounds (what IAR was meant for).

Lastly, I want to point out that SevenOfDiamonds was not indef.blocked/banned by his Arbcom case. In fact, arbcom, in their wisdom, did NOT proscribe any remedy. They simply concluded that given the standard of 'more likely than not," one account was the other. They did not feel a need to issue any restrictions, or take any punitive measures. It was up to any admin to either feel a block was then warranted, or for him to be left in peace to edit. At this state, I agree with BTP, that it doesn't matter if SOD was Nuclear or not, or how likely he was, etc. Conditions should be ratified so as to codify a situation with the aim of minimizing as much disruption as possible while maximizing the positive. To me this means an unblock, perhaps with conditions, and for his opponents to reciprocate in abstaining from any uncivil interaction against him moving forward. If he wants to write articles, then who are we to stop him? To do so is to elevate form above substance, to raise the letter of the law above its spirit. Given the possibility that he should never have been banned in the first place, to continue to want him blocked no matter what strikes me as an irrational fetish of the rules for the sake of the rules.] (]) 23:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

:In response to User:B. It is true he was circumventing a ban but notice he was doing it to prove a positive point, not a negative one, i.e. not to defy or disrespect arbcom or their authority, but to prove he was not disruptive as claimed, but a valuable contributor so he could make an appeal to them afterwards. Note he explains his reasons here, that he intended to request for the appeal afterwards, and does so now:. This is not an act of a vandal/defiant rogue element that needs to be stomped out at all costs. Quite the contrary. Each case must be looked at concretely on its own merits so that does not give a green light to just anyone doing this; it goes without saying its risky at best. But intentions seem clear here and I feel intentions do count, even if it was flawed tactically.] (]) 02:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

::DHeyward's allegation about his real name does not appear to be truthful to me, so I want to respond. First of all, I don't know what his real name is, nor do I care to know. I would never tolerate any harassment of anyone, either. To insinuate that I've done something like that is quite wrong.

::DHeyward, the only thing I do know is that you have two user names, an old one and the new one. I have provided both before simply so that people know who I'm talking about. The reason for this is because you are known by your old user name more so, such as on the Allegations article, where under your old user name you've blanked sections a lot, edit-warred, and have been blocked many times. I find your past behaviors there rather poor. The new user name, though, is clean from those misbehaviors, and gives you a face-lift. I also note you're less aggressive. So that is why I link them, so people know who we are talking about. It has nothing to do with what your real name is.
::Also, you have never send me a message informing me of the situation, if your old user name was to be mentioned. The only time, and the first time I realized you did not want this displayed is just recently when I provided both user names in my arbcom case. I also know that both user names are not a secret and you specifically requested a change of your user name, not because you were trying to hide your real name because people were harassing you, but because you wanted to have your new user name ''be'' your real name--the one that you use now. I refer to this statement of yours about it: . So your claim now makes no sense. I had just assumed you wanted to use your real name, as you stated, or wanted to disassociate your past behaviors linked to your previous user name, or your posts on conservative forums, etc. If you are mischaracterizing what I've done, your allegations against SevenOfDiamonds in the same vein are called into question.] (]) 19:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Comment by ] ====

I am completely uninvolved in this case and only tangentially followed it. I encourage arbcom to reject it because it would reward circumventing a ban. If a banned user abides by the ban, then apologizes for whatever issues led to their ban, and promises not to repeat their transgressions, then I'm all for second chances. But someone who does not abide by the terms of the ban and gets caught socking should not be permitted to return. --] (]) 02:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Comment by ] ====

Banned means he's not allowed to edit. This is a sock of a banned user. Period. And the ban was partly for socking. Rewarding that behavior is counterproductive. Too much time has been wasted on this user already. Let's not do it again. <span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 02:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
] published my real name, employer and other personal information. He did it both on and off wiki in a malicious manner. Other editors commenting here have continued to make sure that the stalking continues (notably Giovanni33 and Inclusionist). My employer was contacted because of that. I was cyber stalked because of that. It continues on sites such as WR today. He should not be allowed to return and contribute in any way either as sockpuppets or as himself. --] (]) 05:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
:Response to BTP: I don't know that NU was the one who did the actual harassment. He is the one who published the material that the harassers used. The only reason to publish that information was to aid the harassment. --] (]) 13:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

:response to Giovanni33: Here's my block log. In total. Only Tyrenius's block wasn't considered a mistake (I said a 9/11 truther was lying on a user's talk page). None for the "allegations" article as you seem to not be in command of any factual evidence. And your claim of ignorance and innocence is not credible either.

*2:20, September 24, 2006 Tyrenius (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Defamatory comment after warning)
*13:16, April 22, 2006 Curps (Talk | contribs) unblocked ‎ (not)
*11:38, April 22, 2006 Curps (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (vandalism)
*18:40, March 27, 2006 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) unblocked (after reviewing it appears Tbeatty made only three reverts)
*17:01, March 27, 2006 Gamaliel (Talk | contribs) unblocked (appears to be an incorrect 3rr block)
*19:02, March 26, 2006 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (3rr vio at Union of Concerned Scientists)

--] (]) 21:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====

This is a repeated sock abuser. Reject as a waste of time, and to judge from the state of the G33 case, you're short of time ] (]) 21:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
While I am not familiar with the underlying case, I would challenge Kendrick's assertion that IWS is a "fine" contributor - his behaviour has been problematic for a while. Not ban-worthy in and of itself, but needlessly combative. The suggestion that he has reformed doesn't ring true. ] (]) 22:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ]====
The original arb finding that Sevenofdiamonds was Nucularumpf (or whatever) was IMO very weak. The evidence was substantially weaker that the recent evidence regarding Mantanmoreland, which the committee felt was uncompelling. While the harrassment by numf is NOT OK, BY ANY STRETCH, I'm not sure that SoD is the same person. I would ask the committee to review the finding. If appropriate to unban, I think a topic ban on 9-11 and similar conspiracy articles would be appropriate as SoD seemed to struggle with appropriate behavior in that relm (not substantially worse than others, but still). --] (]) 00:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Clerk notes ====

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====

* I am fully in accord with ] on this issue. ] (]) 09:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
* On the basis of a detailed email that came to the ArbCom, I feel we should look properly at this matter. Assuming a request is posted, I'd vote to accept a case. ] (]) 13:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
----

=== Request to amend prior case: ]===

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
*{{admin|Moreschi}}
*{{user|Matthead}}

==== Statement by ] ====
As I think ] currently shows nicely, the Eastern Europe flamewars cannot be dealt with by the current provisions of the Digwuren case. At any rate, I cannot cope, and I don't think anyone else can either. Isolating civility in the way the case does has simply encouraged users to bait other users in an effort to get their opponents put on civility supervision and blocked. We need discretionary sanctions ] style to counter this, though with a good definition of the area of conflict (I would suggest, at the least, that it covers Polish-German disputes, in addition to Polish-Russian and articles relating to the Baltic states and Ukraine). Best, ] (]) (]) 22:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I had ] at WP:AE, after which ] opened two against me ] and ], trying to take advantage that I had been added quickly to the Digwuren list shortly after it was opened, and got immediately blocked, while he and well known other editors have, well, since been overlooked somehow? I perceive the composition of ] as lopsided and doubt that ''Eastern Europe flamewars'' are conducted one way. ], of which "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia" and "Misplaced Pages has a neutral point of view" are the first two, and arguably the most important ones, compared to "Misplaced Pages has a code of conduct" as fourth. Thus, as we try to write an encyclopedia, I think it is necessary that much more attention is given to the content that editors add or remove, rather than to civility or the lack thereof, or the skill with which some editors can provoke uncivil responses while getting judged civil themselves. For example, Molobo repeatedly denied that there was a by-election to the Polish parliament in 1920 with support by another well known user , calling it a ] also on talk, and stubbornly refused to acknowledge that after the Versailles Treaty made Soldau/Dzialdowo Polish, a by-election was held, which apparently is also stated (which he repeatedly rejects, eg. with ). If I had not , the misinformation ''"A German author claims that after the town was ceded to Poland a large part of German inhabitants left the area but the candidate of the German Party, Ernst Barczewski, was elected to the ] with 74,6 % of votes in 1920, although no Sejm elections took place at the time"'' would probably still remain. Also, on ], he repeatedly made false claims, denying that both ] and ] use ] rather than Karkonosze. In both cases, he ] despite other editors providing evidence that the was wrong, very wrong. Is such behavior acceptable? Molobo almost got permabanned two years ago. He returned after his one year block, and seemingly was allowed to do as he pleases since. --&nbsp;]&nbsp;]&nbsp; 02:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
There is absolutely no doubt that this is required. My involvement in EE issues is limited to the ] and on responding to various RfCs and posts on noticeboards - perhaps half a dozen articles altogether. It would be more except for the (a) blatant wikilawyering and misrepresentation of sources that happens as a matter of course and (b) outright baiting and misapplication of civility. I'm not one of those who believes that civility is pointless when dealing with POV-pushers, but what we have in these articles is that any statement of fact - "that source is obviously irrelevant" - is met with head-shaking reminders to be civil in the hope that some form ArbCom-mandated sanction will be required.

As a general rule, any section of the 'pedia permanently plagued with clashing historical narratives requires our most stringent controls. These are more difficult to administer and keep clean, because of the free availability and difficulty in recognising dubious sourcing, than the pseudoscience/scientific consensus articles that people have wailing conniptions about all over the noticeboards. Not to mention there are fewer people able and willing to keep an eye on it, and its much tougher to recognise POV-pushing....

If ArbCom suggests that I present a few diffs of the sort of occasion where (a) civility restrictions have led to baiting and (b) discretionary sanctions would have been helpful - just from my own experience - I am willing to. --<span style="font-family:Georgia">] (])</span> 06:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I endorses this request. Many of the long-term problematic areas of wiki need strong and flexible remedies.<span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 02:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

====Comment by ] ====
"Blocks of up to one year" on discretion of a single uninvolved administrator... Such drastic measured could only be used for users with long blocking history (say 6+ blocks). Besides, the area of conflict should be clearly defined. I asked previously if ''any'' Russia-related subjects belong to Digwuren case, but there was no answer. I trust Moreschi judgement, but we need some safeguards if this is adopted as a general policy.] (]) 17:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
:I would also trust opinon of Martintg and Piotrus as leading content editors on the Baltic states and Poland articles. If ''they'' think the additional sanctions would be unhelpful, let's not introduce the sanctions, at least on the Baltics and Poland-related subjects.] (]) 19:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

====Comment by ] ====
There is no justification to extend discretionary sanctions to other topic areas such as the Polish/Russian articles, Ukraine or particularly the Baltic states. An examination of ] and other boards will reveal that these areas are relatively harmonious, and the existing mechanisms such as 3RR are working well.

A similar motion to impose discretionary sanctions across all of Easter Europe, on the back of a single 3RR violation in that case, was attempted back in February, but was archived due to lack of interest and some important questions of scope remaining unanswered

So what has happened since February? A scan through the WP:AE archives reveals only a small number of cases reported to the AE board have anything actually to do with Eastern Europe. Out of 126 cases since February, only 4 are EE related, particularly Poland, and of those 4, 3 are concerned with Matthead ,,

Looking at the indicates no utilisation of that remedy since April, despite Matthead being put in January and and three recent reports to ] have gone unactioned, indicated above.

Both Moreschi and Rlevse have failed to adequately use the current remedies available to them. What is the point of proposing additional discretionary sanctions (with arbitrary blocks of up to one year) across all of EE, if they are unwilling or too timid to use existing remedies and impose a simple 24 hour block against an individual, despite it being brought to ] three times in the last month?

Experience has shown that in the case of EE, disruption is usually caused by one or two individuals, and if they are banned/blocked harmony quickly returns. This is clearly a case concerning the behaviour of an individual and has no relevance to any other topic areas like Ukraine, Poland/Russia or the Baltic States. Massive intervention that risks totally chilling a broad subject area is not required, particularly when precise targeted action is more than sufficient. ] (]) 21:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

:I've asked Martintg on email to refactor his statement in which he seems to single out me as trouble maker, based on what is a false perception. It was me who filed to bring attention to an edit war in which I was not involved (just witnessing). In that thread, user Molobo attacked me, then filed not one, but two requests against me, repeating the same statements. All that within less than 24 hours. And that is now held against me? --&nbsp;]&nbsp;]&nbsp; 16:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::I didn't intend to single anyone out, I was attempting to convey that the current remedies and mechanisms are sufficient for admins to do their job. Who attacked who first is not at issue here, but requesting the imposition of draconian sanctions across a vast heterogeneous area of Misplaced Pages on the back of a personality clash between yourself and Molobo is. Can't you two work out your differences over a beer or something? It certainly has nothing to do with the Baltic states, so I don't see why additional remedies would be required. ] (]) 00:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

====Comment by ] ====
For the most part I agree with Marting. I don't think that CE/EE area is much more inflamed then many others; we just have a few persistent trolls and borderline disruptive users. We have weeks of quiet punctuated by an occasional week when one of them "wakes up" and disrupts an article or two, then goes away after he learns again that such disruption will be reverted by more numerous, neutral editors. That said, it is a fact that such storms are stressful and may result in a good editor taking a long wikibreak or even permanently leaving, fed up with flaming and harassment. It is very, very difficult to get a user on the Digwuren's warning list and later, blocked - even if one produces a big list of very clear diffs you get the usual "random admin decision", usually erring on the case of 'let's give him another chance' or 'he was warned few month ago and inactive recently, so let's just warn him again'. And certainly, other admins may be to timid or afraid to apply the remedy to experienced editors who have proven their skills with wikilawyering. Thus I do think that the Digwuren sanction ended up being relatively pointless. Just as before, what we need are a few blocks (or topical ban - see who creates little to no content but flames and revert wars) - and the problem would cease to exist. Perhaps some conclusions from ] may prove useful in dealing with this problem once and for all.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 14:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Clerk notes ====

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====
* I have recused myself once and I believe that at least I can say that this area needs more strict measures. I also agree with ] though the safeguards come usually with the pack. What Moreschi is asking about is the green light from the ArbCom. -- ] - <small>]</small> 18:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
* My response here is the same one that I made in regards to the identical request in the ''Martinphi-ScienceApologist'' case below: I'll be happy to move for discretionary sanctions here once the ''Homeopathy'' case closes and we know which version of the sanctions is preferred. ] <sup><small>(])</small></sup> 00:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
----

=== Request to amend prior case ]===
''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
*{{userlinks|Shoemaker's Holiday}} (initiator)
*{{userlinks|Martinphi}};

==== Statement by ] ====
MartinPhi has begun editing ] in ways that make it more strongly prejudicial to his opponents. He mentions ScienceApologist as one of the users he wants it to come down more strongly on:

{{cquote|1=}}

''The bolding is Martinphi's'', and for anyone with even a passing knowledge of MartinPhi-ScienceApologist, it's obvious who he's referring to in that sentence.

See also (wants certain words to be "actionable" in themselves.) List of his highly-biased examples of presumably actionable words, including, of all things, "POV-pusher"] [http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ACivility&diff=207794751&oldid=207779327 (Argues against letting other people know editing of the page is ongoing, because people who are against his views might be brought in)

I have spoken to him on his talk page: his response was to ask me:

{{cquote|1=}}

ScienceApologist's only edits to WP:CIV were to revert Martinphi's POV pushing on that page, as far as I can tell, and thhe last one was over a week ago. Martinphi is still editing today.

::To Martinphi: Your edit by SA is from 17 April, his last one to WP:CIV is 23 April, and the number is fairly small. Only one comment from him is on the current talk page, and it's from 18 April. If you want Science Apologist cautioned, you have to actually tell someone when it happens, not expect them to do it retrospectively two weeks later. You, however, have been much more visibly active on both the policy page and the talk page for several weeks (SA's edit to mainspace seem entirely devoted to reverting additions by you), and mention him as a major reason for your changes on the talk page. The evidence against you is far stronger. ] (]) 20:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

To Tom Butler: Science Apologist has not come out and said that he is editing the pages to get at Martinphi, but the reverse situation has occured. As for Littleolive oil, I apologise, I did not know how to investigate and get at the truth, so mentioned a preliminary observation that I probably shouldn't have. I have deleted it. ] (]) 18:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

'''Addendum''': Martinphi is still one of the most active people on WP:CIV, so it might be nice to have some statement on whether that's appropriate soon. If it is, fine, but I'd like to hear some statement on that soon. ] (]) 12:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
This editing of ] is being done by three sides, so let's not look at just one. The three sides are: pro-science, pro-pseudoscience, and a few neutrals. Of course, it's merely one facet of the larger debate which currently has at least three separate threads going in various places at arbcom. I say again, serious most stringent remedies need to be put in place on this area quickly.<span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 12:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I have edited CIV, and participated on the talk page, and my experience is in one of the most uncivil parts of Misplaced Pages- the paranormal. My experience has given me an excellent perspective for editing that page. Where would an editor gain experience needed to edit CIV? At articles where everyone gets along? The paranormal involves many editors who are highly uncivil, for example calling people or groups "deletionists," "believers in scientism" "true believers," "nutcases," or
morons." The Arbitrators have already been treated to a large amount of evidence on this. So I'll just say that no, SA is an Archetypal case, but not by far the only one. SA also edited CIV, removing exactly the stuff he often does . Shoemaker didn't warn him, even when I asked why he only warned me, claiming SA isn't editing CIV. I hadn't been editing there recently till he called my attention to it. ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 17:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Shoemaker says:

"Science Apologist has not come out and said that he is editing the pages to get at Martinphi, but the reverse situation has occured."

Never said that. Mentioned him as an extreme case. This is a serious misrepresentation, AKA false evidence. ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 19:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

=====Public statement=====

I am getting EXTREMELY TIRED of people calling me things like "pro pseudoscience" sometimes in a subtle way as I believe ] does above (if I'm wrong, you can stop reading now). If ] can find ONE INSTANCE where I have been pro pseudoscience, I would like to see it. I would immediately take it back. I feel very insulted that someone like ] would say that to me, as I strive to always be on the side of good sourcing and science (see recent history of ]). If I'm wrong, and ] feels I'm one of the neutrals, I'd like him to tell me so. Otherwise, I would like him to stop insulting me by characterizing me '''in front of the ArbCom''' as pro-pseudoscience.

But I see absolutely no reason why I should put up with insults from an ArbCom clerk on this page. I expect insults from SA and his friends, but I would expect that an ArbCom clerk would be neutral, or at least get his facts straight. Or, if there is a legitimate difference of opinion, that he would be able to provide diffs to support such a characterization. Either he can't, or I really need to rethink my editing on Misplaced Pages. But at the very least, why has ] drunk the poisoned rhetoric that SA and company spew about my supposed pseudoscientific POV?

Why am I putting this here? Because I want to make a public statement which the ArbCom members themselves might read: stop characterizing me that way, or support it with evidence. ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 17:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ] ====
This is a frivolous complaint. Shoemaker's Holiday is the editor who recently used the "Be Bold" excuse to hijack the Civility article with out discussing his massive changes. I can see now that his boldness has turned to advocacy for ScienceApologist's desire to water down civility so that it is acceptable for him to call people a moron. In fact, SA is the one who has had to be reverted because he repeatedly removed "moron" from the article where it was used as an example of incivility .

Rlevse is correct in that there are several viewpoint being expressed, and Martinphi's is just one. Martin has also not shown a determination to resist consensus as you have.

Holiday, I would be careful about meatpuppet accusations without bringing evidence. ] (]) 17:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Given the situation between ScienceApologist and Martinphi, it is tragic, but probably predictable, that the argument has now moved up to the policy level. Regardless of the outcome, I would hope that Martinphi would not change the policy in an attempt to use his changes as a weapon against ScienceApologist, and ''vice versa''. <font color="#0000b0">]</font><sup><font color="#b00000">]</font></sup> 17:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
It may be appropriate for both editors to be prohibited from making edits to policies and guidelines in any way related to their disputes over the rules, ''if'' the arbs believe there is a stong possibility their rules edits may be related to their ongoing disputes. It's OK for people to have disagreements over interpretation of the rules, but it's not at all OK to bring that dispute into live policy. I see no indication that either user should be prohibited from contributing to the talk pages of those policies and guidelines. I don't see any reason to believe that either editor expressing their opinion and receiving feedback on the talk page should be a problem. Just a thought. *hands out salt grains* ] (]) 00:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I would ask the arbitrators to review ], both the current dispute and the general history of the guideline. It appears to often be a proxy battleground for the opposing sides in this general dispute, with some editors ignoring the requirements of ] and general open collegial editing. ] (]) 01:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Since this subject has been raised, I think it may be helpful if ArbCom could clarify whether or not a number of SA’s comments violate his ArbCom restrictions on Civility and Assuming Good Faith, per ]. He is constantly being rude and insulting to editors he disagrees with, this continues despite many WP:AE reports (some of them frivolous, but some are very legitimate examples of SA violating his ArbCom restrictions). In virtually all the blocks, admins who seem to back his editing style push to have him unblocked or unblock him directly, sometimes against the consensus and objections of other Admins and editors, such as .

Are ScienceApologist's edits uncivil, or are they acceptable behavior? Here are some examples; I know there are a lot, but there's really no single edit that is truly damning, it's the overall pattern, a constant stream of abusive, uncivil comments directed at his opponents: . ] <small>]</small> 03:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I'm always uncomfortable when editors involved in an interpersonal dispute modify core policy pages in a way which will presumably affect that dispute. When an editor has a history as... colorful... as Martin's, that's doubly true. Edits such as , in which he adds several terms used by ScienceApologist in the context of creating a definition of "actionable" incivility, suggest a clear connection. I would be happier if Martin would restrict himself to discussion on the policy talk page rather than editing the policy directly. The same would go for ScienceApologist. I don't think that contentious editors pursuing a personal battle make good policy. But that's just me. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 18:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ]====
I broadly agree with the statement by Rlevse above. The best outcome would be if policy pages had wider scrutiny that was representative of the community as a whole. Does it bother anyone else that every policy describes itself as "a widely accepted standard" when in fact they are heavily influenced by battles between a very few editors? ] (]) 19:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
:<drive by comment> You could say the same about some articles... </drive by comment> ] (]) 08:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ]====
I couldn't find an empty template, so I just copied the one above, hope that's acceptable.

I've been surprised and dismayed and a little confused, between reading the "Governance Reform" discussion where it seems to be agreed that it's very difficult to change policy even when there is consensus in the entire community, to find how easily a few people can change policy willy nilly as in this case, simply by editing policy pages. But I wouldn't characterize the current dispute as a battle between "pro-science" and "pseudoscience" editors per se; instead I would say what is happening is that a few people are trying to change the policy to broaden the definition of incivility, and a few other people are (rightly, in my opinion) reverting it back to the status quo. I don't see the reverters as "changing policy" to further an agenda, but simply respecting the principle that policy should only be changed with broad community consensus. ] (]) 15:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Clerk notes ====

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====
* I agree that it would be better that policy pages - and, especially, such crucial ones as this - were better monitored and had a wider gamut of participation. However, I don't see that, beyond exhorting greater involvement by the community at large, there is much that the Committee can usefully do. ] ] 20:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
* Editing core policies should be done only on a full and mature consideration of the full circumstances and never because of a single case, especially not one in which the user making the edit was involved. However, no arbitration committee resolution is needed on this, because contentious edits to core policies are fundamentally disruptive and editors who persistently disrupt can be blocked by any administrator. ] (]) 10:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
----



=== Request to amend: ] and ] ===

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
The list of users in affected areas is too large to collect, list and notify conveniently. I will place notices of this request, so the community as a whole is aware, on the village pump, administrators' noticeboard, and fringe theory noticeboard. If another editor believes there is a specific user or another on-wiki forum that should receive notice, they should ] to drop a link to them.

==== Statement by ] ====
I would like to request that ArbCom explicitly permit discretionary sanctions on all pseudoscience and alternative science topics, broadly construed, similar to ]. See , , , , , and . That is only the ''recent'' threads, only from the AE noticeboard, only involving a very limited number of users involved in the broader dispute. I believe ArbCom explicitly endorsing discretionary sanctions would empower and embolden sysops and the community to resolve these long-standing issues, once and for all. ] (]) 12:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Reply about potential admin abuse =====
Regarding the concerns about potential admin abuse, I would expect that if ArbCom accepted this request that they would be open to reviewing complaints about related admin abuse. I believe this would increase the oversight and reduce the potential abuse of sysop discretion. Sysops would have to be accoutable for their actions.

I believe relying on more than common sense for the definition of "uninvolved" will only lead to wikilawyering. All of the proposed definitions I've seen essentially leave massive loopholes that anyone looking to game the system or skirt the rules could use. If there is a disagreement about whether an administrator is involved or not, a brief community discussion or appeal to ArbCom should suffice. I simply fail to see the point of creating a limited definition prone to gaming, which would require other admins and the community to employ their natural power of reason regardless. ] (]) 13:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to Neal's oppose, I simply cannot understand that point of view, though I have tried. We permit administrators to impose full site blocks without an expiration date at their discretion. I fail to see how giving administrators lessor options (such as a topic ban instead of a full block) in long-disputed areas with persistant conduct problems would increase abuse potential. I should additionally note that we're discussing long-term problems, involving users who either know better by know or almost assuredly are never going to get it, not newbies who are unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 19:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

:If I may comment directly (if not you can move this to my section). I'm more concerned about abuse-through-misunderstanding rather than abuse-abuse. It's not always clear what's neutral, and the discretionary sanctions designed for Homeopathy and the Palestine-Israeli issue are designed for narrow subjects. A broader subject category, like all pseudoscience/alternative science, becomes muddled with lots of other issues (see my statement). The discretionary sanctions for the narrow topics say any percieved " to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages", by any admin who feels strongly about it. There's lots of admins who feel strongly about their interpretation of NPOV, whether they're involved or not, and especially if they're involved in the broader discussions though not technically involved in the given page at the given time. The discretionary sanctions don't discriminate between bad editor practices like incivility, edit warring, etc. and good faith content disputes. Good faith content disputes can easily be seen as a "conduct problem", as that happens all the time. Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but hopefully you can see where the concern comes from. On a side-note, if we already have tools available for getting problem editors off these articles, why aren't they already banned? --''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 22:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Reply about community discussion =====
Requesting or advocating that such discretionary empowerment be limited to consensus discussions is essentially the same as opposing this request. The community already has the power to impose bans and other sanctions via community discussion. I tend to think that over time, using such a method will only open up another battleground. Enforcement threads have already become another place to argue for the disputants in heated areas. I shudder to think what kind of response would be received after the first couple of sanction discussions make it "real" to such parties. (For an example, see ].)

Regarding the concern about appeals, they should generally be appealable like any other admin action enforcing ArbCom sanctions: 1) Post to AN to ask other admins to review it. 2) Appeal to ArbCom. Excessive, repeated or otherwise disruptive series of appeals are not appeals at all; they are stumping and should be treated by another uninvolved administrator as disruptive. ] (]) 13:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Reply to concerns about scope =====
What if the scope were limited to areas and users that have severe long-running and/or perpetually recurring behavioral issues? I believe that would keep the scope from being too broad or limited. ] (]) 18:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I heartily endorse this request for stronger measures re editors on both sides of this issue. More details to follow. I'll be on wiki break much of this weekend. <span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 13:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
::Both sides throw reports at ], trying to see what will stick. Many admins are wary to block because of fears another admin that is sympathetic to the blockee will unblock. The remedies in place are not working and something has to be done about it. There are also significant agreements among admins about what constitutes civility. This leads to users who have mastered the art of being borderline incivil and getting away with it for years. A firm policy about this sort of incivility being blockable, long term if necessary, need to be put in place. Copied from my comment at WP:AE archive 20..."''Closing comment...enough already. This has descended into a finger-pointing complaint session by both sides. Before writing anything about someone else, ask "Would I want to be called that?". If not, don't write it. If it's borderline don't write it-this would stop all the attempts here where users throw up a report just to see what sticks; only truly legit reports would get filed if this were to occur. For example, maybe you wouldn't mind being called "braindead", but it would offend a lot of people. Also, you (you as in everyone, both sides) may consider your efforts on wiki non-POV, but others may not. If everyone involved here would take a step back, take a deep breath, and admit that the world of wiki is plenty big for everyone, things would be a lot calmer. These types of disputes start and go on and on when no one allows room for the other side. I see this not only in the pseudoscience area, but Mid-East, East Europe, Sri Lanka, etc disputes. On top of all this, there's about disagreement about the civility here. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)''"...Something has to be done here, this long term situation is highly divisive to the encyclopedic and takes way too admin effort to keep it within harmonic editing boundaries.<span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 00:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====

Sure, if by "uninvolved administrator" you mean administrators not involved in "pseudoscience and alternative science topics, broadly construed" as a whole, or regularly, rather than a given page at a given time. After years of this madness, Misplaced Pages has collected some ban-happy admins with grudges and axes to grind. I'm sure many of them would love to ban their opponents on content disputes for up to a year. What sort of assurances can one like myself who edits paranormal-related articles as a hobby, not advocacy, be given that the new powers won't be abused? I don't edit war, am civil, but I've irritated admins in the past simply by disagreeing with them in content disputes, particularly that Misplaced Pages can also cover folklore neutrally without having a solely science point-of-view. Some admins adamantly reject that eventhough most agree that such a prospect is entirely neutral. AGF went out the window about two years ago on these topics, so frankly I'm a little concerned.

Paranormal topics aren't just pseudoscience (though they are, in part, that). There's also a historical perspective (''eg. ] was studied by the CIA, ] were studied by the Air Force, ] was once accepted by the elite in society like ], etc.''). Presenting that historical information is sometimes called POV pushing by admins. There's also the sociological perspective (''eg. 73 percent of the general US population holds some sort of paranormal belief'' ). Presenting information regarding just the "beliefs" is sometimes called POV pushing by admins. There's also the cultural, folklore perspective (''eg. ] are common in Southern US folklore''). Talking about the folklore on those articles is sometimes called POV pushing by admins who say that the article should predominantly be about methane gases, etc. So, yes, there is a potential for abuse based solely on ideologies and old grudges. If the goal is to just to refresh the editor pool on these topics regardless of whether they're productive Wikipedians, that's fine, that goal will be served if no oversight is in place. But if the goal is to only target disruptive editors, there will need to be some sort of oversight.

I'd like to see what DGG mentioned below, a Topic Ban Noticeboard and some degree of practical consensus to prevent a single editor/admin, or ideological group of editors/admins, from going ban-happy. --''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 13:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

=====Oppose=====
per Vassyana's replies on it's intended use. It seems fundamentally wrong that blocking or banning a user, a person, would have less ''outside'' discussion than what it takes to delete an article. This is essentially a "speedy delete" applied to a user, in spirit. It's always harder to correct a mistake than it is to prevent a mistake. Community discussion is essential when dealing with users who may not be aware that what they are doing is wrong, and determining what actually is wrong to begin with. That's what RfCs are all about. If the goal is to relieve the burden on the ArbCom, that can be done without dropping the discussions altogether. A very simple way to do that is to say "If after a RfC about applying sanctions on the user, allowing for community input and consensus-building, an uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict." Anything less is setting the bar for deleting a user from a topic lower than deleting a topic itself. The RfC also has the benefit of providing the banning/blocking admin with a summary of the issues surrounding the user so they could make an informed decision. The admin could, of course, in their discretion, interpret the RfC anyway they wish and impose their discretionary sanctions, but at least there'd be a discussion on the matter. --''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 18:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Concur that this is a good idea, as an admin who is a regular at ]. Editors active in this area should write their comments assuming that their own actions, and those of whom they agree with on content, will be reviewed and possibly sanctioned. I know of multiple editors in each faction who have effectively developed enemy lists of other editors they want banned, which is a bad sign for the ability of the editors in these areas to work together. We need to clear out those who can't or won't work with those who disagree with them so that a reasonable communal editing environment exists for current and future editors. ] 15:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

:I agree that a strong definition of uninvolved/neutral is needed here. I commend the ] model - has never been involved in a content dispute on any article in the pseudoscience/paranormal topic area with that topic area broadly construed. ] 17:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
::We need more than that. We need a statement of neutrality toward the subjects themselves. I've seen mediators come in and say essentially "Well it's bunk so..." ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 17:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Endorse per everything Nealparr said. I have '''very''' little confidence in the ability of admins 1) to be neutral if they are involved and 2) to get it if they are not. Indeed, I have seen editors like Zvika who did my interview struggle with the issues in these cases, and find it nearly impossible (many many hours of work to get up to date). I have seen obviously biased admins who are supposedly "outside" the debates come in and give sanctions. For example, some of those banning people relative to the 9/11 or Homeopathy issues. In other words, I have no fear of neutrality, but I have fear of hidden bias. If even Nealparr is scared, I certainly am, because I've been deionized all over the place irrespective of my actual edits, beliefs, ideas or intent.

I would like an advocate that I can agree is neutral, such as LaraLove or DGG or maybe Vassyana to review things before any action is take against me. Same for others.

I suggest that a committee of ''truly neutral'' subject matter experts, or simply editors ''truly neutral'' to the subjects be set up to deal with sourcing in paranormal areas. "Do you '''feel''' neutral toward issues of the paranormal?" Should be the question. ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 16:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ''']''' ====
I think the "endorsements" above show why it might not actually work--the disagreement between different arbitrators over the standards for these articles is fairly complete. Everyone things that they are neutral. I can predict what will happen, which is continual appeals from it, carried on in every forum possible, just as present. And i do not think the problem is that hopeless either, because I think the community is evolving standards. The problem is not individual topics--the problem is what degree of tolerance we should have for disruptive actions by good editors. Personally, I don't think they should get the essentially free ride they have at present.
::If we do something of this sort, I would not leave it to individual admins. or editors. What I think we'd need is the equivalent of a topic ban noticeboard, and some degree of practical consensus would be required. I remember the fate of the community ban noticeboard and I'm a little skeptical. ''']''' (]) 18:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ''']''' ====
I believe that, if implemented properly, could be an effective tool in finally ending the heated disagreements between the "anti-science" and "pro-science" camps. I do not believe it will lead to an end of hidden bias or blatant bias -- nor should it -- but that the implementation of a topic ban could finally kill the endless attacks against other editors and administrators, and could finally open the door for new editors, with fresh viewpoints and dialogues, to come in and edit.

I'd also like to echo GRBerry's comments above. There are multiple editors who have developed "watch lists" of other editors and administrators that they either want banned, or removed from various positions at Misplaced Pages. I will not go into specifics here regarding that, but it's a statement that's been made numerous times previously, here and elsewhere, and that it is leading to a serious divide in how, as editors and administrators, can resolve this long-standing conflict. I'd like to see a "topic ban noticeboard," but I am afraid that it would fall to either inactivity or hidden bias. <small>] &#x007C; ] &#x007C; ]</small> 19:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I understand the intention, and fear the result. I think that in order to maintain standing as an encyclopedia, we need be more specific, and actually take a side in favor of facts. Discretionary sanctions should be made available, targeted towards editors that make edits stating or implying a factual basis for pseudoscientific or paranormal topics. If we did that for a while, the heat and rancor would die down, because people attempting to corrupt the encyclopedia would eventually be eliminated.] (]) 20:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Any effort that would make it possible for administrators to more effectively arbitrate content disputes would help. I have been treated as poorly by some admins as I have by some rank and file editors, so I am not in favor of giving any individual admin more authority. Perhaps a cadre of three or five editors would provide protection to both sides.

Lets face it, an arbitration takes way too long, and as I can see, they have hardly any effect except to more clearly define the sides. If an admin blocks an appeal to authority, then the person making the appeal is discredited and the abusive editor becomes more bullet proof. In fact, Misplaced Pages is not able to manage editors who are willing to game the system.

I have only edited on a few paranormal articles so I may be unaware of some of the grievances. Nevertheless, from my viewpoint, it is unrealistic to imagine that it is possible to arbitrate content disputes without deciding on content--not taking sides, but saying what the article will include. I would be comfortable with a venue in which I could present my viewpoint to a panel, editors with a contrary viewpoint could do the same and the panel would decide the article based on their "fair and informed" decision of what was presented. Give each presenter 500 words and ten diffs. I think I could find a way to live with that and I am certainly willing to try. ] (]) 00:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

:Guy, most of us "believers" just want to have the articles you are complaining about explain what the subject is said to be or thought to be without trying to say what you think it is or what you want the public to believe. I would be interested in how you would apply the treatment used for articles on religious beliefs to paranormal articles. For instance, I suspect that not even members of the WikiProject Rational Skepticism would attempt to make Misplaced Pages say that the Catholic Church is not real. Can you apply a similar standard to the EVP article without characterizing as real or not real? Can you just say what it is reported to be? Doing so would certainly stop a lot of the content disputes. ] (]) 21:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Agree in principle with ]'s proposal, with the caveats presented by ], that is to have a place in which we can assess some measure of administrators' consensus when applying broad restrictions such as topic bans or blocks. ] <small>]</small> 03:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
This has too much potential for abuse the way it is worded. Some people consider anything they disagree with to be pseudoscience and would attempt to apply this far beyond its scope. (For example, most evangelical Christians believe in something other than atheistic evolution, therefore someone who edits ] is editing an article on pseudoscience, right?) It needs to be spelled out what this applies to - theories of origin, alternative medicine, paranormal, etc. --] (]) 17:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I'm going to have to agree with B on this one. There are some areas which qualify as pseudoscience but which do not need this sort of protection. The ID related articles are stable for the most part, because there are a great number of fine editors who are very active on those pages. They are occasionally disrupted, but not nearly enough for the scope of this proposal to be anything more than a hindrance. The areas that this will apply to need to be better spelled out. There are probably thousands of articles that fall within the pseudoscience area, especially if broadly defined. And if BLP's are included in that, ie the ones of proponents of pseudoscience, there are an even greater number of articles. I would wager that it is pretty clear the the biggest problems lie in the ] area and the paranormal areas. Focusing on the most problematic areas is a better idea than a big sweeping probation. ] (]) 18:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
There is a long-standing issue with pseudoscience, fringe and paranormal articles. The sources which discuss these subjects are typically either wholly uncritical, or dedicated sceptics. The fact that the mainstream science community does not accept paranormal claims is hard to source, because scientists do not publish papers saying that hokum is hokum. The result is a series of in-universe articles on fictional topics. Added to that, we have believers in these paranormal ideas whose primary function on Misplaced Pages is to attempt to have them documented as reality, not a fringe belief system.

I do believe we can make this work by applying the same methods as are applied in articles on religious belief systems. The article on ] documents the verifiable facts which are undisputed, being the identity and martyrdom, documented in local Roman records; discusses the mythology of the Holy Well; and discusses the cult of Alban. I think we can document the paranormal belief system in the same way, but we have too many people asserting that it is real. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 12:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
My own personal sentiment is that the current options for enforcement have not yet been applied in a stringent way, and should not be broadened until they have been fully tested. That said, I share Vassayana's frustration, and would hope that this will serve to push administrators to use the tools that they have been given. <font color="#0000b0">]</font><sup><font color="#b00000">]</font></sup> 17:37, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Given the occasionally contentious nature of the discussions regarding this subject, perhaps it might be possible for the ArbCom to help in the selection of a group of editors who would be able to function in much the same way as the recently created cultural disputes group is supposed to. It might also be useful for some of the religion and pseudoscience content as well, given the often disparate opinions there. Might it be possible to expand the remit of the existing cultural disputes group, and possibly its membership, to include these other matters as well, or alterntely create similar groups for these matters? ] (]) 01:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
====Statement by ]====
Although I understand the desire to come up with a quick fix or a magic bullet here, I do not think that more enforcement is the answer. I have observed how well more enforcement and greater empowerment of admins worked at ] and related articles, and I have to admit I was somewhat underwhelmed. I have also encountered a fair number of administrators who are FRINGE proponents or antiscience themselves, so just giving all administrators more power is not a very well-reasoned response. I would like to see a more measured and careful approach for dealing with this kind of problem, such as those potential options being considered at the discussion lead by ] at .--] (]) 20:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
<!-- Leave this section for others to add additional statements -->

==== Clerk notes ====

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====
* We are currently looking into some modifications to the discretionary sanction ruling as part of the ''Homeopathy'' case; while I'm open to imposing them here, I'd prefer to avoid doing so until we decide on the better wording there. ] <sup><small>(])</small></sup> 01:28, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
* Per Kirill. ]] 19:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
----

=== Request for clarification–]===

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
*{{userlinks|Kww }} (initiator)
*{{userlinks|TTN }} (blocked for a week on April 27)
*{{userlinks|Rlevse}} (blocking admin)

==== Statement by ] ====
The decision text is : TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly. He is free to contribute on the talk pages or to comment on any AfD, RfD, DRV, or similar discussion initiated by another editor, as appropriate.

TTN was , for edits that did not violate a single term of the restrictions from his arbcom enforcement. "Broadly interpreting" and as ''substantially amounting to a merge or deletion'' is a broad interpretation beyond all reason.

Can TTN still edit character articles to bring them in compliance with Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines? Or is any edit that removes material from a character article capable of being ''broadly interpreted'' as a deletion?] (]) 21:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
::Just to make sure I'm understood ... I'm not concerned about applying the decision to video-game characters. I'm objecting to the idea that taking an article that was in truly miserable shape and fixing it substantially amounts to a merge or deletion.] (]) 23:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to expand a bit here, and register my objection to the term of his latest block as well. Recapping his first block: I agree that the tantrum that starts every time TTN edits an article is disruptive, but he is not the source of the disruption, his opponents are. He was blocked for editing . He was criticised for removing about 80% of one of the cruftiest articles around, and turning it into a reasonable video game article. He made three different passes at it, and was reverted by Zero Giga and an anonymous IP. Each pass made an effort to address the previous concerns. This editing was ''broadly construed'' as ''requesting a deletion'', so he got blocked for a week. Black Kite shows up a few days later, and, instead of removing 80% of the article, only removes 65% of the article. Not a peep. None of the editors that so cheerfully reverted TTN's edits wholesale found a single line of Black Kite's edits to object to. The only conclusion I can reach is that the editors that were reverting him were not motivated by the material: they were motivated by the fact that it was TTN that had made the removals. Now, in such a situation, what is the appropriate action for an admin to take? It's to go have a chat with the editors that reverted the change, and make sure that they are undoing the change as opposed to undoing the editor. Instead, admins looked at the arbcom decision, and stretched the interpretation of "deletion" well past its breaking point, and blocked TTN for a week. Notice that the Arbcom sanctions called for blockages increasing to a week in the event of repeated violations. Even if this edit had motivated a block, a week is complete overkill ... they reached for the biggest hammer in their toolkit as the first step.

Now, TTN has been blocked for two weeks, based on the perception that he is repeatedly violating his sanctions. His was to the Fiction Noticeboard. The community is reasonably split as to whether this falls under the restriction of "project pages" or under the freedom of "free to contribute on talk pages". I can see both sides, and think clarification is warranted. Still, worst case is that it is his first offense, and an offense that reasonable people can see as not an offense at all. For this, he was blocked for two weeks, despite the fact that the maximum sanction in the Arbcom decision is one week.

I think that not only is clarification needed, but a strong statement is needed that the phrase "broadly interpreted" does not mean "block TTN at the drop of a hat". I sense that there is a group of admins that have decided that the easiest way to end the controversy is to simply block TTN at the time that any dispute involving him occurs. Sanctions against an editor are a serious thing, and, in order to be meaningful, but be subject to reasonable interpretation. Editing articles cannot be interpreted as "requesting deletion", and "up to one week for repeated offenses" cannot be reasonably interpreted as "two weeks". ] (]) 13:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask for an arbitrator to take the time to read my complaint and respond before banning me? ] (]) 03:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

So nice to be appreciated. How many arbitrators have to vote for the topic ban in order for it to become binding?] (]) 19:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Can we have some clarifications, please? =====
This section is intended to be a place where previous decisions are '''clarified''', not extended. You wrote piles of different variations of different sentences. Thought them over. Voted on different versions. Subtleties of different text were weighed, evaluated, and then chosen, based on their merits. Not a one of you really thought that when you selected ''TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly. He is free to contribute on the talk pages or to comment on any AfD, RfD, DRV, or similar discussion initiated by another editor, as appropriate. The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question.'' from all of the other choices that that text meant ''TTN and Kww should be topic banned''. In good faith, none of you can claim that it meant ''TTN should be blamed for all conflicts that arise, and blocked at a rate greatly exceeding the specified enforcement''. Even if those things are what you ''wanted'' to say, they '''are not what you said.''' If the community was requesting you to ''amend'' your previous cases, we would have made statements under ''Request to amend''. No one has done so.

So, time for clarifications:
*'''At the time that you wrote''' ''TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly'', did you intend for the noticeboards to be included as a ''project page''?

*'''At the time that you wrote''' ''TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly'', did you intend for TTN to be banned from trimming articles?

*'''At the time that you wrote''' ''He is free to contribute on the talk pages'', how did you intend for that to interact with ''request for any of the preceding'' in the previous statement? Does his ''freedom'' include ''requests for deletion''? Or not?

Please answer those questions. That's all this section is for. What you think of the situation now is interesting, but for another place. What you wish you had thought of is interesting, but again, for another place. What you think of my attitude is interesting, but, again, for another place. This is a place solely for '''clarifications''', so, please, please, please, give us clarification.] (]) 02:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Over the last week TTN has removed over 80% of the "Final Fight: Streetwise" article 3 times, which TTN claims are trimming and cleaning up, yet in fact whole paragraphs were removed, such . In the Mario characters, which have also been on TV as best I recall, he removed entire paragraphs, . Similar issues were brought . As video games are very similar to TV, they often appear on TV in some form, and the fact that this problem was evident during the arbitration hearings, and the ruling says "broadly interpreted", and TTN seems to be pushing the envelope, the need for a block was apparent to me.

An ].

Response to Kww's clarification...I'd have to say that removing whole sections, paragraphs, and 80% of an article amounts to deletion. This is not "trimming and cleaning up". Further consider that the remedy also said "The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question." This seems to have been clearly violated by TTN too. There has been no chat at ] for a year. <span style="font-family: verdana;"> — ] • ] • </span> 23:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I will be pleasantly surprised if the editors in this area manage to avoid another full ArbComm in the near future. The issues are not specific to TTN; one example is shown by ] report. In my view, problems exist in the behavior of both factions. It seems ridiculous to consider discretionary sanctions for this topic area; these editors should be able to work together to find consensus ''if they choose to''. But if they don't choose to, we may have to end up with discretionary sanctions. ] 13:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Can I please get some sort of clarification on what exactly I can do and cannot do? Can I cleanup articles by removing information? That's that's what I was initially blocked for. Can I revert at all? Edit warring is bad, but to have a block sustained because of two reverts (where one revert is a anon with a non-static IP) seems a little steep without some sort of restriction on that in the first place. Can I suggest that things be merged on talk pages of users, projects, and other articles? I assumed that the restriction was towards templates, but I was scrutinized for doing so. Can I point out bad articles? I guess I wouldn't ask one user single again, but can I just post a list of "problem articles" on a project talk page or the ], and let them take care of it? If this could be responded to quickly, that would be appreciated. ] (]) 13:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
I am not exactly sure where to put this statement, since there are already two requests for clarification here, but I want to register my concerns here.

I have a deep concern that the ArbCom's admonition ''The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question. They are warned that the Committee will look very unfavorably on anyone attempting to further spread or inflame this dispute.'' is not being followed at all.
Let's see.

First, ''"Cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question."'' (The redirection and unredirection of episodes and characters with little or no discussion is still taking place.)

Second, ''"...attempting to further spread or inflame this dispute."''. Since the E&C2 case closed, I have seen at least two instances of parties from that case use the term ''vandalism''. (And I have not been actively searching for these, there are probably more, from both sides of the dispute)
* Regarding authors of fiction/fancruft articles: ''"I would happily treat people creating such articles as vandals, as opposed to editors"''. (After looking at E&C2, I see that Kww is not listed as a party, but since he initiated this clarification, and supportive of TTN, I think he is de facto party to it.)
* restores a redirect, calling the undoing of the redirect "vandalism". (And there are two more, and .)
I cannot imagine anything more inflammatory than calling the "other side" of the dispute "vandals".

This has got to stop.

] ] 12:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Comment regarding Kww =====
When I listed Kww in my statement, it was not an attempt to single him out in particular. The reason I added it was that the statement struck me when I saw it as something highly inappropriate, and an indication of how low the "discussion" had sunk by this time.

However, I want to say that Kww is ''not'' by any means the worst offender in the FICT debate, his work in removing or consolidating fictional topics has to my knowledge not included edit-warring or massive swathes of deletion nominations or redirects. Indeed, I have no problem believing MartinPhi when he says that Kww has been able to work and contribute constructively on certain fiction articles.

I have no problem with Kirill's dismay at seeing the comparison between vandals and fiction editors, I continue to think that this particular diff was very inappropriate, and it was one which hit me quite close to home. There is a discussion between Kww and myself on my talkpage, and if I understood Kww correctly, his remark was directed against editors who add fiction with no sources, and edit war to keep it in. Calling this "vandalism" remains inappropriate, but I don't think he directed the accusation at all fiction writers in general. I don't know whether this diff is representative of Kww's attitude either, he assured me in the discussion on the talkpage that he was careful not to call any editor a vandal directly, and he also took time out to caution another editor that restoring redirects with an accusation of "vandalism" in the summary would only lead to trouble .

I am not going to tell ArbCom how to handle their cases, but when evidence presented by myself is used as basis for a sanction, I will state my opinion that I think issuing a topic ban for what amounts to one diff over six weeks ago is an overreaction. If this were an example of behavior from a person otherwise engaged in edit-warring in this conflict, I would probably be in support of something like this. I can understand an impatience that continued incivility and edit warring after two ArbCom cases is wearing the tolerance very thin here. If the ArbCom can find a way to send a very clear and unequivocal message that calling anybody in this dispute a "vandal" must cease, without perma-banning Kww from fiction topics, that will be much more preferable. Yes, I know there were two admonitions from two previous ArbCom cases, but I don't think Kww's single inappropriate comment has rendered useless all further input from him in this conflict.
] ] 14:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

===== Comment regarding TTN =====
My sympathy with TTN is at zero now. A look at ] shows a number of edits where TTN removes a little bit of content from the article, calling it "trim", most recently , with no explanation given for this "trim". And this is not only unquestionable trivia he is removing, he has been removing content about which games the characters have appeared (isn't that relevant to the character?) like ''"Princess Rosalina also appeared as a hidden character in ]"''. This seems to be an effort to slowly tap the list of content in a way which does not attract attention. Also on ], , which the edit summary claims to be "Set up basic table", is far more drastic that setting up a table, TTN actually removes all the description of the episode, and again this is without any discussion on the talkpage. Another "trim" on ] didn't just trim the section on the characters Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, it ''removed'' them.

I feel this is at the very least a skirting of the edges of the ArbCom restrictions. If the right to merge, redirect, or nominate for deletion is taken away, just move on to aggressive "trimming" instead. The proposed sanction from ArbCom on TTN, as opposed to the sanction on Kww, which I have opposed in the above section, is in my opinion, completely in order. ] ] 14:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by Lawrence ====
Can we place get AC action on this? It's starting all over again: ]. I know you guys are busy, but this appears to be now a critical case and clarification action is needed. <span style="font-variant:small-caps"><font color="#800080">] § ]/]</font></span> 05:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Whilst using the term "vandals" to describe editors who repeatedly create multiple policy-failing articles on the back of the previous ArbCom decision is probably excessive, I'd certainly go as far as to use "disruptive". Topic-banning editors who attempt to balance policy against those creating reams of unencyclopedic articles (and then descending en masse onto any AfD which occurs with masses of ] non-!votes) is certainly a good way of reducing the quality of this alleged encyclopedia, which becomes less and less of one every day that such articles continue to multiply. It is time for ArbCom to realise that there are two sides to this dispute, and stop listening - as has happened so far - only to those that shout the loudest. If ArbCom actually wants to improve the quality of our articles, they either need to throw this proposed sanction in the bin, or add about another half-dozen users to it. Where are the sanctions for those that edit-war on policy pages, flood AfD with wikilawyering or revert TTN and other editors <i>even when they are editing in line with policy?</i>. Nowhere, it appears. I am astonished that at least two arbs (so far) appear to have looked at a few incidents yet not at the bigger picture. This is a <i>ridiculous</i> proposed sanction, especially on ] who appears to be targeted for a single frustrated edit. <b>]</b> 22:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
: Kirill's quote here ] of "his <i>(TTN's)</b> reputation is such that anything he does will likely be reverted regardless of its merits—so all he's doing is needlessly antagonizing the editors supporting this material" - makes it clear that he is supporting topic-banning an editor <i>because those with opposing views continually revert him</i> especially as those editors reverting TTN are usually reverting <i>against</i> policy. I had to read this a number of times before I was sure he was serious. <b>]</b> 10:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by Ned Scott====
TTN got recently blocked because he honestly did not think his restrictions meant that he wasn't able to start a thread on a project notice board, myself and several other Wikipedians in good standing were under the same assumption. That's not gaming the system or pushing the limit, that's nothing more than miscommunication. TTN even pleaded with you guys to get some guidance, and arbcom ignored the request for clarification for weeks. Now Kirill comes out of no where with a complete and total ban proposal? That's a horrible idea. TTN has been behaving very well, and hasn't been doing ''anything'' wrong. The flames seen are nothing more than the left over feelings from the past, not because of things that are happening now.

And Kirill comes completely out of left field with a proposal to ban Kww, who hasn't even had any kind of RfC or mediation, or focus of any kind in the last two cases. It's like swinging around blindly, smashing furniture and breaking walls, just to put out a candle. Take off the blindfold and put down the bat. I personally would do ''anything'' (within my human abilities as a Wikipedian) to get arbcom to reconsider this, and to actually look at the situation instead of the white noise. The fact that these proposals are even being considered is a very scary thing, and shakes my faith that arbcom can be fair and reasonable. -- ] 02:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

:And no one even notes stuff like . Please, I beg all of the arbs to not make assumptions here. -- ] 02:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

::I'd also like some more eyes on this: ''']'''. Kirill's logic is that even if TTN isn't doing anything wrong, because of his reputation people will revert and argue with him, so Kirill wants to remove TTN by force. That seems very inappropriate to me. -- ] 07:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by Casliber====
TTN (and others) have had a year or more of multiple reports at AN/I and arbcom etc. to stop behaving like single-purpose content removal accounts, sending all and sundry scurrying about to ref or remove material, plainly not in the spirit of collaborative editing of a volunteer project. Some have shown valued roles and abilities in other areas, some haven't. I can't comment on KWW as I have not examined his edit details but am happy that he can think independently on some issues ''(we swapped sides on Jack Merridew's ban after all)'', which is a good sign. Cheers, ] (] '''·''' ]) 04:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====By ]====
Could you make an exception for ]. Kww was one of those who was able to work toward NPOV on that article. He wasn't perfect, but he did manage it, and he was also a moderating influence on other editors of his own general opinion. Might need him there again. ——''']'''</span> ] Ψ ]<span style="color:#ffffff;">——</span> 05:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
So ArbCom is going to compound their mistakes by dropping further "clarifications" on an issue that has already seen the other side turn ArbCom's words into pretzels in an attempt to run "the other side" off the encyclopedia? I can't say as I agree with the suggested outcome. ] (]) 07:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
I recently blocked TTN for what I felt was an outright violation of his restrictions, compounded by what I perceived as pushing the boundaries (or moving against the spirit) of the sanction. I unblocked him when he agreed to refrain from initiating any merge/redirect/etc discussion and avoid asking others to act on his behalf, until such a time as ArbCom responded to these clarification requests. There was some discussion of the block on my talk page, as well as TTN's. My block was raised for review on AN, where the actions of Pixelface and a potential topic ban for TTN were also raised. If the arbitrators feel my actions were inappropriate, I would welcome the criticism and appreciate any advice. ] (]) 07:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====

I am quite concerned about the current motions to topic-ban anyone who dares try to improve the encyclopedia per policies and guidelines, or who sympathizes with editors legitimately trying to improve the encyclopedia. Before someone else does it, I'll do it myself.

* restores a redirect, calling the undoing of the redirect "vandalism". (By the way, the redirect needed to be semi-protected for two weeks before, and the undoer has been blocked twice now, the last one for "persistent vandalism", but I realize some people would continue to call ''my'' action vandalism.)

I agree with Sjakkalle that this has to stop, but there are two sides of the coin here. Someone described the current actions against TTN (and by extension any fiction mergist/deletionist, including Kww) as "lynchmob". I think no other word better captures my impression of the situation. &ndash; ] <sup>]•]</sup> 08:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====

I became aware of this quite recently, when I noticed repeated and insistent demands (bordering on disruption) at ] to remove ] from policy. This kind of thing is somewhat familiar, and although exceptions exist, when we trace the history we usually find repeated attempts (and often edit warring) to insert some material, which is removed per policy (often ] or ], though not in this case) and the user in question then decides that the issue is so important that policy ''must'' be changed to accomodate it. Such attempts rarely succeed, because consensus is that the user has fundamentally failed to grasp what WP is (and is not). That may be the case here.

I would suggest that the very fact that one side of this dispute has identified a need to change policy indicates that they may have previously been editing against policy. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are "wrong", per se, but it is hard to understand why other editors should be sanctioned for most policies and guidelines by editing pages, and discussing matters with each other"]]. If there are behavioural problems (I understand from ] that there have been), then these need to be addressed, but please make remedies proportionate and understandable in a wider context.

====Statement by ]====
*I have to agree with Ned, Sgeureka, and Jakew in that what is being proposed here seems very one-sided to the overall picture that was developed from the E&C 2. TTN, to me, seems to be trying to meet the spirit of the motion, but unfortunately due to his past actions, he's got a set of editors that watch most of his edits, and like to wikilawyer the specific wording. (Case in point, TTN posted a suggestion on the ], and some took this as violating where TTN is allowed to edit as, strictly speaking, that noticeboard is not a talk page. The "to be interpreted broadly" language in the motion is causing a lot of this trouble, which is why I think those looking to penalize TTN need to consider what the intent of the motion was, and not the specific wording - we want TTN to work collaborative with others to determine how best to improve articles on fiction on WP. There are some actions that TTN has done since the motion that ''are'' within the motion's restrictions and thus blocks are appropriate, but the thing is, he is talking and discussing proposed changes. That's mostly what people wanted out of the E&C 2 case, right?
*Unfortunately, this is really not true. The heart of the E&C 2, based on its discussions and the resulting actions since, has seemed to be to validate the fact that Misplaced Pages's coverage of fiction should not conform to ] and ], and that coverage of fiction can be broad and expansion based only on primary sources. Now, first, taking this position towards coverage of fiction works itself is not in any way wrong; if that's what the editors believe, I can't say its incorrect. But, in taking that belief, against what is probably an equivalent push to remove much of the coverage of fiction from WP specifically due to ] and ], there feels to be a strong effort to get rid of editors that do not share the same inclusionists beliefs towards fiction such as TTN and Kww, and to staunchly argue that policy must be changed to support the inclusionist view. The result of the E&C 2 case, based on the above scrutiny of TTN's actions since, seems to be validation that their approach is correct, but again, we have this second motion from this case that involved editors are supposed to help shape how such articles should be handled, not that one side is necessarily right. I have been working the past year to try to get ] to a point of balance between these extremes which has been long and mentally exhausting, much which rests on ], but as recent discussions at ] can show, there are some that simply want that policy gone and do not seem to be making concessions or collaborative efforts to try to figure out the balance, despite the fact that myself and others have offered wording changes and other suggested policy and guidelines to remove some of the concerns they have. That second motion from this case really needs to be considered a lot more in order to balance this out and make sure that the case was not validation for the inclusionists' point of view - unfortunately, the way its written, there's no teeth behind it as much as the TTN restrictions on editing, and it's impossible to show the lack of collaboration, only state that how one's actions in a debate may not feel collaborative. Thus, I feel that the first motion should be read in conjunction with the second, and specifically look at the intent of TTN's actions in regards to both motions regardless of the source of the complaint: is TTN working in a collaborative effort to improve the encyclopedia, instead of his previous hard-nosed and overburdening efforts? --] 14:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
I'm a bit late to this, but only recently caught wind regardless. I've dealt with both TTN and Kww in a few formats though, and I'm not going to sit here and speak about TTN: my stance towards him is neutral, he has his heart in the right place, but is overly forceful with his vision. I will speak in defense of Kww however. Kww has shown willingness to discuss proposals on subjects like merges and his edits have not had a negative impact on the related subjects. So despite where the ideals may lie, Kww is far from warranting a topic ban in this case.--] (]) 19:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
There's a difference between TTN and Kww--TTN is determined to disrupt the formation of consensus on each individual article in any way he can devise, and Kww is trying to get consensus for his general view--a view in complete opposition to mine, to be sure, but I do not see how is is doing it disruptively. I think a permanent topic ban for him is over-reaction. He did not address the word vandal to any editor, he used it I hope a little hyperbolically in a discussion on a policy page to support an extreme view about what ought to be the policy. I don't think it helpful to ban him from these discussions at this point. ''']''' (]) 21:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
Also a bit late to this discussion, but having just discovered this case, I must strongly disagree with any ban placed on Kww. I've worked extensively with Kww on topics unrelated to this one, and have never found him to be anything but willing to help and discuss points of disagreement. I agree with DGG's statement above, in that a ban on Kww is an overreaction. - ] ] 20:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by uninvolved ]====
I have no experience with the fiction articles in question, but I've worked with kww on What the Bleep Do We Know, a very contentious article where he took the lead and worked with all constituencies to craft a compromise lead we could all live with and had it inserted by an admin into the protected article. This is the kind of editor I would think Misplaced Pages would want to protect and nurture, rather than punish and alienate. I've never seen him use the derogatory expressions used by some other editors to characterize those of a different viewpoint, and if he did so on a fiction article, then I would have to wonder if, unlikely as it seems, he might have had even more provocation there than on What the Bleep Do We Know, where his demeanor was always professional and respectful to all, during the time I observed him there. Also, though this is less germane to the issues at hand, kww is one of the very few Wikipedians who made me feel welcome and respected as a new editor. It seemed only right to speak on his behalf, though no one asked me to and though I have no information to offer touching on the present issues. ] (]) 20:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
Mostly reiterating the last few postings, the topic ban on Kww seems unnecessary. From what I've seen, I would make this analogy: TTN is skating on thin ice, and rather than get off, he starts jumping up and down. Murky areas or not, a little common sense would dictate that you don't push the envelope on such an open-ended restriction. Kww's got no such problem, and aside from some uncivil comments, certainly hasn't enough to warrant a topic ban. — ] (] | ]) 05:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

====Second Statement by ]====
Full topical ban or not, arbcom still hasn't clarified this request. The only thing TTN did "bad" this time was to start a discussion on a notice board that was in the project namespace. Given that two arbs were able to support a ban for Kww ''then'' change their minds makes me wonder how much attention is being paid to this situation.

The two proposed bans are both atrocious, but only is the one on Kww easily identifiable (but still missed by two arbs, so far). It really seems like the only reason the topical ban for TTN is getting support is based on assumptions only, and has nothing to do with TTN's actions. Kirill himself has blatantly admitted this .

On May 4th, TTN practically begged arbcom to comment on this at ]. It's right there, on this same page, but I'll repeat it again since no one seemed to notice it:

:''Can I please get some sort of clarification on what exactly I can do and cannot do? Can I cleanup articles by removing information? That's that's what I was initially blocked for. Can I revert at all? Edit warring is bad, but to have a block sustained because of two reverts (where one revert is a anon with a non-static IP) seems a little steep without some sort of restriction on that in the first place. Can I suggest that things be merged on talk pages of users, projects, and other articles? I assumed that the restriction was towards templates, but I was scrutinized for doing so. Can I point out bad articles? I guess I wouldn't ask one user single again, but can I just post a list of "problem articles" on a project talk page or the Misplaced Pages:Fiction/Noticeboard, and let them take care of it? If this could be responded to quickly, that would be appreciated. TTN (talk) 13:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)''

This is not some guy trying to skate around a restriction. He's honestly trying to understand his restrictions and abide by them.

I beg of the arbs, if you can find reason to question Kww's restrictions, then take some time to question TTN's. If TTN's topical ban does pass, is it for the duration of the original 6 month ban? And please, actually answer our request, which is all we wanted from you. -- ] 04:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Clerk notes ====
*This request has been retitled to "Request for clarification–Episodes and characters 2" (note the "–" after clarification, as oppose to the customary ":"). This is to differentiate it from the similar "Request for clarification: Episodes and characters 2". Please note the difference between the two, and be careful in linking to either thread. ] 18:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====
* I suppose it was too much to hope that the editors fighting over these articles would take ''two'' cases as an adequate hint that they were out of line. Oh well; we can always try the hard way, then. ] <sup><small>(])</small></sup> 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Proposed motions and voting ====
:''For these motions, there are 13 active Arbitrators, so 7 votes are a majority.''
; TTN restricted
{{userlinks|TTN}} is prohibited from editing, commenting on, or otherwise having any involvement whatsoever with any article substantially related to a work of art or fiction (including, but not limited to, video games, movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, and so forth) or any element of such a work.

:Support:
:# These senseless flareups will be stopped, one way or another. ] <sup><small>(])</small></sup> 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:# I'm beginning to think we should have done this at the start. ] (]) 20:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:# While many of the issues that reach arbitration are controversial due to the nature of the topic and will always be heated topics of discussion, I do not see this as the case with this topic. Instead, I see the problems here are due more to the manner of interaction between users. I think that removing users will be effective and will not hesitate to expand the list of involved users that are banned from this topic. Also, the purpose of the restrictions on TNN were to stop controversial edits. The list of restrictions was not exhaustive in this sense, and all controversial edits should be recognized as such. ]] 15:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
:# ] (]:]) 11:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
:# ] - <small>]</small> 18:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

:Oppose:

:Abstain:

; Kww restricted
{{userlinks|Kww}} is prohibited from editing, commenting on, or otherwise having any involvement whatsoever with any article substantially related to a work of art or fiction (including, but not limited to, video games, movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, and so forth) or any element of such a work.

:Support:
:# If you feel the urge to treat legitimate editors like vandals, it might be time to take a break from this topic. ] <sup><small>(])</small></sup> 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
:#: <s>It's become necessary. ] (]) 20:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)</s> I am rethinking; may reinstate this vote or change it. ] (]) 19:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
:# See my above comment. And agree with Kirill. ]] 15:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
:#: <s>] (]:]) 11:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)</s>

:Oppose:
:# Not convinced that restrictions on Kww are justified at the present. Seems to be based on a questionable interpretation of a single edit. ] (]) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
:# On consideration, I'd rather a warning than a restriction at this time. ] (]:]) 21:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
:# Kww was instructed and warned and not restricted on the related ArbCom case. A 6 months restriction would be reasonable this time. If problems persist Kww would face the same measures applied to TTN above. -- ] - <small>]</small> 18:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

:Abstain:

----

=== Request for clarification: ] ===

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''
*{{userlinks|Kyaa the Catlord }} (initiator)
*{{userlinks|TTN }} (left note on talk) (blocked for a week on April 27)
*{{userlinks|Sgeureka}} (left note on talk and has responded below)

==== Statement by ] ====
The decision text is : TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly. He is free to contribute on the talk pages or to comment on any AfD, RfD, DRV, or similar discussion initiated by another editor, as appropriate.

My question is the following:

Can TTN request others to redirect articles as a proxy or is he under the same sort of restrictions as a banned user would be in cases where others would work as his proxy and redirect articles on his behalf? He has recently asked another user to make some redirects on articles where the other user had not acted in the previous month and three weeks (roughly) until encouraged to redirect by TTN. Thank you for the clarification in advance. (for further information and discussion please see

:Response to sg (who's name is really hard for me to spell, forgive me): I believe that's the crux of the problem TTN seems to not be able to initiate discussion per the ruling and bringing them to your attention is similar, in my view, to asking you to act as a proxy to work around the sanction which would be, in my view, terribly ungood behavior. ] (]) 11:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::Response to sg2: I agree that doing so in the light is better than sneaking around and coordinating it off-wiki, but... the key question remains, is he allowed to initiate such conversation. From my reading of the ruling, it would be no. Its the "initiated by another user" bit that has caused me to ask for clarification. ] (]) 12:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:Thank you to Neil for providing diffs. (I'm new to this sort of thing.) ] (]) 13:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====

Speaking metaphorically, arbcom prohibited TTN from bullying the other kids at school, but at the same time took away his right to self-defend when ''he'' is the target of bullying (or at least of gross unfairness). This risk was pointed out in the arbcom case, but no solution was offered. TTN asking a teacher for help (who may grant it or not based on their own good judgement) neither automatically makes the teacher TTN's proxy nor does it make TTN the bad guy. So I would like some clarification if (a) TTN is allowed to point out problematic articles/edits without editing or tagging the articles himself, (b) if I am allowed to agree with TTN's reasoning and (c) if I am allowed to edit problematic articles/edits. If the answer is yes to all three questions, there shouldn't be a problem. &ndash; ] <sup>]•]</sup> 11:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:Response to Kyaa: sg stands for ], ] is the famous exclamation, long story. ;-) And just like bringing up an issue at a noticeboard or pointing out a recurring typo that needs fixing, I see nothing wrong in pointing out articles that fail a policy when you're prohibited doing so via the usual channels (tagging and discussing). I guess you'd agree that this transparent action is better than TTN contacting me via email about his "troubles" (which he never did, but I wouldn't hold it against him - if he can't even do the most trivial things without risking a witch hunt against him). &ndash; ] <sup>]•]</sup> 12:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

'''Addendum''' I think I've got a better illustration of the situation, at least as far as I am involved: If someone disallows the boy who cried wolf to ever (publicly) ''cry'' wolf again, may the boy (privately) ''whipser'' in my ear that he sees a wolf, and am I allowed to chase the wolf off when I see fit? Note that most people never had an issue with how I dealt with wolves before. &ndash; ] <sup>]•]</sup> 17:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

'''Addendum 2''' Since there doesn't seem to be any clarification forthcoming, I'll summarize the current status now that the dust has settled. Of the seven articles that TTN asked me to revert back to redirects, one is not-redirected because I saw no major fault in it (i.e. I didn't mindlessly execute TTN's "request"), one is not-redirected although I redirected it (I had accidently confused it with another article which ''is'' in fact redirected, both are/were in a very bad shape), one is still in merge discussions (i.e. TTN is not the only one who saw fault in it), and four are redirected. I'll let that speak for itself. &ndash; ] <sup>]•]</sup> 08:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
*Relevant diffs:
** - asking another user to redirect a number of character articles (expressly forbidden in the Arbcom ruling)
** - suggesting a merge of character articles to another user (expressly forbidden in the Arbcom ruling)
** - expressed intent to keep such suggestions off-Wiki in future
*Suggest either an extention to the probation, a month's block, or a final warning prior to a year's block. ] ] 13:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by ]====
Relevant recent discussions in chronological order:
*
*.
*
*
Sincerely, --<font face="Times New Roman">]</font><sup>'']''</sup> 16:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
Really, what part of '''''He is free to contribute on the talk pages''''' is so difficult to understand? I don't see that any diff provided is on anything other than a talk page.] (]) 16:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:I read that ruling as referring to article-space talk pages, not as an invitation to post on user-space talk pages requesting proxy edits. ] (]) 16:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::"TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, '''or request for any of the preceding''', to be interpreted broadly." ] ] 16:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Neil's quote still only restricts edits on article and project pages. He is free to lobby on talk pages for others to make edits on article and project pages.] (]) 17:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::Indeed. Moreover, it would be very helpful if Arbcom could remind those who are disruptively undoing TTN's earlier efforts that this violates the spirit of the ruling. Asking for assistance in restoring good faith redirects firmly grounded in policy because of a disruptive editing pattern is certainly reasonable. Also, arbcom needs to make it clear that the ruling was not a victory for one side nor the other in the ongoing debate about notability for topics of fiction. (sorry to butt in your statement page Kww; I just agree with everything you said here.) ] (]) 17:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::Petitioning for an article to be merged without discussion and pointing out specifically that he himself cannot do it so he needs someone else to is not promoting good faith, it's bypassing the restriction placed on him by simply adding a middle man to do it instead. In effect this negates the whole purpose of limiting him.
:::::Additionally his comments that he should probably resort to such communication in secret does not help good faith either, but instead paints that he's well aware that his actions are in violation: if they weren't, he wouldn't have anything to even worry about to consider such an alternative, no?--] (]) 22:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::I don't know about that ... I might take steps to avoid getting hauled in front of Arbcom every two days, even if Arbcom cleared me of wrongdoing every time.] (]) 13:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Well, you know taking steps to avoid Arbcom appearances could end badly, as the "Wikilobby" drama reminds us. ] (]) 13:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::Yes, it can, which is why I hope Arbcom puts a stop to these efforts to drive TTN underground. ] (]) 13:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::Or maybe it can make TTN realize that he has to work under the restrictions it placed on him, not attempt to find loopholes and proxies to do the sort of things that got him under editting restrictions in the first place. ] (]) 13:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::This neglects to recognize that TTN's problem was style, not content. His identification of bad articles that needed to be redirected was somewhere around 99% accurate. His effort to bulldoze his way through was what caused the trouble.] (]) 14:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by Ned Scott====
Can we get a comment form the arbs about if TTN is allowed to ''start'' discussions on notice boards/WikiProject talk pages? We also need to make it clear that there is a difference between a direct request to do something like merge or delete, and TTN stating that he believes something should be. As in, if he does to a talk page and says "I think this should be merged/etc" that should be perfectly fine, and not seen as the same as him going to someone's talk page and saying "hey, could you redirect X for me" (though I don't believe that to be a real problem here in the first place, since it really is harmless because the burden is put on the editor being asked). -- ] 01:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by ] ====
<!-- Leave this section for others to add additional statements -->

==== Clerk notes ====

==== Arbitrator views and discussion ====
* The key to the remedy was requiring that TTN work through article or project talk pages. Asking other editors to perform edits for him, rather than engaging in talk page discussion, clearly violates the spirit of the remedy. If necessary I would support a motion altering the remedy to say something to the effect that TTN is restricted ''only'' to discussing such matters on talk pages, though I hope that TTN will refrain from this sort of thing on his own. --]&nbsp;(]) 01:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
* Just to echo Bainer's comment here, in the hope that it will help strengthen the clarity. I would also regretfully support the suggested modification if it is necessary, but would prefer no so to do. ] ] 23:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

----

]
]

]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]

Latest revision as of 03:40, 31 January 2023

Wikimedia project page

Weighing scales Arbitration​Committee
Dispute resolution
(Requests)
Tips
Content disputes
Conduct disputes
Misplaced Pages Arbitration
Open proceedings
Active sanctions
Arbitration Committee
Audit
Track related changes
Shortcuts

A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: American politics 2 none (orig. case) 15 January 2025
Amendment request: Crouch, Swale ban appeal none none 22 January 2025
Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration

Shortcuts

About this page

Use this section to request the committee open an arbitration case. To be accepted, an arbitration request needs 4 net votes to "accept" (or a majority).

Arbitration is a last resort. WP:DR lists the other, escalating processes that should be used before arbitration. The committee will decline premature requests.

Requests may be referred to as "case requests" or "RFARs"; once opened, they become "cases". Before requesting arbitration, read the arbitration guide to case requests. Then click the button below. Complete the instructions quickly; requests incomplete for over an hour may be removed. Consider preparing the request in your userspace.

To request enforcement of an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To clarify or change an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.


File an arbitration request


Guidance on participation and word limits

Unlike many venues on Misplaced Pages, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.

  • Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
  • In general. Most submissions to the Arbitration Committee (including statements in arbitration case requests and ARCAs and evidence submissions in arbitration cases) are limited to 500 words, plus 50 diffs. During the evidence phase of an accepted case, named parties are granted an automatic extension to 1000 words plus 100 diffs.
  • Sectioned discussion. To facilitate review by arbitrators, you should edit only in your own section. Address your submission to arbitrators, not to other participants. If you wish to rebut, clarify, or otherwise refer to another submission for the benefit of arbitrators, you may do so within your own section. (More information.)
  • Requesting an extension. You may request a word limit extension in your submission itself (using the {{@ArbComClerks}} template) or by emailing clerks-l@lists.wikimedia.org. In your request, you should briefly (in 1-2 sentences) include (a) why you need additional words and (b) a broad outline of what you hope to discuss in your extended submission. The Committee endeavors to act upon extension requests promptly and aims to offer flexibility where warranted.
    • Members of the Committee may also grant extensions when they ask direct questions to facilitate answers to those questions.
  • Refactoring statements. You should write carefully and concisely from the start. It is impermissible to rewrite a statement to shorten it after a significant amount of time has passed or after anyone has responded to it (see Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines § Editing own comments), so it is often advisable to submit a brief initial statement to leave room to respond to other users if the need arises.
  • Sign submissions. In order for arbitrators and other participants to understand the order of submissions, sign your submission and each addition (using ~~~~).
  • Word limit violations. Submissions that exceed the word limit will generally be "hatted" (collapsed), and arbitrators may opt not to consider them.
  • Counting words. Words are counted on the rendered text (not wikitext) of the statement (i.e., the number of words that you would see by copy-pasting the page section containing your statement into a text editor or word count tool). This internal gadget may also be helpful.
  • Sanctions. Please note that members and clerks of the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions when necessary to promote the effective functioning of the arbitration process.

General guidance

  • This page is for statements, not discussion.
  • Arbitrators or clerks may refactor or delete statements, e.g. off-topic or unproductive remarks, without warning.
  • Banned users may request arbitration via the committee contact page; don't try to edit this page.
  • Under no circumstances should you remove requests from this page, or open a case (even for accepted requests), unless you are an arbitrator or clerk.
  • After a request is filed, the arbitrators will vote on accepting or declining the case. The <0/0/0> tally counts the arbitrators voting accept/decline/recuse.
  • Declined case requests are logged at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Declined requests. Accepted case requests are opened as cases, and logged at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Cases once closed.


Requests for clarification and amendment

Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

  • Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
  • Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).

Submitting a request: (you must use this format!)

  1. Choose one of the following options and open the page in a new tab or window:
  2. Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
  3. If your request will affect or involve other users (including any users you have named as parties), you must notify these editors of your submission; you can use {{subst:Arbitration CA notice|SECTIONTITLE}} to do this.
  4. Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
Clarification and Amendment archives
123456789101112131415161718
192021222324252627282930313233343536
373839404142434445464748495051525354
555657585960616263646566676869707172
737475767778798081828384858687888990
919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108
109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126
127128129130131

Please do not submit your request until it is ready for consideration; this is not a space for drafts, and incremental additions to a submission are disruptive.

Guidance on participation and word limits

Unlike many venues on Misplaced Pages, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.

  • Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
  • In general. Most submissions to the Arbitration Committee (including statements in arbitration case requests and ARCAs and evidence submissions in arbitration cases) are limited to 500 words, plus 50 diffs. During the evidence phase of an accepted case, named parties are granted an automatic extension to 1000 words plus 100 diffs.
  • Sectioned discussion. To facilitate review by arbitrators, you should edit only in your own section. Address your submission to arbitrators, not to other participants. If you wish to rebut, clarify, or otherwise refer to another submission for the benefit of arbitrators, you may do so within your own section. (More information.)
  • Requesting an extension. You may request a word limit extension in your submission itself (using the {{@ArbComClerks}} template) or by emailing clerks-l@lists.wikimedia.org. In your request, you should briefly (in 1–2 sentences) include (a) why you need additional words and (b) a broad outline of what you hope to discuss in your extended submission. The Committee endeavors to act upon extension requests promptly and aims to offer flexibility where warranted.
    • Members of the Committee may also grant extensions when they ask direct questions to facilitate answers to those questions.
  • Refactoring statements. You should write carefully and concisely from the start. It is impermissible to rewrite a statement to shorten it after a significant amount of time has passed or after anyone has responded to it (see Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines § Editing own comments), so it is often advisable to submit a brief initial statement to leave room to respond to other users if the need arises.
  • Sign submissions. In order for arbitrators and other participants to understand the order of submissions, sign your submission and each addition (using ~~~~).
  • Word limit violations. Submissions that exceed the word limit will generally be "hatted" (collapsed), and arbitrators may opt not to consider them.
  • Counting words. Words are counted on the rendered text (not wikitext) of the statement (i.e., the number of words that you would see by copy-pasting the page section containing your statement into a text editor or word count tool). This internal gadget may also be helpful.
  • Sanctions. Please note that members and clerks of the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions when necessary to promote the effective functioning of the arbitration process.

General guidance

Shortcuts:
Clarification and Amendment archives
123456789101112131415161718
192021222324252627282930313233343536
373839404142434445464748495051525354
555657585960616263646566676869707172
737475767778798081828384858687888990
919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108
109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126
127128129130131

Amendment request: American politics 2

Initiated by Interstellarity at 22:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
American politics 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Contentious_topic_designation
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Information about amendment request

Statement by Interstellarity

I would like to request that the designated year of the contentious topic designation to be pushed somewhat later. The year 1992 was decided as the best compromise at the time. I feel that enough time has passed and we can possibly push it later and get an idea of how the cutoff is working. Four years ago, we only considered election years, but I think it would be better in this discussion to consider any year, regardless of whether it was an election year or not. I would like to throw some ideas on what the new cutoff could be.

  • 1. Everything 2000 and after - Most of the disruptive editing on American politics has been after Obama left office and I would strongly oppose moving the cutoff anywhere after 2017 since Trump is the incoming president and was president before. Other than the 9/11 attacks, I don't antipate much disruption during this period.
  • 2. A cutoff that automatically moves every year - say we choose 20 or 25 years (2005 or 2000) as our moving cutoff, the next year it would 2001 or 2006. That's basically the gist of it.
  • 3. Everything 2009 and after - Another possibility that's somewhere in the middle of the road between the broad 2000 and the restrictive 2017.
  • 4. Everything 2017 and after - this is the strictest cutoff I would support especially since the incoming president was president during this period and the disruptive editing is at its highest.

I hope the arbitrators, with community input, can see the changing needs of Misplaced Pages and act accordingly to acknowledge as time passes. Interstellarity (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: OK, that's an interesting point. On the topic of sanctions between 1992 and 1999, I haven't checked the number of sanctions for that period, but my guess would be some low number. If the disruptive editing is very minimal during this time period, it could be covered by our normal disruptive editing policy. If there are specific topic areas of that period that deserve sanctions stronger than the disruptive editing policy, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. Interstellarity (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Comment by GoodDay

2015, would likely be the appropriate cutoff year, if we're not going to go along with a U.S. presidential election year. Otherwise, 2016. The automatic date readjustment idea, is acceptable too. GoodDay (talk) 22:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Rosguill

I think periodically revisiting the cutoff date is reasonable. Looking through 2024's page protections, the overwhelming majority concern then-ongoing political events or individuals, with a handful of pages concerning events 2016-2022, and only one page about a historical event prior (9/11). User sanctions are obviously much more difficult to retroactively map onto a temporal range of history, but they're also a minority of logged AE actions for AP2. On that basis, moving the cutoff to 2016 seems reasonable. signed, Rosguill 22:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Izno

This is essentially ArbCom shopping: The previous amendment was barely two years ago, which moved the date from the 1930s to 1992, for which there was pretty strong evidence to show that the 60 year bump was more or less reasonable. Before that adjustment this topic had been a contentious topic for the better part of a decade by itself (with earlier designations specifically for September 11 among others). I see no reason to consider bumping this further for, say, another decade, when we might have actual evidence to indicate events in whatever period haven't remained of general contention. That this designation has been used for events that would no longer qualify in the past 2 years suggests that the designation is doing its job. Izno (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Kenneth Kho

The lack of editors being sanctioned for pre-2015 AMPOL suggests the extent of disruption while present does not need CTOP. The article on September 11 attacks was restricted only because "sporadic edit warring" and the consensus required restriction does not appear to generate significant talk page activity either. Kenneth Kho (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by TarnishedPath

Per Izno, it's only a couple of years ago that the cut-off was pushed from 1930 to 1992. 1992 is just prior to the start of the Clinton term and I think that's when the conservatives really started going feral. If we moved the cut-off to after Clinton's term then we risk tendentious editors POV pushing on anything connected to Clinton. I think questions like this are probably best left until the next time there is a full case, particularly because as mentioned it was only two years ago that the cut-off was pushed forward 62 years. TarnishedPath 02:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde

It doesn't look like any revision is going to happen here, but I want to specifically note that a rolling cutoff seems to me to be an administrative nightmare, and I would strongly advise against it. I believe the scope is fine as is - I don't see evidence of a burden to editors or administrators - but I'd much rather the scope be narrowed all at once, if at all, than gradually shifted. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Aquillion

Here is the previous request that led to the 1992 cutoff, for the curious. I'm going to repeat something I said in that discussion: It's important that the cutoff be intuitive, since everyone has to remember it and new users ought to be able to reasonably anticipate it. I don't think that an automatically-moving cutoff is viable, partially for that reason and partially because how long individual events and public figures and so on remain flashpoints for disruption doesn't really follow any set pattern but instead maps to the sometimes unpredictable political careers of major figures, as well as where news coverage, social media, talking heads and so on choose to focus. --Aquillion (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

American politics 2: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

American politics 2: Arbitrator views and discussion

All other actions taken there are pretty clearly due to post-2015 developments, and would be acceptable with a cutoff of 2015. Inclined to support such an amendment. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Mildly curious how Cloward–Piven qualifies under the current regime... theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 06:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, Obama. Apparently. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • My initial gut feeling is that 1992 was the beginning of the end of... regular? politics in the US, so it makes sense as a starting point. If articles about that time period aren't causing a problem then I wouldn't be opposed to shifting it. I would be hesitant to go much past 2000, since I've seen that some articles from that era still being fairly contentious. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:58, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Without a very compelling reason I'd hesitate to consider making it any date after "post-2000 American politics" because articles like September 11 attacks still have recurring issues. - Aoidh (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Having seen the post by Izno, I must agree (though with the slight correction that it was almost exactly four years ago); a rolling begin period was not even put forward as a motion at that time, nor were later dates; what has changed so much in three years, and why is this update necessary so (relatively) soon after the last one? Primefac (talk) 17:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • A quick look down 2024 and 2023 enforcement actions in the AP area, it doesn't look like many (any?) are for articles that would be excluded if the start year was moved from 1992 to 2000. I am opposed to a rolling start year given the administrative workload it would cause, per comments by Vanamonde and Aquillion. Keen to see an answer to Primefac's question immediately above. Daniel (talk) 21:03, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
  • The quantitative question: What's the breakdown of AE actions by subject-year?
The qualitative question: What's the logical point to switch to? I've been trying to think of alternatives and all fall within Clinton's presidency. 9/11 touches on Al-Qaeda → Embassy bombings, 1998. Decline of bipartisanship → Gingrich's speakership... Cabayi (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I've thought about this quite a lot and I think that this is slightly premature: the second Trump presidency has only just begun. A change in administration will bring a change in contentious articles. Based on my understanding of American politics, it seems like the current, most relevant era started in 2016. That being said, I think that the "modern" era of American polarization ramps up with the 1994 Republican Revolution, which the post-1992 cut-off covers. There are decent arguments for each of the proposed cut-offs, though: 2000 covers Bush v. Gore and the War on Terror, while 2008 covers the election of Obama and the Tea Party movement. I am not a huge fan of the rolling window, mainly because not all years are equal in terms of significance in American politics.History aside, however, I think that if the evidence really does show that political articles post-1992 have become less contentious, I am open to amending the window later in the year. We move with the evidence. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Amendment request: Crouch, Swale ban appeal

Initiated by Crouch, Swale at 18:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
Special:Diff/1064925920
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Special:Diff/1064925920


List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request


Information about amendment request
  • 2022 changes


Statement by Crouch, Swale

Please either site ban me or remove the restrictions completely. If you site ban me please block with account creation, email and talk revoked and also block my IP address(es) with {{checkuserblock}} including blocking logged in users so that I have no way to contribute to here again and say I can't appeal for 10 years or never, the choice is yours but I'm not prepared to go on as is. And yes unlike last month's request this does count as an appeal but it does include the first option of a full site ban. And yes doing either of these options won't be much effort and would make you're lives easier. Option A motion would say "Crouch, Swale is indefinitely site banned from Misplaced Pages. This ban may be appealed from January 2035" or could include no appeal ever allowed. Option B motion would say "All Crouch, Swale's editing restrictions are revoked". Which one are we going to go along with? but you must pick one. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: Why can't you site ban me, if you won't do that would you like it if I start posting personal information about other users and myself or I start posting libel content. I could just go on disrupting Misplaced Pages until you site ban me therefore it would be easier to just do it here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Put it simply would mean I am both officially banned and technically unable to contribute which would be easy and simple rather than only a technical block which isn't the same thing. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

Conspicuously missing here is any indication of why arbitrators should take either course of action. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Crouch, Swale ban appeal: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Crouch, Swale ban appeal: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Crouch, you haven't given any reasons this appeal should be accepted. Combine that with the insistence on a siteban otherwise, which I think is inappropriate, and I have to vote to decline. However, if your appeal is declined and you still want to follow through, feel free to reach out to me on my talk page for a self-requested block. It'd be a sad goodbye, but I'd do it :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 19:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Crouch, could you please put together a solid unblock request? Explain why you understand the restrictions were imposed, and why they're no longer necessary. Please, take your time. A day, a week if you must. But think about this very seriously. Asking for "liberty or death" is not going to work. I could vote to remove your restrictions, if you show that you understand how to act going forward. CaptainEek 19:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Concur with Eek. Please reconsider what you've written here; I'd likely be inclined towards lifting your restrictions but this request is immensely disappointing. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:31, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • This request is not a compelling reason to consider any action on our part, especially not one that presents the issue as a false dilemma. If you wish to stop editing, then stop editing. If you wish to be blocked, many admins are willing to impose a self-requested block. But that we are not going to ban you just because you ask (because we don't do that) is not a reason to consider lifting editing restrictions. - Aoidh (talk) 19:32, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Decline, obviously. I have indefinitely blocked Crouch, Swale in response to Special:Diff/1271154047. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Motions

Shortcuts

This section can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Motions.

Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives.

Make a motion (Arbitrators only)

You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment.

Requests for enforcement

Click here to add a new enforcement request
For appeals: create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}
See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important informationShortcuts

Please use this page only to:

  • request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator,
  • request contentious topic restrictions against previously alerted editors who engage in misconduct in a topic area designated as a contentious topic,
  • request page restrictions (e.g. revert restrictions) on pages that are being disrupted in topic areas designated as contentious topics, or
  • appeal arbitration enforcement actions (including contentious topic restrictions) to uninvolved administrators.

For all other problems, including content disagreements or the enforcement of community-imposed sanctions, please use the other fora described in the dispute resolution process. To appeal Arbitration Committee decisions, please use the clarification and amendment noticeboard.

Only autoconfirmed users may file enforcement requests here; requests filed by IPs or accounts less than four days old or with less than 10 edits will be removed. All users are welcome to comment on requests except where doing so would violate an active restriction (such as an extended-confirmed restriction). If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it. Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. (Word Count Tool) Statements must be made in separate sections. Non-compliant contributions may be removed or shortened by administrators. Disruptive contributions such as personal attacks, or groundless or vexatious complaints, may result in blocks or other sanctions.

To make an enforcement request, click on the link above this box and supply all required information. Incomplete requests may be ignored. Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale. To appeal a contentious topic restriction or other enforcement decision, please create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}.

Appeals and administrator modifications of contentious topics restrictions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications of contentious topic restrictions state the following:

All contentious topic restrictions (and logged warnings) may be appealed. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction.

The appeal process has three possible stages. An editor appealing a restriction may:

  1. ask the administrator who first made the contentious topic restrictions (the "enforcing administrator") to reconsider their original decision;
  2. request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"); and
  3. submit a request for amendment ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email.

Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template.

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.

Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction

An administrator may only modify or revoke a contentious topic restriction if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:

  • The administrator who originally imposed the contentious topic restriction (the "enforcing administrator") affirmatively consents to the change, or is no longer an administrator; or
  • The contentious topic restriction was imposed (or last renewed) more than a year ago and:
    • the restriction was imposed by a single administrator, or
    • the restriction was an indefinite block.

A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the contentious topic restriction:

  • a clear consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE,
  • a clear consensus of uninvolved editors at AN,
  • a majority of the Arbitration Committee, acting through a motion at ARCA.

Any administrator who revokes or changes a contentious topic restriction 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 review

Uninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify a contentious topic restriction on appeal if:

  1. the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
  2. the action was not reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption when first imposed, or
  3. the action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption.
On Arbitration Committee review

Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn a contentious topic restriction only if:

  1. the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
  2. the action represents an unreasonable exercise of administrative enforcement discretion, or
  3. compelling circumstances warrant the full Committee's action.
  1. The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.
  2. This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.
Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications and appeals state:

Appeals by sanctioned editors

Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:

  1. ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision;
  2. request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators’ noticeboard ("AN"); and
  3. submit a request for amendment at the amendment requests page ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org).
Modifications by administrators

No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:

  1. the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or
  2. prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below).

Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped.

Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied.

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

Important notes:

  1. For a request to succeed, either
(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or
(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA
is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.
  1. 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 longer period the committee may specify.
  2. These provisions apply only to contentious topic restrictions placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorized by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
  3. All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.
Information for administrators processing requests

Thank you for participating in this area. AE works best if there are a variety of admins bringing their expertise to each case. There is no expectation to comment on every case, and the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) thanks all admins for whatever time they can give.

A couple of reminders:

  • Before commenting, please familiarise yourself with the referenced ArbCom case. Please also read all the evidence (including diffs) presented in the AE request.
  • When a request widens to include editors beyond the initial request, these editors must be notified and the notifications recorded in the same way as for the initial editor against whom sanctions were requested. Where some part of the outcome is clear, a partial close may be implemented and noted as "Result concerning X".
  • Enforcement measures in arbitration cases should be construed liberally to protect Misplaced Pages and keep it running efficiently. Some of the behaviour described in an enforcement request might not be restricted by ArbCom. However, it may violate other Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines; you may use administrative discretion to resolve it.
  • More than one side in a dispute may have ArbCom conduct rulings applicable to them. Please ensure these are investigated.

Closing a thread:

  • Once an issue is resolved, enclose it between {{hat}} and {{hab}} tags. A bot should archive it in 7 days.
  • Please consider referring the case to ARCA if the outcome is a recommendation to do so or the issue regards administrator conduct.
  • You can use the templates {{uw-aeblock}} (for blocks) or {{AE sanction}} (for other contentious topic restrictions) to give notice of sanctions on user talk pages.
  • Please log sanctions in the Arbitration enforcement log.

Thanks again for helping. If you have any questions, please post on the talk page.

Arbitration enforcement archives
1234567891011121314151617181920
2122232425262728293031323334353637383940
4142434445464748495051525354555657585960
6162636465666768697071727374757677787980
81828384858687888990919293949596979899100
101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120
121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140
141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160
161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180
181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200
201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220
221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240
241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260
261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280
281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300
301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320
321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335336337338339340
341342343344345346347

שלומית ליר

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning שלומית ליר

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
Smallangryplanet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:24, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
שלומית ליר (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced
WP:ARBPIA
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation of how these edits violate it

ShlomitLir (שלומית ליר) created their account back in 2014. The breakdown of their edits is as follows:

  • 2014 to 2016: no edits.
  • 2017 to 2019: 1 edit per year. None related to PIA.
  • 2022: 7 edits. Mostly in their userspace.
  • 2023: 21 edits. Again, mostly in their userspace. Made two edits in the talk page of Palestinian genocide accusation complaining about its content and calling it “blatant pro-Hamas propaganda”.
  • 2024: Started editing after a 10 month break at the end of October.
    • Made 51 edits in October and 81 edits in November (copyedits, adding links, minor edits).
    • In December, that number rose up to almost 400, including 116 in December 6 alone and 98 in December 7. Became ECR that day.
    • Immediately switched to editing in PIA, namely in the Battle of Sderot article where they changed the infobox picture with an unclear image with a dubious caption, and removed a template without providing a reason why.
    • They also edited the Use of human shields by Hamas article, adding another image with a caption not supported by the source (replaced by yet another image with a contextless caption when the previous image was removed) and WP:UNDUE content in the lead.
    • they also voted in the second AfD for Calls for the destruction of Israel despite never having interacted with that article or its previous AfD. They have barely surpassed 500 edits, but the gaming is obvious, highlighted by the sudden switch to editing in PIA.

More importantly, there's the issue of POV pushing. I came across this article authored by them on Ynet, once again complaining about what they perceive as an anti Israeli bias on Misplaced Pages. They have also authored a report for the World Jewish Congress covering the same topic. The report can be seen in full here. I think that someone with this clear POV agenda shouldn't be near the topic.

If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Adding some additional comments on 2025-01-16: On top of POV issues, the user has a number of tweets that appear to be a clear admission of gaming, implicit canvassing, creating and sharing lists of potential "most biased articles", and clearly calling for specific edits. They've also been cited as coordinating an off-wiki coordination hub for editing Misplaced Pages. If this - combined with the tweets, the forms, the op-ed and the report to the WJC, all under this user's name (that they also use to edit Misplaced Pages - this is not outing) isn't a clear cut case of canvassing, I don't know what is. Smallangryplanet (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Adding some more comments on 2025-01-22: The user in question says that they have been on[REDACTED] for years – and so surely aware of what does and does not count as canvassing. As recently as last month they were advising users on Hebrew Misplaced Pages as to how best to get their edit counts up, as well as promoting the "most biased articles" survey I've already mentioned. I understand that we are always meant to WP:AGF, but we are looking at a situation in which a user (1) has extensive experience with Misplaced Pages and (2) is encouraging people, subtly and not so subtly to do things that are against our policies. Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:45, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Notification diff


Discussion concerning שלומית ליר

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by שלומית ליר

I believe contents of this filing to be in clear policy violation and have reached out to the arbitration committee for further clarification before commenting further.שלומית ליר (talk) 14:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I was given clarification from an admin regarding my concerns and will now be drafting a response. Thank you for your patience. שלומית ליר (talk) 21:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

First and foremost, I value accuracy and transparency and am fully prepared to address any verified errors or missteps. My contributions are made in good faith, with only the intention of supporting Misplaced Pages’s mission. I am a veteran editor on Hebrew wiki, yet am learning to appreciate the sometimes stark differences in rules in this section, so am doing my very best to keep up to speed and abide fully as I edit further here.

As a longtime editor on another wiki who finally decided this year to match pace on English wiki, I strenuously reject any accusations of EC gaming when a passing glance on my global log will confirm I have not radically altered my editing pace nor article focus. In regards to NPOV concerns, I will defer to the numerous comments below affirming that there is no policy violation by having an opinion, onsite or off, and must register mild complaint that NPOV accusations are being leveled here without any policy violation having been affirmed on any of these individual contributions.

While contributions observed superficially (and without clear context of edit conversation and interaction with other editors) may appear to be agenda oriented, if I were granted more word counts, I would happily highlight the context of most edits made to make clear I was pushing back against previous bias efforts (past and present) by editors (including a number on the precipice of sanction in PIA5). Perhaps it would have been wiser to report what I felt was POV editing behavior instead of pushing back, but I only believed my efforts were to restore and preserve article balance, not disrupt it.

I am grateful for the admin guidance received so far and appreciate being better informed about certain grey areas. I meant no intention to remotely approach anything resembling canvassing and believed the commentary was allowable (most especially since it was on a proceeding I was neither participating in, nor linking out to). I understand now that this may be perceived as “call to action” which was not remotely the intent, most especially to an audience that is mostly academic and, to the best of my knowledge, does not edit Misplaced Pages. (I also humbly must point out that no report was made indicating any increase in activity to suggest editors had been canvassed). I have now been well appraised and will take great care and caution to ensure no further off-site commentary remotely approaches such this territory of concern. If there are any questions or doubts in the future, I will seek future guidance from admins before venturing into potentially questionable territory. שלומית ליר (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Thebiguglyalien

This is the first ARBPIA report since the proposed decision was posted at ARBPIA5 and it's specifically a matter of POV pushing, responding admins should be aware of the "AE topic bans" remedy. The committee is discussing whether to implement a remedy stating that admins at AE are "empowered and encouraged to consider a topic ban" purely for biased editing. So far, the argument against is that it's redundant because AE admins are already supposed to do this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-03-29/Special_report

Statement by Selfstudier

To the extent that it is relevant, the WJC report was discussed at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2024-03-29/Special report. Selfstudier (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by starship.paint (2)

I would to like to raise this 9 December 2024 edit at Battle of Sderot, where there had been an existing unsourced paragraph (On the morning of October 7, a tour minibus...) that שלומית ליר added a reference to (archive 1 / archive 2) from the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. The reference is relevant, but I believe it may not verify every detail in the Battle of Sderot paragraph (e.g. "Netivot", "Holocaust survivors"). The reference contains a short paragraph of text and a video that is 4:21 long. I can't watch the video in the reference, but I believe it is this same YouTube video that is 4:20 long which contains the same screenshot as the reference, on the same topic. Most of the video is an interview of the daughter of a dead victim who was on the bus (the daughter had been on the phone with the victim), except for 1:58 to 2:13 which appears to be a quote from the bus driver. The publisher themselves do not have too much reporting in their own voice (on the video), yet this reference was used to cite a paragraph entirely stated in Wikivoice. No attribution was made to the relative or the bus driver, or to the publisher. I can't be totally sure though, due to unfamiliarity with Hebrew. starship.paint (talk / cont) 13:53, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by xDanielx

@Arcticocean: I don't really see how NPOV can be read as requiring edits which support both sides of a controversy. Our content policies don't impose any positive duties; they only tell us what not to do. The text of the policy doesn't support the notion that a pattern of edits could be in violation, even if no particular edit is in violation.

In principle, such a pattern of edits could violate the UCoC policy, but I don't believe this board has ever enforced it. If it were to be enforced, I think it should be for more serious violations like the double standards that e.g. this attempted to demonstrate, rather than mere opinion-driven editing which applies to the vast majority of CTOP editors. — xDanielx /C\ 03:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Hemiauchenia

This user has engaged in off-wiki canvassing regarding the IP conflict. Take the following recent tweet from the 12 January permanent archive

For posterity in case it is deleted it contains the following remarks:

If you can't handle the facts, just delete them Propaganda on @Misplaced Pages includes targeting Israel, demonizing it, and erasing inconvenient truths, from falsifying war outcomes to deleting Israeli inventions and attempting to erase the reality of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Along with this is a screenshot of the current AfD Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Palestinian suicide attacks. People are of course allowed to be caustic about Misplaced Pages off-wiki, but calling out a specific AfD with highly charged rhetoric, essentially inciting canvassing seems out of line. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

For those concerned that this might be outing, שלומית ליר is very open about their real life identity on their userpage. See (archived). If you reveal your real identity on Misplaced Pages, your tweets about Misplaced Pages on your Twitter account connected to your real-life identity are fair game to mention. There's also reverse confirmation in this tweet . Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Cdjp1

As we seem to be ok to pull evidence from the statements of the editor in question, they have also commented more recently about running interference on Misplaced Pages (archive) in response to a question of if Misplaced Pages can be "saved". -- Cdjp1 (talk) 23:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Sean.hoyland

It has been several days. Perhaps שלומית ליר could clarify whether their belief about the way Misplaced Pages works turned out to be a true belief or a false belief so that this report can progress. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Vice regent

I'm satisfied by שלומית ליר's above explanation regarding canvassing. People with bad canvassing intentions don't reveal their identity. VR (Please ping on reply) 04:19, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning שלומית ליר

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
  • Users are allowed to have a POV - it's a rare user indeed who edits a contentious topic without having some strong opinions about it. For conduct to be actionable at AE it needs to be an actual policy violation. The misleading use of images doesn't rise to the level of AE action in my view, and judging whether an addition like this is UNDUE is not within AE's purview, as long as it is supported by the source. Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
    The PIA5 remedy hasn't passed yet, and its interpretation is as yet unclear to me: but in my view we are already empowered to deal with biased editing, in the sense of editing that violates NPOV. What I'm not willing to do is sanction on the basis of someone's opinions alone; they have to be shown to have let their opinions get in the way of following our PAGs. Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
    I see some evidence - based on Arcticocean's digging below - that שלומית ליר is using images without sufficient care, but I don't see that rising to the level of a sanction. As to the rest, xDanielx is correct - nowhere do our policies require treating both sides of a conflict equally - indeed our PAGs discourage false balance. Those diffs could be actionable if they individually or collectively violate policy, but I have yet to see evidence of that. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
    The off-wiki canvassing is a problem. It merits a warning at least, I don't know if the formality thereof matters. If there was evidence that שלומית ליר was aware of WP:CANVAS I would consider something more stringent. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • While I understand Vanamonde93's concerns, I think that we are required to assess the totality of the user's contributions. Contentious topic editors are required to uphold NPOV. Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics#Guidance for editors places an obligation to Within contentious topics,… edit carefully and constructively… and… adhere to the purposes of Misplaced Pages. The linked page provides that Misplaced Pages is written from a neutral point of view… We strive for articles with an impartial tone that document and explain major points of view, giving due weight for their prominence. If an editor is only adding content that significantly favours one or the other side to the conflict, this is incompatible with their contentious topic obligation. That is because an editor making only one-sided edits will simply not be taking the necessary steps to ensure that the whole article is written from a neutral point of view. As their number of one-sided edits increases, the likelihood decreases that the editor is ensuring our content is neutral and impartial. Once we reach the point of being sure that they are not attempting to ensure neutrality of content, we can conclude the editor is not meeting their contentious topics obligations and we can issue a sanction. This can only be assessed with hindsight and by looking at the editor's contributions as a whole. arcticocean ■ 20:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Assessing the topic area contributions of the respondent (שלומית ליר) since they became extended-confirmed at 17:33, 8 December 2024, there is cause for concern. I counted 19 edits to the area conflict. Taken together, they significantly skew the articles negatively against the opposing side of the conflict:
Assessing the edits as a whole, it is difficult not to conclude that the respondent user is failing to meet their contentious topics obligation to edit neutrally in this topic area. As the number of edits is so far limited, if a sanction is imposed, it could justifiably be light-touch. arcticocean ■ 20:34, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
@XDanielx: Thanks for commenting. Most of the edits do not have a neutral, encyclopedic POV. There is an effort to influence our articles away from neutrally describing the subject without taking sides, contrary to WP:NPOV. Even if each edit in isolation is insufficient for sanctioning, taken as a whole the edits show an inability or unwillingness to edit neutrally. One non-neutral edit shouldn't be sanctioned; twenty is a different story. This is not about the percentage of biased edits but about the weight or amount of them. Therefore, the assessment wouldn't really change even had the editor made some 'neutral' edits along the way. I'm happy to concede that editors cannot be compelled to balance edits of one bias with edits of another, but I don't think that comes into it. In a nutshell, this is about Misplaced Pages:Advocacy. arcticocean ■ 08:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
  • The offwiki canvassing is a problem...שלומית ליר, you're fairly inexperienced here. Were you aware WP:canvassing is not allowed? Valereee (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    For transparency, שלומית ליר reached out to me, and I explained multiple policy and advised her to go ahead and respond here without waiting for individual feedback from her email to arbcom, which may or may not happen. Valereee (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I take it that per Barkeep49's brief oversighting of potentially-sensitive content in this report (Special:Diff/1269845558), and then restoration of the same (Special:Diff/1269848988), concerns of outing have been investigated and the report can proceed on its merits? signed, Rosguill 19:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    That's correct. I got a request, I didn't really feel it was OUTING, but as I indicated in my edit summary OS is a tool of first resort. I consulted with the OS listserv and received some responses quickly agreeing with me and so I unsuppressed and restored the material. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • It's not for AE to decide content disputes, and that's mostly what this looks like. We can handle things like flagrant misrepresentation of sources, but how best to represent them is a matter for consensus discussion, not us to decide here. The canvassing was a cause for concern, but it looks like it was rather unintended and had little if any actual effect, and they've agreed to stop that going forward. (Note that doesn't mean anyone must stop criticizing Misplaced Pages or what happens on it; do all of that you like. Just don't encourage people to take particular actions based on that.) I don't see any further action as necessary at this point. Seraphimblade 16:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
    +1 Valereee (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Luganchanka

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Luganchanka

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
Hemiauchenia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
Luganchanka (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
  1. 19:55, 12 January 2025 Reversion to version of article where the article says "He is a child sex offender" in the second sentence despite consensus at BLPN discussion that this is problematic because Ritter never actually interacted with a real child.
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)

18:28, 12 January 2025 BLP CTOP warning given

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

At BLPN, there has been consensus that the version of the article describing Ritter as a "child sex offender" in the second sentence of the article is problematic, as he did not actually have sexual contact with a child, only a police officer impersonating one. Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Scott_Ritter_Biography_-_Noncompliance_with_MOS_and_BLP_Guidelines. Luganchanka has been persistently edit warring against this apparent consensus. For which he has been warned by @NatGertler: , which he subequently blanked There has been persistent objection to descrbing Ritter as a "child sex offender" in the opening sentences of the article going back to at least August Talk:Scott_Ritter#First_sentence, but Luganchanka persistently cites a "consensus" for its inclusion that as far as I can tell does not seem to exist, with Luganchanka aggressively editing to enforce its inclusion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Luganchanka's response is disingenuous and misleading. Look at the Talk:Scott_Ritter#First_sentence discussion I linked above. Nobody other than Luganchanka thinks that Ritter should be described as a "child sex offender" in the opening sentences of the article. The dispute isn't about whether or not the convictions should be mentioned in the lead at all or not, it's specifically about the use of the phrase "child sex offender", and there is no consensus to include that as far as I can tell, despite Luganchanka's vociferous claims to the contrary. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:47, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
RfC opened Talk:Scott_Ritter#RfC:_Ritter's_sexual_sex_offenses_convictions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

20:27, 12 January 2025

Discussion concerning Luganchanka

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Luganchanka

The intro on the Scott Ritter page had remained largely the same for several months, as you will see on the talkpage it is an intro approved, and reverted to, by multiple senior editors. There has been a recent flurry of activity / edits. While I WP: assume good faith, it does look like those edits are attempting to downplay / whitewash Ritter's sexual offence conviction(s). I have not been 'aggressive' at all, rather I have simply referred contentious edits to the talkpage to build consensus, attempting to do my duty as a good Misplaced Pages editor.Luganchanka (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Please see the Talk:Scott_Ritter, where there has been a clear consensus reached, on more than one occasion, and by senior[REDACTED] editors, that Ritter's sexual offence conviction should be included in the lead to the article. My edits have simply been aimed at ensuring this consensus reached is maintained in the article.Luganchanka (talk) 20:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you to @Valereee and @Red-tailed hawk for your feedback. If you see the Talk:Scott_Ritter, discussions - 14 August - Vandalism by removing all reference entirely to Ritter being a "Convicted Sex Offender" and First sentence. The latter discussion ended on 26th September, and resulted in the intro we had until a flurry of edits the other day, trying to move information on Ritter's sexual offence conviction, downplay it, whitewash it etc. My edits were aimed at restoring the edit reached by consensus, which had been in place for several months until the recent raft of edits with the clear aim of moving / downplaying Ritter's sexual offence conviction.Luganchanka (talk) 06:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for this (nest), I really do appreciate your feedback and advice here!!Luganchanka (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC) (moved from admin-only sectionRed-tailed hawk (nest) 17:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC))
As per Rosguill's comments:

"Unfazed by "Emily's" age, Ritter asked "Emily," "you want to see it finish?" Ritter then turned on the webcam and ejaculated in front of the camera for "Emily." Detective Venneman then notified Ritter of his undercover status and the undercover operation and directed Ritter to call the police station."

https://casetext.com/case/ritter-v-tuttle

Luganchanka (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by NatGertler

Editor's edits today focused on trying to main a negative descriptor of what subject believed, despite it not being in the three sources that were listed (nor in the old version they ultimately reverted to.) Efforts were first trying to simply restate the claim, then trying to source it to an opinion piece (problem) from the Washington Examiner (also a bit of a problem, per WP:RSP), then trying to state as a fact what had merely been stated in a non-prime article as an accusation. BLP concern was pointed out repeatedly via edit summary and on Talk page. Removal of unsourced contentious BLP claims and even false claims is not "whitewashing" despite how editor wishes to depict it, it is in accord with our practices. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:08, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Luganchanka

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
@Luganchanka: whether you're correct or not, you were edit warring. I believe an indef block from the article and/or a temporary site block would be an appropriate sanction here. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
I've blocked the user for 48h for violating 3RR based on the report at WP:AN3.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Luganchanka, edit-warring to remove negative content at a BLP is an exemption to 3RR. I see that NatGertler mentioned this in their edit summaries and at talk. As voorts points out, it doesn't matter whether you're right when you're reverting an edit that is being claimed as an exemption, even if you believe Rosguillwhiyou are "ensuring this consensus reached is maintained in the article". The solution is to go to talk, discuss, and get consensus. If you'd like to respond, ping me to your response at your talk and I'll post it here. Valereee (talk) 16:04, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Luganchanka, if you really believe those two sections -- senior editors, indeed, this one was between someone with 13 edits and somcoen who wasn't ECR, for heaven's sake -- somehow prove consensus was strong, and you think that means you can ignore all the later ones -- at one of which you didn't even respond to a ping, where people were objecting -- then this is maybe looking like a WP:CIR issue.
    But even if you had been somehow editing to support a consensus you believed was settled, you cannot edit-war contentious material into a BLP when others are objecting to it. The solution, always, is to go to talk, discuss, and reconfirm consensus. There is zero urgency to have this information in the article. Including something negative in a BLP is not something you should ever edit war over. Valereee (talk) 18:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Luganchanka's reading of the state of consensus on the talk page as supporting their edits is so far off base that it borders on being a CIR issue if it's sincere. Indef block from Scott Ritter seems appropriate. signed, Rosguill 22:49, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
    I see RTH's point about the "First sentence" section in isolation. I'd note that the link to WP:FORUMSHOP isn't really appropriate here, as bringing the discussion to BLP/N was an appropriate action (if it was then brought to NPOVN, NORN, etc., that would be forumshopping). I'd like to see some actual contrition around the edit warring and frivolous accusations of whitewash before writing this off as time-served. signed, Rosguill 15:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    That's fair; I'll strike the link. My point in including it was that, when conversations fragment, we sometimes get these sorts of chaotic incidents. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    Understood, I think that meaning was clear for us here in the admin section, but I could easily see a new editor misinterpreting it unintentionally. signed, Rosguill 15:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    I am not at all comforted by the fact that Luganchanka has proceeded to make Special:Diff/1269831044. The cited BBC source does not state masturbated and ejaculated on camera, saying only graphic sex act. As written, this is essentially another BLP violation, building a case that a ban from this topic is needed. signed, Rosguill 16:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    Having reviewed the other sources, reliable sources do confirm the masturbation claim (, ) but not ejaculation, which appears to be supported only by New York Post, a generally unreliable source. Luganchanka, in light of this clarification, can you please address your decision to include the claims as you initially wrote them? signed, Rosguill 17:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    The detail is in the record of Ritter v. Tuttle (case No. 3:15cv1235 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 14, 2018)), so it isn't completely made up. But I would also like to hear from the user on this point as to whether there was secondary sourcing here. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    Seeing Special:Diff/1269853673 here and Special:Diff/1269853955, Special:Diff/1269845272 at Talk:Scott Ritter, I see no comprehension of the use of primary vs. secondary sources, nor any reflection of their past errors in engaging with this topic. I believe that a block from the page is needed to prevent further BLP violations as they have shown no understanding of the relevant policies even after being given several warnings, reminders and opportunities to revise their position. signed, Rosguill 18:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Luganchanka:
    WP:BLPPRIMARY calls upon users to not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. There are some narrow exceptions (when primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source), but adding material to the article not found in reliable secondary sources is... suboptimal at best under our biographies of living persons policy.
    Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Luganchanka: Would you please provide a direct link to the talk page section you are referring to when you say there has been a clear consensus reached, on more than one occasion, and by senior[REDACTED] editors regarding the lead? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Luganchanka and Hemiauchenia:
    It does seem that the discussion at Talk:Scott Ritter#First sentence does indicate some support for that language i.e. (convicted child sex offender) in the lead, with some general lean against putting it in the first sentence. So, while There has been persistent objection to descrbing Ritter as a "child sex offender" in the opening sentences is true if it means the literal first sentence, I do see a rough consensus to include the material in the lead section in some way in that discussion.
    That being said, the BLPN discussion had a bit of different tone and tenor from the discussion on the talk page. There was notification about a BLPN discussion on the article's talk page, but Luganchanka, despite having been pretty vocal about this subject in the past, hadn't participated in that BLPN discussion. They instead grounded their edits in the argument that the article's talk page had consensus for the current content, and nothing on the article's talk page had changed that consensus. And that much was true. In any case, we've got two different forums with two different answerstwo different forums with two different answers here, which appears to be what's leading to the whole kerfluffle.
    Then the analysis comes to whether or not the label is a straightforward BLP violation, requiring us to read the sourcing in the article. This NY Times piece, which is cited in the body of the article (but not the lead), does state that Ritter was convicted unlawful contact with minors and other charges in the state of PA (the PA statute is here; "unlawful contact with minors" is the verbatim name of the crime). When dealing with a sting operation, PA treats it as an offense of the same grade and degree as if the criminal had actually contacted a child (unless it's a lesser crime than a third-degree felony, in which case it becomes a third-degree felony). This is an extremely common practice in the United States (there are lots of philosophical questions regarding mens rea and actus reus here, but that's not really relevant here). In any case, labeling this to be a child sex offense (or, alternatively, to simply use the name of the crime in the article) does not appear to be straightforward malice/POV-pushing/libel, and a reasonably informed individual might shorten it in this way. Whether or not that is wise or optimal to shorten it is the proper subject for content discussion.
    Aside from the edit warring (which was not acceptable, and was aptly handled by a block), this looks like a content dispute. A heated one involving a living person, sure, but a content dispute nonetheless. I see good-faith—albeit passionate—disagreement. If the editors were to come together and engage in one forum (such as the article's talk page, where this has been discussed a bunch), rather than splitting the discussion over multiple pages, I feel like we might have our best shot at attaining a consensus going forward.
    In short, it looks like the conversation fragmented, and consensus-building broke down. Edit warring ensued, which was bad, but we've already blocked for that in order to dissuade it going forward. A Request for Comment on the article's talk page for what the lead should look like is probably the best way to go forward here.
    Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    RTH, are you objecting to a p-block from the article? Valereee (talk) 13:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    Ping to @Red-tailed hawk Valereee (talk) 18:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Luganchanka has been blocked for a week by User:ScottishFinnishRadish for BLP violations and personal attacks. Liz 18:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    Just noting that this was a regular admin action and I wasn't aware this was before AE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:42, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    With this in mind, I think we should wait to hear from RTH but otherwise expect to move forward to an indef p-block on top of SFR's stopgap action, as we haven't seen anything coming close to an adequate recognition of the relevant policies and practices from Luganchanka and after several second chances and nudges, I don't see reason to expect them to change course. signed, Rosguill 18:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

BabbleOnto

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning BabbleOnto

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
ජපස (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
BabbleOnto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/COVID-19#Contentious_topic_designation
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
  1. 11 January 2025 Sealioning
  2. 11 January 2025 Refusal to get the message
  3. 11 January 2025 Personalizing an argument.
  4. 11 January 2025 Railroading the discussion.

This is all after I warned them about WP:AE sanctions, and they dismissed my warning out of hand. Very nearly a WP:SPA on the subject. I see no reason to continue tolerating this kind of obstinate tendetiousness. Additional diffs available on request from admins, but looking at the user history should suffice to indicate the problem is obvious, I hope.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
  • Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 9 Dec 2024 (see the system log linked to above).
Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is a WP:SPA with respect to the topic and their disruption surrounding it has been subject to at least one WP:FTN thread that remains active: Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Gain_of_function_research. The hope was that they would WP:DROPTHESTICK and move on from this, but it seems they either will not or cannot. jps (talk) 17:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

diff

Discussion concerning BabbleOnto

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by BabbleOnto

I would first like to begin by point out the person filing this complaint is involved in the content disputes at issue. They have frequently left "warnings" which read more like threats on my talk page and others' talk pages for people who disagree with them. Nor would I be the first person who would they would get banned from this topic for disagreeing with them.

To be honest I'm not entirely sure what it is I'm being charged with doing.

I think in general the user is alleging I've been uncivil, unhelpful, and, in their words, obstinate and tendentious. I know when someone disagrees with you it may feel like they're getting in your way and acting in bad-faith, but that's not always true. I've never tried to be disruptive or uncivil. I've admitted when I was wrong, I've dropped arguments that were clarified to be wrong, I've tried to find compromise, at times begging people to provide their sources and work together. And when those editors refused to, I didn't provoke any further.

I now address the specific edits in the complaint:

1. I don't see how this is sea-lioning. The user misquoted the article. I pointed out the misquotation, then addressed a accusation against me that I was second-guessing the sources (A claim which was never substantiated). I then said any source would have to support that actual claim which was in the article. I don't know what this violates.

2. I don't see how this is refusing to get the message (IDHT). The other party is making direct claims alleging I said something. I did not say it. I replied with what I actually said. What part of that interaction is saying "I didn't hear that?"

3. Admittedly probably the strongest of the four allegations. I'm not pretending I was perfect in all of my comments. I should have kept my criticism strictly to their argument. I ask you to read it in context and keep in mind you're viewing a hand-picked assortment of my worst edits, and this is the worst they could find. Also consider that conversation accused me of having a basic reading comprehension problem, perhaps you can see I lose my cool sometimes too.

4. I'm not even really sure what "railroading the discussion" means. Thus, to keep this section short and to save words, I don't know what I'm being accused of doing wrong here.

All of this has stemmed out of arguments over two sources. I have tried to find compromise, I have tried to negotiate, I have tried to build consensus. I've been going through the proper channels, I've been participating in the RfC, I've been discussing it on the ANI, I source every claim I make, for a month now I've been trying to constructively explain my side and defend my argument against challenges. It's incredibly frustrating to now be facing an Arbitration Enforcement on grounds that I'm not working with others. BabbleOnto (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Sorry, the sub-header for this section says that only admins can edit this section, I didn't realize I was allowed to reply here.
    Yes, I will. I intend on taking an extended break from wikipedia, as well. BabbleOnto (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2025 (UTC) Moved from uninvolved admin section; you can answer questions, make comments, discuss, but all your input needs to be in your own section. Valereee (talk) 17:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    • an extended break doesn't solve the issues around understanding policy. An extended break from contentious topics -- while you edit in other topics and learn policy -- would be more helpful all around.
      What I meant was that I'm willing to respect the consensus and not make any further edits or argue any more contrary to what the consensus decided. It seems to me that saying I have "Issues around understanding policy" and asking me to "learn policy" has subtext that says "Until you agree with this consensus, and you won't be allowed to edit at all." Is respectful disagreement with this consensus allowed? I'm afraid if in order to avoid a ban I have to personally agree with the consensus, beyond just respecting it, then there's nothing I can do. I still do disagree with the consensus's result. Nonetheless, I'm not going to edit or argue further, I'll respect it as a legitimate.
      • Re:no, you don't have to agree. You just have to accept and move on.
        Then I accept the consensus. I'm not going to argue in those discussions any further, though I still personally disagree, I understand a consensus has been reached which is other than my opinion. Nor will I edit disruptively or against the consensus. I appreciate the admin who noted I largely kept my disagreement in the talk pages, not editing the articles themselves. I plan on staying away from the topic in general for quite a while.

Statement by ProcrastinatingReader

I've interacted with BabbleOnto in several threads. There's a few problems, but ultimately, I think they have a certain opinion on what the article should say, and will debate endlessly to get the article changed to their position. I mean, sure, reasonable people disagree on how to interpret sources and apply policy, but I don't think BabbleOnto is actually interested in faithful application of policies to write high quality articles based on good sources.

That's not terribly problematic by itself, but most discussions with BabbleOnto are exhausting. Rather than actually trying to understand someone's argument in good faith, I think BabbleOnto replies to editors by picking out parts of an argument, interpreting it in the most disfavourable way possible, and making a superficially reasonable response ad nauseam. They reply endlessly in this manner. As well as misrepresentation of opponents' arguments, on multiple occassions BabbleOnto has either misrepresented sources or hasn't read their own sources. I can't think of a single thread where BabbleOnto didn't have the last word, or a single thread where it seemed like BabbleOnto was actually trying to understand the arguments of other editors in a charitable way. As such, I think it's very difficult to work collaborately with BabbleOnto on the lab leak theory and related articles. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Newimpartial

As the editor to whom BabbleOnto was responding in the diffs of the filing, I feel compelled to comment now that they have defended (to varying degrees) their first three diffs. I will reply as briefly as I know how to their defense of the diffs, as revised.

1. BabbleOnto is now doubling down on the claim that I misquoted the article. I didn't "misquote" the article - I didn't quote the article, and I explained what my comment meant in the rest of the (now collapsed) thread that ends here. Also, I provided a clear explanation of why I thought they were second-guessing sources later in the thread, but BabbleOnto never responded to that explanation. They are now responding to the accusation of WP:CPUSH with pure WP:IDONTHEARTHAT.

2. On this they say, now, that The other party is making direct claims alleging I said something. I did not say it. This is repeating a misreading they made in the original thread, where they mistook a statement I made about another editor's comment as if it were about theirs. In this "defense", I see no attempt to read thoughtfully what other editors say in reply to them and revise their understanding accordingly; all I see is zero-sum mentality and WP:IDHT.

3. BabbleOnto is now justifying an edit where they said to me, You have a habit of inserting small lies into everything you say and You're not adding anything constructive. You're just refusing to explain anything and saying conclusory statements, or lying about what you said - all this based on a misreading of what I had actually written - because I was going to refer to a basic failure in reading comprehension two hours later. This seems like a time travel paradox.

4. They don't bother defending themselves on this one, but just to point out the actual issue with the diff, they doubled down on their accusations that I said a material lie, and that I lied when said that quoted the article out of context. Pointing out being caught lying and then proceeded to STRAWMAN the rest of my comment to which they were replying. If they had read my prior comment with a reasonable level of attention, they would have understood that there were no "lies", just a misunderstanding or two in each direction. But WP:IDHT again; even in responding to this filing BabbleOnto is still insisting I did things that I quite obviously didn't do.

It is exhausting to deal with this kind of quasi-CPUSH (not quite civil, but certainly push) behaviour. The Talk page in question has seen a recent influx of single-purpose or nearly single-purpose POV accounts, and in terms of editor energy, this one certainly seems not to be a net positive for Misplaced Pages as a project. Perhaps if they edited away from Covid and US politics, their track record might improve. Newimpartial (talk) 03:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Objective3000

Just a quick aside to Valereee's aside: Contentious topics are a terrible place to learn.... Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory currently has posts from 19 editors lacking the edits for extended confirmed. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:38, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Valereee, this is also a problem at other CTOPs, and is likely to become more problematic. I assume due to off-Wiki forums. ECR might just produce more users gaming EC. I thought it would be useful to put your aside into the CTOP template at the top of CTOP TPs. But that assumes folks read it. Walt Kelly said something along the lines of: “If only I could write, I’d write a letter to the mayor, if only he could read." This discussion is likely better off elsewhere. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:38, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Note: IntrepidContributor was just TBanned from the topic of COVID-19 and indef blocked until the accusations of off-wiki coordination made by them at ANI are retracted. Those accusations are like their suggestion made in their statement in this filing. O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by JoelleJay

At the very least, can we get more admin involvement on the lab leak page so trolling like this doesn't disrupt things even more? JoelleJay (talk) 07:12, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by IntrepidContributor

I have been observing BabbleOnto and while there are valid concerns about bludgeoning, I think the proposed sanctions are too much. His engagement in the Covid lab leak topic is driven by commitment to WP:NPOV, which our articles fail to adhere to, and he made the mistake of arguing with editors who were never going to listen (resulting in what looks like sealioning on his part). He's not only editor to raise issues in the topic and engage in good faith discussion, only to find themselves pulled to AN or AE disputes after staying out of the seasoning traps and refusing to capitulate to threats. In a parallel AN case concerning another editor in same topic, I suggest there may be possible off-wiki coordination , but it can also be on-wiki ().

One need only cross-reference names from Feb 2021 RfC, checking those that voted for labeling COVID-19 lab leak as conspiracy, with the names of complainants here. Contrast all these old timers with the steady stream of tens if not hundreds of regular editors complaining that our article fails NPOV, and see that their gentle approach doesn't work . Our chief complainant is already preparing his next case , and this might not be his first.

I suggest that administrators consider a 1 to 2 month topic ban for BabbleOnto to provide opportunity for him to correct his approach, while staying alert to the tactics of POV editors trying to draw them into content debates to influence outcomes.

IntrepidContributor (talk) 14:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by TarnishedPath

Please see this edit where BabbleOnto edited Gain of function research restoring previously reverted content and WP:POVPUSH using a shit source after they'd been told by multiple other editors in discussions here and here that the source was shit. Notably in the edit summary they wrote "Read discussion page. Manual revert. No serious challenge has been made to these changes. Methinks an admin needs to get involved..." despite them being in a WP:1AM situation. If a clue is not gotten by the editor fast I'd suggest TBANs from both COVID and AP2 is warranted in order to cease their disruption. TarnishedPath 04:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Noting the editor's continued behaviour at Talk:Gain-of-function research. Refer to Special:Diff/1270316266. TarnishedPath 01:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
and again at Special:Diff/1270346091 TarnishedPath 03:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by berchanhimez

This user was given no less than 4 chances on the talk page to stop talking about bans/other editors and start talking about the content. They have continued crying about how they're scared of getting banned... yet they continue blabbing about other editors getting banned for their bad behavior rather than refocusing on the content as requested. At a minimum a partial block from the talk page(s) in question is warranted, and it would be beneficial for a topic ban from the origins of COVID-19, broadly construed. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 03:37, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Shibbolethink

I am heavily involved in this overall dispute as someone who has gone back and forth with BabbleOnto. I wanted to add that, in general, my feeling from interacting with this user is that they could be a good contributor to this site, and absolutely could follow the PAGs. They have shown an ability to be courteous . I think the issue is that in FRINGE and other contentious areas like COVID-19 origins, they have shown a tendancy to become "hot-headed" when tensions rise, and to reference an us vs them mentality (and numerous examples from others above). It seems they have also been egged-on, and made more combative from other PROFRINGE users (and probably some anti-FRINGE users as well who do admittedly WP:BITE) in that topic space (e.g. )

We are told often to use narrowest possible restriction to protect the project. In this case, I think that would be a COVID-19 origins TBAN, where most of the disruption has been. The user states they have learned what to do when consensus is against them. If they fail to show that lesson in AP2 articles more than just the 10 or so edits they've made in those articles, an AP2 TBAN would be appropriate at that time (WP:ROPE). Just my 2 cents.— Shibbolethink 22:05, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning BabbleOnto

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
  • BabbleOnto, please edit your statement down further to fit within the restriction. This also serves as an opportunity to rephrase your defense, which currently is not convincing at first glance. ProcrastinatingReader's description of the situation seems quite apt, particularly BabbleOnto replies to editors by picking out parts of an argument, interpreting it in the most disfavourable way possible, which is currently a pretty fitting description of your response to them here, given that you zeroed in on the "superficially reasonable" part and ignored the much more serious parts of the testimony. signed, Rosguill 23:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
    Ok, having read through nearly every edit that BabbleOnto has made, I agree with the complainants that not only does BabbleOnto engage in sealioning, it appears to be almost exclusively what they do. The discussion at Talk:Brian Thompson (businessman)/Archive 2 exhibits perhaps even more concerning argumentation than the diffs provided in the initial report. Throughout these discussions, BabbleOnto tends to demand a standard of stating the obvious (with respect to the context of said sources) that is absurd, and continues to lawyer for such standards even when the situation becomes WP:1AM. When criticizing sources' ability to account for basic claims, I can find no examples of BabbleOnto themselves attempting to find sources that would resolve the issues they identify--this is uncollaborative behavior. There is a clear pattern of engaging in this behavior across recent US politics topics consistent with the scope of Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics/American politics. The only saving grace to BabbleOnto's track record is that none of this has translated into disruptive editing of actual articles, just unproductive engagement on talk pages. I am currently in favor of a topic ban from post-1992 American politics; if they are actually here to build an encyclopedia and not to provide a punching bag for debate club, they can use this opportunity to learn more constructive patterns of editing in topics that they are less personally invested in. signed, Rosguill 01:26, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
    Valereee in line with their follow-up response, I take Objective3000's comments as potentially a basis for community discussion rather than a call for protective action on the lab leak talk page right now. signed, Rosguill 21:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I have to agree, this looks like sealioning. BabbleOnto, you're new here, and I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt about your ability to learn to collaborate. WP works on collaboration and consensus, and sometimes consensus goes your way, sometimes it doesn't. You have to be willing to shrug, walk away, and go work on something else when consensus is against you. And you absolutely must not insist everyone else keep answering you until you're satisfied with their answers. I've seen editors at both the Thompson and the lab leak talks tell you they don't actually owe you an answer to your satisfaction.
Do you think you can learn to do that? Because if you don't think you can, this may not be the right hobby for you.
As an aside, I'm going to recommend what I always recommend to new editors who end up here: Contentious topics are a terrible place to learn. Go edit in noncontentious topics, where other editors are a lot less exhausted and have the energy to be more patient with new editors. Valereee (talk) 18:27, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Tangential
@Objective3000, hm, yes, and Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory also has 37 archives, and even with archiving at 21 days, 20 sections. Do you think an ECR is something that talk page needs? That's not part of the authorized restrictions an individual admin can place...hm, and I'm not sure of the policy w/re most efficiently getting that done and wasting the fewest people's time. @Rosguill? Valereee (talk) 21:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
I would object to ECPing the talk page. COVID-19 isn't subject to ARBECR generally, though this specific article is protected. The purpose of protecting the page (in this case) is to push newer users to the talk page, where they can discuss changes they want made (such as by edit requests) and contribute towards consensus-building while not edit warring. Protecting talk pages is truly, truly a last resort. Ordinary good faith people would be entirely shut out and silenced—we'd not even get edit requests—and I frankly don't see anything near the level of disruption/LTA abuse that would justify jumping straight to WP:ECP. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
@Red-tailed hawk, not ECP. ECR: non-EC are restricted from anything but making edit requests. Valereee (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I see. In any case, ECR is the sort of remedy that should be reserved for more or less when all else fails—it’s still super restrictive. If new users/inexperienced users are trying to contribute towards consensus-building on the talk page (or even if they’re doing ordinary confused new editor things), and aren’t edit warring, I don’t think we’d actually be preventing disruptive edits by enforcing ECR.
Suppose someone in good-faith sees “anyone can edit”, and they want to edit something topical. But then they see that the page that they want to edit is protected. They read the explanation that appears after clicking the “view source” tab. They then read that they can discuss this page with others, click on the first blue link, and then make a section using the “add topic” button in order to start a discussion.
“OK”, the newbie thinks, “maybe I will find someone else who agrees with me, or I’ll at least get some answer as to why the article is this way”. They leave their computer and come back in an hour. They then discover that their question has been removed by some random editor with edit summary “WP:ARBECR violation, user not WP:XC; malformed edit request” and find a contentious topics notice on their own user talk page, all because they don’t make a properly formatted edit request (i.e. “please change X to Y”). Or maybe they wont navigate the talk page history and they’ll angrily post that their earlier comment was deleted. Or maybe they just won’t come back. To top it off, nothing at any point in this process was obvious to them that such a requirement existed—there is no edit notice that says so, and so they couldn’t know.
WP:ECR is WP:BITEy. It dissuades new voices from joining conversations, and it makes it somewhat hostile to true newbies. In particular, it dissuades people who, for example:
  1. Are Not hardcore/insane enough to deal with intense wiki-bureaucracy;
  2. Are unable to cope with handling unfamiliar wikitext markup when making edit requests for anything that is not a trivial word change, or who have abstract changes in mind more than concrete ones;
  3. Do not want to spend an hour of their time to figure out how to say the magic words to summon another editor to fix a typo.
The chief way that ECR works is by making LTAs/sockmasters have to put on a lot of effort or make a lot of edits. This raises the (time) cost of socking, and it has the benefit of possibly exposing tells along the way. But that also means that we’re imposing the same thing on good-faith newbies.
When deciding whether or not to impose ECR, we have to balance that it is extremely BITEy to good-faith newbies against its ability to prevent disruption. There are times where we are basically left to throw our hands up because of LTA/sockmaster abuse, and conclude that the tradeoff is worth it; the ArbCom has done this for certain contentious topics. But, the ArbCom had the wisdom to not enable ECR as a page sanction across all contentious topic areas—there is a very real tradeoff that needs to be really carefully considered. And I don’t the tradeoff leans towards embracing ECR here. — Red-tailed sock (Red-tailed hawk's nest) 15:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I'm don't think we need to have this discussion here and now, but I don't disagree it's bitey and needs to be used only where necessary. I was just asking the question of someone who is working at that article: is this an article talk where it's necessary? Valereee (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • BabbleOnto, are you planning to answer my questions above? Do you think you're able/willing to shrug, walk away, and go work on something else when consensus is against you? Are you able/willing to stop insisting everyone else keep answering you until you're satisfied with their answers? Valereee (talk) 13:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    BabbleOnto's response understanding this as a suggestion to take a break from Misplaced Pages as a whole isn't quite what I was hoping to see. signed, Rosguill 17:22, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    @BabbleOnto, an extended break doesn't solve the issues around understanding policy. An extended break from contentious topics -- while you edit in other topics and learn policy -- would be more helpful all around.
    @Rosguill, I'd support a tban, but is AP2 enough? It seems like COVID and fringe science need to be included? Valereee (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    AP2 + COVID? I see the same behavior at the Brian Thompson article and Havana Syndrome, so COVID alone doesn't seem adequate. Oddly, the intersection of "medicine and politics" would appear to cover all affected topics but maybe that's too bespoke? signed, Rosguill 17:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    @BabbleOnto, re:It seems to me that saying I have "Issues around understanding policy" and asking me to "learn policy" has subtext that says "Until you agree with this consensus, and you won't be allowed to edit at all." Is respectful disagreement with this consensus allowed? I'm afraid if in order to avoid a ban I have to personally agree with the consensus, beyond just respecting it, no, you don't have to agree. You just have to accept and move on. Valereee (talk) 23:22, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I think BabbleOnto is actually getting the right idea. You do not have to agree with consensus. There are some consensus positions here I don't agree with, and some I think are rather silly. But, until and unless they change, I respect and abide by them all the same. If I try to challenge them, and it becomes clear that such a challenge was unsuccessful, there comes a time to just shrug, realize you can't win 'em all, and move on. Since they seem to have gotten that point, I think maybe see how things go, and if they return to disruption, I think they're quite clear on what the results of that will be. Seraphimblade 14:05, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
    In my experience sealioning is a habit editors have an extremely difficult time breaking. I was going to agree with Rosguill re: a tban from AP2 + COVID, maybe appealable after 3 months and 500 productive and unproblematic edits. This editor is basically ONLY editing in CTOPs, they're doing it disruptively -- we're talking about an editor with only 177 whom other editors are describing as exhausting to interact with! -- and the specific kind of disruption is both frustrating and tedious to prove and frustrating to try to get attention to because who you need so many diffs to prove it. That plus the apparent difficulty in breaking that habit, which btw they were continuing during this case...I dunno. Valereee (talk) 14:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
    I certainly understand your point. I am a little hesitant to sanction for "sealioning", as often it is difficult to tell where enthusiasm ends and disruptive tendentiousness begins, and I certainly do not want to have a project where people are afraid to advocate viewpoints contrary to a current consensus. That said, if everyone else feels sanctions are warranted, I won't object terribly strongly; I just generally prefer someone to get a chance to show if they've gotten the point (or in some cases, to conclusively demonstrate that they have not). Seraphimblade 20:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
    Generally I'm with you. Let people show they've dealt with the issue. Reblocking is pretty easy in most cases. But sealioning...well, it's such a difficult issue to prove/assess, and there are so many people doing it who don't even have the self-awareness to fix the problem that I kind of feel like it needs a tougher approach than I'd normally argue for. Not a hill I'm going to die on, but if the editor is back here or at ANI for the same issue, I am going to be extremely unhappy with them.
    @BabbleOnto, do you understand what we're talking about when we describe your participation at talk pages as WP:sealioning, and why we think it's such a problem, particularly in contentious topics? Do you think you can avoid participating in that way at article talk pages? Valereee (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Marlarkey

Marlarkey p-blocked from Declaration of war and formally warned to be more mindful of policies, guidelines and best practices when editing CTOPs, particularly PIA signed, Rosguill 19:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Marlarkey

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
WeatherWriter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
Marlarkey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
WP:ARBPIA
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

  1. 19 August 2024 - Mainspace PIA edit prior to EC status.
  2. 19 August 2024 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request and acknowledgement of aforementioned edit.
  3. 19 August 2024 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request.
  4. 21 November 2024 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request. Accused another editor of vandalism.
  5. 21 November 2024 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request. Says, "I don't give a stuff about what you or Israel say about the declaration."
  6. 21 November 2024 - Direct mainspace reversion prior to EC status. Accused editor of "vandalism" in edit summary.
  7. 21 November 2024 - Direct mainspace reversion prior to EC status. Accused editor of "vandalism" in edit summary.

  1. 13 January 2025 - Direct mainspace reversion prior to EC status.
  2. 13 January 2025 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request.
  3. 13 January 2025 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Not an edit request..."Someone has reverted my removal of Israel - Hamas *AGAIN* so I've taken it out *AGAIN*."
  4. 13 January 2025 - Direct mainspace reversion prior to EC status.
  5. 13 January 2025 - Self-revert of direct previous mainspace reversion that was prior to EC status.
  6. 13 January 2024 - Direct mainspace reversion prior to EC status...Made while this enforcement request was being typed up. This reversion by Marlarkey is of an edit with the direct edit summary of "Per WP:ARBPIA". User is 100% disregarding CT requirements.
Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
N/A. No previous blocks or topic bans.
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
at 15:29, 21 November 2024.
Additional comments by editor filing complaint

User has been on Misplaced Pages (on and off) since at least January 2010. It seems there is a WP:CIR-related issue on ArbCom PIA/Contentious topics, given the very clear lack of ignorance of the ArbCom Notification and subsequent edit summary arguments. I do not necessarily believe a block will be of use in this case, due to this editor's on-and-off Misplaced Pages editing status (less than 500 edits since January 2010). Either a topic ban and/or a 1,000 EC status requirement (i.e. EC-status requirement is something higher than 500 edits) is being requested. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  • @Marlarkey: I want to keep assuming good faith, so I wanted to let you know that WP:ARBPIA is what we call "broadly constructed". If you read WP:PIA, it says, "These are the current arbitration remedies applicable to any pages and edits that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." The edit you are attempting to me is related to the Arab-Israel conflict. The page itself does not have to be entirely about the war to be covered under the restrictions. Any edit that is at least, even slightly related to the conflict is covered under the restrictions. While the page is about declarations of war throughout history, the specific edit is related to whether the Israel-Hamas war was a declaration of war. That is obviously related to the conflict, given it specifically is in regard to the Israel-Hamas war. That is why the edits were reverted and why this violation report was filed. Hopefully that makes sense. Also, just a quick side-note, accusing other editors of vandalism is assuming bad faith and is not really how Misplaced Pages operates. You should always be assuming the other editors intents with good faith. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:50, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Marlarkey: We are all working together to create a better encyclopedia. No one is against you and we do wish for all to edit Misplaced Pages. The ArbCom restrictions require that you have (1) at least an account of 30 days old and (2) at least 500 edits, to be able to edit content anywhere on Misplaced Pages regarding the Israel-Hamas war. At the time of all the edits linked above, you did not have 500 edits on Misplaced Pages. You were roughly at 490. At the time of this, you now have over 500 edits, which means you could now edit content regarding the Israel-Hamas war. That said, this report was made because of the several edits you made prior to reaching the 500 edit requirement.
Please understand this is for the edits that you made which were in clear violation of the policy, which requires you to have 500 edits prior to editing anything even remotely related to the conflict. This report was not that you are incorrect with your removal of the content. Not at all. This report is because you removed the content before you were allowed to (i.e. the 500-edit mark). Please understand we all are on the same-side here and no one is vandalizing anything. Once this is resolved, I would be more than happy to calmly discuss the content changes with you. I hope you can understand that this report is specifically because you made the changes before you were allowed to and not at all regarding the content in those changes. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:52, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Rosguill: After my last reply, I realized I went 105 words over the 500-word limit. I would like to request that 105-word extension (so I do not have to reword or remove the last reply I made). I do not plan to reply again as I think everything I needed to say and link to has been said and linked to. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:56, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested


Discussion concerning Marlarkey

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Marlarkey

WeatherWriter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is repeatedly reverting edits which are removing information outside the scope of the page in question. My edits are validly citated within the scope of the page. WeatherWriter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has cited WP:ARBPIA but that is not relevant to THIS article which is not a Palestine-Israel article. This article is not a contentious topic - it is factual.

My edits are WP:NPOV. This article is about declarations of war - the opening statement states "A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another." 1. Hamas is not a nation state - So Israel vs Hamas should not be included in the article 2. Hezbollah is not a nation state - So Israel vs Hezbollah should not be included in the article 3. Russia vs Ukraine are both nation states - the question then is whether there has been a declaration of war.

In the case 1 & 2, the removal of these two entries is WP:NPOV and the inclusion or otherwise in this article is in no way a comment on the conflict in question - only whether they constitute a declaration of war by one nation state on another. Which they do not because they are nation states.

In the case of 3, the inclusion of Russia vs Ukraine only relies on whether there has been a declaration of war. The citation I gave is documented evidence of Russia announcing that a state of war exists between Russia and Ukraine.

I suggest that by taking the action they have that the complainant is the one acting in a that asserts a political opinion about the conflict


The reference by Weatherwriter to 21 November 2024 - Talk page PIA edit prior to EC status. Is only a partial quote - what I actually said was "I don't give a stuff about what you or Israel say about the declaration. I care about whether it is in the scope of this page." The key is the final point - the scope of this article and whether the edits are validly cited in accordance with the topic of the article...namely a list of declarations of war.

Weatherwriter reversions of my edits serve to support a political opinion on a page which is about facts.

I'm pretty angry about being accused in this way when MY edits were factually based and neutral point of view, whereas by reverting my edits it does precisely the opposite, allowing contentious and politically biased information to infect the page. GRRRRRRrrr

Marlarkey (talk) 23:57, 13 January 2025 (UTC)


On another point, following me reviewing the information in this complaint by WeatherWriter... "If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)" The complainant cites a link to information which I have JUST accessed and have never seen before just now. I was NOT aware of this information so it is false to suggest that this constitutes evidence that I was aware.

Again this makes me angry at the accusations being made against me. If you don't want people editing and contributing to[REDACTED] then please just say so. GRRR Marlarkey (talk) 00:35, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

  • I give up... I'm being accused and being told off for responding to the accusation. I don't know anything about this procedure, have never seen this page before and know nothing about how this works because its new to me.
    But I get it - I'm not part of the club that decides things... so I'll let you get on with that. Marlarkey (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
(Moved from WeatherWriter's section I get it - you'd rather call me out by this procedure than have an accurate encyclopaedia article. You've made accusations against me and put me through this over restrictions that I knew nothing about and policies I knew nothing about. I simply came across something inaccurate and followed what I understood to be WP principles and made an objectively accurate edit.
So now the end result is that an inaccurate article containing a politically biased assertion is going to stay live. Marlarkey (talk) 02:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Result concerning Marlarkey

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

Marlarkey, you have gone a bit over your 500 word allotment for responses. Please do not comment further unless directly asked to. I will remove an additional reply that was both over your limit and in the wrong section. signed, Rosguill 00:40, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Weather Event Writer, extension granted as that's essentially what Marlarkey has already taken. signed, Rosguill 01:07, 14 January 2025 (UTC)


Ok, having now reviewed Declaration of war's page history, its talk page discussion, and Marlarkey's contributions more generally, I find that:

  • Marlarkey has repeatedly violated WP:PIA at Declaration of war since having received a CTOP notice
  • Irrespective of whether it is correct or not to include the Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Hezbollah war, or wars between states and non-state entities more broadly, WeatherWriter's edits to the page are plainly not vandalism, which has a specific (and serious) meaning on Misplaced Pages
  • It appears to be a long-term status quo to include non-state entities provided that there is a citation to some sort of formal declaration of war, and the page's inclusion of conflicts involving non-states Ambazonia and SADR do not appear to have been challenged at any point.
  • Marlarkey is incorrect to assert that their edit is objectively accurate. Whether the edit is accurate is subject to community consensus, and the talk page arguments in favor of inclusion base themselves on RS reporting which is a valid, policy-compliant argument. Marlarkey's arguments that a declaration of war can only occur be between two states do not make any reference to a reliable source stating this; while that text is currently in the lead of the article, it does not have a citation nor is it clear that any citation in the article directly backs this.
  • In light of discussion at Talk:Declaration of war, which at this point shows multiple editors in favor of keeping the Hamas and Hezbollah wars, only Marlarkey firmly for removing them, and one other editor calling for discussion as of December 31st, Marlarkey's edits to unilaterally remove the entries in January amount to slow-motion edit warring
  • Given that Marlarkey has had an account for well over a decade, has edited a wide variety of topics, hit 500 edits while this was happening, does not appear to have otherwise shown interest in Israel/Palestine topics, and that the edits at Declaration of war don't fit into any clear POV-warrior pattern, I don't think that pulling extended-confirmed or issuing a PIA topic ban would help.

I'm thus inclined to suggest an indefinite partial block from Declaration of war (but not its talk page) as a regular admin action for edit warring, and a logged warning to be mindful of CTOP standards. signed, Rosguill 04:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC

  • As Marlarkey stated that they were unaware of CT, I wanted to confirm that I double checked and found that the CT notice was properly left in November. If Marlarkey chose not to read it, well, that's rather on him—we can only leave messages, we can't force people to read them. I would otherwise agree with Rosguill's assessment. Seraphimblade 12:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I entirely endorse Rosguill's reading of this. I am not happy about Marlarkey's approach to our restrictions, but I don't see this as EC gaming, and I can't see how pulling EC rights could be justified at this stage. As such I endorse the proposed page block and logged warning. Marlarkey, you seem to believe that because you are right on the substance you can ignore process and guidelines - that simply isn't true. The arbitration committee has consistently held that being right isn't enough; you need to be able to edit within the scope of our policies. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Pretty much everything Rosquill said. Marlarkey, it doesn't look like you have a huge amount of experience working in WP:CTOPs. I'm sorry you're finding this upsetting, but CTOPs are a whole 'nother world, and you're either going to have to learn how to nonproblematically work there, or not work there. Valereee (talk) 18:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
    FWIW, the CTOP warning was left on your talk page. You've got your archiving set so aggressively that you may be missing a lot of messages, and it's completely plausible that you missed this one, which was only on your talk for two days, and after it was left you didn't edit for a month. However, we do assume that if you've got your archiving set that aggressively, you're keeping on top of anything important by checking your notifications to make sure you didn't miss anything.
    You can probably prevent this happening in future by having your talk page archive no more frequently than you typically go between editing sessions, leaving maybe the five most recent messages unarchived, and/or being sure to check your notifications when logging back in. Any one of those three and you've have likely seen the notification. Valereee (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

DanielVizago

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning DanielVizago

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
Schazjmd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
DanielVizago (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gender_and_sexuality#Final_decision
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
  1. 29 Dec 2024 Added Category:Misandry to a BLP, after CTOP notification and several talk page messages notifying DanielVizago that the category is not to be applied to articles about individuals (per category description, This category is for issues relating to misandry. It must not include articles about individuals, groups or media that are allegedly misandrist.);
  2. 4 Jan 2025 and 5 Jan 2025 Removing sourced content from Misogyny that states misandry is not a major an issue as misogyny;
  3. 5 Jan 2025 Changing content in Male privilege to emphasize misandry (reverted by another editor with edit summary rv, poorly sourced (sources supplemented by WP:OR and WP:SYNTH), earlier version was better, closer to sources);
  4. 13 Jan 2025 Added "bimisandry" to Biphobia, citing 4 sources, none of which include that term;
  5. 14 Jan 2025, weird edits adding Category:Female rapists with piped names to unrelated articles, then added those names directly to the category page;
  6. 14 Jan 2025 restored the "bimisandry" edit to Biphobia, then added a 5th ref that includes the term but is just a blog; I left a 4th-level warning on talk page;
  7. 14 Jan 2025 (after final warning) adds ] and ] to Hurtcore; those two individuals don't have articles and there is no mention in this article of their charges or convictions, even though the category solely consists of articles of female individuals who have been convicted of rape in a court of law.
Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
  • None
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Above diffs are all edits after the CTOP notification was provided. Before then, DanielVizago misapplied Category:Misandry to 46 articles, which is what caught my attention. Their attempts to add "bimisandry" to Biphobia started 16 Dec 2024. On 28 Dec 2024, DanielVizago added a lot of content to Supremacism about misandry, which another editor reverted with edit summary remove recently added pro-fringe section and put back the excerpt. Most of their 122 edits have been reverted by multiple editors.

Before the level 4 warning, I tried guiding DanielVizago away from CTOP; they don't engage on their talk page. (They've posted there once, to say "thanks" in response to a warning.) With their refusal to communicate, poor sourcing, and non-NPOV edits, I don't think they should be editing in this topic area. Schazjmd (talk) 23:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested


Discussion concerning DanielVizago

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by DanielVizago

Statement by caeciliusinhorto

Since this report was opened, DanielVizago has continued to make questionable edits adding articles to Category:Female rapists.

  • Possibly the worst edit, categorising a living person who has been accused (but not charged, let alone convicted) of sexual assault as a rapist (cf. WP:BLPCRIMINAL)
  • This edit adds the category to a disambiguation page on the basis of one of the people listed on that page, who had in fact been convicted not of rape but of sexual activity with a minor
  • this and this edit categorise two sexually-motivated murderers as rapists despite no evidence that they ever raped anyone in the article (cf. WP:CATV)

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Simonm223

Might be wise, as long as doing so wouldn't interfere with evidence, to get a revision deletion on some of the diffs presented above that make unfounded statements about BLPs. Simonm223 (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning DanielVizago

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
  • I've p-blocked from article space to see if we can get this editor communicating. Valereee (talk) 12:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I want to hear what they have to say, but I'm going to need a fairly convincing explanation as to how they're here to build an encyclopedia and not to POV-push men's rights activism content where it doesn't belong. The IDHT and spammy behavior and the BLP vios on top of that aren't super encouraging, either, but if they decide to communicate, I'm happy to reassess. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:56, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    I'd like to hear what they have to say, too, but I'm also not averse to letting this archive with no further action since the p-block is an indef. I've left another message at their talk. Valereee (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

]

Ekdalian

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Ekdalian

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
NXcrypto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
Ekdalian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
WP:ARBIPA
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
  1. 12:51, 11 January 2025 - Restoring recently added disputed content, contrary to WP:ONUS
  2. 21:55, 11 January 2025 - Casting unsubstantiated aspersions and poisoning the well against another editor.
  3. 12:01, 13 January 2025 - Poisoning the well against another user without any evidence of misconduct.
  4. 19:11, 15 January 2025 - Restoring recently added disputed content again and essentially asking to get consensus for it, contrary to WP:ONUS.
  5. 15:05, 16 January 2025 - Performs a blanket revert in order to make a WP:POINT, just because their previous edit was reverted, despite it being the version that was arrived upon by a month long discussion on the talkpage, also saying "LE also wants to discuss and revisit the content proposed by the sock" , LukeEmily later elaborated that they are okay with the version that Ekdalian was actually reverting
  6. 17:42, 16 January 2025 - Same as above but edit warring
  7. 19:42, 16 January 2025 - Edit warring and casting aspersions saying that reverting editor is acting like the blocked sock Nobita456 "stop behaving like Nobita please"
  8. 14:31, 18 January 2025 - Attacks and tries to poison the well against another editor also says that "WP:ONUS doesn't mean you need to achieve consensus with editors condemned by admins for persistent POV pushing! "
  9. 18:47, 18 January 2025 - Restores the aforementioned attack saying "Related to the content only, related to WP:CONSENSUS to be precise; accept the truth, I don't want to report minor incidents" when told to focus on content
  10. 18:29, 19 January 2025 - calling a WP:NOTVANDAL edit as vandalism and issues final warning for vandalism
Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
  1. Date Explanation
  2. Date Explanation
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
  • Has a {{Ds/aware|ipa}} template for the area of conflict on their own talk page. and notified of WP:ARBIPA by Dennis Brown in 2022
Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I also note that Ekdalian has a history of aggressive edit warring in the contentious topic as a part of slow running edit war.On Bengali Kayastha, many of their most recent edits have been reverts to prevent content addition as well. It has gotten to the point where experienced users like Sitush have called them out for it because they usually misrepresent the consensus or comments by editors such as Sitush to claim that consensus already exists when there is none, they do not provide diffs when asked to substantiate their claims either. They have been reprimanded in past over similar conduct about misrepresentation and exaggeration by @Dennis Brown: on this venue as well. They have a history of attacking other users and trying to poison the well against them instead of focusing on the content as diffs above prove.

I am not seeking any topic bans but Ekdalian should be at least told not to misuse the talk page for adding more fuel into heated disputes, and use the revert button only when it is necessary. Nxcrypto Message 03:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm unimpressed by your defence of #10, it was an unsourced change, sure disruptive but not vandalism (which has a very specific meaning). Please refer to WP:NOTVANDAL. Nxcrypto Message 07:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested


Discussion concerning Ekdalian

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Ekdalian

I have nothing to say as such! I have been serving Misplaced Pages since 2013, particularly related to contentious caste articles, fighting against caste promotion, POV pushing and vandalism. Heated debates are common in the contentious topics. I have neither violated 3RR, nor abused any editor! Yes, in case someone has been topic banned and condemned by admins, I do mention the same so that NPOV is not violated. Many admins are aware of my activities including SPI, anti-disruption and anti-vandalism. Thanks & Regards. Ekdalian (talk) 06:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Action (warning) may be taken against NXcrypto for being unable to identify vandalism (refer to point number 10), and wasting the time of our admins! Thanks. Ekdalian (talk) 06:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Nxcrypto, it is a clear case of vandalism. The user intends to misrepresent and project their caste as Kulin Kayastha (higher status among Bengali Kayasthas) by intentionally changing Eastern (Bengal) to Western! Moreover, the user has done similar vandalism in multiple articles only in order to promote Western Bengali Guhas. Thanks. Ekdalian (talk) 08:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
  • In response to Bishonen's comments, I would like to inform here that Sitush is referring to my response at a time when Nobita456's sock was driving a discussion and I had filed an SPI! Therefore, I was delaying the discussion in order to eliminate the sock from the same. Sitush has been quoted out of context! Thanks. Ekdalian (talk) 12:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
    Orientls, the user has already been blocked for vandalism; I have years of experience in this area and quite sure of what I have mentioned! Thanks. Ekdalian (talk) 06:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Bishonen: I have clearly mentioned that I am not sure! But, Orientls seems to be so sure that they have stated that I am 'falsely' accusing him of meatpuppetry! How can you be so sure that there has been no mail exchanges? Orientls, do you think you are God? Regards. Ekdalian (talk) 06:39, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Orientls

I find this comment by Ekdalian unpalatable: "The user intends to misrepresent and project their caste as Kulin Kayastha." How are you so sure of their caste? I don’t see where they have self-identified as such, and you also accuse them of attempting to project "their caste'" with another one by "vandalising" Misplaced Pages, which is a serious accusation against a new editor. I think an editor of your tenure should be able to recognize what constitutes vandalism because those edits are not vandalism, you should also refrain from speculating about the caste of editors.

This reasoning seems odd, especially when Sitush himself states: "CharlesWain began this discussion. They are not a sock, are they?" , implying that you were opposing changes proposed by an editor who was not a sock by misrepresenting Sitush's comments. I also think canvassing was inappropriate, particularly with its problematic heading, "Kind attention: Bishonen and admins active here." It sounds as if you are trying to recruit people to back you up here.

Honestly, I’m not surprised by the diffs cited in the report, especially if your conduct at ARE is like this where your edits are under scrutiny.

@Bishonen: While the filer himself made it clear that he is not "seeking any topic bans", Ekdalian deserves a topic ban following this new message. By calling an editor with almost 4k edits a "comparatively new user" and falsely accusing him of "meatpuppetry", Ekdalian has proven he is not capable of editing here without poisoning the well and making personal attacks. Orientls (talk) 03:44, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Ekdalian

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
  • I will point out that I was canvassed to this discussion by Ekdalian. That said, I'll state that I don't think NXcrypto's diffs are anything much; it's surely a stretch to call them "casting apersions" and "poisoning the well" and the like, especially in the IPA area where the tone is often sharp. The comments by Sitush are a little more concerning, though. Bishonen | tålk 10:08, 21 January 2025 (UTC).

Alex 19041

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Alex 19041

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
Est. 2021 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 16:05, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
Alex 19041 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
WP:ARBPIA & WP:IBAN
Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
  1. 21 January 2025
If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning Alex 19041

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Alex 19041

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Alex 19041

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

  • To recap what's already been said at the initial hearing this got at ARBCOM, it has been identified that Alex19041 is not extended-confirmed, has now been made aware of the 30/500 editing restriction for PIA, has acknowledged that they should not make any edits to the topic, but has not quite acknowledged that they also should not make comments relating to the topic outside of article space. If they can acknowledge that, an IBAN would be unnecessary as they will not be engaging further with the discussion at-issue for some time. If they can't acknowledge that, we'd likely need to escalate to blocks, as there's no reason to expect the IBAN to be observed. Some concern was also raised that Est. 2021's replies to Alex 19041 included personal attacks, although it should be noted that Est. 2021 has made an effort to remove potentially-problematic statements from their prior comments at ARBCOM (sections on their talk page containing similar language have been removed entirely, which is within their purview on a user talk page). signed, Rosguill 16:25, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
  • (came here from the ill-fated ArbCom case request). I agree with Rosguill. Some assurance from Alex 19041 and from Est. 2021 that they will leave the problematic edits behind would be good.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I agree that the reported user needs to show some understanding that as a non-EC user, they need to leave this CTOP alone across all namespaces. However, sanctions are for serious, ongoing problems, three unwelcome talk page posts made over the course of an hour does not strike me as sufficient cause for a formal iban. If there's more to it than that, it needs to be made clear, with diffs. Beeblebrox 21:48, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Denali-related pages

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Denali-related pages

User who is submitting this request for enforcement
Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 22:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
User against whom enforcement is requested
] (] ···· filter log ·· block log)

Search CT alerts:  • in system log


Sanction or remedy to be enforced
WP:CT/AP

I think this is the right place to ask for this? Requesting an expansion of WP:CT/AP to cover all articles related to Denali, as it has unfortunately become a political hot-button issue as the POTUS made it a prioroty on his first day back in office to sign an executive order to revert the name of the mountain back to "Mt. McKinley".

In the past twenty-four hours there has been heavy editing/disruption in articles and on related talk pages and protection has been needed at several. Denali was probably hit hardest, but Denali–Mount McKinley naming dispute got some too, as has Denali National Park and Preserve, which is explicitly not even part of the executive order. I wouldn't be surprised if the same issue is happening in Gulf of Mexico related articles, but haven't checked for myself. Beeblebrox 22:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, just checked Gulf of Mexico. 28 new talk page sections in the past day, was already ECP protected two weeks ago per WP:CT/AP.
I kinda think a single admin could do this, but I am editorially involved and probably slightly too infuriated to be objective. Beeblebrox 22:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies, that's kind of what I thought, but again didn't want to act on it as I'm editorially involved. Beeblebrox 22:41, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
Additional comments by editor filing complaint


Discussion concerning Denali-related pages

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Denali-related pages

Statement by Isabelle

Since I've protected Denali's talk page, I will comment here. I agree that we will be seeing serious issues in the coming month, considering all the shit the new president is throwing at the wall, but I believe the administrators are well equip to deal with this at the moment. I believe Valereee has protected the Gulf of Mexico's talk page, and I've dealt with Mount Denali's. We might need to apply more extensive protection during this coming month to stop the vandals, but current tools will do just fine. Isabelle Belato 23:04, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Valereee

Pinged here: yes, I've semi'd Talk:Gulf of Mexico, yesterday for 24 hours, today for another 31. I dislike protecting a talk, but it was a burden for editors working there. Valereee (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

100+ edits today on the article, which is EC protected. I feel like that's a lot. Valereee (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Denali-related pages

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
@Beeblebrox: AMPOL already covers "Post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed". I think that "broadly construed" would include Denali and Gulf of Mexico in the current moment. In any event, I think you'd want to go to ARCA, not here, for an amendment. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
Also, Denali is already ECP and Denali National Park and Preserve has semi-protection. There's no protection on Denali–Mount McKinley naming dispute, but I'm not seeing anything in the page history that would justify it.l voorts (talk/contributions) 22:36, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
  • AE couldn't expand the scope of an existing CT designation; only ArbCom could do that. But I don't think we need to. If the disruption is related to a current American politics controversy, that's clearly related to "post-1992 politics of the United States", and so is already in scope of the existing CT designation. So, I'd say just treat it as such. Seraphimblade 22:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
Categories:
Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests: Difference between revisions Add topic