Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive106

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 17:35, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

FkpCascais (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBMAC

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 22:35, December 22, 2011 He accused a discussion participant, DIREKTOR (talk · contribs), of committing personal attacks and trolling and insisted on him getting blocked and on continuing the protection of the article being discussed.
2. 07:33, December 23, 2011 After his report failed he went to the admin that originally protected the article and asked him to extend the protection, but this request also failed.
3. 16:59, December 23, 2011 He then attempted to get AniMate (talk · contribs), an admin who commented in the incident report against DIREKTOR, blocked for what Fkp has called "blatant lying" via Jimmy Wales' talkpage.
4. 04:43, December 27, 2011‎ He attempted to get another participant, Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs), blocked on the basis that he is a sockpuppet. This also failed.
5. 05:50, December 28, 2011 He then asked the admin who closed the SP investigation to "reconsider".

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. 05:52, April 16, 2011 Warning
2. 09:24, June 2, 2011 "1 revert per 48 hours" for 6 months restriction

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

It is evident that FkpCascais is gaming the system and does not wish to participate in a proper discussion, but get users who disagree with him blocked by any means necessary and coerce admins. This is just the latest episode, but Fkp has a history of using whatever evasive techniques possible in order to dismiss sources and sourced information: he misquotes policies, seeks further protection, and flat out ignores sources. When all this failed he went on this spree you see above.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[1]

This is actually ironic, as I was the one insisting on discussion and consensus building, and the one who analised and found flaws in sources, while it were the others that sabotaged discussion and restarted the edit-war immediatelly after the protection was lifted. Whoever reads the reports and checks what really happend will see what is really going on. In my view it seems great that the issue was brought here, as there was a number of disruptive episodes that were ignored to the other side. I am available for any clarifications. FkpCascais (talk) 04:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am user who didn't participated in entire process, neither on article, nor on talk page. Well, reporting user failed to state that edit warring did restarted after page protection ended. So, it looks like FkpCascais suspicion was well founded, as user is question (DIREKTOR) didnt want to find consensus, but just waited for protection to end. Following that, his move to protect the page until agreement was the best possible Wikipedia guideline practice, while this report may (amd probably is) bad faith, as PRODUCER is under dispute with him in this content dispute, while FkpCascais didnt edit article in question since 19 December... But he is trying to follow Wikipedia guidelines, what may be quite a problem to some. And PRODUCER is the one who is trying to block users with whom is in dispute. This report is one, and this comment other obvious example. This only looks like a WP:BOOMERANG to me. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 13:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• (edit conflict) User:WhiteWriter, while you've not participated in that particular discussion, please avoid trying to present yourself as anything like a "neutral" party. You are FkpCascais' "ally" and friend, and always come put in favor of his position. As I said on ANI, I do not pretend to be neutral here as I am engaged in a content dispute with FkpCascais, but nevertheless, I believe the disruption that is taking place there is a real issue that needs to be reviewed and addressed by objective, neutral users. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• A consensus was achieved between the other users in the dispute who properly engaged the sources and policies. Fkp spent more effort "lobbying" to get the article protected with his preferred version intact and using source evasion tactics than he did properly engaging in discussion. As for your suggestion that I'm acting on bad faith: I first brought this up at the ANI incidents page due to the concern of other individuals and this was done after discussions were wrapped up. Only after an admin recommended that this is be taken to AE and after it was evident that no one wished to get involved in a Balkans incident was this report made. So enough with trying to make it appear I have it out for Fkp. Further more, I don't know what point your trying to make with that archives link other than a misleading one. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 14:35, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is absolutely untrue that a consensus was achieved. People who had one opinion always were on consensus while people of another opinion did not agree to the biased views imposed on the article. The article is filed with tenacious editing and my sources which I have backed up have continually been removed due to POV of the edit warring parties, Producer and Direktor. What bothers me the most is that even after I had provided sources by scanning pages, these users disregard that. Producer for example outright says that he does not believe this and that... it's become very difficult to deal with these users who simply do not want to negotiate anything that is different from what they believe. Especially with Direktor, who often threatens when one dares change something - his continual threats are seen all over the Yugoslav Partisans talk page. (LAz17 (talk) 16:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)).[reply]

Nonsense, a version that all participants agreed on including myself, DIREKTOR, and Peacemaker27 was made. Do not try to create this image that we all unanimously agree on everything because that is simply not the case. I would like admins to note that LAz17 was indefinitely blocked for his tenacious editing by breaching his topic ban with the article in question and was later arbitrarily unblocked for no apparent reason. [2][3] I would like to point out for the record that while he was blocked he evaded his block with a sockpuppet, GibbonGiboo (talk · contribs), posing as "neutral" party who came "came to the page by accident" in order to sway the matter to his advantage through numbers and even admitted the matter on his talkpage. [4] In addition to this he had the shear tenacity to refer to me, sneakingly through a file he links in his apparent appeal, as "PRODUCER ustaska govnarcina" = "PRODUCER the Ustase shithead". [5] Now to top it all off he is spreading misinformation to the events that occurred. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 17:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but you purpously forget to tell that you, DIREKTOR and Peacekeeper share the same POV... LAz17 may be a young editor but he clearly had his reasons on article content. BTW, perhaps admins should check yours and DIREKTOR´s block logs to have a clearer view. FkpCascais (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except that we do not, and constantly repeating that we do, does not make it any truer. Fkp, do you really believe LAz17's tenacious editing, violation of his topic ban, sockpuppeteering (GibbonGiboo (talk · contribs)), and personal attacks ("PRODUCER the Ustase shithead") are to be ignored on a whim because of his age and because he had "his reasons"? Frankly I'm astounded at your suggestion that his actions were justified. -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 19:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been blocked, and recently have been unblocked.

I did not do tenacious editing. You and Direktor did. Direktor did it in the past, but I was not allowed to address it due to bans. Finally the bans have been lifted so I look forward to mediation to resolve the issue after the holidays are over. Some weird things happen on wikipedia, like how Direktor and you are allowed to edit war without being punished. But so be it, mediation will hopefully solve the disagreements. (LAz17 (talk) 19:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)).[reply]

The problem PRODUCER is that by LAz17 being blocked and unexperienced doesn´t make you necessarilly right about everything. FkpCascais (talk) 19:28, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FkpCascais, I'm going to request mediation for the article on January 10th. By then the holidays will pass and Producer/Direktor will not be able be able to simply reject sources that are not to their liking, like they have been doing up till now. Not sure about you, but I have been threatened by them a lot in that talk page, much more than you have. It's quite aggravating. (LAz17 (talk) 19:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)).[reply]

I beleave that any step towards conflict resolution which includes supervision from some uninvolved admin is welcomed. FkpCascais (talk) 19:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for going into some detail.

FkpCascais' statement is more of a retaliatory "counter-attack" in-line with his WP:BATTLE perceptions, rather than a proper response, and as usual concerns itself primarily with the behavior of others rather than that of himself. It does however provide some context on the serious problem that, in my opinion, needs to be addressed in some way. Namely, his perception of discussion is that it is a "battleground" where he need only achieve numerical superiority in order to prevail, and where sources can be opposed on any nonsense imaginary grounds as long as this is so. The user obviously and without doubt holds that his feelings and opinions should be taken into account as "counterweights" to sources. His goal is to have allies (like the Serbian User:WhiteWriter), who, even when he lacks any semblance of a coherent argument, might drown out any source-based opposition on the talkpage, and which might help him justify the removal of referenced text through his many WP:EDIT WARS. I am not afraid to say that FkpCascais is an exceedingly disruptive, textbook WP:POV-PUSHER of the most obvious order, as defined on WP:NPOVD and WP:ADVOCACY. His activities on Wikipedia prominently include Serbian football - and the preservation of the good name of the World War II Serbian nationalist Chetnik movement.

The usual modus operandi is the user will

• 1) oppose sourced information on the basis of opinion. If its negative info on the Chetniks, FkpCascais will oppose it. If there is a source, he will attack the author (on the basis of his "assessments"). If people don't buy that, he'll simply claim (without backing) that the sources is "misrepresented". If there are several sources, he will quote WP:UNDUE (again without any backing). He might proclaim the sourced fact is "outrageous" or "exceptional" (because he thinks so), and he might demand more sources until he is personally satisfied, which of course, has never ever happened yet. I can go on and on like this, there's a lot more. Even when all his objections are rejected, and the sources are overwhelming, he will not agree to add whatever they support, he will simply go away for a while to start the conflict anew with a different baseless objections from the arsenal above.
• Then he will typically 2) remove this information from the article (without exception edit-warring against any opposition); at the same time
• 3) he and maybe one or two of his friends will oppose the sourced info on the talkpage supporting his actions (a couple users is enough on these obscure articles). The user can then proclaim that the sourced information is "non-consensus" (on the basis of his own thoughts, feelings, and opinions), and voilà - sources are ignored on our project. When the user cannot swing enough pals to join him (which he continuously tries to do), he of course continues to edit-war and oppose sources. And even when that fails - there's a contingency: he desperately tries to get the opposing users blocked so the numbers on the talkpage are back in his favor (even with the most absurd tactics, such as posting an SPI case where he admits that User:Peacemaker67 acts like an entirely different person, but that this is all part of his "plan" and so forth :)). His perception of discussion is textbook WP:BATTLE.

The sheer WP:DISRUPTION these tactics have caused on many Balkans articles is difficult to explain. FkpCascais is a phenomenon onto himself. Prominent examples are available all over Talk:Chetniks and Talk:Yugoslav Partisans. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, right. The steps you describe are actually your own attitude, thus you know them so well. Also, curious enough is the fact that all neutral participants ended up mostly disagreing with you, like User:Fainites, User:Sunray, User:Nuujinn or User:Jean-Jacques Georges and I am counting only the ones who are long-established and non-involved. Yes, we are all "evil Chetniks", right, disturbing the poor innocent direktor who does nothing less than edits of this kind, where he ignores discussion, restarts an edit war, removes sourced info about ethnic composition, replaces it by a new section named "Croatian Partisans", and adds an accusation of "ethnic cleansing" to Chetniks without even having a source saying it... Very "neutral"... Outragius is the fact that you managed to remove all other users from the discussions by all other means than demonstrating to be right. So now it is only me and Nuujinn left, and I am the first and next to be eliminated, right? But, I am doing everything under policies, so needs some extra efforts and all the imagination and manipulation of events as possible.

Once I see you using my hobbie football as excuse, It really means I can edit in peace and that I am doing a good job. Perhaps you should better prepare yourself, as immediatelly after I find some more time after hollydays I will challenge all disputed edits that you managed to insert into the article, and I´ll definitelly ask for a neutral third party to be present (RfC, RfM, or any other WP mean of solving disputes), as I refuse myself to keep on continuosly being ganged-up by you. FkpCascais (talk) 16:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DIREKTOR's description of your behavior is absolutely spot on. You attack reliable sources with whatever baseless and invalid accusations you can come up with and simply brush them off because they do not pass your personal arbitrary standards: [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] (Note these are only some examples from the past month) In addition to this, you regard and treat Wikipedia as a battleground of sorts and even use the terminology that someone on an actual battleground uses: [14] -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 21:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those same concerns about your sources are shared by other neutral users, as seen in this discussion (Nuujinn has informed that he is on hollydays, so they are probably counting as this time as the ideal for this unfounded accusations against me). If you are all so sure of yourself, why all this effort of avoiding resolution disputes? You have a wrong approach into this important historical articles, as you disregard what actual scholars say, but you try to source your own missconceptions first. You are adding conflicting nationalistic content into articles, not me. You just have a biased view on the issue, and you think that by finding a couple of weak sources you can make and expand your own OR in WP... Anyone has the right to oppose it by citing adequate policies and flaws, and if you don´t like it, well, that is not my problem. If calling another user to bring sources is "offensive" to you, well, what should I think of DIREKTOR´s 80 counted reverts at Chetniks article? Accept arbitration, instead of loosing all the time trying to eliminate me and the others opposing you. In other words, if I am so bad and wrong as you claim, why is that I am the one asking for neutral arbitration of some kind, while you are doing all the possible to avoid it? Don´t answer to me, as I know the answers. FkpCascais (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

• I don't know if I see enough here for a sanction for disruption. FkpCascais does seem to be flailing quite a bit going to AN/I, two admins and SPI to get action against someone without much evidence of anything. I'd lean more towards an admonishment unless other admins think there's enough here for a TBAN. --WGFinley (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The warring parties are not giving us much usable information to work with. (Looks to be some kind of a giant argument about sources that would take months to read through). FkpCascais did just come off a six-month 1RR/48h limitation on Yugoslavia-related articles that was imposed by Future Perfect. That was based on this ANI discussion from 2 June, 2011, and FP's sanctioning message was here, which includes some diffs of what he believes were the improper edits. That's all I have time to dig into tonight, and FP unfortunately seems to be still on vacation. Without fully understanding FkpCascais's last sanction, it's hard to tell if it should be continued.

• When we find that people continue the same arguments year after year and seem unable to converge on a solution without constant admin supervision, we do sometimes impose bans from the troublesome articles. Since we don't have hundreds of hours to research this, and the parties are not helping, something like that might be considered. In the case of Mass killings under Communist regimes, we finally resorted to permanent full protection and are using edit requests to make changes. That's another option to consider. Here we have several articles about the Yugoslav Partisans where either the editors or the articles might have to be restricted. Unsure which of these options would be practical. EdJohnston (talk) 05:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I took a while to more extensively look at the behavior of the parties concerned across these articles. The following would outline my findings.

• Is in philosophical opposition to Direktor/Producer and frequently questions the credibility of sources though frequently without providing any of his/her own. Prime example: Talk:Yugoslav_Partisans#Content_dispute. FkpCascais pointed to this as example of violations by his opposition when all I can see is FkpCascais wants to remove sourced material in the article, the sources appear to be reliable to me (one of them is the BBC) but FkpCascais offers no sources to contradict those provided.
• Talk:Chetniks is another example of this behavior specifically Talk:Chetniks#Non-Serbian_Chetniks, I see FkpCascais doing a lot of objecting with no sources being supplied. I can see why the others get frustrated.
• Going to all the various venues including Jimbo's talk page is pretty egregious forum shopping and shouldn't be condoned in this topic space, these disputes spiral out of control just fine on their own.
• Has pushed pretty heavily for mediation, Direktor and Producer seem to be uninterested, that is their right, all parties have to be willing to mediate for mediation to be meaningful.

In light of these facts and prior sanctions I think a 90-day ARBMAC TBAN is in order.

• Currently on indefinite block for socking.[15]

As this socking was used to avoid sanctions and a previous unblocking agreement I think an indefinite ARBMAC TBAN is in order in case he should ever be unblocked. Also since he's using his talk page to further his position in these disputes I would remove his talk page access as well.

I have other concerns about WP:OWN that Direktor in particular can exert on these articles and while he can be a bit condescending the work is generally well sourced and there is evidence of trying to collaborate with others on these articles. I don't see any action to be taken at this time outside of a reminder to the others to stick to sources, avoid personal attacks and work to build consensus on talk pages.

Barring any other admin objections I'll close this one out with these actions. --WGFinley (talk) 01:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree that a topic ban of FkpCascais is appropriate. No objection to the ban of LAz17. Regarding Fkp, the problems have been going on for a very long time and if your thought is that a ban addresses the problem, I think that six months is a more reasonable duration. Will accept your judgment either way. EdJohnston (talk) 06:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In recent months, there has been a substantial increase in the volume of commentary on enforcement requests. Much of this commentary is not by uninvolved editors and administrators, but individuals unconnected with the enforcement request in hand yet involved in the related subject area. When my term on the Arbitration Committee begins on 1 January 2012, I hope to discuss with my colleagues whether the enforcement process is operating to the satisfaction of the administrators who contribute here; from the astonishingly low number who choose to play an enforcement role, I suspect it isn't. I know from my own time on this noticeboard that it is frustrating to read excessive comments by users who are not the complainant or respondent but who edit the related topic or article, and I therefore propose we prohibit such participation in future. A minority of such comments are useful, and I don't want to tar all contributors to contentious topics with the same brush, but I think we can agree that most input of this type is not helpful.

I am receptive to a partial prohibition, for instance only on comments that do not point out factual errors in the submission or an administrator's observation (which may be fairest), but I think a complete limitation would be easier to enforce. (The terms of the prohibition would have to be elucidated clearly: some low benchmark of non-routine edits per month to an article or talk page on the topic may be easiest). Do any other editors think this would be a sensible change to our practices? I have opened this discussion here because the talk page for this noticeboard redirects to the talk for the main arbitration requests page, the scope of which is too broad for this issue, and because I know the other administrators who watch this page are guaranteed to see my proposal if I post it here. If my proposal would not make this an easier place to contribute, then I'm fine with that, but I am keen to address the hostile environment that this page creates - and I think reducing the obligatory debates that enforcement threads create would be a productive first move. AGK [•] 00:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would welcome this. It seems that it is very easy for certain editors to game the system by using extensive use of hard to follow edits in their section and in replies to others, and often recently (and seemingly tolerated) comments in the admin section as well. It was very obvious that most admins and others could not keep up the pace in such cases. How's about adding some requirement limiting one's comments to their sub-section for starters (with authority of anyone to move editor's comments back to their sub-section). Allowing people to reply in order in sub-sections is convenient for the flow of the discussion but encourages a discussion if you know what I mean. Another suggestion is limiting each editor to 500 - 1000 words and not allow endless replies and counter replies. --Shuki (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The very same question is discussed here: Comments by other editors on WP:AE cases. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 01:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if there has been an increase per request (non-involved editors, not total words). Regardless, I think any change should be specific to the I-P cases since that is the ongoing problem (the system may not be in shambles for editors seeking remedies in other topic areas)Cptnono (talk) 07:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said in other discussions I think the proposal is good and I support it.If people think its too extreme the other option would be to create are two different section for involved and uninvolved.The section of the involved should be hated.--Shrike (talk) 13:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that some users tend to just drop by with a predictable bunch of accusations, usually either reliant on ancient diffs irrelevant to the current dispute, or with no supporting evidence whatever. Over time, one can learn to ignore the more tendentious commentators and focus on the useful ones, but the sheer length of discussion in some cases might I suppose be daunting to a less experienced administrator.

Regardless, I couldn't support an outright ban on comments from users not directly involved in a given dispute, because I think the arguments of some editors who fall into this category can be extremely worthwhile. I suppose it might be possible to allow uninvolved admins to redact material they deem irrelevant to the current case, or to remove accusations unsupported by evidence, but then, I dislike anything that smacks of censorship, and disputes arising from redactions might end up making the whole idea more trouble than it is worth. Arguably there may also be an element of catharsis involved in these cases, where users get to blow off a little steam and head back to the topic area feeling a little calmer. So while the notion may sound agreeable in theory - who wouldn't like to read less in these cases? - in practice I have doubts about its efficacy. Given that cases are often open for quite a while, one usually has time to stay up to speed with all the new comments in any event. Gatoclass (talk) 15:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted in the discussion Che linked above, I think there should be a closer look at the specific behaviors creating this problem and the general topic area or particular editors who are contributing to the toxic atmosphere most.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I pretty much agree with Gatoclass. While this is a good-faithed proposal, it is also misguided.

First, not all comments by "involved" editors are junk. In fact, "involved" editors tend to have the most thorough and detailed - although often biased - knowledge of particular disputes. Yes, I know reading some of these comments can be a big pain in the butt, but I just don't see how an "uninvolved" admin can come to any sort of reasonable conclusion regarding an issue without being at least minimally familiar with the issues at hand. And that means reading and checking what "involved" parties have to say.

Second, even if a particular "involved" editor is not the subject of an AE request themselves they very often fall into a broader category of... let's call it 'stakeholder' or 'interested party'. Editors often collaborate with one another, and a sanction against one particular editor may affect the work of others. Hence, it is natural that, as 'interested parties', other "involved" editors express their opinion. In fact, this kind of practice, is part and parcel of any kind of adjudicating process in the real world.

Third, the proposal is pretty much unenforceable. As someone else pointed out somewhere else, all you're gonna get is that instead of people bickering over some particular issue, they're going to start to bicker over whether or not they are "involved" or "uninvolved" and no explicit standard or threshold is going to prevent that. I've certainly seen plenty of editors and admins make claims of "uninvolvedness" over the years, despite the fact that in my own subjective opinion they were very clearly "involved".

Fourth, "uninvolved", by Wikipedia's definition, does not mean "unbiased", nor does "involved" imply "biased". Not only there's no "if and only if" here, there's no "if" and there's no "only if". As an example you can have an admin or an editor who has gotten into arguments with a subject of an AE request OVER OTHER ISSUES - hence, technically, "uninvolved" - come to AE to pursue personal grudges. I have never been able to understand why this kind of pursuit of personal conflicts is seen as "ok" by Wikipedia's standards (its definition of "uninvolved"), while having people who are knowledgeable about a particular issue is seen as problematic.

Fifth, here, the proposal does in fact sound like an attempt at censorship or at least at silencing some voices simply because they are perceived by some admins as "irritating" (read: they force admins to actually work a little before coming to a conclusion). I'm sorry, but just because some editors tend to annoy admins with their comments and "that it is frustrating to read excessive comments" is no reason to start silencing people. In fact, dealing with such comments is part of the job description and part of what an administrator who chooses to be active at AE signs up for. The purpose of AE is to help solve problems not to make banning people easy and arbitrary by making life easy for admins.

So, um Oppose. Volunteer Marek  18:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

<- I think part of the problem is that the stakes are too high. There is often an opportunity to remove a perceived opponent/problem from the topic area for a lengthy period. Some editors are therefore willing to invest a lot of time and words in trying to achieve that objective (despite it having no effect on what reliable sources have to say and no effect on everyone's obligations to comply with mandatory policy no matter what their personal opinions are on an issue). Since bans are potentially lengthy, admins may take too long to process cases and the whole process can become self-sustaining and ant mill-like. I think lengthy and indefinite bans should be reserved for the really egregious cases where someone is clearly incapable of following policy or just doesn't care about it. They are usually obvious when they come up and they often don't even make it here because the editor is simply blocked by an admin. Routine cases of editors not complying with policy and the sanctions could be dealt with quickly using temporary preventative topic bans for fixed periods like a month. The objective should be to make editors and therefore content better by quickly addressing misbehavior, not to reduce admin burden. If an editor does something wrong they could be topic banned for a month. If they do it again when they come back they get another month and so on until they learn that not following the rules gets them quickly topic banned for a month everytime. When editors are not getting the message that they must comply with policy they should be topic banned quickly and for long enough to stop them causing disruption over a particular discussion/issue. I don't see why the cases couldn't be dealt with quickly like edit warring/1RR reports so that the admin burden isn't too high and editors don't feel the urge to make extensive comments. Unfortunately the sanctions (Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Editors_counseled) talk in terms of what editors who find it difficult to edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and adhere to other Wikipedia policies are "counseled" and "may wish" to do when they should explicitly spell out that editing privileges within the topic area will be revoked if an editor cannot edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and adhere to other Wikipedia policies. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:07, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that cases brought to AE are not always straightforward and obvious. Sometimes there is a need for detail and longer explanations and opinions from others involved can provide insight that uninvolved editors would not.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True occasionally but policy violations are almost always obvious because anyone familiar with the topic area will have seen them hundreds of times before. People keep making the same patently invalid edits to articles and patently invalid arguments on talk pages. I think part of the complexity and inertia in these cases comes from admins having to factor in previous "bad behavior" and previous sanctions. I don't think they should do that. I think everyone should have a clean slate after they have completed one or any number of one month topic bans. If they mess up again they just get another topic ban. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:03, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've identified the fundamental problem with this proposal Sean - in a process where a user can face an indefinite topic ban for the slightest technical infraction, the stakes are simply too high to be disallowing evidence. If, on the other hand, there was a set and limited penalty for certain kinds of infractions, like breaches of 1RR for example, it really wouldn't matter a lot whether someone was unfairly sanctioned, because they'd be returning to editing in a relatively short time anyway. In that circumstance, I think it would be acceptable to have a total ban on comments from parties not directly involved - but not otherwise. It's partly for this reason, BTW, that I started developing a "lightweight" process for dealing with common problems, which can be read here. I've been intending to push ahead with development of this process for some weeks now, but unfortunately haven't been able to find the time. If you or anyone else would like to comment on the proposal, feel free to do so, on the associated talk page. Gatoclass (talk) 08:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The two users can present the evidence themselves why they need a cheering team?Most of the comments say eventually the same thing and in 99% of the time is pretty obvious what party the involved user is going to support.--Shrike (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion to allow outside comments with strict limits: Have a page with sections worked on by one or more editors who all agree to work together (one editor can only participate in one section). The idea would be to workshop a "perfect" statement of their case, within some predefined maximum size. There would be a defined period (three days?) allowed for this; after the period, some "do not change" box would be applied. The AE page would have a link to the statement. Corrections of fact would be a problem—perhaps don't allow them. The world is not perfect, and AE cannot be perfect either. Johnuniq (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see why so many people are pushing for stricter limitations on all editors without regard to the fact that some cases are more complicated than others, when it is obvious to me that this is an issue of bad behavior from certain editors. Forcing everyone to work within a restricted environment where they will effectively have to prove in one paragraph why a mountain of evidence, as some cases often involve, does not amount to a violation worthy of sanction would give all the power to the filing editor and force more work on the admins as they would be forced to suss out whether there are other facts not mentioned in the case. Some may very well tire of going out to look for that and be quicker to hand out sanctions, thus meaning the initial case will be lopsided in favor of the filing editor. I believe that there are legitimate concerns about behavior on AE, but they concern specific behavior that is generally already frowned-upon or prohibited in AE and other areas for requesting administrative action. Why not consider ways to more strictly enforce those existing standards rather than create new standards that will serve as an impediment to all editors?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a good idea to limit the input from involved editors when a dispute is taken to AE. I'm aware that involved editors can sometimes offer useful insight into disputes, but I think that it usually does more harm than good. Too often AE threads turn into a messy, uncontrolled rehash of the original dispute due to the heavy involvement of other editors from the dispute's origin. A lot of the time these editors become involved just to support their friends or to push for sanctions against the editors they dislike, without offering any new insights on whether the complaint itself is valid. This is a problem in more topic areas than just Palestine and Israel articles.

Ultimately it should be the job of the filer of the complaint to adequately provide the necessary background and diffs, and the subject of the complaint to attempt to justify or explain them. That should be enough information for admins to make a decision. I do not have a strong opinion on whether all involved editor comments should be disallowed from AE, or whether they should somehow be limited, but I would not be against a total prohibition. Overall I support the proposal.

If implemented, I think that some measure should also be taken to prevent subsequent editors from filing the same complaint (based on the same set of diffs) about an individual if the first one failed. I imagine that this could be an unfortunate result of this proposal if multiple involved editors are disallowed from participating in one thread. Instead of a single AE thread bogged down with comments from a dozen involved editors, AE would instead be bogged down by a dozen different complaints about the same set of diffs. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 02:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Perhaps introduce a form of proactive clerking instead of an outright ban? And/or forbid free-form discussions between parties, e.g. like arbcom /Evidence are structured? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 04:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I could support the latter. Although users are supposed to comment only in their own sections, it's a guideline that's honoured more in the breach than the observance at AE. Free form discussion tends to lead to more bickering and to more clutter IMO, if the rule was enforced it would I think it would go some way toward reducing the noise level. Gatoclass (talk) 05:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem isn't people commenting in other sections. The problem is editors showing up here way too often and then bickering back and forth. Funny enough, they are bickering within their own sections which has got to make it more confusing to any admin trying to close it. This whole thing is blown out of proportion. Some editors comment here too much for things such as actual filing, presenting cases, defending themselves/defending themselves from BOOMERRANG, and so on. I think people commenting on the accused gets less space then the accuser bickering with them. We should be advised to watch ourselves and when we fail we should get the bounce. And this whole discussion has to be some sort of joke since I am now doing what I boohoo about. Happy New Year. Off to get hammered in the streets. Love you guys.Cptnono (talk) 05:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, so, this is weird. The way I read the above discussion is roughly that some people think there's some value to the idea, some think it's a bad idea, generally speaking it's in some kind of a "it's worth thinking about some more" stage. Yet it seems that apparently AGK has jumped to interpreting the statements above as "broad support" [16] (I'm not sure what "broad support" means in this context) and is planning on using the ArbCom to unilaterally implement the proposal by fiat.

This is pretty obnoxious. There's no clear consensus for such a decision and calling the above discussion "broad support" is ... well, to put it nicely, "weird". He goes on to say that he "will implement the change him(her)self" because it is "an obvious improvement". The first part displays a disturbing inclination for ignoring others and doing what he wants regardless. The second part displays a prejudicial way of thinking - it may be obvious to him/her, but it is obviously not obvious to others - his/her mind was set before this was even brought up and this discussion is some kind of phony formality to give the preconceived decision a veneer of respectability.

This is particularly troubling since as an ArbCom candidate AGK fed us some nice words and phrases about transparency and replacing the "unreliable and non-public (ArbCom) mailing list" with a "usable public space" where, presumably, these kinds of things were to be decided. Yet here s/he is proposing to utilize this very "unreliable and non-public mailing list" to achieve a result which s/he wants, but which otherwise enjoys at best... a shrug of shoulders. Jeez, how many days has it been since the election closed? Usually candidates wait a bit longer before they so blatantly contradict their election campaign promises.

For myself I just want to register my opposition to the proposal in general, but even more so, to the implementation of this proposal via the illicit endeavor of having it decided upon in the smoke filled rooms of the ArbCom mailing list. I plan to ignore it wholeheartedly should it in fact be implemented. It has no basis in policy, no consensus behind it and it is an ill thought out whim of a single person. That's not how Wikipedia works.

Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I assume from your apparent surprise about a "phony formality to give the preconceived decision a veneer of respectability" that you must be new around here. Let me be the first to welcome you to Wikipedia. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the problem is always that nobody says outloud what everyone is thinking.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I also oppose any restriction other than a voluntary pledge not to chime in if you don't have anything constructive to add. As I wrote at WP:RFAR, I'm afraid that under such a restriction, this page will devolve from commentary on the enforcement request to debate about whether an editor is involved, and lobbying will move from this page to administrators' Talk pages. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Muzzling people's ability to speak out is rarely a good solution. At the same time, AE needs streamlining on many levels, and discussing what works and what doesn't is always a good idea. Reading the above, I'd suggest elimination of involved/uninvolved sections and introduction of an obligatory "how am I involved with this issue" subsection for anybody commenting or taking action in a given request. Further, other editors should be allowed to add to those sections, to ensure that those who try to hide their involvement fail at that. The answer to improving AE discussion is not censorship, but full disclosure and transparency. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amen to that. Anyone commenting on ANY enforcement request should be obligated to state (a) their interest and (b) their competency to comment. Whether they are involved or not in the particular instance of conflict under discussion is largely immaterial. And, quite frankly, there is also too much drive-by whack-em by the uninformed self-righteous whose effect is mainly to further polarize issues by applying personal prejudices and stereotypes to situations, only to inflict further damage. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. That means Oppose to the original suggestion of limitation. Furthermore, "neutral", "non-neutral", "involved", and "uninvolved" are nothing but labels to argue over and should all be dispensed with. All that should appear is (a) the filer of the request and (b) who are the parties with whom they believe they have a dispute. ("Involved" should be stricken from that list as well.) "My dispute concerns (a) my interactions with XYZ and/or (b) edits by XYZ". PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S. And declaring one's interest is not "I want to make WP a happier place", any such declaration must be specific enough to indicate their input and opinion are relevant. There are all too many editors on WP who profess to be here only to make friends and create an encyclopedia who are functionally little more than POV attack dogs. (To Volunteer Marek's point about "nobody says outloud what everyone is thinking".) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I too strongly oppose this proposal. I think it is very misconceived, and risks causing more problems than it resolves. I recognise that there are problems here, in particular with various editors piling on the charges, and then arguing with each other; but I am concerned that this proposal would remove helpful as well as unhelpful interventions. I would not like to see a situation where editors are precluded from expressing and explaining their support for the targets of complaints, and if the price for this is allowing others to add further complaints, then that is a price we will have to pay.

In the first place, I am concerned that certain editors could find themselves the target of repeated malicious complaints, but others would be unable to assist them in rebutting these. Thus, editor A could face complaints laid consecutively be editors B, C, D, E and F, and have to refute these alone. But editors G-Z, who might support A and wish to counter the complaints, would be prevented from adding comments, which could create the false impression that A is a maverick editor, opposed by all others. The proposal could also disadvantage newer editors, and those less conversant with Wikipedia practices, faced by charges laid by an experienced editor. The net effect of the proposal would, in my assessment, weight the who;e process unfairly against the targets of complaints.

It is also the case that this proposal would be difficult to enforce, and would most likely merely shift the location of such comments and discussions. If they were to take place on several talk pages, instead of centrally here, as at present, this would again disadvantage the targets, who could have to monitor and respond to multiple discussions, and could easily miss some and thus not be aware of discussions leading to sanctions against them.

It is clear that there is no consensus here in favour of the proposal, and I hope that no admin is so rash as to attempt to impose it in the absence of such consensus. RolandR (talk) 17:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One thought I have, after reviewing some of the comments in these discussions, is possibly having a new format for these requests. The filing editor's section would be the same, meaning they would have a place for providing evidence and making an initial statement with this followed by a section for the editor who is the subject of the request to leave their statement and possibly evidence. After that is where things would change. Underneath their statements my thought is to have a section for additional evidence. This area would be strictly for any interested editor to provide relevant diffs, with perhaps a subsection for any relevant policies and Arbitration decisions with comments limited strictly to the most minimal of explanations, like "this diff shows x policy violation" or "this decision suggests such activity is allowed" and other short statements of that nature. Following that section would be a place for additional comments by other editors. Having stricter enforcement of civility, off-topic discussion, and repeated raising of other cases without established relevance would be helpful in keeping the additional comments section from being troublesome as well.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AGK's proposal did not enjoy broad support in either thread. Will he withdraw the comment? Jd2718 (talk) 02:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC) In this section, 20 people have gotten involved in the discussion. Of them, 4 support the proposal, and one more sort of supports it. Of the other 15, several discussed, and 10 specifically opposed the proposal. Jd2718 (talk) 02:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC) And at the other page Comments by other editors on WP:AE cases I quickly counted (or miscounted) about 6 in favor, 9 opposed. There seemed to be broad support for some way to allow commenters to self-identify as involved or not. But there was no broad support for AGK's proposal. Jd2718 (talk) 02:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

vacio 09:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Verman1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

AA2: edit warring and turning Wikipedia into battleground

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

Agdam Mosque

1. 10 Dec Revert 1
2. 14 Dec Revert 2
3. 19 Dec Revert 3
4. 28 Dec Revert 4
5. 29 Dec Revert 5

Daşkəsən

1. 4 Dec Revert 1
2. 5 Dec Revert 2
3. 13 Dec Revert 3
4. 29 Dec Revert 4

Other pages

• User is/has been also edit warring in the articles Tsitsernavank Monastery and Gandzasar monastery.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 29 March by Sandstein (talk · contribs) (for criticizing sources based on ethnic origin of their authors)
2. Warned on 22 Dec by Wgfinley (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Dear Arbcom members, for some weeks I really did my best to reach consensus on several topics with Verman1. Unfortunately this user seriously fails to stick to the talkpage. Again and again he simply neglects what has been discussed and continues a reverting war. During discussions I have several times warned him for this disruptive behavior (some examples are this or this). The talkpage of this user is full of warnings from various users (including users involved in edit warring with Verman1). Only a couple of days ago WGFinley severely warned and remembered them about AA2 sanctions (see diff above).

I request any kind of sanction (topic ban, block, revert limitation) that can stop Verman1 from continuing this kind of disruptive behavioral. vacio 09:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just would like to add to my earlier comments that the edit war in the article Agdam Mosque is specially a bad. First because Verman1 is trying to push the statement that Today the mosque is being used as a cowshed referring to sources published in 2010 or before. Second because it is violating the arguments we agreed on in the TP, This kind of edit warring is very harmful since it aims to – or results in the – use of WP for nationalist or ethnic accusations. --vacio 12:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to Verman1: I don't say –and hope you are not– deliberately making "nationalist or ethnic accusations", but that's being the result and that is making an edit war worse. --vacio 09:53, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But that was what you said. That I am using WP as a ground to "make ethnic and nationalistic accusations". Can you please prove your words? --Verman1 (talk) 13:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please reread my statement above: This kind of edit warring is very harmful since it aims to – or results in the – use of WP for nationalist or ethnic accusations. --vacio 10:04, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• [17]

Vacio's comment above shows present mis-behavior of Verman1 who returned to same pages for which he was banned and turned them again into a nationalist battleground: Gandzasar Monastery and Tzitzernavank Monastery specifically. But the fact is that he is guilty of yet another major misconduct which went unnoticed for some time. Verman1 was topic banned for six months [[18]]. In order to evade sanctions, User:Verman1 deleted notification on sanctions → see here [[19]], after which he continued routinely editing restricted pages on Armenia and Azerbaijan [[20]], [[21]], [[22]], etc, etc, etc. Winterbliss (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is very curious for me how did you get to know almost all participants of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict area, their past performance and activities during a month? Your talkpage and userpage is empty, but you are editing like an experienced user and aware of Wikipedia rules.--Verman1 (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question for ED:Isn't those violation you brought are several month old and considered stale because of it.Several editors were warned against bringing stale diffs.Could you please clarify this issue.Thank you.--Shrike (talk) 06:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see no point in this AE request. There was reasonable discussion in talkpages, we were trying to get into consensus by any means, but seemingly Vacio decided to interrupt the discussion and get rid of me "easily". Should be noted that Vacio himself got warning ([23]) during his disruptive edits on these articles, but he again tries to emphasize ethnic background of the sources in articles nevertheless ([24]). During discussions, instead of focusing on subjects, he continuously made accusations on me and threatened with reporting. --Verman1 (talk) 19:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Verman1, please be careful with your words. Seraphimblade (talk · contribs) did not warn me for "disruptive edits", but for a comment. Seraphimblade thought that I denounced sources merely based on the ethnic origin of their authors, which I tried to explain him, wasn't really true (see the link on my talkpage).

And frankly, I am not here to "get rid" of you. If you showed willingness to refrain from edit warring, I would definitely not start a request against you. --vacio 19:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To vacio: Could you please clarify where I made "ethnic and nationalist accusations"? --Verman1 (talk) 12:55, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification of my Topic ban evasion is in here. --Verman1 (talk) 09:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

User:Verman1 made a number of edits in mid-2011 that were in violation of his six-month topic ban. The ban was imposed by HJ Mitchell on 9 April 2011 and expired on 9 October 2011. He was banned from the topic of the AA dispute on both articles and talk. At least five edits between April and October appear to be in violation of the ban.

• Verman1 made a talk comment from 5 September 2011 that refers to Caucasian Albania, a well-known subject of dispute between advocates of Azerbaijan and Armenia on Wikipedia.

• A rape incident was reported in Thomas De Waal's book which was said to take place on 20 February 1988. Verman1 added this to the Nagorno-Karabakh article on 21 September, during the period when his topic ban was still in effect, when he was supposed to be abstaining from AA matters.

• He discussed AA matters at User talk:Golbez on 22 September.

• He made an edit at Nagorno-Karabakh war regarding the rape incident mentioned above, added to the article by Verman1 on 22 September.

• He made an edit at Battle of Kalbajar made on 5 October (this is a battle which took place during the Nagorno-Karabakh War).

There seems to be a continuing slow edit war at Askeran clash. The book (De Waal) which serves as a source does not seem to make the rapes be the cause of the Askeran clash, according to other editors at Talk:Askeran clash. Verman1 has been warring to insert mention of the rape incident in that article, though he did not do so during the period of his topic ban. He inserted mention of the incident on 19 November and also later on 3 and 11 December.

Since Verman1 violated his previous topic ban, I suggest that the case be closed by imposing a new topic ban, starting now, that will run for the full six months of the original. EdJohnston (talk) 04:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. --WGFinley (talk) 19:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When preparing to close I went over this one more throughly, I actually think an indefinite is in order here. The previous ban was six months, we have some violations of the TBAN and fresh WP:TE activity not long after the 6 month ban has expired. It just seems to be some of the partisan POV pushing, of particular note there's this which was more or less reverting sourced information that has long standing in the WP-RU article. The same article on RU has been stable for some time yet any attempts to bring the EN article more in line with it are resisted by Verman1. Given the history I would be more inclined to go indefinite here. --WGFinley (talk) 15:15, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing with a indefinite ban of Verman1 from the topic of the AA dispute on both articles and talk pages, per my own comments (above) plus the additional reasoning of Wgfinley. Figuring out the issues in dispute on the AA topic is not something I find easy to do and the comments left on AE requests by involved editors usually give admins little usable information. You have to read through a lot of hostile commentary hoping to glean a few diffs that will show what is going on. WGF's idea of comparing the en.wiki and ru.wiki articles on these topics is an idea that may be helpful, both now and in the future.

• My own comment about Verman1 (above) may not have fully expressed my shock about his editing at Askeran clash. In my opinion he was misreading what the source said (De Waal's book), which Arbcom reminds us we can take action on as a conduct problem. It would be kinder to Verman1 to view this as extreme partisanship on his part instead of outright misreading of the source, which never said that the rapes were the cause of the Askeran clash. It seems that Verman1 was cherry-picking items from the book and making a synthesis. He also edit-warred to get this result of his own original thinking into the Askeran clash article. EdJohnston (talk) 06:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note - I am resurrecting this, because while Boothello left wikipedia when his pet article died down, a resumption of editing activity at the article brought Boothello back. Please do not allow this to be archived without resolution. Hipocrite (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Hipocrite (talk) 12:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Boothello (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Case_amendments

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 01:13, 13 December 2011 Dishonest edit summary - not actually worried about it appearing twice, rather, just acting as an article gatekeeper to prevent improvement
2. 21:03, 13 November 2011 Varnish
3. 03:49, 27 October 2011 Varnish
4. 21:06, 30 October 2011 Varnish

Pretty much all of this editors mainspace contributions are varnish on the reputation of scientific racists.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 02:12, 6 May 2011‎ by Aprock (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This single purpose account is continuing the behavior that other accounts were banned for in August 2010 - consistent violations of NPOV. Further, while it's obvious that this is not the users first account (second edit shows facility with templates beyond what any new user has - [25], and fourth edit already knows what "OR" is - without having edited a talk page, ever.), the user is evasive about their prior history [26], even though their IP is in the public domain and has only one edit - [27], though it is in exactly the same metropolitan area as now topic banned David.Kane (who, shockingly enough, stopped editing with any regularity just 3 weeks after this SPA showed up!)

We don't need POV pushing SPA's in the space. Solve this.

In regards to Boothello's response - It's fabricated - in 2010, he states he was engaged in a "college wikipedia project." Then, all of a sudden, we're one year further and Boothello, out of the blue, only edits in this topic space because that's where all his "post-secondary education lies." But if he does have a "post-secondary education," he only started it 3 months ago, and he did it in exactly the same location as where he went to college - and - catch this - he never changed apartments. Yeah, that's likley. Hipocrite (talk) 20:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Boothello's attempt to walk back his slip up - no, my friend, it cannot, and further, there is no college in Boston that allows you to study only one subject. Hipocrite (talk) 21:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[28]

Sigh. The sock puppet question was addressed previously discussed here. The IP I used to edit under was 24.60.23.30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and after joining I've still occasionally used that IP when I forgot to log in. Including edits from that IP, I've been active on Wikipedia since July 2009. Obviously a lot of what I did from that IP is stuff I shouldn't have done, but it's wrong that I first showed up after David.Kane was topic banned. I stopped vandalizing and started trying to contribute productively as part of a college wikipedia project in fall 2010. The only reason I'm "evasive" about this is because I'm embarrassed about the vandalism I used to do, and I think most other editors in my shoes would also be embarrassed about that. I have already invited both Hipocrite and Mathsci to file and SPI if they really think I'm a sockpuppet of a David.Kane, but neither of them has. The only evidence that he and I are the same person seems to be that we both live in Boston.

If you look at the diffs that Hipocrite posted, it's obvious this is a content dispute. Two of the four edits were the outcome of extensive talk page discussion, and also a followup to changes made by other editors. this was the outcome of discussion here between me and Maunus, and I made it to be consistent with a similar edit from him. this edit was the outcome of discussion here between me and Vsevolodkrolikov, where we agreed to reword this article's description of the Pioneer Fund and move it to another part of the article. He had already added the new wording to the lead and I was removing the old wording because the discussion was about moving the description, not duplicating it. this edit was removing content from an article about a book that had nothing to do with the book, it was about criticism of some of the author's unrelated work. If the article had been about book on any other topic, removing criticism of the author's unrelated work wouldn't have even been controversial.

I am a single purpose account, I'll admit. I edit solely in this topic because it's where my post-secondary education lies, and it's no mystery that IQ/race articles on wikipedia need more work than articles on most of my other interests. But for someone uninvolved looking at my edits, I don't think there's any evidence that I'm editing the articles in a way that isn't consistent with policy and consensus. This is clearly a thankless job. My decision to go from vandalism to productive editing has caused my edits to be criticized more rather than less. I've tried removing content from the articles that's excessively favorable to the hereditarian position about race and intelligence, such as [29] and [30] but nobody seems to notice that. Hipocrite is offended that I also remove excesses about the perspective that everyone who researches R&I is a racist. It's true that I make that kind of edit more often, but not because I think it's more important. When someone adds content that's excessive in the hereditarian direction it's usually dealt with right away by people like Aprock and Maunus. But currently people don't seem to care as much about avoiding excesses in the opposite direction. NPOV requires that we avoid both.

I'll also note that the "warning" from Aprock linked to above isn't an official warning in the discretionary-sanctions sense. Official warnings under discretionary sanctions can only be made by an uninvolved admin, and Aprock is not one.Boothello (talk) 20:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since Hipocrite is who posted this thread, I should point out the string edits he's made to the article today. He's removed a lot of well-sourced information with the misleading edit summary "not a reliable source". [31] [32] [33] The sources that he removed with this edit summary include papers published in the journals Psychology, Public Policy and Law and The Open Psychology Journal, and also books published by Praeger, Methuen Publishing, Pergamon Press and W. W. Norton & Company. When Victor Chmara reverted the removal of these sources, Hipocrite threatened him with a ban. [34] [35]

There's no doubt many of these books and papers are controversial, but being controversial does not mean a source fails WP:RS. The claim that these aren't reliable sources seems like a flimsy justification to remove content that he disagrees with. I think this makes it even more obvious that Hipocrite is going to AE over a content dispute, and one where RS policy isn't on his side.Boothello (talk) 20:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @Hipocrite: by "post-secondary education" I just mean I'm in college. Post-secondary education can mean anything after high school. Higher education lists college as one of the things this term can mean, and that's how I'm using it. I never said psychology is the only thing I'm studying, but as I said, these are the articles where I feel able to help the most. If semantic nitpicking is the best evidence you can find that I'm a sockpuppet, I'm not interested in discussing it beyond this.Boothello (talk) 21:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @EdJohnston: I thought that to count as an official warning, a notification of the discretionary sanctions had to be logged on the arbitration case page. Only admins can do that. I also thought the point of this requirement is so that if a person's conduct is a problem, they can have a chance to change it before they're sanctioned. An uninvolved admin can be impartial enough to determine that. But it doesn't seem like it should mean the same thing if an involved editor "warns" their opponent during a dispute. Is a warning of the discretionary sanctions something that any editor can give to anyone else in any situation? If I've misunderstood this policy, I apologize.Boothello (talk) 21:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @Mathsci: you brought up that edit last time you accused me of being a sock, and I explained it then. That's a shared IP address between me and my roommate, and that edit was from him. After he made it, I asked him to stop with the vandalism and I think he did. I know vandalism is a problem from shared IPs, but I don't see how that's evidence of sockpuppetry.Boothello (talk) 21:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @Aprock: I honestly don't see anything in those comments that goes against policy. I think maybe you and I just have naturally different editing styles, rather than it being a simple matter of right and wrong. I've never been blocked for anything I did on R&I articles and no uninvolved admin has ever warned me about it either. But if an uninvolved admin looks at these diffs and decides I'm doing something wrong and issues me a warning, I'll listen and modify my behavior accordingly.

For now I just want to point out the number of edits I've made that were obviously helpful. I've added a lot content from secondary sources and rewrote several sections to make them less undue, such as [36] [37] [38] Taking edits like this into account, I think my involvement in R&I articles has made the articles better than they would have been otherwise.Boothello (talk) 11:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know I qualify as a single purpose account, and I know that SPAs need to edit neutrally instead of following an agenda. But I am very concerned that the admins commenting here are just taking it at Hipocrite and Aprock's word that my edits are not neutral. Can you please look at the diffs and decide for yourselves if they are? When I've removed criticism from any of these articles it's had an obvious policy justification, like removing criticism from the article about Rushton's book cited to sources that don't mention the book. And I've provided numerous examples of making edits in favor of the opposite perspective. Just being accused of POV pushing shouldn't be enough for a topic ban, I think admins need to look for themselves at the diffs to see if it's really the case.

The four editors who have been most consistently involved in this topic are Maunus, VsevelodKrolokov, Victor Chmara, and Aprock. Of these four, three do not have any problem with my editing. Maunus is the most significant because as Mathsci points out below, Maunus was initially suspicious of me, and I eventually won his trust. More recently he's commented that he thinks my editing shows me to be a reasonable person. [39] Maunus's perspective about R&I is the opposite of the POV I've been accused of pushing, and he does not by any means always agree with me about content, so I think it counts for a lot that he still thinks my editing is alright. This thread was posted at a time when he, VsevelodKrolokov, and Victor Chmara seem to be all inactive, so the selection of people commenting in this AE report is not a good sampling of how the regulars on these articles feel about my editing. Administrators NEED to decide whether I'm POV pushing by looking at the diffs, and not just reacting to the editors who've posted here.Boothello (talk) 22:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problems here have been around for a while, since the WP:ARBR&I case was closed. I was contemplating filing an SPI report, related to the account of David.Kane (talk · contribs), renamed Ephery (talk · contribs). This account has been inactive since April. Since a request has just been made here, it makes more sense to post the report here. Like all SPI reports, there is no certainty that I am correct.

Boothello is a single-purpose account editing solely in the area covered by WP:ARBR&I. His editing started not long after the case was closed. It is editing in one area but he usually makes only a few low-level edits a week. He intially edited logged off from a Brookline IP 24.60.23.30 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), which had been used by another user with a completely different editing profile, This has never been adequately explained by Boothello. His MO on wikipedia is indistinguishable from that of David.Kane/Ephery, indefinitely topic-banned from the same set of articles. He recently edited logged off by mistake from an IP address 71.232.157.202 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) which locates to within a radius of 1 or 2 km of the registered private address of the now defunct website User:Ephery/EphBlog. In this recent diff [40], Boothello inadvertently displayed an intimate knowledge of the mode of editing of Race and intelligence during the period in Spring 2010, a long while before his current account was registered. That is inconsistent with his previous statements on this noticeboard and more recently on his talk page[41] that, while editing as an IP, he was an "immature vandal"[42] but then reformed overnight to adopt an online persona indistinguishable from that of David.Kane.

I could be wrong of course, but his knowledge of WP:ARBR&I, of wikipedia editors only active during his "immature vandal" phase, his knowledge of editing of articles covered by the ban, his lobbying tactics, his edit warring on race and intelligence. his wikilawyering on Talk:Race and intelligence and elsewhere, in addition to the actual location of his IP, provide a strong case that this could be sockpuppetry by David.Kane. Mathsci (talk) 13:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Boothello gives an explanation of his own editing patterns which is not credible in any way. When he apparently had turned over a new leaf, infantile edits still appeared out of the blue [43]. Clearly these edits were made by somebody in quite a different age group (a generation or so below Boothello). That is supported by the fact that his named account has never suffered from such bizarre lapses into childish editing at any stage whatsoever. I would imagine that any long-term puppetmaster, active for a sufficiently long period (in this case just over one year), will inevitably make mistakes; that appears to be what has happened here. Boothello's claim that his editing is somehow related to a supposed university course in the Boston area also lacks any credibility whatsoever. Yes, his account has a single-minded agenda with "troubling overtones" (to use Newyorkbrad's euphemism), but that was already the problem with David.Kane's editing. He has been reminded on several occasions about the special editing conditions that apply to articles covered byWP:ARBR&I on his talk page. Here for example is a notification in May 2011 from Aprock.[44] Mathsci (talk) 21:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Boothello has now written a message to David.Kane.[45] Mathsci (talk) 00:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Although he has taken time off from wikipedia, a while back, when being lobbied by Boothello about Volunteer Marek,[46] Maunus did make some fairly frank comments directly to Boothello.[47] Mathsci (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's most certainly a lot of WP:DUCK going on here, as well as the apparent match between the IP address and User:Ephery's blog location.

In addition to the fact that

• Boothello edits exclusively articles edited previously by Ephery,
• and the fact that he began editing shortly after Ephery was indef topic banned in the R&I case
• and the fact that the POV, as well as the approach and tone of the two users is pretty similar (though somewhat bland)

there is also the fact that there is no overlap between the two user's edits. Boothello began editing on November 8, 2010 and has made about 400 edits since then. Between November 8, 2010 and April 24, 2011 (the date of the last edit made by Ephery), there had been only two days on which both users made edits:

• February 6, 2011, Ephery made an edit at 12:36 and Boothello made an edit at 22:07 - a difference of almost twelve hours.
• April 24, 2011 (Ephery's last edit) - Ephery made an edit at 1:40 and Boothello made an edit at 4:15 - a difference more than two hours (it's possible that one account is being edited from home while the other from work or school).

For the rest of the time period the two accounts never edited on the same day.

So add that to the number of "coincidences" shared between two accounts both of which are located within a 2km radius (roughly, about 15 city blocks, or a 20 minute walk at a leisure pace).

 Volunteer Marek  22:01, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this request on my watchlist but haven't followed the latest disputes in the involved pages. A major reason (but not the only one) that the Race articles are such a headache still is because of all the proxy editing. Even when these proxies are behaving reasonably, they tends to cause disruption because it takes a toll on other editors when they're aware they are being gamed here, leaving them few options but to look the other way or put up with it, play nice, and "collaborate" with those circumventing bans, blocks etc.

The disruption here is a case in point. Boothello's explanation is improbable. To go from nothing but juvenile horseplay like this, this and this to edit summaries about WP:SYN, WP:BLP and WP:V, a user now versed in even the minutia of the subject like this and this - in just a matter of months in some college class? It's more probable that the real something which explains this has been willfully left out of the story.

Boothello is a SPA. I don't know that Boothello is Ephery although there are coincidences. Following his topic ban, Ephery returned to the dispute on two occasions. The first was to defend Ferahgo in an AE request filed to topic ban her under WP:SHARE, editing on 28 Sep 2010. This request had languished for a few weeks without a decision until WeijiBaikeBianji's comment resumed discussions on 27 Sep 2010. Boothello opened his account on 27 Sep 2010 but this account was not used for comment on this AE. His first edit came abt 2 months after he opened the account. Ephery's next (and last) involvement in the R/I dispute was against WeijiBaikeBianji which was initiated by one and supported by a couple more proxy accounts. Boothello did not participate in the RFC either. But on the issue of enabling the proxies, his first edit to Talk:Race (classification of humans) was a defense of a proxy editor whose rant I (and others) reverted. Boothello took issue with me (and others) for removing this. The page had been plagued by socks and loons causing chaos with their soapboxing, rants and conspiracy mongering. This was one of many steps taken to get the discussion back on track, including page protections, archiving the soapboxing, etc and numerous warnings were left on the page that inappropriate stuff would be closed or removed if they continued. (This user was later ID'd as a banned sock and blocked.) What is strange is that Boothello left his objection there, but then immediately traveled over to Race and intelligence to complain about this again. He'd never before made an edit to that page either or its main space. Another month goes by there before we see any substantive content related edits or discussion. He was referee'ing for this sock in two pages, but why? He wasn't even active in either of those pages at the time, and his total contribution for either by that date was just a handful of edits posted nearly two months before.

It's stuff like that raise suspicions. And like I said, suspicions are enough in these sock-prone articles that tempers and good will are in short supply and consensus building is nearly impossible. Professor marginalia (talk) 01:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Boothello is a single purpose account engaged in actively editing articles under R/I. The biggest problem faced with Boothello parallels the problems faced with some of the editors who have been topic banned. In pursuing his preferred POV, Boothello regularly misreads and misinterprets both sources and editors. The effect of this is to create an atmosphere of tendentious editing, where Boothello must be point by point convinced of even the smallest detail presented in the sources. This level of nit-picking would be useful and productive if (i) it was directed at actively editing and improving articles, and (ii) it was generally correct. Unfortunately, it is often neither. Much of this questioning of edits and sources has the effect of stalling any progress until Boothello is satisfied. This level of gatekeeping, whether well intentioned or intentional, is quite disruptive. aprock (talk) 03:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Causation and Correlation: In his final comment of his first WP discussion Boothello refers to the Alfred Binet article stating: "[IQ tests] were invented to predict scholastic performance". Reviewing the article makes it clear that instead the original IQ tests were invented to diagnose learning disabilities.

• Processing time: This talk page discussion has Boothello proposing to rewrite (and expand) coverage of some marginal content, which really doesn't merit significant coverage, saying: "Race and reaction time isn't discussed anywhere else on Wikipedia, so we have an obligation to make this part of the article informative to readers."

• While discussing the problematic issues with presenting extensive data instead of clear conclusions Boothello says: "lay people who are looking at the data will often see what they want to see, but that's just part of human psychology and I don't think we should try to avoid it."

• Talk:Race and intelligence: Ten days into an extensive discussion of a POV tag where several POV problems with the article are discussed, Boothello joins the discussion declaring: "I'm removing the tag." He then states "It is a misuse of the tag to add it just because you might find POV issues when you review the article next week." despite the fact that multiple editors have pointed out multiple problems with the article as written.

• Talk:IQ and the Wealth of Nations: I honestly don't have really the heart to dig through all of the giant wall of text. It's a perfect example of the kind of tendentious editing that can occur with civil POV pushers. The meat of the issue is that Boothello wanted a biased source to be used without specific mention of the kind of bias the source was encumbered with. Volunteer Marek might have more insight since he was primarily involved here.

• Talk:Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence: Another giant wall of text. This one I participated in. The discussion resolves around two secondary sources (a textbook and a professional report) which make similar statements about genetics, groups, and intelligence. One specifically singles out Ashkenazi Jews, while the other discusses the conclusions in terms of white and blacks. Much back and forth ensues about how to uses the sources, and whether or not they can be used, with Boothello objecting to the textbook because it was too old, and the report because while it discusses Ashkenazi Jews elsewhere, it does not do so explicitly when making the statement.

There is more as well, but time constraints impinge. aprock (talk) 06:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If User:David.Kane (now User:Ephery) were to have started a second account as Boothello, it would be a concern because Ephery is under an indefinite ban from the topic of race and intelligence. Boothello is not currently under any restriction, though he's been notified. It does not seem to be an open-and-shut case that this is the same editor. Those who want to look for comments with a similar point of view might begin with the wikistalk results comparing Ephery and Boothello. The topic of R&I is quite technical and it would be helpful if other editors who have worked on that topic could become aware of this AE. Does anyone object if one of the participants wants to notify others? They could (for example) notify everyone who participated in one of the arb cases, clarifications, or past AEs. It would also be helpful if someone could report whether Boothello's editing has been discussed on any admin boards, and provide links if they have been. EdJohnston (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Boothello: The case at WP:ARBR&I provides for standard discretionary sanctions. Under the current wording of the latter page, any editor (not just an admin) may issue a warning:

Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to the decision authorizing sanctions; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.

Hence Boothello should consider himself warned under WP:ARBR&I per Aprock's notice. It would be especially ironic if someone who had filed an AE request last May asking for action against Volunteer Marek under the discretionary sanctions should need a specially-engraved notice of the existence of the discretionary sanctions. EdJohnston (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

• The links between Boothello and other named accounts are suspicious but not, in my mind, definitive. Boothello's mode of interaction is certainly highly reminiscent of that of previously banned agenda accounts in this topic area (e.g. Captain Occam (talk · contribs), David.Kane (talk · contribs)). In fact, Captain Occam is at present making nearly identical arguments about "warnings" vs. "notifications" of discretionary sanctions (e.g. [48], [49]). But in the end, I think the matter of potential alternate account use is academic.

  The last thing this topic area needs is another single-purpose account dedicated to promoting a minoritarian viewpoint. This is both a personal administrative viewpoint (see #17) and my reading of the gist of the ArbCom case. This topic area has been awash in such single-purpose agenda accounts. The fact that this particular account is suspicious as a sockpuppet is perhaps an aggravating factor, but I think the underlying issue addressed in the ArbCom case was that these sorts of agenda accounts are problematic and thus liable to discretionary sanctions.

  As such, I would favor a topic ban, but I'm not going to close this thread or act unilaterally. I will await input and a decision from EdJohnston and/or other admins. MastCell ^Talk 18:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Section 5.2 of WP:ARBR&I#Case amendments provides that editors contributing to the area of conflict must: "..adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to: maintaining a neutral point of view; avoiding undue weight; carefully citing disputed statements to reliable sources; and avoiding edit-warring and incivility." Single-purpose agenda accounts will not be able to meet the neutrality requirement, so I am sympathetic to a topic ban. This area has been troubled by agenda accounts in the past, so we would not be responding to an imagined problem. EdJohnston (talk) 21:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Single use account + patterns similar to banned editors = quack to me, we don't have the resources to prove each and every one. I support a topic ban, open to discussion on term. --WGFinley (talk) 05:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The supplied diffs were not that strong but the case presented by other editors in this topic area (a great case for the need to have comments by editors) were far more telling with examples of tendentious behavior. The editor is an admitted WP:SPA, SPAs are not consistent with WP:NPOV and do not work in this topic space and cause disruption. As such I'm going with an indefinite Race and Intelligence ban. If the editor can demonstrate collaborative editing in another topic area he/she can request this indefinite ban be reviewed. --WGFinley (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

RolandR (talk) 16:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Someone35 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. [50] Message on my talk page, which translates as "Since when do anti-Zionists (except for Amira Hass) speak Hebrew?" The message is clearly intended to provoke me, and can be regarded as trolling. The user was topic-banned for one year from all Israel-Palestine articles, The terms of the ban were that he is banned "from all articles, discussions, and other content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed across all namespaces". This provocative edit is an unambiguous breach of the topic ban.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Topic banned on27 August 2011 by T. Canens (talk · contribs)
2. Topic banned on 11 December 2011 by Wgfinley (talk · contribs)
3. Blocked for breach of topic ban on 17 December 2011 by Worm That Turned (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This user has already been reported twice for breach of this topic ban: [51], [52],

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here: [53]

I wasn't trying to provoke him and I have no interest to do so. He has a userbox on his userpage saying that he's an anti Zionist and that he speaks Hebrew, so I was interested about it and asked him since when do anti Zionists speak Hebrew, because from what I know, anti Zionists don't usually speak Hebrew and I was interested to know more about it so I asked him.

I didn't think it was a breach of my topic ban since I wasn't referring to Palestinians or to the I-P conflict, but in the moment I saw this report I removed it with an apology from his userpage.

I'm sorry if it offended you, I didn't think it will (because you have a userbox on your userpage saying that you're an anti Zionist)-- Someone35  16:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I mistakenly breached my topic ban twice before because I am still an active editor so once in a while I make an edit that breaches my topic ban by mistake and then I immediately revert it if I see that somebody complained about it, but this time I honestly didn't think that it was a breach of my topic ban or offensive

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

First, this is a breech of the topic ban, second, this is the English Wikipedia and messages should be in English let one construe they are meant to avoid scrutiny. Someone was given an opportunity to revert prior breeches and has run out of chances. Any attempt to claim asking if someone is an anti-Zionist is not a breech of a WP:ARBPIA topic ban is pretty disingenuous. Blocking for 30 days. --WGFinley (talk) 22:30, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

PCPP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Enforcement
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Log_of_blocks_and_bans

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

This user has been banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to Falun Gong, broadly construed, across all namespaces. In the two diffs presented he is editing Falun Gong-related content on a page about a Chinese-affiliated educational institution, including deleting one paragraph related to Falun Gong and removing Falun Gong-related content in another. This is consistent with the behavior that led to his ban.

1. 6/1/12 (note that I'm just going to copy/paste another editor's explanation, because he/she already wrote it out): Deletes large amount of sourced information from a paragraph concerning discrimination in hiring policies against the Falun Gong. Removes reference to Falun Gong being “persecuted in China.” Deletes sentence that “human rights lawyers and media commentators in North America suggested that the hiring practices were in contravention of anti-discrimination laws.” Deletes paragraph with relevant commentary from media commentators and legal scholars. Deletes paragraph about Confucius Institute director’s response to the policy.
2. 6/1/12 Here he also removed information specifically related to Falun Gong.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is part of a longstanding pattern (a couple of years at least, I should think) of pro-Chinese government editing by PCPP. Pro-Chinese government editing includes anti-FLG editing. In any case, he appears to have violated his ban on Falun Gong. The pro-China editing isn't actionable in this context so I haven't referred to it in the diffs. Suffice to say that PCPP is not regarded as a neutral editor on that topic, even by peers who share some of his views. He is generally seen as disruptive and uncommunicative and this pattern continues across FLG and non-Falun Gong namespaces. Anything related to the Chinese Party-State, really.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I notified him.

Falun Gong's followers take it as a commandment to spread information about their teachings and plight whenever China is mentioned. Wikipedia, for obvious reasons, is more susceptible to including this irrelevant Falun Gong propaganda than most reliable sources.

I fear that with this enforcement action, PCPP's topic ban on Falun Gong is morphing into a topic ban on all China-related articles. The only requirement seems to be that Falun Gongers first insert a reference to their organization into such an article. For example, there is nothing directly or indirectly related to Falun Gong about the Confucius Institutes (the article of this action). But since the Confucius Institutes are based in China, and since China uniformly bans Falun Gong, half a soapbox is already built.

Clearly, the TheSoundAndTheFury is implying that a topic ban for PCPP on China-related articles would be a good thing, because he deems "disruptive" more than just PCPP's Falun Gong editing, devoting ample space in this complaint towards allegations of "pro-China editing". However, I don't think the use of enforcement to combat such viewpoints was what the arbitrators intended.

Regardless of the unsavory way by which this or any article might have come to mention Falun Gong in passing, PCPP probably shouldn't have touched any text contaminated by that nine-letter sequence. Still, future requests should precisely target the user's Falun Gong editing, rather than his editing about China in general. Shrigley (talk) 02:57, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Blocked 24 hours. It's not a lengthy block, but it's been a while since his most previous block. Hopefully this will make him reconsider, because the next one is going to be a lot longer/indefinite otherwise. NW (Talk) 18:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

–Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:43, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

NYyankees51 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

(Note: While in the past I've never encountered admins unwilling to block at ANEW for edit-warring on 1RR arbitration area articles, whether abortion, Israel/Palestine, etc., the admin who took my ANEW report declined it because there were only 2 reverts and directed me here, so here I am with what is more or less a duplicate of my ANEW report.)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion; drafting arb Jclemens clarified here that the closure of the arbitration case did not remove the existing general sanctions which include 1RR.

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

• 1st revert: 18:28, 6 January 2012 - adds statement to lead about CPCs providing other services which was previously removed in this edit; moves statement about CPCs providing false information back to lower paragraph after it was moved up in this edit; changes "reported" to "alleged" after "reported" replaced "accused" in this edit (ignoring extensive talk page discussion of the language which he did not see fit to join or consult)
• 2nd revert: 18:47, 6 January 2012 - repeated same reverts, plus removal of material added less recently, etc.

I'd be happy to provide more instances of disruptive behavior from this user (we could begin with the diffs already provided, which in addition to violating 1RR, also insert uncited information and remove cited information, violate NPOV, etc.) but this is really just an edit-warring report that the closing admin told me to take here, so I'll limit myself.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

User is aware of the 1RR in this topic area, having been blocked for violating it on three separate occasions, and is also aware that the topic is under ArbCom given that he has been a party since the case was filed and has been involved in the discussion all the way through. For sticklers, here is the user being notified of the closure of the arb case, and here is one instance among many of the user being formally warned about violating the general sanctions including 1RR.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

User has a shall-we-say problematic history in this topic area, including but not limited to edit-warring, sockpuppetry, harassment, and paid editing, and was individually warned in the ArbCom decision. As I said, if y'all think we should make a proper case of it then I'd be happy to compile some more evidence, but this is enough to block for a couple of days on the 1RR violation alone, based on the user's history of violating this remedy.

@NYyankees51: anyone can see from looking at your sockpuppet investigation that your multiple accounts edited on articles related to an anti-abortion organization, and the investigation also found (and you subsequently disclosed) that you had a conflict of interest because you worked for that organization. Harassment is harassment even if it was a while ago. Now is not the time to pretend you haven't done anything wrong. To all, with regard to NYY's comment: This "let me off, it was an accident and won't do it again" can only work so many times. It's a violation of WP policy, it just makes more work for everyone else, and after the long hard slog of the arb case it doesn't show that we take the results very seriously if users can pretend time after time that it was just an accident and get off scot-free.

Any other uninvolved admins (or other users) care to comment...? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[54]

I did it again, I was making a series of major edits and forgot to use an in-use template. I did the same thing a couple weeks ago [55]. Sorry, I'll make sure not to do it a third time.

Regardless, I'm not sure this is the appropriate forum - the case found that I engaged in a discussion that reflected a battleground mentality but it didn't have anything to do with edit warring, not to mention the other allegations Roscelese has piled in here. (Which I will address very briefly - I engaged in sockpuppetry on a baseball article, not abortion. By harassment, I assume she means an incident last year that I apologized profusely for. I have no idea where the paid editing allegation comes from.) Forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm unfamiliar with enforcement. NYyankees51 (talk) 05:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Roscelese - Okay, I see what you meant about the sockpuppetry, but it was dealt with and resolved; otherwise I wouldn't be here. I worked as an intern for the SBA List in the summer of 2009; the issue was raised on COI/N and nobody saw a problem. Is that where the paid editing notion comes from? I was an intern, I wasn't paid a dime. Harassment is harassment, but there's no use drudging it up to use against me when I apologized profusely and as I recall, you accepted the apology.

@Nomoskedasticity - I appreciate the sarcasm, but it actually was a mistake.

@WGFinley - I was bold, I expected to get reverted, and I expected to then discuss the issue on the talk page.

@All - I will take a 96 hour block or whatever is appropriate for the 1RR violation. And if I violate 1RR again, regardless of whether it's a technical mistake or conscious edit warring, I will accept a 120 day topic ban. Does that sound fair? NYyankees51 (talk) 21:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"I forgot the 'in-use' template" -- does that actually work? If so, I might have to try it myself. I suspect a great many others might try it as well. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:16, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As an editor who often makes large edits in segments over a similar time period I can understand why NY would make the mistake, though much greater care should be taken to look at the revision history before making further changes. I believe a two-month topic ban is a bit much under the circumstances. A longer block would be a good idea just because the editor has done this twice and has a history in the topic area.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I only occasionally meet NY during my editing, and have never had direct contact with him. However, when I've encountered him, I've noticed that he likes to play close to the fence. This "mistake" occurred precisely because he was playing too close. A 60 day TBAN as proposed below would hopefully get the point across to back away from the fence, something his previous blocks have not done. His proposal of a 24 hour block is a bit too arrogant, and shows that he does not appreciate the gravity of his error. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Looks like a pretty clear 1RR violation, I also see zero participation by NYyankees51 on the article's talk page while he/she is making substantive edits and reverts. Given the prior block history it appears a TBAN would be in order, I would propose 60 days. --WGFinley (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd agree. I'm not seeing how anything shorter will get the message across, since blocks don't seem to have been enough of a deterrent. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm OK with a topic ban of NYyankees51 for two months, but with so many violations of 1RR on abortion related articles I'd be tempted to consider a longer ban. EdJohnston (talk) 03:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• The default starting length is usually 3 months; I don't see anything here that suggests that we should be more lenient. T. Canens (talk) 05:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Closing with a three-month topic ban from the area of conflict. EdJohnston (talk) 18:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

asad (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Chesdovi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

Violation

1. 01/07/2012 Changes a cat in Rachel's Tomb from "Mosques in the West Bank" to "Synagogues in the West Bank" and removes the template "Mosques in the Palestinian Territories". This is all despite objection and ongoing discussion on the article's talk page, in which Chesdovi has taken apart of and is obviously aware of.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Topic-banned June 29th 2011 by Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This edit further illustrates the reason why Chesdovi was topic-banned in the first place. It is obvious he clearly disregards what other may feel about the subject to push his point of view. His ongoing insistence on the article's talk page that the location is not, or never has been a mosque, is debated by a large number of high-quality sources. Despite his commenting on the talk page being included with his topic ban, he seems to use his own WP:OR to push his point of view.

This issue is clearly related to ARBPIA especially considering the response the Israeli government gave when UNESCO named the site as a mosque. [56]

@NMMNG - I restored the cat that was already there by simply pressing the undo button, after I filed the report, not before as you have mentioned. I didn't remove anything. -asad (talk) 23:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[57]

Chesdovi is currently blocked, I have advised him/her to post statements for this AE report here or via email. --WGFinley (talk) 22:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Chesdovi has sent me two emails, I've asked twice if there is anything he/she wants posted here, I will update once I have a response. --WGFinley (talk) 22:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by No More Mr Nice Guy

Asad is misstating the discussion on the article talk page (his implication that there are a "large number of high-quality sources" contradicting Chesdovi's edit). He is also neglecting to mention that a. while there may be room for both categories, the category Chesdovi changed to is appropriate and in no way OR, and b. the category Chesdovi changed from was added recently (as in 3 days ago), without any discussion, by an editor who also has quite a long history of ARBPIA related sanctions. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in reverting Chesdovi's edit before filing this complaint, Asad himself removed an appropriate category from the article with no discussion. Instead of just adding a category about mosques, he removed a category about synagogues. If what Chesdovi did is inappropriate, so is what asad did. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@WGF OK, didn't notice Chesdovi has a specific restriction. I mistakenly read this is a regular ARBPIA enforcement request. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Supreme Deliciousness

Would like to point out that chesdovi has violated his topic ban many more times, see the diffs here: [58]--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Jiujitsuguy

In the absence of a response by Chesdovi, I regrettably concur with Wgfinley’s analysis. However, since Supreme Deliciousness has decided to comment, I’d like to highlight SupremeD’s behavior in this sordid mess, which gave rise to Chesdovi’s unfortunate edit. SupremeD has himself just come off a lengthy T-ban. Within days after coming off his ban he refers to other editors in the topic area as notoriously non-neutral editors He then goes on to harass MichaelNetzer asking Netzer personal questions about Netzer’s mother bizarrely asking what was your mother? This earned him a stern rebuke from an admin where he was reminded of his previous topic ban[59] Now, in the midst of a lengthy and rather tedious discussion underway at Rachel’s Tomb concerning whether the site ever functioned as a mosque, SD without consulting the talk page and without even providing an edit summary, adds the category of "Mosques" in the article[60] SD has previously been warned about providing edit summaries here and here and here. Amazingly, the latter warning concerned this very article, “On the above subject, I hope you can consistently provide an edit summary for each and everytime you conduct an edit here on Wikipedia. Note that the article page of Rachel's tomb happens to be one of those highly conspicuous ones” It seems that SupremeD avoids edit summaries in an attempt to avoid scrutiny of his edits. If Chesdovi is to be sanctioned for reverting a troublesome edit, I ask that under the circumstances, the combative editor that caused the problem in the first place (Supreme Deliciousness), by failing to explain his contentious edit or even providing an edit summary, be sanctioned as well.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 07:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You have misrepresented my edits to the extent that its not even worth a reply. I hope the admins can see through this. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• @EdJohnston.Ed as I recall, just recently you were advocating a slap on the wrist for an editor who regularly appeared on these boards (either as respondent or complainant) and had more edits to AE than most admins (in fact he ranks as number four[61]). If fact, you had high praise for it, referring to that account as an "effective spokesman for the Palestinian side." But now, you advocate an indefinite topic ban for Chesdovi for "being constantly at AE." So as I understand it one editor who is constantly at AE (much more so than Chesdovi) is treated by you with kid gloves, presumably because he is an "effective spokesman for the Palestinian side," whereas Chesdovi is given the harshest of sanctions. Would you care to explain your apparent inconsistent behavior? Perhaps I am missing something.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Maybe I'm also missing something but it seems that Ed has been playing favorites as if believing no one will notice. Leaving the inequity of his comments in my recent case out of it, his patting an editor on the back for saying, among other things... "[a particular editor] to my knowledge has no record of introducing contentious material, or false material, or extremely poorly sourced material to articles, something which cannot be said for most of the people he interacts with." His lauding such a comment as a "level of diplomacy you have shown in disputed areas is worthy of emulation by others." begs a question of why an administrator who arbitrates AE cases shows such transparent favoritism towards an editor who was themselves a party to a case Ed was giving judgement on at the time. It seems Chesdovi might fare better if they'd defect to the other side. Maybe many would, unless we're all missing something. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 20:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Chesdovi has more bans than I can even keep my head around on the ARBPIA log and a P-I topic ban is one of them. He/She is also fresh off having a 30 day block reduced in November with a warning from Tim that future violations would likely lead to reinstatement of the block. I'm going to put that 30-day block back in place. I am going to leave this open though because I think it's time for discussion of an indefinite TBAN since Chesdovi shows no signs of reforming. I think some input from admins who have made the various bans would be helpful. --WGFinley (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  NMMNG: the issue here isn't whether the action was valid or Asad is misrepresenting the discussion but whether it falls under Chesdovi's ARBPIA TBAN. Changing a "mosque" category to a "synagogue" category would be a prima facie violation. --WGFinley (talk) 23:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Noticing that Chesdovi has been in trouble under ARBPIA so many times and has been constantly at AE, I am surprised that he is not yet under an indefinite topic ban. If past blocks and sanctions were going to improve his behavior, they surely would have done so by now. EdJohnston (talk) 03:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've gotten nothing but cryptic emails from Chesdovi. Given the vast number of previous bans and repeated violation of the existing ban I am changing the ban to indefinite effective immediately. --WGFinley (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mo ainm~Talk 15:24, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

SonofSetanta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 12:13, 8 January 2012 First revert, clearly a revert without any need for further explanation
2. 13:19, 8 January 2012 Second revert, an attempt to remove the same content SonofSetanta attempted to remove an hour earlier before being reverted by me. Breach of the 1RR restriction, as it was done within 24 hours of the first revert

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 18:03, 21 October 2010 by Mo ainm (talk · contribs)
2. Also blocked for 48 hours at 20:04, 25 October 2010 so more than aware.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The background on this editor is relevant here as well. He is a reincarnation of The Thunderer (talk · contribs), see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Thunderer/Archive for details. He will probably still claim he is not the same editor as he tried here, but that wasn't the conclusion at all. The Thunderer's block log can be seen here and would probably have been far worse if not the main target of his edit warring (the Ulster Defence Regiment article he's edit warring on now) being protected on multiple occasions. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive71#SonofSetanta is also relevant, as that was where he attempted to escape sanctions by claiming to be new and denying he was a reincarnation of The Thunderer.

I asked him here and here to self-revert, as if he genuinely made two reverts in error he should have no problem reverting. He failed to do so, yet found ample time to amend my comments on his own talk page.

In response to comment below, "I am not a reincarnation of anyone and there was a full investigation over a year ago which I gather cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever" the discussion at User talk:HelloAnnyong/Archive 13#Assistance Requested paints a totallly different picture, pointing out he replied to the post reading "I didn't say you weren't the same editor - I just said that there wasn't justification for blocks or other action"

And further responding to below comments, SonofSetanta says "I am not a reincarnation of anyone and there was a full investigation which I gather cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever". As already mentioned, the investigation can be seen at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Thunderer/Archive. There are two comments in the admin section, one is by Nakon (talk · contribs) and reads "I do like that "official historian" evidence. I'm inclined to agree based on behavioral evidence, as the IP data would definitely be stale by now, but I would appreciate another admin's comment". The second is by HelloAnnyong (talk · contribs) and reads "Actually, I'm closing this case for now. SonofSetanta hasn't edited since this case was opened, and The Thunderer hasn't edited since 2008. There isn't really any overlap in the accounts, so it may be a case of lost account information or something. In other words, I'm not seeing any malicious intent here. If any new evidence comes up, though, feel free to relist" (despite lost account information never being mentioned since SonofSetanta always denied editing before, but that's another matter). So there's absolutely nowhere that the case "cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever".

There is a permanent link to the talk page discussion referred to. It refers to comments that SonofSetanta is a sock. SonofSetanta claims "I asked you because you investigated me last year when he and others said the same. You concluded, rightly, that I am not. Why is he still making this accusation when it's been proven otherwise?". HelloAnnyong replies saying "I didn't say you weren't the same editor - I just said that there wasn't justification for blocks or other action". So could anyone possibly tell me where SonofSetanta was cleared of being a reincarnation, especially "without any reservations whatsoever"? Could anyone tell me what I have said is "untrue" as SonofSetanta has alleged? Anyone looking at the links or diffs can see for themselves that SonofSetanta was emphatically not cleared of being a reincarnation, and his claim of "I am not a reincarnation of anyone" is simply another attempt to avoid scrutiny given his previous lengthy block log when he edited as The Thunderer (talk · contribs). Mo ainm~Talk 17:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ The Devil's Advocate, That's what he claims happened, but he was asked to self-revert on my talk page where he posted his claim and on his own talk page, but failed to do so. He failed to self-revert despite both those requests. Mo ainm~Talk 17:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Murray, I didn't add it as it was a revert of an IP which are not covered under the restrictions, but it does call into question the stance that his next revert was a "mistake" Mo ainm~Talk 19:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here

This is a trivial misuse of the 1RR procedure. I am not a reincarnation of anyone and there was a full investigation over a year ago which I gather cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever. Furthermore I did not break the 1RR on this site. I edited at the same time as this other chap and my edit overwrote his. I've not come across the particular page before which showed we were cross editing so I did a "back page" and pasted the info back in which I had just written. (I always copy my info because of connection problems). My own contributions stand as testimony to the type of person and editor I am. When I realised there was a problem on this article I asked for an RfC on the portion of the site I wished to delete and gave my reasons. I also posted an apology on this poster's talk page. I did not feel I needed to revert afetr placing an RfC and once placed I felt that any editing of the disputed information constituted a breach of the 1RR. I did not go back and revert after a third (unknown) party came in a reverted my edit and feel that he is the one in breach of etiquette, not I. Furthermore I have already given a guarantee in advance that I will not post on that article until the RfC has been completed.

I ask that these allegations against me be dismissed and this editor be warned about making untrue statements about someone being a sockpuppet when it is clearly untrue. Plus a simple check on my IP number will confirm I am not the person this poster claims I am. SonofSetanta

I also ask that it be noted that the only time I have any trouble on this site is when trying to edit articles which involve the Irish Troubles. (namely the B Specials and the Ulster Defence Regiment) There appears to be some form of guard force around these articles who are claiming ownership and only allowing their own cabal to input or delete information. I have no interest in their partisan affiliations. I enjoy editing Wikipedia and hope my contributions are always useful and within the rules. SonofSetanta (talk) 15:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This MoAinmh has accused me of: *In response to comment below, "I am not a reincarnation of anyone and there was a full investigation over a year ago which I gather cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever" the discussion at User talk:HelloAnnyong/Archive 13#Assistance Requested paints a totallly different picture, pointing out he replied to the post reading "I didn't say you weren't the same editor - I just said that there wasn't justification for blocks or other action" *

All of this is untrue as can be seen by anyone who reads the link he has given. This goes to prove that this poster is stalking me with a view to presenting me as some sort of problem poster. SonofSetanta (talk) 16:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The poster "mury" has accused me of being in some way impolite or troublesome. I dispute this emphatically. I merely told him he should not enter into a discussion whilst the RfC was ongoing. A quick glance at the article talk page will confirm this.

I am now feeling that I have been "set about" because I have dared to edit an article which someone has claimed as their own private property. No-one did this to me when I edited any of the other articles I have been on. SonofSetanta (talk) 16:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(talk) 15:39, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am fed up to the back teeth with this editor continually calling me a sock puppet. Wikipedia rules state that everybody must treat one another in good faith. Where's the good faith being shown to me. Moaimh or whatever your name is - either prove I am a sock puppet or apologise for what you have said.

I am taking no further part in this charade. Somebody can make up their own mind whether I'm genuine or not but I am dreadfully offended by what has happened and I am taking a rest from the stress of this until I feel like posting again. SonofSetanta (talk) 17:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC) SonofSetanta (talk) 17:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have been made aware that Moaimh is actually a sock puppet of <redacted> who, together with Domer48 has been blocked numerous times for edit warring on articles concerning the Irish Troubles. In fact it would appear that all of the editors who have made statements in support of action against me for my mistake are in fact regularly involved in confrontations with other editors. I would ask that someone with more skill than I in negotiating the whys and wherefores of this site check this information out because if it is true it lends a sinister element to the reasons behind this complaint against me. SonofSetanta (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

with regards to the information posted above: I have spent some time today going back through the history of the UDR article. It's very interesting. First of all it's Domer48 and <redacted> tackling allcomers and making editing difficult on the article. Then <redacted> disappears and Moaimh appears. The style is slightly different and I would presume that is because of the number of bans <redacted> had but it's him ok and between him and Domer48 they appear to guard the article against editing. When they see an editor off then they put in whatever they like. I note that the information I am trying to remove was posted by Domer48. There are also one or two other notable names who keep popping up with regards to the article but those are the main two. Interesting as well that when I tried to edit the Ulster Special Constabulary article "pow" this "tag team" appear and try to prevent me doing so. The methodology is simple. Revert any change by a newcomer forcing the newcomer into a reversion. Then the tag partner comes in and reverts again meaning that the poor newcomer is unable to win. It doesn't matter if it's 3RR or 1RR, it works every time.

If there are any people of responsibility here, like admin or moderators I would respectfully suggest that the following might be a good idea: firstly, check if Moaimh is actually <redacted> and secondly remove posting privileges on articles which touch on the Irish Troubles from both Moaimh and Domer48 because of the continued disruption they are causing. This complaint being a perfect example. A simple error on my part - Wikipedia solution: assume good faith. So why was this complaint made? My best guess is that it has been made with the hope that I'll back off the article in question, hopefully get another ban which can be used against me in the future, and that eventually I'll get fed up trying to edit articles which the "tag team" are on. The sockpuppet accusations are part of it. The more I can be discredited and the more doubt can be created around my bona fides the better.

That's my opinion based on what I have read today. SonofSetanta (talk) 17:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With further regards to the sockpuppet Moaimh. I call your attention to the comments made by One Night in Hackney (below) which are: "Clean-start accounts should not return to old topic areas, editing patterns, or behavior previously identified as problematic, and should be careful not to do anything that looks like an attempt to evade scrutiny". Return to old topic area? Check. Return to old editing patterns? Check. Return to behavior previously identified as problematic? Check. Is it really the case that anyone with a long block log can just start again with a new name, edit the same articles in the same way and cause the same problems, yet hide behind a claim of not being the same person when it's obvious they are? Bearing in mind the extensive block log which <redacted> had, how many incidents of this nature has Moaimh been involved in? There may be a change in the behaviour pattern but it's still as disruptive as it was prior to the sock/name change and I'm the one caught in the middle of his games. (His and those of his tag partner(s). The issue is the names. The same ones keep occurring time and time again on the Ulster Defence Regiment article and they have driven off a number of editors including The Thunderer, who they all seem to be so fired up about. From what I can see he was hounded for every edit he/she was trying to make and he/she did a very good job of raising the UDR article up from stub class. It looks like he/she freaked out a bit at the end but who on earth would blame him/her with the amount of pressure he was under from this cabal (the only term I can find for it). Amongst the last postings on Thunderers home page was a statement by --Tznkai (talk) which said There is clearly a significant problem, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. I am not going to block anyone yet: there are several "guilty" parties, but I'm not yet sure if any one deserves more severe sanctions than the other. Looking further down the list of his/her posts it seems he was having incredible trouble editing the UDR and USC pages (both of which he/she raised from stub) and who are the other protagonists? Domer48 and <redacted>. Thunderer can be seen to be posting messages asking for mediation meanwhile on every article he posts he/she appears to be challenged by <redacted> which in retrospect appears to be one very serious case of stalking. My guess is that Thunderer is a bloke with a strong interest in the British military, same as me. I can say this much though: all of this happened 3 1/2 - 4 years ago and Thunderer notched up quite a few edits on a fairly big number of pages between July and November 2008. Taking military stub articles and beefing them up, most of which seem to be relatively unchanged since he left. Wikipedia lost that prolific editor because the cabal chased him out and nobody spotted what was going on, or if they did it was too late.

It looks like they are trying the same with me. How long does anyone think I'll last? I've already freaked out several times when I tried to edit the UDR and USC websites. People say: stay away from those websites until you know more. I did but has anything changed? NO! As long as I leave the articles in private ownership alone I can enjoy editing Wikipedia but if I don't leave them alone I'll be hounded out. I fell for it once and got a ban and they're pushing for me to get another ban so that they can say I'm a troublemaker. SonofSetanta (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This complaint is without foundation and has only served as a forum for several other editors to exercise incivility and hurtful personal attacks against me. I request that the complaint be dismissed and action taken against those who have broken Wikipedia etiquette. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ EdJohnston. I did no such thing. I did an accidental overwrite when making a good faith edit. I have apologised for it but as the edit was in good faith I did not see the need to revert it. SonofSetanta (talk) 18:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the artilce to the stable version and discussed my view of his edits being censorship to which SonofSetanta accused me of personal remarks [62]. He should have self reverted , and by his comments here "This is a trivial misuse of the 1RR procedure" from above and his previous block for similar he seems not to follow Wiki rules or even attempt ot if it does not suit him. He also mentions above the only time he has problems is on Troubles articles, maybe sanctions of a topic ban would suit after the block didnt deter this kind of rule breaking.Murry1975 (talk) 16:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Devils Advocate, are you allowed change anothers editors words on here? I can understand removing the shouting but change words in his statement ?Murry1975 (talk) 18:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I notice Mo Ainm, has shown only 2 reverts, the first revert was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Defence_Regiment&diff=470246283&oldid=469879852 previous to the two others. Thats THREE reverts not one on a 1RR article. Whatever about pleading that he was editing when one occured there was more.Murry1975 (talk) 18:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Mo ainm , no it was a One Night In Hackney edit on the sixth not an IP edit.Murry1975 (talk) 19:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@SonofSetanta , thats a serious call also how did you come to such conclusions? And remember the last time you were block it was Mo ainm who offered help because you cliamed you were in over your head (I have read up). You are probably digging a hole for yourself , this is mainly about your breach of 1RR yet you are ignoring that point, and concentrating on the SP side.Murry1975 (talk) 13:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@This complaint was made because you, not for the first time as SonofSetanta, broke the 1RR, not anyother reason. And I too have done some research into The Thunderer. He too attacked the editors Domer and <redacted> [63] the same way you attack Domer and Mo Ainm. This is your second attempt at the UDR article for which you garnered your first ban for breach of the 1RR, an article The Thunderer breached the 1RR on many times always like you have done on it with excuses about the breach was beacuse this that and t'other. I would suggest DUCK if anyone was listening.Murry1975 (talk) 17:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, Setanta is saying the second revert was a mistake as the editor was still making changes and there was an edit conflict causing Setanta to undo a revert. Given the timeline and that the edit summary for the second diff refers only to a change made to the first sentence of the paragraph, this would appear to be exactly what happened. If an edit conflict message popped up Setanta should have taken greater care to insure any further editing would not have been a revert of someone else's changes.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:39, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Moainm I understand that, but can also understand why someone might be hesitant to self-revert. Whether it was a mistake or not is more important, in my opinion, given that another editor quickly restored the previous version anyway.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Murry The first diff in the case shows that revert. Setanta's removal of information was done three times, however. The second time was a revert of an IP, which is valid, and I think the third was probably a mistake. The first time it does not appear to have been as part of any ongoing dispute over the material so probably not reasonable to classify as a revert.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Setanta Huh, <redacted> did apparently put the "retired" tag on his page the very same day Moanim registered so that might actually be a legitimate point for further inquiry.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, never mind. Mo seems to admit to being an alternate account so that should be legitimate.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two very clear examples of reverts, and very clear notices. --Domer48_'fenian' 10:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Despite this Enforcement request, the editor has again violated the 1RR on the same article, both here and here. That there is ongoing discussions on the article talk page makes these edits all the more disruptive. --Domer48_'fenian' 16:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SonofSetanta asks how much longer this charade will be allowed to continue. I am forced to agree, although I refer to the charade he keeps perpetrating that he is not The Thunderer, especially when he is facing possible sanctions for his disruption.

I won't bore you with all the diffs of him claiming to be new or not a sock, and just stick with the most relevant ones.

• His response to the question of "For the sake of transparency, could you confirm whether you have previously edited Wikipedia using any other accounts?" was "No. I am new".

• During the previous arbitration enforcement request against him he said "I've read up on Sockpuppets and I don't understand why this is being levelled at me either. Is there a way to prove I only have one membership of Wikipedia?" "only have one membership" is an obvious claim of SonofSetanta being his only account, thus trying to hide his long block log caused by his massive amounts of prior disruption.

Then above we've got "I am not a reincarnation of anyone and there was a full investigation over a year ago which I gather cleared me completely without any reservations whatsoever" which flies in the face of the actual SPI case and discussion related to it.

Seriously, how much longer is this going to go on for? Per WP:SOCK "Clean-start accounts should not return to old topic areas, editing patterns, or behavior previously identified as problematic, and should be careful not to do anything that looks like an attempt to evade scrutiny". Return to old topic area? Check. Return to old editing patterns? Check. Return to behavior previously identified as problematic? Check. Is it really the case that anyone with a long block log can just start again with a new name, edit the same articles in the same way and cause the same problems, yet hide behind a claim of not being the same person when it's obvious they are? Makes incremental blocks pointless if you can. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 11:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Various comments redacted per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive623#User Mo ainm's alternate account status. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 10:23, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Here are the userlinks that might potentially need to be considered:

• The Thunderer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SonofSetanta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

SonofSetanta clearly broke the Troubles 1RR restriction at Ulster Defence Regiment on January 8. I don't perceive that his work on that article is disruptive, so I'd suggest a routine 1RR block. People are disputing whether he is a reincarnation of User:The Thunderer. After reviewing Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Thunderer/Archive I tend to think that he is, but it won't have much effect on the needed block. The Thunderer had a lot of blocks but they were generally short, and the last one was in 2008. It seems to be that a one-week block of SonofSetanta for the 1RR violation would be sufficient. This AE complaint is full of charges and countercharges about socking. I really hope that the parties will quiet down about that, since admins might be inclined to take action to stop it. It seems to me that the opinion about the respective sock issues expressed by Elen at User talk:Elen of the Roads#Redacting statements are a good answer. If any more discussion of sock issues occurs by the involved editors here in this AE, I suggest that admins ought to consider blocks. EdJohnston (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Closing: SonofSetanta, the following two edits by you on January 8 are both marked 'Undo': [64], [65]. This is a clear case of a 1RR violation. I think you violated 1RR again on the same article on 13 January. This suggests that your problem of reverting too frequently has not gone away. You seem to genuinely want to improve the article, but edit warring on a Troubles article is not going to lead anywhere good. I'm imposing a one week block as discussed above. This block is longer than 48 hours since it your second offense under your current account and you have continued to war on the article after this AE was filed. EdJohnston (talk) 17:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

SonofSetanta (talk) 16:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Domer48 and Mo ainm and One Night In Hackney (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 13/01/12 Reverting good faith edit agreed on discussion board.
2. 13/01/12 Different editor reverting the new text again.
3. Date Explanation
4. Date Explanation

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 13/01/12 by User-multi error: "Name of administrator who imposed warning 1" is not a valid project or language code (help).
2. Warned on 13/01/12 by User-multi error: "Name of administrator who imposed warning 2. If there is no warning 2, delete this entire line" is not a valid project or language code (help).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

These three editors are tag teaming in order to prevent editing of the article. It is strongly felt that NPOV desperately needs to be established on this article but this three man gaming team have ignored appeals by User:Elen of the Roads (admin) [[66]] to discuss and agree edits. They are Wikilawyering to allow them to make cuts from the article but preventing me from doing the same. The extended history of the article (and many others) shows that these are tactics deployed by these three over an extended period of time on articles related to The Troubles. All have been involved in many enforcement cases before and two have an extensive list of blocks for edit warring and incivility (although one has changed identity).(This is not an attempt at outing).

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mo ainm~Talk 16:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

SonofSetanta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 15:50, 13 January 2012 reversion of this edit
2. 16:13, 13 January 2012 obvious revert. Second revert in 23 minutes, on an article which is 1 revert per 24 hours
3. 16:24, 13 January 2012 Although slightly different from his previous version, it's still still a revert in part. Third revert in 34 minutes, on an article which is 1 revert per 24 hours

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 18:03, 21 October 2010 by Mo ainm (talk · contribs)
2. Also blocked for 48 hours at 20:04, 25 October 2010 so more than aware, especially as his previous 1RR breach is still being discussed above.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mo ainm~Talk 19:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

86.145.111.123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 21:16, 12 January 2012 Revert 1 to this version from 10:45, 6 January 2012
2. 18:44, 13 January 2012 Revert 2 to the same version

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 21:29, 12 January 2012 by Murry1975 (talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 21:59, 12 January 2012 by Domer48 (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Per the obvious same behaviour in doing nothing but revert to the exact same version ignoring whatever changes have been made since by multiple editors, the editor has also used 109.148.47.27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 109.153.202.248 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Semi-protection should probably deal with the problem, if I took it to RFPP they'd probably say the IP hasn't been disruptive enough yet. Mo ainm~Talk 19:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here

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

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

—Biosketch (talk) 10:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Unomi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA#Editors_reminded

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 16 January 2012 – personal attack against me, if not against Zionist people collectively: "...they would stoop that low to get rid of you."
2. 17 January 2012 – personal attack against me, if not against Zionist people collectively: "...people who have the gift of self-deception to the degree that we often come across with the Pro-Zionist Brigade would be able to dream up this SP accusation [...] certainly better than them spending their time on obfuscating our articles."

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 17 August 2010 by Wgfinley (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

If necessary, I can link to previous cases where incivility on the part of editors in the I/P topic area was grounds for sanctions. In this case, the nature of the attack clearly involves animosity toward Zionism and Zionist people and associating me personally with stereotypes of Zionists as degenerate, cunning and corrupt. The remarks were directed at me in the context of an SPI currently in progress at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Unomi, but that makes them no less inappropriate.—Biosketch (talk) 10:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unomi, you're free to believe in your heart that Zionists are degenerate, cunning and corrupt. I don't doubt there are others editing in the I/P topic area who hold similar convictions, but that's not anyone's business as long as they keep their prejudices private. When you apply those stereotypes to another Wikipedia contributor, as you did a third time here, it's not only insulting toward that contributor himself but to the larger collective with which you've associated him. It should be very simple: restrict your opinions and comments to edits, not to editors and not to large collectives of people when your criticism is irrelevant to the content you're objecting to. You were asked to withdraw your second comment. You're now making things worse by using a sarcastic tone that serves no other function than to provoke hostility and make an already foul situation worse.—Biosketch (talk) 10:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:Stifle, thanks for your input. Do you mean to tell me that statements like You should be flattered the homosexuals would stoop that low to get rid of you or people who have the gift of self-deception to the degree that we often come across with the Pro-Homosexual Brigade would be dismissed as "not nice" and that be the end of it? The ARBPIA sanctions were crafted with a mind to keep the I/P topic area from deteriorating into a swamp of editors continually getting into conflict with each other to the point where they can no longer function collaboratively as a community. This is certainly the spirit of WP:ARBPIA#Editors_reminded. Frankly, I don't see how you can expect me to continue collaborating in an environment where the kind of prejudice invoked here is allowed to continue with no response.—Biosketch (talk) 11:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:BothHandsBlack, as your account is only about 20 days old and there's currently an SPI pending to determine if you're Unomi's sock or possibly someone else's, I'll permit myself to regard your comment here with a degree of suspicion comparable to how input from SPAs is judged in other non-mainspace venues. But regardless, Unomi's comments were unequivocally personal in nature: they targeted editors and people, not political positions.—Biosketch (talk) 11:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:BothHandsBlack, stooping, having a gift for self-deception, etc. aren't political positions. They don't have anything to do with politics. They have to do with applying a prejudice to an editor and a group of people. If Unomi had expressed his views on Zionism or some other inanimate entity, your observation might be valid. But Unomi specifically referenced people, and that makes the nature of his attacks personal. But thank you for allowing me to clarify the crucial distinction.—Biosketch (talk) 12:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:BothHandsBlack, you still haven't understood that the problem with Unomi's comments was that he attributed to an editor and to a group of people a set of negative stereotypes in a manner that had nothing to do with the actual content being debated. He included Zionists in his attack because he apparently endorses the anti-Zionist/antisemitic stereotypes he invoked of moral degeneracy, cunning and human rot; but he went further and applied those stereotypes to me on account of the SPI I filed against him and yourself. That's where he crossed the line.—Biosketch (talk) 12:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:BothHandsBlack, antisemitism only factors in because the stereotypes Unomi invoked have historically been applied both to Jews and to Zionists but not to other communities. If someone were to attribute to Republican voters an innate propensity for being degenerate, self-deceptive and corrupt, it would then become a collective stereotype applied to a group of people on account of their shared identity. It wouldn't be racism, just as homophobia isn't racism in the strict sense of the word, but it would be a form of bigotry. Anti-Zionism isn't bigotry either, so long as whatever criticism expressed is confined to ideology. When attacks are made against Zionists collectively, however, and when those attacks have the familiar ring of stereotypes historically associated with Jewish people, then they too are a form of bigotry. I'm not calling Unomi a bigot – I wouldn't be allowed to even if I thought the term were apt. But yes, the stereotypes he invoked and directed at me in the context of the SPI I filed against him and you constitute bigotry because they associate me with a set of negative stereotypes historically applied to Jews and Zionists.—Biosketch (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified.—Biosketch (talk) 10:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not really sure what she is tripping over, probably didn't get good Christmas presents. un☯mi 10:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a hint, if you don't want to be accused of acting irrationally then try to not come across as bat-shit insane. un☯mi 10:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stifle, apart from the circumstance of being lured into arguing with an idiot, I can't really. I felt provoked by what seemed to me a transparent attempt of Biosketch to have BHB ( and myself for that matter ) blocked on specious grounds. I find it upsetting when people engage in that kind of behavior, especially as it seems driven by a desire to promote an external agenda in a manner which runs counter to the goals of wikipedia. un☯mi 14:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Just to be clear, are you supporting blocking me for being uncivil towards a state? Or do you find the allegation that Biosketch is supporting a particular state uncivil? In reliable sources Israel is numbered among the failed states, see #53. That states engage in psychopathic behavior is not a controversial claim - should you want to read more about this you might want to refer to Ponerology.

It is of course possible that I misconstrued the position of Biosketch, should she give indication that she does not support Israel in what is internationally recognized as occupation, and that the 700,000+ Israeli citizens living beyond the Green Line should rightfully vacate, then I would be happy to give my full and earnest apology for having misrepresented her views.

In any case, in writing what I did I was acting on emotion - I found the SPI case deeply problematic, not in terms of direct consequence to me, but what it says of the tactics in play. Just the issue of bringing up smileys, yet being completely blind to the differences in presentation and application spoke to me of a personality that would see only what it wanted to see, or worse, try to present what they knew as being an argument against as an argument for.

This kind of specious logic and fallacious reasoning runs rampant, not limited to I/P of course, but with I/P it is sickeningly blatant and recurring.

If my sense of self-preservation was more developed I likely would not have lashed out, and I likely would be trying to project a level of repentance or confusion which I couldn't in good conscience say was earnest.

I don't regret what I said, I find Biosketch's interpretation of what I really meant by it abhorrent, but not too surprising given the characteristics of the filters she seems to perceive the world through.

My take on self-preservation disallows becoming what I abhore, and frankly I am increasingly unconvinced that this is an environment I wish to preserve myself in. I have nothing but love for the idealistic goals of Wikipedia, but the reality is less lovable. un☯mi 10:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help but try to correct a woefully minuscule number of Biosketch's misapprehensions: First of all, not only is self-deception a common attribute among zealots of all stripes, it is ironically one that has seen scientific evidence in the context of Republicans: The Irony of Satire - Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report is almost as entertaining a read as the coincidentally relevant | "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".

Second of all, and do with this as you will, I am an aracialist, I don't prescribe to a world-view where "Semite" bears enough meaning to entertain antisemitism. The closest I can get is in the sense of black humor and how some don't even want to share antisemitism with other Semites, its only value to me is for depth sounding the sarchasm.

Both of my parents were born soon after the war to mothers that were lucky to have survived it, my parents were not religious but the family that was were in uncharacteristic agreement that Zionism came before Hitler and that oaths were meant to be kept. My own take is that history is replete with examples of how weakness of mind can lead to strength of conviction in holding others to be subhuman - and how feeling wronged leads to doing wrong. Perhaps, we are all just playthings of happenstance and circumstance, products of cultural indoctrination and victim of defense mechanisms against our insecurities. Then again, perhaps we have a choice, should we will to exercise it. I could go on about how structural violence plays a part in how Israel now sees ~10% of their population and rising, living outside the Green Line, and the impact of what can reasonably be characterized as economic refugees on what is "politically viable", as well as on what self-interested actors could see as being rational. What lies down that road is worth avoiding. un☯mi 12:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, you have my blessing and understanding. Pull the trigger and lets get out of here. un☯mi 08:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Biosketch - Expressing disdain for someone in relation to their political position is, whilst unhelpful, materially different from expressing disdain towards someone as a member of a sexual or ethnic minority. BothHandsBlack (talk) 11:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're free to regard my contribution however you like. It doesn't change the fact that your comparison of a mildly offensive comment made in relation to a political viewpoint to a comment made in relation to someone's sexuality is not apt. Disdain for someone's viewpoint or their intellectual abilities is not the same thing as disdain for a person based on their sexual (or ethnic) type and trying to conflate these two categories does not do justice to the problem you initially raised. BothHandsBlack (talk) 11:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He mentioned people, yes, but the group of people are classed according to the political views they hold. It would be appropriate to substitute 'Tories', 'Liberals', 'Republicans', 'Democrats', 'Pro-Lifers', 'Pro-Choicers' or any other political position. But it is not appropriate to substitute 'Homosexuals'. It is broadly acceptable in normal society to state 'I hate Liberals' despite this being directed at people. It is not acceptable to state 'I hate homosexuals'. So you shouldn't expect a comment in relation to people that hold a political position to be considered as having precisely the same force as a comment in relation to someone's sexuality and to be thought equally problematic. I'll leave it there because you will either get the point or you won't. I'm not sure a fourth repetition will throw any further light on the issue. BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may be reading a bit too much into it. Whilst the comments are not particularly pleasant, they don't say anything at all that goes beyond what one might reasonably say of any political position that one dislikes and considers to be supported by people who are lacking in rationality (check the editorial pages of the US press (and to a lesser extent that of the UK broadsheets) and you'll regularly find politicians 'stooping' to do something or being described as self-deceptive). I don't really see where anti-semitism comes into this at all. BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps of relevance, the one case raised against Biosketch and the three raised by him or her at the Wikiquette Assistance noticeboard last year:

• 25 March 2011
• 28 March 2011
• 10 May 2011
• 14 July 2011

    ←   ZScarpia   14:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Biosketch, you say that Unomi has applied the stereotypical characteristics degeneracy, cunning, corruptness, self-deception and human rotteness to Zionists or pro-Zionists. Where did he do that, or are you interpreting rather freely. "I'm not calling Unomi a bigot." No? A remark which "specifically referenced people" is "personal" in nature. A rather shaky claim. "Homophobia isn't racism in the strict sense of the word." Perhaps you lost your way in many of your arguments.     ←   ZScarpia   01:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps of relevance, civility is supposedly one of Wikipedia's WP:five pillars, and there's an arbcom remedy that addresses it. You couldn't really guess that when an editor feels comfortable calling another editor an "idiot" on an arbitration enforcement request specifically about their incivility, or a NUTJOB (caps in original) on the talk page of an admin who recently commented on said enforcement request.

I wish someone could explain to me why civility just isn't taken seriously. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my very limited experience, civility, like the assumption of good faith, appears to be taken seriously by editors only when it suits them. But then, I have been generally pretty unimpressed by how far the reality of wikipedia departs from its supposed ideals. Personally, I have a bit of sympathy with Unomi's view of Biosketch's general inability to follow rational lines of thought or to reason for himself in a correct way but I doubt that comments putting this position across in the words chosen by Unomi are very useful, despite the underlying thought seeming pretty accurate. It is actually quite hard to tell someone that they are being stupid in a civil way but an effort should still be made to avoid inflammatory incivility. On the other hand, aggressively supported irrationality can, itself, seem highly uncivil, as I have discovered myself in recent days (e.g. here [89]). I don't consider it civil to repeatedly call someone a liar unless one has very very solid grounds to do so, which inclines me to weigh up both Biosketch and Unomi in terms of pots and kettles. BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was kinda hoping an admin, or at least someone who doesn't have an ongoing feud with Biosketch, could answer my question. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Apologies - your question has been much on my mind the last few days. BothHandsBlack (talk) 18:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Yes, it's not nice, but no, I don't think it's a blocking offence. Climb down off the high horses, both of you. Stifle (talk) 10:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Biosketch, yes, I do think you're overreacting. Stifle (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Unomi: this is very unhelpful. I invite you to show cause why you should not be blocked for 8 hours for making needlessly inflammatory remarks. Stifle (talk) 13:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with Stifle that Unomi's comment "I advise you to go support some more failed states in their psychopathic endeavors" is uncivil and I recommend a block. EdJohnston (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Concur per Ed and Stifle. --WGFinley (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I think a block is necessary, given the continued incivility in (and elsewhere during) this thread about an alleged personal attack, followed up by statements like "I don't regret what I said". The only thing that makes me hesitate is the time that has elapsed since the original complaint. I still think a block is in order given the comments from just a few hours ago, but I'd like a a sanity check from another admin. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Unfortunately, I have to agree with everyone above that Unomi should be blocked (I'd say 12 hours instead of 8, but either works). I do think, however, that Biosketch needs to get a grip and deserves fair warning that continued behavior like what's laid out above will very quickly lead to sanctions; I can't entirely blame Unomi for losing his shit after a while, which is why I don't think it should be a 24 hour block. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Blocked 12 hours, although I should have done so earlier. Stifle (talk) 09:48, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]